Daily Archives: March 1, 2023
New campaign encourages fishermen to land catch in Shetland
Lerwick Port Authority and Shetland Islands Council – who run markets in Lerwick and Scalloway respectively – are behind the project. They said there are “clearly significant cost and carbon footprint savings” from landing in Shetland. More than half of all the fish landed in the UK comes from within 100 nautical miles of Shetland. The two fish markets in Shetland are relatively new, with both launching in 2020. The Lerwick market offers fishing boats working to the east of Shetland a convenient opportunity to land their catch, while Scalloway suits the west. Video, >click to read< 16:58
Bookmonger: The world of working watercraft
Tom Crestodina is a Bellingham, Washington, artist who works seasonally as a fisherman in Alaska, and he is the perfect person to have produced a wonderful new book called “Working Boats.” While the book has been published by Little Bigfoot, the children’s imprint of Seattle-based Sasquatch Books, I’ll wager that children up to the age of 105 will find much to enjoy in these pages. The experience begins when you first crack open the book, and find endpapers that provide a visual primer in one of the essential skills sailors need to know — knot-tying. Simple but elegant visual diagrams illustrate how to tie a clove hitch, a cleat hitch, a bowline knot, a cat’s-paw and more. >click to read< 15:34
Family of missing Washington crab fisherman pushes for mandatory personal locator beacons
It has now been more than three weeks since Bryson Fitch, a 23-year-old Washington father of three went missing at sea after the crabbing boat he was working on started to sink. As his family continues scouring the beaches near Willipa Bay searching for him, his mother-in-law is hoping to bring awareness to the federal maritime laws regarding wearable locator devices. She believes a change in that law may have prevented her family’s heart-wrenching loss. “If they would have showed up — when they rescued those two guys — and he had a beacon on his belt, they would have found him,” said Briee Roby, Fitch’s mother-in-law. Video, >click to read< 13:00
Maine delegation to fight bill that would repeal ‘pause’ in lobstering regulations
When Congress passed a law in December that included a six-year reprieve from new federal regulations for the lobster industry, the fishery heaved a sigh of relief. But if a new bill introduced this week in the House of Representatives is approved, that relief would be short-lived. Maine’s congressional delegation says they are committed to ensuring that doesn’t happen. On Monday, Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Arizona, introduced The Restoring Effective Science-based Conservation Under Environmental Laws Protecting Whales Act, or the RESCUE Whales Act. If passed, the bill would repeal the protections for the lobster fishery that were included in the 2022 federal omnibus spending law. The omnibus poses an “existential threat” to the North Atlantic right whale, undermines the science-based protections of both the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and ignores possible solutions like “ropeless gear,” Grijalva said in a statement. >click to read< 11:31
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 46′ Jarvis Newman Lobster Boat/Fed Area 1 Permit and Traps
To review specifications, information, and 10 photos’, >click here<, To see all the boats in this series >click here< 10:26
Blue State Enviro Groups Demand Answers From Green Biden Administration On Whale Deaths
Nonprofit groups in the state’s coastal towns have spent months trying to get the administration to place a moratorium on offshore wind projects until a thorough, transparent investigation can be completed to see if there is a connection to recent whale strandings. Since December 2022, over 20 whales have washed up along east coast shores near survey sites for future offshore wind projects in an unusual mortality rate, according to NOAA. “The low-frequency sonar used in the windmills is causing deafness in the whales. It’s one of those things that science is only going to pick up on years after the fact, in the meantime, whales are being killed,” James Lovgren, board of trustee member of Clean Ocean Action and retired commercial fisherman, told the DCNF. “You have to pause and ask, ‘why are we doing this?’” >click to read< 09:17
North Carolina Fisheries Association Weekly Update for February 28, 2023
The NC Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) met last week in New Bern. During this meeting, a lot of interesting conversations were had and plenty of motions were voted on. I am going to recap some of the bigger takeaways. If anyone wants to review the meeting (or any particular sections), here are the links for each day: in the video description, the agenda is broken up which allows you to advance to a specific section. More, >click to read< 08:01
