NEW BEDFORD – April 2, 2012 — Government regulators have set a transitional catch limit as an interim solution to the cod crisis in the Gulf of Maine that threatened to ruin many small boat fishermen from Cape Cod to Maine.
“It will enable us to make progress to deal with overfishing while keeping fishermen on the water this year,” said Alan Risenhoover, NOAA's acting deputy assistant administrator for regulatory programs in a conference call with the media this morning.
The decision means that catch limits for the 2012 fishing year, which begins May 1, will be reduced by 22 percent, from 8,500 metric tons to 6,700 metric tons. In a worst case scenario, the cuts could have been as deep as 80 to 85 percent, Risenhoover said.
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