Tag Archives: New Brunswick
Fundy North Fishermen’s Association votes to delay the start of the season due to bad weather
Brad Small, the president of the association, said all of the harbours under the association — which spans from the American border to Alma, N.B. — voted to stay off the water due to weather Monday. Environment Canada issued a special weather statement for much New Brunswick and some snowfall warnings for northern areas Monday. The weather will also bring another round of strong and gusty winds along with plummeting temperatures — a mixture of things Small said makes the job of setting traps very dangerous. >click to read<19:52
RCMP asking for public’s help with lobster boats vandalized in Neguac
RCMP are investigating what they’re calling a case of mischief after three fishing boats were damaged at the Neguac wharf on Saturday. Police believe the boats were damaged between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., said RCMP Sgt. Chantal Farrah. “We’ve spoken to several people in relation to this investigation, we’re still gathering some information,” she said. RCMP are asking anyone with information to contact them. >click to read<19:05
DFO closes more fishing zones after right whale sighting
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has closed portions of four fishery grids after right whales were spotted in the area. The affected grids are in the extreme south of the speed reduction zone and will begin at 10 a.m. on Friday. The closure marks the 20th fishery closure this year related to the North Atlantic right whale. No right whales have been found dead in Canadian waters since last year but a right whale was spotted last week off Miscou Island partially entangled. It has not been spotted since. >click to read<18:33
Lobster fishermen comply with federal order and move traps to smaller area
Lobster fishermen aboard about 60 boats spent Sunday morning pulling traps from waters off Miscou Island in northeastern New Brunswick in order to comply with a zone closure put in place by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The closures in Lobster Fishing Area 23 were announced by the DFO on June 11, after five North Atlantic right whales were seen between Miscou and the Gaspe Peninsula. DFO boats were in the area monitoring the situation as the traps were hauled up. “There’s a very small block that they can kind of move into. They are limited on the amount of territory that is left for them so they’re all going to have to cram into what’s left I guess.” >click to read<10:16
New DFO orders ‘hard pill to swallow’ for N.B. lobster fishermen
Lobster fishermen off the coast of Miscou Island, N.B., will spend Sunday morning hauling gear from the waters in order to comply with the latest fishing zone closures imposed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. On Friday afternoon, the DFO re-opened four areas previously closed to fishing due to the presence of right whales. But with more closures being imposed on Sunday, frustrations continue to mount. Carl Allen, president of the Maritime Fishermen’s Union, organized the most recent protest and met with LeBlanc on Friday.,,”I have a lot of respect for Minister LeBlanc, but we just don’t agree with the basis of the whole plan — it’s a hard pill to swallow,” he said.,, LeBlanc did offer the fishermen an alternative, however. He offered a paid training program for crew members and plant workers affected by these closures. >click to read<18:20
LeBlanc offers fall season to fishermen squeezed by right whale measures
The federal fisheries minister says he has offered lobster harvesters from New Brunswick and Quebec a previously unscheduled fall fishing season, to make up for measures aimed at protecting endangered right whales. Dominic LeBlanc said he told the Maritime Fishermen’s Union that he plans to open a harvesting zone in the last half of September because of the 15-day closure of a 1,400-square-kilometre portion of ocean that begins Sunday. LeBlanc said the offer will go to about 62 fishing vessels in New Brunswick and 60 from the Gaspe Peninsula whose lobster harvest will be largely shut down as the whales pass through. >click to read<18:45
Making a killing – As whales die in frightening numbers, New Brunswick’s lucrative snow crab industry struggles under a global spotlight.
