Daily Archives: September 6, 2018

Alaska wary of federal push for marine aquaculture. Everyone should be.

During a recent stop in Juneau, NOAA Fisheries chief Chris Oliver said that wild seafood harvests alone can’t keep up with rising global demand. But there’s another way. “Aquaculture is going to be where the major increases in seafood production occur whether it happens in foreign countries or in United States waters,” Oliver told a room of fishermen, seafood marketing executives and marine scientists.,,, There’s a bill pending in the U.S. Senate that could decide how federal aquaculture is regulated. It’s being backed by an industry group called Stronger America Through Seafood. >click to read<20:58

Sam Parisi: Some acknowledgments and concerns

As a third generation fisherman, I am very concerned as to where our oldest industry, the fishing industry is headed. My concern is for the younger generation that is not interested in making fishing their occupation, and a next generation of young people from fishing families where fathers are telling them to do something else because our government has imposed so many restrictions that have robbed them of opportunity, while reducing local fishing fleets to a bare minimum. If we don’t do something we will not have any of our kids going fishing, so what then? Who will take the helm? >click to read< 20:19

Captain of Spanish Longliner Charged with Shark Finning

The captain of a Spanish-flagged fishing vessel has been charged with shark finning after Irish Naval Service personnel boarded his vessel and found more than one tonne of fins on board.  After a tip-off from Ireland’s Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA), the patrol vessel William Butler Yeats intercepted and boarded the longliner Virxen de Blanca off the southwestern tip of Ireland. The Yeats escorted the de Blanca to port at Castletownbere, Cork, where she was transferred to the custody of the SFPA and the Garda Siochana. >click to read<17:26

FISH-NL calls on DFO to continue direct consultations with inshore harvesters

The Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL) is calling on the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to once again hold direct consultations with inshore harvesters. “DFO is to be commended for holding outreach meetings last winter for the first time in a generation,” says Ryan Cleary, President of FISH-NL, “but the precedent has been set, and the department must hold them every year to keep its finger on the pulse of inshore harvesters.” DFO held a series of 20 outreach meetings around the province in the fall/early winter of 2017/2018 to hear directly from harvesters. The consultations were called following years of complaints that the FFAW-Unifor is no longer the voice of harvesters, which, as it turned out, was the most common theme at the outreach meetings. >click to read<14:26

2 Accused Of Stealing, Killing Maine Dog, Possibly As Revenge – The People are Pissed!

Two men in Maine who are accused of kidnapping and killing a 6-year-old pug mix named Franky whose owner thinks his dog’s death may have been retribution after the pug got into a fight with a dog owned by one of the men. Franky disappeared from the tiny seaside town of Winter Harbor in late August and his owner, Phillip Torrey, alerted police that he thought his dog had been stolen by two friends who had worked the stern crew on his lobster fishing boat, according to news reports. The Hancock County Sheriff’s Department issued arrest warrants for the two men — Nathan A. Burke, 37, of Hancock, and Justin T. Chipman, 22, of Winter Harbor — on Sept. 1. >click to read<12:11

Close call for crewmember of the F/V Glutton

The emergency radio call came at about 7:30 a.m. Saturday, when Capt. Beau Gribbin of the F/V Glutton reported that one of his crew had fallen overboard and needed immediate medical attention. William Bowen, 24, had gotten caught in lobster gear and pulled 60 to 70 feet underwater for at least three to four minutes, Gribbin confirmed on Tuesday. “We were almost to the end of setting traps with only three left and he got tangled up and ripped overboard,” he said. “It does happen. Usually the guy gets knocked overboard and surfaces pretty quickly, but in this case Will was stuck.”  >click to read<

Fisherman who drowned after being thrown overboard had his lifejacket deflate while he was in water

Deflation of a crew member’s lifejacket was a “major impediment” to his survival when he was thrown overboard off the south-west coast, the Marine Casualty Investigation Board (MCIB) has found. Additionally, a second crew member put himself at risk when he jumped into the water to try save the first man without any lifeline, the MCBI said. The probe looked into the fatal incident that happened when the FV Cu Na Mara fishing trawler was out to sea around nautical miles west of Slea Head on 30 June 2016. In the process of transferring over an attachment of nets from the net drum to its towing winch, one of the crew members got into difficulty, went over the stern and into the water. >click to read<10:16

After year in DC, NMFS Chris Oliver reflects on fisheries progress

Chris Oliver has had a busy year since he made the leap from Anchorage to Washington, D.C. to take the lead job at the National Marine Fisheries Service. As soon as he arrived, there was an annual priorities document to review,,, The document is both internally-facing and public to help guide NMFS’ decisions. There were three goals listed in that document, the first of which was to ensure the sustainability of fisheries and fishing communities. He changed it to read “maximize fishing opportunities while ensuring the sustainability of fisheries and fishing communities.” “There are a number of fisheries around the country where we’re not fully utilizing the available harvest whether it’s choke species or bycatch constraints or outdated regulations,” >click to read<09:00

A lobster wholesaler is suing one of its part owners, alleging he embezzled nearly $1.5 million from the business.

Sea Salt, which operates as a wholesaler and a restaurant on Route 1 in Saco, alleges that the part owner, Matthew Bellerose of Scarborough, set up a sham customer with another man and then sent the phony client thousands of dollars worth of lobsters without billing the customer. The lobsters were then resold, the lawsuit says. The suit says Bellerose and Vincent J. Mastropasqua of Portland, who also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, set up a company called “East End Transport” and established a fictitious customer of Sea Salt named “Mastro’s.” Both businesses listed their addresses as a UPS store in Scarborough. Mastropasqua is a part-time UPS employee. >click to read< “08:12