Daily Archives: October 31, 2020
A Day in the Life of a North Carolina Fisherman
65-year-old Bob McBride greets two helpers before the three steps aboard John 3:16, his 25-foot fiberglass fishing boat. For the next 45 minutes, the fishermen motor east across the Pamlico Sound until they reach an outcropping of wooden stakes rising from the water. The stakes support a series of nets, and McBride navigates his boat into the center. McBride is a pound netter, one of the world’s oldest forms of fishing. Long before Europeans came to the mainland, Native American tribes submerged logs into the Chesapeake Bay to capture Spanish mackerel in their netted maze. For the past 40 years, McBride has followed that same method, as twice a year he sets out a series of nets that form a sort of live aquarium in the Pamlico Sound. >click to read< 13:59
Sipekne’katik Chief Threatening To Disrupt Commercial Lobster Fishery This Year
“If they can interfere with our fisheries, we’re going to start rallying up and blocking all of their wharves,”,, Sack says that on October 30, he spoke with a regional director of fisheries management for DFO. The director, according to Sack, informed the Chief that any untagged Mi’kmaq lobster traps would be confiscated. Commercial fishermen are claiming, however, that the Band has increased its fishing in the lobster breeding ground in recent days. On October 29, in a letter to Bernadette Jordan, several fishermen’s groups claimed the federal government is doing nothing to stop the unregulated fishery. >click to read< 11:36
Newlyn Fishermen fear for their future as Coronavirus threatens a second wave
David Stevens, who owns the Crystal Sea trawler which operates out of Newlyn, said: “We’re free market, we don’t have a fixed price for fish. “That all depends on distribution, and if we can’t distribute that fish your market will decline. The entire industry will suffer huge losses until we’re out of lockdown situations once again.” Mr Stevens says some skippers may be forced to tie their boats up for the winter. “We’re going to have to reduce the supply to keep the fish price up. But with the restaurant trade closing down around the country, we’re going to lose 30 per cent of our market price.” >click to read< 10:25
Envelope pushed in St. Marys Bay and Digby folk pushed into a corner – Susan Beaton
So now that the dust is starting to settle, righteous keyboard warriors can take a breather. So let’s try to give the people of Digby County and St. Marys Bay some consideration. Terrible things were said and done this month to the Sipekne’katik First Nation people and to those who supported them. No apologies here for the bad behaviour. But consider for a moment what it’s like for a small village, its lifeblood on the line, as a fight for treaty rights plays out on its doorstep. Sipekne’katik wanted to push to the forefront the “moderate livelihood” debate, as many bands in other areas are doing as well. This tiny bay became a focus of that effort. What happened next is a bit more dubious. By Susan Beaton, >click to read< 09:23
Potlotek moderate livelihood lobster fishery is peaceful, but tensions aren’t far from surface
Potlotek First Nation launched the fishery under its own management plan in St. Peters Bay on Oct 1. Local non-Indigenous fishers have not interfered, but that doesn’t mean they support it. “Commercial fishermen and Aboriginal fishermen have worked side by side, and co-operatively,” he said. “That’s breaking apart right now.” For their part, the Mi’kmaq say they are tired of waiting for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to work with them to define what constitutes a moderate livelihood. >click to read< 08:32
