Commercial Landings Data monthly summaries (Dealers)

This data set contains pounds and value for all seafood products that are landed and sold by established seafood dealers and brokers in the SE Region of the US mainland. In the US Caribbean, the landings are reported by permitted fishers. These types of data, referred to as the general canvass landings statistics, have been collected by the NOAA Fisheries Service, National Marine Fisheries Service and its predecessor agency, the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. These data are available on computer since the mid 1920s. The quantities and values that are reported in this data set include monthly landings that were initiated in 1972. Between 1926 and 1971, data were collected annually and not monthly. Mixed annual and monthly data occur from 1972-1976 according to State and year. The general canvass landings include quantities and value for all commercially caught marine species and are identified by species or species group. These data are collected from or reported by every seafood dealer or broker that is licensed by each state in the Southeast Region (North Carolina through Texas). In addition, information on the gear and area of capture is available for most of the landings statistics in the data set except for Florida 1977-1996 and Louisiana 1992-1999. However, because these data are summaries, they do not contain information on the quantities of fishing effort or identifications of the fishermen or vessels that caught the fish or shellfish. In early years, these data were collected by field agents employed by the Southeast Fisheries Science Center and assigned to local fishing ports. These individuals would canvass the seafood dealers and record the quantity and value for each species or species category from the sales receipts maintained by the seafood dealers. Based on their detailed knowledge of the fishing activity in the area, the agents would estimate the type of fishing gear and area where the fishing was likely to have occurred. It should be noted that landings by gear and water body (fishing area) does not reside in the monthly landings data set for Florida for the years, 1977-1995, Louisiana 1990-1999, and Texas (for gear) from 1993 to present (this is subject to change for years 2008 and more recent). Annual landings by gear, water body and distance from shore are available in the Annual General Canvass data for Florida. More detailed information on the caveats associated with these data is provided in the Issues section. In more recent years, the states in the Southeast Region began to implement trip ticket programs that required the licensed seafood dealer/brokers to report the landings of all seafood products. A trip ticket program was initiated in Florida in 1985, in North Carolina in 1994, in Louisiana in 1999, in Alabama in 2000, and in Texas in 2007. In addition to the quantities of these landings, the states require dealers to report the price, the type of gear and the fishing area for each trip. Through cooperative agreements with each of the states, monthly summaries of the states trip ticket programs are provided to the Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) and are included in the general canvass landings data set. In addition, summarized data are extracted from the NOAA-SEFSC Gulf Shrimp System for commercial landings of shrimp species that are landed at port in the coastal area of the Gulf of Mexico.

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  "https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inportserve/waf/noaa/nmfs/sefsc/dmp/pdf/1916.pdf"
]