October 24, 2014 — This is not what Gloucester groundfishermen and fishing advocates want to hear.
NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard told the Gloucester Daily Times today he anticipates emergency measures for Gulf of Maine cod expected in mid-November will include rolling area and spawning closures and conceded those will have a "serious" and "disproportionate" economic impact on groundfish ports like Gloucester.
"We're trying to follow the cod and that's going to have a disproportionate impact on these ports," he said, naming Gloucester, Scituate and Portsmouth, N.H.
Bullard said he expects those closures also will preclude groundfishermen from fishing for other, more plentiful species such as gray sole, dabs, haddock and flounder in the closed areas.
"It's almost impossible to protect cod while allowing the fishing of other species," he said. "That's one of the real difficulties."
Bullard delivered the same message to fishing advocates and city officials at a Thursday meeting in Gloucester organized by Mayor Carolyn Kirk to express concerns that the emergency measures being discussed are unduly harmful to Gloucester.
Jackie Odell, executive director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, went even further, characterizing the specter of closures as "punitive" because it also prohibits fishermen from catching other stocks for which they're already allocated.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times