Daily Archives: January 4, 2019
Japanese bluefin tuna sold at auction for record $4.4m
A giant bluefin has been tuna was sold for a record 333.6 million yen ($A4.4 million) in the first auction of the year at Tokyo’s new fish market. The 278-kilogram tuna, valued at 1.2 million yen per kilogram, was caught in Oma, one of the best tuna fishing grounds in Japan, on the northern tip of main island Honshu. It was bought by Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Sushi Zanmai, a major sushi restaurant chain. “I did not expect it to be that expensive. However, since I was able to buy a good one, I’d like customers to try it,” Kimura told reporters. >click to read<22:51
North Carolina Fisheries Association Weekly Update for January 4, 2019
>Click here to read the Weekly Update<, to read all the updates >click here<, for older updates listed as NCFA >click here<18:24
Mounties looking for leads in lobster larceny
Thieves struck twice over the holiday season to nab that most precious of Nova Scotia booty: lobster. Police say they stole a total of 1,200 pounds of lobster from open pens at pounds in Port Medway, N.S., during the early mornings of Dec. 23 and Jan. 1. RCMP Cpl. Jennifer Clarke noted Friday the thieves made off with a hefty load. “It’s certainly not unusual for us to have lobster theft reported but this is certainly a significant amount,” Clarke said. One pound owner believes his boat was moved during the Dec. 23 theft, leading police to note that a boat may have been used. >click to read<16:11
Walter Kumiega reflects on eight years in the House
Deer Isle carpenter Walter Kumiega represented District 134—Deer Isle, Stonington, Isle au Haut and eight other communities—for eight years in the state legislature before becoming ineligible for re-election under state term limits for legislators.,, With commercial fishing communities “still the most important economic driver in my district,” Kumiega immediately joined the Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources, chairing it for his final three terms. Throughout his tenure, he worked to initiate changes in lobster licensing regulations and sponsored legislation creating the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative, funding for which was recently renewed for a second three-year span. >click to read<15:07
R.I. fishermen still without compensation deal from wind farm developer
Less than three weeks before Rhode Island coastal regulators are set to vote on a key approval for its $2-billion offshore wind farm, Vineyard Wind has yet to come forward with a compensation package for the state’s commercial fishermen who say that the layout of the company’s 84 turbines will block access to valuable Atlantic Ocean fishing grounds. The Coastal Resources Management Council granted the New Bedford company a reprieve Nov. 27, delaying a vote on the application for what’s known as a “consistency certification” for the 800-megawatt wind farm specifically to give the developer more time to reach an agreement with fishermen who catch squid, lobster, Jonah crab and other species in the waters targeted for development between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard. >click to read<12:25
The Former Clintonite Trying to Build the Country’s Most Controversial Mine
Tom Collier is buckled into the back of a six-seat AS350 Helicopter, racing over the lowland bluffs of southwest Alaska. Clad in a black Helly Hansen jacket and baseball hat bearing the word Pebble, he doesn’t exactly look at ease, though he’ll later claim otherwise. When the chopper banks south, he reaches awkwardly for the ceiling, desperate for something to grab. Soon we pass over the Newhalen River, a rushing white torrent, then cut into the rolling hills of the Nushagak and Kvichak river drainages. The two waterways are among the wildest left in the United States , and their watersheds form a sea of tundra sedge and skinny water that produces about half of the sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay, Alaska. >click to read<11:36
Crabbers to sail into storm
Fishermen face high seas and uncertain prices as they set out Friday, Jan. 4, for the opening day of Dungeness crab season. “The weather’s been terrible but we hope to be processing by Friday night,” reported John Moody, manager of Pacific Seafood Group’s plant in Newport. A score of vessels left port under sunny skies Tuesday to drop pots for the “pre-soak,” enabling fishermen to land crab at the opening bell. But 50-55 mph gusts and 20-foot swells that were predicted to arrive Thursday night could mean further holdups for some boats. >click to read<10:15
The Sea Is So Great…
The New Year came in on a dour note, wind-driven rain slamming the south-facing windows near the foot of my bed. I would not sleep, I knew, so I stayed up late, reading a book loaned to me several years ago. The bookmark was about four pages in, then I must have put it down before eventually giving it an “I will read you, truly, someday” place on a shelf. It seemed I had been sick forever, the winter cold and everything else that is always “going around” and my normally slow reading pace had been accelerated. It was late, deep into the morning by the clock, the storm on the edge of abating when I finally went upstairs so it was correspondingly late when I first looked at the news on New Year’s Day and saw that a fishing vessel had gone down in that terrible weather a few miles south of Block Island. >click to read<
