Daily Archives: January 11, 2018

SouthCoast fishermen call NOAA’s civil action against Carlos Rafael ‘overkill’

New Bedford- Current and former area fishermen balked at NOAA’s reach in its civil action against Carlos Rafael. “It’s total overkill,” said Stephen Lozinak, captain of fishing vessel Marsheen Venture and who has been fishing for more than five decades. “The whole thing is overkill. All it’s doing is hurting the workers in the city of New Bedford.” >click here to read <21:01

Montauk fishermen rescue dovekie, a tiny sea bird

A Montauk fishing boat traveling 60 miles south of Long Island rescued a penguin-like sea fowl called a dovekie struggling in the waters Thursday. Doug Davidson, a crew member of the Montauk-based Caitlin & Mairead, saw the tiny bird “having trouble in the waves” and used a shovel to help it aboard, said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association. Brady said 30-mph winds had whipped up 13- to 15-foot seas the night before, perhaps disorienting the dovekie. Her husband, Dave Aripotch, captains and owns the boat. >click here to read<18:28

Our View: Loss of Gillnetter magazine signals bellwether change

For all who care about the fishing industry and Columbia River heritage, the end of the Gillnetter is a sad occasion marking the close of an era (see “Magazine documented the life of fishermen,” The Daily Astorian, Jan. 8).  Combined with the atrophying of the Columbia River Fishermen’s Protective Union and the death Jan. 8 of legendary Ilwaco fish processor Pierre Marchand Jr., the loss of fishing’s longtime trade publication signals a bellwether change. >click here to read the story< 17:51 

Coast Guard medevacs ill fisherman off Atlantic City, NJ

The Coast Guard medevaced a fisherman, who reportedly suffered from a respiratory issue Thursday, approximately 60 miles east of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay’s command center were notified by crewmembers of the fishing vessel Illusion of the ailing crewmember at approximately 6 a.m. The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Willow, a 225-foot seagoing buoy tender homeported in Newport, Rhode Island, was directed by Sector Delaware Bay watchstanders to the Illusion and took the man aboard,,, >Video, click here < 15:35

NOAA Names Michael Pentony new Regional Administrator of Greater Atlantic Region

Today, NOAA Fisheries announced that Mr. Michael Pentony is the new Regional Administrator for NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He will assume his new duties on January 22, 2018. Mr. Pentony has been with the agency since 2002, serving in a series of positions including as the Assistant Regional Administrator for the Sustainable Fisheries Division since 2014. He succeeds retiring Regional Administrator John Bullard who had been in the position since 2012. >click here to read< 15:04

US cold snap was a freak of nature, quick analysis finds

Consider this cold comfort: A quick study of the brutal American cold snap found that the Arctic blast really wasn’t global warming but a freak of nature. Frigid weather like the two-week cold spell that began around Christmas is 15 times rarer than it was a century ago, according to a team of international scientists who does real-time analyses to see if extreme weather events are natural or more likely to happen because of climate change. >click here to read< 12:46

Lobstermen speak out against proposal to have Maine’s entire fleet report data

Maine doesn’t require all of its lobstermen to share their fishing data, and they say reporting even 10 percent of the country’s largest lobster fishery is enough to give state and federal regulators statistically valid data. That’s the argument advanced by lobstermen, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association and the state Department of Marine Resources against a proposal for 100 percent reporting, at a hearing held Wednesday by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. >click here to read< 11:09

Speaking of America: ‘Here, you have the freedom’

When the communists came to his Vietnam town, fled to a fishing boat, jammed already with 50 of his wife’s family. As they cast off, they saw a barge filled with refugees sink, “and I saw a couple hundred people die in the water.,, Forty-two years later, he is a man content to see his sons and daughters make their own way as citizens here, even if they do not follow their father back to the sea. He made it here, he says, through exhausting days and nights, pulling shrimp aboard his trawler at sea for a week until the hold was full, and returning to port only long enough to unload and set out again. >click here to read< 10:23 

Commercial crab season to open Monday but local crabbers want another test done

Following several delays, the commercial Dungeness crab fishing season for Humboldt, Mendocino and Del Norte counties is opening Jan. 15, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Wednesday.,,, Trinidad commercial crabber Craig Goucher said there are currently no plans to set gear Jan. 12. Instead, he said, local crabbers plan to wait until Jan. 15 to drop gear. “We’re going to set some test gear out and get it processed and determine what the pick out is,” he said Wednesday afternoon. “We can legally get that sample on the 15th.” >click here to read< 09:34

Negotiations could further delay crab catch – Columbia crab fishermen can start placing their pots in the ocean Friday morning, but first they have to settle on a price with processors. >click here to read< 10:17

A unique educational experience, designed for fishermen, by fishermen

The Marine Resource Education Program (MREP) offers fishermen, and others with a stake in healthy fisheries, an opportunity to learn the basics of fisheries science and how the fishery management process works. It provides an inside look at the fisheries science and management processes, demystifies the acronyms and vocabulary, and equips fishermen with the tools to engage in shaping regulatory action and participating in collaborative science. MREP is offering two upcoming workshops that are organized and moderated by members of the local fishing community: >click here to read< 09:11