Daily Archives: January 13, 2021
North Pacific pollock fleet preps for season after tough 2020
Skipper Kevin Ganley spent most of the summer and fall pulling a massive trawl net through the Bering Sea in a long slow search for pollock, a staple of McDonald’s fish sandwiches. The fish proved very hard to find. “We just scratched and scratched and scratched,” Ganley recalls. “It was survival mode.” Ganley’s boat is part of a fleet of largely Washington-based trawlers that have had a difficult year as they joined in North America’s largest single-species seafood harvest. >click to read< 19:28
Mid-Atlantic Council Flirts With Overfishing
The relationship between the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and overfishing goes back a long way. In 1999, the Council adopted a summer flounder quota that had just an 18 percent probability of preventing overfishing, an action that led to the landmark court decision in Natural Resources Defense Council v. Daley, which established the principal that, to pass legal muster, a fishery management measure must have at least a 50 percent probability of achieving its conservation goals. Immediately after the court handed down that decision, the Council divorced itself from any management measure that might condone overfishing, and spent nearly two decades successfully rebuilding and conserving once-overfished stocks. At one point in the early 2010s, it was the only one of the eight regional fishery management councils that had completely ended overfishing, and didn’t preside over any overfished stocks. >click to read< 14:36
23 people charged in lobster pound ransacking in southwest N.S.
Yarmouth provincial court will be cramped on March 29. That’s when 23 people are due to appear on charges related to the ransacking of a Middle West Pubnico lobster pound on Oct. 13. The pound held lobster caught by the self-regulated Sipekne’katik moderate livelihood fishery in St. Mary’s Bay. Mi’kmaq fisherman Jason Marr barricaded himself in the pound with the catch he’d been unloading there during the night of Oct. 13 after a large crowd of commercial fishermen arrived. >click to read< 13:06
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 88′ Master Marine Steel Scalloper, Cat 3412, Kort nozzle, 2 Detroit gensets
To review specifications, and information, and 16 photos, >click here<, To see all the boats in this series >click here<11:39
F/V Chief William Saulis – New ROV brought in as search for missing fishermen continues
RCMP searchers are deploying a new remote operated underwater vehicle in their ongoing search for the missing crew of the scallop dragger Chief William Saulis. According to a police news release, the Nova Scotia RCMP got the ROV, which is equipped with a “Tritech Gemini multi-beam sonar,” from RCMP in British Columbia. “This equipment is newer technology then what has previously been used and will assist members in the search for the sunken vessel,”>click to read< 07:40
It’s good to see crab season finally underway
The people who make up the commercial crabbing fleet work in some of the worst weather Mother Nature can throw at them. And this year is proving to be no different. The area is experiencing some pretty heavy rainfall, and during the first part of this week, there was also a high wind warning and a high surf advisory. Crabbing is generally a lucrative fishery, but they certainly earn their pay. We offer prayers for a safe and bountiful harvest for all of them. Speaking of the fishing industry,,, >click to read< 07:14
From Congressman Huffmans friends on MSA Re-Auth! – Healthier, Climate-Ready Fisheries on the Menu for Congress
The Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), our federal fisheries law, has not been reauthorized since 2006. And with a robust new draft bill to amend it, House lawmakers are breathing new life into the conversation about managing our nation’s fisheries. Representative Jared Huffman (D-CA-2), Chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife, and fellow subcommittee member Representative Ed Case (D-HI-1), released the draft bill in December to reauthorize and update the MSA. It seeks to address the changing needs of sustainable fisheries and coastal communities, including tackling new challenges–like climate change and its drastic impacts on marine ecosystems. >click to read< 06:15
Lifejackets for Lobstermen Project works to get PFDs on every fisherman
From 2000-2016, the Centers for Disease Control charted 204 commercial fishing fatalities from falls overboard. None of the fishermen recovered were wearing a lifejacket, and 108 of the fishermen’s bodies were never found, according to a report of the Lifejacket Project, which was launched to identify solutions and increase fishermen’s interest in wearing lifejackets. In its recently published, 20-page summary report, the Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety in Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing chronicles stories from the Lifejackets for Lobstermen Project and provides examples of the fishing community’s interest and engagement with the project. >click to read< 05:46
