Category Archives: Pacific
Legal playing field tilted against dead fishermen
When commercial fishermen and other seafarers die on the job, does the law provide justice for their survivors? The case of the Mary B II’s deadly sinking off Newport in January of this year shows the legal process tilts toward boat owners in several ways, largely to benefit the economy. “Once a seaman dies, the estate has very few remedies,” said Joe Stacey, a Seattle maritime lawyer who represented late crewman Joshua Porter’s estate in reaching a settlement with the boat’s owner. >click to read< 06:55
‘It’s a miracle I am here:’ Fisherman found clinging to buoy meets his rescuers
When David Sigo was dragged off his fishing boat last month and spent an hour in the cold Puget Sound before being rescued,,, The 63-year-old from Suquamish didn’t panic — though he did admit to yelling at his boat in anger right after he landed in the water — and he took steps to increase his chances of getting home alive: saving his voice until a helicopter overhead passed, directing his calls for help toward the shore along with the direction of the wind, bear-hugging a buoy with all his might. photo’s, >click to read< 15:42
Uncle Sam wants you to eat more shark
Late last month, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) sent out a newsletter,, “While overfishing has greatly depleted some shark populations overseas, U.S. shark fisheries are some of the most sustainable in the world,” it read. I did a double take, racking my memory for the last time I saw shark as an option at the grocery store or on a restaurant menu.,, So why is NMFS encouraging eaters to eat more shark? Pointing to its strict fishing quotas, the agency suggests that eaters buying American-caught shark can now do so without guilt. >click to read< 07:19
Alaskan red King Crab available in Eugene for first time in 20 years
Crab season is back and with a special guest. Alaskan red King crab is now available in Eugene after it hasn’t been in 20 years. It’s a new, rare delivery to the Fisherman’s Market, on 7th Ave. and Blair Blvd. that may become an annual routine.,,, His new shipment of nearly 20 crabs was recently caught by the Alaskan fisherman, Bill Prout, on his fishing vessel. Rogers says Prout hopped on a plane and flew the crabs to Eugene as checked baggage. >click to read< 12:25
Dungeness commercial crab season likely to be delayed over risks to whales
California’s state fish and wildlife chief is poised to delay this fall’s commercial Dungeness crab season for eight days under a legal settlement,,, Bodega Bay fisherman Dick Ogg said he appreciated the unenviable spot Bonham is in and the pressure he is under to avoid taking chances with an endangered species while positioned directly in the lens of a microscope. “You know, he tried to make the best possible decision he could make and still give the fishermen the opportunity to take advantage of the Thanksgiving market,” Ogg said. “It was tough.” >click to read< 14:50
Canadian firm’s steelhead trout farm plan under the microscope after salmon escapes
Last month, a net pen used for fish farming and operated by Cooke Aquaculture Pacific began to dip below the surface off Bainbridge Island. A hole in a pontoon left the structure’s southeast corner partially submerged. Repairs were eventually made. But now as the New Brunswick-based Cooke seeks to farm steelhead trout — instead of the nonnative Atlantic salmon that state law will soon ban — the incident has caught the attention of state regulators. >click to read< 12:58
Oregon Coast charter boat captain uses sea as his salvation after paralyzing crash
Depoe Bay is touted as having the smallest natural navigable harbor in the world. Life moves slow there, but on the Tacklebuster charter boat, the pace can pick up real quick.,, Tyler grew up on the Tacklebuster and learned the ropes from his dad, the skipper. He always felt the call of the sea. But on a sunny day in June 2008, a day much like the one we met him on, life came to a screeching halt. In a matter of two seconds, JT says their entire world flipped upside down. >click to read< 18:33
Dungeness crab ‘meating up’ at slowest rate in years; also slow to harden
Dungeness crab in Long Beach Peninsula waters have the lowest percentage of meat in at least five years of late-October testing. More than 85% of local crab also are too soft to harvest. This is bad news for the traditional Dec. 1 opening date, which has often proved illusory in the past two decades.,, All areas must be at least 23% before a commercial crabbing season can commence under terms of the Tri-State protocol that governs crabbing in the waters of Washington, Oregon and California. In another potential problem for a timely season start, Washington coast crab are especially slow to harden this autumn. >click to read< 11:47
Dungeness crab season may be delayed
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife made the announcement Friday in response to a settlement with an environmental group over whale entanglements in commercial Dungeness crab fishing gear.,,, Even if the eight-day delay to the commercial season happens, it should not disrupt the Bay Area tradition of cracked Dungeness crab on the Thanksgiving table, said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. However, it would cut into a peak period for the local fishing fleet, >click to read< 08:02
Video: Coast Guard, Navy conduct medevac of injured fisherman off Hawaii
The Coast Guard and Navy conducted a medevac of an injured mariner 431 miles off Hilo, Big Island, Thursday.,,, At 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, Joint Rescue Coordination Center Honolulu (JRCC) watchstanders received a report from the master of the commercial fishing vessel Lady Alice stating a crew member was suffering from an eye injury he sustained while fishing. >click to read< 06:59
A Fish Bill Update from Sam Parisi, and a scheduled meeting in Gloucester with all invited!
