November 5, 2014 — Federal regulators are canceling the commercial fishing season for shrimp in the Gulf of Maine for a second straight year, citing a population collapse blamed partly on rising ocean temperatures.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section voted Wednesday in Portland to cancel the upcoming winter season. Regulators say the region’s population of northern shrimp fell dramatically from 2011 to 2013.
Regulators voted to set aside the entire shrimp quota of 25 metric tons for research, according to Marin Hawk, the commission’s management coordinator for the species.
Twenty-five metric tons is a minuscule amount of shrimp compared with landings of recent years. In 2010, which recorded the largest shrimp catch since 1996, fishermen landed 5,566 metric tons of shrimp, valued at $6.6 million. By 2012, the shrimp catch had plummeted to 2,185 metric tons with a value of $4.6 million.
Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald