Daily Archives: September 9, 2016
Bristol Bay total salmon catch #1 in 20 years, Value tops $156m
From Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game September 9, 2016 The following is an overview of the 2016 Bristol Bay commercial salmon season. All data are preliminary. The 2016 inshore Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run of 51.4 million fish ranks 2nd out of the last 20 years and was 46% above the 35.1 million average run for the same period. This year’s Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run was 10% above the preseason inshore forecast of 46.6 million fish. The Egegik,Nushagak, Togiak and Ugashik districts were higher than the preseason forecast while Naknek-Kvichak district was less than predicted. Read the rest here 19:04
Oceana going overboard on fish fraud with “misleading hyperbole”, distorts its findings by design
The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) is calling into question both the findings and motives of the latest fish fraud study by Oceana, a global environmental group. The action marks a break between the two groups since they previously were largely in sync with one another over the worldwide problem of fish fraud, which is where lesser-value species are marketed as higher-value ones. NFI claims that by finding 20 percent of all seafood mislabeled globally, Oceana’s latest report is both overstating the problem and unnecessarily calling for an expanded regulatory bureaucracy when enforcement of existing laws is all that is needed. NFI, a trade association representing the seafood industry with a core mission of sustainability, charges that the environmental group has turned to “misleading hyperbole.” “Oceana’s focus on the most often mislabeled species distorts its findings by design. It is a common technique that ironically perpetuates a fraud on the readers of these reports,” the NFI statement adds. Read the story here 16:56
Fishing Illegally – Menakhem Ben-Yami
According to the EU, NOAA and other “regulators,” ‘Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing (IUU) depletes fish stocks, destroys marine habitats, distorts competition, puts honest fishers at an unfair disadvantage, and weakens coastal communities, particularly in developing countries,’ etc., etc. The sundry of published documents, articles, and even learned papers, published not only in the fisheries-related, but also in the general press in recent years, are all bombarding us with IUU. If words could sink vessels, there’d be many more wrecks decorating the bottom of the sea. Read the rest here 16:21
Can I repossess a boat without a recorded preferred ship mortgage?
Q: I loaned $62,000 to a boat owner and required him to sign a security agreement in the form of a Preferred Ship Mortgage. The collateral is a 50-foot motor yacht that is documented with the Coast Guard and currently moored in a marina in Los Angeles Harbor. The note and the mortgage are signed by the debtor, but his signature is not notarized. He missed several payments and he is now clearly in default. How do I go about repossessing the boat and selling it to help pay what he owes me? A: Our reader may run into some problems with his planned repossession of the boat. This appears to be one of those cases where someone handles a complex process by himself without consulting a professional, and as a result he missed a few steps along the way. Read the rest of the answer here, and protect yourself! 13:32
Fishing captain charged with repeatedly assaulting a crew member and threatening to kill him
The skipper of a fishing vessel has been charged with repeatedly assaulting a crew member and threatening to kill him in waters near Kodiak last month. Kyle Mead, 39, of Anchorage, faces five counts of assault, three of them felonies, following an Aug. 26 incident aboard the fishing vessel Miss Destinee. All five counts are considered acts of domestic violence because both Mead and the crew member were living aboard the vessel at the time. According to an affidavit against Mead, written by trooper Brock Simmons, Mead reported an assault to Kodiak troopers by satellite phone at about 5 p.m. Aug. 26, saying that the crew member charged Mead, who had “defended himself.” Afterward, Mead said, he told the crew member to remain in his bunk as the Miss Destinee headed for Kodiak. “During his time on board, (Mead) had made several comments to (the victim) placing him in fear of physical injury,” Simmons wrote. “The defendant had told him, ‘We’re under maritime law out here and it would be easy to make you disappear.’ ” Read the story here 13:06
Lobster Advisory Council votes to close Maine’s last open zone
Local fishing authorities in Maine’s busiest lobster region say newcomers must wait for someone else to give up their license before they can set traps in local waters. The lobster council that oversees the area that includes Stonington and Vinalhaven, the top two lobster ports in Maine, voted 6-1 Thursday night to close the state’s last open lobster zone. The state’s other six regions already require apprentices who complete their training to wait, sometimes for as long as a decade, for others in their area to give up their licenses before they can fish. It is now up to Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, to decide whether to implement the council’s vote, as well as adopt the council’s proposed one-in, one-out exit ratio. Read the story here 12:12
Be There! Saturday, Sept 10th – Brew River’s boat docking event a ‘rodeo on the water’
The ninth annual “Boat Dockin’ ” competition is set to take off in Salisbury this weekend, with a promise of a water rodeo that will showcase the expertise that only Eastern Shore watermen can offer. Erik “Flea” Emely, head of the “Chesapeake Cowboys,” who will be participating in the Saturday, Sept. 10, competition, says the long-running event is a personification of the area. “This really shows off exactly what the Eastern Shore waterman scene is about,” he said. The competition began in Crisfield decades ago, Emely said, but has recently spread across the Eastern Shore. Large boats versus smaller ones, single-manned vessels and team competitions will all be displayed at the event. All participants involved hold a commercial fishing or crabbing license, Emely said. Video, Read the story here 08:50
‘These are the risks that we take’
Walking the floor boards with worry and praying for a miracle. It’s a sadly repeated ritual in Newfoundland where the sea gives life and, just as swiftly, takes it away. “We live that life and that’s who we are,” said Johanna Ryan Guy, as the search for two of four men who went missing from a capsized fishing boat continued Thursday near St. John’s. The search was later changed to a recovery mission as hopes of finding the two remaining fishermen alive dwindled. Bodies of the other two men were recovered after the seven-metre craft was reported overturned Tuesday night near Cape Spear. All were from the close community of Shea Heights, where grieving residents say it’s beyond tragic that three generations of one family were on that boat. A team of investigators with the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) is now looking into the deadly incident. As in all maritime communities, dangers in the waters off Newfoundland are real and unpredictable. Read the story here 08:17
How the WPFMC and Kitty Simonds Crashed Conservation’s Biggest Event
Irreverent might be the best way to describe Kitty Simonds’ feelings about the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress, a 10-day event currently taking place at the Hawaii Convention Center. “It’s all about making money,” Simonds said as she looked dismissively at two preteens taking selfies with cardboard cut-outs of elephants and tigers at an environmental exhibition on the convention center floor. Simonds is the executive director of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council — or Wespac, as it’s more commonly known — a quasi-governmental agency charged with monitoring Pacific fish stocks from Hawaii and American Samoa to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. She’s a highly contentious figure in conservation circles, which made her organization’s involvement in the world’s largest environmental conference all the more curious. Simond’s brazen attitude was on full display at the Hawaii Convention Center this week. The agency had it’s own exhibition booth alongside the likes of the Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund. The exhibition stuck out, too. (Kudos to Kitty!) Read the story here 07:51
