Daily Archives: January 17, 2016
Trawler ban plan ‘would finish me’, says Bute fisherman
Proposals for a ‘regulating order’ to limit prawn and scallop fishing around the Clyde are likely to wipe out the whole of the ‘mobile’ fishing industry in the Firth. That’s the grim prediction of Bute fisherman Colin McArthur, who has already decided that if the limits put forward by the Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust (SIFT) are accepted by government, he’ll walk away from the industry in which he has spent all his working life. Colin, who has been a trawlerman for 26 years, following in the wake of his father and grandfather,,, Read the article here 16:47
The risky quest for sea urchins
His face and lips went numb in seconds, but that was the least of Wayne Hardy’s worries as he disappeared beneath the ocean’s surface, diving to a bed of sea urchins 14 metres below. “There are a lot of things that can go wrong,” Hardy said a few days after he and three other divers collectively hauled in roughly 3,000 pounds of sea urchins from the ocean floor off the coast of Main-a-Dieu. “If things go wrong, there’s not a lot of room for error. There are a lot of bad things that can happen very quickly. Read the article here 13:18
Dungeness crab closure pushes North Coast fishermen to breaking point
A man of few words, Blagg, 70, used his scarred and weathered hands to convey his thoughts on the disaster that is shaping up in lieu of this year’s Dungeness crab season, which authorities postponed last year due to consumer health concerns. Blagg pointed his thumb toward the ground. “The only thing I know is my savings account, going down,” said the grizzled fisherman, his gaze barely rising beneath the visor of his black Marines cap. From across the wooden table, deckhand Andy Macri, 54, declared after a brief stretch of silence, “I’ll be homeless after this month.” Read the article here 12:25
Wild fish advocates threaten to sue over Columbia hatcheries
Funding of chinook, coho and steelhead fish hatchery programs throughout the Columbia River Basin is being challenged by wild fish advocates who contend that hatchery fish adversely affect struggling native fish stocks. On Wednesday, the Wild Fish Conservancy based in Duvall, Washington, issued a 60-day notice of intent to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Department of Commerce for funding. Columbia Basin hatchery programs under the Mitchell Act without complying with provisions of the Endangered Species Act. Read the article here 10:22
Stuart Vorpahl – Crusader for Rights of Fishermen and Common People
Stuart Vorpahl, a lifelong fisherman, historian, former town trustee, and descendant of one of East Hampton’s oldest families, died on Thursday morning at Southampton Hospital. “He was fighting this fight when the rest of us were in diapers,” Mr. Rodgers said. “Stuart Vorpahl was not born to be a raconteur. He was born first and foremost a man of the sea, a fisherman. It was only through this frustration at bureaucracy and government regulation that he began challenging authority, and he never stopped. He never gave up; he never wavered. You have to admire that about a man. . . . He did this because it was the right thing to do. And he did it for all of us.” Read the article here 09:31
Alaska’s Board of Fisheries votes not to authorize purse seine fishing on Yukon River
Alaska’s Board of Fisheries voted 5-2 Saturday to not approve a new type of commercial chum salmon fishing gear in the lower Yukon River. In one of the board’s most contested decisions of its five-day meeting, the regulatory body was against opening the river to purse seining, a method that involves encircling a group of fish with a net and pulling it closed like a purse. Fishermen from upriver communities like Tanana and Manley Hot Springs opposed the purse seine opening out of concern that purse seiners would injure king salmon inadvertently swept up with the chum salmon. Read the article here 09:12
With ‘graveyard’ find, preserving Delaware Bay’s past
BIVALVE, N.J. – Years ago, when Meghan Wren was hiking through a boat “graveyard” in nearby Leesburg, she discovered the rotting remains of a wooden yawl. The hundred-year-old wreck so intrigued Wren – founder and executive director of the Bayshore Center at Bivalve – that she began studying how these boats were traditionally used as auxiliary craft to schooners and other vessels along the Delaware Bay and elsewhere. Usually rigged as a two-masted sailing craft, yawls often were favored over other types of dinghy in commercial fishing operations,,, Read the article here 08:44
