Monthly Archives: January 2014
Gentlemen, and Ladies, Wear Your PFD All the Time, says NIOSH
Fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States. Last year the Bureau of Labor Statistics ranked fishing as the second most dangerous profession, behind logging, based on the number of fatalities. Between 2000 and 2012, there were 623 commercial fishing related deaths nationwide, according to a database run by the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety. NIOSH has been studying the incidents that led to those deaths carefully, and believes hundreds of lives might be saved if more people would wear their PFD’s. Read more@kdlg 01:09
Now THIS is a Sea Story – A Speck in the Sea
Looking back, John Aldridge knew it was a stupid move. When you’re alone on the deck of a lobster boat in the middle of the night, 40 miles off the tip of Long Island, you don’t take chances. But he had work to do: Read more@nyt 18:53
Crabbers want more gold and goldens – coalition is seeking a nearly 1 million pound quota increase from the Alaska Board of Fisheries
Golden king crab fishermen have established a nonprofit science foundation to help increase their profits by doing research to justify bigger catches along the Aleutian Chain. The campaign to catch more crab involves two groups. The science arm is the Alaska King Crab Research Foundation, which wants crab boats to double as research vessels, while political advocacy is conducted by the Golden King Crab Coalition. Read more@bristolbaytimes 18:05
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife seeks candidates for Commercial Fishery Permit Board
The Permit Board is composed of three individuals representing commercial fishers from each fishery plus two at-large public members. Currently, there are 11 vacant positions to represent the following fisheries: sea urchin, roe herring, Columbia River gillnet salmon, ocean shrimp/scallop, brine shrimp, blue and black rockfish, and nearshore fisheries. Read more@worldlink 16:15
Consolidation Limits Officially Accepted By NE Fishery Management Council
The New England Fishery Management Council has accepted a report titled “Recommendations for Excessive Share Limits in the Northeast Multispecies Fishery” prepared by the economic consulting firm Compass Lexecon. Read more@mpbn 16:10
More bycatch going to foodbanks
This is Fish Radio. I’m Laine Welch – Alaska’s bycatch goes to more food banks. I’ll tell you more after this –Listen @fishradio 16:02
Fishing; More Protection for Big Ones
Many popular measures to combat overfishing help conserve mostly small juvenile fish. The results from a set of international studies may now revolutionize fishing regulations. Read more@sciencedaily 12:28
Canadian SAR Swimmer Films MEDEVAC of Injured Crewmember
Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) Halifax coordinated the rescue yesterday of an injured 23 year old crewmember from the 49.5 meter Ocean Choice International-owned groundfish trawler, F/V Aqviq. The rescue was carried out by Canada’s 103 SAR Squadron using one of their CH-149 Cormorant helicopters. Watch video @gcaptain.com 12:20
Deep freeze good news for Maine smelt fishing camps – Ice on rivers comes sooner than it has for quite a few years, allowing commercial operations to get the season started.
Commercial smelt camps that most years don’t typically open until mid-January had enough ice to open around Christmas. “We’ve probably got 16 inches of ice, if not more,” said Sonny Newton, owner of Sonny’s Smelt Fishing on the Kennebec River in Dresden. “We started cutting (through the ice) with a 14-inch bar, and we couldn’t get through it. It was 17 below yesterday. It’s making ice.” Read more@portlandpress 11:29
Fisheries Minister Gail Shea has canceled two funding announcements that had been scheduled for Friday.
