Cod fishery plummets to least valuable year since 1960s

PORTLAND, Maine — A fishery that was once one of the most lucrative in the Northeast has declined to the point that it had its least valuable year in more than a half century in 2018.

Maine’s cod fishery goes back centuries and once brought millions of pounds of the fish to land year after year. But data from the Maine Department of Marine Resources say the state’s cod were worth just over $200,000 at the docks last year.

That’s the lowest number since 1967, and a fraction of the $2 million to $16 million worth of cod fishermen routinely brought to land in the 1980s and ’90s. The numbers reflect a broader trend in U.S. cod fishing, which is based in New England. Tight quotas and population loss have pushed the fishery to the point of irrelevance.

Patrick Whittle, The Associated Press

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