Daily Archives: May 20, 2017
Offshore exploration and drilling back on table for Georgia
The Trump administration announced earlier this month that it is moving forward on seismic surveys in the Atlantic Ocean, the first step toward offshore drilling in a region where it has been blocked for decades. The Interior Department plans to review six applications by energy companies that were rejected in January by the Obama administration. Local and state environmental groups as well as many coastal municipalities oppose the surveys, saying loud sounds from seismic air guns could hurt marine life. Sen. David Perdue, R-Georgia, and Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Savannah, remain in favor of seismic testing and offshore drilling. “With a vibrant commercial fishery industry and the only known calving ground for endangered North Atlantic right whales just off our coast, Georgians oppose seismic testing for offshore oil exploration and the risks it poses to our state’s wildlife, wild places, and quality of life,” said Alice Keyes, vice president for coastal conservation at Coastal Georgia-based One Hundred Miles. Click here to read the story 19:19
White Spot: Government has abandoned wild-caught prawn fishermen
THE $20 million in federal funding for prawn farmers affected by white spot is a great day for some and not so great for others if you are a commercial fishing business owner in the Moreton Bay region. There are some 300 micro and small fishing related businesses across the Moreton Bay region, including trawl and crab fishers, impacted by white spot that continue to be impacted in the wild and an ongoing movement control order on our commercial product. These businesses generate almost $20.5 million yet have received no assistance. At least 20 businesses have had their incomes severely impacted since December 2016 and still no help. The Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce announced the Federal Government will give $20 million to prawn farmers impacted by white spot but said wild-catch fishermen are the responsibility of the State Government. click here to read the story 18:17
‘A Speck in the Sea’ tells tale of boyhood pals’ brush with death on Long Island fishing excursion
After more than 10 hours in the frigid ocean 40 miles south of Montauk Point, John Aldridge didn’t know if there was any fight left in him. It was at that moment when the cruel sea taunted him with salvation — only to snatch it away. No more than 400 yards away he spied the Anna Mary, his lobster boat, the one he’d tumbled overboard from in the wee hours of the night. His crewmate Mike Migliaccio stood on the roof, binoculars plastered to his face, desperately scanning the sea. Migliaccio was a man possessed. He knew Aldridge’s time was running out. How was it possible Mike didn’t see him? Aldridge had spent all his energy affixing himself to a colorful buoy. But the ocean’s glare hid Aldridge from sight and the Anna Mary steamed away. “A Speck in the Sea” is the personally narrated account of Aldridge and his partner Anthony Sosinski about July 24, 2013, a day the unthinkable happened. click here to read the story 14:17
Company to boost Kotzebue summer chum operation
Following a slim couple of years, the summer Arctic keta, or chum, fishery in Kotzebue should see a significant boost this summer. Seattle-based E&E Foods, which runs both land-based and vessel operations in Bristol Bay, Southeast, and the Kenai Peninsula, plans to bring its floating processor to the waters outside of town this summer. “I feel really good about this opportunity where they’re going to be able to have a volume fishery now, and not have the limitations that they’ve had with a pure buy-and-fly-type fishery,” said Roger Stiles, business manager for the company’s Southcentral operations. E&E Foods is already planning to send its floating processor, the Cape Greig, to Bristol Bay for the area’s lucrative summer season. It will be accompanied by the freighter Sea Bird and combined, the two vessels have a carrying capacity of 1.2 million pounds of frozen finished product, Stiles said. After that seasons winds down at the end of July, the two boats will head up to Kotzebue and set up shop for the keta harvest, starting Aug. 1. Click here to read the story 13:27
This Guy Bickering With A Shark Is The Most Australian Thing Ever
There are a whole bunch of animals out there that if I came up against them in the wild, I would just let them do whatever they wanted as there would be absolutely no way I would be beating them at anything. That’s the law of the jungle baby and number one on that list of animals is probably a shark. Those vicious fuckers will kill you without a second thought by ripping off your body parts so there’s no way I would want to mess with them if I ever met one. I’m not an Australian fisherman though. The guy in the video below got involved in a tug of war with a shark over his fishing net and let’s just put it this way – there was no way he was going to lose that fishing net: Click here to watch the video!
Fishermen want the hardest Brexit deal they can get
Graham Doswell is in optimistic form as he unloads netfulls of lobster, crab, sprat, white bait and a solitary plaice after a hard days fishing off the coast of Eastbourne. Like the vast majority of fishermen, he voted for Brexit and believes his industry will be much better off outside the EU. “Brexit is a breath of fresh air. A lot of fishermen are hanging on by the skin of their teeth or have given up altogether because the EU has made it so they can’t make ends meet,” Doswell told i, standing by his boat, the Halcyon, in Fishermen’s Quay two miles north of the Eastbourne Pier. “The EU has knocked the stuffing out of the fishing industry by giving us only a tiny bit of the fish in our waters but it now has a fantastic opportunity to pull itself back from the brink. If we make a good job of it now, there is so much hope,” said Doswell, a third-generation fisherman. click here to read the story 10:30
A coast guard vet raced to save freezing fishermen: ‘I remember my friggin’ heart pounding’
Alone in the darkness, eyes frozen shut, ice cracking off him with each step and a wind howling so viciously it repeatedly knocked him to the ground, an unfamiliar anxiety washed over Leslie Palmer. He’d had more than 20 years with the Canadian Coast Guard, some 700 rescues already to his credit, but this one was different. Palmer felt he was the one in peril. As he trudged along the shore of one of British Columbia’s northern islands, over a treacherous terrain of rock outcrops glazed in sheer ice, his goal was to reach the beached crew of a shrimp boat. The Larissa had emitted a distress signal hours earlier as it capsized in 185 km/h winds. It wasn’t certain there were survivors. Click here to read the story 08:51
