Daily Archives: March 20, 2022
Marine Biologist Spencer Apollonio of Boothbay Harbor, has passed away
Spencer Apollonio passed away unexpectedly on March 8, 2022 at his Boothbay Harbor home at age 88. He was born in Camden to parents Dr. Howard L. and Helen T. (Martin) Apollonio. A marine biologist and Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America (AINA), Spencer made 14 trips to the Arctic. Spencer served as Commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), chairperson of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and executive director of the New England Regional Fisheries Management Council. He started his career researching shrimp (Pandalus borealis) and other marine life, and later focused on fisheries management in the Gulf of Maine. A graduate of Bowdoin College, he received a master’s degree from Yale University. >click to read< 21:23
Gruff, warm, combustible, shrewd: For 49 years, Don Young’s ideology was ‘Alaska’
Rep. Young, at 88 the oldest and longest-serving member of the current Congress, died Friday. A Republican from Fort Yukon, he fashioned a career as Alaska’s winningest politician ever, gradually building the kind of seniority in Congress that became its own compelling argument for his reelection. Don Young, the irascible riverboat captain who did not so much represent Alaska as personify it for half a century in Congress, died Friday as he was flying home to Alaska for yet another political campaign. He showed up in committee hearings wearing cowboy boots and cleaned his fingernails with a Bowie knife. Photos, >click to read< 14:36
British Columbia: Hooked on halibut: For many commercial fishers, it’s a family affair
The commercial halibut season is underway along the coast of British Columbia and boats are already starting to deliver the flat fish to dinner plates. From now until early December, the B.C. halibut fleet will haul in an estimated 5.7 million pounds of halibut. The Americans will take the lion’s share of this year’s 41-million-pound total allowable catch, nearly 80%, because their territory stretches over California, Oregon, Washington and all of Alaska to the tip of the Aleutian Islands and covers nine of the 10 designated halibut-fishing areas along the Pacific Coast. Tiare Boyes and Cheri Hansen weigh in on what it’s like to work on the water during the halibut fishing season. Photos, >click to read< 11:14
Alabama OKs tax cut bill for Gulf Coast commercial fishing operations
The Alabama Senate awarded final passage to a bill by State Rep. Chip Brown, R – Hollinger’s Island, that provides historic and much-needed tax cuts and exemptions to commercial fishing businesses operating throughout Alabama’s Gulf Coast region. The measure now travels to Gov. Kay Ivey’s desk for signature. “Alabama law currently provides the agricultural industry with tax exemptions and other benefits that are not currently extended to commercial fishing operations, which also harvest food,” Brown said. “Passage of this new law corrects a lingering injustice by extending the same taxation benefits to farmers and fishermen alike.” >click to read< 10:33
Fuel: Entire Spanish fishing fleet to stay in port until next Wednesday 23
Basilio Otero, the president of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Guilds, announced this Friday, March 18, that the Spanish fishing fleet will remain in port until next Wednesday 23. This action comes as a result of the “very serious moment” that the fishing sector is suffering after the rise in fuel prices. “The sustainability of the fishing sector right now is in your hands”, he warned the minister, from whom he has also demanded, “firm, forceful, and immediate proposals, or the fishing sector is going to sink”. >click to read< 08:42
