Tag Archives: Jerry Gavin
North Atlantic right whales causing ‘mess’ for P.E.I. lobster crews forced to move traps
Due to federal protocols, fishers had until Tuesday at 5 p.m. AT to move their gear out of waters deeper than 10 fathoms, about 18 metres, to protect the whales sighted late last week. The measure will last for 15 days, unless the whales are still in the area. Then the fishing area would be closed for at least another 15 days. “That’s not going to be good,” said Tony Clements, who fishes out of Northport. “We’re hoping for the best,” said David Henderson, who also moved 120 of his traps out of the closed zone. Out of 1,260 fishers, about 700 have already fully or partly converted to the whale-safe gear that will be mandatory by 2024. >click to read< 16:57
P.E.I. fishers call spring lobster prices ‘a slap in the face’
Harvesters say they’re getting between $6.50 and $7 per pound from processors — less than last year, and about half what they were getting a few years ago. “That price we got in 2006, and you could buy a fishing fleet in 2006 for $200,000 and now they’re $1.5 million to $2 million. Everything has gone up … bait, fuel, engines, pickup trucks, rope, traps, buoys, everything,” McGeoghegan said. “So to expect us to go fishing for a price that’s 18 years old is a slap in the face. And we know for a fact … that the demand is high, higher than it’s been in the last 10 years, and supply is the lowest it’s been in 10 years.” Photos, >click to read< 07:52
P.E.I.’s fall lobster fishery coping with low prices and high costs
One week after the fall lobster season opened on Prince Edward Island, some fishers are worried. Prices are at least $2 to $3 less a pound than they were just a few months ago, in some cases as low as half of what they were in the spring lobster fishery. “The most common price in the last few days is in the $4.75 to $5 range,” said Charlie McGeoghegan, who chairs the Lobster P.E.I. board. McGeoghegan said the problem of low lobster prices is compounded by the high cost of putting a boat in the water these days. “The price of fuel hasn’t gone down much,,, Jerry Gavin, executive director of the P.E.I. Seafood Processors Association, says there’s still a lot of lobster meat in storage from the spring fishery. “There’s a lot of meat in inventory and that certainly wasn’t the case last year, so yes, it’s going to be a tougher fall for fishers. >click to read< 13:48
Will Atlantic Canada lobster season break another sales record? Or will inflation curb consumer appetite,,,
Roger Fowlow is paying a lot of attention to the long-range marine forecast these days. Lobster season opens soon and he’s hoping the unsettled spring weather will ease off, giving him light winds to set his lobster pots. He used to catch cod, but with quotas so low, cod prices stalled for years at less than a dollar a pound, and fuel prices soaring this year. He said it’s not worth bothering with. Lobster is the money maker, and the last few years have given him good catches and good prices. Fowlow is confident of good catches again this year. But on the question of the price he might get paid, he’s not so certain. For P.E.I. lobster fisher Bethany McCarthy, inflation is already driving up the cost of running her boat. In addition to higher prices for fuel, she’ll have to shell out more money for bait this year, thanks to DFO’s decision to kill the mackerel fishery. photos, video, >click to read< 12:15
P.E.I. lobster falls by $2 a pound
Earlier this month, fishers were selling their catches for around $8 for canners and $8.50 for markets, the highest prices in about 15 years. Charlie McGeoghegan, chair of the Lobster Marketing Board of P.E.I., said the price went as high as $8.50 a pound for canners and $9.00 for markets. Now those prices have dropped. “We were glad to see that first week, the price where it was. To our disappointment though, the Monday after Mother’s Day, they dropped it in a lot of cases [by] two dollars a pound,”,, >click to read< 17:14
Prince Edward Island Lobster fishermen prepare for fall season after challenging spring
“I’m feeling good about the season,” said Peter Hustler, who has been fishing since he was 15. “Everybody has to make an income.” Demand for lobster plummeted as the pandemic forced restaurants to close earlier this year. The price dropped as low as $3.50 per pound. “It hurts, it hurts, and it hurt this spring, too, but I think everything is going to work out,” he said. “I’d like to see the price at $4.50 or $5 … and I believe it might happen.” >click to read< 19:09
PEISPA, PEIFA disappointed with the opening date of fall lobster season
The opening day is Monday, Aug. 10. A media release issued from the PEISPA explains this date will create difficulty for lobster processors to handle the large number of lobsters that will be harvested in the first week. The release goes on to say the fall season would usually start on Aug. 9, but since that date falls on a Sunday this year, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) supported changing the opening date. “We are very disappointed that DFO rejected our simple but impactful request to start the fall fishery on Aug. 7,” said Jerry Gavin, executive director of the PEISPA. The P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association (PEIFA) also made a formal request for an earlier start date, confirmed executive director Ian MacPherson. >click to read< 09:54
The 2020 P.E.I. spring lobster season that almost didn’t happen because of coronavirus, comes to an end
The spring lobster season on P.E.I. ended July 4 after a late start on May 15, in a year when fishermen faced low prices and catch limits due to a shortage of labour in processing plants. After losing the crucial first two weeks of the season, fishermen saw a glut of lobsters, pulling in more than buyers would take. There are eight processing plants on Prince Edward Island that deal with lobster. “At the end of the day, we had a season. That meant job creation and it also meant wealth creation for the province during a time when a lot of the other sectors were suffering,” >click to read< 19:30
Buyers setting catch limits, processors struggle with labour shortages, ‘Lots of lobster, but we can’t bring them in’
“Pretty good catches so far. But almost everybody’s on a quota right now,” said Gerard Whalen, a long-time fisherman in Naufrage in eastern P.E.I. “We’re seeing lots of lobster, but we can’t bring them in.” “We just can’t get rid of them,” added Lucas Lesperance, who docks a few boats down from Whalen. Lesperance said he’s pulled up about 1,000 pounds of lobster some days, but his buyer has only been accepting 600-700 pounds. According to P.E.I.’s Seafood Processors Association, that is the big problem across the industry. Executive director Jerry Gavin said Island processing plants — which rely heavily on temporary foreign workers — are about 200 workers short this season. >click to read< 17:23
“If lobster people fish, then processors are going to process,” – Processors working on assumed May 1 season start
It is unlikely P.E.I.’s seafood processors will have all the temporary foreign workers they normally have to operate in time for a regular start to the lobster season.,, Jerry Gavin, executive director of the processors’ association, said there will be challenges for his members but they will get the job done if called upon., Gavin recognizes there will be some significant hurdles.”,, Probably one-third of the workforce is temporary foreign workers. Those workers are probably not going to come in here on time. So processors are looking at trying to expand the local labour.” To be ready to start May 1, temporary foreign workers would have to arrive on P.E.I. next week — because they will need to quarantine for 14 days before they can go to the plants. >click to read< 15:51
