The cod isn't so sacred in New England anymore. The fish-and-chips staple was once a critical piece of New England's fishing industry, but catch is plummeting to all-time lows in the region. In Maine, which is home to the country's second-largest Atlantic cod fishery, the dwindling catch has many wondering if cod fishing is a thing of the past. "It's going to be more and more difficult for people to make this work," said Maggie Raymond, executive director of the Associated Fisheries of Maine. State records say 2016 was historically bad for cod fishing in Maine. Fishermen brought less than 170,000 pounds of the fish to land in the state last year. The haul was below the previous record low of about 250,000 pounds a year earlier. Maine's record year for cod was 1991, when fishermen brought more than 21 million pounds of the bottom dweller to the docks, according to records that date to 1950. New Hampshire fishermen brought more than 2 million pounds of cod to land in 1997. That dropped to 44,701 pounds in 2015. Rhode Island's total dropped from 474,908 pounds to 138,891 pounds from 1997 to 2015.
Source: Associated Press, March 29, 2017
http://newsok.com/article/5543201
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