February 18, 2013 — NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard has agreed to extend a 10 percent carryover of uncaught fishing quota to the new fishing year — for all stocks except the Gulf of Maine cod, for which a carryover and potential bycatch would account for fishermen’s total catch under dire new catch limits due to take effect May 1.
With inshore cod catch limits slashed by 77 percent for the coming fishing year, a carryover of only 1.85 percent for that stock is anticipated, lest the additional quota legalize overfishing, NOAA officials say.
Last month, the New England Fishery Management Council set the acceptable biological catch of inshore cod at 1,550 metric tons, a volume so low that most fishermen and analysts expect to shut down their pursuit of the iconic New England fishery stock beginning May 1.
The additional 1.85 percent that Bullard announced last week was the exception he said he was required by law to make to avoid allowing overfishing amounts to 65 metric tons. Added to the 1,550 recommended by the council, an arm of NOAA that roughly approximates a regional fishery legislature without veto overide power, the carryover would give the industry 1,615 metric tons.
Bullard, the former New Bedford mayor who, in his current role, is based at NOAA’s building in Gloucester’s Blackburn Industrial Park, said in a prepared statement that he he was looking to maintain the rollover policy that had been in effect since the second year of catch share fishing in 2011.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times