Perhaps more than anything else, the third-week cutback has already proven true the warning issued by the region's largest industry group, the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition.
The coalition had warned that fears of NMFS changing the catch limits at any time during the season would stimulate a "race to fish.
And while Ms. Kurkul didn't use that term, NMFS reported that within 20 days, a third of the allocations of Gulf of Maine winter flounder and Georges Bank yellowtail flounder had already been caught. Haddock limits were also reduced. The only limits not changed were on cod.
This vitual economic shutdown has its purpose, of course. As fisherman Paul Cohan (who joined the catch-share system) put its, NMFS is "occupationally cleansing the fishery of the few holdouts who refused to sign into sectors (the catch-share mechanism)."
Read the Gloucester Times editorial in full