Scallop Sparks flying in advance of New England Fishery Management Council meeting
The scallop industry is on high alert over next week’s meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council after a long warning letter was sent to the council by NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator John Bullard. The council’s Habitat Committee has issued recommendations that fishing restrictions be lifted on several areas of Georges Bank, the Gulf of Maine and the South Channel. But Bullard, backed by his agency’s scientific staff, said he believes that the relaxing of the restrictions would set back the effort to nurse fish stocks back to health. Read the rest here 22:03
The science seems to be the “best available”, and quite adequate, as long as it is shutting down a fishery; but if it’s to open an area to fishing…well then, maybe the science is not so “best available”?
And where is the best available science that indicates these areas—closed for at least a decade and some for two decades— have done anything for the groundfish that have been officially declared a “disaster”?
R-E-V-O-L-T