June 1, 2013 — Mayor Carolyn Kirk Friday applauded state Attorney General Martha Coakley’s federal lawsuit aimed at invalidating extreme cuts in catch limits on the stocks of cod, haddock and yellowtail that have supported the Gloucester fishing industry for centuries.
But the federal official responsible for the decision — made over the unanimous objection of a broad-based regional council that advises him on policy — reiterated that the “poor condition” of the stocks afforded him no choice.
Coakley’s suit disputed the scientific basis of that claim.
”We know,” said John Bullard, the regional administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “that the quota cuts this year for groundfish fishermen for several key stocks, including cod, are severe.” Those cuts amount to a 78 percent reduction in Gulf of Maine cod and more than 60 percent for cod landed offshore in Georges Bank, in addition to cuts of more than 50 percent on many other high value stocks.
“However, given the poor condition of these stocks and the phased approach we took to reducing fishing effort to help ease the economic impacts on fishermen in 2012,” Bullard said in a prepared statement, “the cuts are necessary.”
Supporting Bullard’s position were two staunch environmental stakeholders, the Conservation Law Foundation and the Pew Environment Group. Both have invested heavily in prodding the government to accelerate its efforts to end “overfishing” — a legal term defined as the removal of enough fish from a biomass to jeopardize its maximum sustainable yield, itself a theoretical standard.
Filed in U.S. District Court on Thursday and announced at a news conference at the Boston Fish Pier that afternoon, Coakley’s suit argues that Bullard’s decision slashing catch limits was arbitrary, capricious, not based on the best science available and ignored the requirement to balance the protection of the resources with the well being of the fishing communities, steps required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the law of the land for the harvesting of the sea.
Kirk said Coakley’s suit “zeroes in on the requirement under Magnuson to protect fishing communities like Gloucester while also protecting the fishery resource.”
“Focusing on our fishermen and the preservation of the port is exactly what is needed today as our city grapples with the impacts of the devastating cuts that were enacted May 1,” the mayor said in a Friday email to the Times.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times