It all started when Charles Anastasia’s boat sank. This was in 1979, when 26-year-old Anastasia took to the ocean every morning to fill his nets with cod, back when that fish was still the beating heart of the Atlantic fishery. With his boat pinned 100 kilometres offshore during a “perfect storm,” a floating telephone pole skewered the hull like a marshmallow on a stick. The eight-man crew barely got a mayday out and survival suits on before the vessel sank beneath the 20-metre waves.,,, Soon after, the broad-shouldered, wide-cheeked man uprooted his life and moved to Alaska, buying and selling seafood for a living. It was here he encountered snow crab: a flat-bodied, 10-legged crustacean that transformed his life and would soon, on the other side of the continent, revolutionize an industry. >click to read<
New Brunswick fishermen alarmed at 2nd closure over whale sighting
Fishermen are alarmed over the closure of another fishing area in order to protect North Atlantic right whales, a move some say will have a drastic effect on the industry. Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced Sunday that a second area off the coast of northern New Brunswick was being closed to fishing for at least two weeks. “We’re behind on our annual catches right now,” said Steven Hughes, a deckhand on a snow crab fishing boat based out of Shippagan. “This brought back the stress on the fishing industry.” >click to read< 15:15
Crew rescued as lobster boat sinks off Escuminac
A lobster fishing boat carrying four men and at least 100 lobster traps capsized and sank off Escuminac Wharf on Tuesday morning. O’Neil Hebert, owner of the Trina Margaret, said no one was injured. He and the three other men were in the water for about 10 minutes before other boats picked them up. The men went to the hospital to be checked out. “At least we didn’t lose [anybody] on the crew,” Hebert said.,, Robert Martin, Port Authority of Escuminac manager, said boats went out to set traps at 6 a.m. Some boats received the Trina Margaret’s distress signal at around 6:10 a.m. >click to read<19:01
Crab fishermen struggle as season begins under strict new regulations making some fishing grounds off limits
Snow crab fishing began last week in northern New Brunswick, the first season under strict new regulations by Ottawa to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale. The most drastic of the new measures has been the closing of a zone off the province’s northeastern coast to fishing, a location where 90 per cent of the whales had migrated to last summer. That area is also an area rich in snow crab. As many boats came back from their first trip out to sea, some fishermen couldn’t help but feel anxious about what the season would bring. >click to read<16:11
New Brunswick lobster fishermen anxious as start of season keeps getting delayed
Lobster fishermen in northern New Brunswick are increasingly worried about the fishing season, as they see delay after delay because of the conditions. The official start date was April 30, but the ice in many harbours, along with strong winds, has made it too dangerous to go out. The date has already been pushed back twice, and fishermen will only find out after a meeting Friday whether the season will start next week or be delayed once more. >click to read<16:29
Fishermen’s union requests emergency meeting with minister over new lobster rules
The Maritime Fishermen’s Union has requested an emergency meeting with Fisheries and Oceans Minister Dominic LeBlanc before the lobster season starts next week to discuss new measures aimed at protecting North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The union doesn’t understand why the strict protective measures, which include closures and rope limits, have been sprung on lobster fishermen, said president Carl Allen.,,, LeBlanc walked past reporters Wednesday when asked about the issue.>click to read<17:44
New rules sprung on lobster fishermen to protect whales
Parts of the water off the coast of New Brunswick will be closed to lobster fishing this season to protect the North Atlantic right whale, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has told lobster fishermen.,, But Tuesday’s notice reveals many of the same measures announced in late March for the crab fishery will be applied to lobster fishing in the gulf as well. Lobster fishermen reacted with surprise and disappointment and suggested the new rules were mostly about the federal department’s public image. >click to read<17:48
Ice still holding up crab fishery
The Canadian Coast Guard still has about five to seven days of ice-breaking operations around New Brunswick’s Acadian Peninsula, the acting superintendent of Ice Operations Atlantic, Trevor Hodgson, reported Wednesday. Ice had started its normal regression from the Gulf of St. Lawrence by early March but a few days of northeasterly winds in mid-March reversed that trend. “It hit the Gulf pretty hard, he said. “It essentially took all the ice that was in the Gulf and compacted it into three big piles,”,, >click to read<20:49
Icebreaker dispatched to Gulf of St. Lawrence to hasten crab season — and save whales
A Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker has been called in to smash through pack ice off the northeast coast of New Brunswick in an unusual bid to help the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales expected to make their way to Canadian waters later this spring. The goal is to allow local snow crab fishermen to complete their season in the Gulf of St. Lawrence earlier than usual, which should reduce the number of ship strikes and entanglements with fishing gear that killed so many whales last year. >click to read<08:14
The Room Erupted! Tensions flare at suggestion snow crab fishery close for whales
Fishermen erupted in anger Wednesday when federal officials proposed banning snow crab fishing in a large zone off the coast of New Brunswick for the entire time endangered whales are there.
