Monthly Archives: May 2015
Marine Safety Information Bulletin – Notification of New Requirements for Commercial Fishing Vessels
The purpose of this Bulletin is to remind the commercial fishing industry about safety and equipment requirements established by the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010 and the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2012 as well as other applicable laws. These new requirements are scheduled to go into effect by the date(s) set forth under the law. Read the rest here 18:34
Coast Guard insists marine safety will ‘improve’ under new MCTS system
The Canadian Coast Guard says worries raised about marine safety as a result of the modernization and consolidation of its Marine Communications and Traffic Services (MCTS) centres is unfounded. That plan has many folks worried that frontline services like responding to distress calls and search and rescue communications could be impacted. Greg Lick, director general of operations for Coast Guard, said MCTS services will be impacted, but in a positive way. “[Services] won’t be affected. If anything, they’ll be improved,” YES! Of course! Read the rest here 18:02
Our View: Congress can help NOAA support groundfishermen
The science, expert experience and anecdotes shared Wednesday at a forum on groundfishing in the Northeast were quite convincing that the fisheries could be better managed. The problem comes into focus when we see how difficult it has been for NOAA surveys to deliver reliable data. UMass Dartmouth’s School of Marine Science and Technology has been able — on $450,000 of government funding — to run innovative surveys with video cameras on trawls that show a nonstop stream of fish in the bottom 6 to 8 feet of the water column. SMAST’s data suggest populations of yellowtail flounder and Gulf of Maine cod multiple factors higher than NOAA’s. Read the rest here 16:51
Reunited after 20 years: tagged tuna tells tales
We have been reunited with an old friend. We met a long time ago, 22 years in fact, and we certainly left our mark during that first meeting. Now with a long passage of time behind us, we are keen to find where she has been all this time. We are, of course, talking about this stunning southern bluefin tuna (SBT). Tagged in 1993, the fish was reeled in by avid fisherman Matt Bell with the help of Skipper Dennis Heinicke, near Port MacDonnell last month. We first met ‘Bluey’ when she was approximately two years old. Read the rest here 16:22
LePage veto kills bill to find ways to stamp out invasive green crabs – Let’s react to the data!
Essentially, the bill would have restored the closure of certain mudflats to clam and worm harvesting to make way for more data collection. LePage said he didn’t support the bill that originally created the pilot project and vetoed this year’s proposed extension because he believes its continuation is unnecessary. “The pilot project has been conducted and the data has been gathered,” wrote LePage. “Let’s react to the data, not simply continue to extend this pilot ad infinitum.” Read the rest here 15:46
America Needs More Government Surveillance – On Fish!
Here’s an idea: Maybe the NSA can put some of its surplus spy expertise into the oceans. For years, the US has tried to drive its fishing policies with data—collecting information about numbers of fish caught, along with their species, ages, and locations—so it can better protect species and ecosystems that are overfished. But the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration can’t quite match the NSA’s data-monitoring skills, leaving fisheries in limbo. Read the rest here 15:10
Tuna fleets agree to 35pc reduction in fishing as part of ‘global initiative’ to boost prices
Some of the world’s biggest tuna fishing fleets have agreed to reduce their catch by 35 per cent in an effort to ease the current market crisis. An oversupply of skipjack tuna has led to prices crashing from more than $US2,000 ($2,513) per tonne in 2013 to around $US1,000 ($1,256) a tonne, causing many purse seine boats to operate at a loss. The World Tuna Purse Seine Organisation (WTPO) has announced its members, including some fleets from non-members, will be cooperating with the reduced effort. Read the rest here 14:49
Call of the wild: Coho salmon get ready to leave net pens for the ocean
About 442,000 coho salmon will be released from net pens near Tongue Point into the Columbia River Wednesday as part of the Clatsop County Fisheries Project select-area fishery program. The salmon, which came from the Oxbow Fish Hatchery in Cascade Locks, spent the last couple of weeks in the net pens while they smolt — a physical process which readies them to go to the ocean —and imprint the scent of the area so they can return for sport and commercial fishing. Read the rest here 14:40
GUEST COMMENTARY: Bering Sea halibut bycatch cuts critical for conservation
I’ll also be considering what’s coming up after I return to homeport — the June convening of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in Sitka. There the Council will take final action on the proposed reduction of halibut bycatch caps in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands, or BSAI, region.This decision point comes after a decade of steady stock decline, during which time the directed halibut fishery quota in the BSAI has dropped by 63 percent. Halibut fishermen in the hardest hit region — the Central Bering Sea — are facing closure Read the rest here 13:12
Itchin’ for a Fight – Elver dispute between Maine DNR, Passamaquoddy flares up again
