A rare red cod swimming in New England waters. Photo: Brian Skerry
Fishing has always been a way of life in New England. Thousands of years before European colonists arrived, Indigenous people fed themselves sustainably from New England’s waters. In fact, cod was so plentiful that early European colonists bragged they could almost walk across the Atlantic on their backs. This set the stage for a crisis in New England fisheries that plagues the industry and our waters to this day.
Unfortunately, dramatic improvements in fishing technology and the arrival of foreign fishing fleets off the New England coast in the 20th century led to worsening overfishing and the near collapse of many fish populations. The Magnuson-Stevens Act of 1976 ended the free-for-all. This federal law expanded the boundaries of U.S. waters, banned foreign fishing fleets, and established limits on fishing….