Tag Archives: lobsterman Steve Holler
Staying Afloat: Fishermen cast for new customers amid coronavirus pandemic
The Massachusetts’ commercial fishing industry is finding new ways to stay afloat as the coronavirus pandemic has shuttered restaurants and halted seafood shipments, shaking up the normal course of business and leaving fishermen looking for customers to buy their seafood. “We had a wholesale business and like the stock market, we were up, up, up and dependable — and then all of a sudden it went away,” said Nick Giacalone,,, Restaurant closures amid the pandemic and the grounding of hundreds of planes that typically carry local seafood to overseas markets have decimated the demand globally and threatened to send prices crashing. It’s a sobering reality that has led many fishermen and related industries to tap an obvious but previously neglected market: Direct-to-consumer sales. >click to read< 07:28
The Massachusetts fishing fleet confronts an opioid problem
A reputation for drug use has long followed the Massachusetts fishing fleet, whose fiercely independent crews often return to port flush with cash and ready to exhale after long and dangerous trips. Some fishermen link that reputation to a rugged cowboy culture; others to the pain medication taken by men and women whose bodies are battered by the job. But now, as opioid deaths rise relentlessly in Massachusetts, fishing captains from Cape Ann to Buzzards Bay are beginning to stock their boats with naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses and is commonly sold under the trademark Narcan. click here to continue reading the story 09:46
