On the Cover

March / April 2006

Dustin McLellan, 21, and his 19-year-old brother Brendon (not pictured) work aboard their father's 72-foot steel-sterned trawler Adventurer. The brothers are the seventh generation of McLellans to make their living on cod, hake, pollack and flounder taken from the Gulf of Maine. But what the future holds for them and other commercial fishermen is increasingly uncertain. Their father, Cameron, has seen the McLellan family's seven-trawler fleet shrink to three.

That's why Cameron McLellan has been involved in collaborative research with scientists at the University of Maine's Darling Marine Center in Walpole, Maine. The trawler captain is committed to the idea that better management can make a difference, and that collaboration between fishermen and scientists is the best way to get there.