The New England Fisheries Management Council has asked NOAA to adopt a one-year emergency rule, trimming the cod catch in the Gulf of Maine 3 to 10 percent. However next year the cuts could be 90 to 95 percent.
“I’ll adapt and go after another stock that has a higher allocation,” reflected Mike Russo, who fishes out of Provincetown. “It’s nothing different than we’ve been doing for a long time. Adapt to new science as it comes out. It’s difficult. You think you’re going into something with stability and then you get the rug hauled out from under you. I’ve been through this before, in 2008-09 in the Georges Bank fixed gear sector that was as 66-percent cut in cod.”
Russo, who spent 25 years fishing out of Chatham, is president of the fixed gear sector. Sectors are given a quota of fish and manage their allocation internally. This is a new management approach by the federal government that replaces days-at-sea – which tried to monitor time on the sea to keep the catch down.
“For right now it’s our best solution to work in the fishery,” Russo declared. “If there was a better option I’d take it. There is a lot of self-governance included and that was attractive to us. There are rules we go by internally.”
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