BREWSTER — Will Cape Cod become Cape used-to-be-Cod?
That’s the question.
Political leaders and fishermen have prevailed upon the New England Fishery Management Council to ask federal officials to take emergency action and avoid disastrous 90-percent cuts in the allowable catch for cod in the Gulf of Maine, where most Cape fishermen ply their trade. But whether that happens of not, who knows?
“There are some steps the inshore fleet can take but there is no sugarcoating it. Reductions on the scale people have talked about (90 to 95 percent) would have an enormous economic impact,” conceded Tom Dempsey, policy director of Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association. “The Georges Bank stock will be assessed this summer and there could be some bad news there so it is a difficult time. But we have to get the best possible scientific advice and make decisions on that.”
In 2008 the New England Fisheries Management Council did its ground fishery review and decided cod were no longer being over fished. However new mathematical models developed by the Northeast Marine Fisheries Service last fall suggested the breeding stock of Cod had been over-estimated by 270 percent in 2007.
Read the complete story on Wicked Local: Cape Cod