Monthly Archives: February 2018
Their View! Building trust with fishermen is key for wind energy companies
There’s a lot of buzz in New Bedford these days about the offshore wind industry- and for good reason. Blowing in with the massive turbines will be the promise of good-paying jobs; new activity along with the waterfront; and even the prospect that SouthCoast could become a training center for those interested in offshore wind careers.,, Amid the hubbub, however, we can’t lose track of the industry that has made New Bedford the most lucrative seafood port in the nation for 17 years in a row, The city’s hard-working fishermen-beset by changing regulations, dwindling catches, competition from foreign fleets and the ever-present hardship of storm-tossed seas-must be given serious consideration in any changes,,,>click to read<10:40 
China, Spain, Taiwan, Japan and S Korea account for 85% global fishing efforts
The research, led by scientists at Global Fishing Watch, a research organization that uses satellite data to track fishing activity, examined some 22 billion ship-location data points for more than 70,000 industrial fishing vessels between 2012 and 2016. It found commercial fishing hotspots in the northeast Atlantic and northwest Pacific, as well as in nutrient-rich areas off the coasts of South America and West Africa. The study also found that fleets from just five countries — China, Spain, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea — account for more than 85% of fishing efforts in the high seas. >click to read< 09:51
Our Drowning Coast: Left to Louisiana’s tides, Jean Lafitte fights for time
Out toward the horizon, a fishing village appears on a fingerling of land, tenuously gripping the banks of a bending bayou. Just two miles north is the jagged tip of a fortresslike levee, a primary line of defense for New Orleans, whose skyline looms in the distance. Everything south of that 14-foot wall of demarcation, including the gritty little town of Jean Lafitte, has effectively been left to the tides. Jean Lafitte may be just a pinprick on the map, but it is also a harbinger of an uncertain future. As climate change contributes to rising sea levels, threatening to submerge land from Miami to Bangladesh, the question for Lafitte, as for many coastal areas across the globe, is less whether it will succumb than when — and to what degree scarce public resources should be invested in artificially extending its life. Video, images>click to read<21:20
SURETTE: Open-pen fish farming a mess: How the world is passing us by
There’s big stuff happening in the dirty world of open-pen salmon farming. World production of farmed salmon is declining and prices are rising accordingly. The main culprit is sea lice grown immune to the chemicals used to wash them off, helped by algae blooms, fish disease, pollution, damaged wild stocks, and finally political disgust with the whole mess in the more enlightened jurisdictions. The move now, worldwide, is to either haul production to dry land or otherwise insulate the at-sea operations from the surrounding environment,,, >click to read< 18:28
Fish and Wildlife Service official reportedly violated conflict of interest rules
Richard Ruggiero, chief of the Division of International Conservation at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, may have violated federal ethics rules by his involvement in agency grants that provided monetary benefit to a family member, according to a Feb. 20, 2018, Department of Interior Inspector General report. “We found that Ruggiero violated federal laws and regulations by participating in an FWS cooperative agreement that financially benefited his family member, and neither Ruggiero nor his family member disclosed their relationship in writing to the FWS,” the report said. >click to read< 17:22
Anacortes delegation travels to Unalaska
Visitors from Anacortes, Wash., traveled to the Aleutian Islands last week to urge the Unalaska City Council to stop asking the U.S. Congress to restrict a stranded factory trawler from buying cod at sea. Earlier, Unalaska Mayor Frank Kelty sent the state’s congressional delegation a letter urging “sideboard” restrictions on any Jones Act waiver granted to the new factory trawler America’s Finest. The vessel ran afoul of federal domestic content law when it was discovered it had excess foreign steel in its hull. Now, the state-of-the-art $74 million flatfish factory trawler can’t fish in the U.S., unless Congress grants a waiver. >click to read< 12:531
Fisherman’s case yields complicated evidence trail
The federal trial of Thomas Kokell features a trail of evidence including hand-scrawled freight tickets and fishing-trip reports. Stacks of paper slips have cluttered a U.S. courtroom in Central Islip over the past two weeks, a multicolored trail of evidence in the first major criminal trial of a Long Island fisherman charged in a probe of alleged illegal fishing.,,, The charges stem from a five-year federal probe of an auction program that let fishermen harvest beyond their quotas. The investigation has netted seven guilty pleas and prison or home-detention sentences for five other people. One of the men who pleaded guilty is Mark Parente, a fish dealer from New Jersey,,, >click to read<11:16
