January 31, 2013 — The regulatory body that oversees commercial fishing in New England approved steep cuts to the catch quotas Wednesday for two types of cod in the region because of depleted stocks, a move that advocates said will devastate the livelihoods of many fishermen.
The New England Fishery Management Council voted to reduce the catch limit of Gulf of Maine cod by 77 percent from last year and the US share of Georges Bank cod, whose stock is shared with Canada, by 55 percent, said Patricia Fiorelli, a council spokeswoman.
She said the cuts take effect May 1, and the Gulf of Maine quota will remain in place for three years while the Georges Bank limit will be in effect for one year.
Fiorelli said that before the vote at the council meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., members heard from fishermen who indicated that “they really cannot make a living from these numbers,” while others said they were already not catching cod because of the low stocks.
She said the council could revisit the quotas if new information comes to light that shows that the stocks are rebounding.
Officials “don’t know why [the stocks] are so low,” Fiorelli said. “There’s a lot of scientific work that is still being done. They haven’t made good linkages between climate change and the state of these stocks, although people are working on that, as well.”
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