Monthly Archives: June 2024
Maine Lobstermen’s Association letter to ASMFC reiterates its call to delay any gauge increase
Dear Ms. Starks: The Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) strongly supports the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) recommendation to NOAA Fisheries proposed in Addendum XXX “that as changes to the minimum gauge size in LCMA 1 are required by Addendum XXVII, the smallest minimum size for foreign imports would match the smallest minimum size in effect for the US industry.” MLA has raised concern with ASMFC through previous comments and letters that the lack of clarity in Addendum XXVII regarding the import of undersize lobster from Canada smaller than the minimum possession size has created significant confusion and angst amongst Maine lobstermen who worry that the import these lobsters would have a significant negative impact on the U.S. boat price. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 14:06
Low-Lying Tangier Island to Get $2.3 Million to Safeguard Fuel Oil Supply for Watermen
The town of Tangier Island, Va. has been awarded a $2.5 million grant to ensure the town’s watermen can keep getting the fuel they need to run their boats, and that fuel supply will be kept safe from an environmental disaster. The $2.5 million from the Virginia Department of Environment Quality (DEQ) will provide funding to create safe storage of fuel and continued supply of fuel and fuel oil to the island. “The owner of the fuel plant was going to close it down,” said Mayor of Tangier, James “Ooker” Eskridge. “If the fuel plant closed down, that would have been catastrophic to our community. We would not have accessible fuel to run our boats and fuel oil to heat our homes.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 12:20
In wake of Mississippi seafood scandal, Alabama is set to enact mandatory disclosure of origin
On the tail end of a high-profile seafood fraud case in Mississippi where a restaurant admitted to selling mislabeled imported fish as local Gulf seafood, a new Alabama law will go into effect on October 1, 2024 to prevent similar deception. Alabama State Rep. Chip Brown (R-Hollinger’s Island) introduced a bill requiring Alabama restaurants disclose whether the seafood they serve is either domestic or imported. Governor Kay Ivey signed that bill into law, and later this year, it will go into effect. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 10:17
Sonoma County Offers Marina Fee Waiver As Salmon, Crab Seasons Nixed
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors is offering a lifeline to the local commercial fishing community devastated by the canceled salmon and shortened Dungeness crab seasons, Sonoma County Regional Parks announced Monday. The board authorized the Bodega Bay Marina Temporary Fee Waiver Program, which provides monthly dock fee waivers at three marinas operated by the county. Waivers are offered to active commercial fishermen and charter fishing vessels who can show evidence of six commercial landings between 2021 and 2023. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 09:09
Retired truck driver’s life savings sunk with fishing boat after grounding on Farewell Spit
Eddie Lockington is now bankrupt at age 74, with only a car to his name – and he had to refinance that – after his boat, the Scorpio, was left in pieces from the events of two years ago and the insurance company refused to pay out. The boat was eventually cut up by the local council, which salvaged it, and skipper Simon Dunjey has now been sentenced to community work for operating a ship in a manner causing unnecessary danger or risk and operating a ship without the right number of crew. Lockington sold his house in Greymouth to buy the $35,000 boat in 2019 and had planned to go fishing after retiring from a life on the road, but then got cancer so decided to hire a crew to run the boat. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 07:41
Coddock? Sea sleuths work to uncover mystery of new cod-haddock-like fish
Last summer, I wrote about a very interesting fish, showing up in the Gulf of Maine and promised an update. Well, here it is. We nicknamed it a “coddock” due to its strange shape and coloration. It has the head of a haddock, the lateral line of a cod, the pectoral fin of a cod, and the meat flaked in large pieces like cod. The body shape is that of haddock, and all the other fins look like haddock fins, but it was missing the “thumbprint of God,” which is a large black spot just behind the operculum (gill plates) and above the pectoral (side fin). It also had spotted skin that looked more like a cod than the silvery skin of a haddock. This was abnormal and deserved some investigation. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 06:37
AMSA Publishes Safety Lessons Learned from Battery Fire Incident on Domestic Vessel
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has published an outline of safety lessons learned from an incident wherein a domestic commercial vessel suffered an onboard fire caused by a thermal runaway event involving a lithium-ion battery system. An explosion occurred on a charter fishing vessel whilst berthed. The investigation identified that the ignition source was a lithium-ion battery that was not holding charge connected to a battery charger in a way that bypassed the battery management safety system. The vessel was beyond repair following the explosion. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 18:29
NLGIDC are disappointed in DFO’s management approach for Unit 1 Redfish for 2024-2025
