Tag Archives: New England Fishing Industry
Popular food brand files Chapter 7 bankruptcy, heads to liquidation
With private companies, the end can be more sudden. That’s especially true when the company isn’t consumer-facing like a wholesaler or a manufacturer. Blue Harvest Fisheries may not be a name everyone knows, but it was a massive operation that was intended at its 2015 creation to dominate the New England fishing industry. That was a bold goal that it never achieved. And now, after suspending its fishing operations in September, the company has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and appears headed toward liquidation. The company, which sold fish to a number of grocery chains around the country, had a bold mission statement. Blue Harvest vendors, workers face bad news. Under a Chapter 7 filing, a company’s assets will be liquidated and used to pay off creditors. “No property appears to be available to pay creditors,” >>click to read/comment<< 15:48
Harpswell fishing advocate battles winds of change
Harpswell resident Jerry Leeman III sits in an office chair at a dining room table with his father, Jerry Leeman Jr., on a nearby couch watching TV. In front of Leeman III is a laptop and a stack of studies and reports on a range of issues that could threaten the New England fishing industry. Leeman, like his father, used to be a commercial fisherman. Now he spends his days reading reports and constructing arguments against what he sees as challenges to the industry, while advocating for his fellow New England fishermen and their interests. Having recently harpooned the whale conservationists in court, the New England fishing industry’s current biggest threat, in Leeman’s view, is the advent of floating offshore wind power and its planned deployment along the New England coast. >>click to read<< 12:17
DOJ Digs Into “Competition Concerns” in New England Fishing Industry
The U.S. Department of Justice has begun looking at possible antitrust issues in the New England fishing industry, amid growing concern about consolidation and market dominance by private equity investors. One such firm is Blue Harvest Fisheries, which operates out of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and is the largest holder of permits to catch groundfish such as pollock, haddock and ocean perch. The investigation traced the company’s ownership to a billionaire Dutch family via a private equity firm. Over the past seven years, records show, the company has purchased the rights to catch 12% of groundfish in the region, approaching the antitrust cap of 15.5%. It further boosts its market share by leasing fishing rights from other permit owners. >click to read< 07:50
North Atlantic Right Whale – New restrictions placed on New England fishing industry to protect whales
Fishermen across New England are facing new restrictions after a panel of experts convened by the federal government agreed on Friday to a plan to step up protection of the endangered North Atlantic right whale. The group of federal and state officials, scientists, fishermen and environmental advocates created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration capped a four-day meeting in Providence by reaching consensus on a plan that aims to reduce entanglements in fishing gear, which is the leading cause of injuries to the whale and deaths. >click to read<18:20
New England Stakeholders Agree On Recommendations For Reducing Risk Of Right Whale Entanglements – >click to read<11:16
There are more fish in the sea – A high-tech battle for the future of the New England fishing industry
The high-tech battle for the future of the Massachusetts fishing industry is being waged aboard a western-rigged stern trawler named the Miss Emily. Onboard the commercial groundfish vessel, in addition to the satellite positioning system and other sophisticated tools that have become standard in the industry, are at least five computer monitors and a $14,000 fish-measuring board that has halved the time it takes to gauge the catch. State officials say it’s money well spent. Federal catch limits — caps on how many fish each boat can catch — have devastated the state’s most iconic commercial sector, fishermen say. In response to an outcry from the struggling local groundfishing industry, environmental officials are now using the Miss Emily to try to come up with a new — and, they say, more accurate — estimate of codfish in the Gulf of Maine. Under a survey launched last April, local fishermen hope new technology and an aggressive timetable will yield what they have concluded based on their own anecdotal evidence: There are more fish in the sea. Read the story here 09:59
Shaheen Puts Focus of Senate Hearing on New Hampshire’s Struggling Fishing Industry with EDF!
Washington, DC—Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the lead Democrat on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, has invited two prominent industry leaders in the New England fishing industry to testify at a committee hearing scheduled for Thursday. Through her leadership on the committee, Senator Shaheen was able to make New Hampshire’s struggling fishing industry a major focus of Thursday’s hearing. James Hayward of Portsmouth and Dr. Joshua Wiersma will testify at the hearing entitled “The Impacts of Federal Fisheries Management on Small Businesses” and can be watched online here beginning at 10:00AM. Read the rest here To Watch click here The Impacts of Federal Fisheries Management on Small Businesses 07:43
Over-regulation threatens New England fishing industry
New Hampshire fishermen locked horns with a federal agency this year over fishing regulations and mandatory costs they said would put them out of business for good. The fight ultimately led to a federal lawsuit filed in December against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the nation’s fisheries. The suit challenged the legality of NOAA’s intent to make fishermen pay for observers to monitor their compliance with federal regulations. Fishermen said it was unfair they would be forced to pay for their own policing. Read the article here 11:25
Mixed messages for the New England fishing industry
Last week brought a mix of news for the region’s fishermen, some of it straight-out bad, some offering a glimmer of hope for the future of one of New England’s oldest industries. We’ll start with the bad news — the state’s rejection of the so-called “Gloucester Plan” for distributing the last batch of U.S. fishery disaster aid to Massachusetts fishermen with federal permits. Instead, the stead opted for a plan with much lower standards. Allowing a boat with one monitored trip in a year to qualify for disaster aid seems an overly lax standard. Read the rest here 08:07
Our view: New fishing limits another blow to the New England fishing industry
One might think that the lifting of the emergency cod regulations imposed by NOAA last November would bring sighs of relief across the Gloucester waterfront and elsewhere as the new commercial fishing year dawns Friday. But there is little relief and there are no cheers being heard among groundfishermen here and elsewhere across the North Shore and New England. For in lifting a number of the area closures that kept many fishing boats tied to the docks late last year, NOAA and the New England Fishery Management Council have replaced those rules,,, Read the rest here 08:43
BOSTON: Fisheries summit a rallying cry
The fishermen, scientists, fishery regulators and environmentalists who slogged through slushy streets and half-cleared sidewalks below could only wish that the summit they were attending Monday had a similar sunny prospect. But this was not a meeting to announce some dramatic turnaround for the beleaguered New England fishing industry. This was a rallying of the troops in advance of a new fishing year in May that promised deeper gloom than the one just past. Read the rest here 16:56
New England fishing industry blames government limits for downfall – They’re right, but citizens don’t “get it” in Knoxville!
As fishermen are sidelined, taking their boats out of service for lack of work, New England’s marine industry that repairs, stores and cleans boats is next in line to feel the hit. Wilcox, owner of Wilcox Marine Supply, blames the federal government and the fishing limits it’s imposed. In Stonington, he said, the number of draggers — fishermen who drag nets behind their boats —has dropped since the mid-1990s from 50 to two. His business, which employed 13 people in the early 1990s, has dwindled to just himself. Read more@knoxnews 15:27 Read the comments at the bottom.
New England Fishing Industry Grapples with Changing Climate – Island Institute “A Climate of Change.” Audio
Rodman Sykes (left) is a commercial fishermen from Rhode Island. He’s been fishing for 30 years and says he’s now starting to see the emergence of new species like Cobia, for example, which he says is normally only found off Florida. He’s also noticing a marked increase in the numbers of other fish which were previously only rarely seen in Rhode Island waters – for example the torpedo ray. “Twenty years ago, we might see two or three a month – like that,” Sykes says. “Now we see them every day, up to 100-pounders.” continued@mpbn
