Fishing industry leaders and rank-and-file fishermen greeted NOAA's 2012 interim Gulf of Maine cod catch limits with resignation Tuesday, noting that the numbers were expected and could easily have been worse.
"Stock assessments haven't been updated since 2008. They are basically speculations," said Brian Rothschild, a leading New England fisheries expert and chief marine scientist at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
Rothschild said that the assessment, if accurate, could warrant limits this low. But with the validity of the assessment in doubt, the calculus changes.
"The basic problem is that we don't know the level the stock is at," said Rothschild.
Read the complete article in The Gloucester Daily Times