Tag Archives: squid fishing

“Squid Fleet” Takes You Into the Opaque World of Chinese Fishing

In February, 2022, I invited the documentary filmmaker Ed Ou to join me at sea, boarding Chinese squid ships. For the past four years, I have been visiting these ships as part of an investigation into the use of forced labor by the global seafood industry. China has the world’s largest distant water fishing fleet, catching billions of pounds of seafood annually, the biggest portion of it squid. The fleet is rife with labor trafficking, abusive working conditions, and violence. But China publicly releases little information about its vessels, and most stay at sea for more than a year, making them difficult to track or inspect. To see the fleet up close, Ou and I travelled to fishing grounds near the Falkland Islands and the Galápagos. We chased boats, interviewed crews by radio, and, when permitted, boarded ships. My goal was to talk to crew members and chronicle their working conditions. “Squid Fleet,” the film that Ou produced, offers something deeper. Ou and his co-director, Will N. Miller, made a hybrid documentary, combining fictionalized narration with real footage from the trip to capture a strange world that few outsiders get to see. 13:45 Video trailer, >>click to read<< 21:36

San Pedro fisherman pulls up a mammoth relic from the past

Talk about an epic haul. It was a beautiful fall day in mid-November when San Pedro fishing boat skipper Vince “Enzo” Lauro and his five-man crew on the 70-foot-long St. Joseph headed out for what was to be a routine day collecting squid. But what they wound up hauling onboard nearly rolled the vessel: An old, 8,000-pound anchor that had been sucked down long ago into the ocean floor several miles off the Long Beach breakwater opening. Lauro, 59, described the find succinctly: “Crazy.” 6 photos, >click to read< 14:58

Five Wild Days Aboard a New England Squid Boat

Corey Harris wasn’t concerned about the storm. The captain of Rhonda Denise, a 77-foot commercial trawler, he’d been stuck in port all week, as two nor’easters, in early March, slammed the New England coast back-to-back. Now a third brewed offshore. But Harris saw an opportunity. “We’ll thread the needle between the storms,” he told me over the phone. We’d catch as much squid as possible, then haul ass back to port before the next system hit. Bring seasickness medicine, he added. “It’ll be rough—but worth it.”>click to read<15:51

Mid Atlantic Council considering buffer zone south of Nantucket that would eliminate squid fishing in federal waters in that area

The Council included an action to consider Squid Buffers in the list of “Possible Additions” in the 2017 Implementation Plan. The December 2017 Council meeting would constitute Framework Meeting 1, as per the Frameworks Process Summary. Staff has been able to draft possible alternatives and to develop preliminary related analyses (or use existing analyses). Staff is seeking Council input on next steps. Several recent constituent communications regarding the buffer issue are also included at the end of this tab. Previous public comments have included positions for and against moving forward with this action. click here to read the story Attached are two letters of support for the fishing industry from the Town of Narragansett Town Council and also the Narragansett Chamber of Commerce click here to read the letters 12:43

Squid fishing debuts on North Coast

Squid~1_GALLERYSquid fishing boats docked in Eureka for the first time Thursday, unloading 124,000 pounds of squid at the Fisherman’s Terminal Commercial squid fishermen from Southern California were drawn to the North Coast by following squid that were driven out of their typical habitat by a rise in ocean water temperatures,,, Read the rest here  06:56

Illegalities stoke California squid fishing war – Brail-fleet members allege Canadian-built purse seiners are grabbing all the catch

Monterey County Herald – A David and Goliath battle is brewing in the commercial squid fishery, with “scoop” fishermen alleging larger purse seiners are robbing them of their livelihoods, sometimes illegally. Based mostly in Southern California, members of the smaller brail, or scoop net, fleet say they have not been allowed to fish for three years because larger purse seiners, many of them built in Canada, have pulled in the quota of 118,000 tons before the brail season becomes ripe. continued

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