“They took a responsible course,’’ said Samuel Rauchm director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, who will consider during the next few months exactly where to set next year’s fishing limit.
At the meeting, a succession of cod fishermen said the proposed cuts, which come after scientists recently found the amount of cod in the region’s waters were much lower than previously estimated, would have a dire impact on their ability to stay in business.
“So many boats are already on the verge of bankruptcy, I don’t know if this even matters,’’ said Ed Barrett, a commercial fisherman from Plymouth, Mass. “Whether it’s 10 percent or 20 percent, the reduction is going to push a lot of us over the edge.’’
The vote bought local fisherman some time, as the council asked federal regulators to take emergency steps to avoid steeper cuts. The council could have voted to ban cod fishing in the Gulf of Maine.
In a survey three years ago, scientists estimated there were 33,877 metric tons of adult cod in the Gulf of Maine in 2007. But when scientists reassessed the data last year, they revised their estimate to 10,778 metric tons, about 68 percent less cod than they had previously thought were in the Gulf of Maine.
The revised numbers set off alarms about the size of the local cod population and what fishermen should be allowed to catch.
Scientists estimate there should be about 61,218 metric tons of cod for a maximum sustainable yield, or a healthy population. The stock is considered overfished if it falls to half that level. The most recent assessment estimates there were only 11,868 metric tons of adult cod in the Gulf of Maine in 2010, or about 20 percent of what is considered a healthy population.
Ann-Margaret Ferrante, a Democrat who represents Gloucester, Mass., in the House, said the debate reflected more of a “crisis about the standards of science than a crisis of overfishing.’’
