Category Archives: International
Fishing boat erupted into fiery blaze as Navy step in to rescue crew
Extraordinary footage shows the Colombian Navy rescuing 29 crew members from a burning Venezuelan-flagged fishing boat. The tuna vessel was being held in the Port of Buenaventura, in Colombia, when the fire broke out on Monday night (September 5), days after allegedly being caught illegally fishing in a protected area. It is suspected an electrical short circuit in the kitchen caused the blaze. The navy sent two rapid response teams to evacuate the crew of 14 Venezuelans, five Mexicans, five Colombians, two Ecuadorians, and one Costa Rican. Photos, video, >click to read< 17:24
Council to call for ban on gillnetting by larger boats
Shetland Islands Council is to write to the Scottish Government to request a ban on the use of gillnetting by boats over 15 metres in the country’s waters. It comes after a report on the controversial issue was brought to a meeting of the council’s development committee on Tuesday. A protest organised by the Fishing Forward UK group was held in Lerwick last month, and further action is planned in October. The netting issue was brought to the council earlier this year in a motion by local Green councillor Alex Armitage, who has called gillnets “curtains of death”. >click to read< 09:53
UK Export Finance support unlocks new contract to export fishing boat to Ireland.
Family-owned shipbuilder, Parkol Marine Engineering, has announced the launch of its new vessel, F/V Green Isle, which on completion will sail to the west coast of Ireland from Middlesbrough, marking its expansion across the country. The boat is the second to be built as a result of a new £3m Bond support package from UK Export Finance (UKEF). The contract is the second exporting win for the business, with the first contract secured in 2020 for a 27-meter fishing trawler commissioned by Irish fishing company D&N Kirwan. >click to read< 15:55 Nice photo here, >click<
Shetland fishing industry ‘flung by the wayside’ for offshore wind farms
Addressing a session during the parliamentary Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum policy conference, Shetland Fishermen’s Association (SFA) executive officer Daniel Lawson said his industry had “big concerns” over the UK’s plans for renewables off the islands. “All of the things we saw with the onset of oil, protection, partnership, working consideration, consultation, compensation, they’ve all been largely abandoned so far in this rush towards offshore wind development,” he told delegates. Mr Lawson said the organisation, which represents 115 member vessels, was dismayed by news of the latest round of offshore wind licensing as part of the Crown Estate Scotland’s ScotWind clearing process. >click to read< 09:55
Rock lobster back on the menu
New Zealand’s rock lobster industry is catching up on a slow year thanks to the end of a Chinese lockdown and the conclusion of an unlucky spiritual festival. Shanghai is one of New Zealand’s biggest lobster importers, but the city was locked down from March to June. Fiordland Lobsters sales and marketing general manager Andrew Harvey said it had taken time for the industry to get back up to speed. That was combined with Ghost Month, a time dedicated to the spirits of the dead which spanned from late July to August. Australia banned exports of lobster to China in 2020, which had also increased the New Zealand share of the market and helped it through some of the slow patches. >click to read< 08:47
Mural celebrates last boat-building family in seaside town of Sheringham in Norfolk
Lewis ‘Buffalo’ Emery started building boats in the 1850s after being unable to find a craftsman to make him a new crab boat. Lewis’ great great grandsons Jonathan, Michael and Malcolm were all present to see the work by artist Colin Seal which celebrates the Emery family. The mural depicts family members Reginald, Chris and Harold in the workshop at The Old Boathouse. Jonathan Emery, whose grandfather Reginald is in the mural, said: “The family are very proud of our family history and to see it immortalised here.” Photos, Video, >click to read< 10:41
“I once was lost, but now am found” – Burial site of long-dead fisherman found by kin
In 1915, Eben Devine was reported missing by fellow crewmen from the schooner Hattie A. Heckman. Ten days later his body was seen floating in Gloucester Harbor by George Bailey, keeper on Ten Pound Island, who rowed it ashore. Despite decomposition, Devine’s son Oscar identified the body, perhaps by his father’s coat and the spectacles in the pocket. The medical examiner ruled it a death by accidental drowning, but a darker story has always lingered in Devine family lore: Eben Devine, known to be a drinker, was followed from a bar on the October night of his disappearance by two men with whom he’d had an altercation. >click to read< 09:15
