Small- versus large-scale fishing operations in New England, USA

Fisheries Research 83 (2007) 285–296

Small- versus large-scale fishing operations in New England, USA Nina O. Therkildsen ∗ College of the Atlantic, 105 Eden Street, Bar Harbor, ME-04609, USA Received 14 December 2005; received in revised form 1 October 2006; accepted 11 October 2006

Abstract Most fishing fleets are composed of a diverse range of vessel types and sizes. The different types of fishing operations may vary significantly in their ability to meet policy goals and hence, in order to plan for optimal resource use, we need to know more about the overall performance of the different sectors in a fishing fleet. This paper compares small and large-scale fishing operations in New England, USA, in terms of a number of socioeconomic and environmental parameters, including employment, total landings, number of individual fishing units, fuel consumption, discard rates, and the amount of catch used for direct human consumption. The analysis is based on an extensive data set obtained from several databases hosted by the National Marine Fisheries Service, USA, and the fishing fleet was divided into small and large-scale according to a set of criteria based on vessel size, gear type, and value of catch. The results suggest that in New England, the small-scale fishing sector employs more people per landed tonne, uses more vessels, and achieves a higher value per landed tonne than their large-scale counterpart. In addition, a much greater proportion of the small-scale sector’s catch is used for direct human consumption. Data on by-catch and fuel use are inconclusive as they are based on observer data, which are not representative of the entire fishery and especially under-reports for the small-scale fishing operations. However, it appears that small-scale fisheries may have a lower rate of by-catch, but that large-scale fisheries – at least for the majority of gear types – use less fuel per landed tonne than the small-scale operations. Similar results have been found in analogous comparisons fishing fleets in other countries. The evidence therefore suggests that while large-scale fisheries may perform better in terms of fuel efficiency and other variables, the small-scale fisheries may be better positioned to meet several policy objectives such as creating employment, maximizing the revenue for each tonne of fish removed from the ocean, maximizing the amount of catch that is used for direct human consumption, and perhaps minimizing by-catch. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Small-scale fisheries; Large-scale fisheries; Socioeconomic variables; Environmental variables; Policy objectives

1. Introduction Virtually all fishing fleets are composed of a variety of vessel types that differ greatly in multiple dimensions including size, gear-use, degree of specialization, area of operation, and ownership arrangements. The particular composition and structure of a fishing fleet depends to a great extent on market conditions, local cultural practices, and availability of investment capital, as well as on characteristics of the fish stocks targeted. However, fisheries management measures such as subsidy schemes, allocation decisions, and limited entry systems can also affect the structure of a fishing fleet because they inevitably favor certain types of fishing operations over others. Because fishing operations differ not only in their ability to catch fish but also in economic per∗

Present address: University of Copenhagen, Blegdamsvej 29A, 810, 2100 København Ø, Denmark. Tel.: +45 21689879. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0165-7836/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.fishres.2006.10.004

formance and environmental and socioeconomic impacts, such changes to fleet structure can have important implications for the viability of fisheries. In order to understand how we – through management – can promote the fleet structures that are best positioned to ensure sustainability, while generating the greatest net benefit from our limited fish resources, we must study how different sectors of fishing fleets compare in terms of policy-relevant variables. Because fishing operations vary in so many different ways, there are several meaningful criteria by which to divide a fishing fleet into sectors for such comparisons. This paper looks at a sector-division on the basis of scale of individual fishing operations, and it examines whether there are differences in the economic performance and relative environmental impacts of small and large-scale fisheries in New England, USA. There is no universal definition of what constitutes small and largescale fisheries; small and large mean different things in different places. Because of the lack of absolute criteria, this paper uses

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a definition developed by Ruttan et al. (2000) which is based on relative differences in the scale of fishing operations within an area. This definition takes into account the diversity of gear types and vessel sizes used in various countries and allows for variation in the absolute sizes and types of vessels considered “small” and “large”. Essentially, it is based on a division of a fishing fleet into a series of gear type/vessel size combinations. These combinations are then ranked according to catch capacity, and the combinations that account for the first 50% of cumulative landed value are considered small-scale, while the rest is considered large-scale. Although scale is a broad term that in the fisheries context covers aspects of crew size, distance of operations from shore, and whether the landings are for subsistence versus commercial purposes, Ruttan et al. (2000) defined it in terms of vessel size or catch capacity only. The justification for this is that low catches and smaller boats are typically associated with smaller crews, shorter travel distances, and a greater degree of local consumption of catch, while higher catches and larger boats need larger crews, often operate further from shore, and sell almost all of their catch. Because of these interconnections between variables, vessel size or catch capacity capture the essence of scale with just one figure. Ruttan et al. (2000) used their definition of small and large-scale to develop a model that compared the economic performance of the two sectors. Their study focused mostly on direct costs and revenues. While such parameters are important considerations in fisheries management, they typically do not account for a range of hidden social and environmental costs involved in fishing. To address this problem, Sumaila et al. (2001) adapted Ruttan et al.’s methodology to conduct an analysis of how small and large-scale fisheries compared in terms of a number of socioeconomic and environmental impact variables. Applying this model to two case studies, the Norwegian and the Atlantic Canadian fishing fleets, Sumaila et al. (2001) reported that in both cases, the small-scale fisheries achieved a higher value per landed tonne. But in terms of employment and number of individual fishing units, the two countries demonstrated distinctly different regimes. In Norway, the small-scale fisheries employed five times more people per landed value than their large-scale counterpart and had 44 times more vessels, while in Canada the two sectors employed nearly the same amount of people for each US$ 1 million landed and the small-scale sector had only 20% more vessels than the large-scale sector. The purpose of this paper is to extend the study by Sumaila et al. (2001) by compiling data from another area – New England, USA – and to examine whether this fleet follows more closely the pattern reported from Canada, with little difference in employment between the two sectors, or that of Norway, where the small-scale sector had significantly higher levels of employment per landed value. Applying the same methodology to examine scale-related differences in fishing fleets in several countries may help us better understand the significance of scale in fishing fleet management and disentangle the generalities of small or large-scale fisheries from the effects of local conditions in a given place. In addition, a comparison of the small and large-scale fishing sectors is timely for New England where decades of overexploitation have

