June 30, 2012 — NEW BEDFORD — UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and Technology will receive $200,000 in new funding to support groundfish and scallops research under the recently approved fiscal 2013 state budget.
The research will focus on species-count analyses of both groundfish and scallops as well as studies on Gulf of Maine cod, the catch limits of which were reduced this year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"We hope that we can work with the folks at NOAA and resolve a lot of the issues and uncertainty regarding the stock assessments," said Dr. Brian Rothschild, a professor at SMAST and co-director of the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute.
The MMFI is collaboration between SMAST and the state's Division of Marine Fisheries.
According to John Hoey, a spokesman for UMass Dartmouth, the state funding will help fill a gap caused by the loss of some federal funding.
"This will allow some very critical research to continue for the next year," he said.
"It's just important to keep the activity going, keep getting good information about the status of fishing stocks and … provide some important information for the folks making key decisions about those issues."
Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral, D-New Bedford, who sponsored the amendment to add the funding into the fiscal 2013 budget, said he has been in discussions for several months with Rothschild about the issue of fisheries research and how that research can continue.