Tensions between state and local Passamaquoddy officials over elver fishing increased late Wednesday when the Department of Marine Resources announced it was taking emergency action to restrict what kind of gear tribal sustenance fishermen can use. “That’s all this is about — trying to keep Indians from catching eels,” Moore said. “It is taking tribal state relations backwards. It’s clearly racially motivated.” “I hardly look at this as a racial issue,” Keliher said. Read the rest here 08:44
Best Available Science? – Video, Watermen React to Increase in Menhaden Quota Increase
“This is a regulation that’s been overturned and it’s great for us, I mean it’s only 10 percent but you have to start somewhere. It’s a great thing for us,” said Newberry. But some watermen are still angered that they weren’t restored to their old catch limits. They’ve had a twenty percent cut in quotas since those earlier assessments. “I’ve got four men working for me. There’s five families feeding off my boat. I’ve got a 20 percent reduction for year, and now they’re like well here’s ten percent back. They didn’t need a reduction,” said Boo Powley, Read the rest here 08:23
Fisheries management reform political, says ex-Mayor Scott Lang
The “middle layer” of the NOAA bureaucracy is not the place to go to seek reforms of a dysfunctional fishery management agency, former Mayor Scott Lang told a meeting of the Center for Sustainable Fisheries Wednesday at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The theme of the meeting was the worsening problems with NOAA survey trawls in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank. Fishermen and scientists from the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and technology traded accounts of wildly different results from government-run survey trawls and those conducted by the fishing boats, including a collaboration with SMAST. Read the rest here 23:25
Your Input Needed! Presidential Initiative on Combating Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing and Seafood Fraud
To fight seafood fraud and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, the Administration is seeking public input, now through June 8, on the principles to be used in determining fish species “at risk” of these illegal activities. The draft principles list will be used to develop a draft list of species for a risk-based seafood traceability program. Comments can be submitted through the Federal Register or attending one of the following webinars, Click here to read the rest and register 19:07
Securing the supply of sea scallops for today and tomorrow
Good management has brought the $559 million United States sea scallop fishery back from the brink of collapse over the past 20 years. However, its current fishery management plan does not account for longer-term environmental change like ocean warming and acidification that may affect the fishery in the future. A group of researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), National Marine Fisheries Service, and Ocean Conservancy? hope to change that. Read the rest here 17:18
Your Alaskan king crab may not be from Alaska
You see them just about everywhere, those pink and white knobby claws stretched out on a bed of ice. When it comes to crab legs, Alaskan king crabs are … well … king. But what you see in the supermarket may not be what you think. The truth is, there isn’t just one king crab, and yours may not be from Alaska. Read the rest here 16:40
VIDEO: Dredging the Oregon Inlet
The U.S. army Corps of Engineers, Wilmington District, started recently dredging operations at the Oregon Inlet in order to remove the shoaling that has been obstructing the federal channel passage for commercial fishing vessels. First on the site was cast dredge Merritt that opened the federal channel at the navigation span of the Bonner Bridge to a controlling depth of 8 feet so the hopper dredge Currituck can work to open the channel to as great a depth as possible up to its authorized depth of 14 feet. Watch the video here 15:04
Celtic Explorer departs St. John’s on northern cod fishery mission
A fisheries vessel departed St. John’s Tuesday with a 30-day mission to study the northern cod fishery, part of a five-year research project. The Celtic Explorer is headed to the Hamilton Bank region, which scientists believe was devastated by overfishing and where cod stocks have yet to see signs of recovery. Scientists aboard the Celtic Explorer will make their way up north, weather and ice permitting, to study the old spawning grounds for northern cod. Read the rest here 12:47
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 40′ Fiberglass Webber’s Cove Stern Trawler, Lobster, Volvo 102D
For specifications, information, and 14 photos of the vessel, click here To see all the boats in this series, Click here 12:17
First Nations woman wins discrimination battle over fishing captain licence
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that a Nova Scotia aboriginal community discriminated against a female member by denying her work in the local fishing industry because of her gender. The tribunal also said Tabor was subjected to derogatory remarks, citing an instance when a senior band member said “the only place for women’s breasts on a boat was on the bow as a figurehead.” Read the rest here 11:40
UNDERCOVER OPERATION – Maine elver buyer caught in federal regulators’ net
He drove a super-sized pickup truck with “EEL WGN” plates, carried a bank bag stacked with cash and, as long as you had a bucket full of elvers, William “Billy” Sheldon didn’t care where they came from, according to documents unsealed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Portland. In a 42-page search warrant affidavit, federal wildlife investigators allege that for two years, Sheldon traveled between South Carolina and Maine ,. Sheldon has not been charged in the case. Read the rest here 11:13
