New England Fisheries Crisis

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  • Technological Advances destabilize groundfish populations

    Major technological innovations began to destabilize the NEw England groundfish populations.

  • Georges Back haddock fishery crash

    By 1930, the groundfishing fleet was sufficiently large that it had prompted a crash in the Georges Bank haddock fishery,

  • European and Soviet Union influence

    In the mid-1950s, huge factory ships from Europe and the Soviety Union began to roam the North Atlantic just beyond U.S. coastal waters. The overfishing behavior of these boats began to greatly affect the groundfish population.
  • Period: to

    Groundfish populations decline 70 percent

  • "Tragedy of the Commons"

    Garret Hardin publishes a 1968 "Science" magazine article detaling when a resource is open to everyone, those who use it will inevitably overexploit it.

  • Fishing vessels swarm North American waters

    In 1974, 1076 fishing vessels swarmed across the Atlantic to fish North American waters, causing massive damage the fish population.

  • Federal management regime instituted

  • Period: to

    Otter trawlers double between 1976 and 1984

    The industry was taking 50 to 100 percent more than the already weakened groundfish stocks could sustain and catches remained high until 1983, at which point they started to decline.

  • Comprehensive, long-term fishery management plan

    In spring 1978, in hopes of moving away from the short-term, reactionary policymaking it had engaged in thius far, the council set to work on a more comprehesive, long-term fishery management plan.

  • 1980 catch doubles that of 1976

  • Council submits 1982 Interim Groundfish FMP for Commerce Department

    The plan allowed open fishing and required only "Age-at-entry" controls in the form of minimum fish sizes and minimum mesh sizes.

  • FMP changes definition

    The 1985 FMP adds one new element to the definition of overfishing; it incorporated biological targets for stocks covered by the plan" the total catch should not exceed 20 percent of the maximum spawning potential for most stocks.

  • Fishers lobby for indirect controls on fishing

    As a result, the new FMP did little to improve the prospects for New England's groundfish: stock assessments continued to show increases in mortality rates and corresponding decreases in stock sizes.

  • Cod mortality in the fishing ground hits record high

    The number of mature adults dropped to a record low.

  • Scientists Issue Warning

    In August 1994 - only months after the council adopted it - NEFSC scientists released more bad news; they warned that even reducing fishing by 50 percent over the next five to seven years would not be enough to save the groundfish.

  • Canadians estimate a recovery unlikely

    Canadian fisheries had depleted the area to an all-time low, taking more than 70 percent of the groundfish swimming there each year.

  • New England Council recommends drastic measures to close indefinitely vast areas of the Gulf of Maine

  • Department of Commerce officially closes George Bank

    Fishers upset because scientists apparently did not reach a consensus and don't see the things they see.

  • NEFSC scientists state things were getting worse

  • Commerce Department intiates $2 million Fishing Capacity Reduction Program

    Compensates fishers who retired their fishing vessels and groundfish permits and thereby reduced excess capacity in the fleet.

  • Commerce Department approves Amendment 7

  • Congress passes Sustainable Fisheries Act

  • Council hears another bleak scientific presentation

  • Federal government passed the Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act

    The act had two goals: to rejuvenate the American fishing fleet and to restore and conserve fish stocks.

  • Council annonced an emergency three-month closure of the cod fishery off the Massachusetts coast

  • The 28th Northeast Regional Stock Assessment Workshop

    Found that Gulf of Maine stocks of white hake, American plaice, and yellowtail flounder remained seriously depleted.

  • Portland Fish Exchange reports the volume of groundfish traded increased

  • New England Council submits the groundfish EMP which is approved by the Commerce Department

  • Ocean Law Project files a lawsuit against the Department of Commerce on behalf of the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Marine Conservation, and the National Audubon Society

  • Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences presents link between spawning stock abundance and numbers of groundfish