Monthly Archives: January 2023
Final Landing by Farnella Ahead of Vessel Sale
Farnella H 135 ended her 22-year career on 11 December, making her final landing into Hanstholm, after which a thank-you breakfast was held for the crew, reports Gaby Bartai. Owner UK Fisheries announced in November that the vessel would cease fishing at the end of the year, as a consequence of the loss of distant-water quota opportunity in successive end-of-year negotiations with Norway. On 13 December Farnella sailed for Cuxhaven, where she will be sold. This will leave Kirkella as the only remaining vessel in UK Fisheries’ Hull- based fleet. >click to read< 15:38
Brexit, offshore wind farms and high fuel costs scupper Dutch fishing industry
The end of the Dutch trawler fishing industry is in sight now a large part of the Dutch fleet has signed up for the government’s buy-out ruling, according to NOS. In total, about 40 of the 120 trawlers which fish for plaice and sole in the North Sea will be left and that will have a knock-on impact on the rest of the industry, the broadcaster said. For example, the fish auction in Den Helder is now closing its doors and trawlers will now have to head for Den Oever and IJmuiden to unload their catches, NOS said. >click to read< 13:37
California crab season finally opens but storm keeps fisherman in port
Commercial crab season opened in California on Saturday, but in Monterey, fishermen were keeping their vessels in port because of the storm. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” said Gaspar Catanzaro with Monterey Fish Co. The commercial season opener has been delayed three times this year but officially opened at midnight on New Year’s Eve. The opening coincided with a winter storm bringing rain and high winds to the coast. To meet the holiday demand for crab, Monterey Fish Co. has been bringing in crab from Alaska, Washington and Oregon. Video, >click to read< 10:04
Untangling catch shares with Lee van der Voo – Catch shares have changed fisheries and fishing communities across the U.S.
I recently saw some great reporting by the New Bedford Light and ProPublica about how the billionaire Dutch family that owns Blue Harvest Fisheries has emerged as a force in groundfish fishing off the coast of Massachusetts. These are very wealthy, powerful equity groups and corporations that are acquiring access to the fisheries and passing the cost of owning them and fishing them onto fishermen. There’s been profound disenfranchisement of people who used to have a more personal stake in fishing and seafood. Everyone from indigenous communities in Southwest Alaska whose history with halibut goes back to the beginning of time to small-boat, family operations around the United States everywhere have been losing access. Whole communities have fallen apart over that. >click to read< 08:15
Coast Guard tows disabled 38-foot fishing vessel with 2 people, 1 dog to safety in Juneau, Alaska
Coast Guard Station Juneau crewmembers towed a disabled vessel with two people and one dog aboard to Juneau, Alaska, Sunday. A Station Juneau 45-foot Response Boat-Meduim crew arrived on scene at approximately 8 p.m. Saturday evening and towed the disabled 38-foot fishing vessel Solstraal 25 nautical miles to Statter Harbor at approximately 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Watchstanders in the Sector Juneau command center received the initial distress call over VHF channel 16 at approximately 5:30 p.m. from the individuals in distress. >click to read the rest<17:06
That whooshing sound is windmills shredding tax dollars
Nothing more horrifying than a chirpy Energy Secretary tweet first thing in the morning. Especially when it contains the trifecta of bad news for taxpayers from one of the denser members of the Biden administration’s stable of lackluster cabinet mannequins: 1) Green energy, 2) Unions, 3) Federal incentives aka tax dollars. They finally held much-anticipated wind lease auctions on parts of the pristine California coast and the sharks are already circling in anticipation. It’s going to be a while yet, though. Morro Bay is really quite a beautiful place. I’m wondering what that “substantial new waterfront infrastructure” all entails. Maybe the greenies won’t be so thrilled with it when the bulldozers come in? >click to read< 10:33
Hurricane Ian remains lingering threat to SWFL’s commercial fishing industry
Florida’s Gulf Coast has experienced many hurricanes, but Ian wasn’t like anything local commercial fishermen had seen before. “I don’t think any of these storms in other places have wiped out all the infrastructure as they did for us,” Streeter says. “In Lee County, we definitely lost three of the deep-water working waterfronts, and on the island, we lost three out of the four fish houses that were executing fisheries. So, we took a major hit. It’s going to be really difficult to get these fisheries back online as they were until we get that infrastructure, until we get docks in and until we get refrigeration.” “We’re in a hard spot right now and we definitely need some help from our governor. We definitely need some congressional federal help for our fisheries.” photos, >click to read< 08:38
