Daily Archives: June 12, 2015
North Carolina Fisheries Association Weekly Update for June 12, 2015
Click to read the Weekly Update for June 12, 2015 as a PDF To read all the updates, click here 20:59
Thousands of tuna crabs invade San Diego’s beaches, El Niño could be the culprit
Thousands reddish-orange tuna crabs have been washing ashore along San Diego’s beaches. It’s thought the unusual sight is because of warmer-than-normal waters in the Pacific Ocean near the California coast. The tiny crustaceans have appeared from Point Loma to Newport Beach to Santa Catalina Island since early this year but now the crabs have begun to come ashore in San Diego over the past two weeks. Read the rest here 19:55
Cameras to remedy observer problems in Alaska?
Smaller boats in Alaska’s offshore fisheries may no longer have to carry human observers in the future, if a plan to deploy cameras proves feasible. At its Sitka meeting this month, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council gave the green light to an inter-agency effort to develop Electronic Monitoring. The council would like to see cameras in action within three years. “Our observer was on board. And our observer was seasick for about half the days. Conditions were cramped, and I got to sleep on the galley table,” said Steven Rhoads,,, Read the rest here 18:07
Southern Harbour fisherman, Peter Leonard, running for FFAW election
So the Southern Harbour man, who has spent three decades as a commercial fisherman, is serving notice that his name will be on the ballot when the union begins the election process later this year. “I’m not afraid of a fight,” he said. One of his biggest worries is that the inshore fishery is being slowly killed in favour of big business taking over the catching of fish. Leonard says he also wants to make sure fishers have a strong voice at the union table. Read the rest here 15:51
Fishermen oppose New Bedford casino proposal
“No harm is either meant, intended or done by our plan, to the fishing fleet,” Stern said. He cited plans for commercial fishing berths and a recreational marina on the site, and said the removal of oil tanks would keep tankers from using the Acushnet River, freeing space for fishermen. Forty-year fisherman Gabriel Miranda disagreed. “Not on my working waterfront,” Miranda said of a casino. “I can’t see how we’d survive down there.” Jim Kendall, of New Bedford Seafood Consulting, said during the Q & A that “there’s been very little interaction between your people and the fishing industry.” Read the rest here 14:42
Palau burns Vietnamese boats caught fishing illegally
Palau’s president, Tommy Remengesau Jr., said the boats were burned Friday morning. “I think it’s necessary to burn the boats,” he said. “There’s a lot of opportunity for illegal fishing and other transnational crime. It’s a challenge,” said Seth Horstmeyer, campaigns director for The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Ocean Legacy program. High seas pockets, beyond the jurisdiction of any government, account for nearly two-thirds of all ocean areas. Read the rest here 14:23
Berwick fisherman doing OK after at-sea rescue by Digby ferry
Clayton Joudrey’s sister wrote to the Courier about 1 p.m. June 9 to say the fisherman is very thankful to the crew of the Princess of Acadia, the doctor and nurses on board, and the crew on his fishing boat. “Clayton’s doing ok,” wrote Tammy Naugler of Coldbrook. “Break in his neck, fractured orbital bone and a fractured skull. But he’s awake and enjoying a Tim’s coffee.” Joudrey was injured while scalloping June 7 aboard the Compass Rose II (click here) on the Bay of Fundy. Read the rest here 11:28
NPFMC must strike a better balance on halibut bycatch – Charlie Wilber
This commentary is written for all those who appreciate halibut. If you eat halibut, catch halibut, or have an interest in a healthy halibut resource you need to be aware of what happened at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in Sitka this past week. Simply put, halibut stocks in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) area are down, and the problem is slowly affecting all of us. Read the rest here 11:07
What? No Mackerel?? Ocean off Iceland Unusually Cold, No Mackerel
The Icelandic Marine Research Institute’s annual spring expedition from May 18 to 30 concluded that the ocean temperature off Iceland has not been lower in 18 years, or since 1997. The number of krill is below average and not a single mackerel was caught. “In the past years we have always caught some mackerel, and especially last year. But now we didn’t see any,” Read the rest here 10:20
Georgia Shrimp fishermen want a later season opening in state waters
Commercial shrimpers in McIntosh, Glynn and Camden counties have been keeping the Georgia Department of Natural Resources busy lately pleading for it to wait another two weeks before opening state waters for harvesting. If the season opens on schedule Tuesday, they will lose an opportunity to make money this season, they argue. An unusually high number of brown shrimp making their way into the estuaries and into the surf need a couple more weeks to be big enough to fetch a decent price, they say. Read the rest here 08:53
Monsters of the deep: Colossal squid and mighty toothfish waging war in Antarctica
Two giant monsters of the deep are waging a war two kilometres beneath the surface of the Antarctic Ocean, scientists have discovered. The mysterious colossal squid and its foe the Antarctic toothfish have been found to feast on one another in a study published in the Journal of Natural History. Colossal squid were first discovered in 1925, but very little is known about. They are believed to grow up to 14m in length and weigh up to 750kg – although most are probably much smaller. It is a slow-moving ambush predator, using its large eyes to detect prey,,, Read the rest here 08:28
