Daily Archives: April 21, 2017
North Carolina Fisheries Association Weekly Update for April 21, 2017
Click here to read the Weekly Update, to read all the updates, Click here 16:57
Crews battle 2-alarm boat fire at Pier 38 in Honolulu
Firefighters were called to Pier 38 at Honolulu Harbor Thursday afternoon for a report of a boat fire. The first call for the 2-alarm fire was shortly before 2 p.m. Fire officials say smoke and flames were coming from the forward section of the 79-foot-long fishing vessel “Elizabeth.” The Coast Guard is assisting with the fire. No injuries were reported. click here for photo’s and video 15:35
Day 9 – Canadian Fisherman Richard Gillett continues hunger strike protest after call from minister
Richard Gillett is weak now and growing weaker by the hour. The once burly fisherman from Twillingate, N.L., known for his three seasons on the reality TV show “Cold Water Cowboys,” has lived in a tent on a water-only diet since April 13 on the grounds of the federal Fisheries and Oceans building in St. John’s. He spoke to reporters early Friday from his cot, his eyes glazed. His wife and daughter, one of his three teenaged children, were by his side as he apologized for mental lapses on Day 9 of a hunger strike to protest what he says is dire mismanagement of fish stocks. “It takes every bit of energy now just to talk.” Gillett, 45, said he has no plans to quit despite a phone call Thursday night from Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc. “He didn’t offer me anything that was solid other than a meeting in two to three weeks’ time. And that’s certainly not enough to warrant me, after my hunger strike, to get off this hill. That’s not what I’m asking.” click here to read the story 14:52:17
Richard Gillett supporters block DFO exit as workers try to leave – click here to read the story 14:58
U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Decision on Reg That Will Put 60 Percent of New England Ground Fishermen Out of Business
On Friday, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the District Court’s ruling last summer that a lawsuit filed by Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) on behalf of Plaintiffs David Goethel and Northeast Fishery Sector 13 against the U.S. Department of Commerce should be dismissed. In its opinion, the Court found that the fishermen’s suit was untimely and therefore did not consider the Plaintiff’s legal arguments that requiring fishermen to pay for monitors is against the law. However, in a rare move, the judges highlighted the devastating economic impacts of the regulation in question, and urged Congress to clarify the law and who should pay for the at-sea monitors. “I am disappointed by the decision,” Goethel said. “But I’m hopeful that Congress will heed the Court’s direction and clarify the law. It is the government’s obligation to pay for these at-sea monitors.,, Northeast Fishery Sector 13 Manager John Haran said, “I’m disappointed that timeliness of the case was the Court’s deciding factor and not the merits of our arguments. The fishermen in my sector can’t sustain this industry funding requirement and many will be put out of business if this mandate remains in place.” click here to read the story 14:37
UPDATED: Coast Guard conducts medevac 65 miles south of Montauk, N.Y.
A Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopter crew medically evacuated a 47-year-old man 65 miles south of Montauk, N.Y., Friday. At 8:25 a.m., the fishing vessel Braedon Michael notified Coast Guard Station Montauk, who then relayed to Sector Long Island Sound, of a crewmember aboard who was experiencing flu like symptoms and was in and out of consciousness. An MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter launched from Air Station Cape Cod, Massachusetts, at 9:50 a.m., and arrived on scene approximately an hour later. The crewmember was safely hoisted from the deck of the Braedon Michael and transported to Air Station Cape Cod, where local Emergency Medical Services were waiting. USCG Video click here to watch 14:20
Catch Shares? – Researchers Fear Industrialization of Maine Lobster Fleet
Unlike most fisheries in the world, the lobster industry is actually experiencing an unprecedented boom despite centuries of sustained harvesting. Last year, the lobster catch was a record 130 million pounds, marking the fifth straight year the annual catch went over 120 million pounds, and over six times more than the long-term average for the state. The recent lobster boom, according to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, is likely primarily due to warmer ocean temperatures as younger lobsters are reaching sexual maturity faster in warmer waters. But it’s also because, unlike the ground fishery, the state long ago took a proactive approach to conserving the resource. “There are some interesting differences between those two fisheries in terms of the regulations we put in place very early on in the lobster fishery,” said fisheries researcher Patrick Shepard at the Penobscot Marine Museum’s “Our Evolving Fisheries History Conference” in Belfast on April 8, “but there are also some interesting parallels to what might be happening as far as technological advances.” click here to read the article 13:49
Dakota Creek Industries working on state-of-the-art fishing vessel
U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen met Thursday morning at Dakota Creek Industries with shipbuilders and commercial fishermen eager to show off a new, fuel-efficient fishing vessel. The ship, America’s Finest, is bigger, safer, more efficient and pollutes less than existing vessels, according to Fishermen’s Finest, the ship’s owner and operator. The company says the ship will have the smallest carbon footprint per ton of fish of any fishing vessel in the Bering Sea. The 262-foot-long ship is like a floating city, with its own fish processing factory, power plant and sewage treatment facility, said Kristian Uri, Fishermen’s Finest general manager. click here to view additional photo’s and read the story 11:01
Judge says Butt Out! Environmentalists Can’t Help Defend Fishing Rules
Three environmental groups cannot join the U.S. government to defend against a challenge to an Obama administration rule requiring seafood companies to report the origin of the fish they sell, a federal judge ruled (click to open). The National Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity and Oceana asked the court on March 7 to join the government in defending a suit from a group of fishing companies challenging the seafood traceability rule, which requires companies to disclose on a government form the vessel or collection point of origin for their fish. The companies say the rule will make seafood more expensive. The environmentalists say it is critical to protecting fish populations from illegal fishing. The environmentalists made specific arguments in support of the rule, telling U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that reversal would affect their daily lives. Lol! affect their daily lives? What lives! click here to read the story 10:07
Could the Gulf of Maine’s Ground Fishery Rebound?
“The English had discovered living resources that would attract, shape, and sustain the communities of the coast of Maine for the next four centuries,” wrote journalist and historian Colin Woodard of the bounty that once existed in the Gulf of Maine in the 17th century in his book “The Lobster Coast.” “Early explorers were flabbergasted by the largesse of the Gulf of Maine, a semienclosed sea stretching from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia. They saw great pods of whales, acres of thrashing tuna, vast schools of salmon, herring and mackerel, clouds of puffins and terns, shoals of mussels and oysters, vast mudlfats infested with fat clams, cod and haddock biting at the hook, and enormous lobsters foraging in the rockweed. The waters off England and France seemed barren by comparison.” As Woodard noted, the geology and climate of the Gulf of the Maine with its 7,500-mile coastline made the area perfectly suited for a thriving fishery — a “fertile oasis in a world ocean that is, ecologically speaking, largely desert.” click here to read the story 09:27
Newfoundland hunger strike Fisherman Richard Gillett speaks with federal fisheries minister
A spokeswoman for Dominic LeBlanc said the fisheries minister spoke with Richard Gillett for more than an hour on Thursday evening, covering a broad range of issues. Laura Gareau said the two agreed to speak again, adding that LeBlanc expressed concern for Gillett’s health, and urged him to make his health and family a priority. About three dozen protesters went to the federal fisheries office in St. John’s, N.L., on Thursday morning to show support for Gillett, who has been on a hunger strike since last Thursday. Gareau said LeBlanc also expressed concern that the protest prevented nearly 400 Department of Fisheries and Oceans employees from getting to work, interrupting their ability to serve fish harvesters across Newfoundland and Labrador. click here to read the story 00:50
