Daily Archives: January 10, 2018

Oceantech company offers benefits for lobster industry

When Premier Stephen McNeil toured the Volta Labs startup house in Halifax last month, one company that seemed to catch his eye was SeaSmart, a new oceantech company based in Mahone Bay. Led by CEO Mark Lowe, the SeaSmart team has developed “smart lobster traps” that contain sensors to tell whether lobsters have entered the trap. The system tells fishermen, while they are still on dry land, whether there is enough product in their traps to justify going out to sea to harvest them. >click here to read<23:00

Commercial Dungeness Crab Season to Open in Northern California

The northern California Dungeness crab fishery in Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties will open 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 15, 2018. The opener will be preceded by a 64-hour gear setting period that will begin at 8:01 a.m. Jan. 12, 2018. California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Director Charlton H. Bonham had delayed the season a total of three times after crab quality test results in November and December indicated that crab were not ready for harvesting. Jan. 15 is the latest the Director can delay the season due to quality testing. >click here to read<21:23

NOAA’s civil action against Carlos Rafael involves scallop permits

NOAA seeks $900M, all permits from Codfather in civil action – On Wednesday, the federal agency responsible for managing the nation’s fisheries issued the charging documents against Rafael, his seafood company, Carlos Seafood Inc., and 28 other businesses entities related to the New Bedford fishing mogul — including two unnamed scallop captains from his fleet. >click to read the story< 20:28

NOAA’s civil action against Carlos Rafael involves scallop permits – new allegations involve misreporting in the scallop fishery >click to read the story<

Inside DFO’s Battle to Downplay a Deadly Farmed Salmon Disease

Part One of a series. Provincial lab played key role in denying existence of HSMI in BC. In 2002, Dr. Ian Keith, a senior DFO veterinarian, began noticing strange heart lesions when he examined Atlantic salmon from B.C.’s growing fish farm industry. Keith was likely the first to detect signs of Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation. The disease, first found three years earlier in Norwegian farmed salmon, went on to plague the industry there, killing up to 20 per cent of salmon in some outbreaks. >click to read the story< 19:21

Part II: DFO’s Plan to Gut Rules Protecting Wild Salmon from Fish Farm Disease – Part two of a series. After court losses, federal government has new strategy to protect industry. >click here to read< 1/11/18 20:29

 

FISH-NL commends Ottawa on new lifeboat stations, but search-and-rescue helicopters still work banker’s hours

The Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL) says Ottawa’s commitment to new lifeboat stations in this province is commendable, but it’s not the No. 1 search-and-rescue issue facing mariners “The Canadian military’s Gander-based, search-and-rescue Cormorant helicopters are the fastest form of rescue and they still operate on banker’s hours,” says Ryan Cleary, President of FISH-NL. “A lifeboat won’t cut it when the survival time in the North Atlantic — in the absence of a survival suit — is measured in minutes.” click to read the press release 18:28

NTSB: Lack of preparation, training a factor in death of 2 on Alaska crab boat

On December 6, 2016, the motor vessel Exito slipped below the surface of icy Dutch Harbor waters, never to be seen again. Aboard when it sank were two men, contractors for Trident Seafoods. Their bodies were never recovered. Now, over two years later, the National Transportation Safety Board has released a report detailing several factors that it says could have saved the two men. click here to read the story 16:53

Boothbay Harbor Shipyard sold to Andy Tyska and Bristol Marine

Andy Tyska, president of Rhode Island-based Bristol Marine, has announced the acquisition of Boothbay Harbor Shipyard. Located at the head of Boothbay Harbor, the shipyard joins Bristol Marine’s two other locations of working waterfront–including boat yards in Bristol, Rhode Island, and Somerset, Massachusetts. A vital part of Maine’s shipbuilding tradition, Boothbay Harbor Shipyard has accommodated a wide range of vessels since its founding in the later 1800s — including tall ships and super yachts, tugboats and Navy vessels, sailing yachts and work boats. click here to read the story 13:46

Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 41′ Norman Libby Lobster Boat, 750HP Iveco Diesel

Specifications, information and 6 photos click here To see all the boats in this series, Click here 12:20 

Tiny glass eel draws big money, political muscle and poachers

During the past few years, the GOP-controlled General Assembly has slashed the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries budget by about 40 percent, leaving departments understaffed and some employees bending under heavy workloads. At the same time, a review of more than 3,000 public documents shows that several elected and former state Department of Environmental Quality officials prompted what appears to be hundreds of hours of DMF time finding ways to justify obtaining a share of the federal glass eel quota to benefit just one company in Jones County — American Eel Farm, owned by Rick Allyn. click here to read the story 11:26

Lobsters must be comfortably numb before cooking: Swiss government

Switzerland has banned the common culinary practice of throwing fresh lobsters into boiling water as part of an overhaul of its animal protection rules. “Live crustaceans, including the lobster, may no longer be transported on ice or in ice water. Aquatic species must always be kept in their natural environment. Crustaceans must now be stunned before killing them,” say the rules adopted by the government on Wednesday that will take effect in March.  click here to read the story 10:22

Private Oceans: The enclosure and marketisation of the seas

Neoliberalism, the restructuring of global capitalism that has taken place since the 1970s, has made commercial fishing vastly more profitable for corporations and large boat owners. Fish and ordinary fishers have fared much worse. Our oceans face overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and a biodiversity crisis driven by warming water linked to climate change, while government policies exclude thousands of ordinary people from commercial fishing. Private Oceans: The enclosure and marketisation of the seas, examines the effects of one of the main causes of this exclusion, Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), pioneered in the 1980s in New Zealand fisheries, and further developed in Iceland through the 1990’s and now an intrinsic part of the Common Fisheries Policies (CFP) of the European Union. click here to read the story 08:58