Monthly Archives: July 2019
On Yukon, late salmon run means month and a half fishery reduced to less than two weeks
The lower Yukon River, one of the nation’s poorest regions, has one major industry: chum salmon fishing. The summer fishery usually opens at the beginning of June, but this year it didn’t open until July.,,, Commercial fisherman Lorraine Joseph is fishing with her father and hopes to net a couple hundred fish today, but she won’t be able to catch up to where they usually are this time of year. “But we’re making some money,” she says before climbing in her boat. Photo gallery, >click to read< 16:31
Slow lobster season so far in Maine, but price is steady
It’s been a slow lobster season so far in Maine, but the lack of crustaceans isn’t translating into high prices for consumers, and fishermen are still hopeful for a bump in catch this summer.,,, The season so far is similar to the lobster hauls veteran fishermen saw in the 1980s and 1990s, when the boom in catch typically came later, said Steve Train, a lobsterman based in Long Island. It’s frustrating for those who are used to the big, early catches of the modern era, he said. >click to read< 15:11
83-year-old wooden vessel brings Norfolk’s fishing heritage to life
An 83-year-old wooden fishing vessel was one of the highlights of a heritage regatta along the north Norfolk coast at the weekend. The event was organised by the charitable trust Rescue Wooden Boats and saw 16 boats displayed at Tugboat Yard on the east quay at Wells. Miss Judith was the oldest to feature. It was built by Johnny Johnston in 1936. Wendy Pritchard brought her boat Welcome Messenger to the event. She said: “It was built in 1963 by Billy May for Bennett Middleton – a Sheringham fisherman and his son Fuzz Middleton, also a Sheringham fisherman.” Nice photo’s! >click to read< 14:15
Fighting Dirty Business! Farmer’s battle with port authority started with a plan for rocks
Kevin Blacker has a rock-solid plan and he’s not letting it go. Unlike other farmers who just learn to live with boulders,,, As the sea level rises, he expects to see increased demand for boulders to protect the shoreline.,, Unfortunately his boulder-shipping project has been waylaid, he said, by the Connecticut Port Authority’s plan to use the State Pier in New London as a hub exclusively for the assembly and transport of wind farm components. Blacker says the state has implied that the $93 million plan was a done deal. The deal would be with pier operator Gateway Terminal and Bay State Wind, a joint venture of Ørsted and Eversource. In fact, the agreement is still being negotiated, but Blacker said the state and its partners wanted “to make people think it’s done and that there’s nothing we can do about it. >click to read< 12:26
Smart Boats Could Revolutionise UK Fishing and Seafood Industries
The Environment Secretary Michael Gove has today delivered a boost for innovation in the UK fishing and seafood industries with the opening of a new £10m research and development fund. The move paves the way for the potential use of artificial intelligence by fishermen and providing a potential double return on investment for the UK economy. >click to read< 11:23
New Bedford: A fishing family sees opportunity at the old Revere Copper site
It’s hard to say whether the old Revere Copper and Brass site is more ghost town or field of dreams. Michael and Charlie Quinn, a son and father who recently purchased the 14-acre lot fronting on the northern part of New Bedford harbor, are going with the latter. So will I. The Quinns plan to make the old metal factory into a shipbuilding yard for their related Shoreline Resources businesses — which over three decades have included commercial fishing vessels, Standard Marine Outfitters and East Coast Fabrication, a ship repair shop. By Jack Spillane >click to read< 10:45
N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries: southern flounder ‘overfished’; harvest cuts in works
State fisheries managers have released a new overview of commercially important fish stocks, and a commercial fishing advocacy group and the state branch of a recreational fishing conservation nonprofit seem supportive of its results.,, fisheries managers are working on Amendment 2 to the Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan. This amendment, if the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission adopts it at its meeting Wednesday through Friday, Aug. 21-23 in Raleigh, would implement measures to reduce both the commercial and recreational harvest by 62-72%. N.C. Fisheries Association President and commercial fisherman Glenn Skinner said,,, <click to read< 09:39
“I woke up to my dad’s screaming, ‘We’re on, we’re on!,” Teen’s first catch a big fish tale
Devin Zelck was fast asleep on the deck of the boat Dogbar at 7 a.m. last Friday when the big fish took the bait. “I woke up to my dad’s screaming, ‘We’re on, we’re on!,” she said. Ten hours later,,, Jim Alvarez, the captain of the boat who, along with Zelck’s father, helped the teen haul in the massive fish, said it was the biggest tuna he has caught in his 10-year career. Devin Zelck said she had gone tuna-fishing with her father, Steve, a commercial fisherman out of Gloucester, several times but had always come up empty. They headed out at 5 a.m. last Friday on the Dogbar for what was supposed to be a short, half-day trip. >click to read< 08:47
PWSAC produces wild salmon for all