Cape Cod environmentalists plan to wreck their lobster Industry to save the whales
Scientists trying to convince New England lobstermen to invest in “ropeless fishing” to cut the risk current fishing methods pose to northern right whales, The Boston Globe reported. Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution say ropeless fishing will allow lobstermen to continue in their livelihood, but without long ropes running from buoys on the ocean’s surface to lobster traps on the ocean floor.,,, Scientists warn if this technology is not pursued, the only other option to save the whales is government regulation of fishing seasons and areas, which would devastate the industry much more than ropeless fishing. >click to read< 09:07
Our fishing heritage has been gutted
“A nation that forgets its past has no future.”— Sir Winston Churchill. The Plains Indians of the American west, the bands of First Nations peoples in North America, were attacked by white settlers and the U.S. cavalry who eventually killed the buffalo herds, the one resource which was essential to the tribes’ existence and their culture.,,, When Canada took control of our fishery, its dominant activity was to produce wealth, power and position centrally as they sold, bartered and traded the resource, its licences, quotas and its processing jobs to foreign countries and elite industry players. >click to read< 08:00
Coast Guard issues violations for illegal fishing near Cape Romain
A Coast Guard boarding team issued fishing and safety violations Thursday to a vessel 19 miles east of Cape Romain, South Carolina. The 44-foot fishing vessel The Long Line was found actively laying and retrieving fishing pots in a prohibited area. The Coast Guard Cutter Cormorant noticed The Long Line crew setting their pods Wednesday night and later retrieving the pods Thursday morning. A Cormorant boarding team conducted a living marine resources boarding and cited the crew for failing to comply with area restrictions. >click to read<23:50
28 accidents reported since crab season began off Oregon, Washington
Since the commercial Dungeness crab season began on January 15th, Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Portland marine investigators have responded to 28 marine accidents involving commercial fishing vessels, with no reported deaths or serious injuries. Since the start of the season, Marine Safety Unit Portland personnel responded to an average of one marine accident per day, causalities included loss of propulsion, loss of steering, loss of power, fire, collisions, grounding and personnel injuries. >click to read< 17:13
GARFO AA Pentony taking on whale crisis – Lobstermen wary of more environmental regulations
South Shore Lobstermen wary – Traps dropped to the bottom of the ocean by lobstermen are currently connected to a buoy at the surface by a long, taut rope. Fishermen use the buoys to mark where traps are and use the rope to pull up them from the ocean floor, but researchers think the same thing could be achieved by ditching the ropes and using a GPS-like tracking technology and acoustic communication. >click to read< 16:20
Pentony taking on whale crisis – The number one issue right now is the right whale crisis,,, It will occupy our resources and energy for the next several years until we can reverse the trend. Thats going to be a significant challenge. >click to read<
F/V Alaska Patriot sunk, now Coast Guard seeks fines
The Alaska Patriot rests in a watery grave after the runaway former factory long liner was shot full of holes by a Coast Guard cutter in December. Now, the agency is taking aim at the vessel owner’s finances, proposing at least $155,000 in fines after the 170-foot vessel was left adrift and threatening navigation safety in international shipping lanes when it broke loose from a tow from Unalaska/Dutch Harbor to a scrapyard in Mexico.,, The Coast Guard has initiated a Class I Civil Penalty against the owner of the vessels Alaska Patriot and Alaska Pioneer,,, >click to read<14:11
FFAW-Unifor files Supreme Court application in ‘desperate’ attempt to block vote on union representation: FISH-NL
The Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL) describes the latest legal maneuvers by the FFAW-Unifor to try and derail a vote by inshore harvesters on their union representation as an “act of desperation.” “The FFAW-Unifor executive knows they’ll lose a vote, and are desperate to cling to power,” says Ryan Cleary, President of FISH-NL. “They’re using the courts and legal costs to try and quash the FISH-NL movement, but we’re past the point of no return — a vote must happen before inshore harvesters and the fishery can move forward.”>click to read< 13:42
Offshore Wind Fiasco: Renewables Industry Faces $Billions In Compensation For Early Repairs