depleted many stocks and the lower stock levels, coupled with widespread overcapitalization, has brought allocation-decisions to the forefront of most fisheries management debates in this region (Ward et al., 2001; Pew Oceans Commission, 2003). This study attempts to quantify some of the differences between New England’s small and large-scale fishing sectors and examines how the two compare in a number of policy-relevant variables, including employment, total landings and number of individual fishing units, fuel consumption, discard rates, and the amount of catch used for direct human consumption. The analysis is based on data from the years 1994–2003 extracted from several fisheries databases hosted by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). 2. Materials and methods 2.1. New England as a study area New England is at the Northeastern corner of the United States and includes the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Fisheries in this region exploit the waters in the Gulf of Maine, the Grand Banks, and beyond in the North Atlantic. In 2003 New England’s fisheries landed a total of 301,218 t generating a landed value of US$ 691 million (NOAA, 2005). Traditionally groundfish were the main targets and the waters off New England used to have some of the world’s most productive fishing grounds for these species. However, because of recent groundfish collapses, New England’s fisheries are now predominantly targeting other stocks, including invertebrates and lower-valued finfishes (NEFSC, 2001). According to NOAA statistics (2005), the top five landed species in New England in 2003 were herring (95,225 t), lobster (31,979 t), goosefish (21,206 t), mackerel (15,802 t), and skates (14,139 t). In terms of value the top five species were lobster (US$ 278 million), sea scallop (US$ 116 million), goosefish (US$ 30 million), cod (US$ 27 million), and haddock (US$ 17 million). Although 110 different species are landed, relatively few species account for most of the landed value in New England with the top 10 generating 79% (US$ 545 million) of the total. In fact, the top two species, lobster and sea scallops, accounted for 57% of the total landed revenue for all species in 2003 (NOAA, 2005). In 2003 there were 8079 federally registered vessels in New England, 92% of which were less than 50 gross registered tonnes (GRT; NMFS Commercial Fisheries Database System (CFDBS)). In addition to that, there is a large number of vessels registered for state fisheries only (within 3 mile from shore). The number of vessels registered exclusively for state fisheries in 2003 in Maine and Massachusetts alone, were 10,031 and 4330, respectively (Tarr, A., personal communication, Dean, M., personal communication). The exact proportion of these vessels that are active, is unknown (Tarr, A., personal communication, Dean, M., personal communication). The fishing operations of this region employ a variety of gear types, the most common being trawls, gillnets, seines, traps, handlines, longlines, and dredges. New England’s fishing vessels

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are highly flexible in terms of target species and most employ more than one gear type over the course of a year. 2.2. Splitting the sector into small and large-scale sectors As mentioned in the introduction, the method developed by Ruttan et al. (2000) to split a region’s fisheries into a small and a large-scale sector consists of three main steps. First, gear types and vessel sizes are divided into a number of categories appropriate to the local industry as well as data availability. Second, a list of all gear type/vessel size combinations with their corresponding total landed values is created, and the gear type/vessel size combinations are ranked in ascending order of catch capacity. Third, a cumulative percentage distribution of landed value is constructed with these ranked fisheries and the group of fisheries that provides the first 50% of landed value is then classified as “small-scale” and the remainder as “large-scale”. To split New England’s fisheries into a small and a largescale sector using this methodology, data were obtained from the National Marine Fisheries Service Commercial Fisheries Database System (CFDBS). The extracted data included total landings specified by gear type and vessel tonnage class for all the New England States for the years 1994–2003. The CFDBS tracks almost all commercial fishing activity in the United States, so the data used in this analysis is more extensive and detailed than the previous studies by Ruttan et al. (2000) and Sumaila et al. (2001) who in some cases needed to extrapolate from general estimates of catch distribution among vessel sizes. The categories used to establish gear type/vessel size combinations are listed in Table 1. The gear categories are identical to those used by Ruttan et al. (2000) for their analysis of the New England fishery. Vessel size was accounted for in terms of GRT using the same categories as the CFDBS. No information on either tonnage class or gear type were available for about 6% of the trips in the data set, so these records were ignored in the analysis. The remaining data were used to Table 1 Categories used to divide the New England fisheries into gear type/vessel size combinations Gear categories 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Shrimp trawl Bottom or midwater trawls Mobile seines Surrounding nets (e.g. purse seines) Gillnets and entangling nets Hooks and lines Dredges Traps and lift nets Grappling/wounding, harpoons and spears Other gear Unknown

Vessel size categories (gross registered tonnes) 1 1–4 2 5–50 3 51–150 4 >151

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compute average annual landed values for each gear type/vessel size combinations (Table 2). In order to minimize the effect of annual fluctuations, landings and values were calculated as averages over a 10-year period (1994–2003) instead of simply being based on the most recent data. And although there have been many changes to New England’s fisheries and management structure during that decade, the ratio of small to large vessels registered in the CFDBS have stayed stable (CFDBS, 2005). Ruttan et al. (2000) sorted the vessel size/gear type combinations according to annual catch assuming that this would place the vessels with the lowest catch capacity at the top of the list and the one with the highest at the bottom. This approach is not suitable for New England’s current fishery because strict regulatory measures such as small quotas and limits on days at sea have resulted in a scenario where annual catch is not necessarily a good measure of a vessel’s capacity. Therefore, the best available indication of “smallness” appeared to be the vessel size and thus following the methodological adaptations of Sumaila et al. (2001), the gear type/vessel size combinations and their corresponding landings were ranked first according to tonnage class and then by landings per trip within each tonnage class. The cut-off point between small and large-scale fisheries was set at the gear type/vessel size combination that represented 50% cumulative landed value to be consistent with the methodology used in previous studies. Ruttan et al. (2000) initially chose value rather than landed weight to determine the cut-off point for pragmatic reasons. Since the smallest scale gears typically have small but highly valued catches, the use of landings as a basis for separating the sectors would lead to the vast majority of gear type/vessel size combinations being classified as small scale, and this seemed intuitively wrong. The final step involved in Ruttan et al.’s (2000) methodology for splitting the fishery into the two sectors was to examine whether all gears employed by the same vessel size fell on the same side of the cut-off and to adjust the point if they did not. The justification for this is that many fishers, especially small-scale ones, use multiple gear types on the same boat, and it seems illogical if a vessel could qualify as small-scale on some days and as large-scale on others. Having the split between two gear types within the same tonnage class would also be problematic for the further analysis in this study, since it could lead to double or multiple counting of vessels employing different gears. But because the final cut-off point, after the adjustment, fell between two tonnage class categories, the small-scale and the large-scale sectors could in this study be defined simply by tonnage class (with no reference to gear type). 2.3. Computing the socioeconomic parameters for each fishing sector Socioeconomic parameters were determined for each sector on the basis of several different data sources. Because the CFDBS, that contains data on almost all commercial fishing in US, only holds information on a limited number of variables, additional data were obtained from the Northeast Vessel Trip Reports (VTR) and the NMFS Observer Database System (OBDBS).

