Tag Archives: mackerel
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
Setting sail on a fishing voyage of discovery
Matty and Ally, who are cousins, alternate between who is lead skipper for each trip, and this time around Matty, 41, was in charge. “When possible, we prefer to shoot the trawl when it is daylight, as the mackerel tend to shoal closer together during the day, and it is also safer for the crew,” he said. As the flickering light of dawn gradually took hold over a grey-ruffled sea, the 10 other crew members scrambled down to the lower stern deck to prepare the trawl for shooting. It is a complicated task; shackles were attached here and there, ropes prepared, and the tail-end of the net was hauled up from the winch by a specially designed crane, before being hung over the stern. >click to read< 10:09
Prospect-area mackerel fishermen haul after DFO sets season quota
“Mackerel is a big part of our living around this coast and always has been,” Darrell Countway said, a fisherman and member of the Prospect Area Full-Time Fishermen’s Association. Countway is one of the dozens of fishermen who were ready to set up a roadblock if the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) further delayed their season. “It would have been three, four months’ worth of work for no pay,”,,, DFO eventually set the quota at a 50 per cent reduction from last season at a 4,000-tonne total allowable catch for the fisheries in Atlantic Canada and Quebec. Video, >click to read< 07:20
Prospect area mackerel fishermen demand answers after lucrative season halted by DFO
The fishermen were prepared to set up a roadblock if they didn’t hear back from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans about why the season was halted. While most commercial fisheries for Atlantic mackerel have not started for 2021, a number of fisheries in the Maritimes region are open year-round or opened on April 1.,, DFO issued a variation order to temporarily close the Maritimes region mackerel fishery. About 72 fishermen and their crew from the Prospect area who fish and set traps in St. Maragaret’s Bay are affected by the closure. They say there is mackerel in the waters but they aren’t allowed to pull in their nets because they haven’t been given their quota. video, >click to read< 10:29
The World’s Supply of Mackerel Is on the Move
The Northeast Atlantic mackerel is a small fish with grey or greenish-blue scales and tigerlike black stripes from mouth to tail. Lacking a swim bladder, the gas-filled organ that helps most fish move up and down in the water, the mackerel would sink and die if it ever stopped. So it is always on the move, looking for plankton, crustaceans, and other small fish. In recent years, the mackerel’s unceasing motion and radically increased abundance have taken it farther north, to Greenland or Svalbard, which lies between Norway and the North Pole, and northwest, to Icelandic waters. And when the fish turned up, the Icelanders took advantage. By tradition, their nation had no claim to this fish, but starting in the mid-2000s, when the lucrative fish arrived in great numbers, they struck. >click to read< 11:09
Skipper Michael Joyce says fish littering the shore indicates stocks higher than expected
A Lark Harbour fisherman says it’s frustrating to see thousands of mackerel wash up dead on local shores, while fishermen were not permitted to catch any of the fish last season.,,, Andrew Smith, a stock assessment biologist for Atlantic mackerel with DFO, says the input of harvesters is an important part of studying fish stocks, but he said the scientific data doesn’t support the idea that stocks are higher than estimated. >click to read< 10:29
September 28 – 1889: Cape fishermen heading for South Africa for mackerel
“Fishing widow” will now become a year-round occupation. A century ago the fishermen on Cape Cod were making plans to spend the winter fishing for mackerel off the Cape of Good Hope off the southern tip of Africa, a distance of almost 8,000 miles away from homeport. For the wives of the Cape’s fishermen that would mean nearly year-round widowhood as the trip a century ago took weeks under the best of conditions and mackerel were believed to abound in South African waters after December 1st, the same fish seen here six months later. >click to read< 14:08
‘Mackerel wars’ Scottish fishermen at risk as Iceland & Greenland plot to target UK stocks
Scottish fishermen face an uncertain future after greedy decision makers in Iceland and Greenland announced they would dramatically increase they amount of mackerel they intend to catch.,,, The clash has been dubbed “mackerel wars” by a senior British MEP, who is chairman of the European Parliament’s fisheries committee. Liberal Democrat Chris Davies said: “Partnership is essential if shared fish stocks are to be managed sustainably. Iceland’s actions are greedy and irresponsible. >click to read< 11:16
After six years of tracking mackerel in the North Atlantic, scientists have uncovered a few fishy secrets.
