BOSTON—Massachusetts announced Tuesday that it has set up a $1 million loan fund to help the dwindling number of fishermen with smaller businesses buy the rights to catch more fish.
The new Commercial Fisheries Revolving Loan Fund aims to help fishermen struggling after 2010's transition to a new management system in New England, the Patrick administration said.
That new system allots each fisherman a certain catch limit of each of the bottom-dwelling groundfish species they chase, such as cod, haddock and flounder. The fishermen pool and manage those quotas in groups called "sectors."
Through the sectors, they can buy and lease more quota of a particular species from each other, as needed.
Read the complete Associated Press story by Jay Lindsay in The Boston Globe