Slowly, but inexorably, the battle for the Gulf of Maine fishery is being joined, as the specter of emergency measures looms in the wake of this summer's unscheduled assessment that showed nothing short of Armageddon being visited on the region's cod stock.
The measures, which fishermen almost uniformly now believe will shutter the area to all groundfishing at least until the dawning of the 2015 season next May 1 and perhaps much longer, are expected to be announced by NOAA Fisheries sometime in November.
Not willing to just sit and wait, some Gloucester fishermen and fishing advocates are mobilizing to put human faces and human voices to the struggle, hoping to create a narrative that goes beyond discussions of quota and biomass and the other oft-indecipherable trappings of fisheries management.
The plan is simple: Every fisherman and the owner of affiliated shoreside business in Gloucester -- and perhaps beyond -- will be asked to write a letter to NOAA Regional Administrator John K. Bullard detailing the dire impact the expected measures will have on them and their families.
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