Daily Archives: August 11, 2019

Illustration shows room for fishing boats between turbines — but is it enough?

Vineyard Wind has released an illustration designed to portray its wind turbines as far enough apart for fishing boats, but a leading New Bedford fisherman says the distance isn’t safe. The image compares the average distance between the Vineyard Wind 1 project’s 84 turbines, which is 0.88 nautical miles, to the slightly smaller distance between two Boston landmarks, Fenway Park and Trinity Church in Copley Square, which is 0.78 nautical miles. >click to read< 19:20

The internet has discovered the “salmon cannon,” and it has become a sensation

“What is a salmon cannon?” I hear you ask. Gather round, children, and I will tell you.,,, A video on Twitter emerged today that shows officials loading large, living fish into an enormous tube to help them bypass a dam that would take days to traverse otherwise. The pipeline allows fish to get from one side of the dam to the other in just a matter of seconds.,,,The dam in question is the Cle Elum Dam, in Washington state. The cannon has allowed Sockeye salmon to go across the dam for the first time in 100 years, Video >click to read< 17:29

Scientists warn of too many pink salmon in North Pacific

Biological oceanographer Sonia Batten experienced her lightbulb moment on the perils of too many salmon three years ago as she prepared a talk on the most important North Pacific seafood you’ll never see on a plate, zooplankton. Zooplanktons nourish everything from juvenile salmon to seabirds to giant whales. But as Batten examined 15 years of data collected by instruments on container ships near the Aleutian Islands, she noticed a trend: zooplankton was abundant in even-number years and less abundant in odd-number years. Something was stripping a basic building block in the food web every other year. And just one predator fit that profile. >click to read< 15:47

What happened to Pensacola’s commercial fishing industry?

This industry began when it became possible to put in use a series of key elements which together made such a traffic practical and profitable. The “elements” began, of course, with the fish themselves, some of which had been a part of the economic backbone of the community from the beginning. The open sea was home to the fish, and while some of the works had to be performed some distance from land, netting and icing all were practical for the proper vessels. >click to read< 13:08

Government says there is “a lot of uncertainty” over no-deal Brexit fishing patrols, email mistake reveals

The government has said there is “a lot of uncertainty” about the UK’s ability to patrol fishing waters in a no-deal Brexit, a memo has revealed. The document was emailed by mistake to the BBC. The memo said there are only 12 ships tasked to “monitor a space three times the size of the surface area of the UK”. It was mistakenly sent to the BBC from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs while discussing media stories.
>click to read< 11:13

Childhood ended early in Cohasset

In the 19th century, it was not unusual for Cohasset children to work in the fishing industry.,,, We know of one boy, Francis Pratt, who at age 8 went to sea as a ship’s cook. His father, Dr. Ezekiel Pratt, Cohasset’s only doctor at the time, was very poor and struggled to feed his eight children. He told them, “I can’t have you gnawing at my ribs any longer,” and in 1826 sent young Francis off to sea on a Cohasset fishing schooner. >click to read(short)< 09:19

Maine lobsterman John McInnes seems to have a knack for catching colorful crustaceans

Last month, he hauled in a rare cotton-candy-colored lobster in Casco Bay, near Portland. That would be remarkable story on its own, but McInnes said this is the second time he’s caught this particular lobster. “I caught it last October, and it was too small to keep, and then I caught it again,” McInnes said. “I caught it last October, and it was too small to keep, and then I caught it again,” McInnes said. “It was probably a mile and a half away from where I let it go. It didn’t go far.” >click to read< 08:42