Monthly Archives: December 2022
Maine delegation adds 6-year pause on lobster rules to federal spending bill
Maine’s congressional delegation has inserted a six-year pause on new regulations intended to protect endangered right whales into a key federal spending package as it seeks to protect a lobster industry that says it is under siege. The provision will help a vital Maine industry that had been hit with too many regulations despite its lack of threat to the endangered whales, Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden and Gov. Janet Mills said in a statement. The late-breaking move comes just days before Congress is expected to approve a massive $1.7 trillion spending bill that would fund the government through next fall. >click to read< 13:34
Jersey Shore Mayor Says Murphy Offshore Wind Farm is Hot Air by Funded by Political Lackeys
“One day in the not-too-distant future, you’re going to wake up, look out onto the beach and see armies of gas-powered ships starting to erect “clean” windmills not too far off the coast of Ocean County,” Kanitra said. “It will be the industrialization of the last pristine resource we have in New Jersey… and it will destroy our tourism economy. It’s being sold as an environmentally friendly initiative by Shell Energy and their lackeys, but it’s anything but that. It’s simply a money grab for the BILLIONS these multinational corporations stand to make. That’s why our fishing industry is against it.” If Murphy’s offshore wind farm is environmentally friendly, then why are so many environmental organizations in the state against it? >click to read< 11:52
Wrangell woman recounts how she survived sinking that claimed her boyfriend and parrot
Last month, Kelsey Leak lost a lot. First she lost her pet parrot, Petrie, of seven years. Then she lost her boyfriend, Arne Dahl, when his fishing boat sank and they tried to swim to safety. She also spent a harrowing 24 hours wet and cold, waiting for rescue. Dahl was a fisherman, a power troller. His boat, the 39-foot Randi Jo, was like a second home to the couple. Dahl and Leak had been dating for about a year, but their love had bloomed quickly. “He came for dinner, and he didn’t leave for six months,” Leak said. “It was just a whirlwind.” It was a clear, sunny day near Point Baker on Nov. 27. Leak says there was calm wind and the waters were foam. She and Dahl took the Randi Jo to gather firewood. What happened next was sudden. >click to read< 10:20
Fishing deals expected to net £750 million-plus catch for UK fleet in 2023
An earlier agreement between the UK, European Union and Norway covered six key North Sea fish stocks, including cod, haddock and herring, and access to other waters. The outcome of those talks was expected to deliver additional quota worth £213m to the UK fishing industry. Separate discussions with fellow north-east Atlantic “coastal states” will deliver an extra £256m of quota, while a deal with Norway adds another £5m, according to the government. >click to read< 08:54
Mi’kmaq drop civil lawsuit, shift legal tactics in moderate livelihood fishing battle
The decision represents a shift in legal tactics, not an end in their battle with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. In a news release issued Monday, the assembly said it will put its resources into the defence of a Potlotek harvester fishing under a plan approved by the community. The lawsuit was seeking an injunction to prevent the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) from interfering with Potlotek’s self-regulated moderate livelihood lobster fishery. The release said the assembly and Mi’kmaw communities have limited resources and cannot afford to be involved in a civil action while also defending against fisheries prosecutions. >click to read< 07:52
Alaska crab fishery collapse seen as warning about Bering Sea transformation
Less than five years ago, prospects appeared bright for Bering Sea crab fishers. Stocks were abundant and healthy, federal biologists said, and prices were near all-time highs. Now two dominant crab harvests have been canceled for lack of fish. For the first time, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in October canceled the 2022-2023 harvest of Bering Sea snow crab, and it also announced the second consecutive year of closure for another important harvest, that of Bristol Bay red king crab. What has happened between then and now? A sustained marine heat wave that prevented ice formation in the Bering Sea for two winters, thus vastly altering ocean conditions and fish health. “We lost billions of snow crab in a matter of months,”,,, >click to read< 18:54
L’Ecume II: Unmanned craft carries out ‘extensive search’ below deck at wreck site
An unmanned craft has started work to access and search the last remaining areas of the trawler which sank after colliding with a Condor freight ship. The underwater robot has been surveying the wreck site following the collision between L’Ecume II and Commodore Goodwill which claimed the lives of three fishermen. Ports of Jersey says that areas of the trawler’s deck and accommodation structure have been removed and that the final stage of the search is now under way. >click to read< 16:06
Shetland suffers dip in fish landings but expectations high for next year
The last fish market of the year was earlier today. Shetland Seafood Auctions confirmed a total of 338,627 boxes had gone through the fish markets in Scalloway and Lerwick during 2022. Auction manager Martin Leyland said the amount of white fish landed over the course of the year was slightly below expectations. He cited the energy crisis, which forced many boats to tie up for a spell earlier this year, as well as poor cod quota as the main reasons behind the lower-than-expected figures. >click to read the rest< 13:53
Rhode Island fishermen join lawsuit over federal at sea monitors
