Newfoundland Snow Crab Quotas Cut!!

...from cbc.ca

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said the handling of immature and undersize crab is "seriously threatening" the resource. "Changes to management measures must be made or the crab simply won't be there to catch in future years," Hearn said.

Quelle surpreez! Same old, same old I'm afraid. The prosecution of this fishery was at an unsustainable level. To wit: In 1992, only 750 licences for crab had been issued in Newfoundland and Labrador. By 2004, that number had climbed to 3,411.

Hopefully this bitter medicine has been administered in time unlike JC's cod moratorium of '92 which was akin to shutting the barn doors after the horse has gone!

How the EI system continues to subsidize a dying industry and corrupt a workforce:
In St. Bride's on the south coast, fishermen like Kevin McGrath will see their quotas cut by 25 per cent. He figures the lower quota will cost him and crew about $30,000 and will make it harder to qualify for employment insurance. "Last year … you were just scraping a few stamps. You weren't making no big pile of money, and this year, it's looking harder for the stamps and that," he said.