Monthly Archives: January 2015
Alaska Gov. Walker Touts Fisheries in Pep Talk
Wednesday night’s State of the State address by Governor Bill Walker was as much a pep talk as any thing else to a state facing huge budget deficits. In it, he touted Alaskan’s can-do spirit and the many assets we have to work with. One of those is our fisheries.” And Alaska’s resources aren’t just under our feet—they are also under our boats. Fisheries remain the state’s top employer and we will work with this crucial sector to strengthen sustainable fisheries. In Alaska, every boat is a small family business.” Listen, and read the rest here 13:42
Report Report on the Economic Performance of the Northeast Multispecies (Groundfish) Fishery (May 2013 – April 2014)
The Northeast Fisheries Science Center (the fish stock assessment people) has issued an annual report on the economic performance of the fishery since 2010. The results provide indicators of vessel performance, employment, financial viability, and fleet diversity. Unlike the 2010-2013 reports, this year’s uses constant dollars (nominal dollars adjusted for inflation using 2010 as the base year) for information reported in dollars so that figures may be better compared over time. Read the bad news here 13:23
Lobster marketing board meetings provide ‘good feedback’
P.E.I. lobster fishermen have just a few more days to register to vote in the upcoming lobster marketing board plebiscite. The P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association has been holding information meetings across the province about the marketing board, which will be in charge of collecting a one cent a pound harvester levy that will be used to promote Island lobster. Fishermen have already voted in favour of the levy, but now they have to vote on the marketing board itself. Read the rest here 11:04
Clam shortage in Nova Scotia due in part to weak dollar
Craving clams? You’ll probably have to wait until the loonie digs itself out of its hole. Until the Nova Scotia clam season reopens in April, supply will be nearly non-existent across the province, say sellers. The shortage is partly due to the poor exchange rate, with New Brunswick exporters taking advantage of the strong U.S. dollar to sell over the border. Read the rest here 10:43
Our Jobs, Our Resources: Unfair Sharing of Northern Shrimp
The future of our coastal communities is at risk. Thousands of jobs are in jeopardy due to unfair sharing of the northern shrimp resource. The federal government has deliberately chosen to ignore the longstanding principle of adjacency to the benefit of the corporate-owned offshore fleet, to the detriment of our coastal communities. Our northern shrimp resources are being taken out of our waters with no benefit to our province’s economy. Read the rest here 10:10
Commercial King Mackerel Trip Limit to Decrease in the Southern West Coast Florida Subzone
The daily vessel trip limit is reduced to 500 pounds beginning 12:01 a.m., local time, January 24, 2015, for Gulf group king mackerel in the southern Florida west coast subzone. NMFS NOAA Fisheries is reducing the trip limit because 75 percent (or 413,586 pounds) of the 551,448-pound quota is projected to be taken. The 500-pound daily trip limit will remain in effect until the quota is reached or through the end of the fishing year, June 30, 2015, whichever occurs first. Read the rest here 09:39
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
“All this is thrown away because of one man in Oregon,’’ – Commercial fishermen unhappy with Columbia River reforms
Commercial fishermen have reiterated their disgruntlement with the Columbia River reforms adopted two years ago by the Washington and Oregon fish and wildlife commissions. At a public hearing earlier this month in Tumwater before the Washington commission, several leaders in the lower Columbia commercial community made their unhappiness with the reforms known. Read the rest here 21:26
Biggest fish in the ocean receives international protection
Tuna and other fish species may congregate around 
, but new rule reduces the chance that the giant sea creatures could get caught in nets targeting those species. Fishermen also learned that whale sharks are so large that they naturally attract tuna, much like a FAD.,,, Read the rest here 19:37
David Bayes: Major bycatch reduction essential to halibut fishery
In recent seasons, halibut users across the state have been tightening their belts. Biologists tell us that, though the total number of halibut in Alaska’s waters is at a very sustainable rate, those halibut are now growing more slowly than usual. Since halibut are regulated based upon the “total number of pounds in the sea,” rather than “total number of fish in the sea,” the longline and charter fleets are facing allocation cutbacks. Read the rest here 16:27
Cape Cod – Seal control measures suggested – 200,000 or more of them sitting on our shores
With many fishermen complaining about the scourge of seals for decades and the recent phenomenon of great white sharks arriving to nosh on the blubbery – and protected – pinnipeds, Chatham officials had plenty to say when asked to comment on ways to deter “nuisance” animals. “They really aren’t endangered. I can’t see how 200,000 or more of them sitting on our shores can be (endangered),” said Selectman Chairman Florence Seldin last week, adding that they were so many in one of the Martha’s Vineyard harbors last year that boat traffic stopped. Read the rest here 15:59
Sea lions back in Port of Astoria’s sights
, of sea lions at the East End Mooring Basin. The only thing staff has done is to protect the Port’s property and get the sea lions off the docks, said Executive Director Jim Knight during a meeting Tuesday. He estimated between 2,000 and 3,000 sea lions head Astoria’s way for fishing season. Read the rest here 14:46Always Top Quality! Your Seafreeze Ltd. Preferred Price List for January 21, 2015
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Federal regulators consider lessening ban on single lobster pots
New regulations set by the National Marine Fisheries Service ban the use of lobstering equipment from Feb. 1 to April 30 off the Massachusetts coast. The goal is to reduce the chances of whales becoming entangled in the gear.The also ban single pots – or one trap per buoy line – outright starting June 1. Lobstermen would therefore have to tether multiple pots along a single line. But the state Division of Marine Fisheries is challenging the federal rules to allow single pots close to shore in three areas. Read the rest here 11:41
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 36′ Fiberglass Lobster/Gillnet, Cummins
Specifications, and information and 22 photos click here To see all the boats in this series, Click here 11:04
Antarctic toothfish poaching ships shrug off New Zealand navy
Staying hidden behind sea ice and large waves, sailors aboard a navy patrol boat from New Zealand sneaked up on three suspected poaching ships, then took photos and video of the fishermen hauling in prized fish in banned nets from the ocean near Antarctica. Seemingly caught red-handed, the crews of the rusting vessels just kept on fishing. Read the rest here 09:24
Harbour authorities threaten to quit in face of federal cuts – Newfoundland and Labrador singled out!
Hundreds of harbour authorities around the coast of 
are apparently considering resigning in the face of federal government cuts to people and services that support the program. Harbour authorities are mostly volunteer driven, and carry the responsibility of operating, managing and maintaining upwards of 300 harbours around the province. Read the rest here 08:49
