November 21, 2015 — The groundfish stock updates released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reflect what the agency says is the continuing deterioration of the Gulf of Maine cod stock, while showing that other stocks such as haddock, pollock and redfish appear to be flourishing.
The operational assessment updates were performed on 20 Northeast groundfish stocks, with the results corresponding to the state of the individual stocks through 2014.
The news for cod, according to the update, is really no news at all.
“Based on this updated assessment, the Gulf of Maine Atlantic cod stock is overfished and overfishing is occurring,” the authors of the report wrote in their executive summary.
The results show the GOM cod spawning biomass to be hovering between 4 percent and 6 percent of what is necessary to sustain a well-managed stock despite three years of Draconian cuts to cod quotas and the more recent shuttering of the Gulf of Maine to all cod fishing.
While the update’s results continue the trend of NOAA data that show the GOM cod stock near total collapse, they also continue to fly in the face of the season-long insistence by Cape Ann fishermen — commercial, recreational, fin and lobster fishermen — that they have seen more cod this season than in many years past.
Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times