Rhode Island commercial fishermen have signed on to a federal lawsuit challenging a rule requiring boat captains to pay for federal monitors to observe catches. The fishermen, represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, have filed an amicus brief siding with fishermen from other Northeast states in a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the new monitoring requirements. The lawsuit was filed last month in the U.S. District Court in New Jersey, by a group of commercial fishermen who want to stop the federal government from making them pay for workers who gather data aboard fishing boats. >click to read< 12:56
Conflict over new Indigenous lobster fishery continues to smolder amid some progress
Federal conservation officers have seized more than 7,000 lobster traps in the two years since violence flared in Nova Scotia when a First Nation tried to assert a treaty right by fishing out of season. Earlier this month, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans confirmed it had confiscated almost 2,000 traps this year alone, a figure that shows the dispute between Ottawa and some Indigenous fishers has not gone away, despite DFO’s best efforts to keep a lid on tensions. Tim Kerr, DFO’s director of conservation and protection in the Maritimes, said the department has stepped up patrols in the region to ensure safety and compliance with the rules. >click to read< 12:00
Ocean County, NJ Mayors express strong concern and opposition to Offshore Wind Farms
Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Paul Kanitra believes many people may not want to come to the beaches if these wind turbines are just offshore. “Tourism is the major economic driver in Ocean County,” Toms River Mayor Maurice “Mo” Hill said. “We do have a substantial commercial fishing industry (in Ocean County) off of Point Pleasant, Barnegat, you’ve got commercial fisheries, what impact that’ll have if they’re out using nets and they’ve got to be mindful that these are jetting up out of the water, it could impact the fishing,” >click to read< 10:53
Jason Sullivan to run for FFAW Presidency
Bay Bulls fisherman and President of SEA-NL Jason Sullivan has announced plans to run for the top job at the FFAW-Unifor, despite long odds against a candidate unanimously endorsed by the union executive. “It’s easy to criticize, but you have to be willing to put your neck out there and offer the membership an alternative,” says Sullivan. “It’s time to change the course of the FFAW and regain the trust of the membership through communication and listening and acting on concerns.” >click to read< 10:05
F/V Arcturus: Fuming Scots fishing boat skipper who rescued migrants says UK authorities acting as ‘taxi service’
The Scottish skipper of the fishing boat which helped rescue dozens of migrants from the English Channel last week, has angrily hit out at UK immigration policy for making the tragedy “inevitable”. Raymond Strachan told GB News that British authorities have been acting as a “migrant taxi service” encouraging ever increasing numbers of people to make the journey. In his first full interview since his six-man crew pulled 31 migrants from the freezing waters, the skipper said they often see migrant boats making the dangerous crossing. “It doesn’t matter your political views about the migrant crisis, when you see people in the water, screaming, shouting, begging for their life. If you’ve any compassion at all, then human nature kicks in and the thing to do is rescue people, and that’s what we did.” >click to read< 08:53
Maine political leaders push provision in federal spending bill decried by environmental groups as threat to right whales
Members of the delegation, including US Senator Susan Collins, said they plan to push a provision in the spending bill that would revive for 10 years federal fisheries rule that environmental groups successfully challenged in court earlier this year. Congressional leaders announced a framework for the spending legislation last Tuesday, and plan to use the days before Christmas to finalize details. In a letter Friday to Democratic congressional leaders, 15 environmental groups urged lawmakers to leave the language out of the spending bill. “This is a profound and disturbing end run around the legal system,” said Erica Fuller, senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston, on Saturday in a phone interview. >click to read< 07:44
The Porcher Fleet Continues to Grow
Aventurine was built in less than a year by the shipyard in Boulogne for its loyal customer in Côtes-d’Armor. It will be based in Saint-Brieuc, also its port of registry. With an 25 metre overall length and an 8 metre beam, the new trawler has a steel hull, aluminium superstructure and seven winches. Propulsion is provided by a CAT3512C main engine driving a France Helice HPV 804G variable pitch propeller. The new trawler’s skipper, Antoine Porcher, 26 years old and grandson of the company’s owner Jean Porcher, appreciates the innovations that have gone into Aventurine. Video, photos, >click to read< 16:47
Boat that helped save 39 migrants returns to Plymouth
A fishing trawler which helped rescue 39 migrants attempting to cross the English Channel has returned to Plymouth. A dinghy was found sinking in freezing waters off the Kent coast in the early hours on Wednesday. A 19-year-old man has been charged over the deaths of four people who died in the Channel. Skipper Raymond Strachan said his boat and crew were “just in the right place at the right time”. >click to read< 12:32
Teenager charged after deadly Channel migrant boat sinking – The United Kingdom has charged a 19-year-old man over a deadly incident in the English Channel in which a boat packed with migrants capsized, resulting in the loss of four lives. >click to read<
Opinion: Who owns the oceans?
