Tag Archives: inshore fisherman
Delicate ecosystem of fishing industry must be maintained
From my office window in Lerwick Harbour I can see vans from a range of different marine and electrical engineering companies parked next to whitefish vessels while repairs and servicing work are carried out on board. Those same companies, which provide highly skilled employment of the sort that keeps young people in our community and lay the foundations for a strong future, support the pelagic and inshore fleets. Take away any of these fleets and our vibrant engineering sector would be unsustainable. Simon Collins, >click to read< 15:27
The grim lesson of Little Bay Islands
I can remember traveling to Little Bay Islands in 1957 when I was 10 years old with my father on the MV Grace Boehner delivering flour and other freight. I marveled at how alive that community was. Boats going and coming in the harbour, wheelbarrows full of salted cod as they were pushed to the weights. Wheelbarrows full of Atlantic salmon. Seemed like hundreds of people working on the wharf. Children at play, singing and laughing. Now, this fishing outport community is beaten to its knees and voted to relocate because the loss of fish resources and the closure of its fish plant.>click to read by John Gillett, Inshore fisherman, Twillingate<14:55
The labour lie: FISH-NL reacts to Labour Board decision dismissing its application for certification
After 500-plus years of fishing history, the Newfoundland and Labrador government — through its Labour Relations Board — has finally defined an inshore fisherman. The definition doesn’t involve trips to sea nor fish landed. From the Board’s perspective, that’s irrelevant. The definition also doesn’t factor in whether a person lives in Newfoundland or Labrador, has a full-time job outside the fishery, or has ever stepped aboard a boat. To be considered a fisherman/woman in the eyes of the Board, the only criteria is that a person must have paid dues to the union — the FFAW-Unifor. >click to read<10:41
Bonavista area fishers meet DFO
Dennis Miller of Burgoyne’s Cove is a typical inshore fisherman. Fishing up to 50 miles from shore in a 39-ft 11-inch boat, he makes his living from groundfish, capelin, herring, mackerel, lobster and snow crab.,, He wonders if the Department of Fisheries and Oceans will give smaller boats, like his, access to turbot by opening up fishing zones closer to shore. He was one of about 30 fishers who showed up for the meeting.,, With FISH-NL and the Fish, Food and Allied Workers (FFAW) in the same room, there was bound to be an argument. >click here to read< 14:24 
There’s something wrong with cod
It will be another decade maybe, research shows, before harvesters can fish codfish commercially. It’s already been a quarter century since we’ve been able to fish cod commercially. Something is not right here. There has been ample time for cod to be back to commercial status with the minimum amount of cod that has been taken out of the system by Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Why aren’t the cod stocks improving? Is it because of predators of cod and cod larvae, or is it due to seismic work for oil that is killing the food of cod and cod larvae? Is it poor science on cod stocks, and they really don’t know what’s out there? Is it because of foreign overfishing,,, click here to read the story 20:21
Fishermen never wanted a big brother – John Gillett, inshore fisherman, Twillingate
Our fishing and sealing industries mean a lot to us. We never looked to government or wanted the Canadian government to be a big brother to us. Mother Nature was our enforcer until the Department of Fisheries came along with its heavy hand that sent our culture in a downward spin. They gave permits to offshore draggers foreign and domestic to reap the spawning grounds in winter while the majority of fish harvesters were onshore in the winter mending gear and repairing or building boats to catch the returning fish coming from the offshore in the spring and summer. They put in place licence conditions that only a Philadelphia lawyer could understand. Read the letter here 08:46
