Daily Archives: May 28, 2016
Female blue crabs getting tagged in Gulf migration study
Their scientific name – Callinectes sapidus – means “beautiful swimmer.” But just where, when and how far do blue crabs – specifically, the Gulf of Mexico’s adult female blue crabs – beautifully swim? A just-started, Gulf Coast-wide research project involving affixing tags on as many as 30,000 adult female blue crabs aims to try answering those questions. Insights garnered through reporting of the recovery of those marked crustaceans should help fisheries scientists better understand the population dynamics of this key coastal marine species and translate that knowledge into sound, science-based management decisions. Those management decisions will be crucial to maintaining a healthy population of blue crabs, the Gulf Coast’s most abundant large crab – a vital prey/predator component of the marine ecosystem and an economically and socially important piece of the recreational and commercial fishery. There is a lot to learn about blue crabs. Read the rest here 22:45
Maine’s Elver harvest tops $13 million as the season winds down
As of 5 p.m. Thursday, May 26, elver fishermen throughout Maine had caught and sold nearly 9,270 pounds of the baby American eels for an estimated statewide gross revenue total just shy of $13.32 million, officials with Maine Department of Marine Resources indicated on the agency’s website. The annual statewide harvest limit for elvers in Maine is 9,688 pounds. The 2016 season is expected to end either on June 7 or when the statewide quota of 9,688 pounds is reached, whichever happens first. Jonesport fisherman Billy Milliken said Wednesday that despite the high value of the fishery this year, his elver income is about the same as it was in 2015, when only 5,259 pounds were caught statewide. Read the story here 21:14
Westport Blessing of the Fleet ceremony this Sunday
Westport’s 55th Annual Blessing of the Fleet Ceremony will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday. Community members and visitors are invited to join area clergy for a short ceremony at the Fishermen’s Memorial at the turnaround of Neddie Rose Drive in Westport’s Marina District. The program is given in remembrance of those whose lives have been taken by the sea and to ask the Lord’s blessing for those who continue to go out on the waters to make a living or to help seafarers in trouble. For the first time, as a part of the Weekend with the Fleet festival, commercial fishing vessels will also gather off Point Chehalis to form an offshore Nautical Honor Guard during the Blessing of the Fleet ceremony this year. Read the rest here 17:51
Louisiana Shrimpers – Big hauls, little profits caused by imported shrimp
When Lance Nacio recently walked into a Fresh Market grocery store, he made a beeline for the seafood as he always does. He found that only one type of shrimp was local out of the nine varieties. Nacio started work as a commercial fisherman in 1997. Changes in the industry affect his livelihood so the fact that 93 percent of shrimp is imported or farmed hurts his business. Nacio is one of 5,500 licensed shrimpers in Louisiana alone, according to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. The first shrimping season of the year opened Monday and local fishermen said their early hauls are full of large white shrimp and average brown shrimp, but the imported shrimp hurts the prices regardless of the local quality. “Import shrimp is a lot of what drives global price,” said Nacio, who was recently featured on a Dr. Oz segment about imported shrimp. “We’re not considered a specialty anymore. We’re more of a commodity.” Read the story here 17:08
Crashed $450K scallop survey HabCam is recovered
Scientists and crew members aboard a NOAA-chartered research vessel have recovered a $450,000 scallop survey camera that was lost a week ago when it apparently snagged on an underwater shipwreck southeast of Delaware Bay, a NOAA spokesperson said. “We are pleased, relieved, and preparing to move forward with our (scallop) survey for this year,” Susan Gardner, acting deputy director of NOAA Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center, said in a press release. The camera appears to have only “minimal damage” on its exterior and is being tested by scientists, NOAA said. Read the rest here 16:04
Squid and Spiny lobster and were king in 2014 California Fisheries
While California’s seafood sales overwhelmingly relied on imported animals, commercial fisheries landed nearly 360 million pounds of fin- and shellfish in 2014, according to a federal report released Thursday with the most recent figures on the nation’s fishing economy. The state’s seafood industry, including imports, generated a whopping $23 billion — more than 10 percent of the nation’s $214 billion total sales in 2014 from commercial harvest, seafood processors and dealers, wholesalers and distributors, and importers and retailers. As such, most of California’s nearly 144,000 industry jobs came from the import and retail sectors,,, Read the story here 15:20
We went down hard, but FixMyWP.com picked us back up!
When you do what we do and things go bad, its always a problem trying to get things fixed. We depend on people to keep the boat afloat. This may sound like it should be non problematic, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is certainly problematic when you think things are all right and you discover they are not! We noticed when posting the other night that things were amiss. We kept losing connectivity and getting error message from our server. It made it impossible to run the website. We decided to upgrade the web hosting service and add another layer of security. When we did this, Holy Hell broke loose! We lost everything! After hours of phone time with the hosting service, and much anxiety, we learned that the service was not actually hosting fisherynation.com, and someone had redirected the info to another hosting service! This made it impossible for them to restore our website. I sent a message to Makis Mourelatos at FixMyWP.com who had debugged our website that had been hacked earlier in the month. He worked his magic, recovered the website, and we are now back. Thank you Makis for everything. 14:59