As general manager/CEO of the Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corp., Casey Campbell is all about helping to educate the public about PWSAC’s role in developing sustainable salmon fisheries and how they do it. The state’s hatchery program itself, notes Campbell, was started in the mid-1970s to enhance, not replace wild salmon, so that coastal communities could have economies based on salmon, many challenges notwithstanding. The Good Friday earthquake in March of 1964 changed the topography of Prince William Sound and then in the 1970s there was very cold weather, he said. >click to read< 19:58
Killing Whales To Save Polar Bears: Wind Turbine Infra-sound
The year 2016 was the first year the United States deployed ocean wind turbines which coincide with the whale beachings. Construction of the Block Island, Rhode Island ocean wind turbine started in January of 2016. The construction took place underwater placing miles of electric cables. Construction noise underwater increases.Electric cables generate EMF. Sources of ELF-EMFs include power lines, electrical wiring, and ocean wind turbine construction. The increase in the Whale deaths began when the construction of the Rhode Island ocean wind turbines began,,, by Frank Haggerty >click to read< 17:15
‘Tin Can Country’ stretches from Alaska to the Pacific Northwest
In much the same way that it’s a good idea to assume anyone you talk to here may be related to nearly anyone else you might mention, it’s also fairly safe to assume they have some connection with Alaska. A desirable new book, “Tin Can Country: Southeast Alaska’s Historic Salmon Canneries,” drives home the strong bonds between the great state of the north and the Pacific Northwest. Edited by Anjuli Grantham with individual chapters by top historians and experts including my friend, the legendary Karen Hofstad, “Tin Can Country” chronicles the golden age between 1878 and 1949. >click to read< 14:28
Fukushima fishing port hit by 2011 tsunami reopens after 8-year hiatus
Tomioka fishing port, which was severely damaged by the tsunami following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake in northeastern Japan reopened on July 26 for the first time in eight years and four months. All 10 fishing ports in Fukushima Prefecture have now reopened. Tomioka’s fishing port is located only about 10 kilometers away from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, where meltdowns occurred in the wake of the quake and tsunami. About 50 members of the fishing industry participated in a reopening ceremony, and five boats that returned from ports where they had evacuated navigated around the reconstructed local port with colorful large flags that are used to signify a good catch. >click to read< 13:53
Historic fishing trawler Arctic Corsair to be at the centre of major Hull tourist attraction
The Arctic Corsair has been open as a visitor attraction since 1999 from its berth on the River Hull between Drypool and Myton Bridge. Britain’s last surviving distant water ‘sidewinder’ trawler will move to a temporary new home at Alexandra Dock.,,,After 2020, the trawler is scheduled to undergo a major restoration and will then be moved permanently to a dry dock at North End Shipyard, where she will become the focal point of a new visitor centre telling the story of the port’s history. >click to read< 13:34
Greenhead Lobster cuts ribbon on Bucksport plant
Greenhead Lobster owner Hugh Reynolds held a huge pair of scissors aloft as he cut the ribbon on a 15,000 square foot lobster processing facility on July 19, extending the Stonington business into Bucksport. “We’ve brought innovation and technology to allow people to taste lobster as it would be fresh out of the water,” Reynolds said. The facility will take lobsters caught in Stonington waters and use hyperbaric pressure to kill pathogens and extend its shelf life to at least 30 days. Greenhead is targeting the domestic market, after trade tariffs have affected global markets, like big lobster importers China. >click to read< 12:19
Mills’ stand on fishing rules praised by lobster industry
As Executive Director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA), I applaud Gov. Mills’ July 11 Message to Maine’s Lobster Industry acknowledging the federal government’s “disturbing lack of evidence connecting the Maine lobster industry to recent right whale deaths.”,,, What is often lost in this debate is that the population of North Atlantic right whales was only 295 in 1997 when federal regulators first required U.S. fishermen to implement conservation measures. In the ensuing years, the right whale population increased to more than 450 whales. >click to read< 11:17
Chignik Bay ‘hanging by a thread’ in second year of scant fishing
For the second year in a row, Allen and other Chignik fishermen have mostly been left to twiddle their thumbs. During the summer of 2018, they did not have a single opener. That was a year without fish, and a year without income. With a healthy dose of optimism in the offseason, many were ready to write off the bad summer as a fluke and get back to fishing in 2019. The second half of the season has produced a handful of openers, but after spending the entire first half of the season passed with no catch, fishermen say there’s still a dwindling sense of hope. >click to read< 09:35
July 27, 1981: Oil drilling begins off Cape Cod: ”It’s only a matter of time before the fishermen get used to having us out here.
