Tag Archives: snow crab fishermen
Facing mounting bills and a vanishing season, some crab fishermen are defying the union and heading out to sea
It’s been more than a month since crab fishermen in Newfoundland and Labrador decided to keep their boats docked in protest of this year’s catch price of $2.20 and for some, the tie-up has gone on long enough. Terry Ryan of La Scie is one of them. He and his son, who work together, have decided it’s time to head out on the water, defying the advice of the Fish, Food & Allied Workers union. “We gave it the good fight when we supported the tie-up that was orchestrated by Jason Sullivan,” he said. “All we’re getting out of this now is lost fishing time, lost money. We’ve got bills to pay, bank payments to make, and we’ve come to the conclusion that $2.20 is better 
than zero. Zero is your revenue off crab if you don’t fish crab.” Fellow La Scie fisherman Jimmy Lee Foss plans to keep waiting, though, calling $2.20 a “devastating” price. “I’m kinda fighting for my life here. that’s what I feel like,” he said. La Scie is divided, said Foss, and everyone has to make their own decisions — and he plans to keep holding out. Video, >click to read< 17:12
Crab harvesters take protest inside St. John’s hotel as price-setting meetings continue
Newfoundland and Labrador’s crab fishermen resumed their protest Wednesday, calling for a quota increase and changes to the federal government’s fisheries management. Dozens of harvesters descended on a Fisheries and Oceans Canada office in the east end of St. John’s early Wednesday morning, with some using their vehicles to block traffic from coming in or out. Some used symbols of the fishery to protest, like a crab pot placed on the building’s flagpole. Fisherman Jason Sullivan said he and his colleagues are calling for changes to the precautionary approach framework that separates the inshore fishery of Zone 3L from the offshore fishery. >click to read< 16:44
Snow crab fishermen protest quota allocations on first day of price-setting
About 100 snow crab fishermen descended Monday on a St. John’s hotel, where officials had begun setting crab prices for the season, to protest a management system and quotas they say need an overhaul. The protest, at the Sheraton in downtown St. John’s, centred on a new precautionary approach designed to protect stocks, implemented in December by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which manages inshore and offshore crab stocks differently. Bay Bulls fisherman Jason Sullivan says the change leaves them with less to catch. “These guys are at 30 per cent of their original quotas, and they need an increase,” Sullivan said Monday. “They’re catching their quotas in one single day.… . >click to read< 21:42
Like chasing unicorns?!! – Ropeless traps not easy for crabbers testing them in whale-protection effort
New Brunswick snow crab fishermen have been testing a ropeless trap system to reduce the use of fishing rope, which has been blamed in some of the deaths of endangered North Atlantic right whales. “The main problem with the ropeless gear … is that it was given way too much credit for what it can, at this time, achieve for the snow crab fishery,” Robert Haché, director general of the Acadian Crabbers Association, said in an interview.,, The ropeless traps, developed by California-based Desert Star System, are already used by fishermen in New Zealand and Australia. >click to read< 08:18
