Scallop fishermen are pleading with government scientists to change course and abandon the models used to determine the yellowtail flounder stock on Georges Bank.
Regulators this year cut the flounder quota there by half and if the current stock estimates for setting the 2013 quota are enforced, fishermen say it could threaten the lucrative sea scallop fishery in one of the richest fishing grounds in the North Atlantic.
Scallop boats frequently catch the bottom-dwelling flounder in their nets when trawling for scallops on the sea bed.
The Fisheries Survival Fund, a scallop industry advocacy group, outlined its concerns in a letter to Dr. Bill Karp, director of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole.