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The VTR data contains information on the location fished, the gear used, the crew size and the amount of fishing effort. All federally permitted vessels are required to submit a VTR for each fishing trip, also when they operate in state waters only. However, activity by vessels that operate exclusively under state licenses, are not included in the VTR data. Therefore the VTR only provides data for a subset (though a very large one) of the total fishing activity in the region. Attempts were made to obtain data from state fisheries, but the states do not have reporting systems that include the variables of interest for this study. However, some indication of the activity in state fisheries is given in the VTR’s for federally permitted vessels that sometimes operate in state fisheries. The Northeast observer data contains information on a broader set of variables than does the CFDBS and the VTR’s, but data are only available for fishing trips monitored by onboard observers. In the years 1994–2003 this database included 14,860 trips for the selected states (∼1% of all commercial trips in region). However, because not all observed trips have complete data records, the variables calculated by extrapolation from observer data are based on smaller sub-samples of trips. The potential problems with observer data are well-known (for a discussion see Babcock et al., 2003; Rago et al., 2005; Watson et al., 2000). However, there is no other comprehensive dataset that includes variables such as fuel use and discards, so the observer data may serve to at least give us an indication of the performance of different sectors in the fishery. In terms of accuracy, Rago et al. (2005) found that there was no significant difference in the average landings of observed and unobserved vessels in the Northeast. They also found that for different segments of the fishery, the spatial distribution of fishing effort for trips with observers on board closely matched the spatial distribution of trips in the segment as a whole. However, issues of representativeness of observer samples remain, so results should be interpreted with caution. Data were obtained from the different datasets for vessels of different sizes in the New England states for the years, 1994–2003 on the following variables: number of vessels and annual catches and values, crew sizes, number and length of trips, the amount of catch used for direct human consumption as opposed to use as bait or industrial reduction to fish meal, etc., estimates of what percentages of total catches were discards, the fuel consumption per tonne of landings, the species composition of landings and the distance from shore landings were taken. To allow for comparison of these variables among the small and large-scale sector, the data were summarized in the following ways: 2.3.1. Annual landings and landed value These data were obtained from the CFDBS (that contains the most complete record of landings) and used to determine the small/large-scale cut-off point. Annual totals were calculated and the figures averaged over the 10-year period. Note that the sum of the landings and landed value for the two sectors will not amount to the exact total figures for the entire fishery as reported by NMFS (2005) because there was a small portion of trips for which tonnage class was unknown (∼6%). Because there was

no reliable method to assign these landings to either sector, they were omitted from the analysis. 2.3.2. Amount of labor and number of vessels These variables were calculated from the VTR data from the years 1995–2003 (1994 was not used because data were incomplete for that year). This dataset contains both a total count of unique vessels (all active since they are providing trip reports) as well as the crew size and the landings for each trip. The problem is that the VTR data does not fully cover the New England fisheries—especially activity by the smallest vessel size. A comparison of the VTR data and the CFDBS data for the 10-year period, showed that the VTR’s accounted for only on average 2.1% of the landing recorded for vessels of tonnage class 1 in the CFDBS (whereas the VTR accounted for 84–113% of the landings in the CFDBS for the other tonnage classes. When VTR could count for >100% in the CFDBS data, it is because tonnage class or gear size was not assigned to all records in the CFDBS and therefore omitted from the analysis). The vast under-representation of tonnage class 1 activity in the VTR could be caused by two reasons: (1) because most vessels of tonnage class 1 fish exclusively in state waters (and therefore do not submit VTR’s), or (2) because a disproportionately large fraction of tonnage class 1 vessels failed to submit the required vessel trip reports. The first is probably the most likely explanation, but either way, to get a more realistic picture of effort, the VTR data for tonnage class 1 was scaled up so to match the CFDBS landings. To make data comparable across tonnage classes, the data for tonnage classes 2–4 were also scaled up or down (by dividing with the percentage of the CFDBS landings accounted for) so to match the landings recorded for each tonnage class in the CFDBS. By scaling the VTR data to match the CFDBS data, it is assumed that the VTR data is representative of all fishing activity. This is probably not true, since many of the state fisheries that are not adequately accounted for in the VTR data are very different from offshore fisheries. But since no or little data are available on effort in the state fisheries, it can function as the best approximation until more data is collected. The number of vessels in each tonnage class was counted and scaled up or down to match the CFDBS landings data for each tonnage class and each year, averaged over the 10-year period, and then summed for tonnage class 1 and 2 to get the total figure for the small-scale sector and for 3 and 4 to get the large-scale. The total labor inputs to the different sectors (in man-days) were computed for each tonnage class and each year by multiplying the average crew size with the average number of days per trip and the total number of trips. The value was then scaled for each tonnage class to fit the CFDBS landings data and averages over the 10-year period were calculated for the small (tonnage class 1 and 2) and the large-scale sector (tonnage class 3 and 4). Because no figures of the number of fishers in the primary industry are available for the USA (FAO, 2005), it was not possible to validate this estimate of labor input to the different sectors with a total value. To calculate the labor inputs for each landed ton, the labor input for each tonnage class in each year was divided with the

