Comment from Anthony Austin

The present iteration of the Magnuson Act guarantees the death of commercial fishing on the east coast of the U.S.   Allowing fishermen a major voice in the councils has led to the current scarcity of cod and haddock in New England.  Every single piece of stock assessment data indicates that stocks of these two species are in dire straits, yet fishermen complain that NMFS is destroying their living   by not letting them catch more of these species.  That Canada shut down its fisheries in the 90s seems to have had no impact on American fishermen whose stocks of Cod are now in worse shape than Canada's were when its fisheries were closed.??        Quite simply, the United States has too many fishermen and not enough fish.   When the Magnuson act was passed in 1978, forcing massive foreign fleets to leave the productive bottom off Georges Bank the American government promptly instituted low-interest construction loans for American fishermen.  We continued the industrial fishing, though on a smaller scale, that the foreign boats had pursued.   The tub-trawl hook fisheries that had characterized US efforts for 400 years were gradually supplanted by draggers that destroyed the bottom, leaving, so to speak, no stone  wherein juvenile fish could find protection, unturned.  Gill nets off New England, set and abandoned by fishermen with the onset of bad weather, caught everything that came their way, and the catch drowned or was eaten by sand fleas before the fishermen could retrieve the nets.  These kinds of fishing, aided by position finding equipment that gradually increased in accuracy and ease of operation, quickly decimated the very stocks of fish the Magnuson Act was designed to protect.   Now New England fishermen are complaining that they want help from the government because the fisheries are a disaster.  This is a disaster they made for themselves, not a natural disaster like a hurricane or a tsunami.   Dragging and gill netting should be stopped immediately if the