In a year of mounting physical and written protests against national fisheries policies, the latest could be the loudest — at least in the size of the protesting chorus.
No less than 1,000 scallop fishermen, retail and wholesale seafood dealers and other scallop-dependent businesses and their employees signed a letter hand-delivered Friday to the office of Jane Lubchenco, the Obama administration's steward of the oceans.
The point of the protest was the decision of the New England Fishery Management Council last month to cut back access to the scallop grounds despite the stock's undisputed health.
"The action fails to balance the conservation of scallop stocks with the economic and social health of the industry," Herman Bruce and Malvin Kvilahaug, writing on behalf of the Fisheries Survival Fund, said in their letter, "and it will cause unnecessary damage to fishing communities from Maine to North Carolina, as well as local, regional and national economies, more generally, at precisely the wrong time."