Daily Archives: May 10, 2016
Lobstermen Justin and Travis Maderia plan to sue Stonington officials over fire that sank their boat
Two brothers whose lobster boat was destroyed by fire at the Town Dock last November have informed the town they intend to sue a long list of municipal employees and officials because of the damage to their business. These include damages to business equipment and personal property, lost business opportunities and personal damages. Mystic attorney Michael Hardesty, who represents well-known local lobstermen Justin and Travis Maderia and their business Lindy Inc., served the town with the notice on Tuesday. The 43-foot Lindy Inc. burned and sank at the Town Dock during the early morning hours of Nov. 11, 2015, and was raised a few days later. The fire, which also damaged another boat tied to the Lindy, as well as some of the dock’s pilings and decking, remains under investigation by police and the state fire marshal. Read the story here 22:05
Lobster fisherman wary of Gulf of St. Lawrence oil drilling
As lobster season gets underway Tuesday in Cape Breton, a top local fisherman is warning that oil exploration and drilling in the Gulf of St. Lawrence could wreak havoc on local marine life. “It could ruin our industry,” said Jordan MacDougall, president of the Inverness South Fisherman’s Association. He warned that any oil spill would settle on the seabed — prime lobster habitat — and devastate their populations. “You wouldn’t be able to sell your product and it would probably give Canada a negative name for that product from other areas,” said MacDougall. His comments come just four months after regulators granted a one-year extension on an oil exploration licence for Corridor Resources Inc. at the Old Harry site off the western coast of Newfoundland, in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Read the story here 18:19
Prosecutors – Carlos Seafood’s transaction reports didn’t match up
The FV Hera II, a boat that prosecutors said fishing fleet owner Carlos Rafael owned through a shell corporation, reported catching 4,595 pounds of haddock on Jan. 25, then selling it to Rafael’s Carlos Seafood business, a registered dealer, according to the indictment of Rafael that was unsealed Monday. Carlos Seafood also recorded acquiring 840 pounds of American plaice, or “dabs,” from the Hera II that day, prosecutors said. But here’s the rub: Records of Carlos Seafood’s third-party sales Jan. 25, according to the indictment, cite about 200 pounds of haddock and 5,200 pounds of dabs. In other words, prosecutors allege, a lot of the fish caught by the Hera II on Jan. 25 and reported as “haddock” actually were dabs, which are subject to stricter regulatory quotas. Read the rest here 17:37
The Enviro Crackpots keep pushing! – Cashes Ledge deserves permanent protection
World famous oceanographer Sylvia Earle dived Cashes Ledge and declared it to be a “Yellowstone” of the ocean. Visions of enviro’s appear in my head doing the wave chanting ocean Serengeti over and over, trance like,,, Despite all the fishing that has rendered much of the Northeast a shell of its colonial riches, there remains in precious spots underwater life every bit the rival of the California coast and the Caribbean. Two such areas, Cashes Ledge and the New England Mid Atlantic Coral Canyons and Seamounts, deserve national marine monument status from President Obama before he leaves office. But there aren’t any such protections in the Atlantic, and groups such as the Conservation Law Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the National Resources Defense Council, are campaigning for protection. (Full disclosure: I (Derrick Jackson) coauthored a book on Maine’s puffin restoration and discussed the bird’s winter feeding at a CLF luncheon this winter). Get the gist? Read the rest here 16:58
Cooke Aquaculture of Canada will purchase Icicle Seafoods
Cooke Aquaculture, a Canadian fisheries firm based in New Brunswick, said May 9 that the company has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Icicle Seafoods. The transaction is anticipated to close in less than 30 days once all regulatory and legal matters have been completed, the company said. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Icicle, which began as Petersburg Fisheries Inc. in Southeast Alaska in 1965, is currently owned by the private equity firm Paine & Partners, with headquarters in Foster City, CA. With the acquisition, the Cooke group of companies will produce over 275,000 metric tons of seafood annually and generate $1.8 billion in annual sales, Cooke said. Glenn Cooke, president of Cooke Seafood, described the deal as “an exciting venture for us as it will add a well-respected fishery to our family businesses. Read the rest here 12:15
Encouraging results from fishing trials with new trawl design for reducing unwanted catches
Preliminary fishing trials using a new design of prawn trawl developed to reduce unwanted bycatches of fish have produced encouraging results. The prototype trawl, which is the brainchild of fishing skipper Jimmy Buchan and netmaker Mark Buchan of Jackson Trawls, is designed to aid North Sea prawn fishermen comply with new Landing Obligation regulations (discard ban). Working in a project supported by The Gear Innovation Technology and Advisory Group (GITAG), initial fishing trials with the new trawl on the fishing vessel Amity II resulted in a significant drop in the amount of unwanted whitefish retained without any reduction in the prawn (langoustine) catch. Furthermore, the quality of the prawns was noticeably better compared with those caught in traditional trawls. Read the story here 11:34
