Starting this Wednesday, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) will begin enforcing a 77 percent reduction in the volume of codfish New England fishers can catch in the Gulf of Maine, while the catch limit for cod on Georges Bank will be cut 61 percent and be valid until 2016. The move prompted a protest rally earlier this week that was attended by many of the state’s top elected officials and fishing crews.
The reason for the weaker cod stocks remains a matter of debate: some blame overfishing while others point to climate change and warming waters. Many fishers say the cod stocks are changing and the cut is a fluke.
“We're here to fight for a way of life that we believe in, and that's what we're going to do, and we're going to do it together," Senator Elizabeth Warren for Massachusetts said as she led off the rally, NECN reports.
Warren called for federal disaster relief for the fishers in the region, AP News reports.
Interim US Senator William Cowan vowed to lobby the NMFS to reevaluate the policy.
Attorney General Martha Coakley said studies show the cut could cost up to USD 2 billion in economic activity and the loss of 80,000 jobs.
Five Massachusetts legislators started fighting these cuts back in January but to no avail.
John K Bullard, regional administrator of the fisheries service and former mayor of New Bedford, Massachusetts stressed that the policy has received the support of a 12-4 vote of the regional fisheries council and that its purpose is to keep enough groundfish uncaught so that the species will not go extinct -- and fishers will have a future once stocks bounce back.
“I think we really need to rebuild those stocks, and so that's an answer nobody wants to hear, but that's an answer that we really have to give ... How do we rebuild these stocks? You rebuild them by setting very low quotas, and the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) did that," he stated.
But Bullard highlighted other options for fishers.
“There are abundant stocks out there. There are stocks of haddock on Georges Bank, of redfish, of pollock and hake ... Let’s work with fishermen so that they can transition to those stocks and catch those quotas that are out there," he added.
Fishers argue that it is not so simple and that many of these alternate species fetch much lower prices at the market, require expensive new equipment or boats or that the species cannot easily be caught in higher numbers because they will bring codfish or groundfish up with them in the nets, and the fish cannot practically or legally be discarded back into the ocean.
