Daily Archives: September 10, 2015
Life jacket credited for saving man’s life in fish boat tragedy
Before the Caledonian went down, two fishermen clung to the capsized vessel for hours. Only one was wearing a life vest. It saved his life. The unidentified man was the sole survivor when the 33-metre dragger sank to the bottom like a stone Saturday evening, more than six hours after capsizing in chilly waters north of Tofino. His three partners in the ship’s four-member crew — engineer Keith Standing, 48, and deckhand Doug White, 41, of Port Alberni, and 55-year-old skipper Wesley Hegglund of Duncan — died in the waters 55 kilometres west of Estevan Point, near the entrance to Nootka Sound. Notes pieced together from the recollections of the survivor tell a harrowing tale that Joint Rescue Coordination Centre marine rescue co-ordinator Colin Henthorne summarized. It was cloudy; fishermen a few dozen miles away reported two-metre swells. The Caledonian had one “bag” of fish on board. As they brought a second netful, the vessel started to list significantly, finally keeling on its side between 3 or 3:30 p.m. Read the rest here 18:51
Icicle Seafoods sale cancelled
Icicle Seafoods owner Paine & Partners announced Sept. 4 that the sale of the company to buyers Dominion Catchers, LLC and Convergence Holdings, Inc. has been cancelled. The sale was anticipated to close in August and was announced in late June. Company representatives declined to comment further on the reasons for the cancellation. Some online industry sources have speculated that a provision in the American Fisheries Act which requires U.S. citizens to have 75 percent ownership and control of commercial fishing vessels 100 feet or greater in length may have played a role in the sale’s termination. Read the rest here 18:23
BIG STORY! – Prodigy to pariah: N.J. oysterman’s bizarre battle with the state
New Jersey oyster farmers – But what really horrifies them is a more recent tale involving one of their own: Marc Zitter, a rookie farmer who found brief, stunning success growing oysters, only to be brought to his knees in a bizarre two-year battle with the State of New Jersey. The story, laid out in a lawsuit, interviews, emails, investigation reports and other court documents, began in September of 2013, when camouflage-clad NJ Department of Environmental Protection conservation officers began secretly videotaping Zitter’s operations in Delaware Bay and on a barge in Dias Creek, a small tributary in Cape May County. The following month, 10 officers swooped in and shut down Zitter’s operation in a dramatic show of force. Read the rest here 17:10
Who ya gonna call? Digby DFO cleans up ghost traps from Bay of Fundy
“Our mandate is enforcement and conservation,” said Digby Fisheries officer Corey Webster. “Just like our compliance blitz in St. Mary’s Bay this summer, this is an important job just to make sure everything is cleaned up. And it’s also important for us to be out on the water, just to see what is happening out there.” Fishermen harvest lobster from weighted traps that sit on bottom. They tie a rope to the trap and a buoy keeps that rope floating at the surface to show them where their traps are. Other fishermen, who may see these errant traps, are not allowed however to haul another fisherman’s traps. Read the rest here 15:22
Coast Guard crews tow fishing boat from 100 miles off Boston, Editorializes owner responsibility.
The crews of the Coast Guard Cutters Escanaba and Key Largo, and a 47-foot Motor Life Boat crew from Station Point Allerton, assisted four people Wednesday who were aboard a disabled fishing vessel 97 miles east of Boston. This is the in two months. “The Coast Guard should be the last resort for assisting disabled vessels that are not in distress,” said Lt. Samantha Leon, a watchstander at the First Coast Guard District’s command center. ”It is the responsibility of the owner of the disabled vessel to find a commercial salvage company that can assist them.” Having a preventative maintenance plan,,, Read the rest here 12:25
Hypothetically Speaking, Electronic Monitoring Cost Reports Released
Observer Committee members, Herring Committee members, and Herring Advisory Panel members, Please see below for links to reports re. cost information related to electronic monitoring (EM). This information will also be provided as part of the omnibus Draft Industry-Funded Monitoring (IFM) Amendment, to be released in the immediate future. The second report may be of particular interest, as it compares the costs of a hypothetical at-sea observer program with an electronic monitoring program for midwater trawl vessels to monitor maximized retention in the Atlantic herring and mackerel fisheries. Read the rest here 11:40
$20M for Canada’s lobster industry promised by Conservative Stephen Harper
A re-elected Conservative government would invest $20 million in Canada’s lobster industry, party leader 
announced in P.E.I. Thursday. Spread over three years, the lobster industry investment would be split into $15 million for marketing and promotion and $5 million for research to inform decisions on fishing seasons, licences and harvesting. That research would be done in collaboration with provinces and universities. Harper noted that lobster is Canada’s single most economically important fishery, with annual landings worth $620 million a year. Read the rest here 11:08
Conflict between clammers, wormers comes to a head in Brunswick
In the past year, Brunswick Harbor Master Dan Devereaux has seen something he hasn’t found in a while in the mud flats off Thomas Point Beach. A whole lot of clams. When Devereaux reported those numbers to the town’s marine resource committee in the spring, they quickly moved to close the flats as a shellfish growing area. The closing and reopening of Brunswick’s shellfish growing area highlights a long-brewing conflict between clammers and marine worm harvesters. Clam harvesters are regulated by local shellfish ordinances; a town conducts surveys of clam stocks, and distributes licenses based on that number. , on the other hand, falls under state regulation by the DMR. And according to Devereaux, “they’re virtually unregulated.” Read the rest here 09:55
New Maryland director of fisheries named
David Blazer, deputy director of harbor development for the Maryland Port Administration, takes over Sept. 21 as director of fisheries, DNR announced Wednesday.The announcement comes more than three months after the firing of Tom O’Connell, a veteran DNR employee who had been fisheries director since 2008. Hogan administration officials offered no explanation at the time for the removal of O’Connell and three other top DNR officials. While conservationists and even some commercial watermen had urged the Hogan administration to retain O’Connell, the head of the Maryland Watermen’s Association, Robert T. Brown Sr., had pressed for changes, reflecting watermen’s unhappiness with O’Malley administration fisheries policies. Read the rest here 09:41
Carlos Rafael — White House should heed call on burden of at-sea monitors
In a show of bipartisan cooperation that’s all too rare in today’s politics, Massachusetts’ Republican governor and all-Democratic congressional delegation united late last month to call upon the Obama administration to reverse a particularly egregious federal policy: the current plan by NOAA to require the fishing industry to pay the full cost for at-sea monitors for the groundfish fishery. Fishermen will now be required to hire monitors from an approved short list of for-profit companies. This policy will impose a significant burden on area fishermen, and poses a threat to the future of a fishery that is already reeling from a string of onerous federal regulations. Read the rest here 09:05
Whale advocates seek commercial fishing gear ban
Environmental activists want voters to ban commercial fishing nets and gear in state waters to prevent entanglements of whales and turtles, but fishermen and even some animal welfare groups say the move would be ineffective while devastating the struggling fishing industry. The effort is being led by Max Strahan, an activist known in environmental circles as the “Prince of Whales” for sometimes radical campaigns to protect the North Atlantic right whale, one of the planet’s most endangered species. Strahan’s proposal, which cleared an initial hurdle two weeks ago when it was certified,,, Read the rest here 08:3o
