New England’s shrimp fishery, which is mostly based in Maine, will not be reopened after a Thursday decision by an arm of the regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
The commission said the fishery, which has been closed since 2013, will remain that way because of worries about the impact the warming ocean has had on shrimp reproduction, the Associated Press reported.
Going back to 1962, Maine’s northern shrimp fishery had its best year in 1996, when the catch was valued at $12.9 million, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. As recently as 2010, the dollar value fell to $6.66 million and, by 2013, the catch was valued at $1 million, according to the DMR.
Maine’s lobster industry, by comparison, had a catch value of $495 million in 2015, according to the DMR.
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