One was knocked overboard on a winter trip in the middle of the night, while another was handed a noose and told to hang himself. Their computers have been tossed into the sea, their bunks set up over a boat’s toilet, their water bottles tainted with tobacco spit.

The men and women who monitor the catch of New England’s once-mighty groundfishing industry, a job required by federal law to curb overfishing, have long had strained relationships with the fishermen who take them to sea.

Now, with federal funding for the controversial program set to run out this fall, the region’s long-beleaguered fishermen are being told they have to pay for the observers themselves — or they can’t fish.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe >>

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