Call for Commission of Inquiry into How Irish Governments Managed Fishery Resource
Marine expert Dr Kevin Flannery has called for a commission of inquiry into how successive governments have managed Ireland’s fishing resource. In an Irish Independent feature on the impact of the 60 million euro whitefish fleet decommissioning scheme totalling 80 million euro including tax credits. Flannery also says people will drive around the west coast in a few years and wonder where all the Irish boats have gone. The decommissioning scheme aims to scrap 60 vessels, a third of the active whitefish fleet, at a time of growing concern over food security. It will be funded from the Brexit Adjustment Reserve to compensate for quota losses due to Brexit. >click to read< 08:12
Offshore wind could blow us out of the water say Cornish fishermen
As the fishing boat motors gently out of Newlyn’s harbour, the sky is clear and the sea is millpond-flat. Below the surface, the clear waters are teeming with life; Newlyn, in south-west Cornwall, is home to one of Britain’s largest trawler fleets, with more than 100 boats regularly landing catches. However, miles out to sea, a storm is brewing. The boats’ fishing ground could end up being squeezed by floating windfarms planned for the Celtic Sea, an area of the Atlantic bordered by Cornwall, south-west Wales, southern Ireland and the north-western edge of France. >click to read< 15:32
Fisherman lost at sea for 11 days survived in an upturned freezer
A fisherman who was lost at sea managed to survive for 11 days by climbing into an upturned freezer. Romualdo Macedo Rodrigues, 44, was sailing off the coast of French Guiana in a seven-metre wooden boat when it began taking on water and promptly sank. To make matters worse, the Brazillian native couldn’t swim – but luckily, he had a freezer on board so he climbed into that and hoped it would float. He then managed to stay afloat in the floating freezer for 11 days, with no food or water, before he was eventually spotted and pulled from the sea by the crew of another vessel off the coast of Suriname, which borders French Guiana. >click to read< 09:04
Fishermen launch legal action over North East crustation deaths
Fishermen along the North East coast have told of taking up new jobs amid a fishing crisis which has threatened their livelihoods and seen dead crustaceans wash up along the shoreline. Paul Graves, a lifelong fisherman off the Teesside and North Yorkshire coast, has taken up extra jobs over the summer to earn a living while his fishing boat is tied up in Hartlepool Mr Graves, like many other fishermen in the area, have grown frustrated by a marine life crisis which has seen hundreds of dead crustaceans wash ashore along the coast. For Paul, he’s contemplated selling his boat, owned by his family for years, due to the uncertain future. “I tied the boat up and went and did seven weeks work for a cable company,” he said. photos, >click to read< 15:49
Fishing company fined $59,000, vessel seized after illegal bottom trawling
A deep sea fishing company has had its vessel seized and fined $59,000 after illegal bottom trawling by a skipper on his first high sea job. The Amaltal Fishing Company, a subsidiary of Talley’s Group Limited, and skipper Charles Shuttleworth, were convicted and sentenced in Nelson District Court on Thursday on 14 charges of bottom trawling in a protected area. In March, Amaltal and Shuttleworth were found guilty of the charges, which were brought by the Ministry for Primary Industries. Reading from court documents, Judge David Ruth described how Shuttleworth, despite his 40-year experience, had never worked on the high seas. >click to read< 09:10
Fishermen begin legal campaign over dead shellfish
A report suggested algae was to blame, but the fishermen fear the deaths were linked to the release of the chemical pyridine as a result of dredging in the River Tees in October. Smaller catches are threatening their livelihoods, they say. Paul Widdowfield, who has fished all his adult life in the waters by Hartlepool, said his daily catches could now be 50 times smaller than three years ago, losing him £1,000 a day. Stan Rennie, whose family has been fishing for 500 years, said: “It means absolutely everything to me. It’s all I’ve ever done. “Now, we’re facing hardship because of the catches. The boat will probably have to go by the end of the year.” It was an “environmental disaster”, Mr Widdowfield and Mr Rennie said. >click to read< 09:10
