Daily Archives: February 7, 2015
Cook Inlet Setnet Ballot Initiative
The fight between commercial fishermen and sportfish, personal use, and subsistence users over resource allocation has been fought at the Board of Fish and political levels for a number of years. Recently, the Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund took the State of Alaska to court over management of Cook Inlet salmon fisheries. The move expanded the battlefield from the Board of Fish to state courts. This is Lawfare by Cook Inlet commercial fishermen who are also fighting the in federal court. Read the rest here 18:54
Pew Charitable Trusts promoting illegal fishing crackdown
In New England, one of the U.S.’s most active fishing areas, between 12 and 24 percent of the total catch of species such as cod, flounder and haddock was taken illegal in 2010, according to a study in the journal Marine Policy. Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, said Pew’s project could potentially be a “way to use technology to try and deal with an issue that we have been having a hard time figuring out.” WTF? photo credit Read the rest here 11:44
Seal hunt bill swan song for veteran MP Greg Kerr
Longtime politician Greg Kerr’s final legislative contribution will be to keep seal hunt observers farther away from the hunt. It will double the size of the legal buffer that prevents observers from coming near the seal hunt. The bill amends the Marine Mammal Regulations to expand the buffer from one-half nautical mile to one nautical mile. Asked if his bill was designed to keep opponents of the seal hunt from being there to film the hunt, Kerr said it was. Read the rest here 09:03
Mom finds tongue-eating parasite staring out of tuna can
A parasite in a tuna can has one mother fishing for answers as to the identity of a blob-like, big-eyed creature peeking out at her from the side of a can of Princes tuna chunks. After the Nottingham mother’s photo and story went viral, the best scientific minds perusing bizarre Internet tales have determined that tiny creature is the head of a Cymothoa exigua – a fish tongue-eating, parasitic louse that enters through the gills and feeds off its fish host. Read the rest here 08:31
Environmentalism as Religion by Michael Crichton
In 2003 Michael Crichton sent the Ecology industry into a rage by exposing them as a religion. He got away with it because he had both the science background and enough money not to be silenced by the eco-lobby. After his death this speech was scrubbed from Crichton’s personal website, so I am posting it here before it vanishes forever. Read the rest here 08:01
Bering Sea health: Fishing is not a threat
In their guest column “Saving ocean habitat before it’s drained, Opinion, Feb. 1,” the authors suggest that protecting the Bering Sea canyons would help “save the oceans.” While it is true that the oceans are threatened in many ways, the Bering Sea is not threatened by fishing. It is in fact one of the best-managed fisheries in the world, with annual harvests well below scientific advice on what is sustainable. Read the rest here 07:34
American Samoa long line fishery faces “potential collapse” says WCPFMC
“What we’ve seen over the past decade or so, is that the small vessel fleet has substantially decreased”, he said and explained that information requested with the U.S. National Marine Fishery Service shows there were “zero longline alia” active last year.He added that the fishing grounds that were reserved in 2002 for small longline alia “is essentially under utilized… because it’s not being fished too much by the small vessels”. He also noted that the large longliner fleet numbers have also declined over the years to only 19 active ones in 2014. Read the rest here 07:27
Board of Fisheries debate continues
This whole Board of Fish controversy will undoubtedly continue until Roland Maw is either confirmed or rejected by the legislature. I don’t want to dwell on this subject too long, but material just keeps appearing weekly and needs comment. My editor forwards reader’s comments to me. So far, everything from the Kenai Peninsula regarding fisheries has amounted to hate mail, but some of it is “interesting” to read. Read the rest here 07:20
Setting the record, and John Bullard straight – Fishermen have first-hand knowledge of cod stock levels
Recently the Portsmouth Herald ran a well written, multiple source article on the status of 
. One of your interviews was with John Bullard, Regional Administrator for NOAA Fisheries. In his statement he said he would be glad to consider my point of view when I produced peer-reviewed scientific journal articles. Apparently Mr. Bullard does not know that I have been involved in peer-reviewed journal articles on several species, as well as trawl bycatch reduction devices, for a number of years. Read the rest here 06:53
