Daily Archives: August 8, 2018

Mount Pleasant builder has background to save Shem Creek shrimp dock

Brett Elrod was 11 when he took his first job at the Shem Creek shrimp docks, shoveling ice onto a conveyor belt to move to the boats. That meant keeping up with the moving belt.,, Elrod’s situation now isn’t too far removed. The man who holds the fate of the creek’s Wando shrimp dock doesn’t want it all in his hands. He wants “everybody to pitch in together,” he said, to remake the place.,, “If everybody puts in their two cents and their ideas, I think they could have the whole thing for shrimping,” he said. >click to read<20:16

Passengers on whale-watching boat spot snake floating in water off Cape Cod

Passengers and crew on a whale-watching boat off Cape Cod spotted something very unusual in the water last week. The Cape Cod Times reports the Hyannis Whale Watcher was about a mile north of Race Point Beach when someone suddenly yelled “snake.” Marine biologist Joanne Jarzobski told the newspaper that an eastern hognose snake was floating alongside the boat. Herpetologist Scott Buchanan told the paper that it was “puzzling” to see the serpent so far out in the ocean but noted snakes are good swimmers and that he believes it was just trying to cool off.>link<17:41

Marine Harvest pursuing radical new salmon farm designs

Marine Harvest is proposing to build radical new salmon farms that could answer nagging concerns about sea lice infestations, virus transfer and escapes from conventional Atlantic salmon farms. Ocean-based closed containment and semi-closed farms would avoid the massive energy requirements of land-based systems, with a goal of eliminating contact between farmed and wild salmon. The Marine Donut is a closed, escape-proof farm that protects farmed fish from sea lice and pathogens. The futuristic-looking Egg is a semi-closed tank that extends 40 metres below the surface of the water. >click to read<16:16

Jaws of life (Release the Kracken!)

“Conserving our planet one fish at a time.” You do a double-take when you see the sign. Because Randy Hupp’s a commercial fisherman. But he is serious about this. What he’s started, from his home in La Mesa, is not just a program to throw back fish from fishing boats — fish that are too young to be eaten, or too old, or too endangered — but to make sure they survive the throw-back. Because from the depths he fishes at, the fish get the bends, the excruciating decompression sickness fish and divers alike suffer if they come up from depth too quickly.,,  “So I got this idea to somehow grab each fish by the mouth, take him off the hook, clamp him to a weighted line, and send him back down to 150, maybe 300 feet.” >click to read<14:42

Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 43′ Fiberglass Scalloper with Ma. CAP, CAT 3406, 12 KW Northern Lights

Specifications, information and 6 photos >click here< To see all the boats in this series, >Click here<12:50

FISH-NL accuses NL NDP leader of applying double standards in labour relations

The Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL) accuses provincial NDP leader Gerry Rogers of applying double standards in supporting locked out workers in Gander while turning her back on the province’s inshore fish harvesters. “While Gerry Rogers rallied today with workers at Gander’s D-J Composites, who’ve been locked out for 597 days, she’s turned her back on upwards of 3,000 inshore harvesters who’ve been waiting 583 days for the Labour Relations Board to grant them a vote to choose their union,” says Ryan Cleary, President of FISH-NL. >click to read<11:15

Fears that thousands of escaped salmon could ‘pollute’ wild stocks on Newfoundland’s south coast

The escape of thousands of farmed salmon on the south coast of Newfoundland is a significant concern, as is the lack of public notification about the incident, the Atlantic Salmon Federation says. Cooke Aquaculture confirmed Monday that over the course of four days last week between 2,000 and 3,000 salmon escaped from the company’s fish farm in Hermitage Bay.,, The primary concern is that the escaped salmon will mate with wild salmon, which Sutton said will “pollute the genetics” and harm a salmon population already assessed as threatened. Interbreeding has already happened between wild and farmed salmon in the province. >click to read<10:24

Raimondo looks to further offshore wind, to fishermen’s dismay

Governor Gina Raimondo is promising a “greener” Rhode Island with at least 5,000 new jobs by expanding offshore wind initiatives if she’s reelected. “High-end, high wage jobs – Rhode Island ought to be the Silicon Valley of offshore wind,” said Raimondo. Raimondo eventually wants factories in Rhode Island to manufacture the equipment instead of outsourcing it. She plans to further invest in the state’s ports so they can handle the work on a larger scale. For Spencer Bode, a local commercial fisherman, this is a race he wants no part of. Bode hasn’t been impacted by the five turbines off Block Island, but the dozens more set to be built halfway between the island and Martha’s Vineyard are another story. >click to read<09:25