NEW BEDFORD — In the six months or so since they took effect, catch shares and sector management — bureaucratic expressions that were almost totally unfamiliar just two years ago — have brought profound changes to the region's fishing industry, most of them painful, all of them predicted.
But when the fishing industry mobilized in opposition, backed by elected local officials and members of Congress, they turned the tables on the regulators themselves, who have emerged badly bruised and swamped in litigation and mistrust, with no less than the secretary of commerce breathing down their necks.
The campaign to roll back the new restrictions, however, has so far had little practical effect in easing the symptoms of the changeover to a new system of regulation.
Sector management is in place and functioning just as predicted, for better or worse.
Catch allowances, with the exception of pollock, which was relaxed, remain severely limited.
Boat owners are going out of business or sitting on the sidelines, unable to cover the expenses of fishing with their small quotas.
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