Daily Archives: April 25, 2022
Hurricane Hazel: The 84-year-old World Champion crab picker from Crisfield, Maryland
If you live in the Crisfield area, you’ve heard the name Hazel Cropper, better known as Hurricane Hazel. She’s a world champion crab picker, and a famous figure in the town, or as she says, everywhere. “All over, I’m worldwide,” Hazel said. Her story starts in 1938 when she was born in the coastal town. “My parents raised me very well, and my grandmother, who taught me at the age of nine, to pick crabs, because I always followed her,” she said. She caught on quick and now, 75 years later, she’s a worldwide champion crab picker. “I’m in the Guinness Book of World Records, I’m a 16-time world champion,” Video, >click to read< 18:40
More than a dozen shrimp, fishing boats blessed during Mt. Pleasant’s ‘Blessing of the Fleet’
The 35th Annual Blessing of the Fleet took place Sunday afternoon at Mt. Pleasant’s Memorial Waterfront Park. Fifteen shrimp and fishing boats took part in the blessing and parade. The event is a way to show community support for those taking to the waters this season- along with those no longer with us. Wayne Magwood’s memory continues to be honored- through his former vessel making an appearance from its new home in North Carolina, 
to one the current local boats being renamed in his honor. Magwood’s daughter Melissa said, “this festival has been a part of my life like the entire time, the 35 years, of celebrating the blessing of the fleet.” It’s a time for Melissa and her family who is deeply rooted in the shrimp catching industry to honor the local “legend” who passed away in 2020. Photos, videos, >click to read< 14:49
Backlash after Cornish fishers call for seal cull
Seals are the “rats of the sea” and should be culled, a group of Cornish fishers have said. Marine campaign groups hit back after fishers on an online marketplace and forum expressed anger about the amount of fish seals eat. Posting a statistic that “for every fish caught by our fisheries, seals eat 53 times more”, the Cornish Mackerel Fishermen group wrote, adding: “We need a cull!” The fishers did not supply a source for this number. Some studies have suggested seals eat as many fish as commercial fisheries catch in some areas. >click to read< 12:07
DFO says seals not having a significant impact on lobster bait stock
With mackerel and herring fisheries, key sources of bait for lobster fishermen, shut down this spring, some lobster fishermen are casting the blame on growing seal populations in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. P.E.I. lobster fisherman Charlie McGeoghegan suggested targeting the fishery is the wrong approach. “The seals have caused this problem and DFO has ignored it for over 25 years, because we’ve been telling them the whole time that their population is exploding and we know what they eat, based on science. They open them up and we know that they eat herring and mackerel and lots of it.” >click to read< 10:23
North Carolina Fisheries Association Weekly Update for April 25, 2022
Is North Carolina allowing fishermen to circumvent the Endangered Species Act? On April 6, 2022, the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) of North Carolina sent out an email with so much disinformation I can’t even begin to address it all in one article. The email contained many of the same half-truths and outright lies we’ve been exposing over the last few months but one, above all, really rubbed me the wrong way. The CCA claimed that the “use of gill nets continues in North Carolina waters because the state holds two permits on behalf of commercial fishermen that allow them to circumvent the Endangered Species Act protections and kill or harm endangered sea turtles and sturgeon.” Circumvent. Really? >click to read the WeeklyUpdate<, to read all the updates >click here<, for older updates listed as NCFA >click here< 08:58
Lockdown Lobsters: How Brexit has impacted lobster fishing on the Llŷn Peninsula
Sion Williams is a third generation lobster fisherman on the Llŷn Peninsula. But in March 2020, with the onset of the pandemic, he had to restructure his business in order to adapt. “Between Brexit and Covid there was uncertainty with buyers,” When coronavirus hit, everything changed suddenly for Sion, as it did for so many other people: “All I got was a text from the traders saying ‘we don’t want anything for five weeks and maybe five months’. And that was it.” Everything was closed and they couldn’t sell. >click to read< 07:55