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corresponding landing in tonnes. This value was then averaged over the years for the small- and the large-scale sector. 2.3.3. Annual catch for industrial reduction or bait Data from the CFDBS contained information on the utilization of the landings for vessels in different tonnage classes. Landings were classified according to one of five utilization codes which were (1) food fish or unknown, (2) aquaculture, (3) animal food, (4) bait, and (5) industrial reduction (to fish meal and oils, etc.). The total landings recorded as being used for purposes other than human food were summed for each sector, for each year and these figures were averaged over the 10-year period for the small and the large-scale sector. 2.3.4. Discards Data on the disposition of the catch from individual hauls on observer trips were obtained from the OBDBS (2005). All the hauls that had not been observed for discards as well as hauls from trips on vessels for which gross tonnage information was not available, were ignored for this analysis; that left a sample size of 1458 trips. Since the observer data does not adequately represent all segments of New England fisheries, it was not possible to compute a total discard estimate for the entire fishing activity of the smalland large-scale sectors. However, the discard rate within different segments of the fishery may be compared between the two sectors. There are two major ways to divide the fishery into segments: by gear type or by target species. The first was chosen in part because the definition of small and large-scale fisheries used in this paper is based on gear-vessel size combinations, not on target species, and in part because many different species (even many different species groups) are often retained on a single fishing trip and therefore it can be problematic to assign individual observer trips to certain target species groups. Gear type can more reliably be distinguished between trips because most fishing vessels typically only employ one gear type on a single trip (although they may shift gears between trips). Observer data were available for 10 broad gear categories, but sample sizes were too low in 5 of them, so discard rates are only reported for 5 gear types here: gillnet, shrimp trawl, otter trawl, pots and traps, and lines and hooks. Following the FAO standard (Kelleher, 2005), discard was estimated as the percentage (by weight) discards made up of the total catch. The recent review of by-catch in US fisheries by Harrington et al. (2005) used the discards to landings ratio. Kelleher’s approach was preferred here, however, because it allowed for the inclusion of trips where all catch was discarded and there were no landings. Debris and other inorganic material were not counted as discards. Data on discard were available on the level of individual hauls. However, to reduce the effects of random variation, discards were calculated by trip. The discards for each trip was then averaged over the years for the small and the large-scale sectors within each gear type.

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2.3.5. Energy intensity The total fuel consumption on most individual trips was included in the data set extracted from the OBDBS. All trips for which either the tonnage class or the fuel consumption were not recorded, were ignored for this analysis, which left a sample size of 1976 trips. Like for the discards, this dataset was insufficient to estimate the total fuel consumption for the entire fishery and therefore comparisons between the small- and large-scale fisheries are given only for certain segments based on gear type. The gear types included in the fuel analysis are: gillnet, shrimp trawl, otter trawl, pots and traps, and dredges (there were insufficient records for other gear types). The fuel consumption per tonne landings was calculated for each trip. These values were then averaged over the years for the small- and the large-scale sector within each gear types. 2.3.6. Overlap in target species Using the CFDBS data set that contains information on all registered trips, a list of the top 10 landed species (by total landing) was developed for each sector for each year. It was then assessed how many species were present in both sector’s list each year and the average of the number of species common to both lists was calculated. 2.3.7. Distance from shore The CFDBS data set had records of how far from shore a catch was taken. Landing were attributed to one of five categories: (1) inside a coastal boundary, (2) within 3 mile of continental U.S., (3) between 3 and 12 mile off the continental U.S., (4) 12–200 mile off the continental U.S., and (5) off foreign shores or in international waters (beyond 200 mile from shore). Although the distance from shore was not recorded for all fishing trips, the available records were used to calculate what percentage of landings in each sector each year were from each fishing zone and these figures were averaged over the 10 years. 3. Results According to Ruttan et al.’s (2000) definition of small and large-scale fisheries, New England’s small-scale sector is comprised of all vessels of tonnage class one and two (<50 GRT) and the large-scale sector of vessels of tonnage class three and four (>50 GRT; Table 2, Fig. 1). The cut-off point at 50% cumulative value fell almost exactly between tonnage classes and only had to be adjusted slightly to ensure that all vessels of the same tonnage class were on the same side (the final cut-off point was at 52.8% of cumulative landed value). A similar cut-off point resulted when the analysis was carried out for the only the first 5 years of the time period (1994–1998) and the last 5 (1999–2003) indicating that there was no major temporal trend in aggregate landings by the two sectors that would have biased the results. The comparison of how the two sectors perform in terms of the selected socioeconomic and environmental variables is summarized in Table 3. The analysis shows that while the small-scale sector has about 24 times as many vessels as the large-scale sector, the two sectors use about the same total labor inputs (the large-scale sector slightly more). However, the small-scale sec-

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Table 2 Landings and landed value data used to break down the New England fisheries into small-scale and large-scale Gear/vessel

# of trips

Landings (t)

Landings per trip

Value (US$ 1000)

% of landing in sector

Cumulative value

Cumulative % value

Hooks and lines/1 Grappling/1 Bottom and midwater trawls/1 Gillnets/1 Shrimp trawls/1 Other/1 Traps and lift nets/1 Dredges/1 Mobile seines/1 Surrounding nets/1 Grappling/2 Dredges/2 Other/2 Traps and lift nets/2 Hooks and lines/2 Bottom and midwater trawls/2 Shrimp trawls/2 Mobile seines/2 Gillnets/2 Surrounding nets/2

8,786 30 625 580 178 1,621 5,193 523 32 80 476 3,610 74 5,054 6,823 14,280 3,906 96 12,059 107

573 3 430 411 261 5,845 28,432 4,117 1,033 14,070 68 637 16 2,146 3,236 7,946 2,219 88 14,486 1,668

0.1 0.1 0.7 0.7 1.5 3.6 5.5 7.9 32.6 176.2 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.6 0.9 1.2 15.6

2,021 50 570 537 441 20,588 179,000 7,310 152 2,035 1,475 5,050 37 8,322 11,086 16,450 3,988 135 21,753 273

0.65 0.00 0.49 0.47 0.30 6.67 32.42 4.69 1.18 16.05 0.08 0.73 0.02 2.45 3.69 9.06 2.53 0.10 16.52 1.90

2,021 2,071 2,641 3,178 3,619 24,207 203,207 210,517 210,670 212,705 214,180 219,230 219,267 227,589 238,675 255,125 259,113 259,248 281,001 281,273

0.4 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 4.5 38.1 39.5 39.5 39.9 40.2 41.1 41.1 42.7 44.8 47.9 48.6 48.6 52.7 52.8

