Daily Archives: December 21, 2016
Activists Set Up A ‘Hotline’ For NOAA Climate Scientists To Tattle On Trump
Environmentalist worry over President-elect Donald Trump reached new heights when activists set up an anonymous hotline for government climate scientists to report “political meddling” by the incoming administration. Bloomberg reports “outside scientists are setting up an anonymous hotline for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s employees to report political meddling” over fears Trump could delete public climate data and silence researchers. “I am hearing a lot of worry,” Pew schmoo Andrew Rosenberg, a top activist at the at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in Cambridge, Mass., told Bloomberg. “The worry is that they will be putting another ideologue in place.” UCS set up the hotline for climate scientists in the wake of news Trump’s administration could tamper with taxpayer-funded climate data. Interestingly enough, it’s a rumor they started. Read the rest here 18:06
Ryan Cleary risking it all for FISH-NL – ‘I’m doing this because I believe in it’
Ryan Cleary has been called a liar, a narcissist, an opportunist and more, but the leader of FISH-NL is fighting back, saying he’s sacrificing a lot because he believes strongly in the movement he’s leading. Cleary is not taking a salary, has racked up 9,000 kilometres on his vehicle travelling throughout the province, and put his own financial security in jeopardy. “I’ve cashed in my RRSPs to do what I’m doing right now because I believe in what I’m doing and I believe in taking any kind of salary would take away from my credibility,” told CBC News Wednesday And for those who question his honesty, Cleary issued this challenge: “For those who call me a liar and a narcissist, I have one question; About what? What am I lying about?” Read the story here 17:43
Fisheries management kills both fish stocks and fishermen
Fishery management seems only to reduce the fishery and to counterbalance that, fishermen are killed. The modern mathematical fishery management has been a total failure. Constant cuts in effort and quotas to protect stocks against supposed “over fishing” in order to build up stocks in order to get increased catches later have not lived up to the promises, least to say. But the orthodox science will not face the truth. Below is a link to a presentation I had on the subject at a recent conference in Faroe Islands. There they abandoned the quota system in 1996 and took up effort system, based on days at sea. But a constant reduction of days, to prevent over fishing, has ruined the fishing grounds. Please note that there is both English and Danish text in the presentation, saying the same thing. This presentation is about the result of fishery management. The scientists maintained that by reducing the catch of small fish they would grow bigger and give more catch later. In most cases this has not been the case, and we are still waiting for the later to come. Examples are shown. Read the presentation by Jon Kristjansson, fisheries scientist, Iceland Click here 16:36
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: New 2016 45′ Long Beach Fiberglass Lobster boat, 750HP, 6 Cylinder John Deere
Specifications, information and 23 photo’s click here To see all the boats in this series, Click here 15:29
As the New York wind shills rallied, one fishing advocate stood alone.
More than 100 advocates for offshore wind, comprised of environmental and labor groups and politicians, rallied outside of Long Island Power Authority headquarters in Uniondale Tuesday morning urging the agency to sign a contract to purchase power from offshore wind. LIPA CEO Thomas Falcone, who sat with several model wind turbines on the table in front of him, told activists who packed LIPA’s board room for the agency’s monthly board of directors meeting after the rally that he expected to have a big announcement about offshore wind in the new year. Long Island Commercial Fishing Association Executive Director Bonnie Brady of Montauk was the one person in attendance at the LIPA meeting Tuesday who expressed skepticism about offshore wind, where the board took about half an hour of public comment. “The reality is, this is not a clean project,” she said, adding that there is a glut of power on Long Island, but the LIPA grid is broken. Read the story here 14:35
Maritime Link project will close stretch of lobster grounds for entire season
Cable laying and other offshore construction activity for the Maritime Link landfall at Cape Breton will close a three-kilometre long and 600-metre wide swath of ocean bottom to lobster fishing for the entire 2017 lobster season. Negotiations are underway to compensate fishermen from ports in Point Aconi, Big Bras d’Or and Alder Point. “We’re trying to work with them because we’re going to be laying the cable basically through their … lobster-harvesting zone next summer,” said Rene Gallant of NSP Maritime Link Inc. in a December update on the project. Ray Larkin, a lawyer representing the fishermen, said in an email that it’s premature to estimate the amount of compensation for lost landings and “any adverse environmental effects on lobster harvesting during the 2017 construction and during the eventual operation of the .” Read the story here 12:42
Enviros, Fishing interests balk at Obama’s exclusion of S.C. coastlines from drilling ban
“We are extremely disappointed,” Frank Knapp, president and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce and co-founder of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast, told The Post and Courier. Last week, Knapp’s organization, representing 35,000 businesses and 500,000 commercial fishing families, delivered a letter to the Obama administration asking for a ban on drilling and seismic testing. “Oil and gas exploration and development activities threaten the vibrant coastal environment that supports nearly 1.4 million jobs and contributes $95 billion to the annual gross domestic product, mainly through tourism, commercial fishing and recreation,” Knapp and fellow BAPAC members wrote. “Our currently thriving East Coast businesses are reliant upon healthy ocean ecosystems and are inextricably tied to clean, coastal waters.” The pleas appeared to have fallen on deaf ears. Read the rest here 11:42
Coast Guard responds to medical emergency of fishing captain off Hull, Massachusetts
The Coast Guard responded to a distress call Tuesday outside of Boston Harbor after a fisherman noticed their captain was unwell. Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Boston received a radio call on VHF 16 at 4:15 p.m. from the crew of the 44-foot lobster boat, homeported in Winthrop, MA, reporting their captain was displaying stroke-like symptoms and was unresponsive. A 29-foot response boat crew already underway from Station Point Allerton diverted and arrived on scene within ten minutes. The boat crew took over CPR, used a defibrillator, and transported him to Reserve Channel where Boston Emergency Medical Services was waiting. The captain was transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital where he was pronounced dead. “It is always hard to lose a loved one, especially during this time of year, and our hearts go out to the crew and the captain’s family,” said Lt. John Gustus, the command duty officer at Sector Boston. link 11:06
Pacific Fisheries Management Council Nominated for ‘Shark Enemy’ Award!
This week Turtle Island Restoration Network, a leading international marine conservation organization, and fellow environmentalists officially nominated the Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) for the ‘Shark Enemy’ award by the conservation organization Sharkproject International. The PFMC was nominated for this dishonor based on the council’s anti-shark-conservation policies, most notably their decisions to continue to allow the California drift gillnet fishery to target the common thesher shark, and harm, kill and further endanger thousands of sharks. In a ten-year period ending in 2014, this the fishery caught a staggering 26,217 sharks. For over a decade, the PFMC has failed to reduce the fishery’s catastrophic bycatch of sharks to a reasonable level. (what quackery!) Read the rest here 10:52
North Carolina Fisheries Association Weekly Update for December 19, 2016
Click here to read the Weekly Update, to read all the updates, Click here 10:05
Coral plan threatens fishing grounds
The NEFMC is working with the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council to preserve deep-sea corals from the Canadian border to Virginia. Area lobstermen could lose valuable fishing grounds if a federal proposal to close four areas of Gulf of Maine waters comes to fruition. The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) has drafted a plan that would close a span of 161 square miles offshore to commercial fishing in an effort to conserve deep-sea coral there. Two of those areas, Mount Desert Rock in Lobster Management Zone B and Outer Schoodic Ridge in Lobster Management Zone A, are preferred fishing grounds for local fishermen when lobster head further offshore in the winter. The other proposed offshore closure areas lie in Jordan Basin and Lindenkohl Knoll to the south. Read the story here 09:34
