Daily fish auction prices and landings at New England's commercial fish auctions can now be found in one place accessed in more convenient and useful ways than in the past. The Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s (NEFSC) redesigned Market News website includes daily landing and price statistics, simple graphs, and a search function that allows you to customize your report and export it to a spreadsheet.
“The Market News Office collects amazing real-time information about market conditions,” said Min-Yang Lee, an economist in the NEFSC’s Social Sciences Branch who worked with Market News reporter Jack French to develop the new data display system. French and his colleague Robert Santangelo have been reporting Northeast fish marketing news for years, French from Boston and Santangelo from New York. They have stayed with the program from the days of handwritten and tabulated data through today's digitized product.
"The new site simply modernizes the way that data are presented and makes it more useful to fishermen, dealers, processors and anyone else who is interested in fish markets," said Lee.
The new webpage highlights three species: cod, haddock and scallops, although data from all other species sold at the auctions are available. Visitors can get the pulse of the market through the " quick look" graphs of daily prices and landings, as well as a weekly summary, for the most recent month. Change from the previous day’s report is indicated by percentage in text, and by red and green arrows, for positive or negative change, next to the graph.
Users who are interested in a more in-depth look at longer time spans or different species can use the custom search to build a dataset of fish prices and quantities reported by the Boston Market News office. The three fish auctions operating in New England are in Portland, Maine; Gloucester, Mass.; and New Bedford, Mass. All prices are net of all fees to the vessel If you still want to see the reports in the older style, these are archived on the national fishery Market News site maintained nationally.
"Making this information available quickly is a service we can provide to anyone interested in fish prices and landings who wants to see the data and access specific information from the archives quickly," said Matthew McPherson, head of the NEFSC’s Social Sciences Branch.
Fishery Market News began operations in New York City on Feb. 14, 1938, as a joint federal/ industry program to provide accurate and unbiased reports depicting current conditions affecting the trade of fish and fishery productions. Market News continues to observe, record and report on current conditions across the nation. Offices are located in Boston, Long Beach, New Orleans, New York and Seattle.
NOAA Fisheries Service is dedicated to protecting and preserving our nation’s living marine resources and their habitat through scientific research, management and enforcement. NOAA Fisheries Service provides effective stewardship of these resources for the benefit of the nation, supporting coastal communities that depend upon them, and helping to provide safe and healthy seafood to consumers and recreational opportunities for the American public.
Source: NOAA Fisheries Service