Grappling/3 Mobile seines/3 Shrimp trawls/3 Other/3 Hooks and lines/3 Gillnets/3 Traps and lift nets/3 Bottom and midwater trawls/3 Dredges/3 Surrounding nets/3 Grappling/4 Shrimp trawls/4 Gillnets/4 Hooks and lines/4 Dredges/4 Surrounding nets/4 Traps and lift nets/4 Bottom and midwater trawls/4

5 38 981 67 249 506 1,786 10,844 983 242 3 69 32 39 1,530 1,194 128 3,570

1 37 1,022 99 666 1,369 5,988 38,290 4,492 3,247 1 88 153 248 10,667 14,008 1,853 71,769

0.3 1.0 1.0 1.5 2.7 2.7 3.4 3.5 4.6 13.4 0.2 1.3 4.8 6.4 7.0 11.7 14.5 20.1

18 101 1,843 1,079 3,573 3,053 33,397 69,066 17,011 886 8 149 423 1,229 61,104 4,105 3,465 51,102

0.00 0.02 0.66 0.06 0.43 0.89 3.89 24.86 2.92 2.11 0.00 0.06 0.10 0.16 6.93 9.10 1.20 46.60

281,291 281,392 283,235 284,313 287,886 290,939 324,336 393,403 410,414 411,300 411,308 411,457 411,880 413,109 474,212 478,318 481,783 532,885

52.8 52.8 53.2 53.4 54.0 54.6 60.9 73.8 77.0 77.2 77.2 77.2 77.3 77.5 89.0 89.8 90.4 100.0

Total

86,397

241,682

532,885

All values are averages for the years 1994–2003. The cut-off point between small and large-scale is at 52.8% of cumulative value of catch, adjusted from 50% to ensure that all vessels of the same size were included in the same scale-category (see text).

tor uses >1 man-day more than the large-scale sector for each tonne landed. This is because in order to generate the same amount of landed value, small-scale fisheries land only 56% of the weight landed by their large-scale counterparts, meaning that the small-scale sector achieves almost twice as high a value for each landed tonne. Of the landings by the small-scale sector, 87% goes to direct human consumption. The equivalent figure for the large-scale sector is 72%. The vast majority of landings not used for human food were used for bait. In both small and large-scale fisheries, the main species used for this purpose were herring, mackerel, butterfish, skates, and worms. The small-scale sector further supplied about 0.1% of its annual landings to aquaculture (the main species being bivalves and a few finfish) and about 0.2% of landings to industrial reduction (mainly seaweeds, worms, herring, and skate).

In terms of energy intensity, the observer data suggest that the small and large-scale fisheries perform differently with different gear types. In the gillnet fisheries, the large-scale sector uses 1.5 times as much fuel as the small-scale sector and it also uses more fuel than the small-scale sector in the shrimp trawl gear category. With otter trawl, however, the small-scale sector uses slightly more fuel than the large-scale counterpart and small-scale trap and dredge fisheries both use almost 1.5 times as much fuel as the large-scale sector. The discard data also shows different trends between the gear types, but for four gear types (gillnet, shrimp and bottom trawls as well as pots and traps), the small-scale sector show a lower level of discard than the large-scale. Only for the line and hook gear does the small-scale fisheries show a higher level of discard than the large-scale sector (but it was twice as high).

N.O. Therkildsen / Fisheries Research 83 (2007) 285–296 Table 3 Comparison of the small and large-scale fishing sectors in New England

All values are averages for the years 1994–2003. Note that the landed values are almost the same for the two sectors because of the definition used to delimit the small and large-scale sectors (see text). Adapted after format and graphics in Sumaila et al. (2001).

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Fig. 1. Gear type/vessel size against cumulative percentage landed value. The cut-off point between small and large-scale fisheries is shown at 52.8% (adjusted to ensure that all vessels of the same size were in the same scale-category; see text).

Not surprisingly, the results showed that the large-scale sector takes most of its landings further than 12 mile offshore. However, only 46% of landings by the large-scale fisheries were from offshore areas whereas 41% of their landings were taken from within the 3 mile line. In contrast, for the small-scale sec-

tor, an average of 86% of landings were caught within 3 mile from shore, and 8% of landings were caught further than 12 mile offshore (Fig. 2). The comparison of species composition of catch showed that on average five species are common to both sector’s top 10

Fig. 2. The percentage of total landings in each sector taken at different distances from shore.

N.O. Therkildsen / Fisheries Research 83 (2007) 285–296 Table 4 The top 10 landed species (by weight) for each sector in 2003 Landings (t)

Value (million US$)

Small-scale Lobster Cod Skates Pollock White hake Scup Witch flounder Rock crab Herring Yellowtail flounder

13,235 4,067 3,013 1,988 1,229 1,078 1,025 958 947 842

118.0 13.3 1.4 2.6 1.6 1.4 3.1 1.0 0.9 2.2

Large-scale Herring Mackerel Sea scallop Silver hake Skates Haddock Cod Winter flounder Yellowtail flounder Lobster

