By Richard Gaines
Staff Writer
—
After a quarter of the new fishing year — with interest piqued by the region's introductory experience with catch shares — reaction to the preliminary landing and sales figures in the groundfishery is mixed.
The government, which is pushing the catch share system and a business model with cooperatives working on a total allowable catch from allocations for each of the fish stocks, sees smart fishing and increased value in certain numbers.
Those landing figures show that the 13 species and 20 overall stocks have brought a 17 percent increase in value at the wharves despite landing volumes that are down by about 11 percent.
"Fishermen are doing what they do best," fishing judiciously, said Maggie Mooney-Seus, spokeswoman for Patricia Kurkul, the regional administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"There's nothing catastrophic going on here," Kurkul told The Associated Press.
But industry analysts see the decline in landings as a sign the catch share system is not producing improved results for the boats or the consumer. The catch share system is predicated on the principles of a commodities market, with fishermen and their cooperatives - known as "sectors" — encouraged to buy and sell quota to each other, or to outside interests.
The imposition of catch shares was promoted by the Environmental Defense Fund and its former vice chairwoman, Jane Lubchenco. Named to administer NOAA by President Obama, Lubchenco has pushed for rapid deployment of market principles in catch share commodities as a way to make fisheries more efficient and responsible.
But Richie Canastra, co-owner of the New Bedford and Boston seafood auctions, which also purchase fish in Gloucester, said the higher prices paid for the fish landed in the first three months of the 2010 season, through the end of July, do not translate into profits for the fleet because the higher prices are roughly neutralized by the higher prices fishermen have been required to pay for the acquisition of extra quota, especially in cod.
NOAA's landing and revenue report shows regional landings of 7,702 metric tons of mixed groundfish, which is 89.7 percent of the 8,590 metric tons landed in the same three months, May through July, in 2009.
But, according to government figures, those reduced landings have produced revenues of $21.425 million for the boats compared to $18.277 million over the same period in 2009 — a revenue increase of 17.2 percent.
Canastra, however, said a 10 percent cut in landings even with higher revenues "is no success."
"That's because it's costing fishermen 60 cents to $1 a pound to lease cod fish quota, so catch shares are costing the fisherman and the consumer," he said.
Larry Ciulla, president of the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, said landings by the day boat fleet in Gloucester are down by about one third from last year.
He said many of the boats are strategically holding off targeting cod because of the extreme reductions in the allocations for cod, and for now are landing dogfish, which brings pennies compared to the $1.50 to $2 a pound that cod have been bringing this season. Ciulla attributed the better prices to the decline in supply.
Seen from another perspective, after 25 percent of the fishing year, the fleet has landed only 8.6 percent of the 95,257.6 metric tons of mixed groundfish that was allocated for the year.
NOAA did not have precise figures on the allocation for 2009, but Mooney-Seus said the allocation for this year was "significantly" smaller than last year's.
This cutback was mandated by provisions in the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which requires overfished stocks to be rebuilt on a hard 10-year deadline, which for many of the stocks comes in 2014.
So, even with the stocks rebounding virtually across the board, cutbacks in allocations were mandated to meet the deadline. The complex New England fishery includes 13 species and 20 stocks — stocks of the same species, but concentrations that are believed to be living apart from each other, such as haddock and cod in Georges Bank and the Gulf of Maine.
Another provision of Magnuson, which requires the setting of hard catch limits with penalties for excesses, is also in play for the first time this year.
The hard catch limits with penalties explains why fishermen are fishing cautiously, fearing exhausting the allocation of any stock in their portfolio would either put them on the wharves and off the water, or require them to go into the new commodities market to buy quota to keep fishing.
Canastra and Ciulla said both ports were seeing a majority of the boats tied up rather than risk triggering a shutdown.
Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or rgaines@gloucestertiems.om.
