Cod Overfished? New Quotas proposed? Industry shut down?

[DarkSkies]

I noticed it last year, when on a cod trip 90% of the cod were smaller "market cod"

When the season was re-opened to Recs (Us) a few years ago, the first few weeks of every season, monster cod in the 50# and up class were caught regularly...this body of breeder fish began to diminish every year,to the point where you would only hear about these trophy fish being caught for a week or 2 every season, and then none at all, or an occasional one reported....

What happened?

Liberal Quotas and lax enforcement of the regs led the Recs (us) to decimate the biomass that was rebuilding.

Finchaser and others here correctly pointed this out.
They saw the writing on the wall long before Fisheries Mgmt officials were willing to admit it....Kudos to guys like them, but at that time, no one cared...:don't know why:


Now, apparently quota restrictions are being discussed,,,,
Fisheries officials are privately doubting that cod stocks will ever recover to targeted levels...


Is it a case of "too much too soon?"
"Pure greed"
"Mismanagement"

or a combination of the above?

Feel free to share your opinons, and post any relevant rulings going on...thanks folks! :HappyWave:

[dogfish]

The Russians killed them the last time. They want to close the fishery in the Gulf of Maine. No more Russians around to blame this time.

[DarkSkies]

Sent in by Fin, thanks......


Subject: Northeast Fishery



BOSTON (AP) — New England’s top fishing regulator said Friday that crippling cuts in catch limits this year are unavoidable and they will devastate what remains of the region’s once-flourishing fishing industry.

On Friday, John Bullard, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast office, said key fish populations are so weak, ‘‘draconian’’ cuts in catch are unavoidable.

‘‘They cuts will have devastating impacts on the fleet, and on families, and on ports,’’ he told The Associated Press in an interview.

‘‘That reality is here and we have to face it,’’ Bullard said.


Officials are set to meet next week to decide catch limits for fishermen who chase bottom-dwelling groundfish, such as cod and haddock. A key New England Fishery Management Council committee has already recommended massive cuts that fishermen have repeatedly warned will destroy the industry.

The centuries-old groundfish industry, which pulled in about $90 million in 2011, was a critical part of the nation’s early economy, and is so revered locally that a wooden cod replica hangs in the House chamber of the Massachusetts Statehouse.


Bullard’s statements Friday follow years of battles between the industry, environmentalists and regulators over increasingly tough fishing rules, and months of effort to find some way to avoid catastrophic reductions.

But a new assessment of New England cod stocks, released this month, combined with a low catch this year is more evidence of their poor condition, Bullard said. Tough cuts are mandatory if fish populations are ever going to rebound, he said.

‘‘Yes, stocks can get rebuilt, but they don’t get rebuilt on dreams, they get rebuilt on difficult decisions that get made,’’ he said. ‘‘So that’s what has to happen with New England groundfish.’’



Fishermen have long disputed the accuracy of fishery science that drives regulation, pointing to numerous examples of bad estimates. They also say they've been needlessly squeezed by arbitrary and unneeded rules pushed to promote conservation. Environmentalists counter that regulators have too often caved to the industry, allowing overfishing that hurts stocks.

Bullard said failures by fishery managers are ultimately to blame for weak stocks that haven’t rebounded.

‘‘We set the rules and clearly the rules have failed,’’ he said. ‘‘There’s no other conclusion.’’


The fishery council’s science committee is recommending catch reductions of 81 percent for cod in the Gulf of Maine, to 1,249 metric tons, and 61 percent for cod in Georges Banks, to 2,506 metric tons. As recently as 2003, fishermen caught about 8,000 metric tons of Gulf of Maine cod and about 12,000 metric tons of cod in Georges Bank.

New Hampshire fishermen Dave Goethel, a council member, said the recommend catch limits aren’t ‘‘even remotely enough fish to make any of these boats viable businesses.’’

‘‘We’re not talking about, ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to have a tough year next year,'’’ Goethel said this earlier week. ‘‘We’re talking about, you know, that’s it.'’’

Bullard said he thinks the groundfish industry will ultimately continue in some form, as fishermen seek alternatives to stay in business for now. Some fishermen have already turned to other commercial seafood, such as monkfish or lobster, and Bullard predicts people will hang on until the groundfish get healthy.

The upheaval will be painful, but it’s no different from what other industries face, he said.

‘‘A plant shuts down. A person who’s worked there for 30 years all of the sudden goes to the factory door and it’s closed,’’ Bullard said. ‘‘You learn a new trade and you adapt. ... People adapt and they survive.’’

Goethel said the bulk of his assets and decades of his life are tied up in fishing. At age 59, whatever’s ahead for the industry, he has to ride it out.

