Daily Archives: April 17, 2015
Scallop Sparks flying in advance of New England Fishery Management Council meeting
The scallop industry is on high alert over next week’s meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council after a long warning letter was sent to the council by NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator John Bullard. The council’s Habitat Committee has issued recommendations that fishing restrictions be lifted on several areas of Georges Bank, the Gulf of Maine and the South Channel. But Bullard, backed by his agency’s scientific staff, said he believes that the relaxing of the restrictions would set back the effort to nurse fish stocks back to health. Read the rest here 22:03
Russian Fishing Vessel Oleg Naydenov catch’s fire, sink’s off Gran Canaria accused of illegal fishing
Shortly after the Russian-flagged fishing vessel Oleg Naydenov sank south of Gran Canaria after catching fire, allegations about its involvement in illegal fishing activities and revocation of its catch permits came into light. According to the NGO Greenpeace, this 100 metre-long trawler had the fishing permits in Senegal revoked, as it is a country that had also accused it of overfishing pelagic resources in waters for which it lacked authorization. Read the rest here 20:25
North Carolina Fisheries Association Weekly Update for April 17, 2015
Weekly Update for April 17, 2015 as a PDF To read all the updates, click here 18:02
North Carolina: Some commercial fishing license fees jump 60 percent
The prices of six commercial fishing licenses has increased by 60 percent under a plan approved last year to help pay for the fisheries observer program while also providing funds to enhance the state commercial fishing industry. The new fees represent a 100 percent increase from two years ago under a plan to fund the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries Observer Program that was proposed by the commercial fishing industry. The plan proposed by the North Carolina Fisheries Association,,, Read the rest here 17:11
Case against East End fisherman Bill Reed, charged with overfishing, thrown out
A Southampton judge on Friday dismissed a case mid-trial against an East End commercial fisherman charged with overfishing after he returned to port to avoid a storm. The case against Reed fell apart after Matthew Foster, an enforcement officer for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and DEC official Steve Heins acknowledged on the witness stand that a “safe harbor” provision the agency uses to grant exceptions to its quota rules was “general practice” but never “written policy.” Read the rest here 16:40
$62,500 in fines, fishing prohibitions doled out in Yarmouth County seizure of 6,222 illegal lobsters
The seizure of lobsters by DFO took place on April 27, 2012, in Comeau’s Hill involving the fishing vessel Melanie Lynn II. In provincial court in Yarmouth on Friday, April 17, Earl Patrick Boudreau, 51, and Dennis Joseph Clairmont, 62, pleaded guilty to possession of undersized lobsters measuring less than 82.5 millimetres. At the time of the 2012 seizure DFO said the lobsters had been stored in about two-dozen holding cases and crates. DFO also doesn’t know for certain where they were destined. Read the rest here 16:28
Spare fleet readies for Togiak herring season
At the quiet Dillingham Boat Harbor Monday, the four-man crew of the F/V Skagerrack was on deck, patching holes in their net and mending a leaky winch. “It’s been 10 years since I seined for herring,” said skipper Paul Friis-Mikkelsen, a longtime veteran of Bristol Bay’s fisheries. He was able to get a market with Silver Bay Seafoods, and will fish as a co-op with just a few other seiners. The dwindling Togiak herring fleet is gloomy about an estimated price of just $50 per ton,,, Read the rest here 15:50
Maine: Slow start to elver season means high price for baby eels
Maine’s baby eel season is off to a slow start, causing prices to balloon back to historic levels as fishermen wait for waterways to finish thawing. Elvers, also called , are sold overseas as seed stock for Asian aquaculture companies that raise them to maturity and sell them as food. Maine fishermen are by far the largest supplier of elvers in the U.S. Some end up back in America in restaurants as sushi. Read the rest here 14:50
Northeast Fisheries Science Center to Step Up Partnerships for Better Fishery Resource Surveys
“We understand the impacts that poor stock conditions have on local economies and the lives of those involved in the fisheries,” said NOAA Fisheries’ NEFSC director Bill Karp. “We face many challenges in better understanding the dynamics of all of our regional stocks, especially as we see increasing effects of climate change throughout the region. We cannot meet these challenges alone, so we are strengthening our collaborative relationships with industry, our academic partners, and other stakeholders,” he said. Read the rest here 14:02
North Pacific council cuts Bering Sea salmon bycatch caps
The most iconic Alaska fish is in puzzling decline, and the mission for both state and federal fisheries managers is to spread the pain as evenly as possible. The cuts of 25 percent and 30 percent for the pollock industry’s performance standard and hard caps struck a middle ground that was too much for one group and not enough for the other. The council’s unanimous decision was to reduce the hard cap from 60,000 to 45,000, and the performance standard from 47,591 to 33,318 in low abundance years. Read he rest here 11:16
DMR permanently revokes licenses of Swan’s Island fisherman
For the first time ever, a commercial fisherman in Maine has had all his licenses to fish permanently revoked, according to state officials. Citing Lucas Lemoine’s history of violations, Patrick Keliher, commissioner the state Department of Marine Resources, permanently revoked his commercial fishing licenses on Tuesday, department officials indicated in a prepared statement released Thursday evening. Lemoine, 33, had licenses to fish for scallops and lobster. Read the rest here 10:32
Scat may contain clues to marine mammals’ Southern California deaths
Lowry, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration biologist, hoped the pungent material contained answers to why at least 2,250 dehydrated and underweight sea lions started showing up on local beaches in January — around the time he detected evidence of an unprecedented shift in the species’ eating habits. “The sea lion population is increasing at a rate of about 5.1% per year,” said Lowry, who also conducts annual aerial surveys of California’s pinniped populations. “In 1964, the sea lion population was about 30,000. Today, it is a tad over 300,000.” Read the rest here 10:20
Atlantic sturgeon season approved as DFO ponders species status
A small commercial fishery for Atlantic sturgeon in the St. John River will begin as usual next month, despite a looming federal decision on whether to list the giant fish under Canada’s Species at Risk Act. Mike Dadswell, a retired Acadia University sturgeon researcher, says the report contains errors and out-of-date information. He said the population size of up to 2,000 breeding fish used by COSEWIC is a significant underestimate, and puts the true number of around 11,500, which he says is “close to the virgin population of 11,000 adults in 1880.” Read the rest here 07:40
Video – Fishermen upset after West Coast sardine season halted
Sal Mineo casts his nets four to five hours out from Monterey’s Fisherman’s Wharf. But the commercial season has been declared over, two months early this season and next season as well. That goes against the 48-year-old sardine fisherman’s optimistic outlook. “Just because there’s isn’t any fish now, it doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be any fish you know a week or two weeks from now,” he said. Video, Read the rest here 07:19
