“It’s not so much a job as it is an identity.”
But Gloucester, like many coastal towns, now faces the largest cuts ever to the region’s commercial fishing industry. An advisory council voted Wednesday to slash cod catch rates by 77% in the Gulf of Maine, a region roughly the size of Indiana that extends from Cape Cod up through Nova Scotia.
That move, analysts predict, is expected to decimate fishing communities across the region and have a domino effect on seafood processors, wholesalers, distributors and retailers who all make a living off the water.
“The impact will be severe,” said John Bullard, the regional administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who voted in favor of the cuts.
“It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary.” |
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