PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Regulators are closing the Gulf of Maine winter shrimp season for another three years.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has been taking a year-to-year approach to determining whether there will be a winter season. But the panel voted Friday to shut it down for 2019, 2020 and 2021 after receiving a dismal report on the depleted fishery.
The last time the fishery was open was 2014 in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Fishermen, the bulk of them from Maine, used to catch millions of pounds of the shrimp every winter. But the warming ocean and predation have decimated the shrimp fishery.
A spokeswoman for the agency said shrimp are especially sensitive to changes in water temperature. Maine Marine Resources Commissioner voted against the three-year moratorium.
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