It's interesting to hear that National Marine Fisheries Service administrator Eric Schwaab, suggesting that a dire new survey of cod stocks could be credible, can back up his assessment with such in-depth analysis as "it's quite possible … something happened in the ocean."
Indeed, his comments — made on the Saving Seafood radio show based out of New Bedford last week — bring even more urgency to the demands of U.S. Sens. John Kerry and congressional lawmakers John Tierney and Barney Frank that, in the wake of the stunning cod figures, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its parent Department of Commerce commission a new study.
To be fair, Schwaab at least acknowledged that the chances 22 million tons of potentially spawning Gulf of Maine cod had somehow disappeared between a positive 2008 study that found the stock healthy and a new one released earlier tis month that shows a 300 percent population drop is "out of the norm."
Read the complete editorial from The Gloucester Times.