Monthly Archives: March 2014
BOF talks Yukon, Bristol Bay issues
Alaska’s Board of Fisheries took action on a handful of Yukon River and Bristol Bay salmon management proposals today. The board is holding its statewide king and tanner crab meeting in Anchorage, and the agenda includes certain issues in other fisheries. Read more here 15:36
Canada-Korea trade deal boon for fishery: processors’ rep
An effort was made this morning to promote the benefits of the coming Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement and to Newfoundlers and Labradorians. It is not an easy task to get the trade agreement on the radar, given the roughly $22 million average for exports from this province to the Republic of Korea from 2010-12. Read more here 14:43
Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery could open today – fishery on a two-hour notice
That means seiners could have their nets in the water as soon as Thursday morning, if the department’s test samples find a high enough percentage of mature roe, or eggs, in the fish. ktuu Read more here Seiners worried by weak herring market kcaw Listen, and Read more here 10:41
25 years later, Exxon Valdez spill effects linger
For a generation of people around the world, the spill was seared into their memories by images of fouled coastline in Prince William Sound, of sea otters, herring and birds soaked in oil, of workers painstakingly washing crude off the rugged beaches. Bernie Culbertson was preparing to fish cod when the Exxon Valdez ran aground. With oil in the water, fishing came to a standstill and life for he and other fishermen drastically changed. Read more here 10:10
Tracking endangered leatherback sea turtles by satellite, key habitats identified
The study, part of doctoral research by Kara Dodge supervised by her advisor, Molly Lutcavage of the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Large Pelagics Research Center (LPRC) in Gloucester, followed leatherbacks in their northern US feeding grounds. Read more here sciencedaily 08:16
ENGO Created Regulatory By Catch: New Oceana Report Exposes Nine of the Dirtiest U.S. Fisheries
WASHINGTON – Today, Oceana released a new report exposing nine of the dirtiest fisheries in the United States. These nine fisheries combined throw away almost half of what they catch and are responsible for more than 50 percent of all reported bycatch in the U.S., injuring and killing thousands of protected and endangered species every year. Read more here 08:05
Is Cape Wind going forward?
Parker said the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound has around 30,000 supporters, who come from all income levels and social backgrounds. They are largely a grassroots organization that arose after Jim Gordon proposed to build a 25 square mile wind power plant, in public waters between mainland Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, in 2001. Read more here 03:51
Public Comments Split on Gulf of Alaska CFAs
On Monday night roughly two dozen community members filled the borough assembly chambers for the Kodiak Fisheries Work Group meeting. It was a long night of testimony, panel discussion and guest presentations, as the work group considered what recommendations it might pass on to the city council and borough assembly for bycatch management in the Gulf of Alaska trawl industry. Read more here 21:19
MOSSOM CREEK: Port Moody hatchery to be a leader in sustainability
Plans to build a state-of-the-art hatchery and education facility on the footprint of the destroyed Mossom Creek Hatchery are taking shape. With a cost initially pegged at $1.2 million, including corporate and community donations and in-kind services, a low-impact, innovative building is set to rise from the ashes and could be open by next spring. Read more here tricitynews 19:46
NJ KOs plan for wind power farm off Atlantic City – Who’s smiling now, pal
ATLANTIC CITY – New Jersey energy regulators have taken the air out of a $188 million plan to build a wind power farm off the coast of Atlantic City. Read more here 18:50
This is Fish Radio. I’m Laine Welch – Alaska’s salmon hatcheries set records last year
Alaska’s salmon catch set a record last year– and so did the salmon returns to Alaska hatcheries. The 2013 Alaska salmon catch was an all time high of 283 million fish and hatchery returns topped 110 million. Read more here 17:37
Boat of the Week from the Athearn Marine Agency: 104′ RSW Offshore Lobster/Crabber,1980, Crab,Lobster Steel, CAT
Specifications, and Information here 16:28:32
CNMI Got ‘Jacked,’ Western Pacific Fishery Management Council Is Told – “We were blind-sided and treated unfairly,”
Inos said it is possible for NOAA and US Fish and Wildlife Service to continually disapprove any management agreement so they can retain control over the submerged lands within the monument. He asked the Council to support Commonwealth efforts to have the submerged lands “presently being held hostage by the US Departments of Commerce and the Interior returned to their rightful owners.” But President Barack Obama’s,,, Read more here 16:16
BC Commercial Crab Harvester Fined $20,000 for Fishing Illegally
MASSET, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(Marketwired ) – On December 11, 2013, in Masset Provincial Court, Stan William Steer was found guilty of violations of the Fisheries Act. Justice H.J. Seidemann III fined the commercial harvester, and owner of the vessel STEER CLEAR, $20,000 for setting crab traps in McIntyre Bay during a period that was closed for all crab fishing. Read more here 15:13
Coastal Conservation Association says commercial fishermen exaggerating how many sea turtles impacted by recreational fishing.
