• November 16: “Glad to see New England fishermen support the sector system, take back their fishery” – CLF’s Peter Shelley editorializes on the recent letter from over one hundred fishermen asking lawmakers to stop calling for the dismantling of the groundfish sector system and urging them to work on improving the system instead.
• November 17: “Jud Crawford on what recent menhaden decisions mean” – The latest installment in TalkingFish.org’s “Ask an Expert” feature interviews Jud Crawford, science and policy manager for the Pew Environment Group, about the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s recent decision to implement measures to protect Atlantic menhaden.
• November 18: “Fish Talk in the News – Friday, November 18″ – A weekly update of recent news stories that might interest TalkingFish.org readers. This week: an editorial on fisherman innovation, making “the deadliest catch” less deadly, fishermen ask politicians to back off of sectors, and Governor Patrick requests disaster assistance funding for Massachusetts fishermen.

Haddock, one of the species managed as part of the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery (Photo credit: NOAA)

Still, NOAA’s statement on the release of the report expressed optimism.  “The report provides welcome news about Northeast groundfish revenues,” said Eric Schwaab, NOAA assistant administrator for fisheries. “For example, the higher revenues occurred without exceeding this year’s groundfish catch quotas. And while many fishermen are doing better, we also know that some fishermen and businesses are not doing as well.”

The report noted that many trends observed in 2010 were continuations of trends that had been apparent since 2007 or even earlier, including declining landings, a declining number of active vessels, and increasing concentration of groundfish revenue among the top-earning vessels. Some other trends observed this year are new, and these trends are of a more positive nature, including increases in gross revenues, increases in prices of both groundfish and non-groundfish species, and increased economic performance in terms of revenue per unit effort.

As mentioned above, data from the final three months of the fishing year and data on the costs associated with the new system have yet to be incorporated into NEFSC’s analysis, so a final assessment of the first year of sectors is not currently possible. The interim report will be updated in August 2011 to take into account this additional information.

To read more about the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery and the sector system, please visit Talking Fish, a new blog created by CLF and other like-minded organizations and individuals to foster informed and productive discussion about New England’s fisheries and coastal communities.