Dear Fisherynation Readers, I wanted to share some information about a project that I have an interest in seeing advance, a U.S. Fish Bill. I am pleased to let you know that today, a staffer from Senator Markey’s office responded to my request to help draft a Fish Bill. I had a good conversation with the staffer that also requested a meeting with Massachusetts fishermen and local politans to discuss and endorse a U.S Fish Bill. >click to read< 18:07
International expedition answers troubling questions about B.C. salmon runs
Buried in the doom-and-gloom headlines about depleted salmon stocks and disastrous spawning returns is this nugget of truth: There are more salmon in the Pacific Ocean than at any time since 1925.,,, The Russian research vessel Kaganovsky set out on a five-week grid-search test fishery in the North Pacific last February with a team of 21 scientists from Canada, Russia, the United States, Korea and Japan. They examined specific questions about the range, feeding habits and condition of adult salmon, and at least some of the answers are trickling in. >click to read< 15:51
Cull! Plan Mulls Killing More Sea Lions to Save Salmon
Decades of efforts, including billions of dollars spent, to prevent the extinction of 13 species of Columbia River salmon and steelhead were stymied by the resurgence of gregarious mammals who themselves returned from the brink. Now, a new plan backed by Native American tribes and three states would attempt to protect the fish by killing more sea lions. >click to read< 08:54
Could Columbia River sturgeon become a source of high-end caviar? The Yakama Nation is counting on it
Ancestors of the Columbia sturgeon first emerged more than 200 million years ago, during the Triassic Period. One reason they’ve stuck around so long is they’re built like tanks. In lieu of scales, sturgeon have rows of armored plates called scutes, which run along their body. A long, flat snout conceals a mouth nearer their belly, from which they siphon up prey fish, like shad, lamprey, salmon and smelt. They can live 100 years and grow to 20 feet; big ones tip the scales at 1,500 pounds. One sturgeon could feed an entire village, and for centuries they did. >click to read< 10:50
Oregon seeking expanded sea lion controls following success of salmon protections at Willamette Falls, Bonneville Dam
Having fended off the threat of extinction of wild winter steelhead over Willamette Falls, Oregon biologists are now joining counterparts in Washington, Idaho and Native American tribes to expand that success. Tuesday is the deadline set by the National Marine Fisheries Service for comments on a state and tribal proposal to reduce protections for both California and Steller sea lions in the Columbia river and its tributaries…. Send comments to: https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=NOAA-NMFS-2019-0073, or mail them to the National Marine Fisheries Service, ATTN: Protected Resources Division, NOAA-NMFS-2019-0073; 1201 NE Lloyd Blvd., Suite 1100; Portland, Ore., 97232. >click to read< 11:52
Senators Markey and Sullivan introduced the Ocean, Coastal and Estuarine Acidification Necessitates (OCEAN) Research Act.
