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Can the GOM Wait 30 Years?



There appears to be a shift toward the optimistic in the prospects for New England fisheries. Scientists at the Northeast Science Center in Wood Hole, Mass., have been discussing the practical application of ecosystem-based management. Some of these discussions sound like they might lead to the more successful management of our fisheries. Single-species management, criticized for decades by fishermen and others, is finally getting what appears to be a global thumbs-down. Species mix in the ocean and managing them with that in mind appears to be the way forward. But how to do it is the question.

Recognition of the need to consider the entire watershed of the Gulf of Maine (GOM) as an integral part of the health of the GOM is a major step forward. NOAA is looking at the extraordinary watershed in Maine and the GOM as one. Restoring water quality and spawning fish passage will result in enormous numbers of fish pouring out into the GOM as prey for groundfish, lobster bait, sustainable stock levels and human food. Maine’s once great river systems formed the sustainable ecological backbone of a marine phenomenon.

The knowledge of, though not yet the understanding of, the interconnectedness of species in the GOM and the role of the watershed is a source of light at the end of a dark tunnel that fisheries management has been stumbling through for at least the last three decades.

A dark cloud over this new-found optimism is global warming—a negative influence on marine life that will not be turning around soon. The volume of carbon in the atmosphere is transforming the oceans with unknown consequences. But it’s not a reason to defer trying to change what can be changed in the management of fisheries in the near term, while looking for the means to stop contributing to the larger negative in the long-term.

Restoring fish stocks to historical levels might be achieved by not removing any fish, if the chemistry of the ocean were what it was in 1620. But how, when and how many fish to remove from the oceans we now have is the difficult question for scientists. The more trying question might be, “Can the GOM wait another 30 years for the answers?”