ELIOT, Maine — June 2, 2013 — It was the federally mandated codfish reductions that tipped the scales. The New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) on May 1 imposed a 78 percent cut in the amount of cod that can be caught in the Gulf of Maine.
"I tried to figure out a way to solve the problem, and I couldn't," Robillard said. "When they (the council) said this is the way it's going to be, I said, 'I'm running.' It's the codfish that killed me. It brought a lot of us guys to our knees."
The 44-year-old Eliot man sold his boat in April and will soon be starting a new chapter as a residential building contractor. It's a future he looks forward to, but the past tugs at him.
"It was hard," he said. "It was hard to take stuff from my son and daughter off the boat. I mean I lived on the boat more than I did at the house. It was a member of the family."
Robillard said he joins a growing number of fishermen throughout the Northeast who have hung up their nets. He said when he first started, there were 800 to 1,200 groundfishing vessels; today, "I'd be surprised if there's 20 percent of that."
The cutbacks in cod catch limits are the most recent of a number of regulation changes and reductions in limits and days at sea over the years imposed by the federal government. The NEFMC has long said that overfishing off the coast of New England has endangered stocks.
In announcing the cuts in cod last January, John Bullard, Northeast regional administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said they were the only way to stem the industry's decline.
In a recent column in the Gloucester Times, he elaborated, stating, "If we are ever to rebuild cod stocks, we have to get the quotas low enough so they can be rebuilt. Even then, it may not be enough."
Robillard disagrees.
"In the 25 years I've been fishing, there are great years and there are poor years," he said. "I have no problems with rules and regulations. In fact, some were probably needed. But the recent cuts are a knee-jerk reaction. It's not that there aren't fish. People just give up hope."
Read the full story at The Portsmouth Herald