‘‘Fishermen are eternal optimists. Every day I go to sea I'm going to have the best day I ever had in my life,’’ he said. ‘‘So, yeah, I'm always optimistic that somehow, some way I haven’t figured out how yet, we'll find a way out of this mess.’’

[DarkSkies]

We first started to notice this the season Mick and I took the Cod trip in 2011.......



Starting with the IC trip
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...ght=cod+stocks (http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?7526-Cod-Round-Up-2-24-2011-Island-Current-Report/page2&highlight=cod+stocks)

[dogfish]

Feel free to share your opinons, and post any relevant rulings going on...thanks folks! :HappyWave:

This is going to affect a lot of folks. The NOAA honchos should have seen it coming. It is not the fault of the commercial fishermen this time. The blame is on the shoulders of the recs.

http://news.yahoo.com/england-regulators-approve-steep-fish-225731022.html
New England regulators approve steep fish cutsNew England regulators OK steep cuts in catch limits that fishermen say will trigger collapseBy Jay Lindsay, Associated Press | Associated Press – 17 hrs ago










PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) -- New England fishermen say their centuries-old industry is facing collapse after regulators on Wednesday approved cuts in cod catch limits that fishermen warn will hollow out what remains of the fleet.

"I'm bankrupt. That's it," Gloucester fisherman Paul Vitale, 40, a third-generation fisherman. "I'm all done. The boat's going up for sale."
The New England Fishery Management Council approved a year-to-year cut of 77 percent on the Gulf of Maine cod limit and 61 percent for Georges Bank cod.

The move is expected to be backed by federal managers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Fishermen who chase the region's bottom-dwelling groundfish, such as cod and flounder, say the cuts are unjustified and leave them with far too few fish to catch to make a living.

"We are headed down the wrong course here, of exterminating the inshore fleet, for no good reason," said David Goethel, a New Hampshire fisherman and council member.

NOAA's top federal fisheries regulator, John Bullard, acknowledged the cuts will be devastating, but he said tough action was the only way to reverse the industry's steady, excruciating decline.
"The first thing we have to do is put denial behind us," he said.

The cuts hit an industry that was a crucial part of the nation's early economy and one imbued with the risk and romance of man versus nature that's depicted in the famous "Man at the Wheel" statue in Gloucester of a fisherman facing the sea. The valuable cod, meanwhile, is so embedded in local history that Massachusetts' famous cape was named after it.

The new low limits on cod reduce the catch to just a fraction of what it once was and prevent fishermen from landing more plentiful species, such as haddock and pollock. That's because fishermen can't pull up the healthier groundfish without catching too much of the cod that swim among them.

The catch limits approved Wednesday go into effect May 1, the start of the 2013 fishing year, and combine with a slew of reductions, ranging from 10 to 71 percent, on other local species of haddock and flounder.

An economic analysis by the council indicated that the cuts would reduce overall groundfish revenues by 33 percent, from about $90 million in 2011 to about $60 million in 2013. But fishermen said the projection is too optimistic.

"It's fantasy," Goethel said. "I mean, I'd rather go to Disney World. I've got a better chance of meeting Peter Pan."


Fishermen have consistently disputed the accuracy of the fish science driving the cuts, which indicates that stocks are in bad shape. Maine fisherman Jim Odlin, a former council member, pointed to an analysis that shows for about the last decade, the industry has generally fished at or below levels recommended by science.

"It can't be this council's fault or the industry's fault that the advice we've gotten for 10 years is wrong," he told the council Wednesday.

Brian Loftus, a Point Judith, R.I., fisherman, blasted the council, saying its management has been "a complete and utter failure for everybody."

But Peter Shelley of the Conservation Law Foundation said fish populations are struggling, and the council had to cut catch limits drastically so the stock can recover.
"A far worse result would be to fail to take the kind of action that would secure a future for this fishery," he said.

The massive reductions have been foreseen by fishermen and regulators for months, but attempts to avoid or mitigate them have failed.

Last year, the U.S. Senate committed $150 million in its Superstorm Sandy relief bill to be shared by fishermen in the Gulf Coast, Alaska and New England, where a national fishery disaster has been declared. But House lawmakers stripped out the funding, and the bill passed Monday with nothing for local fishermen.

The Northeast Seafood Coalition, an industry group, lobbied to extend an interim measure that allowed the industry to put off huge cuts in cod and haddock in the Gulf of Maine in 2012. Bullard rejected that, saying there was no legal justification. Several lawmakers who represent fishing communities have asked him to reconsider, but Bullard said Wednesday that he wouldn't, citing the law and the persistent poor health of key fish stocks.
"The day of reckoning is here, for legal reasons and for reasons of biology," he said.

[finchaser]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/31/us/northeast-cod-fishing-cuts/index.html?hpt=hp_t2