Slowly, but inexorably, the battle for the Gulf of Maine fishery is being joined, as the specter of emergency measures looms in the wake of this summer’s unscheduled assessment that showed nothing short of Armageddon being visited on the region’s cod stock.
The measures, which fishermen almost uniformly believe will shutter the area to all groundfishing at least until the dawning of the 2015 season next May 1 and perhaps much longer, are expected to be announced by NOAA Fisheries sometime in November.
Not willing to just sit and wait, some Gloucester fishermen and fishing advocates are mobilizing to put human faces and human voices to the struggle, hoping to create a narrative that goes beyond discussions of quota and biomass and the other oft-indecipherable trappings of fisheries management.
The plan is simple: Every fisherman and the owner of affiliated shoreside business in Gloucester — and perhaps beyond — will be asked to write a letter to NOAA Regional Administrator John K. Bullard detailing the dire impact the expected measures will have on them and their families.
“Right now, John Bullard is thinking about what he is going to do,” Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, told a small group of fishermen this week. “We need to remind him that people like you are going to be greatly affected by this.”
While other advocates such as the Northeast Seafood Coalition having been waging the battle in the scientific arena to dispute the science and process used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to arrive at the dire cod forecast, Sanfilippo’s campaign is more of grassroots quest to capture the soul of public opinion.
“We need to make people understand that this is going to kill the industry,” she said. “This will be the last nail in the coffin, and every day it’s moving closer and closer.”
The emergency measures are being instituted in the wake of the unscheduled Gulf of Maine cod stock assessment this summer, which showed the health and stability of the cod stock to be hurtling backward rather than progressing, even after two years of area closings and slashed quotas designed to bring the stock back from the abyss.
The consensus among fishermen and advocates is that the measures will close the Gulf of Maine to not only cod fishing, but to fishing for other groundfish such as grey sole, yellowtail flounder and dabs because of concern over the potential of cod bycatch.
“The grey sole would be the big one,” said longtime Gloucester fisherman Joe Orlando. “It’s crazy. The fleet is so small now, we don’t even make a dent out there. If two or three boats go out a day now, that’s huge.”
The fishermen know that waging a public campaign to help convince not only Bullard, but the general public, of the increasingly desperate state of the industry is an uphill climb, especially after years of unceasing bad news.
“People might listen to us and to what’s going on, but then they go home and forget about it,” said fisherman Al Cottone. “It just isn’t resonating anymore. We’ve got to find a way to help them remember that this isn’t just about us, but the community as a whole.”