Large Cod Fishing Restrictions May Go In Place

Morning Edition:

In New England, fishermen are bracing for what may be unprecedented restrictions or even a shutdown of cod fishing in the Gulf of Maine. Federal regulators say new data show cod as dangerously overfished, but fishermen say they don't believe that, and say drastic restrictions would be catastrophic. NPR's Tovia Smith reports.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: Three years ago, scientists found plenty of cod around. After years of overfishing, they said the stock had rebounded. But new data this season shows just the opposite.
RICK CUNNINGHAM: It's highly frustrating, because those fish may never actually have existed.
SMITH: Rick Cunningham is chair of the New England Fishery Management Council that'll recommend in the next few weeks how much to limit future cod fishing.
CUNNINGHAM: There is going to be no way to avoid pain to the industry. We almost get to a point of having to close the Gulf of Maine.
VITO GIACALONE: Shut the Gulf of Maine cod down, really? It's almost not thinkable. It will be the biggest socio-economic disaster in the fishery in the Northeast ever.
SMITH: Vito Giacalone, a fisherman with the Northeast Seafood Coalition, says there's no more important fish than cod in these waters that stretch from Cape Cod up to Canada. It's been the mainstay here for centuries. And because groundfish are all caught together in the same nets, any restriction on cod would also limit the catch of pollock or haddock, for example.
GIACALONE: Without cod, it's over. I would say 120 vessels in this port would end up being insolvent. And that's only the tip of iceberg, because then you have the state of New Hampshire. Every one of those vessels will be in trouble.

This seems like a lose-lose situation.  If the report is wrong, the fishermen get pummelled now, but fish stocks benefit down the road.  If the report is right, the fish will likely be gone without the restrictions.  I'm glad I'm not in charge of making that call.