Daily Archives: February 18, 2018

Deepwater Wind Hires New Fisheries Liaison, Continues Search for Long Island Fishery Representative

Deepwater Wind’s new Fisheries LIaison, retired commercial fisherman Rodney Avila of New Bedford, Mass., will be on the East End all week meeting with potential independent fisheries representative candidates for the South Fork Wind Farm off of Montauk, while the East Hampton Town Trustees have issued a detailed set of requests for Community Benefit Projects they’d like to see Deepwater Wind fund on behalf of fisheries here. Deepwater Wind, the developers of the first U.S. offshore wind farm off Block Island, is planning to build,,, >click to read< 21:27

SMU students hoping to save whales with ropeless fishing gear

A trio of graduate students at Saint Mary’s University is building a fishing gear prototype that could help lobster and crab fishermen save money by reducing lost traps and save whales and other marine life from becoming entangled in ropes. Ross Arsenault and Aaron Stevenson are in the two-year masters of technology entrepreneurship and innovation program, while Maxwell Poole is taking a masters of applied health services research.,,, Then, the students heard about the crisis facing the endangered North Atlantic right whale, which was dying in record numbers in Canadian waters last year. >click to read< 18:28

The Shutdown

The National Marine Fisheries Service shut down Sector IX because the majority of its boats and quota belong to Carlos Rafael. This came without warning last November 22 and the order also waived the customary 30-day delay in effectiveness. Far from resolving anything this has exacerbated a bad situation by throwing a widening circle of business owners under the bus as the weeks drag by. >click to read< 15:38

Crustacean Placation Nation

The Swiss are worried about lobsters. They are concerned that lobsters are sentient and can feel pain. So, if you want to eat a lobster in Switzerland, you can’t drop it, live, into a pot of boiling water, which is the preferred cooking method in Maine and other lobster-loving states. Instead, according to this article in USA Today, you need to either electrocute the lobster, or lull it into an insensate state by dipping it in salt water — and then stabbing it in the brain. I’m not sure, frankly, why those methods are viewed as more humane than,,, >click to read<12:54

Opinion: Time for NOAA and Sector IX to strike a deal

Eighty New Bedford groundfishermen. They’ve had no work now for almost three months. In the end, those are the guys and it is their families who are paying the biggest price for Carlos Rafael’s longtime conspiracy to falsify fishing records and smuggle the cash overseas. But since Rafael was the big guy on the New Bedford waterfront, the guy who owns the majority of the boats in Sector IX, the fishermen have been out of work since Nov 20 when regional NOAA administrator John Bullard ordered the sector to stop fishing. >click to read< 10:57

Letter: Save N.C. commercial fishermen

What is the REAL reason behind trying to limit the number of commercial fishing licenses? Did you know that a Commercial Fishing License, by itself, only allows the owner to catch and sell a recreational limit of finfish in N.C. waters? These seasonal limits are established by the Department of Marine Fisheries. A commercial fisherman cannot exceed the recreational limit without purchasing extra gear, permits and applying for endorsements from the state of North Carolina.,, We are being led to believe that those individuals who do not use their Commercial Fishing Licenses regularly … might be up to no good. >click to read< 09:36

On This Day: February 18 – 1952: Coast Guard rescues 32 sailors from stricken tanker Pendleton

On this day in 1952, one of the most daring rescues in the history of the Coast Guard took place six miles off Chatham. The tanker Pendleton, en route to Boston from Baton Rouge with a cargo of oil, split in two during the winter’s worst storm. Eight crew members were trapped on the ship’s bow; another 33 sailors were stranded on the Pendleton’s stern. And in 1875: Twenty-four Cape Cod fisherman lost as two schooners fail to return from Grand Banks >click to read< 08:52