Late on Friday, May 31, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) unveiled its management plan for Unit 1 redfish in the Gulf of St. Lawrence for the 2024-25 period. The plan sets a Total Allowable Catch (TAC) of 60,000 tonnes for the next year (from May 15, 2024, to May 14, 2025). While this TAC level is seen as reasonable, the decision to allocate the majority of the quota to the offshore fleet has greatly disappointed inshore fleets and Indigenous groups in the Gulf of St Lawrence. “Many inshore harvesters, processing operators, and coastal communities were looking forward to a more equitable distribution of this resource among all fleets in the newly recovered redfish fishery in the Gulf,” said Bill Barry, founder and CEO of Barry Group Inc. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 14:23
Vard to Build New Stern Trawler for Havbryn
Norwegian shipbuilder Vard has secured a new contract for the design and construction of a stern trawler for Havbryn, part of fishing boat company Strand Rederiet. The vessel will be of Vard 8 02 trawler design, outfitted for semi-pelagic and bottom-trawling operations with gentle handling to meet the latest demands for fish health management, efficiency, and environmentally friendly operations. The new vessel will have a length of 80,4 meters and a beam of 16,7 meters. The hull is ice strengthened according to Ice-1A. The vessel with its propulsion system is compliant with the stringent DNV Silent F notation more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 12:04
Inuit harvesters threaten legal action
Monday, June 3rd, 2024 – Inuit harvesters from northern Labrador are threatening to take the Nunatsivut government to court if their 2024 inshore shrimp allocations aren’t restored, and an investigation ordered into why they were reassigned to an offshore factory-freezer trawler. “The spirit and intent of a communal licence is to provide local inshore Inuit with jobs and connect them to their culture and traditions, and that has been broken,” says Lisa Blandford, an Inuit harvester on behalf of the group. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 10:21
NCFA WEEKLY UPDATE FOR June 03, 2024
The Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council (MAFMC) meets this week in Riverhead, NY. The meeting starts Tuesday June, 4th and goes through Thursday June, 6th. Meeting Webpage, Agenda, Combined Briefing Book, Join Meeting on Webex. Public comments on agenda items will be allowed during appropriate times of the meeting and general comments will be taken the last day of the meeting. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 09:31
End of Plymouth Fish Market ‘disastrous for Looe’
Mike “Moogie” Pengelly has been fishing off Looe after leaving school in 1967 and owns the small stern trawler the Ganesha with his two sons. He said things could be “disastrous” after the closure of the Plymouth market “put us in a bit of a pickle”. He said: “We’re relying on Brixham now. That’s it. “We used to land on Looe Market, but that collapsed and we went to Plymouth, which was successful. “Now that’s wrapped up and we’re in a bit of a mess at the moment.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 07:40
“He passed away doing what he loved;” Local fisherman dies at sea
Mike Bishop and his deckhand, Mark Henderson, set out onto the waters early Saturday morning for the first day of shrimping season. Leaving around 3:00 a.m. to make a three-hour journey to South Mobile Bay. “You know, he’s a hero, he’s a hero. He let someone live and he went down with his ship,” Bishop’s son, Brandon said. Just after 3:00 a.m. the Coast Guard believes a waterspout hit Bishop’s boat, “The Old Navy”, causing them to capsize only 10 minutes from their dock. “The surviving deckhand says the last thing he remembers is my dad handing him a life vest,” Brandon explained. “Telling him to go outside and that was the last time he saw him was up in the wheelhouse.” Video, more, >>Click to Read<< 06:09
Retired Commercial Fisherman Captain Nick Mosich has passed away
For over thirty years the fishing vessel Mauritania patrolled the Eastern Pacific searching for tuna to bring home to market. At the helm was Captain Nick Mosich. He was hardworking, practical, and stoic. Always among the top producers, he was admired for his devotion and skill in his never-ending pursuit for tuna. His father was a fisherman, and his mother a homemaker. In 1949, he left Loyola to join his father in the fishing industry, where they worked side by side for a decade. In 1950, he met and married the love of his life, Barbara. They went on to have two children, and he was a dedicated family man.In 1960, Nick became owner of F/V Mauritania. At the time, the vessel was a bait boat, meaning it fished for tuna using bait and poles. The boat was converted to a purse seiner and for over thirty years he sought schools of tuna from Mexico to Peru. More than a fishing savant, Nick was devoted to his crew, and treated them as family. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 13:37
Search and rescue operation ended after fisherman found deceased in capsized vessel
Search and rescue efforts are underway for a missing fisherman in Mobile Bay after a storm early Saturday morning. Authorities say he and another man set out on the water around 3 a.m. for the first day of shrimping season. A storm is believed to have hit the area around 3:30 a.m., causing the boat to capsize. One of the fishermen was recovered by nearby shrimpers and taken to a hospital. Story will be updated, >>CLICK TO READ<< 11:03
Fishy Business: How Brexit Failed To Help a Dying Industry