94,276 15,521 11,972 6,085 5,544 5,378 5,015 4,688 4,637 3,165

15.1 4.2 110.8 5.8 2.4 15.0 14.2 9.2 11.7 33.0

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scale and the two sectors employed about the same number of people for each unit of value generated. The results from New England fall between these two scenarios. With about 24 times more vessels in the small-scale sector, the New England fishery looks most like the Norwegian in terms of the number of individual fishing units. But with about the same amount of labor input per landed value to each sector, the New England fishery closely resembles the pattern showed in Atlantic Canada in terms of number of fishers employed. Considering the geographic proximity and therefore overlap in targeted stocks, it is not surprising that the New England fishery shows a similar pattern of employment between the sectors to Canada. Sumaila et al. (2001) suggested that the divergence in employment pattern between the Canadian and the Norwegian fisheries result from the fact that Norway has more very small vessels and that the variation between large and small in the Norwegian fleet is much greater than among Canadian vessels. Table 5 shows that New England’s fleet structure is much more similar to the Canadian in terms of size distribution than it is to the Norwegian and therefore this explanation may also apply to the difference between employment in the Norwegian and the New England fishery. This suggests that the difference in employment between the two sectors of a fishery depends on how much difference there is between the large- and the small-scale vessels. Although employment (number of fishers or amount of labor input) per landed value was similar for the small- and the largescale sectors in New England and Canada, the employment per landed tonne was higher in all three countries (more than a third higher for New England, almost twice as high for Canada and more than 10 times higher in Norway). This means that all three regional case studies show that small-scale fisheries needed to catch less to generate a given value and employed more people for each landed tonne than their large-scale counterparts. The results on fuel consumption are less conclusive. Data to assess this variable were not available in Canada, but Sumaila et al. (2001) estimated to total fuel consumption in the smalland large-scale sectors of the Norwegian fishery and found that small-scale fleet used considerably more fuel per landed tonne than the large-scale counter-part. Sufficient data were not available to reliably estimate the total fuel consumption in the New England fishery neither from the observer data nor from other sources. Instead, the fuel use of the small and large-scale sectors was compared for different gear types and the results showed different patterns of energy

landed species. These species were typically lobster, herring, cod, skates, and yellowtail flounder. The top 10 species for each sector in 2003 are listed in Table 4. 4. Discussion 4.1. Comparison to other studies This study of New England’s fishing fleet shows some similar trends to those reported by Sumaila et al. (2001) who used the same methodology to compare the small- and large-scale sectors in the Norwegian and Atlantic Canadian fishing fleets. In all three countries, the small-scale sector achieved a higher value for each landed tonne and therefore needed to catch less to generate a given value than their large-scale counterparts. There were disparate trends, however, in the number of individual fishing units in each sector and the number of fishers. Norway had 44 times more small-scale vessels than large-scale ones and smallscale sector employed 5 times more people per landed value than that large-scale sector did. In Canada, however, there were only slightly more vessels in the small-scale sector than in the large-

Table 5 Percentage of total vessels in each length category in New England, Canada, and Norway Vessel lengths

<35

35 –39 11

40 –44 11

45 –49 11

50 –54 11

55 –59 11

60 –64 11

65 –99 11

>100

Year

Data source

New England Canada

57.8% 67.8%

19.8% 9.4%

9.4% 17.9%

3.0% 0.8%

1.5% 0.8%

1.4% 0.9%

0.9% 1.6%

5.8% 0.4%

0.5% 0.4%

2003 1998

CFDBS DFO

Vessel lengths

<26

26 –43

43 –69

69 –92

92 –131

>131

Year

Data source

Norway

82.3%

8.7%

4.8%

1.7%

1.0%

1.6%

1998

Sumaila et al. (2001)

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efficiency for these (Table 3). The highest fuel consumption of 2461 l/t was found in the small-scale dredge fishery. However, this gear type only accounts for about 6% of landings in the small-scale sector, so for the total fuel consumption for the fishery this is probably insignificant (Table 2). More important is the second-highest value for fuel use: 2069 l/t for the small-scale pot and trap fishery. This gear accounts for >35% of the landings in the small-scale sector (and 65% of the value). For comparison, the gear types accounting for the greatest portions of landing in the large-scale fishery included traps, bottom or midwater trawls, and dredges—all gear types for which the large-scale sector had a lower fuel consumption per landed tonne than the small-scale sector (also surrounding nets are important in the large-scale sector, but insufficient fuel use data is available for this gear type). So although no complete assessment of the total fuel use by each sector was possible, the limited analysis suggests that, in total, New England’s large-scale fishing sector may have a lower fuel consumption per landed tonne than the small-scale fleet. This suggestion is by no means conclusive, however, as the results should be interpreted with great caution due to the small sample size, the uneven distribution of samples and the high variation within the data set as indicated by the large standard deviations. Observer coverage was not evenly spread between the small and large-scale fleets (shown by the sample sizes for the different gear types in Table 3). In particular, observer coverage is especially poor in inshore waters and since the observer system collects data for federal management, there is no observer data for vessels operating exclusively under state permits. This is problematic because it results in vast underreporting for vessels of tonnage class 1. Therefore, the observer data on the smallscale sector really represents primarily the large end of the smallscale fisheries. Unfortunately, no other data were available on discards or fuel use for very small vessels, so there is, at present, way to correct for the underreporting. Another thing to keep in mind when interpreting the observer data, is that it is pooled over a long time period and within the broad estimates of fuel use and discards, could be masked an array of patterns, e.g. of seasonality, temporal trends, and differences in target species. However, in most cases, sample sizes are insufficient to analyze the data on finer scales and also the purpose of this study was to provide a broad, synoptic overview of the general trends in fuel use and discards in the small- and large-scale fisheries. All the potential problems with the observer data listed above as well as the large variation within the data set should be kept in mind when interpreting the results. But in face of a lack of alternative data sources to important variables such as fuel use and discards, the observer data may serve as a basis for initial estimations. Although the Norwegian large-scale sector was reported to be more energy efficient than the small-scale equivalent (Sumaila et al., 2001), the similar trends observed in the New England fishery contrast with other studies on the energy intensity of fisheries, which often have suggested that fuel use tends to increase with vessel size within a given gear sector and fishery (Tyedmers, 2001 and references therein). Since the fuel use data in this study were pooled for all target species within each gear types, it is

