Tag Archives: Coronavirus
Deadliest Catch season 17 – What a Time to be Alive!
In season 17, Discovery says that “half the crab boats of the Bering Sea fleet are tied up in Seattle” while “an existential threat faces the fishermen who make the long-haul trip to Dutch Harbor, Alaska,” because they face “a potential closure of the entire fishery” for the 2021 season. The crab survey conducted during the summer by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game didn’t happen because of C0VID-19, and that means “the captains will be fishing blind with no charts or guidance on where to find crab on the grounds, making an already challenging season even more difficult,” short trailer, >click to read< 10:03
NJ Fishing Community Says Coronavirus Aid Helped Keep Them Afloat
With New Jersey’s commercial fishing industry about to receive a second round of federal coronavirus aid, boat owners and those who run fishing-related businesses say the extra money is helping keep them afloat amid a sea of red ink. The state’s fishing industry received $11 million last March under the CARES Act, an early aid bill passed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. And it should get roughly the same amount under a second bill passed by Congress in December.,, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. said Monday. Pallone held a news conference Monday at the Belford Seafood Cooperative in Middletown with boat owners and those who run related businesses. >click to read< 10:24
The Alaska Wilderness Prepared Me For Coronavirus
Every summer I make the long trip up to Naknek, Alaska — an outpost of human settlement among the tundra, volcanoes, and wildlife of southwestern Alaska to be part of the commercial sockeye salmon fishing season in Bristol Bay. From the airport at King Salmon, we drive the lonely stretch of pavement a half hour north, to the boatyard in which the Epick, a 32-foot-long, aluminum-hulled gillnetter that I call home for several weeks out of the year, resides through the winter. My crew and I prep the boat and put her in the water, where we make use of the abundance of daylight typical to Alaskan summers to try and catch as many salmon as possible. >click to read< 11:47
Maryland oyster industry may be forever altered by Coronavirus pandemic
The pandemic-impacted oyster season has been difficult for the industry in Maryland, causing farmers and watermen to rethink how they sell their product and changing how programs conduct oyster restoration. Robert Brown, waterman and oyster grower, has bottom oyster leases on the tributaries of the Potomac River. Brown, president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association, said he sells the majority of his oysters to oyster packaging houses, which aren’t working at capacity because they can’t sell the oysters once they shuck them. Watermen are being hit hard in the pandemic, and it might be a few years before we get back to normal,,, >click to read< 08:36
Festival that supports the Bodega Bay fishing fleet missing community
Since 1973 the Bodega Bay community has hosted an annual Fisherman’s Festival,, The blessing of the Fishing Fleet is the highlight of the Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Festival. These solemn annual blessings had their start more than 50 years ago when the event was part of the “Discovery Days Celebration”,,, It is with much regret that we cancel the 2021 edition of the Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Festival (as well as our 2020 festival). While we remain hopeful that Sonoma County continues to gain ground against the coronavirus threat, at this moment hosting the festival on its traditional Spring date creates too great of a risk for our volunteers, vendors, and guests. >click to read< 15:32
Oregon Health Authority pulls social distancing ad which depicts fishermen tossing a man overboard
The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) has pulled an ad that depicted a crew of fishermen throwing a man overboard in a life raft in order to practice safe social distancing. The ad did not sit right with some in the coastal community of Newport and their mayor spoke up about it. In a letter to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown Tuesday, Newport Mayor Dean Sawyer asked that the OHA immediately take down the ad. Sawyer goes on to say that a crew member of a ship going overboard “should not be joked about by the Oregon Health Authority,” and that the commercial “brings back terrible memories” to Newport families that have lost a loved one to sea. Watch the stupid video! >click to read< 08:07
Trident reopens Akutan processing plant after month-long Coronavirus closure
An outbreak at the plant forced the fishing giant to close the facility in late January just as the lucrative winter season was set to kick off. In the course of the outbreak, 45% of Trident’s 700-person workforce ultimately tested positive for the virus, company officials said Monday. Multiple rounds of comprehensive testing brought welcome news last week that COVID-19 cases had been isolated on site, Trident said in a statement. Surveillance testing, symptom screenings and the use of PPE and distancing protocols will remain throughout the season. >click to read< 17:40
U.S. lobster exports to China rebounded in 2020
While the coronavirus pandemic tanked U.S. lobster exports overall in 2020, international trade data suggests the industry’s once-thriving U.S. to China trade pipeline may be making a comeback. International sales of U.S. lobster fell by 22 percent last year, from $548.4 million in 2019 to $426.9 million in 2020. The market saw declines in sales to each of the country’s top 10 international buyers, with the notable exception of China, which bought more than $127 million of U.S. lobster, or a roughly 49 percent increase over 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. >click to read< 10:34
‘Wicked Tuna’ rivalry gives way to cooperation
The coronavirus pandemic’s tidal wave of challenges made its way to the high seas, and viewers of “Wicked Tuna” will see a new dynamic when the 10th season opens with a 90-minute premiere Sunday at 9 p.m. The show is known for following Gloucester fishermen in the highly competitive hunt for giant bluefin tuna and the race back to shore in search of the highest price,,, That is until COVID-19 prompted a business shutdown nearly a year ago, with restaurants shuttered or operating at a fraction of their capacity. The market and demand for the usually lucrative bluefin sank. “It was great to see fishermen working together with buyers to do the best we could in these difficult times,” said Capt. Dave Marciano,,, >click to read< 14:03
The Coronavirus pandemic could change U.S. fisheries forever. Will it be for better or for worse?!