After six years of bitter legal wrangles between fishermen and oil companies, exploration began today on Georges Bank – one of America’s richest fisheries. At the Zapata Saratoga rig were a knot of Shell Oil officials, nine journalists and a group of curious finback whales who poked their heads through the distant waves, sending up fountains of spray. ‘Thank goodness we finally got it started,” said O.J. Shirley, manager of government and industry affairs for Shell. ”It’s only a matter of time before the fishermen get used to having us out here. We can have a very compatible relationship.” >click to read< 08:28
Coho salmon closures on tap for Southeast commercial trollers
Commercial salmon trollers in Southeast can expect a region-wide fishing closure for coho salmon in August. One part of the region is already being shut down because of low coho numbers. But a second king salmon opening is likely to keep the fleet on the water. Trollers have been targeting coho and chum salmon since the end of the five day opening for king salmon at the beginning of July. >click to read< 21:29
New Bedford – Old ‘Revere Copper and Brass’ will get new life as shipyard
After sitting vacant for over a decade, an historic mill on the waterfront is getting a new life as a commercial shipyard.,,,“We saw the site come up a few years back and we saw the potential with it,” said Michael Quinn who runs Shoreline Resources with his father Charlie. Currently the father and son own Quinn Fisheries, which has six commercial fishing vessels; Standard Marine Outfitters, a vessel supply company; and East Coast Fabrication, a ship repair company.,,, Mayor Jon Mitchell, “Establishing a shipyard at this site gives the port an increased capacity to service the fishing industry, the offshore wind industry, and others.” >click to read< 20:37
North Carolina Fisheries Association Weekly Update for July 26 , 2019
Legislative updates, Bill updates, Calendar, >Click here to read the Weekly Update<, to read all the updates >click here<, for older updates listed as NCFA >click here<FROM OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ~ GLENN SKINNER The North Carolina Wildlife Federation (NCWF) has submitted another Petition for Rulemaking to the Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC). Like the previous petition this one proposes severe restrictions on shrimp trawling in the internal waters of NC. 18:06
NC fisherman catches rare all-blue crab
Dean Bowling has pulled in thousands of crabs from thousands of crab pots during his decades-long career as a commercial fisherman. This week, for the first time in his life, he caught one that caused him to stop what he was doing and call his daughter, Jillian. “‘You’re not gonna believe what I caught in the trap today,'” Jillian Bowling recalled her dad saying. “So I said, ‘Send me a picture’ and he sent me a picture and I could not believe my eyes. I called him immediately and said, ‘Do you know what you have? That’s amazing. That’s one in a billion.'” >click to read< 17:41
Video – New tax proposed on imported seafood in Louisiana
A proposal is making a splash in Louisiana shrimp boats. Delcambre shrimper Terral Melancon tells me he’s losing money to imported shrimp. “I catch that shrimp, I can’t even get 80 cents (a pound),” said Melancon. “They flood the market so cheap our shrimp is worth nothing because this country is so flooded with the imported shrimp” Now Lousiana’s Lieutenant Governor wants to tax imported seafood at 10 cents per pound, but foreign seafood isn’t just cutting into fishermen’s profits. Video, >click to read< 16:14
Ottawa stalls on restarting controversial contest for Arctic surf clam licence
The federal government has stalled on a plan to break one company’s monopoly on a lucrative Atlantic fishery by awarding part of the quota to an Indigenous group, after a disastrous attempt last year that led to an investigation by the federal ethics watchdog. Ottawa announced a year ago that it would choose a new licence holder for 25 per cent of the Arctic surf clam quota in the spring of 2019, to begin harvesting clams in January 2020. That has not happened, and the office of Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson now says there is no timeline on the process. >click to read< 14:02
Mayor: No Answers on Vineyard Wind Approval is ‘Disconcerting’
