Daily Archives: July 15, 2018
Dear Congressman Moulton, about that Bill? HR-200?
I have been a supporter of yours from day one. I donated money, made your signs, found sign locations, even had my family and some of my friends support you. And they did! I was surprised and disappointed to find out through our, yours and my local newspaper, that you had voted against Congressman Don Youngs Bill, HR – 200. As you know Seth, I have informed you of the issues our fisherman are facing such as untrusted and sometimes disputed science used by NOAA, the North East Canyon and Seamounts National Marine Monument off Cape Cod that our fishing boats depended on for whiting fishing, as fishermen from other ports are also shut out from their fisheries. Congressman, it seems as though you are not actually listening to your constituents. Sam Parisi >click to read<16:57
‘No fish and no hope’: Poor sockeye salmon run takes a toll on Chignik
A dreadful sockeye run in the Chignik salmon fishery, on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula, is imperiling commercial and subsistence fishermen and distressing the community there. In the Chignik salmon fishery, the sockeye escapement — or the number of fish allowed to escape past the fishermen to spawn — was about 190,000 fish as of Friday afternoon. That’s less than half of what the average figure usually looks like by now. Commercial sockeye fishing has been closed there all season, and subsistence fishing has been restricted. Tribal groups have requested a disaster declaration for the fishery from Gov. Bill Walker. >click to read<14:42
Newport Port Commission considers re-hiring Don Mann as “Interim” Port Manager
After several years of being adrift with financial uncertainties and worsening port facility maintenance, the Newport Port Commission on Tuesday is expected to hire an interim port manager while yet another new permanent port manager is recruited and hired. The last port manager was fired after a very short time on the job. The port manager before him struggled for several years trying to get the port some traction on finishing up the International Terminal but couldn’t close a deal with outside business interests. >click to read<14:07
Black sea bass surge off R.I.
Scientists tell us that some fish will be winners and others losers as oceans warm. In Rhode Island, count lobster, silver hake and winter flounder among the losers, their numbers plummeting as climate change drives water temperatures higher. On the list of winners so far are squid, summer flounder, butterfish. And black sea bass. The population of the dusky-colored fish with striking blue accents has historically been strongest off the mid-Atlantic Coast, but over the past decade or so its numbers have spiked off New England and it is becoming a more important catch for the region’s fishermen. How they are managed will have important implications not only for those fish but for lobsters and other key species in the ocean ecosystem. >click to read<12:30
Shorthanded – Shrimp industry fears worker shortage
The Texas shrimp industry is celebrating a handful of recent legislative wins while also dreading next year’s shrimp season if changes aren’t made to the seasonal foreign worker visa program.
The Brownsville-Port Isabel shrimp fleet starts this season, which opens today, without enough workers. Andrea Hance, executive director of the Texas Shrimp Association, estimates that 70 percent of the fleet’s 140 trawlers will head out to the Gulf shorthanded. >click to read<10:51
The MSA and Don Young’s partisan dilemma
“We must remain committed to the bipartisan, bicameral tradition of fisheries management,” Rep. Don Young wrote last Sunday, “and my legislation accomplishes just that.” He was referring to the reauthorization of Magnuson-Stevens Act. But when the House passed it on Wednesday, only nine Democrats voted in favor of it. Which explains why, in the same opinion piece, Young complained about “the hyper-partisan mentality” his “Democratic colleagues subscribe to.” Like the breakup of a marriage, there are two sides to this story. The reason why Young is arguing from both might be that he was caught in the middle. >click to read<09:00
One man’s tale of lobstering 50 years in Long Island Sound – and simply loving it
John German hunted the delectable red crustacean for five decades. But as he motored his 40-foot boat, the Suzanne Marie, out of Mount Sinai Harbor at dawn Wednesday, he wasn’t looking for lobster. He was fishing for conch, a spiral-shelled mollusk beloved in Asia. The lobsters are nearly gone — and with them, the $100 million a year that they brought to Long Island. German, 71, is one of the last of the Long Island lobstermen, a group that once numbered as many as 700 but now counts only about a dozen members. The rough ride has been blamed on mostly warming waters and what folks call “the die-off,” the death of millions of lobsters in 1999 that lobstermen attribute to a concentration of mosquito insecticide that made its way into the sea. >click to read<07:04
