Daily Archives: May 2, 2018
New England Senators Threaten Trade Action Against Canada Over Right Whale Protections
A group of New England senators is calling on the U.S. government to speed up an analysis of Canada’s efforts to protect the endangered North American right whale, and to consider trade action if Canada’s rules do not prove as strong as in the U.S.,, Now they’re calling on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to investigate whether fishermen in Canada are being held to similar standards. If not, they say, then NOAA should consider barring the import of Canadian seafood from the relevant fisheries. “It’s really a double-edged sword,” says Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. >click to read>19:12
Massachusetts: Herring run in full swing along South Shore
Herring are filling local streams and rivers during their annual migration from the sea. Like salmon, herring live in salt water but travel to fresh water to spawn. In Pembroke, Herring Brook is full of fish fighting their way upstream to the top of a fish ladder that allows them to get around a dam at Glover Mill Pond. During the peak of the migration, it can see as many as 40,000 fish in one day. Video, photo’s >click to read<17:38
River herring return to Weymouth en masse – Thousands of herring were visible making their way towards the fish ladders in Jackson Square today. >click to read<22:51
Fisheries Act must include legal duty to rebuild stocks: Oceana Canada
For the first time since the Fisheries Act was created in 1868, there are provisions within it that focus on the rebuilding of fish stocks. But as they’re currently worded, they fall short of what international experience has shown is required to actually help a stock rebuild. Simply, they must mandate that the federal government respond, not just consider responding. That was the word from Josh Laughren, executive director of Oceana Canada, at the House fisheries committee earlier today. He said the language contained in Bill C-68 will also have to go further if it’s going to fulfil Canada’s international agreements and ensure this country’s laws are commensurate with other nations. >click to read<16:06
Marine Monument Case Aligns Trump, Conservationists
Cautiously aligned with the government in support of America’s first marine monument, environmentalists urged a federal judge Monday to sink a challenge by fishing groups. Designated by President Barack Obama in September 2016, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument encompasses 4,913 square miles off the coast of New England. Cordoned off from oil and gas exploration, as well as commercial fishing, the seabed within the monuments boasts four underwater volcanoes and three canyons. The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Conservation Law Foundation and naturalist Zack Klyver had all intervened in the case,,, >click to read<14:08
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 80′ Eastern Rigged Steel Stern Trawler with Federal Permits
Specifications, information and 13 photos >click here< To see all the boats in this series, >Click here<13:00
Right whale rules trap fishermen
The federal government’s decision to extend rules protecting right whales to P.E.I.’s lobster fishermen sent waves of anxiety through the industry last week. The fishermen were reacting not only to the poor timing of the decision — coming just days before the lobster season’s opening on May 1 — but, more urgently, the prospect that their livelihood may dwindle if a right whale is spotted near a fishing vessel. Of course, the reasoning for these federal measures isn’t really at issue — no one is saying right whales shouldn’t be protected. >click to read<09:53
Fishermen roll out for early Louisiana inshore shrimp season
It began as a trickle of boats late Saturday and early Sunday, heading out to favorite shrimp-hunting spots in the lakes and bays of Terrebonne and Lafourche, where they waited for the time to lower nets like horses at their starting gates. Then at 6 a.m. Monday the booms splayed out and the trawl doors splashed, marking the start of the 2018 Louisiana inshore shrimp season. Until now they called it the “May season.” when brown shrimp were moving from estuaries toward the Gulf of Mexico, and it would be one span of a few weeks in which to catch them. >click to read<09:00
