Speaking to a group of New England fishery leaders Friday in Portsmouth, N.H., Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk joined a call for the federal government to carry out a new assessment of Gulf of Maine cod stocks before ratcheting down catch limits that would have a dire effect on the fishing industry.
Kirk, addressing a special stakeholders workshop before officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and New England Fishery Management Council, delivered a letter from the city's revitalized Fisheries Commission that she said has also been sent to U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson.
The mayor's presentation and commission's statement cited and questioned the dramatic differences between a 2008 NOAA cod assessment that found the stock on the verge of recovery and a new 2011 study that found Gulf of Maine cod badly overfished and in dire straits.
"The stark difference between the two assessments in 2008 and 2011 threatens all fishing-related businesses in our city," Kirk said, "and it is essential to reassess such wildly different findings and conflicting results, if a fishing community like Gloucester is to exist."
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