April 29, 2013 — Starting Wednesday, New England fishermen face a 77 percent reduction in the volume of codfish they are allowed to catch in the Gulf of Maine this year – a policy that led many of the state’s top elected officials and fishing crews to a protest rally at Boston’s Fish Pier Monday.
What has caused the reported population of cod in the Gulf of Maine to plunge recently is a matter of intense debate: Is it a symptom of overfishing? Is it a symptom of global change and cod fleeing warming waters? Or, as many fishermen contend, is it something that isn’t even actually happening, just a reflection of inaccurate and arbitrary science?
Whatever the answer, the National Marine Fisheries Service’s answer to the problem – ordering a steep cut in the allowed cod catch – is coming under attack from a broad, bipartisan group of officials.
“We're here to fight for a way of life that we believe in, and that's what we're going to do, and we're going to do it together," Senator Elizabeth Warren said as she led off a rally denouncing the policy.
Interim U.S. Senator William “Mo” Cowan promised to lobby the fisheries service ceaselessly to reevaluate the policy in his remaining two months in office, saying, “The fishing industry, the shoreside businesses, and all of you and all of us who depend on this industry need congressional help."
And Attorney General Martha Coakley said the codfish cut “threatens to put you out of business and out of your homes, and I think that’s wrong." Coakley says studies show the ban could cost up to $2 billion in economic activity and 80,000 jobs.
John K. Bullard, regional administrator of the fisheries service and former mayor of New Bedford, came to hear speaker after speaker denounce his agency but stressed, the policy has been backed by a 12-4 vote of the regional fisheries council and is intended to keep enough groundfish uncaught that species won’t go extinct, and fishermen will be assured of a future once, as is hoped, fish stocks rebound.
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