Tag Archives: Saltonstall-Kennedy program
Wallop Breaux funding: the rest of the story!
Folks – I’ve been yammering on and on about the Wallop-Breaux program, an excise tax on boating and fishing gear and non-commercial marine use fuel sales. At the same time I’ve been focusing on a potential conflict of interest because 1/3 of the votes on the eight regional fishery management councils and 1/3 of the total votes on the three marine fisheries commissions (Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Pacific) are cast by each of the states’ senior marine fisheries administrator. Why a potential conflict? Because, as the attached table demonstrates, the various state fisheries programs receive a major part of their funding each year from Wallop-Breaux. >click to read< By Nils Stolpe, FishnetUSA 19:12
New net opens a way to help fishermen and protect cod
Catching the wrong fish, or catching too much of a low-quota fish like cod, can end a season for a commercial fisherman. In recent years, the interstate New England Fishery Management Council has slashed the number of cod that can be landed from the Gulf of Maine from about 1,550 metric tons in 2014 to 280 metric tons now. Fishermen who catch too many, even by accident, can be shut down for the season. A team of scientists and fishermen led by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute has created a new kind of fishing net that can catch popular flatfish like yellowtail flounder without busting strict quotas set to protect the Atlantic cod from overfishing. The net redesign team was led by Eayrs, himself a former commercial fisherman in Australia, and Massachusetts state fisheries biologist Michael Pol. The team included four commercial fishermen from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, two other scientists and a Rhode Island netmaker. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Saltonstall-Kennedy program funded the $265,000 project in 2015, when it awarded $22 million in fisheries grants. Read the story here 07:57
