WINTER HARBOR, Maine — “It’s not a secret,” fisherman-scholar Ted Ames said Saturday night.
“There aren’t too many fishermen here anymore. There aren’t too many fish, either. About 5,000 square miles off the Maine coast no longer produces fish. Gone are the haddock, cod, white hake and halibut,” he said.
Ames was addressing a large crowd at the Schoodic Education and Research Center on the issue of Maine’s groundfishing industry and how to secure its future.
“It can’t happen overnight,” he said. “But we sincerely believe the stocks can be restored.”
Ames and Aaron Dority, director of the Downeast Groundfish Initiative, talked about the massive decline in Maine’s fishing fleet as fish populations have shrunk.