GLOUCESTER, MA (March 13, 2009) – The National Marine Fisheries Service has begun making cases against boats for bringing illegally oversized catches to the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, which faces illegal brokering charges that carry heavy fines and a potential 120-day shutdown.
Brought by NMFS’ enforcement arm and dated Monday, the first charge against a boat doing business at the auction accuses a Provincetown fisherman of repeatedly bringing too much cod and yellowtail flounder to the auction, the largest on New England’s coast, on eight dates in the spring of 2004.
The alleged overages of cod result from government calculations of the allowable catch by Joel Carreiro’s Jersey Princess II, while the alleged overages of yellowtail center on the allegation that the boat was not authorized by a special letter to catch the fish at all.
Read the Gloucester Daily Times story in full