Tag Archives: factory freezer trawler
Alaska pollock trawlers are feeling pressure over salmon bycatch, so this reporter went to see for himself
Bering Sea factory trawlers scoop up tens of thousands of pollock at a time, and pressure is intensifying to avoid catching salmon as populations of chum and chinook have plummeted in recent years, causing closures for subsistence harvesting. The trawlers are not entirely to blame, warming oceans due to human-caused climate change are almost certainly a factor, but they have drawn the ire of salmon advocates from Western Alaska to Washington D.C. This is a 341-foot vessel that I went out on, the Northern Hawk, with a crew of 129 people. And most of them work below the deck in a fish factory that, basically when the fishing is reasonable, operates 24 hours a day. Then there are these incredible fillet machines that will fillet 180 fish a minute, and the job of the human is basically to just feed the machine 24 hours a day. And it’s kind of mind-numbing work. Your hands move constantly to make sure the fish are positioned correctly. >>click to read<< 07:40
A struggle to dodge salmon in pursuit of a massive pollock bounty
Onboard the F/V Northern Hawk — Some 400 miles northwest of Dutch Harbor, Bering Sea pollock congregated in spectacular fashion. In the wheelhouse of this factory trawler, Captain Jim Egaas scanned a sonar displaying a dense red band that represented millions of fish in a school that stretched for miles. He could see the pollock up close on another screen that relayed images from an undersea camera stitched in the mesh of a quarter-mile-long net. The video feed showed swarms of them deep in the funnel-shaped trap. Once pulled on board, the tail end of the net bulged with more than 220,000 pounds of tightly packed pollock. A crewman 
unstitched a seam. Raised by a powerful winch, the net spewed a silver avalanche of fish into below-deck holding tanks to await processing in a plant primed to operate 24 hours a day. Egaas was in hurry-up mode. Even before the last of this catch was shaken from the webbing, he called for crew members to unfurl a second net from a giant reel. “I like what we are seeing. We’re on the stock,” Egaas said. Photos, video, >>click to read<< 15:42
OCI celebrates arrival of new factory freezer trawler
Marie Sullivan has a very important job to do on Monday, June 8. The 94-year-old will smash a champagne bottle against the steel hull of the MV Calvert to officially christen the new addition to Ocean Choice International’s (OCI) fishing fleet. The ceremony at the waterfront in St. John’s will be a celebration for the Sullivan family and the company owned by her sons, Blaine and Martin. The name of the new ship pays homage to the small fishing community on the Southern Shore where the Sullivan family got their start in the fishing business. The new vessel sailed into St. John’s harbour on Thursday, completing her first ocean voyage, a 4,200-nautical-mile journey from her birthing place in the Middle East. Video, >click to read< 10:42