Brexit promised fishermen to take back control of the waters and get rid of foreign boats in British waters. But since the UK broke up with the European Union, little has changed. British fishing communities continue to struggle, as big companies, many of them international conglomerates, have bought quotas for the country’s most valuable species, controlling the price of the fish from sea to plate. Fishermen believed that the promised reforms, made possible by leaving what they saw as a restrictive European Union, would revive the national fishing industry, and with it bring back — at least to some extent — the prosperity of the past. They turned out to be empty promises. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 08:12
Rock star fishery booming in Western Australia, as octopus catch quadruples
In a world hungry for healthy sustainable protein, WA’s western rock octopus is a rising star. It’s wild caught, all natural and has no adverse impact on the environment, according to the Fremantle Octopus company’s general manager Emma Davison. “Octopus has more iron and more protein than red meat,” Ms. Davison said. The Fremantle company dominates the relatively new octopus fishery. About 70 per cent of its current market is for raw tentacles favoured by high-end restaurants. The in-demand mollusc is the rock star of Australia’s commercial fishing industry. Since it was established as a managed fishery in 2015 the annual catch has increased by 400 per cent. Photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 20:31
Commercial redfish fishery in Gulf of St. Lawrence expected to resume later this month
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans says the reopening of the redfish fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence could begin as early as June 15 and has announced the total allowable catch will be 60,000 tonnes for 2024-25. DFO announced the changes in a statement Friday. The department had said previously that the minimum allowable catch for the fishery would be 25,000 tonnes, but had not provided a cap. The commercial redfish fishery closed in 1995 over stock concerns. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 13:26
DFO Doubles Down on Redfish Giveaway: NL MPs Fail to Step-Up for Provincial Fishery
Late yesterday evening, DFO released the 2024-2025 Management Plan for redfish. The cowardly move came after the close of NL business hours and doubled down by taking owner-operator resources and handing them off to corporations. Earlier this spring, the original announcement made by Minister Lebouthillier gave away nearly 60% of the Canadian redfish quota to the corporate fleet, despite the inshore, owner-operator fleet having taken the lead on science and sustainability measures in recent years. With the Gulf shrimp fishery all but closed and non-shrimpers waiting for redfish to return, this is another blow to a group that’s been in survival mode for the last several years. “Once again, FFAW-Unifor members have been maligned by our two Ministerial Marionettes, Seamus O’Regan and Gudie Hutchings,” said FFAW-Unifor President Greg Pretty. “Sadly, their strings continue to be plucked by the Offshore Groundfish Oligarchy. >>CLICK TO READ<<11:49
Florida Fish and Wildlife Hosts Commercial Fishing Industry Summit
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) hosted Florida’s first Commercial Fishing Industry Summit in St. Augustine on May 21 and 22. According to FWC, the goal of the summit was to gather representatives from the industry to help develop a vision for the commercial fishing industry for the next five to 10 years. Partnering organizations included Florida Stone Crabber’s Association, Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida, Beacon Fisheries, Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance, Kathi’s Krabs, Organized Fishermen of Florida, Lampl Herbert Consultants, Southeastern Fisheries Association, Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen’s Association, and the Southern Offshore Fishing Association, Inc. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 09:46
DFO investigates after dozens of lobster traps belonging to Mi’kmaw fisherman damaged
Charles Francis fishes under a moderate livelihood authorization between DFO and Mi’kmaw harvesters, which allows designated First Nations community members to catch and sell lobster during the commercial season without increasing the number of traps licensed in lobster fishing areas (LFAs). “We couldn’t believe it. At first, we thought everything was all right in this area because nobody said anything to us and nobody paid attention to us,” Francis said in an interview after landing his catch at the Louisbourg wharf last week. “All of a sudden, we come fishing Saturday and everything just turned upside down for us.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 08:17
Seafood restaurants, fishermen say Mary Mahoney’s guilty plea is sign of industry trouble
For years, Mary Mahoney’s Old French House Restaurant, a Biloxi institution known nationwide, bought foreign, frozen seafood from a local supplier and sold it to unsuspecting customers as fresh Gulf seafood, federal prosecutors allege, and the restaurant now has admitted. Between 2013 and November 2019, when the restaurant was raided for unknown reasons, Mahoney’s bought from an unnamed Biloxi supplier and co-conspirator more than 29 tons of lake perch, tripletail, triggerfish and unicorn filefish from Africa or South America and passed it off as premium Gulf red snapper, snapper and redfish, the government’s charging documents say. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 07:08
