December 19, 2019 — It’s been a long road to setting final groundfish catch limits for the next three years in the Northeast Multispecies groundfishery and the journey isn’t quite over yet.
The New England Fishery Management Council approved the management framework that sets Northeast multispecies groundfish catch limits for 2020-2022 earlier this month. And local groundfishermen are looking at significant increases in several flounder stocks, American plaice and haddock.
But the state of the cod fishery in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank remains a point of contention.
“Overall, it’s pretty rosy,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition. “But the real issue is codfish, with catch limits that are going to be limiting and constricting when fishermen try to target other stocks.”
The council approved a 32% cut to Georges Bank cod to 1,073 metric tons per season and slashed the annual catch limit for Gulf of Maine cod by 24% to 275 metric tons per season.
Fishing stakeholders say those cuts reflect the continuing deep divide between what fishermen are seeing with cod on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine and what NOAA Fisheries scientists include in their projections and assessments.