Daily Archives: July 24, 2018
USDA Rolls Out Trade Aid – Trump Administration Details One-Time Aid Programs to Help Farmers Facing Tariff Pains
Under a plan announced Tuesday by the Trump administration, farmers growing soybeans, corn, sorghum, wheat, cotton, milk and hogs will be able to apply for tariff aid payments sometime this fall to offset the impact of lost trade markets. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, stressing that President Donald Trump continues to support U.S. farmers, announced an aid package of up to $12 billion for agriculture, which will be available through three separate programs. Perdue called the trade response “a short-term solution” that would give President Trump time to work on long-term trade deals that would end the retaliatory tariffs. Perdue said the $12 billion figure “is directly in line with the estimated $11 billion impact of illegal tariffs on agriculture.” >click to read<21:43
Love Blue Crabs? Meet the Red Crab
If blue crab is this region’s Beyoncé, Atlantic deep-sea red crab is the backup singer you’ve never heard of. Found about 2,000 feet below sea level, these crustaceans are harder to harvest than their Chesapeake cousins. Plus, only one East Coast company is licensed to catch them. “I’ve been in business for 22 years, trying to put red crab on the map,” Atlantic Red Crab Company founder Jon Williams says. “It’s very well received when there’s no blue crab around, but as soon as blue crab becomes available, we take a second seat.” >click to read<21:18
Trump officials drafted plans to eliminate marine monument off New England
Senior U.S. Department of Interior officials prepared last fall to eliminate the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the Atlantic coast—even as they had yet to agree on the public justifications for doing so, according to newly disclosed internal documents. Interior last week accidentally released thousands of pages of unredacted internal emails in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.,, In a 22 August 2017 email, Interior official Randy Bowman, who led the monument review process, drafted two proposals: one in which Trump would revoke the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts monument and the other in which he would amend the proclamation to remove restrictions on commercial fishing. On 14 September, Bowman suggested in an email that impacts to the fishing industry were not a major consideration in revoking the monument’s status. >click to read<18:26
Highly Regulated: U.S. protects alpha predators, but its most famous shark hunter isn’t out of business yet.
Better known as Mark the Shark, Quartiano might be America’s most famous seafaring hunter. He’s operated his charter business since 1976, hooking and killing, by his estimate, at least 50,000 sharks. Clients as varied as Clint Eastwood and the Jacksonville Jaguars cheerleaders call him if they want a set of jaws, a trophy catch to mount, or just an adrenaline-packed excursion. Some 120,000 people follow his exploits on Instagram. Quartiano, 64, says he’d like nothing better than to hand the whole thing over to his son, Maverick, now 12, when he’s ready to retire. But Quartiano’s way of life might be as threatened as the creatures he’s famous for catching. >click to read<17:54
Cape Breton snow crab season short but lucrative
Glen Burns doesn’t bother kicking himself over it too much anymore. “I was never much of a gambler,” said Burns. “You won’t see me at the casino or down at the fire hall.” It was 2002, he had a one-year-old son and lobster gear he’d just taken over from his father. What the Margaree Harbour fisherman didn’t have was $120,000 to buy three crab traps worth of quota to add to the handful he’d taken over with his dad’s licence. And what neither he nor anyone else knew at the time was how valuable the crustacean would become to Cape Breton’s west coast. >click to read<
Maryland crabbers rescue bald eagle
As they were crabbing in the early morning Wednesday, July 18, twin brothers Christopher and Russell Payne of Easton saw something unusual flopping around in the Tred Avon River off Oxford. The closer they edged their 27-foot workboat Twice the Payne, however, they realized a male bald eagle was struggling to swim. “He looked worn out,” Chris Payne said. “He was trying to swim towards shore about 100 to 200 yards in front of the Sunset Grill.” Russell retrieved the eagle with his crab net and eased him onto the stern of their boat. The brothers kept their distance while they called the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.“He was still skittish, and we didn’t want to get close to it. He was breathing like he had run a marathon,”>click to read<16:03
FISH-NL President Ryan Cleary: Dominic LeBlanc — goodbye and good riddance
I wish to respond to The Telegram’s July 20th editorial, “Sea Change in cabinet,” and reiterate my assertion that Dominic LeBlanc was the worst minister of Fisheries and Oceans in living memory. The Telegram may call that “hyberbole,” but allow me to rehash: • LeBlanc is under investigation by the federal Ethics Commission for expropriating a clam quota, a move that will cost jobs in N.L.• LeBlanc allowed offshore draggers back at the delicate south coast (fishing zone 3Ps) cod stock. • LeBlanc put indigenous groups/Bill Barry at the front of the line for future redfish quotas in the Gulf, ahead of struggling inshore harvesters,,, >click to read<13:35
National Fish & Seafood sues former employee
Gloucester-based National Fish & Seafood is accusing its former head of research, development and quality assurance of absconding with confidential processing information and other corporate trade secrets when she resigned recently to take a similar position with a Florida-based seafood competitor. In a civil lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Boston, NFS alleges Kathleen A. Scanlon, who worked at NFS for more than 20 years before resigning about two weeks ago, used company-issued equipment to help steal confidential recipe, processing and customer information as a means of assisting her new employer, Tampa Bay Fisheries Inc. of Dover, Florida. The suit also names Tampa Bay Fisheries as a co-defendant, along with an unnamed John Doe at Tampa Bay Fisheries who allegedly helped hatch the plan. >click to read<10:56
Some advice for the new Fisheries and Oceans minister
I’d like to welcome Jonathan Wilkinson to his new post as Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. The fishery department, not the coast guard, he has inherited is a monstrosity of policy and regulations of which very little have to do with conservation of fish. It’s a department run amok with bureaucrats and lobbyists all juggling for control, while our inshore Newfoundland fishery, its fishing villages, its culture, is collapsing. Time for Canada to have a fisheries minister for Canada’s fish harvesters. U.S. President Donald Trump said it was time to drain the swamp and it is long overdue to drain the bureaucratic mess in fisheries and oceans. By inshore fisherman John Gillett >click to read<09:42
“He was Hell on Wheels, that boy” – ‘Wicked Tuna’ fisherman Nick ‘Duffy’ Fudge mourned
The death of “Wicked Tuna” cast member Nicholas “Duffy” Fudge at age 28 is being mourned in the Seacoast and beyond, and his family on Monday shared special memories dating back to his childhood. He caught his first tune around age 8, on his first day tuna fishing with his father, Ron. “We told him he should retire, never to do it again, because you don’t get many, but he didn’t listen,” Ron Fudge said. Nick, who grew up in Greenland, was he first mate on Rye Capt. Tyler McLaughlin’s boat The Pinwheel. He became a popular personality on the National Geographic Channel reality TV show about competing fishermen. His parents and family members on Monday focused on Nick’s life. >click to read<09:00
Obituary – Nick ‘Duffy’ Fudge, Services, and calling hours->click to read, sign the guest book<
