Daily Archives: June 26, 2021

Mallaig fisherman killed in tragic fall overboard, remembered as a ‘gem’ of community

Lachlan Robertson, 61, died on Thursday after he and a fellow crew member fell into the sea in the Sound of Rum. Investigations are currently under way onboard his vessel, the Reul a’Chuain. In a social media post, his daughters told mourners they could lay flowers at Mallaig Harbour in his memory. Coastguards received a Mayday call from a fishing vessel at about 7pm on Thursday reporting that two out of three crewman onboard had entered the water. The pair were rescued from the water and brought back on board by the third member of the crew, before being attended to by the helicopter’s winch paramedic. >click to read< 10:24

Mark Lawton Doumit, a commercial fisherman, politician, public servant, has passed away in Tenino, Wash.

Mark was born in Longview, Wash., on November 26, 1961, to Eli and Patricia Doumit and was the 10th of 11th children. He grew up in his family’s hometown of Cathlamet, Wash. While still in high school, Mark began a lifelong passion for commercial fishing. He began his career in the industry in high school, working on the Columbia River as a fish buyer. In college he began a nearly 40-year career in Alaska working in canneries and crewing on drift gillnet boats in Prince William Sound and Bristol Bay. Mark bought his own commercial salmon fishing operation in Cook Inlet, Alaska in 1986 and spent the remainder of his fishing career between Cook Inlet in the summer and lower Columbia River in the spring and fall. One of his great joys in life was the opportunity to fish alongside his sons and so many of his family and friends. >click to read< 09:24

Mi’kmaw harvester wants lobsters seized by DFO accounted for

A Mi’kmaw lobster harvester wants to know what happened to his lobster after finally getting his fishing gear back from DFO,,, The gear had been sitting in a federal fisheries compound since then, and Matt Cope of Millbrook First Nation spent months trying to get it back. When Cope unloaded his gear this week, he was shocked to find damaged traps with ropes cut. “Traps aren’t cheap, ropes not cheap,” he said. “When they’re taking it for months at a time, and just all of a sudden giving it back when it’s all damaged, there’s no way we can fish like that.” >click to read< 08:50

Pacific salmon recovery report gives 32 recommendations to reverse declines

Wild salmon stocks are being affected by a range of impacts throughout their life cycle, which span from freshwater streams and rivers, to coastal ‘foreshore’ areas and deepwater marine environments, per the report. These threats include habitat degradation, impacts of flood control measures, predation, fishing activity, and threats of disease from fish farms. Based on these findings, the committee provided 32 recommendations to reverse salmon declines, which one witness, Richard Beamish, Scientist Emeritus at DFO’s Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, calls the “international Pacific salmon emergency.” >click to read< 07:58