No reason was given for the cancelations; however, blowing snow and about five cm of snowfall is predicted to cause travel problems across Atlantic Canada today. Shea had been scheduled to make announcements at both ADL in Summerside and the South Shore Actiplex in Crapaud. journalpioneer.com 08:43
READER’S CORNER: Dal tainted by fish-farm grant
A well-known operator of open-pen fish farms has been convicted on two counts of using illegal pesticides. Some of these pesticides are lethal to lobsters, and resulted in the deaths of several hundred pounds of crustaceans several years ago in New Brunswick. Studies have shown there may be a risk to human health from residual toxins from chemicals used in this industry. Strike one! The same operator of a fish farm in Queens County knowingly and secretly grew 240,000 fish with infectious salmon anemia to maturity, transported them to their processing plant in New Brunswick and processed them for market just before they would have died of the disease. They sought and gained approval from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to distribute the fish to supermarkets in Canada without identification to distinguish them from other salmon. Strike two. Read more@chronicleherald 23:26
Marine Policy 40 Securing Ocean Benefits for Society In the Face of Climate Change
Benefits humans rely on from the ocean-marine ecosystem services-are increasingly vulnerable under future climate. This paper reviews how three valued services have, and will continue to, shift under climate change: (1) capture fisheries, (2) food from aquaculture, and (3) protection from coastal hazards such as storms and sea-level rise. Climate adaptation planning is just beginning for fisheries, aquaculture production, and risk mitigation for coastal erosion and inundation. A few examples are highlighted, showing the promise of considering multiple ecosystem services in developing approaches to adapt to sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and rising sea temperatures. Ecosystem-based adaptation in fisheries and along coastlines and changes in aquaculture practices can improve resilience of species and habitats to future environmental challenges. Opportunities to sue market incentives-such as compensation for services or nutrient trading schemes-are relatively untested in marine systems. Relocation of communities in response to rising sea levels illustrates the urgent need to manage human activities and investments in ecosystems to provide a sustainable flow of benefits in the face of future climate change. Read the vision here! 21:17
Former Snopac Products Owner Greg Blakey Passes Away in Mexico
A man with a long history in the seafood processing industry in Alaska passed away recently in Mexico. Greg Blakey died on December 16th after suffering a heart attack that caused a motorcycle accident on a remote road on the Baja Peninsula. Blakey was the owner and President of Snopac Products, which he sold to Icicle Seafood’s in 2012. Read more@kdlg 19:16
Council For Sustainable Fishing – Urgent — there are looming threats to fishing in 2014!
We always hope for the best for a new year, but unfortunately commercial and recreational fishing interests face the looming threats in 2014 of more no-fishing zones, job killing “catch shares” schemes and congressional inaction on fixing the badly flawed Magnuson-Stevens Act, among others. Read more@councilforsutainablefishing 17:31
Lobster – Rock crab Fishery violations Prince Edward Island
January 2, 2014 – Moncton, New Brunswick Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Gulf Region, announced today six Prince Edward Island residents have been fined for fishing violations. The fines total $29,500. Read more@DFO 16:03
Aubrey Lee Price, 47, suspected of faking his own death, costing the Coast Guard more than $173,000, arrested
Price was reported missing by his family on June 18, 2012. A family member in Georgia reported the missing man to the Coast Guard after they had received a certified letter believed to be a suicide note from Price. The letter stated Price intended to jump off the Key West Express Ferry in the vicinity of Naples, Fla. Read more@uscgnews 15:49
Always Top Quality! Your Seafreeze Ltd. PREFERED PRICE LIST for January 2, 2014 has arrived
Contact our sales team today @ 401 295 2585 or 800 732 273 Click here for the complete price list from Seafreeze Ltd. where The Only Thing They Treat YOUR Fish is With Respect ! Visit our website! 15:13
Gloucester Daily Times Editorial: Fish marketing plan deserve support
The State House bill aimed at better marketing the local seafood industry — filed by state Senate Minority leader Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, and already backed on the House side by Gloucester Democrat Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante — would create an entirely new function for the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries. Read more@gdt 12:45
BP Spill Windfall Will Test Texas Conservatives
Unlike most civil penalties, which go to the federal government, Congress in the RESTORE Act has decided that the money from the BP settled will be distributed to the five states which border the Gulf of Mexico. But Daniel Rothschild, a senior fellow at the free market R Street Institute, says huge sums of money in the hands of greedy and irresponsible politicians can come back to burden taxpayers, and Texas needs to make sure that doesn’t happen. First, he says officials have to avoid the urge to create new bureaucracies which will have to be funded by taxpayers after the oil spill money is gone. “Using this to do what some have suggested to create ‘green jobs’ corps and civilian conservation corps, that is going to have long term serious ramifications for the state,” he said. “It means more people on the government payroll, and in the future taxes are going to go up to continue to pay for it.” Read [email protected] 12:17
The New England groundfishery is a disaster. – Improve the science
Fishery managers declare catch limits that are little better than arbitrary because our definitions of overfishing are at odds, a condition created by murky, imprecise language in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery and Conservation Management Act, further complicated by the inability to agree on the size of the fishery, its relative vitality, the impact of warming and acidifying oceans, the number of fish versus the size of the fish, the role of economics and management mechanisms — you get the idea. Read more@capecodonline 12:06
Women at sea cry ‘foul’ over weather gear fit
STONINGTON — For growing numbers of women in Maine’s commercial fisheries, the standard Grundens brand foul weather gear, or oil gear, is not cutting it. Commercial fisherman Genevieve Kurilec McDonald, a Bar Harbor native living in Stonington, is working on finding or creating another clothing option for herself and other fishing women. Read more@fenceviewer 11:47
Seaweed may be protected as value rises
According to the draft document, the plan is designed to provide recommendations – but not regulations – for long-term management of rockweed harvesting. Rockweed – a species of seaweed known as Ascophyllum nodosum – has become more marketable in recent years, in part because of new uses for the resource. Read more@kennebecjournal 09:21
Hey! How ’bout that? federal agency planning to measure economic impact of fishing businesses!