There is a question that has been asked in our household for years. For us, it’s a personal question. Generations of family fisherman have been affected by the decisions of others, some known and many invisible. We have had to sit on the sidelines watching the demise of our industry while power brokers, politicians, and the money hungry chart the course when we are not even invited to the table. Now we find ourselves watching the final chapters play out, knowing that we don’t even have a role. The high jacking of our oceans didn’t happen overnight. The slow, methodical process has lined the pockets of the politicians at every level of government. Working in conjunction with private industry and environmentalists they have driven our beloved industry past the brink and left fisherman with no place left to fish. >click to read< 09:59
Offshore Wind Farms in New England Create Headaches for Both Man and Beast
“I don’t think ever in history has there been such a massive alteration of the ecosystem in such a short amount of time,” says the executive director of New Jersey-based Clean Ocean Action, Cindy Zipf. “We’re looking at 3,500 turbines as tall as the Chrysler Building, 2.2 million acres of ocean, and 10,000 miles of cable just in the Northeast in just the next seven years.” At the center of the conflict is the North Atlantic right whale and other endangered marine mammals that the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association National Marine Fisheries Service are charged with protecting. Fewer than 350 right whales are left in the Atlantic Ocean, according to the fisheries service. >click to read< 08:14
F/V Speranza Marie: Diesel Spills from Grounded Fishing Vessel at Santa Cruz Island
Diesel fuel containment from a boat carrying 16,000 pounds of squid continues off Santa Cruz Island, the Unified Command responding to the spill reported Friday night. The F/V Speranza Marie held about 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel and an unknown amount of hydraulic fuel when it hit shore at Chinese Harbor around 2 a.m. on December 15. The island is about 27 miles directly south of the City of Santa Barbara and the largest of the Channel Islands. Global Diving and Salvage is working to remove the fuel and stabilize the ship with the help of Tow Boat USA, the Unified Command reported in a press statement. >click to read< 15:29
Report finds Reul a Chuain tragedy stresses importance of wearing a PFD
On the evening of 24 June 2021, the 18-metre Reul a Chuain (OB915) was on passage with three crew to Mallaig, Scotland when a deckhand fell overboard in adverse weather while trying to recover one of the vessel’s nets, which had slipped over the stern during heavy rolling. The skipper attempted to recover him from the water but also fell overboard. Neither of them were wearing personal flotation devices. Both men were recovered by the inexperienced remaining crew member. The skipper was unresponsive and, despite efforts by the vessel’s crew and search and rescue personnel, he could not be revived. >click to read< 11:29
Wind energy developer files to scrap power agreements. Scrap all of it completely.
Commonwealth Wind on Friday asked Massachusetts regulators to scrap the agreements the company reached with utilities and reopen a new round of bidding. Commonwealth Wind filed a motion with the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) seeking dismissal of the power purchase agreements it reached with utility companies in May, which would render them moot, and a reopening of the process of procuring the project’s 1,200 megawatts of clean wind energy. If the DPU agrees, Commonwealth Wind said it would file a new, updated bid with more viable financial terms. >click to read< 10:45
Sen. Susan Collins Moves to Block Stricter Rules Protecting Endangered Whales
Senator Susan Collins is pushing for a provision in the massive government funding bill that could further endanger the already precarious North Atlantic right whale. In July, a federal judge ruled that a 2021 regulation from the NOAA, which established new requirements for lobster traps in an effort to reduce the risk of those traps entangling and harming or killing whales, didn’t go far enough. The judge has since given federal regulators until 2024 to come up with what are expected to be even stricter rules to safeguard the imperiled whale. Collins’ provision, which has not yet been introduced, seeks to block those regulations and cement the 2021 rule for a minimum of 10 years. >click to read< 09:21
Disaster declaration unlocks potential federal aid for Alaska crabbers
A Commerce Department disaster declaration for Bering Sea crab and some Alaska and Washington salmon fisheries sets the stage for an end-of-the-year push to secure federal funds to help fleets and communities. The declaration announced Friday covers the Bristol Bay king crab harvests suspended for the past two years, and the snow crab harvest that next year will be canceled for the first time ever. Other fisheries covered by the declaration include the 2021 western Alaska Kuskokwim River salmon harvests as well as 2019 salmon fisheries in the Puget Sound and the 2020 Washington ocean salmon fisheries. >click to read< 08:04
