The scientists tasked with gathering data that will be used to regulate New England fisheries can't help but feel beleaguered. Caught between fishing industry interests suing the government to ease catch limits and environmentalists suing to tighten them, the scientists have been thrust into the political arena.
Last week, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke said he would use emergency powers to raise fishing catch limits if it can be demonstrated that communities are suffering economic hardship and if scientific research can show that the health of fish stocks would not be adversely affected.
"We often hear things like, 'We don't agree with the assessment, therefore the bottom trawl survey is giving false information,'" said Russell W. Brown, chief of the National Marine Fisheries Service Ecosystems Surveys Branch in Woods Hole. "But our role is to produce unbiased information on living marine resources."
There is plenty of information out there, according to Brown.
"Our multi-species bottom trawl survey has been conducted every year since 1963 in the autumn and since 1968 in the spring," he said.
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