PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Small, in-shore fishermen in the Gulf of Maine are in danger of losing their livelihoods over the new 30-pound limit on the cod catch, a fishermen’s group says.

Even when boats try their hardest to avoid cod and target other groundfish such as flounder and pollock, they are catching hundreds of pounds of cod a day and having to throw them back — dead, Peter Kendall, manager of the Portsmouth Fish Cooperative, said Friday.

“They’re throwing over 600 or 700 or 1,000 pounds of cod a day,” Kendall said. “Not only are they losing that income and wasting a national resource, but fishermen don’t like to throw over codfish. So a lot of fishermen are tying up their boats because they’re disgusted.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service lowered the catch limit on cod in the Gulf of Maine from 200 pounds per trip to 30 pounds — two large codfish — to protect dwindling stocks. The lower limit took effect May 28.

However, the New England Fishery Management Council, an advisory group, has made an emergency request to the U.S. secretary of commerce to raise the limit to 700 pounds.

The Commerce Department has not acted on the request, said Teri Frady, spokeswoman for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Woods Hole, Mass. It is the fisheries service’s job to advise the Commerce Department on the request, but the agency hasn’t done so.

“We’re considering the request,” she said.

While fishermen want to land and sell more of the cod they are catching, the fisheries service wants to reduce the overall deaths of cod, Frady said.

The fisheries service admits its figures are somewhat outdated: Estimates of this year’s cod stocks are based on 1997 statistics. If fishermen are catching more than they expected to now, it’s a seasonal phenomenon, she said.

“This is the time of year they’re aggregated in the area off Cape Ann … all the way down to Massachusetts Bay,” Frady said. “It’s the overall mortality of the cod that’s the greatest concern.”

But Kendall said the fishermen’s inability to sell a reasonable amount of the cod they catch is having the unintended effect of hurting the stocks more.

In an effort to catch enough other groundfish to make a fishing trip pay, gill-netters must set more nets and draggers must drag more often, he said. That means they are bringing up and throwing back more cod.

“The sad thing is a lot of the in-shore boats are getting hurt the most,” Kendall said. “In order to make a day’s pay without the codfish, they have to spend more time out there and kill more codfish than they normally would.”

He also said what fishermen are seeing is more than a mere seasonal uptick in the numbers: It’s clear the stocks are rebounding.

“The problem is — and the scientists aren’t listening — places where last year there weren’t any codfish and you wouldn’t expect any codfish, they’re setting their nets and they’re catching codfish,” he said.