difficult to make comparisons to other fuel use studies that typically are specific to a certain target species or group of species. There are very few data available on fuel use in US fisheries with which to compare the results, but Tyedmers (2001) looked at fuel use in a number of North Atlantic fisheries. He found average fuel use values for shrimp fisheries that are similar to the ones reported here for shrimp trawl. However, the fuel use values for the other gear types in this study, are considerably higher than the averages reported by Tyedmers (2001), although they are still within the range of his results. The reason why the fuel use values were higher in this study, probably is that they were calculated as averages of the fuel used per landing for each individual trip. When fuel use was calculated by dividing the total fuel use by the total landing for each sector within each gear type, much lower values were obtained (though still showing the same trends in terms of largeand small-scale performance). This difference arises because when the total sums of landings and fuel consumption are used, trips with very high fuel consumption and very low catch become masked in the aggregates. In this study, energy efficiency was reported as averages of fuel use per landing for individual trips because it primarily is the relative performance of individual fishing operations of different sizes and not the aggregate of fleet sectors that is of interest for this study. And summing up, the data for New England suggest that large-scale fishing operations may in many cases be the most fuel efficient, but that sometimes it is the small-scale operations that use the lowest amount of fuel per landed weight. The analysis of discard data showed similarly inconclusive results. However, for four of the five gear types for which data were available, small-scale fishing operations produced lower levels of by-catch than the large-scale operations. Only for the line and hook gear, did the small-scale sector produce the highest level of discard and this gear type accounts for only <5% of the small-scale fishery and <1% of the large-scale fishery. Although lack of data prohibited the calculation of total discards in each sector of the fishery, the gear types for which discards could be estimated accounted for >68% of landings in the small-scale sector and >78% of the landings in the large-scale sector. Therefore, this study suggests that the small-scale fisheries would tend to have a lower level of discard than the large-scale fishing operations. Again, results were reported as an average of trip-level performance for the same reasons as discussed with the fuel data, and the limited sample size and large standard deviation means that the results should be interpreted with a similar caution. However, in general the magnitude of the levels of discard correspond with those reported in a recent review of by-catch in the US (Harrington et al., 2005) as well as the FAO’s update on discards in marine fisheries (Kelleher, 2005). In summary, while the data on the relationship between energy efficiency and scale of fishing operation are inconclusive, possibly suggesting that large-scale fisheries more often consume less fuel per landed tonne than their small-scale counterparts, all three country case studies demonstrate that the small-scale fishing sector employs more people per landed weight, uses more vessels and achieves a higher value per landed tonne. In addition, while there are currently no directed reduc-

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tion fisheries in Canada, so all intended catch is used for direct human consumption (Sumaila et al., 2001), in both Norway and New England, large-scale fisheries supply a much greater proportion of their catch to industrial reduction, bait, animal feed or other non-human food purposes than their small-scale counterparts. The present study further indicates that New England’s small-scale sector appear have lower rates of discards than the larger vessels (although this is by no means conclusive). All this suggests that, at least in these countries and possibly in general, small-scale fisheries may be better positioned to meet several potential policy goals including creating employment, maximizing the revenue for each tonne of fish removed from the ocean, maximizing the amount of catch that is used for direct human consumption, and perhaps in minimizing discards. 4.2. Implications for policy Although this study suggests that small-scale fisheries may be better positioned to meet several policy objectives, it is important to stress that it does not follow logically from these findings that all fishing operations should be small-scale and large fishing vessels should be abandoned altogether. First of all, the list of management objectives that small-scale vessels are better positioned to meet, does not encompass all possible objectives: there can be other management objectives that large-scale vessels are better suited to meet. Secondly, many of the positive attributes of small-scale fisheries are a result of the way the available fish resources are currently divided between the sectors and they would not readily extend to the entire fleet should it all be converted to small-scale. Currently the small-scale fisheries are mainly targeting highly valuable species that are suitable for direct human consumption and for which by-catch levels are low. Transferring the current fishing effort in the large-scale sector to smaller-scale operations is not suddenly going to make more of these species available. In addition, some of the current smallscale fishing (lobstering in particular) use considerable amounts of bait inputs produced in the larger-scale fisheries and therefore there are inter-dependencies between the two sectors. What this study really shows us is that smaller vessels targeting the stocks they currently do, are better suited to meet many policy goals; it does not tell us that small-scale fisheries would be better suited to target all available stocks—or to meet all possible policy objectives. In order to assess the question of whether small-scale fisheries would also better meet policy goals if targeting other stocks than they are currently doing, the analysis presented in this study would have to be conducted for fisheries on individual species instead of the aggregate of all fisheries in a given location, e.g. looking at how small-scale and large-scale fishing operations targeting groundfish would compare. Because of the relatively small data set available on several of the variables (fuel consumption and discard, in particular), it appears that existing data are insufficient to make such comparisons meaningfully at this point. However, even in the absence of such species-specific analyses, it is obvious that there are some fish stocks that cannot practically be targeted by small-scale fishing operations because they are found too far offshore or because their value is so low

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that a fishery can only be economically viable if conducted in great bulk. This means that to the extent that we as a society want to exploit those stocks, there is a role for both small and large-scale fisheries. The question then becomes what these roles should be. This study suggest that although there is some degree of differentiation in resource use between the two sectors in New England, there is also considerable overlap both in terms of target species and area of operation. With five species being common to both sectors’ list of top 10 landed species and with the large-scale sector taking 41% of its landings within 3 mile from shore and the small-scale sector taking 8% of its landings offshore, it seems likely that there is at least some competition between the sectors. The large overlap in resource use is not surprising considering that the cut-off point used to distinguish small from large-scale operations for this study was arbitrarily defined and did not represent a real discontinuity in the scale of fishing operations. While there are no clear lines, the study did suggest however, that in general the smaller vessels that operate inshore performed better in terms of a number of variables important to policy. One key variable that is highly relevant to policy but has not been considered in this study is the cost and profitability of different fishing operations. The only reason why it was not included in this analysis was that no good estimates of operation costs were available. Although it has often been assumed that fishing operations would exhibit economies of scale so that larger vessels would be more cost-efficient, the few actual studies that have compared the profitability of small and large vessels show a mixed experience. In Norway, large-scale vessels appear to be more profitable than small-scale ones (Anon., 1999; Tietze et al., 2001). However, in an assessment of the economic and financial viability of the most common fishing craft and gear combinations in three European countries, it was found that in two, Germany and France, the small inshore vessels had a higher profitability than larger vessels operating offshore (Lery et al., 1999; Tietze et al., 2001). In the third, Spain, no data were available for small-scale vessels, but when comparing different sizes of tuna longliners, the smallest size of 56 m length showed the best economic performance (Tietze et al., 2001). The general assumption that large-scale fishing operations are more profitable coupled with the common management goals of efficiency in the use of marine resources seems to have stimulated much of the growth in the large-scale fishing sector over the years. However, the findings that larger vessels are not always more profitable or economically efficient demonstrate that we need to re-examine such assumptions for future policy-making. This rethinking involves recognizing the complexity inherent to the notion of efficiency which cannot be defined only in monetary terms such as high returns on investment or a low economic cost per unit product. In a world where most fish stocks are already overexploited and where global warming is an imminent threat, considerations of efficiency must include dimensions of energy consumption and level of mortality exerted on non-target stocks. Some of this is legally founded in the United States where the national standards for fisheries management prescribed in the Sustainable Fisheries Act (1996) explicitly require that man-