Catch Shares Enable Wealthy Landlords to Gobble Up Local Fisheries
A recent investigative report has reignited public discussion over catch shares, a controversial approach to fisheries management that privatizes the rights to fish. The investigation exposed how Blue Harvest Fisheries, owned by a billionaire Dutch family, became the largest holder of commercial fishing rights in New England, benefiting from lax antitrust regulations and pilfering profits from the local fishermen who work under them. As a commercial fisherman in Mississippi, I know these dynamics go well beyond New England. Here in the Gulf of Mexico, private equity firms and other large investors have come in and gobbled up the rights to fish, driving up the cost of fishing access and making it prohibitively expensive for fishermen like me to harvest fish in our own backyards. >click to read< 07:55
Idea for more sustainable fishers catches prize for Halifax company
Marc d’Entremont has millions of dollars in Ocean Supercluster funding to bring his idea to fruition, but another 50 grand is always welcome. His company, Katchi Technologies, headquartered in Halifax, is one of the winners of the sixth annual Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge. Katchi has designed a replacement fish net system that eliminates contact with the ocean floor and reduces greenhouse emissions, allowing for more sustainable harvesting. “We’re basically removing the bottom trawling from the seabed,,, “We’ve invented a new method to open the net up, and we’re reducing drag and saving fuel by 30 per cent. The other piece is we’re controlling the net to ensure it stays off the seabed, using an algorithm that takes input from a whole bunch of sensors on the vessel. >click to read< 15:54
It will benefit the powerful’: row over Brixham fish market levelling up plan
Critics claim the plans for the Devon harbour town of Brixham, which is expected to land a record-breaking £50m worth of fish this year, will lead to more environmentally damaging fishing practices, increase lorry movements and benefit a few powerful businesses rather than improving the town as a whole. A diverse group of sceptics ranging from conservationists to the local yacht club, town councillors and day boat skippers has expressed concern at the bid by Torbay council for £20m of cash from the levelling up fund. “It will be good for the big boys who already make shitloads of money,” said Tristan Northway, who skippers a 9-metre fishing boat Adela, and sells directly from the deck of his vessel. “But it will do nothing for the rest of us and nothing for the town.” >click to read< 10:22
Efforts to remove sunken vessel near Victoria are difficult due to conditions
A small fishing vessel remains underwater two weeks after it sank off the coast of San Juan Island, Washington, and the U.S. Coast Guard says removal efforts are difficult due to strong water conditions. On Aug. 13, the Aleutian Isle sank near the U.S. Island — approximately 25.6 kilometers east of Victoria. Dumping an estimated 9,854 litres of diesel oil, sheen covered several kilometers of water and threatened marine life while sparking a joint response between U.S. and Canadian agencies. Video, >click to read< 09:06
Divers hope to wrap up work, raise sunken fishing vessel near San Juan Island soon – Two weeks after an oil spill began off the west side of San Juan Island, divers began work that will allow them to plug a sunken fishing vessel more than 200 feet below the surface. >click to read<
How the people of Hull saved a brutal murderer from the death penalty
On a fishing trip to the icy north Atlantic, an old feud between two crew members of a Hull trawler was simmering. Eventually James Carlill, 27, and William Harker, 38, clashed with tragic consequences. Six days later, the trawler arrived back at St Andrew’s Fish Dock, with Harker’s body on board. Carlill was charged with murder. But that was only the start of a remarkable story. The three-week fishing trip had been uneventful until terrible weather forced the trawler, the Queen Alexandra, to take refuge in an Icelandic fjord. The 12-man crew got bored as they sheltered from the storm and bought booze from the locals, including half a gallon of corn brandy and two bottles of whisky. >click to read< 07:55
Poor Fraser River sockeye run spells end of the south coast salmon fleet
