Daily Archives: June 19, 2016
Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council meeting in Clearwater, Florida June 20 – 24, 2016
The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council will meet at the Hilton Clearwater Beach Hotel in Clearwater, Florida. Committee meetings will convene Monday at 8:30 am, concluding at noon Wednesday. The full Council will convene Wednesday afternoon beginning at 1:15 pm. The Council is expected to adjourn by 11:30 am Friday. Read the Committee and Council Agenda, Click here Register to listen live, click here 22:05
Will a great year for Chesapeake Bay crabs mean a great year for Watermen?
At 4:41 a.m., Bubby Powley looked at his watch, looked at the thin, pink glow to the east, and looked at the dark water sliding past his boat. According to Maryland state law, he was allowed to start catching crabs exactly one hour before sunrise, and that was right . . . about . . . “Now. Dontcha think, Monroe?” Powley said, hitting a lever on a boom that lifted his first batch of the day from the Chesapeake Bay. The sprightly 66-year-old swung the basket inboard, where his culler of 42 years, Monroe Dorsey, 68, a slim cigar clenched under his white mustache, dumped a few dozen wriggling crustaceans into a fiberglass basin. It was a pretty good haul in what so far has been a very good crab harvest. Dorsey measured male after male with a plastic caliper and tossed those of five inches or more into one of the six and a half bushels Powley would sell later that day to a wholesaler. The summer is getting off to a promising start along America’s biggest estuary,,, Read the rest here 15:31
For Argyll: ‘a quarter of England’s entire whitefish quota is now owned by a single Dutch super trawler’
From the article: Back in 1970 when Britain applied to join the EU [then EEC], a new law was passed a mere six hours before official acceptance of our application. The Common Fisheries Policy [CFP], which confers ‘equal access to fishing grounds for all EU countries’, thus became part of the body of existing EU law, the so-called ‘Acquis Communautaire’, which new members are obliged to accept. The Heath government folded and accepted the heist, taking Britain into the EU on 1st, January 1973, thereby ceding control of Shetland’s [and UK] legendary fishing grounds to the EU.,, Fishermen must now land any unwanted catch ashore to be dumped – but it cannot be sold for human consumption and they are not allowed to give it away, not even to schools, hospitals or care homes. This is lunacy. At least, discarding fish benefits the marine food chain by removing large predators from the sea and returning them dead, for consumption by other fish and small marine creatures. However, any such benefits are lost if the fish are ferried ashore and dumped to landfill. Read the story here 10:21
Polar Star crew recognized for mission-saving repairs
Polar Star’s engineering crew knows more about the saga of aging cutters than the average Coast Guardsman. Every patrol, maintenance issues occur regularly, but Operation Deep Freeze 2016 was the “mother” of all casualties for the 40-year old cutter, threatening to halt a resupply mission for the U.S. Antarctic Program in Antarctica. It took a surfboard repair kit, elbow grease and round-the-clock marathon repair sessions by Petty Officer 1st Class Kevin Oakes, an electrician’s mate, Petty Officer 3rd Class Agustin Foguet, a damage controlman and Seaman Manon Mullen from the deck department, to keep the limping “polar-roller,” as it’s affectionately called, afloat and operable. The three crew members were in for a surprise when Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukuft recognized them during an awards ceremony aboard the cutter. The Commandant was then shown the engine room where the critical repairs took place. Read the story here 09:24
40 years of change: For fishing industry, the spring of 1976 was the start of a new era
When you talk about fishing here in New Bedford, you have to start with the whaling era — and the lessons learned. For decades, the pursuit of whaling chugged along without any dramatic changes. The ships, the equipment, the culture remained essentially the same for years, feeding countless families, lining countless pockets … until the bonanza ran out and the industry collapsed in the early part of the 20th century, never to be revived. The fishing industry, both local and national, might have fallen into that same trap, but 40 years ago the U.S. government changed the game, adopting the most sweeping changes in the laws governing fisheries that reverberates to this day. On April 13, 1976, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act was passed and immediately accomplished two major goals. Read the story here 00:32
