Commercial landings data for the first three months of the fishing season from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was somewhat confused, leading to the widespread, incorrect conclusion that landings in Portland, Maine, were booming while landings in Gloucester were falling.
The opposite was the case, NOAA reported after a day's analysis of the landings data, which was released last week and widely disseminated by the Associated Press.
Landings in Portland, according to figures provided the Times by the Portland Fish Exchange, were 388 metric tons in the period, down 17 percent from 2009.
The flawed NOAA chart showed Portland up 66.4 percent, but that was because the landings of each boat were associated with the "principal port of the vessel," rather than where the catch was actually landed.
Principal port of the vessel is a factor of secondary importance to the landing port.
For many years now, many of the Portland boats have been landing in Gloucester.
There are a number of reasons for this.
Maine law does not allow a fin-fishing boat to land lobsters, which are by far the top value product in the state. Massachusetts law allows fishermen to sell lobsters accidentally caught in their nets; now many Maine boats land their catch of lobsters as well as fish in Gloucester.
In 2008, lobsters produced landings valued at $235.5 million, nearly six times the value of landings in fin fish, which were $40.1 million.
Industry sources said Gloucester, as a hub port, also offers an unmatched combination of proximity to the inshore grounds of the Gulf of Maine and the offshore grounds of Georges Bank, combined with a shorter trip to Boston.
Correcting the figures for the actual landings in Portland and presuming the Portland-based boats for the most part were landing in Gloucester would give this port 1,676 metric tons of mixed groundfish in the first quarter, which would be about a 10 percent increase in landings over the same period in 2009.
New Bedford, by the NOAA landings report, had seen a 9.6 percent increase over 2009.
Both ports, like the rest of the New England groundfishery, are three months into a newly re-engineered industry, which features catching rights assigned to each boat that has agreed to work in a cooperative or sector. The rights are apportioned based on catch histories.
An additional novel quality of the system known as catch shares is the encouragement of trading in allocations between sectors of quantities of the 15 species in the mixed groundfish stocks.
The shift to catch shares arrives with new requirements by Congress written into the 2006 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act for penalties for surpassing allocations. This fear of overcatching a small or "choke" allocation has been cited by industry and government analysts as holding back fishing effort.
Between half and two-thirds of the boats have remained at dock in the early weeks of catch share cooperative fishing in sectors.
Across the region, NOAA's report showed landings were down 10.3 percent, but revenues were up by 17 percent, a fact analysts said could be due to the classic relationship between supply and demand.
But anecdotal signs seemed to suggest that the benefits of catch shares in more revenue for less fishing were highly concentrated.
Early reports on catch shares' impact on the nature of the New England fleet are that the bigger, better capitalized boat owners have been able to acquire allocation and keep some boats busy, but marginal participants with low allocations and little capital have been lured to sell allocation rather than catch it, and many day boat owners are falling farther behind in bank and other obligations.
About one third of the fleet that fishes out of Point Judith, R.I., has defaulted on dockage lease contracts.
The tensions and consolidation dynamics of catch shares arrive with a proposed buyout that has divided the industry. Many fishermen facing bankruptcy have grudgingly acknowledged that receiving help to leave the industry would be appropriate given the aggressive management by the federal government.
The goal of NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco is to create a new profile for the oldest industry in the country, one with a few large players rather than the relative mass of small businesses that remains the defining characteristic of the fishery.
Richard Gaines may be contacted at 978-283-7000 x3464 or rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.
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