CNN – The federal government is contemplating what for generations seemed inconceivable — restricting or shutting down most of the cod fishing in the Gulf of Maine, a region that extends from Cape Cod up through Nova Scotia.
A recent government survey found that Gulf of Maine cod, considered a top earner for fishermen in the region, are in far lower numbers than what experts had thought.
Just three years earlier, the government had projected the area was well on its way to recovery after decades of overfishing. Since then, federal regulators have raised cod catch rates to nearly five times the sustainable level based on what are now reported as overly optimistic and incomplete estimates.
The new data now suggests the stocks are so depleted that even if the fishing industry were to shut down, codfish would still not recover by 2014 to the levels mandated by federal law.
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