How do you show a lobster some love? A Cape Breton researcher has plenty of ideas
Michelle Theriault, a marine biologist at Université Sainte-Anne, tells her students to heap loving care on lobsters destined to markets in Auckland and Athabasca – and everywhere in between. So, how do you dote on lobsters? I dropped in on one of Theriault’s Zoom classes for lobster exporters to get some answers to that question. And while she was narrow-casting her class from the University’s Marine Research Centre at Petit-de-Grat, Cape Breton, lobster fishers were headed to sea to dump their traps on the opening day of the winter season south of Halifax. >click to read< 16:22
Plain Stupid: The Only Thing Dumber Than Wind Power Is Offshore Wind Power
Wind power comes with a staggering price tag, taking these things out to sea sends those costs into orbit: intermittent offshore wind power is six times the cost of gas-fired power that’s always available on demand. Placing giant industrial wind turbines miles offshore is costly enough, but the rising costs of attempting to maintain them (and the transmission cables connecting them) in a highly corrosive marine environment are positively punitive. So much so, that even the grandest of offshore plans have hit the skids, as Robert Bryce details below. >click to read< 14:55
Middletown crabber’s family gets $2.75M settlement after deadly dock fall
The estate of Patrick Shopp, a commercial crabber who died from injuries related to a fall at the Belford Seafood Cooperative dock, won a $2.75 million settlement in a Monmouth County court, the family’s lawyer confirmed. Shopp initially suffered the injury on March 5, 2019. Christopher J. Conrad who represented Shopp said he fell through a broken board on the dock, lost his balance and dropped about eight feet down onto the deck of his crab boat, Scapper. Conrad said Shopp perforated his colon as a result of the fall, which required multiple surgeries over the the next 15 months. Shopp then sued Monmouth County, who owns the property, and the Belford Seafood Cooperative, which leases the property, for negligence for failure to maintain the property. >click to read< 13:03
Louisiana Shrimp Season to Close December 19 in Portions of State Waters
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries announced that the 2022 fall inshore shrimp season will close in all state inside waters on Monday, December 19, 2022, at official sunset, except for the following inside waters east of the Mississippi River: Chef Menteur and Rigolets Passes, Lake Borgne, Mississippi Sound, Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a section of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in Orleans parish from the GIWW East Closure Sector Gate westward to the GIWW intersection with the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal, and the open waters of Breton and Chandeleur Sounds as bounded by the double-rig line described in R.S. 56:495.1(A)2. All state outside waters seaward of the Inside/Outside Shrimp Line, as described in LAC 76:VII.370 will remain open to shrimping until further notice. Map, >click to read< 11:08
Disabled AIS Contributes to Fishing Boat Collision off Norway
On the morning of October 4, the coastal freighter Edmy departed the port of Larvik, bound for Copenhagen. The harbor pilot got off at the pilot station off Porsgrunn, and the ship continued outbound in fine, clear weather. The navigator was alone on watch, and after checking the radar and looking out the window, he turned to the computer located aft in the wheelhouse to take care of some paperwork. About half an hour later, the navigator felt the ship hit something, and he saw a fishing boat’s mast passing along the side. The mast belonged to the prawn trawler Tornado,,, >click to read< 09:49
Feds launch licence buyback plan to scale down B.C.’s salmon fishing fleet
Looking to fix the problem of too many boats chasing too few fish, on Wednesday, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) unveiled details on its voluntary commercial licence retirement (LRP) program that will pay salmon harvesters to exit the industry. However, the union for commercial fishers says first impressions suggest the plan is “deeply disappointing” and designed to drive down the value of licences being bought out. DFO is allocating $123 million from its Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative for the licence buyback and two additional future programs. >click to read< 08:30
Tributes to a ‘a hard-working hero’ who died in trawler tragedy off Jersey’s coast
A ‘generous’ man with ‘big dreams’, Larry Simyunn was also the family’s ‘hard-working hero’, according to his aunt Gigi Skye. Mr Simyunn was one of three fishermen who died after the L’Ecume II collided with Condor’s Commodore Goodwill off the west coast last Thursday morning, along with father of two Michael Michieli and Jervis Baligat – also from the Philippines. Two bodies have since been found at the site of the trawler, although their identities have not yet been confirmed. Ms Skye said: ‘His entire life, Larry has always had such a deep love for his family. He was selflessly driven, devoting everything he had to the people he loved most.’ >click to read< 07:28