B.C. commercial fishermen are now forced to resign themselves to the reality that they will be shut out of the Fraser River sockeye fishery for the fourth year in a row, and for some that means the end of the road. “I think this is pretty much the end of the south coast salmon fleet,” said Dawn Webb, an organizer for the UFAWU-Unifor fisherman’s union. Earlier in the season, fairly strong returns of sockeye for the Skeena River, Barkley Sound and early Stuart Fraser River sockeye seemed to bode well for a healthy enough return to allow for a commercial opening this year. This is, after all, supposed to be a dominant year for Fraser River sockeye. >click to read< 07:34
Fisherman died after lifejacket suddenly deflated after falling from west Kerry trawler
A Portugese fisherman drowned when the lifejacket he was wearing suddenly deflated after it was punctured by net cables when he fell overboard from a Kerry trawler off the west coast, an inquest in Tralee into the man’s death has heard. Father of two, Jose Alberto Novo Vareiro (53), from Vila Ovo Conde in Portugal, was a crew member aboard the Dingle-based Cu na Mara when he fell overboard as the trawler was shooting nets for prawns near the Porcupine Bank, some 150 miles west of Dingle on June 30th, 2016. Owner and skipper of the Cu na Mara, Michael Flannery told the inquest at Tralee Courthouse that Mr Vareiro was one of his six crew aboard his vessel who were preparing to shoot the nets at the back of the boat at about 1.25pm on the day in question when the accident happened. >click to read< 08:28
Diesel prices and post-Brexit quotas add to fishermen’s woes
Each time West Cork fisherman Daniel Healy sets out to sea, he wonders whether it’s worth his time. Soaring diesel prices, he said, are putting his livelihood at risk. “Per trip, with five days out, at 1,000 litres a day – that’s over €5,000. It’s a big bill for me,” Mr Healy told Prime Time. He has been fishing from Castletownbere for the last 29 years. For the first time, he has to worry whether he can pay the wages of his crew. The diesel is probably taking about nearly half of our gross earnings, every trip,” he said. “The crew were wondering where all the money was going, until I showed them the receipts and how much the fuel is.” But, due to stricter post-Brexit quotas that were introduced last year, fishermen cannot increase their catch to compensate for their losses. >click to read< 18:50
Planes can’t find entangled whale in search Wednesday
Planes and boats searched the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Wednesday, looking for a young North Atlantic right whale entangled in rope and other gear. An airplane saw the calf of a right whale known as 3720 last weekend, 48 nautical miles east of Shippagan, trailing fishing rope and buoys. The Department of Fisheries said at the time that it wasn’t known how long the yearling had been entangled. Whale expert Philip Hamilton of the New England Aquarium said lots of challenges come with finding a whale such as this one, which had previously last been spotted in March off Provincetown, Mass. (Where is the photo of the calf wrapped in fishing gear the plane didn’t take?!!) >click to read< 12:23
Thousands of pounds worth of fishing nets stolen in Caister
Over 10 days in August, two bins containing specialised sea bass nets were stolen from the back of fishing boats stationed at Caister beach car park. Jason Miller, a fisherman of 38 years, was one of the people affected. Mr Miller came to work on Thursday morning when he realised one of his bin nets had been stolen. A few days before, a bin containing his colleague’s nets were also taken. Mr Miller, 51, said the nets were worth more than their estimated value, as the vital equipment helped to secure their living. “To us, it’s mortgage payments, energy bills, meals and even school uniforms for our kids,” he said. >click to read< 08:42
We’re eating less lobster, just as fall fishing season begins
After reaching record high prices in the spring, the shore price for a pound of Atlantic lobster has dropped dramatically, from around $18 to $5. Low demand, both domestically and internationally, and inflation are contributing to this drop, say industry professionals, who are concerned about the rising costs to fish and distribute the product as the fall lobster fishing season commences. Stewart Lamont, managing director of Tangier Lobster Company, a live lobster exporter in Nova Scotia, said consumer purchasing habits have changed since the beginning of the pandemic. >click to read< 07:47
Entangled North Atlantic Right Whale spotted off Shippagan, N.B.
