Daily Archives: January 22, 2015
Commercial fishermen for the second time accuse Pacific Seafood of abusing its market power
After a two-year armistice, the legal warfare has resumed between Pacific Seafood Group and a handful of Oregon commercial fishermen who claim the large Clackamas company abuses its market power. The fishermen sued Pacific Seafood Thursday claiming the company violated terms of the 2012 settlement of an earlier class-action anti-trust lawsuit. The fishermen are seeking a temporary restraining order to block Pacific Seafood’s pending acquisition of a Westport, Wash.-based fish processing company. Read the rest here 21:42
BOEM plans on industrializing 300,000 acres of ocean bottom off North Carolina Coast
As part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan to create American jobs, develop domestic clean energy resources and cut carbon pollution, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Abigail Hopper today announced the release of an Environmental Assessment (EA) supporting a potential lease sale for more than 300,000 acres of federal waters off the coast of North Carolina for wind energy development. Read the rest here 20:22
Congressman Walter B. Jones asks Corps of Engineers for more funding to dredge Morehead City Harbor
Congressman Jones explained that the harbor’s channel has shoaled from its authorized depth of 45 feet down to 35 feet. Furthermore, the $4,855,000 provided for the project in President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request is helpful but not sufficient to return the channel to its authorized depth. As a result, many of the jobs and economic impact related to the harbor are in serious peril. Read the rest here 18:51
NOAA laments loss of Democratic senator in Magnuson reform – What NOAA? POLITICS NOT YOUR PLACE!
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told Fortune magazine in an article detailing the history of and turmoil around the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act that “it remains unclear if the administration will put forward a reauthorization bill” after Begich’s defeat. “It is reasonable to assume that the recent election, including the loss of Senator , has added uncertainty to the process,” NOAA said in a statement to Fortune. Read the rest here 17:38
Coast Guard, National Marine Fisheries Service seize 2,700 pounds of shrimp near Cameron, Louisiana
The Coast Guard along with the National Marine Fisheries Service seized 2,700 pounds of catch, Tuesday evening, after boarding a fishing vessel near the jetties off Cameron, Louisiana. A Station Lake Charles boarding team was on a routine boarding when they discovered the fishing vessel Kathleen Yvonne was not equipped with the . Read the rest here 17:11
NMFS Requests Commercial Fishermen Participate in HMS Research
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) requests commercial shark fishermen who would like to participate in the 2015 shark research fishery and are fishing or plan to fish in the Gulf of Mexico fishing region to submit both a completed shark research fishery application and the required vessel information to the HMS Management Division by February 5, 2015. Read the rest here 16:03
Council for Sustainable Fishing based in Inlet is watchdog for fishermen
Federal regulations on the fishing industry over the last several years were the catalyst for Mershon and Swatzel to form the Council for Sustainable Fishing, a nonprofit watchdog group for fishermen from North Carolina to the Florida Keys. They started the nonprofit group in December 2013. One big issue the fishing industry faces is the “catch share” program. Read the rest here 14:42
DNA may hold key to identify those ‘lost at sea’
In 1990, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued 4,407 people nationwide. On March 25, 1990, however, William Hokanson Sr. and his 19-year-old son William Hokanson Jr. went down off Martha’s Vineyard with the elder Hokanson’s commercial fishing vessel Sol E Mar and were never seen again. Decades passed and family members largely moved on with their lives. But a relatively new federal database, known as the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, Read the rest here 14:01
“They treat us like criminals,” – Commercial Fishermen Rally In Hampton Bays, Demand Changes To DEC’s Enforcement Policies
Dozens of commercial fishermen from Southampton, East Hampton and other harbors across Long Island rallied on a windswept dock in Hampton Bays on Monday afternoon in defense of one of their own, and to protest what they said is the latest example of overzealous persecution by officers employed with the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Read the rest here 13:30
The thorny business of sea urchins – Video
Joe Leask spends most of his workday much like he starts it: swallowed in darkness. First by the morning, and later by the sea. Awake at 3:30 a.m., Leask heads first to the Bath, Maine, outpost of Frosty’s Donuts for a Boston creme, small-town pleasantries and precisely the amount of coffee you would expect for a witching hour wake-up call. Then, it’s an hour drive to the coastal community of Rockland and his floating “office,” the November Gale. Read the rest here 11:54
Columbia River fisheries reforms: A two-year report card
Two years ago, Washington and Oregon adopted the most sweeping reforms of lower Columbia River sport and commercial fishing policies since the 1930s. Commercial fishing that remains in the main Columbia is to be done with live-capture methods — such as purse seines and beach seines — designed to harvest hatchery stocks and release wild fish. Read the rest here 11:11
12 Eastern Carolina commercial fishermen charged with illegally harvesting and selling Atlantic Striped Bass
Thirteen commercial fishermen in North Carolina and Georgia have been charged in federal court in Raleigh for their role in the illegal harvest and sale and false reporting of approximately 90,000 pounds of Atlantic striped bass from federal waters off the coast of North Carolina during 2009 and 2010, according to the . This investigation began as a result of the U.S. Coast Guard boarding of the fishing vessel Lady Samaira in February 2010, based on a complaint that multiple vessels were fishing Striped Bass illegally. Read the rest here 09:05
Pew Enviro Fueled Legislative Witch Hunt: An end to ‘curtains of death’?
California Assembly and Senate have asked federal fishery managers to end drift gillnets, which some call “curtains of death.” California remains the only state where drift gillnet fishing are legal. The legislature has authority over remaining gillnet permits. Recently lawmakers sent a letter to Pacific Fishery Management Council and National Marine Fisheries Service, demanding a transition to alternative fishing methods. Read the rest here 08:08
Fishermen get an education on all the most desired schools
Last week, 25 commercial and for-hire recreational fishermen, along with industry participants, went to school to learn about fish populations — how they grow, what impacts them and how we can keep them at maximum sustainable yield levels. The session focused on science issues as they relate to fisheries. Read the rest here 07:54
