PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Federal fish regulators found a middle ground Wednesday that they hoped would avert a complete shutdown of fishing in the Gulf of Maine and keep as many fishermen in business as possible this year.
The New England Fishery Management Council voted Wednesday to appeal to the National Marine Fisheries Service for an emergency action after federal scientists reversed a rosy stock assessment from 2008 that had the Gulf of Maine cod rebuilt by 2014.
After taking a closer look at that assessment, scientists determined these cod were actually being overfished by five times the sustainable amount and that, even if the area from Cape Cod Bay north to the Canadian border were closed to fishing, the stock would not recover by the federally mandated 2014 date.
Federal law requires that overfishing must end immediately once discovered. If that course were followed, it would have meant fishermen in 2012 could catch between 1,000 and 1,400 metric tons, instead of the nearly 8,000 they caught in 2011.
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