March 23, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The city’s commercial fishing industry — battered by last month’s arrest of magnate Carlos Rafael on federal conspiracy charges, last week’s drug raids on the waterfront and ongoing monitoring costs — took another punch to the gut this week, as government regulators proposed new cuts to cod catches that could take effect May 1.
“Those cuts will be devastating to the groundfishing fleet of New Bedford, and the whole New England coast,” said John Haran, manager of groundfish Sector 13.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in conjunction with the New England Fishery Management Council, released a proposed update Monday to the federal management plan for the northeastern fishery.
The proposal includes updated catch quotas and fishing limits for the fishery’s 20 groundfish stocks — including cod, flounder, haddock and more — for the next three years. The 2016 groundfish year starts May 1.
The proposal includes a new, 62-percent reduction from last year in the allowable catch for Georges Bank cod, a key species for the New Bedford fishing industry.
“Our fleet is entirely concentrated on Georges Bank West cod,” Haran said, referring to boats not only in his sector, but also in New Bedford-based sectors 7, 8 and 9.
“We also fish for Georges Bank East cod, but not as much,” said Haran, who is running for Select Board member in Dartmouth.
The proposal allows a total catch limit of 762 metric tons of Georges Bank cod in the 2016 fishing year. The total catch limit for Georges Bank haddock, by comparison, is 56,068 metric tons — an increase of 130 percent from a year ago.
Haran said the problem is that cod is a “choke species,” because once a crew reaches its quota for cod, it can no longer fish for other species, such as haddock, because everything is caught at the same time.