The federal Fisheries Department is on the lookout for an entangled North Atlantic Right Whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence near Shippagan, N.B. The department says the whale was observed on Saturday by a Fisheries and Oceans Canada aircraft. The whale, which has been identified as the 2021 calf of the whale known as 3720, was spotted about 48 nautical miles east of Shippagan. Officials said they do not know the type of gear that the whale is entangled in, or where it came from. >click to read< 08:14
Dutch fisheries will shrink considerably in the coming years
The Dutch commercial fishing fleet will shrink by 10 to 15 percent over the next five years. Many fishermen are getting into money trouble, partly because of declining turnover and high fuel costs. The financial support announced by the government will be too late for some of the fishermen, ABN Amro predicted based on its own research. About a third of fishermen think they could run into financial problems in the coming years. Brexit and the expansion of wind farms has also caused concerns for fishermen. The new distribution of fishing rights means that many fishermen are no longer allowed to catch as many fish as before Brexit. >click to read< 18:55
250 fishermen go missing as 16 trawlers sink in Bay of Bengal
Over 250 fishermen of Patuakhali remained missing as 16 fishing trawlers capsized in the Bay of Bengal amid inclement weather on Friday, said Naval Police on Sunday. About 150 fishermen of 18 trawlers that sank in the Bay near Kuakata in Patuakhali have been rescued so far, said Akhtar Morshed, officer-in-charge (OC) of Kuakata Naval Police Outpost. Locals along with a rescue trawler of the fish wholesalers’ association reached the fish landing centre with the rescued fishermen from Saturday evening to 11pm on Sunday, the OC added. 3 stories, scroll down, >click to read< 12:27
A seafood processor from the Îles-de-la-Madeleine in serious financial difficulty
With an estimated debt of between $3.5 million and $4 million to its lobster fishermen, the Madelinan seafood processing company LA Renaissance des Îles (LRDI) has decided to place itself under the protection of the Act respecting the ‘insolvency. This is what the president and CEO and sole shareholder, Lynn Albert, announced to the fishermen who supply her with lobster, during an information meeting held on Friday morning, learned the QMI Agency. LRDI is in default of payment for its dockside purchases from 66 fishermen for the last two weeks of the 2022 fishing season, totaling $3.7 million. Added to this are, among other things, deductions for government rebates and other operating expenses of fishing businesses. >click to read< 07:34
Chinese company First Catch builds advanced lobster storage at Halifax airport
If ever there was proof lobster is king of Nova Scotia seafood, it’s the new $36-million freight facility at Halifax Stanfield International Airport. The Air Cargo Logistics Park that opened earlier this month is a big bet that will continue. It’s doubling cold storage capacity and adding apron space to park five 747-sized cargo planes. “It increases the efficiency, the capacity and the ability to actually move and export more product from Nova Scotia,” said Marie Manning, Halifax International Airport Authority’s business development manager. “That benefits not only the airport, but certainly all of our stakeholders, the industry and the region itself. The economic impact is significant.” >click to read< 14:45
Decommissioning Irish Fishing Fleet Will Not Preserve Fish Stocks
Plans which will cut the Irish whitefish fleet by over 30% will not preserve fish stocks in Irish waters. That’s according to the Irish Fish Producers Organisation, who say European vessels will fish these stocks in our waters instead. The IFPO are responding to the €60m decommissioning scheme announced by the Minister for the Marine. IFPO chief executive, Aodh O Donnell, says the scheme must be accompanied by plans to develop and support a greener and more innovative Irish fishing industry. “Many fish producers are being forced to decommission because fuel costs mean they simply cannot afford to put to sea any longer. We estimate that around 60 whitefish vessels will be scrapped under decommissioning. This will create up to 500 permanent redundancies and directly impact on the livelihoods of up to 300 coastal community families. There will also be a knock-on effect on the marine services industry and the wider coastal economy.”>click to read< 13:30