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agement plans must take into account the importance of fishery resources to local communities and provide for sustained participation of such communities (Standard 8) and minimize by-catch (Standard 9). These standards mean that maximizing net revenue is clearly not the sole management goal and taking the variables discussed in this paper into account is critical. Although this study did not include all the factors that must be considered in fisheries management or allocation decisions, it did find that small-scale fisheries appeared to be better positioned to meet a number of different potential policy objectives. Because similar trends in the performance of small-scale fisheries have been reported from at least two other countries, these may be general characteristics of small-scale fisheries and not simply results of specific conditions in a given fishing fleet. Although this study does not suggest that large-scale fishing should be abandoned altogether, it highlights important issues that should be at the center of fisheries management debates in the coming years. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Alan Kohuth, Nan Garett-Logan, and Eric Thunberg at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, NMFS as well as Ann Tarr at the Maine Department of Marine Resources and Micah Dean at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries for helping me obtain the data used in this study. Thanks to U.R. Sumaila for initial discussion of ideas and review of the manuscript, K.S. Cline, H. Houghton and two anonymous reviewers for useful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Finally, I’m grateful to C.W. Petersen for indispensable guidance and advice throughout the project. This research was in part funded by a David Rockefeller Fund, Inc., grant to C.W. Petersen and H. Hess and an earlier version of the paper was submitted as a senior thesis for partial fulfillment of a Bachelor of Arts degree in human ecology at College of the Atlantic, USA. References Anon., 1999. Profitability Survey on Norwegian Fishing Vessels 1998. Directorate of Fisheries, Bergen, Norway, 133 pp. Babcock, E.A., E.K. Pikitch, C.G. Hudson, 2003. How much observer coverage is enough to adequately estimate bycatch? Report of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science. Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL. On-line version: http://www.oceana.org/uploads/BabcockPikitchGray2003FinalReport.pdf (Retrieved 01/09/2006).

Commercial Fisheries Database System (CFDBS), 2005. Northeast Fisheries Science Center. National Marine Fisheries Service, USA. FAO, 2005. Contry Profile—USA. Fisheries Socioeconomics. FAO, Rome (Retrieved 05/05/2005) http://www.fao.org/fi/fcp/en/USA/profile.htm. Harrington, J.M., Myers, R.A., Rosenberg, A.A., 2005. Wasted fishery resources: discarded by-catch in the USA. Fish Fisheries 6, 350– 361. Kelleher, K., 2005. Discards in the world’s marine fisheries: an update. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 470, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy, 131 pp. http://www.fao.org/docrep/ 008/y5936e/y5936e00.htm (Retrieved 01/09/2006). Lery, J.M., Prado, J., Tietze, U., 1999. Economic viability of marine capture fisheries. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 377. FAO, Rome, 130pp. NOAA. 2005. Annual commercial landings statistics. http://www.st.nmfs. gov/st1/commercial/landings/annual landings.html (Retrieved 04/16/2005). Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC), 2001. Status of fishery resources off the northeastern United States. http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/sos/ (Retrieved 15/02/2005). Observer Database System (OBDBS), 2005. Northeast Fisheries Science Center. National Marine Fisheries Service, USA. Pew Oceans Commission, 2003. America’s Living Oceans: Charting a Course for Sea Change. Pew Oceans Commission, 166 p. Rago, P.J., Wigley, S.E., Fogarty, M.J., 2005. NEFSC bycatch estimation methodology: allocation, precision, and accuracy. U.S. Dep. Commer., Northeast Fish. Sci. Cent. Ref. Doc. 05–09, 44 pp. Available from: National Marine Fisheries Service, 166 Water Street, Woods Hole, MA 025431026, www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nefsc/publications/crd/crd0509/crd0509.pdf (Retrieved 01/09/2006). Ruttan, L.M., Gayanilo, F.C., Sumaila, U.R., Pauly, D., 2000. Small versus large-scale fisheries: a multi-species, multi-fleet model for evaluations and potential benefits. In: Pauly, D., Pitcher, T.J. (Eds.). Methods for Evaluation the Impacts of Fisheries on North Atlantic Ecosystems. Fisheries Centre Research Reports 8(2), pp. 64–75. Sumaila, U.R., Liu, Y., Tyedmers, P., 2001. Small versus large-scale fishing operations in the North Atlantic. In: Pitcher, T.J., Sumaila, U.R., Pauly, D. (Eds.). Fisheries Impacts on North Atlantic Ecosystems: Evaluations and Policy Explorations. Fisheries Centre Research Report 9(5), pp. 25–34. Tietze, U., Prado, J., Lery, J.M., Lasch, R., 2001. Techno-economic performance of marine capture fisheries. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 421. FAO, Rome, 86 pp. Tyedmers, P., 2001. Energy consumed by North Atlantic fisheries. In: Zeller, D., Watson, R., Pauly, D. (Eds.). Fisheries Impacts on the North Atlantic Ecosystems: Catch, Effort and National/Regional Data Sets. Fisheries Centre Research Reports 9(3), pp. 12–34. Ward, J.M., Brainerd, T., Milazzo, M., Thunberg, E., Kitts, A., Walden, J., Travis, M., Terry, J., Lee, T., Holland, D., Hastie, J., Squires, D., Herrick, S., Hamilton, M., Brewster-Geisz, K., Lent, R., 2001. Identifying Harvest Capacity and Overcapacity in Federally Managed Fisheries: A Preliminary and Qualitative Report. National Marine Fisheries Service. Offices of Science and Technology and Sustainable Fisheries, Silver Spring, Maryland, 118 pp. Watson, R., Gu´enette, S., Fanning, P., Pitcher, T.J., 2000. The basis for change: part 1, reconstructing fisheries catch and effort data. In: Pauly, D., Pitcher, T.J. (Eds.). Methods for Assessing the Impact of Fisheries on North Atlantic Ecosystems, Fisheries Centre Research Report 8(2), pp. 23–39.