Daily Archives: October 28, 2017
Alaska fisheries thrive — yet industry is on the edge
It has been a really good year across most of Alaska’s commercial fisheries. Salmon prices are up, harvests are good, fuel costs are down, and there’s more: The world’s appetite for nutritious, wild-caught Alaska fish, caught in clean waters, is growing. Alaskans’ track record for managing fisheries in a sustainable manner, both near-shore and further at sea, reinforces our reputation for responsible stewardship. Life is good.,,, Seafood employed 56,800 workers in 2015-2016 and this industry annually contributes $5.2 billion to the state’s economic output. But as good as this sounds, the fact is that this traditional industry is actually fragile,,, click here to read the story 21:45
Tropical Storm Philippe heads toward Florida Keys
Tropical Storm Philippe, which formed Saturday afternoon (Oct. 28) off the coast of Cuba, was closing in on the Florida Keys hours later and expected to cross the southern tip of the state overnight. According to the National Hurricane Center, Philippe was still a weak tropical storm as of 8 p.m. Central time with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph. It was was 75 miles southwest of Key West and moving north at 28 mph. The storm is expected to make a turn to the northeast overnight, taking it into the northwest Bahamas by Sunday morning. click here to read the story 21:36
East Hampton Town Trustees to State Opposition to Methoprene – Why it Matters
The Suffolk Legislature is expected to soon decide on the county’s 2018 vector control protocol, directly affecting the methods used by the Department of Public Works in an attempt to reduce the number of mosquitoes in Accabonac Harbor and elsewhere. Last year, the department agreed to try an experiment aimed at reducing the aerial application of methoprene, a mosquito larvicide, in the harbor, rather than institute a ban. It called for the identification of “hotspots” that could be precisely targeted for spraying. click here to read the story Why it matters -2012, Lobster catch bottoms out – Many lobstermen are convinced that aerial spraying and the widespread application of pesticides used to combat mosquitoes after an outbreak of West Nile virus in 1998 is directly related to the 1999 die-off. click here to read the story 13:11
Sea Change – The Struggle for Safety in Fishing, Canada’s Deadliest Industry
Despite safety gains in many other industries, fishing continues to have the highest fatality rate of any employment sector in Canada. Even as the long lists of the dead continue to grow, regulators and policy-makers are challenged by the grim fatalism that pervades a world in which generations of fishermen have gone out into the sea and, all too often, not come home. In the tidy port town of Lunenburg, N.S., near the ocean’s edge, a touching memorial lists the fishermen who have lost their lives at sea since 1890. “Dedicated to the memory of those who have gone down to the sea in ships,” says the inscription on a slab of black granite, and to those who “continue to occupy their business in the great waters.” click here to read the story 12:29
The Agnes Water/1770 Community Fundraiser for the “Families & Children of FV Dianne”
The Agnes Water/1770 Community has set this fund up on behalf of the families of Cairns based fishermen Adam Bidner, Zachary Feeney, Adam Hoffman, Ben Leahy, Chris Sammut, Eli Tonks and Ruben McDornan off the fishing vessel “FV Dianne” which tragically sunk during wild storms off the Central Coast of Queensland last week. Seven families have been affected by this tragedy. Six husbands fathers and sons have been lost in the most tragic of circumstances, with only one survivor who was rescued in tretcherous seas after fighting for his life in the wildest conditions imaginable. The purpose of this fund is to help ease the financial burden that these families have now incurred through this tragedy. click here to donate 11:00
Global Ocean Cooling in September
We have seen lots of claims about the temperature records for 2016 and 2015 proving dangerous man made warming. At least one senator stated that in a confirmation hearing. Yet HadSST3 data for the last two years show how obvious is the ocean’s governing of global average temperatures. The best context for understanding these two years comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons: click here to read the story 09:55
Father and son building 50-foot Cape Islanders in backyard
Shawn Boudreau didn’t get a chance to answer. “No,” his wife Lisa called out from the garden in response to the question of whether he’d build a third fishing boat in their backyard. “Two will be enough.” Shawn just sort of half-smiled and looked at the 50-by-30-foot Cape Island hull behind his mobile home on Isle Madame. The boat he launched two weeks ago, All Segments, is already fishing off Digby. Now he’s starting another. click here to read the story 09:22
‘Time is of the essence’: California Fisheries face uncertainty
State regulators and fishing officials said at a Eureka hearing on Friday that only by working together can they overcome the trials and uncertainty that several California’s fisheries face today. With a poor salmon catch in 2017 and 2016 and a potential delay in the North Coast Dungeness crab season following three years of poor landings and abnormal ocean conditions, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations Executive Director Noah Oppenheim said fishing fleets are still feeling the economic effects and that time to address the underlying issues is running slim. click here to read the story 08:46
