Daily Archives: March 19, 2017
Pamlico chamber to host meeting on shrimp proposals
The Pamlico Chamber of Commerce will hear Tuesday about the potential local effects from a recent Marine Fisheries Commission approval of changes to rules in the shrimping industry. The chamber membership will also hear about plans to start a new civic organization in the county. The meeting is at 7 p.m. at Pamlico Community College’s Delamar Center and it is open to the public. The major focus will be on the February MFC vote on a rule-making petition brought by the N.C. Wildlife Federation that could ultimately limit shrimping to three days on the Intracoastal Waterway and other estuaries and four days on the ocean up to three miles out, among other proposals. Jerry Schill, president of the commercial fishing lobby group North Carolina Fisheries Association will be the keynote speaker. continue reading the story here 20:41:1
Push to investigate land-based salmon farming option for expanding Tasmanian industry
Tasmania’s Shooters and Fishers Party is pushing for land-based salmon farming, saying the move would silence the industry’s critics. The party believes with the industry’s projected dramatic expansion, and a growing groundswell of concern from the fishing community, it was time to consider options other than ocean pens. Vice-chairman Ken Orr said land-based salmon farming was being introduced around the world, including in the United States, Denmark, and on the Chinese-Mongolian border. He said the practice would eliminate uncertainty and many of the ocean open-cage controversies plaguing the industry in Tasmania. “You don’t have the issues with anyone saying that you’re trashing the environment,” Mr Orr said. “You don’t have the seal issues, you don’t have the sea lice and freshwater bathing, you don’t have the issues with escaped salmon.” Read the article here 17:24
Captain of Fishing Vessel Pleads Guilty for Discharging Waste into the Ocean
A captain of the fishing vessel (F/V) Native Sun pleaded guilty Friday in federal court in Seattle, Washington, for discharging oily-waste directly into the ocean in violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) and the federal conspiracy statute. Randall Fox pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Lasnik of the Western District of Washington to two criminal felony counts for violating APPS’ prohibition against discharging oily-wastes, namely machinery-space bilge water, directly into the ocean. According to court documents, Randall Fox, and other co-conspirators, repeatedly discharged the oil-contaminated bilge water into the ocean using unapproved submersible pumps and hoses. On at least one occasion, such a discharge left a sizable oily-sheen along the surface of the water that trailed alongside the F/V Native Sun. Trial for vessel owner Bingham Fox is currently set to begin March 21, 2017. Read the rest here 15:38
Brexit Allows Us To Solve This Haddock Conservation Problem By Leaving The CFP
It would be terribly wrong to compare the European Union to any of the mid-20th century unpleasantnesses in Europe like fascism and the rise of the Nazis but it is true that that peaceful economic arrangement has managed something that total war did not, the rationing of fish and chips in Britain. For it is actually true that said fish and chips never was rationed. Even when the Kreigsmarine was trying to sink everything larger than a canoe which issued from Britain’s ports we still had that haddock, cod and plaice. Give it 45 years of that ever closer European union and the bureaucratic management of the Common Fisheries Policy and we’re being told that we must indeed ration our consumption:,,, It’s all there in Garret Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons. Where there’s an open access, what Hardin calls Marxian, resource, then that is just fine. If the regeneration capacity is greater than the annual demand, then all who want can have simply by taking. (See where this is going?) continue reading the article here 14:50
Your Winter 2017 Pacific Islands Fishery Newsletter is here!
Aloha, enjoy our new web-friendly newsletter format. Click here to download the entire newsletter as a printable PDF. Or click here to read entire issue online. Some issues included in the newsletter: Thousands of Species Slated for Ecosystem Component Designation, Comprehensive Tuna Management Stymied in the Pacific, Council Director Weighs in on Marine Protected Area Discussion, and others. Click here to read the newsletter 10:10
Trade Deals: Maine Lobster industry fears lost sales from ramped-up Canadian exports
A new trade deal looming between Canada and the European Union is setting off alarm bells in the Maine lobster industry. The deal between Canada and the EU – the largest seafood consumer market in the world – would eliminate tariffs on Canadian lobster exports into Europe and give the Maritimes a competitive advantage over their American counterparts, who would be stuck selling lobsters with tariffs ranging from 8 percent for a live lobster to 20 percent on processed or cooked lobster. A weak Canadian dollar, which is now valued at about 75 percent of a U.S. dollar, will only make Canadian lobster that much more attractive to importers in the 28 member nations of the European Union, which is the second biggest importer of American lobsters, second only to Canada, according to trade data. In 2016, the EU imported $152 million worth of lobsters from the U.S., most of it from Maine. continue reading the story here 08:07