Ørsted must repair up to 2,000 wind turbine blades because the leading edge of the blades have become worn down after just a few years at sea. The company has a total of 646 wind turbines from Siemens Gamesa, which may potentially be affected to some extent, Ørsted confirmed. The wind turbine owner will not disclose the bill, but says that the financial significance is “small”. However, it is far from just the Anholt Park that is affected. The blades at several British Ørsted offshore wind farms must also be repaired after just a few years on the water. >click to read<12:12
Their worst fears are now starting to be realized: Fishers forced out of business
Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Mick Veitch, met with fishers from the Great Lakes yesterday February 22 at the Wallis Lake Fishing Co-op to highlight the impact of the State government’s commercial fishing reforms. The reforms have forced a number of family run fishing businesses to exit the industry, while businesses association with the local fishing industry are under pressure. An Upper House committee last year heard directly from co-ops over the impacts of these reforms – and was warned over the viability of co-ops if the reforms proceeded. The worst fears are now starting to be realized. >click to read< 10:36 
Outrage in Newfoundland as Indigenous groups get cut of Arctic surf clam fishery
Federal Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc’s decision to cleave off 25 per cent of the lucrative Arctic surf clam fishery and give it to a newly formed consortium of Indigenous groups has blindsided those who have depended on the industry on Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula for decades. “This is an unprecedented move,” Grand Bank Mayor Rex Matthews told CBC Radio’s The Broadcast. “To come in and expropriate 25 per cent of a quota that we’ve had for the last 27 years.” >click to read< 10:06
F/V Dianne: Mystery remains after search fails to find any bodies
Queensland police have confirmed that no human remains have been found inside the salvaged trawler FV Dianne after inspecting the vessel at Bundaberg port. Disaster Victim Identification officers scoured the wreck on Thursday and Friday, but hopes for closure for the families of the missing men was not forthcoming. Police have recovered a number of personal items from the vessel, Video >click to read<09:32
NMFS Weighing Privately Funded Assessment of Summer Flounder Stock
For the first time, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) will consider privately funded science in formulating regulations for summer flounder. Funded by the Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund (SSFFF) and its contributing partners, a groundbreaking sex-structured model created by Dr. Patrick Sullivan of Cornell University was presented in January to the NMFS’ Stock Assessment Workshop in the hope of obtaining a clearer picture of the summer flounder population. The ultimate goal is to improve the accuracy of the next stock assessment,,, >click to read< 23:14
F/V Dianne: Experts work through the wet to get answers
Investigations into the sinking of MV Dianne are continuing today at the Bundaberg Port Marina site. Firefighters were at the scene early yesterday morning to assess the safety of the vessel before investigation teams could go on board. NewsMail photographer Tahlia Stehbens was on the ground and said the area was a hive of emergency services officers.,, “Two ambulance vehicles are also on scene as well as police officers. A cleaning service has just started pumping out waste from the trawler.” The area was cordoned off to media and the public. >click to read< 21:08
Study reveals fishing’s startling global footprint: co-author Boris Worm, ‘It totally blows me away’
Global fishing efforts are so wide ranging that fleets covered more than 460 million kilometres in 2016 — a distance equal to going to the moon and back 600 times. That startling revelation is contained in a newly published study in Science that quantifies fishing’s global footprint for the first time. “I’ve been working on fishing for 20 years and it totally blows me away,” co-author Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said of the findings. The study — which included researchers from Global Fishing Watch, National Geographic, Google and U.S. universities such as Stanford — used satellite feeds and common ship tracking technology known as the automatic identification system (AIS). >click to read< 15:47 
Unusual catch at Usal
Last week, while pulling up crab pots north of Usal Beach, the crew of the Gloria II got a surprise when they discovered a Maine lobster hanging off the side of one of the pots. While no one was exactly sure what a Maine lobster was doing in the Pacific Ocean (Spiny lobsters range as far north as Monterey, but look quite different from their East Coast cousins), they have been caught very occasionally along the North Coast in the past. >click to read< 14:16