The first symptoms appeared long before Covid-19 gained a stronghold on U.S. shores, as China went into its first lockdown and a critical export market disappeared overnight,,, Then as social distancing rules kicked in here, another major organ of the U.S. supply chain, restaurants, where most seafood purchases are made, fell limp. Many fishermen across the country have pivoted to direct-marketing models by selling their catch off their boats,,, To many in the food industry, the pandemic’s impact has exposed the fundamental vulnerabilities of a system that has long favored efficiency over resilience. >click to read< 09:48
Big news for a major Michigan industry: commercial fishing.
Changes to the rulebook in January had fisheries warning the fresh catch may soon come from Canada. The DNR is now walking back those rules, requiring fishermen to cast their nets in water under 80 feet and suspending part of the whitefish season,,, “Everyone’s ecstatic.” A reversal from the DNR, effectively lifting the depth and seasonal restrictions the Williams’ and other commercial fisheries argue had upended their ability to make a living, means it’s now back to business as usual. >click to read< 07:42
Michigan House Bills Ban Commercial Perch Fishing on Great Lakes – Lakon Williams of the Bay Port Fish Co. expressed her concern. The company nets whitefish and perch in Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. >click to read<
Tough times felt by renowned Port Townsend lutefisk business
Scott Kimmel, owner of Port Townsend’s New Day Fisheries, says COVID-19 has caused his lutefisk operation to take a nosedive. But the pandemic isn’t solely to blame for a downward trend,,, Lutefisk is dried cod that has been rehydrated in a lye solution before being boiled or baked,, It is perhaps more-aptly described as a traditional Scandinavian dish which either strikes mortal fear into the hearts of those who’ve known it,,, It just depends on who you ask. But as Kimmel’s lutefisk sales show, most folks these days probably fall into that former category. “Our sales have been declining for years and years just because our customers have been passing away and the younger generation’s not picking up the slack,” Kimmel said. “So, it’s a dying business, is what that is. >click to read<13:19
Coronavirus: Why the Lunar New Year matters for Maine lobster shippers
The Lunar New Year is typically one of the busiest parts of the calendar for America’s lobster shippers, who send millions of dollars worth of the crustaceans to China every year. This year the holiday is Friday, and industry members said the Year of the Ox won’t necessarily be the Year of the Lobster. That’s because shipping has been complicated this winter by the threat of the virus. Mike Marceau, vice president of The Lobster Company in Arundel, Maine, said he isn’t expecting much in the way of exports. >click to read< 08:44
Coronavirus: Unalaska fish processing plant reopens after outbreak forces monthlong shutdown
The reopening is a bright spot for the Bering Sea fishing industry, which has been hampered by COVID-19 outbreaks at multiple boats and onshore plants. UniSea’s processing plant has a year-round workforce, and its facility handles multiple species from cod to crab. The pollock season opened Jan. 20 but the 11 boats that typically deliver their catch to UniSea have been able to hold off, That’s because the pollock fishery operates as a cooperative, where vessels have a fixed quota of fish they can catch and deliver to a specific plant. “Our fleet have been extremely supportive of our situation and patient with our reopening schedule,” Enlow said. “But they, like UniSea, are anxious to get the season started.” >click to read< 08:32
California lobstermen ride high-price wave from China
Since it became home to California’s first lobster fishery in the early 1870s, the coastal city of Santa Barbara has established a long and proud history of lobster fishing. The industry is now experiencing a surge in demand because of a trade war between nations that are thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean. Almost all of the lobsters caught in the waters off of Santa Barbara’s coast this season will end up in China, where an ongoing dispute with Australia has worked to the advantage of California’s lobster fishing community. The surge in demand from Chinese markets has resulted in high prices that fishermen and distributors here say are without precedent, as well as plenty of uncertainty. >click to read< 08:36
