Community-based Sectors for the New England Groundfish Fishery

Table 8: Portland Sectors A and B Vessels’ share of landings
for two allocation periods FY01-05 and FY96-01
Stock and species
Total FY01-05
Landings
Portland (A)
Sector Share
Portland (B)
Sector Share
Total FY96-01
Landings
Portland (A)
Sector Share
Portland (B)
Sector Share
GB COD 66,166,000 4.6% 3.5% 112,927,645 3.9% 3.3%
GB HADDOCK 66,001,000 8.3% 7.1% 35,687,670 9.0% 7.0%
GB WINTER FLOUNDER 26,960,000 0.6% 0.5% 18,897,799 0.3% 0.2%
GB YELLOWTAIL 39,925,000 0.5% 0.3% 32,548,287 0.4% 0.3%
GOM COD 42,105,000 11.1% 6.9% 56,395,433 12.2% 7.8%
GOM HADDOCK 10,769,000 21.6% 10.5% 10,209,311 33.8% 18.0%
GOM/CC WINTER FLOUNDER 6,072,000 0.3% 0.2% 7,137,377 0.7% 0.5%
GOM/CC YELLOWTAIL 16,218,000 0.3% 0.3% 20,140,336 0.7% 0.5%
GOM/GB WINDOWPANE 274,000 0.0% 0.0% 3,416,338 0.1% 0.1%
PLAICE 27,593,000 30.5% 17.2% 52,992,348 25.9% 14.5%
POLLOCK 52,853,000 26.8% 16.3% 56,561,783 20.2% 12.4%
REDFISH 4,461,000 30.7% 16.3% 4,061,337 28.8% 16.0%
SNE/MA HADDOCK 76,000 4.8% 2.2% 84,641 5.6% 1.7%
SNE/MA WINDOWPANE 633,000 0.0% 0.0% 1,320,000 0.0% 0.0%
SNE/MA WINTER FLOUNDER 25,217,000 0.3% 0.3% 47,371,788 0.1% 0.1%
SNE/MA YELLOWTAIL 4,118,000 0.0% 0.0% 9,954,000 0.0% 0.0%
WHITE HAKE 37,850,000 38.7% 24.3% 38,320,463 27.5% 18.3%
WITCH FLOUNDER 32,599,000 19.9% 11.4% 30,024,873 22.2% 11.1%
NFMA MONKFISH 142,821,000 22.9% 13.3% 147,201,370 18.1% 10.3%
SFMA MONKFISH 102,724,000 1.7% 1.6% 190,073,556 1.9% 1.8%
The sector would not restrict the operations of member vessels geographically since some of the
member vessels have catch histories for Georges Bank and Southern New England stocks and are
capable of taking multiday trips to utilize allocations for those areas. Because the catch of all
managed species would be constrained by hard TACs, the sector would request that it be
exempted from other regulations designed primarily to control fishing mortality. Specifically the
sector would request to be exempted from: Northeast Multispecies Days at Sea (DAS) limits,
Monkfish DAS limits 10 , trip limits on cod, yellowtail flounder, winter flounder and white hake,
possession and landing limits on monkfish, the May seasonal closure for Georges Banks, and
Gulf of Maine rolling closures. The sectors would continue to be subject to the same restrictions
on year-round closed areas and gear as other multispecies vessels. Initially, the sector would not
propose any additional restrictions on gear or vessel characteristics beyond current permit
restrictions.
The strawman envisions assigning each permit in the sector a specific allocation of the overall
allocation of each of the species-stocks for which the Sector receives an allocation. These
individual allocations would be based on the contribution of the catch history of the permit (i.e.,
its contribution to determining the overall sector allocation). Sector members would be free to
utilize these allocations on their vessels or transfer them to other vessels within the sector upon
notification and approval by the sector manager. These allocations would usable only while
operating as part of the sector. Should they leave the sector or the sector not be renewed, these
vessels would again be subject to the same effort controls as the rest of the multispecies fleet not
enrolled in a sector. The approach of giving individual allocations was nearly universally
supported by the individuals I spoke with. However, these individuals, for the most part have
relatively large individual catch histories. It is possible that the sector might settle on some other
allocation formula. In any case, the economic analysis that follows is not explicitly dependent on
the assumption though it implicitly assumes that there is no change in overall fixed costs or
average variable costs as a share of revenues.
10 This would require changes to the Monkfish FMP
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