VIMS earns $6M in set-aside funding for scallop research
Researchers at William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science have earned nearly $6 million in set-aside funding to advance the understanding and management of sea scallops off the U.S. East Coast. These tasty bivalves support one of the nation’s highest-valued commercial fisheries. Announced by NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center and the New England Fishery Management Council, the awards to VIMS account for six of the 15 research projects funded. Senior Research Scientist David Rudders is lead investigator on five of the six VIMS projects and a co-lead on the other one. Support for the projects comes from the 2016 Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside (RSA) program, Read the rest here 10:06
John Oliver trashes bad science and worse media coverage of it
Comedian John Oliver has done it again. His hour-long, commercial-free “Last Week Tonight” on HBO gives him the flexibility to present long-form pieces (and curse to his heart’s content), and that’s just what he did Sunday in a 19-minute segment on misleading scientific studies. “There is a lot of bullshit currently masquerading as science,” Oliver said. The news coverage of such studies may even be worse. “A new study showing that drinking a glass of red wine is just as good as spending an hour at the gym,” proclaimed one TV news teaser he showed. “That last one doesn’t even sound like science. It’s more like something your sassy aunt would wear on a t-shirt,” Oliver quipped. Watch the video here! 09:38
Fisheries Minister Hunter Tootoo open to audit to assess efforts to ensure fish farms don’t harm wild salmon
The Trudeau government, now helping B.C.’s controversial aquaculture sector expand, would welcome an outside auditor to assess its efforts to ensure fish farms don’t harm wild salmon, Fisheries Minister Hunter Tootoo said Monday. But the minister wants to gauge public and stakeholder reaction to his department’s first official accounting in B.C. later this month of its response to the 2012 Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the Fraser River sockeye fishery. The impact of fish farms became a key issue before Cohen, who heard numerous witnesses alleging that pathogens and sea lice in the pens along the B.C. coast posed a danger to migrating wild salmon. Read the rest here 08:43
Working Waterfront – Chatham voters back purchase of historic pier
Living in a community nearly surrounded by water, it was perhaps natural voters at town meeting on Monday night approved the $1.5 million purchase of a historic private pier and fish house. Although the decision was primarily intended to guarantee access for the on the Nantucket Sound-side of town, plans are underway to look at how the use of the town pier next door and a pier owned by the Chatham Yacht Club could be coordinated to help improve access for all boaters. The Eldredges, who have a long history as a fishing family and have owned the pier on Stage Harbor for more than 60 years, approached the town about buying it because the family wanted to preserve access for fishermen to offloading facilities and felt selling to the town was the best way to do so. Read the rest here 08:25
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office dive team searches for gun used in alleged Commercial/Rec shooting incident
Members of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office dive team are assisting the Coast Guard in its investigation into what transpired last week when a mariner reported a commercial fisherman shot at him and his vessel. Coast Guard Investigative Service Resident Agent in Charge Paul Shultz and Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Becky Herrin confirmed Monday the Sheriff’s Office is assisting CGIS in the ongoing investigation, the details of which remain murky. There was an allegation made that the gun used in the alleged incident, a rifle, was thrown overboard by the commercial fisherman and the divers are trying to find the rifle regarding that part of the investigation, Shultz said. Read the rest here 07:30
“It came as a complete shock,” – Sheriff’s deputy charged with smuggling money in ‘Codfather’ case
A Bristol County sheriff’s deputy was arrested Monday and charged with smuggling thousands of dollars to Portugal for a New Bedford fishing mogul who was allegedly trying to hide his profits from illegal fish sales. Federal officials allege that Antonio M. Freitas, who was also a member of a Homeland Security task force, used his security clearance at Logan International Airport to sneak cash overseas. On Feb. 5, for instance, Freitas and his fiancee allegedly carried $17,500 in cash-filled bags past airport security and boarded a flight to Portugal. After he arrived, he allegedly deposited the money into a bank account owned by Carlos Rafael,,, Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson called the indictment a “huge, huge disappointment” and said he would place Freitas on unpaid leave from his $57,000-a-year job. Read the rest here 07:09