A conflict of interest and possible corruption
Benguela Global, the fund manager that raised concerns about Capitec’s loan policies at the same time as Viceroy published a critical report on the bank, has made public its objection to recent developments at fishing company Oceana, suggesting the developments are a “related party transaction entailing a massive conflict of interest and potentially even laced with corruption”.,, In a nutshell, Oceana acquired 100% of US fishmeal producer Daybrook Fisheries in July 2015 for $382.3 million as part of its bid to diversify its operations and grow globally as there were few options remaining in South Africa. >click to read< 13:14
FISH-NL questions whether Ottawa purposely is out to eliminate inshore fishery and outports along with it
The Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL) says Ottawa’s decision to award a new Arctic surf clam licence to East Coast aboriginal groups amounts to Indigenous reconciliation on the backs of inshore harvesters and rural communities.,, “Our inshore harvesters and rural communities should be at the head of the line for any new quotas,” says Ryan Cleary, President of FISH-NL. “Our harvesters are starving for fish, and the feds are taking from the few healthy stocks we have left, and carving them up for groups with no connection to the resource. That’s just wrong.” >click to read< 12:07
Clearwater Seafoods to pursue legal options after surf clam licence goes to First Nations group
Clearwater Seafoods says it will be pursuing legal options after its monopoly on Arctic surf clams came to an end Wednesday when a new licence for the species was issued to the Five Nations Clam Company. The company called the licence award a “failure in public policy and abuse of power by the Minister.”,,LeBlanc’s announcement that a new entrant was coming for Arctic surf clams was a controversial one in Newfoundland and Labrador, particularly in Grand Bank, where Mayor Rex Matthews was vocal in his opposition. >click to read< 11:16
Skipper Christopher Lee Jarman admits trawler grounding charge
The skipper of a fishing boat that ran aground near Canterbury’s Lake Ellesmere has admitted he failed to ensure a proper look-out was kept. The 22-metre Lady Sarah grounded on Kaitorete Spit in December 2016 and remained on the shingle shore for two weeks before it was broken into pieces and moved to a contractor’s yard. Skipper Christopher Lee Jarman, 35, of Heathcote Valley, pleaded guilty on Thursday to failing to keep the look-out and causing unnecessary danger or risk to property or persons, including the crew. >click to read< 10:44
Hit TV series ‘Wicked Tuna,’ filmed off Cape Ann, releases a new season
The fishing tales of six captains on the hunt for giant tuna swim through the airwaves starting next month, when National Geographic’s hit series “Wicked Tuna” premieres its seventh season. The stakes are always high at sea, as the Gloucester-based fishermen compete to pull in the most lucrative catch of “monstah” bluefin, which can be worth upward of $20,000 per tuna. Season seven kicks off with an extended 90-minute episode on Sunday, March 11, at 9 p.m. on the National Geographic Channel. >click to read< 10:10
Cape Breton lobster size requirements increasing to feed American market
The Inverness South Fishermen’s Association says its members will be fishing for slightly larger lobsters over the next two years. The association has received word that Fisheries and Oceans Canada has approved an increase in the minimum carapace size in lobster fishing area 26B, said president Jordan MacDougall,,, MacDougall said it will increase to 81.7 millimetres for the 2018 season, and 82.5 millimetres in 2019, which is the minimum size to allow Canadian lobsters to enter the U.S. without processing. >click to read<09:17
Post Rafael, New Bedford Fishing Industry Looks to Move Forwad
For perhaps the first time, at least publicly, fishermen on Carlos Rafael vessels sat in the same room Wednesday as John Bullard, the former regional administrator for NOAA, who implemented a groundfishing ban for those vessels. Bullard, wearing a blue NOAA jacket, sat in the front of four-person panel brought together by Rhode Island Public Radio The fishermen, wearing baseball caps and New Bedford Ship Supply sweatshirts, sat to the left of the panel, which discussed fishing in New Bedford after Carlos Rafael at Star Store.>click to read<21:16
New Arctic Surf Clam license to benefit First Nations in Atlantic Canada and Quebec
Enhancing access to fisheries provides an opportunity to create social and economic benefits for coastal and Indigenous communities, and further promote economic prosperity for middle class Atlantic Canadians. Today, the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, announced that a new license for Arctic Surf Clam will be issued to the Five Nations Clam Company. This decision will significantly enhance Indigenous participation in the offshore fishery in Atlantic Canada. >click to read<19:29
