Daily Archives: February 2, 2023

Fears Brexit will cause 1,200 job losses in Irish mackerel sector

Ireland’s mackerel sector will lose more than 1,200 jobs by 2030 because of Brexit, according to fishing industry representatives. The economic cost to the industry in lost revenue and impact on the local economy is also estimated to be more than €800m. This is according to an analysis of the impact of Brexit on the sector which predominantly centres around mackerel, blue whiting, and herring catches. In three years, from 2021 to the end of 2023, pelagic fishers will, for example, have lost a total of 37,508 tonnes of their mackerel quota, the amount the EU says they can catch. >click to read< 20:20

SEA-NL calls on Ottawa to lift mackerel moratorium; at least match U.S. quota for 2023

Seaward Enterprises Association of Newfoundland and Labrador is calling on Fisheries and Oceans to lift the moratorium on Atlantic mackerel in 2023 and set a quota at least equal to the total allowable catch set this week by the United States. “It’s a senseless sacrifice for Canadian mackerel fishermen to remain under a moratorium when their U.S. cousins have never stopped fishing,” says Ryan Cleary, SEA-NL’s Executive Director. The CBC reports that earlier this week the United States set the 2023 TAC for Atlantic mackerel at 3,639 tonnes,  a 27% decrease from that country’s 2022 quota of 4,963 tonnes. Meanwhile, Canada slapped a moratorium on the same Atlantic mackerel stock last year, and Ottawa has yet to announced whether there will be a commercial fishery this year. >click to read the rest< 15:33

Untold Stories of a Remote Village

I have just finished my 11th season of commercial fishing in Bristol Bay. Specifically, in a little village within this bay called South Naknek. For context, South Naknek has a total population of 67 people who live there year round, averaging about one person per square mile, according to the 2020 Alaska Peninsula Corporation census. There is no grocery store in this town, small amounts of electricity, and very few bathrooms that have indoor plumbing. Most of the cabins that are scattered on the bluff or across the tundra have no insulation and are heated by a wood stove. The nearest medical clinic is a long drive (or short flight in a bush plane) across the frozen river. >click to read< 14:52

New rules to tackle unlicensed commercial fishing in Guernsey

Regulations have been changed to protect commercial fishermen from unlicensed competition. It brings Guernsey in line with the UK. The States said it was important for the “ongoing viability and sustainability of the local industry”. Unlicensed fishermen will now be prevented from circumventing fishing rules following changes to regulations. Deputy Neil Inder, of the Committee for Economic Development, said it would stop “unfair competition”. The States says licensed commercial fishermen adhere to controls such as those relating to undersized fish and other species. >click to read< 12:21

100 MPH Process: Fisherman Dewey Hemilright of Wanchese, NC on Wind Energy

“Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so entrenched in this stuff,” commercial longline fisherman Dewey Hemilright said. “It’s hard to turn my mind off.” Hemilright, who fishes out of the northern Outer Banks village of Wanchese, serves on the federal Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council as well as numerous advisory committees. Lately he has turned his attention to offshore wind energy and its potential impacts on fisheries, including commercial, recreational, and for-hire charter businesses. “I don’t think people understand the magnitude of these wind energy areas from Maine to South Carolina, a massive amount of acreage if you add it all up, and what a disruption to the seafood industry this could be,” he said. “And the leases are going for such huge amounts of money I worry that the commercial fishing industry will amount to a grain of sand on Jockey’s Ridge.” Hemilright calls the recent acceleration in ocean bottom leasing a “100 mile-per-hour process.” >click to read< 10:29

Arrival of the new F/V Copious the ‘ultimate expression of confidence’

Lerwick’s jarl squad had just revealed its beautiful galley to the public for the first time on Tuesday morning when another, even more impressive, new build sailed into Lerwick Harbour for the first time. It took Mark Anderson and his crew 17 days to complete the journey from the Croatian Tehnomont shipyard to Lerwick’s Mair’s Quay. At 24.9 metres in length and fitted with a 588kw engine, both Copious and her sister vessel Prolific have been designed to be more eco-friendly and as such more economical. Designed by Macduff Ship Design, the two new vessels have a beam of nine metres and provide accommodation for up to 12 crew members. Anderson said they would have a crew of eight when fishing. >click to read< 09:45

NOAA pleads for urgency in right whale conservation, lobster gear changes

A previously unscheduled appearance before the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council gave the opportunity for NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Janet Coit to advocate for the necessity of adapting to new lobster and crab trapping gear to save both North Atlantic right whales and the lobster industry. A deal cut by Maine legislators in a recent congressional spending bill delayed new right whale protections for six years, so the agency is looking to have its new rules set up and ready to go when that period expires. In the meantime, there’s options open to expand on-demand fishing gear so there are fewer large ropes suspended in the water. The bill allocated $26 million to ASMFC for ropeless, on-demand gear, along with monitoring and cost recovery. >click to read< 08:09