Tag Archives: Catch Declines
Japanese fishermen, scientists confront eel problem
Off a dark coast near the mouth of the Hishidagawa river in Osaki, Kagoshima Prefecture, countless headlamps glittered and fine-mesh fishing nets fluttered above the cold sea shoals. Fishermen waded through waist-deep water as they carefully looked into their nets, only to lower them once more. Catches of glass eel, or juvenile Japanese eel, have reached critical lows across the nation. In Kagoshima Prefecture, a major eel production area, the total amount of glass eels caught in the 75 days from Dec. 10 — the beginning of this fishing season — was 19.5 percent of that a year earlier. >click to read<11:26
Massachusetts Lobster Catch Declines, Boat Prices Rise
As the summer of 2017 wore on, the word from local lobstermen was that the behavior of their prized catch had grown more unpredictable and landings were down. Well, they were right: Landings and the value of the catch declined slightly across coastal Massachusetts in 2017, but a late fall run and higher off-the-boat prices helped mitigate the damage and keep declines well below those suffered by their lobstering contemporaries in Maine. According to data supplied by the state Division of Marine Fisheries, Bay State lobstermen landed 16,565,126 pounds of lobster in 2017 with a total value of $81.54 million — for an average boat price of $4.92 per pound. >click to read<10:57
