Daily Archives: May 11, 2014
Atlantic Coast Fishery News: Magnuson Stevens Act Questions sent to Senators on the Commerce Committee
Atlantic Coast Fishery News Sent a series of questions to your Senators on the Commerce Committee regarding The Magnuson Stevens Act. The questions are listed here, and the answers from your representatives will be published in the next issue. Please read these questions, and feel free to comment at Fisherynation.com. Yours could be included in the published article.
Many of the Rules adopted under the Magnuson Stevens Act have the net collective effect of preventing commercial fishermen from landing the total allowable catch in numerous fisheries in a fishing year. Some of these rules concern use and payment of federal observers, seasonal and geographical closure of highly productive fishing grounds, tight limitations on the catching or landing of various choke species that prematurely shut the target fishery (even though the target fishery is NOT overfished).19:24
Saving Striped Bass (It sounds so dramatic!)
By June, the fish will be racing through these waters on the way to coastal New England as part of their northern migration, a biological spectacle akin to the movement of salmon on the West Coast. But with the striped bass population in decline, competition for the prized catch has intensified between recreational and commercial fishermen, setting up a showdown over a fishery that generates, according to one study, several billion dollars a year. Read more here
The Morgan’s long journey: Five-year restoration has brought ship to the eve of departure
Mystic – When work began in November of 2008 on what would become the $10.6 million project to restore the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan, there were no plans to sail her again. The ship’s 80-year career, which began in 1841 in New Bedford, Mass., and would take her on 37 profitable voyages through the world’s great oceans, was over. Read more here 12:44
Whaling ship sets sail on new mission Read more here 12:55
A Bench is dedicated to Brad Liska during annual Chatham Blessing of the Fleet
“B Strong B Courageous B Liska.” – Brad, a Nauset Regional Middle School student who died in late 2012 of brain cancer, also was a member of a long-standing commercial fishing family in Chatham. His dad, Mark Liska, fishes on the F/V Sea Dance, and Brad’s grandad Amon “Dick” Liska crewed on fishing boats out of Chatham for 50 years. Read more here
Money available for Maine scallop projects – sea urchin survey underway
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s annual spring dive survey of green sea urchins is underway. Read more here — Maine Sea Grant is seeking proposals for research projects related to the nearshore scallop fishery in Maine. Read more here 11:03
Sea-lion miseries tied to sardine reduction – Do we let nature take its course if there are now too many?
Mass beachings of malnourished sea lions in 2013 are likely linked to a drop in sardine populations near Channel Islands rookeries where thousands of sea lions are born each year, federal officials say. More than 1,600 sea lion pups washed up on beaches from San Diego to Ventura between January and April 2013 – starving, dehydrated and suffering from a variety of diseases. Read more here 08:55
Update of fisheries law pits West Coast against East Coast
The Magnuson-Stevens Act was enacted in 1976 to protect fisheries collapsing from overfishing and poaching by foreign trawlers. But the upcoming fourth reauthorization of the main federal fisheries law has split American fishing factions by coastlines. The Magnuson-Stevens Act expired last September. Republicans in the House Natural Resources Committee and Democrats in the Senate Commerce Committee have released separate bills to update the 2006 reauthorizationed Read more here 00:39
