Daily Archives: November 3, 2017
North Carolina Fisheries Association Weekly Update for November 3, 2017
Click here to read the Weekly Update, to read all the updates Click here, for older updates listed as NCFA click here 22:49
Fisherman dies getting pulled overboard off the coast of Eureka on Wednesday afternoon.
Redcrest resident and fisherman Melvin Richard Van Ronk died Wednesday afternoon after becoming entangled in fishing gear and being pulled overboard while fishing off the coast of Eureka, according to the Coast Guard Sector Humboldt Bay and the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday. Van Ronk, 77, was fishing on the vessel “Ruth R” out of Eureka about 15 miles off the coast when he became entangled in the fishing gear, according to Coast Guard Sector Humboldt Bay Public Information Officer Audra Forteza. click here to read the story 22:23
Chinese business brings prosperity to fishermen on Mississippi
After less than 10-minute cruising on the Mississippi River in west Kentucky, Mark Buttler stopped his boat near a shoal and began to cast nets. He harvested 400 pounds of fish from two fishnets on this bright autumn morning. For the 62-year-old fisherman, who joined his father for fishing soon after high school graduation in the westernmost part of the U.S. state of Kentucky, the daily routine also includes selling his catch to a local business run by a Chinese entrepreneur. Before 2013, he sold his fish either to a market up north or to a seafood restaurant in Ledbetter, Kentucky. Then Angie Yu came to the City of Wickliffe in west Kentucky and opened the Two Rivers Fisheries to process fish from the Mississippi. Yu’s efforts also coincide with the U.S. government’s eagerness to remove some of the Asian carp from the river. click here to read the story 17:53
H.R. 1456 and S. 793 – Congressman Walter B. Jones Weighs in for North Carolina Fishermen
Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC-3) is moving to help Eastern North Carolina fishermen who could be hurt by legislation pending before Congress. The bills threaten America’s domestic shark fisheries, and a significant piece of those fisheries is in Eastern North Carolina. They are sustainably managed and help support the economy in coastal North Carolina and other small fishing communities around the country. The bills – H.R. 1456 and S. 793 – purport to be an attempt to stop the practice of shark finning (i.e. the process of removing fins at sea and discarding the shark). They seek to do so by banning the sale of fins, even those harvested legally here in the United States. click here to read the press release 14:53
Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq vie for licence in lucrative Arctic surf clam fishery
Thirteen Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq bands have announced they are partnering with Clearwater Seafoods to seek a licence in the lucrative Arctic surf clam fishery, following a recent call by Ottawa for new entrants in a sector currently fished by Clearwater alone. The announcement of the “operational partnership” was made Thursday by Chief Terrance Paul, co-chair of the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs. click here to read the story 13:39
Atlantic and Quebec Indigenous Groups and Ocean Choice International Partner in Bid for Arctic Surf Clam Quota – About the Partners – click here to read the OCI press release
Insuring fishing boats in the Maritimes
Fishing and fishing vessels – these are things that are synonymous with the Maritimes. And where there’s industry, there is risk. And where there’s risk, there is insurance. To discuss the business of Eastern Canadian fishing insurance, Insurance Business spoke to Keith Amirault, vice president Fairway Insurance Services, based out of Digby, Nova Scotia. The industry is changing, Amirault said, with companies consolidating fishing programs for greater efficiencies. click here to read the story 12:00
Bill introduced allowing Hawaii’s foreign fishermen onshore
Hundreds of foreign fishermen currently confined to vessels in Honolulu for years at a time would be allowed to come ashore when they dock under legislation introduced Thursday in Congress. The Sustainable Fishing Workforce Protection Act offers workplace protections a year after an Associated Press investigation found that Hawaii’s commercial fishing fleet is crewed by about 700 men who are never allowed off their boats, even when they come into the Honolulu Harbor to unload their catch. Sen. Mazie Hirono, “This bill provides necessary protections for foreign fishermen and ensures the continued viability of Hawaii’s longline fishing fleet, which is important to our culture,” click here to read the story 11:24
New York businessman set to be sentenced for dealing in black market eels from Virginia
Tommy Zhou knew what they were doing was illegal, according to court documents. American eel stocks were low as Asian markets rushed to buy more, and strict caps were being imposed on U.S. fishermen. But Zhou told the undercover police officers who came to his New York office in 2013 that selling him black market eels wouldn’t be a problem as long as no one developed a “big mouth.” And, he said, he was willing to spend $200,000 to have them killed if they betrayed him. Zhou, of New York, pleaded guilty earlier this year to illegally trafficking more than $150,000 worth of juvenile American eels, also known as “elvers” or “glass eels.” He is set to be sentenced this afternoon in U.S. District Court. click here to read the story 10:59
Fiona MacInnes: Why it’s time to wake up, smell the fish, and really take back control
Fiona MacInnes looks at Scotland’s fishing industry and argues that, post-Brexit, the industry is either heading for total corporate domination that will exhaust our resources and impoverish fisherman, or a new collective model where fish are used for the good of Scotland as a whole.,, If the last time you saw a fishing boat was on a Captain Birdseye ad then fish is of more importance to you than just about anything else. It may be the last national asset that you can claim some ownership of. Count up the natural assets that you have lost, and realise why fish is the most important economic and political football of the day. It is the new oil. click here to read the story 10:02
How Big Business Uses Big Government To Ruin Small Fishermen Like Me
Ensnared in an international trade dispute between Vietnam and very large U.S. catfish farms are hundreds of small wild-caught catfish producers throughout the United States. As a commercial fisherman for near on 40 years now, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that nature was at best ambivalent about whether I make a living. Being driven from the water by a thunderstorm that made working the last few crabtraps in a string unsafe was not unusual. Even if the weather part of nature cooperated, of course, there were fluctuations in abundance.,, But you know what, your own government is not nature click here to read the story 09:08
Cape Cod fishermen have high hopes for halibut
On the U.S. side of the border Atlantic halibut are listed under the Endangered Species Act and fishermen are limited to one fish per trip. Less than a half a day’s steam to the east, the same fish is the poster child for sustainable fishery management and generates between $100 million and $200 million a year for Canadian fishermen. It’s a divergence shrouded in mystery as deep as the ocean on either side of the Hague Line, the boundary that separates the two nations out to the 200 mile limit of their exclusive economic zones. The target date to rebuild the U.S. Atlantic halibut stock to healthy levels is 2056, nearly 40 years in the future. click here to read the story 07:49
