March 25, 2016 — Dogfish Neck? Cape Skate? Pollock Peninsula?
Can this still be Cape Cod without the cod? There still is cod, and they’re still being caught, but the stocks have collapsed and that was further underlined this week when a Georges Bank quota cut of 62 percent to 762 metric tons was proposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Management Council on Monday. That follows an earlier massive cut during the last three-year management period – totaling a 95-percent reduction over the last four years.
Outer Cape fishermen are ahead of the curve – most have already abandoned cod.
“We experienced the lack of cod first. It’s been a long time so several years ago our fishermen transferred to other fish. A lot fish for monkfish, skate, dogfish so the cod rules don’t impact them” explained Claire Fitz-Gerald, Policy Analyst for the Chatham based Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance.
As recently as 2003 Chatham fishermen brought in 1,053,290 pounds of cod to Chatham Fish Pier while the dogfish catch was 224,589 pounds in 2004 (there was no record for 2003). Now those numbers are flipped. In 2012 just 113,406 pounds of cod were landed at Chatham’s Pier, while 936,563 pounds of dogfish, 64,191 pounds of pollock, 287,753 pounds of skate were brought in.