Today marks the opening of the 2013 groundfish season. It's a year that could go down in history as the end of New England's oldest fishery - cod.
The groundfish industry is no stranger to cutbacks and hard times. The fleet has been shrinking for over a decade. But cod fishermen are facing drastic reductions in catch limits this season - a 77% reduction in Gulf of Maine quotas, and greater than 50% reduction in Georges Bank allotments. And since cod is usually caught in conjunction with other groundfish, such as haddock or pollock, the restrictions on cod catches could curtail the entire groundfish season.
Many fishermen say this could spell the end for them. There's also concern that the cutbacks could cripple shoreside support businesses - seafood auctions, fish processors, distributors - particularly in ports like Gloucester, where groundfish is the mainstay. The Commerce Department issued a disaster declaration for the New England groundfish fishery back in September, but Congress has yet to okay any actual disaster relief funds for fishermen. And regulatory measures intended to ease the blowwon't come close to making up most fishermen's shortfalls.
The short story of how we got here is a collision of a revised cod stock assessment in 2011 with a federally mandated 2012 deadline for enforcement of science-based catch limits for all U.S. fish stocks. Fishery regulators are caught in the middle, legally unable to extend further leeway to fishermen.
The long story is much longer - 1,000 years long. Commercial cod fishing in New England's waters began over five hundred years ago, after fishermen had already depleted European waters. And as long as there's been a fishery, there's been concern about overfishing. The first U.S. Commission on Fish and Fisheries was founded in 1871 to address "our exhausted cod fishery."
If there's a silver lining to this year's hardship, it's that we're taking the hit now, before it's too late to save New England's storied cod fishery (we hope). A study released earlier this month found that some species may never recover from overfishing, even if they don't go extinct. Newfoundland cod is a prime example, having made minimal progress in the twenty years since that fishery was closed.
But maritime historian Jeff Bolster, author of The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail, says we need to adjust our thinking when it comes to timelines for recovery. After centuries of being hit hard by fishing, cod will need more than a few years to bounce back. The question is whether New England's fishermen can hang on.