Daily Archives: October 30, 2015
Monterey Bay anchovy numbers in decline, groups say
Geoff Shester, the California program manager for the conservation group Oceana, said, “The problem is we know anchovy goes way up and way down. What was a sustainable level of fishing back then, might be wiping out the population now.” “I’ve been fishing anchovies since 1959, and I don’t see any problem with the anchovies for the whales,” said fisherman Neil Guglielmo of Monterey. “Perhaps this is the time of year the whales move or El Nino, but the fact that we’re scaring whales or catching their food source is ridiculous.” Read the rest here 18:40
Astoria drops below Newport in commercial catch
Astoria slipped below Newport last year as the dominant West Coast port for commercial fishing. Newport landed 124 million pounds of commercial fish, the 11th highest mark by quantity in the nation, while Astoria netted 122 million pounds, the 12th highest. Westport, Washington, came in at 100 million pounds, or 13th highest. The catch figures were released today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which compiles an annual fisheries report that includes the quantity and value of commercial fishery landings. Read the rest here 16:58
Fishermen obeyed their quotas, so why did Maine cod stocks collapse?
Dr. Andrew Pershing from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI), lead author of the study released Thursday in Science, explained for the first time why cod stocks in the Gulf of Maine have decreased to 3 to 4 percent of sustainable levels, despite numerous harvesting restrictions in 2010 by fisheries managers. Fisheries published strict quota limits for fishermen without accounting for ocean warming in the Gulf of Maine,,, By not accounting for such an influential change, fisheries set quota ceilings that were too high and inadvertently endorsed severe overfishing. Read the rest here 13:09
Friday Tomfoolery with Captain Paul Watson
Why We Need to Stop Masking the Reality of Animal Cruelty With Language – Paul Watson. For many years, I have been annoyed at some of the terminology used in our societies in reference to our brutal treatment of animals. The first word that needs to go is the word “harvest,” when used in reference to the killing of animals. And he’s off! So begins a journey into the things that just piss him off, to the point of scorn such as sustainable fisheries, for there is no such thing! Sometimes the word “fish” is replaced by the word “product.” Read the rest here 12:11
Turf War: Lobster fishermen charged after confrontation with First Nations
Anthony Peter-Paul expected his first season as a lobster fisherman to be tough and profitable, but it turned into a situation where, he says, he “felt helpless.” The St. Thomas University student, and Pabineau First Nation man, spent the 2015 season fishing lobster in the Bay of Chaleur with a first-time licence-holder, also from Pabineau. It started off with a fishermen’s meeting which they have every year at Stonehaven,” said Peter-Paul. Read the rest here 11:11
The unknown, the unsolved and the unexplained … Part 2
The year 1952 was not a good year for fishermen. Not because the fishing was bad, but because people were going fishing and never coming home again. Richard H. Dill had been a resident of the West End for a number of years and recently had moved to Port Angeles. On a Sunday morning in May 1952 Tyler Hobucket spotted Dill’s fishing boat, the Terrine, off LaPush — it was running in circles. George Lewis, owner of the troller Destiny had last spoken with Dill on Friday, via his ship radio. At the time Dill was north of Grays Harbor and he told Lewis he was heading,,, Read the rest here 10:09
Britain’s youngest fishing boat captain has to be rescued… again
He is Britain’s youngest fishing boat captain, who just last week won an award for saving the lives of three of his crew when his boat sank in rough seas. But now Jake Bowman-Davies, 17, has had to be rescued yet again, after crashing a vessel for the second time this year. The teenager, from Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, wrecked another of his father’s fishing boats, worth around £300,000, this week when his boat collided with rocks in the darkness. Read the rest here 09:26
USCG focuses on crab fishing safety
As Dungeness crab fishing is the most deadly of all West Coast commercial fisheries, U.S. Coast Guard fishing vessel safety experts will be visiting Northern California fishing ports in early November ahead of the fishing season, to help reduce the number of deaths, injuries and accidents. The season is scheduled to begin at midnight on 14 November for the central coast (Avila-Morro Bay to the mouth of the Russian River) and 1 December for the northern coast (Russian River to the Oregon border). Coast Guard personnel will be on the docks in ports from Monterey to Crescent City on 3-5 November to help identify and mitigate safety hazards in the crab fleet. Read the rest here 08:51
Scientists: Warming ocean factor in collapse of Gulf of Maine cod fishery
The scientists behind the Science report say the warming of the Gulf of Maine, which accelerated from 2004 to 2013, reduced cod’s capacity to rebound from fishing pressure. The report gives credence to the idea — supported by advocacy groups, fishing managers and even some fishermen — that climate change has played a role in cod’s collapse. The lead author of the study, Andrew Pershing of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, said the gulf is warming at a rate 99 percent faster than anywhere else in the world, and as a result, too many of the fish aren’t living past age 4. Cod can live to be older than 20. Read the rest here 07:58
