Daily Archives: November 27, 2018
ICCAT Meeting Ends After ‘Spectacular Failure’ to Protect Bigeye Tuna
The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) concluded its annual plenary meeting on November 19 after a spectacular failure to arrive to a comprehensive agreement on badly needed management measures to address the present poor state of Atlantic bigeye tuna stock. Bigeye tuna is highly coveted by sashimi markets worldwide, similar to bluefin tuna. ICCAT’s eight-day meeting, held this year in Dubrovnik, Croatia, was attended by over 700 people representing 52 countries. The U.S., Canada, South Africa and a handful of other nations strongly advocated for the adoption of measures that would end overfishing immediately and rebuild the stock within 10 years. However, >click to read<20:21
Montauk lobsterman cuts two tangled bucks free stuck in mating season battle
Anthony Sosinski, 50, a Montauk lobsterman, didn’t hesitate when he saw two bucks tangled in more than a mating season battle last week. Logan Erb, 25, of Montauk, said her pit bull first noticed the two bucks tumbling around her neighbor’s yard Nov. 20. The animals were joined by a piece of deer fencing that only seemed to tighten as they struggled to break free, so Erb ran to Sosinski for help. “He grabbed a knife and just went after them,” said Erb, who was recording the encounter. Sosinski, co-author of the book, “A Speck in the Sea: A Story of Survival and Rescue,” pursued the two male deer as they wildly twisted. >Video, click to read<19:40
Northern Pulp – Senators want full assessment of plan to dump mill effluent off Nova Scotia coast
A group of Independent senators is calling on the Trudeau government to do a full environmental assessment of a “dangerous” plan in Nova Scotia to take effluent from a pulp mill, pipe it 10 kilometres out into the Northumberland Strait, and dump it. In the Red Chamber on Monday, Sen. Mike Duffy called it “a looming environmental crisis in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.”,, Last week, along with Sen. Diane Griffin, a conservationist from P.E.I., they met with representatives of fisheries groups from all three Maritime provinces. “If this scheme is allowed to proceed, it could damage the fishery in the three Maritime provinces, Quebec’s Magdalen Islands, and beyond,” >click to read<18:25
Fighting ALS One Crab Leg at a Time
The Dwyer family has strong ties to Ketchikan and Alaska. Jenny Gore Dwyer was born and raised in Ketchikan. She can trace her family roots back to captain John Gore who sailed with Captain Cook as they tried to discover the “infamous” Northwest Passage. Jenny met her husband Pat on board a fishing vessel in Ketchikan in the mid 1980’s and together they started their fishing business, St. George Marine Inc. After her beloved husband passed away from ALS in June 2013, Jenny became sole owner and president of St. George Marine, working with her children Sean and Brenna to continue to run and grow the family business. Captain Sean Dwyer is currently featured in the Discovery Channel’s hit series Deadliest Catch. More importantly the Dwyer family has become relentless in their goal of eradicating ALS through the Pat Dwyer Fund. >click to read<For more information on the Pat Dwyer Fund >click here< 13:31
Not prepared – If there is ever a deepwater oil blowout, help could be weeks away
It could take weeks to get a disaster-stopping piece of equipment to Newfoundland and Labrador in the event of a subsea oil blowout, according to documents filed by Statoil, now known as Equinor, the company behind the province’s first foray into deepwater oil development. Documents filed by the company to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency in relation to an application for exploratory drilling projects in the Flemish Pass, near the newly-announced Bay du Nord project, indicate that if a well blew, a capping stack — a device used to reign in blowouts — would have to be shipped in from Norway or Brazil. >click to read<11:16
Crews re-float sabotaged coast guard ship in Nova Scotia fishing village
The Canadian Coast Guard has refloated one of its ships after it was cut from its cradle at a Nova Scotia shipyard over a week ago. The CCGS Corporal McLaren had been partially submerged with 2,600 litres of diesel fuel in its tanks and 400 litres of hydraulic fluid on board after it was allegedly sabotaged in an incident reported to police Nov. 17. Keith Laidlaw, the Coast Guard’s deputy superintendent for environmental response, says the operation started Monday afternoon and was complete by late evening, after the shipyard and salvage team pumped thousands of litres of water out of its hold. >click to read<10:47
White sharks aren’t the issue. Gray seals are – amend the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act
Last summer’s white shark attacks off Cape Cod beaches, one resulting in the first human fatality in the state in over 80 years, highlight the fact that times change, our marine ecosystem is evolving, and laws need to adjust to these changing realities. However tragic those shark attacks are for the victims and their families, the white sharks are not the issue; they simply dramatize it. The ever-increasing population of gray seals is the issue.,, A realistic start to addressing this issue would be to amend the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act to provide for delisting recovered species, such as the gray seal. Admittedly, while delisting would not resolve the issues of controlling seal population growth or related white shark attacks, it would be a reasonable first step for the following reasons: >click to read<09:31
Redfish making a big comeback in the Gulf of St. Lawrence
“We won the lottery.” That’s not a phrase you normally associate with someone doing stock assessments for Fisheries and Oceans Canada. But DFO biologist Caroline Senay is excited by the amount of redfish they’re tracking off the island’s west coast in the Gulf of St. Lawrence: about 2.5 million tonnes of fish in an area referred to as unit 1. By comparison, Iceland has a total redfish biomass of 430,000 tonnes. >click to read<09:00