Massachusetts Shoreside businesses can begin applying for federal fishery disaster aid
Shoreside businesses interested in securing a share of the $750,000 in federal fishery disaster aid designated for Massachusetts must submit pre-qualification information to the state by May 31. The state Division of Marine Fisheries is managing the distribution of the financial assistance to those waterfront businesses that have been damaged economically by the ongoing federally declared groundfish fishery disaster. Read the rest her 08:30
Catch cap eased on menhaden, ‘backbone’ of East Coast fisheries
The nearly unanimous vote to lift the catch cap by 10 percent represents a compromise between commercial fishermen, who contend that they can safely harvest many more, and conservationists, who remain worried that there still are not enough menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay to sustain striped bass, known to many as rockfish. “We’re heading in the right direction,” said Robert T. Brown Sr., president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association, who asserted that there are plenty of menhaden in the bay. Read the rest here Menhaden Fishery: Here’s how it’s done 07:55
Future uncertain for fisheries research centre, five years after inception
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – The future of the largest seagoing fisheries research program of its kind in Canada is unclear as cash-strapped Newfoundland and Labrador reviews spending. “We want to continue with this project,” Premier Paul Davis said Tuesday aboard the RV Celtic Explorer docked in St. John’s harbour. But the centre is in the last of a five-year mandate and there’s no guarantee it will continue. The oil-dependent province has been walloped by lower prices and is reviewing all spending as it projects deficits through 2018. Read the rest here 20:48
Federal judge declares ‘moot’ a lawsuit over Newport Coast Guard air base closure
U.S. District court Judge Michael McShane last week declared a lawsuit attempting to block the decommissioning of a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter base in Newport as moot, since the base’s existence has been guaranteed until at least early 2016. In October, a group consisting of the Newport Fishermen’s Wives, the city of Newport, Lincoln County and others, sued the Coast Guard in federal court in Eugene to block the closure, which had been scheduled for mid-December. Read the rest here 20:16
Fishing Partnership Support Services: Gloucester Safety and Survival training, May 7, Drill Conductor training May 8
Safety Training Location: Coast Guard Station Gloucester – 17 Harbor Loop, Gloucester, MA, 01930 Time: 07:30am – 03:30pm Pre-registration for the training program is recommended. For more information or to register Click here Gloucester Drill Conductor training Same as above. Time: 08:00am – 04:00pm For more information or to register Click here 19:43
Man accused of orchestrating $271,000 king crab heist
A 29-year-old Lakeland Fla. man is accused of orchestrating a heist where $271,000 worth of king crab was stolen. Joshua Paul Warner, of 2462 Harrison Place Blvd., is reportedly seen on surveillance video unlocking a bay door at the Comcar Warehouse on April 25. “This is absolutely crazy!” said Warner. “That is a whole truck load, that is a whole semi! That is unbelievable they’d even think that of me.” Read the rest here 16:34
Fish Wars Australia – Tension flaring on commercial fishing and sustainability
TENSION between commercial and recreational fishing groups has again been in the spotlight with the release of a fishing population report. The commercial fishing industry says the report shows fish populations continue to be sustainable but the Fraser Coast Fishing Alliance says the report is “flawed” and was little more than a “desktop exercise”. The Federal Government, along with Queensland Agriculture and Fisheries Department, released data which assessed 36 nationally important species for 2014. Read the rest here 16:11
Maine proposing urchin swipe card system, rules for season
Maine fishery regulators are proposing a sea urchin fishing season that would establish rules for a swipe card system to record transactions when urchins are bought or sold. Regulators say the rules would cover the 2015-16 fishing season, which begins in September and concludes in March. The southern coast would have a 15-day season for divers, trappers, rakers and draggers of urchins. The season for most of the northern coast would be 38 days long. Regulators are proposing the same number of days as last year for both zones. Read the rest here 15:47
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission approve increase in menhaden catch limits
A multi-state regulatory board is approving higher catch limits for Atlantic menhaden, a fish that plays important roles as bait and part of the ocean food web. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board voted to raise catch limits from 170,800 metric tons per year to 187,880 metric tons per year. The limits apply this year and in 2016. Read the rest here 15:36
NMFS seeks nominations for U.S. seats on the International Pacific Halibut Commission
National Marine Fisheries Service is seeking nominations to fill two non-NOAA commissioner seats on the International Pacific Halibut Commission. Terms for the current commissioners—who are eligible for reappointment—expire on December 31, 2015. One must be a resident of Alaska—currently held by Donald Lane from Homer, Alaska One must be a non-resident of Alaska—currently held by Robert Alverson of Washington State. Read the rest here 12:09