20 crew members on vessel in Dutch Harbor test positive for COVID-19 in latest seafood industry outbreak
A factory trawler joined a growing list of seafood processors and vessels in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands that have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks recently. Twenty members of the 40-member crew on the factory trawler Araho, owned by the O’Hara Corp., tested positive for the virus, the City of Unalaska said Friday. Upon arrival in Unalaska from Seattle on Wednesday night, a couple of crew members reported symptoms of COVID-19, according to Unalaska city manager Erin Reinders, who said testing began when the vessel arrived. >click to read< 19:46
Coronavirus relief: N.J.’s sinking fishing industry nabs $11M life raft from state
Nearly a year after being approved by federal lawmakers, financial relief is being handed out to New Jersey’s battered fishing industry. Gov. Phil Murphy and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announced Friday that $11.3 million in grants are being distributed to Garden State fishermen, and the businesses that support them. The relief money was part of the $2 trillion CARES Act which was passed by Congress and signed by former President Donald Trump in March. >click to read< 09:47
CARES Act Applications Now Available for Maryland Fishing Industry – Deadline to Apply is Feb. 28, 2021
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources announces that applications remain available through February 28, 2021 for economic relief funds for the commercial seafood industry through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), for those who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The application will be available to eligible members of the seafood industry on the Maryland OneStop website. The deadline to apply is Feb. 28, 2021. >click to read< 09:27
Coronavirus outbreak at Trident Seafoods Akutan plant grows to 135
A seafood plant in Akutan, Alaska, run by Trident Seafoods is facing a large COVID-19 outbreak with 135 of 307 tested employees testing positive for COVID-19, health care officials said on Tuesday morning. The Akutan plant has around 700 employees, and COVID-19 testing is still underway. Dr. Joe McLaughlin, an epidemiologist with the state, said the first report of COVID-19 at the facility was made on Jan. 17. >click to read< 09:19
New Whitby lobster boat launches on choppy post-Brexit waters
“Our Henry” is owned by business partners Terry Pearson and Luke Russell. Mr Pearson is the merchant for the local shellfishing fleet, while Mr Russell will skipper the catamaran, the first new boat to join the Whitby fleet for a decade, along with two other crew and a trainee. Delivered a couple of weeks ago the potter has been undergoing sea trials, but should make its first fishing trip later this week. “Then with Covid, the build was delayed, and it has only just arrived when we are in the middle of the winter fishery, “Then of course there has been Brexit,,, >click to read< 16:31
Coronavirus closes a third Aleutian plant, stranding Bering Sea fishermen at the dock
In the Aleutian port town of Unalaska, at least five local boats are stuck at the dock with nowhere to deliver their cod after the shutdown of the Alyeska Seafoods processing plant, according to a crew member on one of them, Tacho Camacho Castillo. Alyeska closed its plant Friday “based on a cluster of positive cases” identified through “surveillance testing,” the City of Unalaska said in a prepared statement. “There’s two days and this fish starts to spoil,” Camacho Castillo, a crew member on the 58-foot Lucky Island, said in an interview Friday. “Am I going to be throwing out fish into the ocean? It’s going break my heart, for real, if I throw all this fish away.” >click to read< 18:38
Federal Relief: Great Lakes fisheries finally get a cut of Coronavirus relief funds
After being snubbed in 2020, the folks who make their living by fishing the Great Lakes – both commercially and for sport – have been included in the latest round of federal relief from the economic ravages of COVID-19.,, Neither group was included in the massive Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act that passed in March 2020, even though $300 million was specifically earmarked for U.S. fisheries.,, Getting the Great Lakes included in CRRSA was just the beginning. Now comes the harder work of figuring out how to access the money. Video, >click to read< 16:10
‘Everybody’s worst nightmare’: Bering Sea fishermen on edge after Coronavirus closes second processing plant