This bipartisan legislation would reauthorize the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Science Foundation, which lapsed in 2012. The bill strengthens investment in research and monitoring of poorly-understood acidification processes in coastal and estuarine areas, and engages coastal communities and the seafood industry through an Advisory Board and collaborative research grants. >click to read< 15:57
Congress considering safety, climate change for fisheries
Congress is getting involved in fisheries in a couple key areas: safety and climate change. The FISH SAFE Act, and, Climate Ready Fisheries Act of 2019. Republican Rep. Don Young is leading a bipartisan effort along with Rep. Jared Golden (D, Maine) to improve safety, introducing the Funding Instruction for Safety Health, and Security Avoids Fishing Emergencies Act.,,, The most recent climate change legislation, also bipartisan, was introduced by Rep. Joe Cunningham, (D- S.C), and is co-sponsored by Reps Brian Mast (R-Fla.), Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) and Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), and is meant to help “low country” fishermen, but the impact, should it pass, would presumably help fishermen nation-wide. >click to read< 21:51
Southeast Alaska and Washington Tribes, First Nations in British Columbia declare salmon emergency
Indigenous governments in Southeast Alaska and Washington, with First Nations in British Columbia, have declared a salmon emergency and are calling for representation in all government decisions impacting their territories. “We know there are things going on in the ocean,” said Rob Sanderson Jr. chairman of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission. “Our fish are just not there. The size of the salmon are a lot smaller,” >click to read< 12:40
Efforts underway to streamline fisheries disaster relief
With an increasing number of fisheries disaster requests coming from all over the United States, members of Congress and the federal government are looking for ways to improve the relief process.,, Summer 2018 brought disappointing results for many fishermen across Alaska,,, The slow process isn’t unique to Alaska. ways to improve the relief process, introduced Senate Bill 2346 by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., in July, seeks to speed up that process, in part by expediting relief funds being disbursed to fishermen. It also seeks to add avenues for relief for non-commercial fishermen, including charter operators. >click to read< 15:00
Righting John Steinbeck’s Storied Ship, Western Flyer Gets a Plank-by-Plank Restoration and Soul Re-Infusion
In 2013, the fishing vessel Gemini, a purse seiner built in 1937, was hauled up from the bottom of the Swinomish Channel in the Pacific Northwest. The event wouldn’t have drawn much attention had this old wooden fishing boat not had such a storied past. In 1940, the novelist John Steinbeck and his friend, marine biologist Ed Ricketts, chartered the sardine fisher under the name Western Flyer,,, Luckily, when the boat sank for what was the third (or maybe even fourth) time in her history, she was not far from Port Townsend, the Northwest’s hub of wooden-boat restoration. The Western Flyer soon found a home at the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-Op, and her new owner started a nonprofit foundation to oversee an ambitious—and expensive—restoration project. >Video, photos, click to read< 20:19
“Oh, here we go, baby!” Watch: Researchers stumble across a whale carcass teeming with marine scavengers
When whales die in the open ocean they sometimes sink to the sandy floor where scavenging fish and other marine creatures tuck into the colossal feast. Octopuses, deep-sea fish, crabs and bone-eating worms all turn up for dinner. But there’s one species in particular that gets über-excited when a whale carcass hits the ocean floor: marine researchers. A team from Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary aboard research vessel Nautilus were exploring the ocean depths off the coast of central California recently when they happened upon a baleen whale carcass. >click to read/watch< 15:12
Coast Guard medevacs man from fishing vessel 15 miles west of Coos Bay
U.S. Coast Guard 13th District PA Detachment Astoria – A Coast Guard aircrew medically evacuated a 28-year-old man Friday morning off the fishing vessel ‘Alaska Ocean,’ which was operating 15-miles west of Coos Bay. A Coast Guard Sector North Bend aircrew hoisted the man after he experienced chest pains and seasickness. Watchstanders at the 13th Coast Guard District Command Center were notified at 3:15 a.m. by the company who owns the fishing vessel that the man was suffering medical issues. Photos, >click to read the rest< 17:27
Sides battle over Monterey Bay’s anchovy population
A fishing industry group says it has new findings supporting its contention that there is a healthy population of anchovies, which is counter to a nonprofit’s lawsuit challenging how the number of anchovies are determined. Meanwhile, Monterey fishermen say there are tons of the little guys in the local fishery. Gino Pennisi and Neil Guglielmo have been fishing out of Monterey for years, in Guglielmo’s case, since 1956. Both say anchovies are plentiful. But the nonprofit group Oceana,,, >click to read< 13:07
Former Deadliest Catch fisherman Jerod Sechrist Arrested, faces heroin possession charge. A Skipper says finding good crew is challenging.
