New England cod crisis has no easy answers

Associated Press

BOSTON

In an industry where agreement comes slowly, the sudden prospect of huge fishing cuts to protect New England’s codfish inspired a quick consensus: Scores of fishermen will be ruined if those cuts are passed.

But it’s not clear how or if that pain can be avoided, weeks after new scientific numbers indicated cod in the Gulf of Maine is much weaker than thought.

Fishery science and law present major obstacles to preserving both cod and fishermen.

The law requires scientists to set a limit on how hard fishermen can fish for any species. If they exceed it, they’re illegally overfishing, and regulators are charged with “immediately” stopping it. That means, given the grim new estimate of cod’s health, fishermen would have to accept a debilitating cut of about 90 percent in their cod catch next year, and there’s little wiggle room to avoid it.

Meanwhile, the new data — though attacked from the outset by skeptical fishermen — has survived an initial review, and scientists say it likely won’t change much. Several lawmakers, starting with U.S. Sen. John Kerry, are asking the U.S. Commerce Secretary to order a new assessment of the cod’s health in hopes of getting better data, but prospects are uncertain.

For centuries, Gulf of Maine cod has been the key species for small-boat fishermen on day trips from northern New England ports, including historic Gloucester. In 2010, cod brought in $15.8 million, second-most among the valuable bottom-dwelling groundfish species fishermen have long chased, such as flounder and haddock.

Cod’s future looked great in 2008, when a major assessment indicated the Gulf of Maine species was headed for full recovery.

But the new data, released this fall, said cod actually was so badly overfished that even if fishermen completely stop catching it, it can’t recover to a federally mandated level of abundance by a 2014 deadline.

But cod aren’t scarce, and anyone who fishes the Gulf of Maine knows it, New Hampshire fishermen David Goethel said. He said the gap between the new estimate and reality demands a complete reworking of the new cod assessment, just as lawmakers have requested. That includes rethinking the numerous assumptions that go into the various population models, including such complexities as how well the federal boat that catches fish population samples scoops up older cod.

“We need a do-over,” Goethel said.