Daily Archives: June 10, 2024
NCFA Weekly Update for June 10, 2024
Mandatory Harvest Reporting, Why and How? SAFMC Meets This Week This Week. As you know, in 2023 legislation was approved that places new “mandatory reporting” requirements on both recreational anglers and commercial fishermen who participate in North Carolinas coastal fisheries. As usual, this has led to a lot of comments, complaints, and misinformation which, quite frankly, is what started the mandatory reporting conversation in the first place. As one of the primary supporters of “mandatory reporting” we feel it’s important for the NCFA to explain exactly why and how this legislation came to be. more, >>CLICK TO READ<<– 18:18
Offshore wind farm lease auction plan has Gulf of Maine fishermen feeling brushed aside
The prospect of hundreds of offshore wind turbines generating power in the Gulf of Maine is moving forward with plans to auction eight leases in a large swath of waters off the New England coast. Jerry Leeman III, the CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, said there’s not enough data to support the areas that have been chosen for wind development. As now laid out, the plan could take away valuable fishing grounds from New England’s fishing fleet, pose navigational hazards and create new environmental threats, he said. “We still have more questions than we have answers,” he said. “Yet we’re moving ahead with the leasing ahead of the science.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 12:37
Atlantic herring suffering in warming Gulf of St. Lawrence
Decades of research show a slow decline in herring stocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and scientists are linking that decline to waters that are warming with climate change. Recent research from NASA found that about 90 per cent of global warming is occurring in the ocean. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Joël Chassé, an oceanographer with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said 11 of 12 months last year had warmer than normal surface temperatures, and he expects a similar pattern this year. “Fishermen in northern New Brunswick, the Baie des Chaleur region, were having difficulty finding the fish,” said Jacob Burbank, a researcher in fish ecology with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. “They weren’t seeing Atlantic herring where they normally would see Atlantic herring. They kept waiting for them to come in for their spawning and they just didn’t see them.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 11:40
Weatherbeaten Maine Seeks More Resilient Infrastructure
Stonington, Maine, is an island town in Penobscot Bay with a year-round population of just over 1,000 people. Its lobster fishing port is the biggest in the state, supplying about 11 percent of all the Maine lobster that gets shipped to food markets around the world. In January, a winter storm caused a surge that flooded out a string of privately owned wharves that support the lobster industry and washed over a publicly owned commercial pier, knocking out all of its electronics. “We basically got hit by a wall of water,” says Linda Nelson, Stonington’s director of economic development. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 10:10
The anti-windfarm ‘odd couple’ joining forces to fight the renewable energy projects Australia’s already failing to build
Deep in coal country, a lifelong environmentalist and one-time Greens candidate is feeling the applause. It’s Thursday night at a Gladstone pub and Steven Nowakowski has won over sceptical locals. His message is a simple one; he believes a wave of new windfarm developments threatens to smash hilltops and turn koala habitat into “industrial zones”. The green movement, he says, are in “la-la land” over windfarms, a comment that draws nods and knowing smiles from the audience. But its only when one local suggests building a new coal-fired power station does the crowd erupt in spontaneous applause. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 08:59
OPINION: Peltola pulls for Alaska fishermen, By Linda Behnken
Wild seafood provides food security and livelihoods across the country, but nowhere is that more true than in Alaska. We are fortunate to have a leader who not only has her own boots in fisheries but is bold enough to drive hard conversations around our biggest challenges. In the North Pacific, that includes bycatch management and habitat protection — not only as a foundation for sustainable management, but as a critical part of climate resilience. We’ve seen the complete collapse of two iconic Alaska crab species, and elimination of subsistence fishing on major rivers with communities highly dependent upon that food resource. We’ve witnessed the abrupt crash of Gulf of Alaska cod following the 2014-2016 marine heat wave. As fish stocks and ocean conditions change more quickly and more substantially than ever before, we need conservation tools that match the pace with that change to safeguard ocean health. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 07:33
Irish Fishing Family to Welcome New Trawler
Irish fisherman Eric Murphy and his family will soon welcome a new trawler into their fleet. Built locally by Mooney Boats to a design by Vestværftet of Denmark, Eilean Croineis a sister vessel of Sparkling Star, which was completed and delivered to another owner in 2023. Both vessels will be operated out of Castletownbere in County Cork, mainly performing pelagic trawling, though they may also be configured for demersal trawling for whitefish. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 06:24
