Daily Archives: March 22, 2021
North Wales Police confirm body found on Blackpool Beach as missing F/V Nicola Faith fisherman
Carl McGrath, 34, was with Ross Ballantine 39, and Alan Minard, 20, when their fishing boat Nicola Faith went missing after leaving Conwy, north Wales, on January 27. Mr McGrath’s sister Lauren Hynes has today paid tribute to her brother, describing him as ‘my hero, my rock’. North Wales Police today tweeted: “Sadly we can confirm that the body found on the beach at Blackpool on March 13th is that of Carl McGrath, who went missing with 2 others, on the Conwy fishing boat ‘Nicola Faith’ on January 27th. >click to read< 19:16
Pile driving for constructing offshore wind turbine supports alters feeding behaviors of longfin squid
With the offshore wind industry expanding in the United States and elsewhere, a new study raises questions about how the noise from impact pile driving to install turbine supports can affect feeding behaviors of longfin squid, a commercially and ecologically important cephalopod.,, The study addressed short-term impacts to squid feeding behavior and noted that future research should look at longer exposures to noise and field work with 
free-swimming squid. In particular, the study found that rates of anti-predator behaviors were similar when subjected to recordings of piledriving whether the squid was hunting at the start of the noise, suggesting that the noise diverted squid attention from a feeding task toward predator defense. >click to read< 14:13
‘Irreversible losses’: Wildlife expert fears for North Sea habitat – The North Sea off Suffolk could be facing “irreversible wildlife losses” because of the impact on its environment of the growing number of windfarms. >click to read<
ComFish Alaska: State’s largest fisheries forum finalizes schedule
ComFish Alaska, the state’s longest-running fisheries forum and trade show, has finalized interactive forum events for the 2021 virtual gathering March 30-31, on topics ranging from federal and state legislation to electronic monitoring and crab research. The forums open at 10 a.m. on March 30 with a federal update from Alaska’s congressional delegation, followed by an Alaska legislative update presented by Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak. Rep. Jared Huffman, R-Calif., chair of the House Water, Oceans and Wildlife Subcommittee, leads off the second day of forums, with a discussion on his efforts to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the principal law governing marine fisheries in the United States. >click to read< 12:49
How moviemakers drove Depoe Bay ‘Cuckoo’ in 1975
It’s been 46 years since director Milos Foreman turned Depoe Bay into a Hollywood set to film the Oscar-sweeping 1975 movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” thrusting the quaint fishing village and its residents into everlasting cinematic glory.,, “I was just sitting on my boat, the Jimco II, one day when this fellow came up and wanted to know if it was for hire,” “Jack Herford, a great old salt, and his son Ted, got all the glory when they drove the Hyak and that boatload of rubber-room escapees to sea, but I got most of the money,”,, >click to read< 11:36
Barataria Bay project seen to create 27 square miles of land, displace brown shrimp and oysters
“The fishing industry doesn’t see the payoff here. It’s going to kill us more than it’s going to help anything,” said Cooper, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association. He said he feels as though the sparsely populated fishing communities of lower Plaquemines Parish, where the diversion is to be built, have been written off.,, Louisiana’s proposal for Mid-Barataria calls for spending part of a $303 million chunk of mitigation money to help fishers adapt to the disruption in their lives and their bank accounts. But industry representatives doubt that the government’s analyses sufficiently assess the economic cost of such a drastic change to an industry that not only supplies seafood,,, >click to read< 10:12
Ocean Industrialization: Can offshore wind farms coexist with fish farms?
South Korea will launch a pilot project to combine an offshore wind farm with aquaculture, as it pushes to tap the unlimited potential of water, which surrounds the country on three sides, as a future source of energy. The project, set to kick off in the second half of this year, involves a 60-megawatt wind turbine foundation installed in waters off Buan, North Jeolla Province, integrated with artificial reefs and aquaculture systems. The trial-run will last until Dec. 31, 2022. >click to read< 09:05
Maine lobstermen protest Monhegan-area wind project
More than 80 lobster boats lined up between Monhegan Island and Boothbay Harbor on Sunday to protest a seabed survey for a planned offshore wind turbine near Monhegan. “The boat hasn’t been staying in the survey route, and there’s been some issues with gear loss,” Dustin Delano, a lobsterman from Friendship who helped organize the protest, said this weekend. Delano estimated that more than 80 boats joined him around 9 a.m. Sunday south of Monhegan Island, where a 12-megawatt test turbine billed as the first commercial-scale project in the nation would demonstrate the 
viability of offshore wind as a renewable power source. The fishermen formed a single-file line that Delano said stretched roughly 2 miles, and then traced the route back to land. >click to read< 07:05
Dozens of lobster boats gather off Monhegan to protest floating wind turbine – Gov. Janet Mills is proposing to build more of the floating wind turbines farther offshore in the Gulf of Maine. video, >click to read<
