Daily Archives: April 6, 2018

‘This Is It For Us’ – Harvesters Gather At Confederation Building

“A lot of people are going to be hurting” that’s the assessment of at least one crab harvester as those involved in the fishery gathered at Confederation Building today to protest the price set for snow crab this year. The event was organized by FISH-NL.  The price set by the Fish Price Setting Panel is $4.55 cents a pound. That’s below the recommendation made by the FFAW. The price set for harvesters in the Maritimes is more than $5.00 a pound. Harvesters are concerned that with declining stocks they won’t be able to make a go of it. Watch video. >click to read<23:08

Newfoundland fish harvesters fed up with ‘bad news’ – >click to read<

New fishery rules could protect deep sea corals in California

The Pacific Fishery Management Council will decide Monday what happens to the underwater areas as part of an update to essential fish habitat for West Coast groundfish. “The Pacific Fishery Management Council will be making a decision on changing the areas that are opened or closed to West Coast groundfish bottom trawling,” said Kerry Griffin, a staff officer to the council, which regulates fisheries in federal waters from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, from three miles to 200 miles off shore. The proposal, scheduled for a vote Monday, >click to read<20:31

Zinke acknowledges opposition to oil, Feds seek offshore wind off NY/ NJ, 2 areas off Mass available

The federal agency in charge of leasing land for alternative energy in the ocean is looking for companies interested in building wind turbines in shallow waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast. >click to read< The Department of the Interior has announced that two additional areas located off Massachusetts are now available for commercial wind energy development. >click to read< On the same day his agency announced two additional areas located off Massachusetts are now available for commercial wind energy development, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke  acknowledged there is “a lot of opposition” to President Donald Trump’s plan to open  most of the nation’s coastline to oil and gas drilling. >click to read<20:03

Podcast: “F/V Destination, Do You Copy?”

It was the kind of disaster that wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. On February 11, 2017, the fishing vessel Destination disappeared in the Bering Sea on its way to the crab grounds. The boat went missing with an experienced crew, in unremarkable weather conditions, yet there was no mayday and rescue crews could find no life raft or survivors. For the past year, reporter Stephanie May Joyce has been following the investigation into what went wrong, and how this mysterious tragedy has changed Alaskan fishing. >click to listen<18:01

BP rig on Route to Offshore drill Nova Scotia: Are we the next Gulf Coast Disaster?

Nova Scotians are expressing alarm at news that BP commissioned rig West Aquarius is now en route to drill offshore, despite not having final approval from the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board (CNSOPB). “This is the height of regulatory capture,” says John Davis, Director of Clean Ocean Action Committee. “It is costing BP $260,000 a day to move this rig, why would they do that unless they are sure the Board is ready to give the green light.” “Our economic livelihood is completely wrapped up in fishing. Any danger to that is not worth the risk,” says David Levy, Deputy Warden of the Municipality of the District of Shelburne. >click to read<17:022

North Carolina Fisheries Association Weekly Update for April 6, 2018

>Click here to read the Weekly Update<, to read all the updates >Click here<, for older updates listed as NCFA >click here<13:37

Puget Sound salmon do drugs, which may hurt their survival

Anti-depressants. Diabetes drugs. High-blood-pressure medication. Puget Sound chinook are doing our drugs, and it may be hurting them, new research shows. The metabolic disturbance evident in the fish from human drugs was severe enough that it may result not only in failure to thrive but early mortality and an inability to compete for food and habitat. The research built on earlier work, published in 2016, that showed juvenile Puget Sound chinook and Pacific staghorn sculpin are packing drugs including Prozac, Advil, Benadryl, and Lipitor among dozens of other drugs present in tainted wastewater discharge. >click to read<12:50

The Sierra Club’s Grassroots Deception

An organization that won’t describe itself accurately cannot be trusted.  On its Internet homepage, America’s Sierra Club calls itself “the nation’s most influential grassroots environmental organization.” Repeating this claim, the page further urges visitors to become members of its “grassroots movement” (italics added – see screenshot here).,, Grassroots involves ordinary people knocking on doors in their own neighbourhoods and organizing events in their own communities. Founded in 1892, the Sierra Club may have been grassroots once, but those days are long gone. In 2016, its revenues were $77 million. In 2015, they were $88 million. >click to read<11:05

A 28-year-old fisherman from outside Ho Chi Minh City saved lives as F/V Princess Hawaii sank

Khanh Huynh has been a commercial fisherman since he was 12 years old. For the past six years, he’s been living on a fishing boat in Hawaii, catching premium ahi tuna for some of the world’s most discerning consumers. The 28-year-old fisherman from outside Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, recently saved the lives of two Americans and helped rescue five others after the fishing vessel he was working on sank hundreds of miles off Hawaii’s Big Island. But Huynh isn’t the captain. A federal observer who was one of eight people on the boat said the Vietnamese worker was in charge of the vessel from the time it left port to when it sank. >click to read<09:56

Ex-Fishing Boat Captain Guilty of Dumping Oily Waste Into Pacific

A former fishing boat captain is facing up to six years in prison for deliberately dumping oily slops into the Pacific Ocean. A jury in Seattle convicted Randall Fox on Thursday of violating the federal Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships. He also faces a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced.,, A Native Sun crewmember videotaped Fox dumping waste and turned the tape over to prosecutors.,, The Justice Department says Fox’s father, who had also been a captain of the Native Sun, was also convicted of a pollution-related crime last year. >click to read<09:01