The New England Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, newly empowered to establish catch limits, has conceded making a mistake in calculating the proposed total catch reduction in skates, a high volume food fish.
The mistake, as described in a memo from the committee Chairman, Dr. Steve Cadrin, to council executive director Paul Howard, was in plugging a "0" into an equation where a "—" for missing or blank should have gone.
The result of the data entry error was an unjustified cut of 6,817 metric tons of skate off the acceptable biological catch recommendation for the 2010-11 fishing season.
The original, erroneous calculation of the acceptable biological catch of skate was 23,826 metric tons, a volume that was 57 percent of the catch in 2007, the control year.
After the mistake was rectified, the committee recalculated and set the acceptable biological catch at 30,643 metric tons, which meant that the reduction in skate volume would be only 26 percent.
Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.
See also: "Correction to the 2010-2011 Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC) recommendation for the skate complex"