Daily Archives: December 19, 2012
Our view: The good news is that Maryland’s oyster catch is up; the bad is that it’s unlikely to last
According to DNR records, the total number of people licensed to harvest oysters is now about 800, or twice what it’s been in years past. That means a lot of carpenters, house painters, landscapers and others are likely putting down their tools and heading out on the water — and were willing to pay $300 for a license to do so. Read More
LA Times Greenwashes Marine Life Protection Act Initiative – by Dan Bacher
The LA Times falsely portrays the new closed zones as “undersea parks” when they are anything but. These so-called “marine protected areas” do not protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, military testing, corporate aquaculture, wind and wave energy projects and all other impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering. Read More
Protesters rally against fracking as oil industry claims it is ‘safe’ by Dan Bacher
“Last week, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced new lease-sales for Bureau of Land Management lands in California for ‘fracking’ development. Offshore areas are showing up on maps: reservoirs of underwater natural gas deposits, that lie under the ocean off Santa Barbara and Southern California,” he said………….”It’s clear that government and petroleum officials want to ‘frack’ in the very same areas Reheis-Boyd was appointed to oversee as a ‘guardian’ of marine habitat protection for the MLPA “Initiative,” said Gurney………It is beyond shameful that state officials such as Natural Resources Secretary John Laird and MLPA Initiative advocates embraced the oil lobbyist’s questionable role in creating alleged “marine protected areas” on not only the South Coast, but on the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast. Read More
Another Federal Failure? Federal Sea Otter Relocation Off California Coast Ends in Failure
What types of impact will freely roaming otters have on California’s fishing trade?
The fishing industry is likely to be adversely affected as the sea otters continue to expand their habitat along the Southern California coast. The Los Angeles Times reports that the animals, which consume shellfish, are likely to hunt in the “waters reserved for fishermen.” During the translocation program, shellfish south of Point Conception was protected from the otters. Most heavily impacted are fishing industries specializing in harvesting shellfish stocks and sea urchins.
Update: Coast Guard carrying on search for scalloper
The U.S. Coast Guard continued an air and sea search along the inshore waters of Massachusetts Bay today for two scallop fishermen whose boat the Foxy Lady II has been unaccounted for since mid-day Saturday.
The vessel’s orange rescue pod, resembling an astronaut’s recovery capsule, was found in a Saugus marsh at dark Tuesday, but the family of the captain, Wally “Chubby” Gray Jr., 26 of Deer Isle, Maine, continued to hold out hope today that Gray and his mate on the trip, Wayne Young, 50, also of Deer Isle, will be found alive perhaps with wreckage or at the 45-foot boat, said Jolena Rogers of Gloucester.
Rogers, Capt. Gray’s first cousin, said the Foxy Lady II had “other life saving equipment.”
“We’re trying to stay hopeful,” Rogers said, “but finding the pod … you know …” Read More (if you can)
Your View: UMD administration needs to explain changes at SMAST – southcoasttoday.com
Prior to that event and the arrival of Dr. Brian Rothschild and his associates, the domestic fishing industry was subjected to the science used for assessing fishing stock sizes and their use in fishing conservation plans. The law called for the fishery management councils to use the best available scientific information, and in the days before SMAST that meant that whatever the National Marine Fisheries determined to be the proper approach was indeed the gospel. Fishermen and the industry generally were put through management measures that not only didn’t make sense but ended up killing millions of pounds of seafood product, fish and scallops, subjected vessels to huge fines and loss of vessels, and resulted in a highly confrontational relationship between industry and government. Read More
Editorial: Feds cannot allow exiting NOAA chief any transition role
There c
an be no celebration, only a sense of profound relief over the resignation and coming exit of Jane Lubchenco as chief administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And that sense of relief should not allow either commercial fishermen or our federal lawmakers to relax their guards between now and the February date when Lubchenco will formally bow out of her role. Indeed, the downside of Lubchenco’s plan to leave her six-figure post is that the Department of Commerce is essentially allowing her to do so on her own terms as if she should have had any choice after her policies reduced one of America’s oldest and most noble small-business industries to an admitted state of “economic disaster” in New England during her four short years at the helm. Read More
Iconic fisheries scientist loses key UMass post – Richard Gaines gdt
The decision to remove Rothschild from the co-directorship of the institute he helped found 10 years ago was signaled in a press release dated Dec. 11. It featured the announcement of a decision to suspend the operations of a neurotoxin lab; only secondarily did the release describe a restructuring of the Marine Fisheries Institute and then never mentioned Rothschild by name, but noted that Steve Lorhenz, dean of the School or Marine Science and Technology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, had become co-director of the institute. The decision to remove Rothschild from the institute was made by Marcie Williams, the vice president for academic affairs, based on a review of MFI by Associate Vice President Robert Gamache, and was “agreed to” by Divina Grossman, chancellor of UMass-Dartmouth, John Hoey, Grossman’s chief of staff, explained in a telephone interview. Read More
Equipment from Foxy Lady II found in Saugus, Hull
A rescue pod, marked Foxy Lady II on the side, was discovered in a Saugus marsh Tuesday evening shortly before 5, around the same time the U.S. Coast Guard was calling off the night’s search for the missing Gloucester-based scalloper and its crew of two. The Foxy Lady II, manned by Capt. Wally “Chubby” Gray Jr., 26, and Wayne Young, 50, both of Deer Isle, Maine, had set out for a day trip of fishing on Stellwagen Bank early Saturday morning and was to return Saturday evening. The captain’s girlfriend reported the vessel overdue to the U.S. Coast Guard on Monday morning. Read More
