Fishtown slides as a top port – Catch landed in Gloucester declines 63 percent in 2 years – Richard Gaines GDT
Once the world’s preeminent fishing port, even today Gloucester is arguably its best known, heralded in literature, cinema and lore……But Gloucester’s fishing industry is in steep decline, the epicenter of a regional disaster
declared days ago by the federal government. In a nation that imports 91 percent of its seafood, Gloucester has dropped nearly out of the top 20 ports in the U.S. based on landings volume, its fleet now barely 75 boats, according to a spokesman for the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund, the charitable nonprofit permit bank that leases quota from acquired rights…..In only two years, according to the government’s annual report of domestic and global fisheries, released Wednesday, landings have declined by 63 percent, from 122.3 million pounds landed in 2009 to 77 million landed in 2011….The precipitous decline was at odds with national trends, whose indicators, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are mostly pointing upward, and shoved Gloucester from 10th place in landings volume to 19th place. http://www.gloucestertimes.com/local/x964639688/Fishtown-slides-as-a-top-port
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