Daily Archives: August 13, 2017
Trump administration urged to avoid salmon protection rules
A group that represents farmers is calling the costs of saving imperiled salmon in the largest river system in the Pacific Northwest unsustainable and is turning to the Trump administration to sidestep endangered species laws. The Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association wants the government to convene a Cabinet-level committee with the power to allow exemptions to the Endangered Species Act. The irrigators association is frustrated with court rulings it says favor fish over people, claiming the committee could end years of legal challenges over U.S. dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers and bring stability for irrigators, power generators and other businesses that rely on the water. click here to read the story 18:12
Fairfield woman part of first all-female team at White Marlin Open
In the small town of Fairfield, Jaime Lynn Buffington is well-known for one specific reason. “Everybody that knows me knows that I’m a huge fisherman,” Buffington said. Fishing is Buffington’s passion. Having spent most of her childhood fishing with her grandfather at the Maryland shore, the 37-year-old has always spent time on boats and for the past three years has fished competitively.She’s worked hard to make a name for herself in the Maryland fishing community, even winning a tournament in Baltimore. But in Buffington’s mind, her biggest accomplishment occurred this past week when she competed at the 44th annual White Marlin Open in Ocean City with her team, the Women’s Offshore Alliance. Comprised of six women, it’s the first all-female group to compete at the tournament. “Two of the ladies are commercial fishermen and do this for living,” Buffington said. click here to read the story 16:10
Boat captain saves cat thrown from bridge
“When I took it out of the net, it grabbed a hold of my arm. I held the cat all the way into the HarborWalk. It was pretty intense,” charter boat Capt. Jordan Smith said. “I’ve seen some pretty crazy stuff out there, but never had seen a living animal get thrown off the bridge,” Smith said. Smith, 35, who captains the boat Profishonal with Let’s Fish Destin Charter, was passing Coast Guard Station Destin near the northwest side of the bridge in the afternoon to pick up a group for a fishing trip. “I just saw something out of the corner of my eye. I saw some movement. Then I heard splat! Splat! I thought someone threw some trash down.” click here to read the story 15:34
It started as a normal day…
When Life Cell inventor Scott Smiles went to sea for what was supposed to be a short pleasure trip, the result was far from what he had expected. Something went catastrophically wrong – and he and his friend Rick and their respective sons Riley and Ryan found themselves in the water, clinging to a cool box and having grabbed a hand-held radio from the boat before it went down. ‘He was struck by the fact that all the safety equipment was there on board – but the problem was that it was all kept in different places,’ said Sally Dale of Pinpoint Electronics, the European distributor for the Life Cell, the innovative safety kit that resulted from the startlingly sudden loss of Scott’s boat. click here to read the story 13:55
BREAKING: Dead man found on commercial fishing boat in Portsmouth
State Police report an untimely death aboard a commercial fishing boat tied to the dock at the Portsmouth Fish Co-Op on Peirce Island. On Saturday, August 12, around 11 a.m., N.H. State Police Marine Patrol received a report of a deceased male identified as Seth M. Caron, age 29, of Brunswick, Maine. The circumstances surrounding his death remain under investigation. Assisting agencies include the N.H. State Police, Portsmouth Police department, and the U.S. Coast Guard. link 12:48
Groundfish: NEFSC to Hold Port Meetings With Fishermen to Talk About Upcoming Assessments
The Northeast Fisheries Science Center has scheduled a series of port outreach meetings to talk with commercial and recreational fishermen about the upcoming operational assessments for 20 groundfish stocks. Below is the list of confirmed meetings to date. August 15 in Chatham, 4 p.m, Aug. 16 in New Bedford, 4 p.m., Aug. 17 in Portland, Me. 3 p.m. Aug, 18 in Gloucester,10 a.m., Aug. 28 in Point Judith, 4 p.m. Aug. 30 in Montauk, Details to be announced. click here for locations, and more information The Groundfish Operational Assessments Peer Review is scheduled for September 11-15, 2017 at the science center in Woods Hole, MA. Additional information is available at NEFSC. Need to know more? Contact Stock Assessment Outreach Coordinator Ariele Baker at (508) 495-4741, [email protected].
Prawn trawlers sit idle as fishermen turn to 457 visas for labour
It’s a boom season for the Carnarvon fishing fleet with colder water than usual in Western Australia’s protected Shark Bay spawning a bountiful king prawn and scallop catch. James Clement, marine biologist, former AFL footballer and head of the biggest trawler fleet licenced to fish Shark Bay, owned by ASX-listed company Mareterram, isn’t celebrating just yet. Despite the plentiful high-priced prawn harvest pouring into Mareterram’s Carnarvon wharf and packing sheds — the Shark Bay prawn season runs from late March to October — Mr Clement is having trouble keeping his 10 trawlers at sea for their 21-days-a-month continuous fishing time. A shortage of reliable labour and experienced fishing crew is hampering Mareterram’s total prawn catch, with issues including stress, inexperience, drugs and alcohol forcing some boats to return to port early mid-month to offload jittery crew before the scheduled full moon 10-day lay-off. click here to read the story 10:43
Aww, shucks: shucking event a hit at Digby’s Scallop Days
You could say the 2017 Digby Scallop Days didn’t start off with a bang, but rather, a shuck. The scallop shucking event took place Friday, August 11. One of the first skills competitions held this year, scallop shucking has been around in Digby since the early 1920’s, when scalloping first became big in the area, according to event host Linda Gregory. Contestants used their own unique shucking knives – each with their own design and cut – to shuck like they’d never shucked before. Plenty of photo’s click here to read the story 10:01
Invasive seaweed threatens Gulf of Maine
A team of University of New Hampshire researchers working on Appledore Island at the Isles of Shoals and at off-shore sites in southern York County and Seacoast New Hampshire recently published a study that reaches some unsettling conclusions. Essentially, the ocean floor in the Seacoast is seeing a marked decline in the often tall, leafy native kelp populations and an inundation of short, shrub-like invasive seaweed. Key among those invasives is the short, red fiber-like seaweed Dasysiphnia japonica, a transplant from Japan that is taking over the ocean floor in this region – covering as much as 90 percent of some areas. We were very surprised by what we saw,” said Jennifer Dijkstra, research assistant professor in the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at UNH and the lead author of the study. click here to read the story 09:20
Southern SE could see late pink salmon push
Rain showers expected this weekend for southern Southeast Alaska promise a much needed drink for the limited number of pink salmon that have returned so far this year to the region — after a recent stretch of dry summer heat threatened to zap their freshwater spawning grounds. The fish that amass in the greatest numbers during July and August have delivered an unusual 2017 return mostly to the northern reaches of the Alaska panhandle. Meanwhile, pinks have been surprisingly absent, at least initially, from the historically strong fishing waters of the Ketchikan area and off Prince of Wales Island. What fish have surfaced in southern Southeast have been dealt the added challenge of navigating low-level freshwater streams en route to spawn, namely on Prince of Wales Island. click here to read the story 08:34
