US provides lesson in building fish stocks

[Thom Little]

As European fisheries ministers convene to set quotas this week, fishermen in New England are celebrating an increase of a third in their fish stocks over the past decade, achieved using conservation methods the EU has rejected.

The size of cod and haddock on the auction market in Gloucester, the capital of New England's fishing industry, is more than twice what you will see in Peterhead, north-east Scotland, or other North Sea ports.

This is because the New England Fishery Management Council has set the minimum mesh size of the nets fishermen may use at 6.5in, which ensures that the cod and haddock have bred at least twice before they are caught. In the North Sea the largest mesh size is 4.8in and the smallest 3.2in (80mm) and the fish are lucky to have bred once.

In the west Gulf of Maine, 100lb cod are not rare and 50lb cod common - though the population still refuses to rebuild to former levels nearly 10 years after conservation measures were imposed.


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