GLOUCESTER, MA – August 18, 2010 – 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.
Read the complete story from The Gloucester Daily Times.