NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — January 30, 2013 — Mayor Jon Mitchell is asking fishing regulators in the Northeast to get aggressive about softening the blow of quota cutbacks for cod, haddock and yellowtail flounder.
Mitchell sent a letter Monday to the New England Fishery Management Council, which is meeting this week in Portsmouth, N.H., with several strong suggestions, including finding out why groundfish regulation has admittedly failed.
He supported the request of the Massachusetts congressional delegation that NOAA immediately identify ways that the fishing industry can be helped under the Magnuson-Stevens Act that governs fishing regulation.
"More than at any other point in memory, the fishing industry needs the government to do everything in its power to prevent or mitigate the impact of the impending cuts," Mitchell wrote. Action must be taken, he said, "to keep the industry alive."
The council's agenda for today is exclusively the groundfish issue. Alarmingly low stock assessments have prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to propose quota cutbacks of as much as 86 percent in the fishing year beginning May 1. Quota that low would end fishing, say fishermen.
Those assessments have been challenged, but NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard stood by them in a letter to the council last week. The letter was to deny another round of interim measures pending new assessments, something he said the law does not allow.
Mitchell also asked the council to reconsider its computations about rebuilding targets for groundfish stocks with an eye toward mitigating the impending crisis.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times