“It’s a big deal because it’s a $2.2 Billion project. That is, to date, the largest private sector project in the state’s history. Bigger than the casinos in the state, bigger than Gillette Stadium, or you can name any of the skyscrapers in Boston, that is a big, big project and it’s being deployed from here,” New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said Thursday during his weekly appearance on the Barry Richard Show. “It’s not even clear to me that Vineyard Wind understands what the hang-up is. We’ve said, ‘look, if the hang-up has something to do with commercial fishing, we in New Bedford would be happy to play a mediated role.’ >click to read< 12:28
Lobstermen enjoy star-studded show of support in Stonington
The empire strikes back! That would be the Maine coast lobster empire.,,, Last Sunday, lobstermen, their friends and families gathered on the pier in Stonington to let loose about regulations, bureaucrats and the horse they rode in on. They came from all over the Downeast coast, several hundred strong, and stood in a baking sun for two hours, first to bear witness to the shortcomings of federal research and then to listen to a star-studded roster of Maine politicians pledge their support for the lobster industry. >click to read< 11:08
From the Legislature: Lobsters and Right Whales, Rep. Allison Hepler – >click to read<
Norah Donnell, 11, is fishing traps – and loving it
Just a few months after she was born, Zachary and Stacey Donnell tucked their daughter, Norah, into her stroller, and took her out for her first foray on a lobster boat. She started spending more time on the boat when she was 5. “We’d go out as a family,” her mother, Stacey, said. Fast forward a few years, and these days, Norah, now 11, is a young entrepreneur and lobsterwoman, with four years as a student fisher under her belt. With her father’s help, she fishes 30 traps from her 25-foot lobster boat, Old Memories, out of Wells Harbor. She has a business, “The Lobster Peddler,” >click to read< 10:35
Personal Locator Beacons Could Help Rescue Stranded Fishermen
The small GPS devices, which cost a couple of hundred dollars, transmit an alert message using satellite frequencies to NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard. The U.S. Coast Guard urges the user to register the beacon at beaconregistration.noaa.gov. Beacon registration is free and there are no monthly fees associated. According to the NOAA, PLBs are portable units that operate much the same as EPIRBs or ELTs. These beacons are designed to be carried by an individual person instead of on a boat or aircraft. >click to read<
Daring Rescue Off the Coast Of Maine Earns Rescue Swimmer Bravery Award
The night of November 14th, 2018 was stormy off the coast of Maine. Along the coast people battened down the hatches, curled up on the couch with a blanket, a book, and a hot beverage. But 60 miles off the coast of Rockland, Maine the crew of the Aaron & Melissa II were working hard to keep their 76-foot steel dragger afloat. The seas had built to twenty feet and the wind whipped the rain and sea spray violently across the deck in 50 knot winds. For most of the night the pumps kept up with the inundation of seawater that came across the decks and found its way into the bilge, but as morning neared and the storm raged on the sea began to win, outpacing the pumps and the crew. The Aaron & Melissa II was sinking. >click to read< 08:33
Coast Guard rescues 4 fishermen 60 miles off Maine coast – The Coast Guard rescued four fishermen Wednesday after abandoning their boat off the coast of Rockland, Maine. >click to read<
Norway Battling ‘Russian Invasion’ of Salmon, Fishermen Urged to Kill ‘Occupiers’
Norway is facing an invasion of humpback salmon, informally known as “Russian salmon”, Norwegian researchers have warned. According to them, the intrusion is gaining momentum, and Norway is yet to see the worst of it. According to locals and researchers alike, the much-dreaded “invasion” may turn into a prolonged “occupation”. Elevated populations of the humpback salmon, which is the invader’s official name,,, >click to read< 20:40
NEFMC Groundfish Catch Share Program Review Public Meeting Jul. 26, 2019
The evaluation period for this review is focused strictly on fishing years 2010 to 2015, spanning from May 1, 2010 through April 30, 2016. This period covers the first six years of the catch share program under Amendment 16 to the FMP. Information prior to program implementation also will be included for fishing years 2007 to 2009, covering May 1, 2007 through April 30, 2010.,,,The meeting, which will run from 4:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., will be held in Portsmouth, NH – July 26 at Portsmouth High School, 50 Andrew Jarvis Drive >click to read<20:08
