Daily Archives: June 12, 2016
South Atlantic Fishery Management Council meeting June 13-17, 2016 Cocoa Beach FL
The public is invited to attend the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council to be held in Cocoa Beach FL at the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront . Read the Meeting Agenda Click here, Briefing Book – June 2016 Council Meeting Click here Webinar Registration: Listen Live, Click here Additional info, click here 22:54
Peterhead: Scottish fishermen see benefits of cutting free from EU’s net
At 7.30am on a fresh weekday in northeast Scotland, Peterhead fish market is in full swing. Agents representing local fishermen reel off latest prices for haddock, hake and halibut at the top of their voices, like gruff bingo callers. Buyers, wrapped up in heavy coats, cast a critical eye over plastic boxes filled with catch fresh from the vast North Sea. Peterhead is Europe’s largest fish market. After many difficult years, business is slowly improving. The buyers’ stubbed pens recorded sales of £180 million last year, and plans are afoot for a £49 million (€62 million) expansion of the sprawling port funded, in part, by European Union grants. But there is little love for the EU among Peterhead’s fishermen, many of whom blame Brussels for imposing inflexible regulations and failing to protect their industry from foreign fleets. Read the rest here 21:41
Long Island a Possible ‘Breeding Ground’ For Great White Sharks
Ever since the blood-curdling screams of an ill-fated skinny dipper, who met her famous demise in the opening scene of “Jaws,” generations of beach-goers have approached the water with bone-chilling trepidation. Now, a leading shark research team has said it suspects Long Island might be a breeding ground for great whites and has launched a tagging expedition to be able to determine potential birthing sites. According to OCEARCH Chief Operating Officer Fernanda Ubatuba — OCEARCH is a nonprofit organization dedicated to shark research — if you look at a global shark tracker, five mature female great white sharks have been tagged in the past three to four years, and it seems that “there is certain activity in that region.” Great white sharks, she said, travel from Florida to Canada, “and you can see their activity sometimes overlaps around Long Island.” Read the rest here 17:35
The Shellfish Wars: Lobsters, Shoalies, Olys, Atlantics and Pacifics vie for supremacy
If you’ve ever idly wondered why lobsters are such a big deal in New England and Maritime Canada but haven’t gained a claw-hold at our similar latitude in the Pacific, you’re not unique — the question has come up since at least the 1880s. Among many instances of European-Americans endeavoring to reconfigure the West Coast’s animals, plants and landforms to our liking, efforts to establish lobsters here have to be counted as a failure … so far. In 1888 two shipments totaling 565 adult lobsters and 104,000 fry were planted off the Pacific coast between Monterey Bay and the Strait of Juan Fuca. “What the result of this will be can be conjectured, but cannot be definitely determined until after the lapse of sufficient time to give the lobsters an opportunity to grow and multiply,” J.W. Collins told Congress in his landmark “Report on the Fisheries of the Pacific Coast of the United States.” Already naturally providing such a delicious bounty of seafood options, the natural spirits of the North Pacific must have concluded this attempt was human hubris of the worst sort, and slapped it down. But we didn’t give up. Read the rest here 15:06
River Herring spawn in NY tributary for 1st time in 85 years
A few days after a long-abandoned industrial dam was removed from the mouth of a Hudson River tributary this spring, hundreds of river herring swarmed up into the shallow waters to spawn for the first time in 85 years. The removal of the rusted steel dam on the Wynants Kill near Albany was the first of what ecologists hope will be many barriers removed in Hudson tributaries to restore spawning habitat for herring and other ocean-going species that have been devastated by habitat loss, pollution and overfishing. “There are more than 1,500 dams in the Hudson estuary watershed, most of them no longer in use,” said Frances Dunwell, coordinator of the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program. “One of the key items on our to-do list by 2020 is to remove as many of these barriers as possible.” Read the rest here 12:01
1 in 30 million: rare yellow lobster caught in Bonavista Bay
An extremely rare yellow lobster was hauled up in Newman Sound Friday, and visitors to Terra Nova National Park are invited to take a peek. Sandy Turner, who fishes for Happy Adventure Sea Products, said the lobster is female, weighing 1 ¼ pounds. The crew — Turner, Bon Squire and Edward Powell — donated it to Terra Nova, where it is now at the park’s interpretation centre. “When we hauled up the pot, we got a shock seeing a yellow lobster sitting in the pot,” she said. “Fishing for 25 years and never seen a lobster that colour before.” According to the University of Maine, the odds of catching a yellow lobster is one in 30 million. That’s six times as rare as a blue lobster. Link 09:52
Kevin Kelly – scallop counter for the Maine Department of Marine Resources
Kevin Kelly has been at the Department of Marine Resources for almost 32 years, working on the groundfish and lobster fisheries before being assigned to scallops about nine years ago. He’s very fond of the fishery and the tough souls who making a living from it during Maine’s toughest season. “It’s dwarfed by lobster of course, but to the people that do it is a really big deal, especially with the loss of some of these other fisheries,” he said referring to shrimp and groundfish. We called him up to talk methods, marine resources and menus. Despite the expertise he’s developed, he’s not a scallop biologist. “My own kids probably think I sit at a desk and stare at scallops all day. But I deal more with the fishery and assessments than with the organism.” Was it part of his grand plan to spend his whole career at the Department of Marine Resources? He chuckled. “That was a long time ago. I can’t remember my plan.” Read the story here 08:35
