Daily Archives: July 28, 2023
Maine’s First Lobster Festival Was A Total Financial Disaster
The story of the first Maine Lobster Festival is that it was first held on August 16, 1947. Though only lasting a single day, it attracted attendees by promising all the lobster you can eat for a very reasonable price: $1. Reasonable, however, is a relative term. What seems reasonable to the consumer may be a bad decision business-wise. That’s exactly what ended up being the case for what was initially called the Camden-Rockport Lobster Festival. Even in the economic landscape of 1947, this entrance fee to the Lobster Fest was an insane deal. And the lobster provided to attendees was no scant amount. The event featured a parade in which whole lobster crates were literally given away to those who had paid the dollar entry fee. Considering that the festival intended to boost the lobster industry economically, this was a real problem. >click to read< 19:50
70 years and counting: Stonington Blessing of the Fleet returns this weekend
Born in the Azores, an island in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Portugal, Manuel Raymond Rezendes’ grandfather and father came to the U.S. more than a century ago. Members of his family have worked in the fishing industry ever since. A third-generation fisherman, Rezendes said it is difficult to attract younger workers. It is a taxing career with early mornings and long trips, hard labor and extreme danger at times. He’s been struck in the chest with ropes, knocked overboard and has lived to tell the tale. Others, including his grandfather, Manuel “Fayal” Perry Rezendes, have not been so fortunate. “Fishing has been part of our family since as long as I can remember, and it is important to honor the traditions and sacrifices that came with that,” said Rezendes, who will serve as the grand marshal for the 70th annual Blessing of the Fleet this weekend. >click to read< 17:20
Fisheries’ union president blasts N.L.’s oil regulator over encroachment on crab harvesters’ turf
At this moment, ExxonMobil’s Hercules rig is drilling about 350 kilometres east of St. John’s, in the Jeanne D’Arc Basin, as part of its oil exploration program but it has pushed crab harvesters out of an area where their catch is abundant, and the union is calling foul. It could be a sign of future friction, warns Fish, Food & Allied Workers-Unifor president Greg Pretty, who is blasting the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board over what he calls a lack of communication and a disregard for the fishing industry. “We were actually shocked to find out that that rig, the Hercules — the drill rig — was actually on one of the most productive crab grounds in that area,” Pretty said Thursday. >click to read< 15:56
NOAA Fisheries Announces Common Pool Area Closure for Gulf of Maine Cod
Effective at 4:15 pm on July 27, 2023 – Statistical areas 513 and 514 are closed for the remainder of Trimester 1, through August 31, 2023. This closure applies to all common pool vessels fishing on a groundfish trip with trawl, sink gillnet, or longline/hook gear, including handgear vessels. The closure is required because 90 percent of the Trimester 1 Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for Gulf of Maine (GOM) cod has been caught. This area will reopen at the beginning of Trimester 2, at 0001 hours, September 1, 2023. >click to read< 12:58
Alaskan Fishing Boat Captain/Pro Skier…McKenna Peterson Is One Badass Woman
Meet McKenna Peterson, Alaskan fishing boat captain and professional skier. Captain McKenna spends her summers at the helm of her family’s fishing boat catching Alaska salmon with her siblings and winters shredding lines that she scopes while she fills up the live wells. Certified badass. >click to watch< 11:52
Lobster industry says regulations to save right whales will push them out of business
Lobsters support about 15,000 jobs and contribute more than a billion dollars to the Maine economy. And yet the industry sees itself in an existential battle, pitted against a rare species fighting its own existential battle. North Atlantic right whales, critically endangered, fewer than 350 individuals remain. And they are dying at a devastating rate. Janet Coit, Assistant Administrator of Fisheries, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: If we don’t stabilize and begin the recovery, they will be gone within a couple of decades. They will be extinct. They will be wiped off this Earth. And we want to do everything we can to prevent that from happening. >video< 10:30
Frustration grows as captain still missing, boat still submerged in Okanagan Lake
It’s been more than three days and there is still no sign of Travis Van Hill, whose shrimp boat capsized on Okanagan Lake during a storm Monday night, July 24. The boat captain’s wife, Kim Van Hill, is frustrated by the amount of red tape around rescuing her husband’s remains from the boat, the tip of which can be seen poking above the waters of Okanagan Lake near Ellison Provincial Park.“A dive team from Vancouver, the dive lead, said he’s never been in this type of rescue and he’s been doing it for 16 years,” she said of the process which has taken too long to recover Travis’ body. It is presumed that Travis is trapped in the boat, and Kim explained that WorkSafeBC needs to sign off on the recovery before the RCMP dive team can retrieve Travis from the boat. >click to read< 09:56
Joe Biden’s mission to Maine
Joe Biden travels to Maine tomorrow (today), the first time he’s made it to the state during his presidency. The trip is part of the president’s Bidenomics tour, a sales pitch designed to lay out the economic case for a second term and underscore domestic manufacturing gains. Aside from the presidential implications, there’s another reason Biden’s visit to Auburn is worth watching. The 2nd District is one of just five across the nation that voted for both Trump and a Democratic member of Congress — Rep. Jared Golden. Golden has been a thorn in the side of the administration, criticizing Biden over debt ceiling negotiations and ripping the White House for “hypocrisy” over its treatment of Maine’s lobster industry. He’s the only House Democrat who voted against Biden’s Build Back Better spending bill. More recently, he was one of only two House Democrats to break with the White House over the student loan debt cancellation plan. >click to read< 09:02
Offshore Wind has a Cost Crisis
The horrific term “cost crisis” is not from me. It comes down from on high, in this case the mega-conference: US Offshore Wind 2023. But now they have a cost crisis. Could the bust be at hand? The evidence is piling up. So there are three converging factors. Higher material and equipment costs, higher interest rates and political resistance. For example it has not gone unnoticed that the House Republicans are trying to roll back the lush subsidies granted under the amusingly named Inflation Reduction Act. Local resistance is growing as well. The biggest developer offshore America is Ørsted and they are now suing New Jersey’s Cape May County and Atlantic City for withholding local permits needed to bring a big project’s power ashore. Anti-offshore wind demonstrations are becoming a common occurrence in coastal towns. >click to read< 08:02
