Without any federal or state permits, the Unicorn is likely nearing the end of her long residency in Menemsha harbor. Capt. Greg Mayhew recently sold his groundfish permit — the last on the Vineyard — to The Nature Conservancy.

As efforts to revive the New England groundfishery grow increasingly contentious, the state attorney general Thursday filed a lawsuit challenging new fishing regulations in the Northeast, saying they rely on “highly suspect science” and do not account for the devastating economic impact on the state’s fishing industry.

With the New England groundfishery now a bona fide federal disaster, fisheries managers are preparing to make drastic cuts to future allotments for cod and yellowtail flounder before the end of the year.

On Dec. 20 the New England Fishery Management Council will meet in Wakefield and is expected to cut up to 80 per cent of fishing allotments for cod and yellowtail flounder for the coming year. If they are approved, the cuts will take effect May 1, 2013.

Fishermen who pursue a variety of important fish on Georges Bank and the Gulf of Maine face drastic cuts in catch limits next year because of dwindling groundfish stocks. Cod and yellowtail flounder are in such a dire state that fisheries managers advising the New England Fishery Management Council are calling for catch limit cuts of 70 per cent or higher beginning next May.

On an open sea deck, with the rolling waves of Georges Bank a mere eight feet away, Jon Brodziak cuts, and with tweezers takes a bone from each of the two inner ears of a haddock.

He places them in a small envelope for future study.

Then he does it again with another haddock. And again.

The bone is the otolith, which is used to tell the age of the fish; it is a far better measure than length.

Mr. Brodziak, along with several other scientists, is in the middle of a six-hour shift on the Albatross IV, in the pitch black night on the open ocean.