While plaintiffs (the NCFA and CCFA) imply that state hook-and-line fishermen accounted for 45 percent of sea turtle interactions according to 2013 North Carolina Sea Turtle Strandings and Salvage Network (STSSN) information, the actual STSSN data show that state recreational fishermen accounted for no more than 25 percent of fishing gear interactions with sea turtles and 4 percent of gear-caused sea turtle fatalities,” the CCA stated. Read more here carolinacoastonline 15:00
Viewpoints: 40-year-old Endangered Species Act sets a high standard in forbidding extinction
More than 40 years ago I began studying California’s amazing freshwater fish fauna, made up mostly of species that lived nowhere else. Back then few people cared about these species. Only a handful of biologists had studied the native fishes, aside from trout and salmon. That all changed with the birth of the federal Endangered Species Act, 40 years ago Saturday. Read more here sacbee 12:47
New system eases lamprey passage
Pacific lamprey will now be able to more easily swim past the McNary Lock and Dam on the Columbia River. Dam managers have installed a new lamprey passage system — the first of its kind for the toothy, eel-like fish. Read more here columbian.com 12:06
Shea’s science
Things have never been so weird as they are right now. Pam Anderson, the First Lady of Ladysmith, proud possessor of a silicon valley of world renown, joins Sam Simon, the cancer riddled co-creator of the Simpsons, to jet to Newfoundland and offer Newfie sealers,, Read more here 10:52
Fairhaven Shipyard’s North Yard becomes the Board of Health and Selectmen candidates’ night “political football”
Three of the candidates agreed that the town should follow the lead of the Department of Environmental Protection, which is currently investigating the shipyard. Charlie Murphy, Steven Riley and Jeanine Lopes all agreed to help enforce whatever mitigation the state agency determines is appropriate. But Board of Health challenger Louise Barteau separated herself from the pack,,,Read more here 08:06
New Bedford: Scallop buyers get lessons in science, regulation
Scallop boats are allowed only about 32 days at sea per year, but scallops are so abundant and lucrative that working on a boat still can be extremely rewarding. Eastern Fisheries’ veteran captain Christopher Audette, who after 20 years on the water looks and sounds like someone from central casting, told the foreign visitors that deck hands on his boat took home more than $200,000 last year. Read more here southcoast 07:53
State targets NOAA science, tactics in its most recent filing of its lawsuit against federal fishing regulators.
The National Marine Fisheries Service used sub-standard methods of data collection and violated the rule of federal law when it failed to consider alternatives to its preferred catch limits or how those alternatives would affect fishing communities, Massachusetts has charged in its most recent filing of its lawsuit against federal fishing regulators. Read more here 01:07
South Pacific Tuna Corporation fined for illegally manning U.S. flagged vessels with foreign officers
APRA HARBOR, Guam — Coast Guard Sector Guam has levied fines against the South Pacific Tuna Corporation for eight separate violations of Title 46 United States Code, Section 8304 for using unlicensed foreign personnel to illegally fill the roles of chief mate and chief engineer on U.S. flagged vessels. Read more here 21:04
Mercury contamination could permanently close lobster grounds at mouth of Penobscot River
“I commend the DMR for saying, ‘Look, we have an issue. We have to address it,’” Mike Dassett, a lobsterman from Belfast, said at the hearing. “It might be a bumpy road in the beginning, but it’ll be worth it in the end.” David Cousens, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, was at the hearing but had little to say afterwards. “No one testified against it. No one testified for it,” Cousens said of the proposed permanent rule to close the upper bay fishing grounds. Read more here BDN 16:57
Maine’s new elver rules will delay season start until April
Jeff Nichols, spokesman for Maine Department of Marine Resources, said Tuesday that because of the time needed to work out the logistics of the new measures, the season is not expected to start until April 5. Read more here 16:36
This year’s halibut season is starting up just in time in British Columbia
“The freezers were all cleared out. The frozen market got really short, starting in November-December,” said Cody Smith, who works in import, export and wholesales sales at Albion Fisheries in Victoria. “The cupboards were bare going into the fresh season.” – Read more here timescolonist 14:46
Blue crab’s complex life cycle shaped by currents
This summer, watermen will haul thousands of bushels of blue crabs from the depths of local bays and oceans, carry them to shore and heap them onto plates from Baltimore to Dewey Beach. It’s hard to imagine, but the blue crab’s natural environment is not flanked by Old Bay seasoning. In the span of about three years,, Read more here 14:34
Lobster industry must reduce on its own, says Shea
Taxpayers should not have to fund another lobster licence buyout, says federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea. Shea said industry associations have their own fish quotas that were provided to help rationalize fleets. She noted that in Newfoundland the industry has had success in reducing its own capacity. Read more here 14:27
This is Fish Radio. I’m Laine Welch … Pet treats from pollock skins.
Getting value from every part of the fish is the focus of Alaska’s pollock industry. What used to be regarded as ‘byproducts’ of fish fillets or surimi are better called ‘co-products’, says food chemist Alex Oliveira – Hear the report 13:39
Federal ministers call for change in EU seal products ban
“The EU allows seal products from Greenland to be marketed in the European Union with(out) any regard in which they are hunted. So in other words, the European Union seal regime does nothing to actually keep seal products out of the EU market or away from the EU public,” she said in a telephone interview. Read more here 08:39