Now, fishermen and industry leaders are anxious that they might not have places to offload their catch, and that their plants might be the next to close down, said Dan Martin, who manages a fleet of nine pollock trawlers for a company called Evening Star Fisheries. “Any hiccups like this, you really have to reshuffle the deck and try to figure out, ‘Okay, what’s the next step?’” said Martin, a retired skipper. He called the shutdowns “everybody’s worst nightmare.” >click to read< 10:32
Oyster Prices Plummet As Diners Stay Home Amid Pandemic
With several hours of daylight to spare, Ronnie Robbins and his son, Jason, had already docked their 36-foot deadrise workboat on Hooper’s Island and started unloading their briny cargo.,,, It isn’t a supply problem. Watermen in Maryland and Virginia alike say they are having no trouble landing their daily wild oyster quotas.,,, “We got lots of oysters, and they’re excellent quality,” said Bill Sieling,,, The problem is decreased demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic. >click to read< 09:31
Trident Seafoods to close Alaska plant for three weeks after COVID-19 outbreak
Seattle based Trident Seafoods is shutting down its largest Alaska seafood plant for three weeks after a COVID-19 outbreak, a difficult decision that points to a renewed assault by the coronavirus on the ranks of workers in a key part of the nation’s food-processing industry. Trident is suspending operation at its Akutan facility just at the start of major winter harvests for pollock, North America’s biggest single-species seafood harvest, as well as cod and crab. At Akutan, some 700 employees have stopped working amid a new round of testing, and a fleet of boats that would normally be delivering their catch is now tied to docks. >click to read< 16:39
Mount Pleasant Blessing of the Fleet & Seafood Festival set for April 25
The 34th annual Town of Mount Pleasant Blessing of the Fleet & Seafood Festival is slated to be held on April 25. After 2020’s event was canceled due to COVID-19, organizers are hoping to hold the yearly ceremony this time around. Applications are now open for the event’s craft show, with the deadline set for Feb. 26. “The Blessing of the Fleet & Seafood Festival aims to promote local fishermen and the town’s seafood legacy, educate the public on the importance of supporting local fishermen and shrimpers by buying wild-caught and local seafood,,, >click to read< 13:04
NOAA Fisheries reports on early pandemic impact on fisheries
NOAA Fisheries Friday, January 15 released a report on the economic impact on the seafood catch and recreational fishing nationwide and here in Alaska through last summer.,, Nationwide the commercial fishing industry started off 2020 with increases in revenue from seafood sales. But as the pandemic hit in March, that income dropped off 19 percent compared to the most recent five-year average. Those declines swelled to 45 percent by July. >click to read< 19:25
Captain’s License Revoked Following COVID-19 Outbreak at Sea
Sveinn Geir Arnarsson, captain of freezer trawler Júlíus Geirmundsson, pleaded guilty when the Westfjords Police Chief’s case against him was heard in the Westfjords District Court last week,,, Twenty-two of the vessel’s 25 crew members contracted COVID-19 while at sea last October. The ship did not return to harbour for three weeks despite the outbreak on board. >click to read< 07:50
Coronavirus cases detected at Alaska seafood plant
Seattle-based Trident Seafoods reports that four workers at the company’s Akutan, Alaska, seafood plant have tested positive for coronavirus, including one who had difficulty breathing and had to be evacuated by air to a hospital in Anchorage. The Akutan plant in the Aleutian Islands is a processing hub for Bering Sea harvests of pollock, crab and cod, with a workforce of 700 employees that will swell in the weeks ahead to 1,400 people. >click to read< 07:29
This Fishing Life: TV cameras return to Cornwall, Tonight, as the lockdown begins to bite
The beauty of Cornwall and the fishing tales of generations of fishermen are captured in a brand new six-part BBC/OU co-produced series this month. Cornwall: This Fishing Life is back for a new series where the past 12 months have seen the impact of two hugely challenging issues for this far flung 
county: Brexit and Covid-19. >click to read< Tonight is the launch of the second series,, As the episode unfolds, restrictions are beginning to ease, and not a moment too soon for the town’s fishermen, most of whom have been tied up for months >click to read< 15:25