Do mackerel outcompete herring? And does the fact that mackerel are so widespread in the Nordics mean that their populations are booming? Researchers have spent six years trying to answer these and other questions, and the answers are now beginning to come clear. Their efforts are motivated by more than just academic curiosity. Researchers’ recommendations help shape international quotas that help protect fish stocks, which in the case of mackerel have had a rocky history. >click to read<13:14
United In Protest Fishery – “We’re going fishing for mackerel Wednesday evening,”
Inshore harvesters on Newfoundland’s northeast coast plan to hold a protest fishery for mackerel Wednesday evening over the decision by Fisheries and Oceans to shut down the Atlantic fishery, while leaving it open for harvesters from the Maritimes. “We’re going fishing for mackerel Wednesday evening,” says Brad Rideout, who fishes out of Robert’s Arm. “DFO can either shut down the entire Atlantic mackerel fishery or give quota to Newfoundland and Labrador harvesters. Fair is fair, and nothing about this is fair.” >click to read<
Scottish fishermen face cuts to mackerel quota
The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Ices), an influential group of scientists whose advice helps to shape fisheries policy in the EU and elsewhere, has called for north-east Atlantic mackeral catches to be slashed by nearly 70%. Mackeral was worth £162 million, or 29% of the total catch by value for the Scottish fleet last year. Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association chief executive Ian Gatt said yesterday the proposed cut was a “huge concern” and he would be meeting European Commission officials today to discuss it. >click to read<08:04
‘Just one more nail in the coffin,’ Fishermen react to Vineyard Wind announcement
Ed Anthen-Washburn, the Director of The New Bedford Port Authority, received a constant stream of calls Wednesday afternoon after the announcements of offshore winf contracts.,,,”I think its fair to say to say the general reaction in the fishing industry is shock,” Anthes-Washburn said.,, The Vineyard Wind award for the power purchase agreement with Massachusetts was the worst-case scenario for Rhode Island commercial fishing vessels, for all squid vessels and really for the worlds calamari supply,” said Meghan Lapp, a fisheries liason for Seafreeze Ltd, which owns vessels that harvest squid, mackerel, butterfish, and herring. Lapp said Rhode Island lands more squid than the rest of the East Coast combined. >click to read< 00:08
Mackerel fishery closed unexpectedly, leaving some P.E.I. fishermen without enough bait
Atlantic Canada’s commercial inshore mackerel fishery closed early for the first time in the fishery’s history, and some Island fishermen don’t have enough bait. The chair responsible for mackerel with the P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association, Chuck White, was shocked when he got the news. “Wow, it’s never been closed before,” said White. He said it’s leaving some fishermen in a tight spot. At least half the fishermen he has spoken with in Eastern P.E.I. don’t have enough bait for next year’s lobster season. “There’s some guys saying they still need some bait, and if the fishery’s closed, not to be reopened, then they’re going to be looking at buying it come spring.” White said it’s much cheaper for fishermen to fish the bait themselves and freeze it over the winter, something many of them do in November. More than 1,200 P.E.I. fishermen catch mackerel commercially. Read the story here 09:24
Just Now!! The first loads of Mackerel are being unloaded in New Bedford!
The first loads of Mackerel are being unloaded in New Bedford by the Midwater pair Enterprise and Retriever. The fish are rumored to be high quality and should provide a nice bit of money for crews whose livelyhood has been beleaguered by increasingly difficult regulation and closures. With the recent bit of bad weather subsiding expect most midwater vessels to depart for sea in search of some holiday cheer after a very poor herring year. 07:43
Final Rule Available for Amendment 14 to Squid, Mackerel, Butterfish Fishery Management Plan
Today at the recommendation of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, NOAA Fisheries is approving a number of revisions to the Atlantic mackerel, squid, and butterfish fishery management plan to improve catch monitoring and reduce river herring and shad bycatch through Amendment 14. Click here to read the final rule. 17:34
Announcement of the notice of availability for Amendment 14 to the Atlantic Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan
John K. Bullard, Regional Administrator, NMFS, Northeast Regional Office Click here to see the Notice – Comments must be received by October 11, 2013 – You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2013-0128, by any of the following methods: Info here
Something to crab about – Victoria Co-operative Fisheries Ltd.,
Chronical Herald- Not that anyone else in Neils Harbour is putting on airs either, but Osborne Burke doesn’t at first have the look of a man in charge of an empire. He gets around in a pickup that does not gleam; his office is in a former elementary school, a building shared with a Pharmasave. But Burke, the manager of Victoria Co-operative Fisheries Ltd., runs an operation that last year had sales of more than $18 million. No wonder everyone around here knows him. continued
More Oceana! Lower fishing limits rejected by SF judge
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A federal judge has rebuffed an environmental group’s request to require the government to lower its catch limits on sardines, mackerel and other fish off the California coast. continued
Belfast Maine fish company to double production, add 40-50 workers
BELFAST, Maine — At Ducktrap River of Maine, the smokers — and employees — are working six days a week to meet the ever-increasing demand for products such as smoked Atlantic salmon, trout and mackerel, but still can’t keep up. continued