Notices posted in the Federal Register show the National Marine Fisheries Service plans to survey U.S. seafood processors and bait-and-tackle shops during 2014. The Kodiak Daily Mirror reports survey data will be incorporated into impact statements produced by the federal government before an action is taken. Read more@ktuu 20:01
Pollock, cod catches up; halibut fleet prepares for cuts
The first fishing openings of 2014 will be for various groundfish around the state, and limits are up for pollock in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. In the Bering Sea, pollock fishermen will, as usual, have the largest share of the 2 million metric ton cap in 2014, with a total allowable catch, or TAC, of 1.267 million metric tons for the eastern Bering Sea. The BSAI Pacific cod fisheries also open in January. Read more@alaskajournal 14:09
When the herring come back
January 2 marks the opening of the commercial herring season in our waters, a phenomenon that’s come and gone over the past 43 years. Of course, locals have known about the abundant winter herring runs for generations. Here’s how Marin This Month Magazine described the annual herring frenzy in January, 1960: “Fish, fowl and the people of Marin will enjoy on various levels of ecstasy the annual herring run sometime during the first two weeks of this month. Read [email protected] 13:58
Race to the Arctic: Nations vie for clout; U.S. far from lead
Murkowski is trying to get Americans to stop thinking that the Arctic is just Alaska’s problem. “People in Iowa and New Hampshire need to view the U.S. as an Arctic nation. Otherwise when you talk about funding, you’re never going to get there,” Murkowski said. She added that even non-Arctic nations are deeply engaged: “India and China are investing in icebreakers.” Read more@theadvocate 11:41
Another know nothing about fishing Chef calls for stronger MSA.
A Forum by JIM HUTCHINSON Jr.: Saltwater anglers need reasonable regulations. In a Forum published on Sunday, Chef Rob Stinson urged Mississippi’s congressional representatives to lead efforts to reauthorize and “strengthen the Magnuson-Stevens Act for future generations.” I wonder if Chef Stinson understands that the original effort to “strengthen” the federal fisheries law back in 2006 is what has helped cause serious economic hardship within the sportfishing industry due to loss of access for Gulf of Mexico’s saltwater anglers? Read more@sunherald 11:25
Computer Model Predictions: Major Reductions in Seafloor Marine Life from Climate Change by 2100
An international team of scientists predict seafloor dwelling marine life will decline by up to 38 per cent in the North Atlantic and over five per cent globally over the next century. These changes will be driven by a reduction in the plants and animals that live at the surface of the oceans that feed deep-sea communities. As a result, ecosystem services such as fishing will be threatened. Read more@sciencedaily 11:13
Monterey fishing patriarch Joe Pennisi laid to rest
Giuseppe “Joe” Pennisi, the patriarch of an extended Monterey fishing family, was buried Tuesday after private family services. One of his six sons, Giuseppe Pennisi II, said his father died Christmas Eve at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula after having pancreatic cancer. He was 75. “He was surrounded by family and there were probably 100 more in the hallway,” his son said Tuesday. Read more@montereyherald 10:53
Daunting Calculus for Maine Shrimpers as Entire Season Is Lost
PORT CLYDE, Me. — Shrimping in the Gulf of Maine was so bad last season that Randy Cushman, a longtime fisherman, wondered if there was any point in going out at all. “I can honestly say it was the worst catch that I’ve ever seen in my career,” said Mr. Cushman, 51, who has captained a boat for more than 30 years. “I was calling people and saying, ‘Let’s shut this fishery down, this is stupid.’ Read more@nyt 09:14
