Daily Archives: December 17, 2019
Scallop season is underway
The scallop fishing season got underway in eastern Maine earlier this month and is already making news. In the waters between eastern Penobscot Bay and Cobscook Bay, the season for the handful of licensed scallop divers began Nov. 18 but the draggers couldn’t go to work until Dec. 2. In Cobscook Bay, the season for draggers also began Dec. 2 but divers had to wait until Dec. 5 to brave the chilly, turbulent waters way Downeast. >click to read< 20:14
British fishing industry left unhappy by ‘difficult’ 50% cut to North Sea cod quota
Fishers say cod is moving northward due to warming waters, but the EU hasn’t taken this into account. The British fishing industry has criticised an agreement between Norway and the EU that will see the North Sea cod quota in 2020 cut by a half.,, “We think it’s warming waters and climate change. The general feeling on the ground is the cod is going north. What you’re seeing is an abundance of hake. “We’re switching to hake to make ends meet, but we can’t take too much because traditionally the fish has been around France and Spain, so they have the quota. >click to read< 18:26
Merkley, Wyden, Pacific Coast Members Announce Major Win for Trawlers in Year-End Spending Bill
Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley, joined by Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Kamala Harris (D-CA), and U.S. Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-OR-4), Greg Walden (R-OR-2), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA-3), Kurt Schrader (D-OR-5), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR-1), and Jared Huffman (D-CA-2), today announced a major, bipartisan victory for West Coast trawlers in the 2020 spending bill that Congress is expected to pass this week. The language proposed by Merkley and supported by the other West Coast Senators and Representatives would forgive more than $10 million in accrued loan interest that was forced onto the West Coast groundfishing fleet because of mismanagement by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). >click to read< 16:49
As the marine mammal takes a bite out of the fishing industry, A modest proposal for hunting sea otters
Phil Doherty doesn’t think sea otters are cute. Sure, he can see why tourists might get a kick out of watching the fuzzy critters reclining in waves with clams on their bellies, fixing to chow down. But to Doherty, co-director of the Southeast Alaska Regional Dive Fisheries Association and the commercial fisherman he represents, those cuddly otters are eating their bottom line. >click to read< 15:07
Federal grant giving ice-making equipment to Marshfield, Newburyport and Chatham fishing fleets
The USDA recently awarded $480,000 to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, which will use the grant, in part, to purchase ice making equipment for three hand-selected communities, including Marshfield. Harbormaster Mike Dimeo said the GMRI reached out to him last year to check the town’s interest, which he had an easy answer for. “This is something Marshfield has been talking about for a few years now with the fishermen,” he said. “It’s a great thing.” Newburyport and Chatham will also benefit from new equipment. Currently, commercial fishermen truck in ice,.. >click to read< 12:38
Exposure to pile driving noise associated with construction of docks, piers, offshore wind farms, cause squid to exhibit strong alarm behaviors
“This study is the first to report behavioral effects of pile driving noise on any cephalopod, a group including squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses,” says lead author Ian Jones, a student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography. Jones and his colleagues in the Sensory Ecology and Bioacoustics Lab at WHOI exposed longfin squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) to pile driving sounds originally recorded near the construction site of the Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island. >click to read< 11:52
Maine Lobstermen Skeptical Of Proposal To Tie ‘Whale-Safe’ Seafood Label To Use Of New Fishing Gear. They should be.
A movement is emerging among conservation groups to create a “whale-safe” seal of approval for lobster caught with new types of gear designed to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. But it could be a tough sell in Maine, where some say the iconic fishery is already sustainable.,, “That’s really important, that fishermen willing to test this gear, and certainly those fishermen fishing with ropeless gear should be rewarded,” says Erica Fuller, a lawyer at the Conservation Law Foundation, one of several organizations suing the federal government for stronger protections of the roughly 400 North Atlantic right whales remaining on the planet. >click to read< 10:36
‘If they put in that mine, it would really crush the economy we have’: Proposed Alaskan mine threatens salmon, environmentalists say
Some residents of Haines, Alaska, are refusing to participate in public consultations about a proposed mine near the community. B.C.-based Constantine Metal Resources wants public input for its Palmer project. ,,, “We have a nice little town here, and it’s got a pretty solid diversified economy and if they put in that mine, it would really crush the economy we have,” said Rafe McGuire, a commercial fisherman in Haines. >click to read< 08:51
P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association hopes N.S. rejects Northern Pulp effluent plan
The federal government’s decision not to carry out an environmental assessment on the Northern Pulp mill is a “setback,” says the P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association. Now the final word on the mill’s future is in the hands of Nova Scotia Environment Minister Gordon Wilson. He’s scheduled to release his environmental assessment decision on the Pictou County pulp mill’s controversial plan for a new effluent treatment facility at 11 a.m. Tuesday. >click to read< 07:55
Fishing companies fined $1M for dumping oil into New Bedford harbor
“Let me make myself clear — it is not enough to come in here and plead guilty and then go out and say, ‘the government is big and strong and we had to do this as a cost of doing business,’” federal Judge William Young told owner Barry Cohen at U.S. District Court. “These are crimes — they were meant by Congress to be crimes.” Sea Harvest Inc. and Fishing Vessel Enterprises, Inc., the operators and owners of the two commercial fishing boats, respectively, which spilled the oil, pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the Clean Water Act, which criminalizes oil spills in U.S. waters and shorelines. >click to read< 07:06
DOJ: F/V Owner & Operator Fined $1 mln– >click to read< 12/18/2019 11:35
