February 1, 2013 — The New England Fishery Management Council voted Wednesday to cut the amount of cod that can be fished from the Gulf of Maine by 77 percent and from Georges Bank by 61 percent. The cuts are to take effect on May 1.
That means there will be significantly less fish coming into New Bedford, Gloucester, Boston and Portland, Maine, according to Scott Bode, a former fishing captain who is now the chief operating officer of Pier Fish, a wholesale company in New Bedford.
“Prices absolutely should go up,” Bode said. “For fishermen to survive, prices will have to go up. We won’t know how much until people begin fishing.”
But prices are already rising, Bode said.
“Whole cod is selling, wholesale, for $3.88 a pound today,” Bode said. “Fillets used to sell for that price, not that long ago. The price of domestic seafood will be too expensive for the normal family to buy. Everything will go to the high-end restaurants. You won’t find the fish in the grocery stores.”
Cod is fished on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine by smaller boats, typically 40 or 50 feet long, that go out 20 or 30 miles and haul nets and tackle along the bottom of the ocean to bring in haddock, cod and sole.
“It will be really tough for the small boats to make it,” Bode said. “A lot of them will have to stop fishing. The cutbacks are all for cod, but they will affect all the other ground fish. It will have a larger effect.”
The industry has been through this before, said Michael Castigliego of Castigliego’s and Sons Seafood, 1891 GAR Highway, Somerset.
Limits on the scallop catch in Georges Bank and the Gulf of Maine pushed prices from $12.99 a pound last year to $15.99 this year, he said.
In all of this, fishermen and federal regulators have fought for years over the science that led the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to order the cuts.
Read the full story at the Fall River Herald News