BOSTON (AP) — January 25, 2013 — New England’s top fishing regulator said Friday that crippling cuts in catch limits this year are unavoidable and they will devastate what remains of the region’s once-flourishing fishing industry.
Officials are set to meet next week to decide catch limits for fishermen who chase bottom-dwelling groundfish, such as cod and haddock. But a New England Fishery Management Council committee has already recommended massive cuts that fishermen have repeatedly warned will destroy the industry.
On Friday, John Bullard, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast office, said key fish populations are so weak, ‘‘draconian’’ cuts in catch are unavoidable.
‘‘The cuts will have devastating impacts on the fleet, and on families, and on ports,’’ he told The Associated Press in an interview.
‘‘That reality is here and we have to face it,’’ Bullard said.
Bullard’s statements follow years of battles between the industry, environmentalists and regulators over increasingly tough fishing rules, and months of effort to find some way to avoid catastrophic reductions.
The centuries-old industry was a critical part of the nation’s early economy, and is so revered locally that a wooden cod replica hangs in the House chamber of the Massachusetts Statehouse.
But a new assessment of New England cod stocks, released this month, combined with a low catch this year is more evidence of their poor condition, Bullard said. Tough cuts are mandatory if fish populations are ever going to rebound, he said.
‘‘Yes, stocks can get rebuilt, but they don’t get rebuilt on dreams, they get rebuilt on difficult decisions that get made,’’ he said. ‘‘So that’s what has to happen with New England groundfish.’’
Read the full story from Jay Lindsay of the Associated Press at the Boston Globe