According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office inmate database, Sechrist, 33, was arrested on Oct. 5 by the Tampa Police Department in Tampa, Florida. He was charged with one felony count of possession of heroin and one misdemeanor count of possession of drug paraphernalia.,, In an interview earlier this year, Deadliest Catch Captain “Wild Bill” Wichrowski said putting together a good crew in the commercial fishing industry has gotten more challenging. “It’s harder to find excellent guys,” he told the website. “They used to be lined up 12 deep,,,”>click to read< 09:23
Pacific Northwest Tribes Want Columbia River Dams Razed
Two Pacific Northwest tribes on Monday demanded the removal of three major hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River to save migrating salmon and starving orcas and restore fishing sites that were guaranteed to the tribes in a treaty more than 150 years ago.,, Proposals to merely curtail operations, let alone remove the structures, are controversial, and the prospects of the Columbia dams being demolished any time soon appear nonexistent. But tribal leaders said at a news conference along the Columbia River that the Treaty of 1855, in which 14 tribes and bands ceded 11.5 million acres to the United States, was based on the inaccurate belief that the United States had a right to take the land. >click to read< 10:18
Booming wind industry’s big worry
Land-based turbines are rising by the thousands across America, from the remote Texas plains to farm towns of Iowa. And the U.S. wind boom now is expanding offshore, with big corporations planning $70 billion in investment for the country’s first utility-scale offshore wind farms.,,, The Interior Department cited the surge in corporate interest for offshore wind projects in saying it wanted more study before moving forward. It directed Vineyard Wind to research the overall impact of the East Coast’s planned wind boom.,, Federal fisheries officials have been among the main bloc calling for more study, saying they need to know more about the impacts on ocean life. >click to read< 14:23
Opinion: Reducing whale entanglements
Oregon’s commercial crabbing industry prides itself on sustainability. Though Dungeness crab has been harvested commercially since the late 1800s, this population is considered to be stable to increasing along the West Coast—thanks to commercial and recreational regulations that protect the breeding population and ensure the state’s official crustacean will be conserved for future generations. Now, the fishing industry is facing a new environmental challenge—whale entanglements in crabbing gear. by Dr. Caren Braby, >click to read< 11:40
Get Up Close and Personal With the Gig Harbor Commercial Fishing Fleet Aboard the Veteran
You’ve seen the fleet tied up in the Harbor. Here’s your chance to experience commercial fishing from a front-and-center vantage point aboard the historic purse seine vessel Veteran. Join a USCG licensed skipper with extensive commercial fishing experience aboard the Veteran during a fall seine “opening.”,, The Skansie purse seiner Veteran, launched in 1926, is a beautifully restored sample of one of the most recognized and significant vessel designs to have originated from Gig Harbor. >click to read< 10:44
USCG offers Commercial Fishermen Marine Safety/Survival Training, asking Oregon fishermen to sign up
The Coast Guard has scheduled marine safety and survival training in five different cities along the Oregon Coast and is offering six separate two-day trainings beginning Oct. 24. The trainings are designed for commercial fishermen, not the general public, and are scheduled to be held on the following dates, at the following locations and with the following contacts for scheduling and questions: >click here to read more information< 18:02
Huffman Gets Bleak Input on Fisheries
On Oct. 5, North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman held a public meeting in Arcata to discuss updating the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), the federal legislation that governs ocean fishing. Huffman brought together a roundtable of regional and local officials, a Humboldt State University professor and a few representatives of the local fishing industry to offer feedback on the failings — and successes — of the MSA. >click to read< 10:22