The proposal came at a meeting that industry and government officials hold every year to discuss the coming snow crab season in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence. This year’s season is of particular importance after a deadly 2017 for the endangered North Atlantic right whale. Gear used in snow crab fishing is believed to have played a role in some of the whale deaths, with necropsies on three whales revealing signs of entanglement in fishing rope. >click to read< 00:27
Once-idle shipyard cashes in on crab boat market
Three years ago, Guillaume Hall was working in the oil patch in Fort McMurray, Alta., one of the hundreds of New Brunswickers who had gone west for work. Today he’s building boats five minutes from where he grew up, in the Caraquet area of northeast New Brunswick. Atlantic Boat Building has 36 employees working two shifts, days and nights and on weekends, year-round. One of the new boats, the Crabbin Assassin, is almost finished. Built for a Nova Scotia fishermen, it looks more like a stealth military vessel than a crab boat.”They have a unique design when it comes to fuel savings, stability, and speed, and you get to go faster with a smaller engine,” Robichaud says. “You save fuel, so more money in the pockets of the fishermen.” click here to read the story 09:35
Some N.B. lobster fishermen tie up in protest over price
Some lobster fishermen in eastern New Brunswick have tied up their boats in a protest over the prices they’re getting for lobster. Fishermen in ports such as Pointe Sapin and Richibucto remained at the docks Thursday, saying landings are down and prices are low. Michel Richard, an organizer with the Maritime Fishermen’s Union, says processors suggested much higher prices before the fall season began on Aug. 8, but instead they’re paying about $2 per pound lower. Fishermen say right now they’re being paid about $4.25 a pound for canners and $4.75 a pound for market lobsters. Richard says fishermen are upset because they aren’t getting a clear answer from the buyers and processors on a reason for the lower prices. link 12:22
Lobster fishermen tie up boats after meeting processors about low prices – Fishermen have been getting paid, but none have received official pay stubs, so Richard said there is no proof of what the current prices really are. click here to read the story 16:37
N.B. lobster fishermen discouraged by lower prices
The Maritime Fishermen’s Union is voicing concerns about the low prices its members are getting paid for their catches in southeastern New Brunswick this season and suggesting protests could follow. Wages currently sit at $4.75 a pound per market lobster and $4.25 a pound per can of lobster — nearly $2 less than what was expected, according to MFU organizer Michel Richard. There is “no excuse for such a low price,” Richard told CBC’s Information Morning Moncton on Monday, as lobster season entered its second week. “It’s very troubling, and our fishermen are trying to reason why this is happening, and the excuses are not realistic,” he said. click here to read the story 18:33
Fishermen finding carapace increase hard to swallow
Fishermen returning to port in Miminegash on Wednesday were not so much concerned with the size of their catch as they were with what they were throwing over. “It’s scary,” said Peter Hustler, a fisherman’s helper with captain Michael Myers. He estimated the amount of lobsters he had to return that would have been legal size last year, would have meant eight to 10 more pans of canners. The carapace measure was increased by two millimeters this year following a one-mm increase last year, and Myers had plenty to say about that. “The measure is not going to prove out,” he said, suggesting Federal Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc should have listened to P.E.I. fishermen’s pleas and trimmed the carapace increase to just a millimeter this year. click here to read the story 11:35
Campobello Island mourns loss of fisherman originally from Chester who freed dozens of entangled whales
A small island community in New Brunswick is mourning the loss of a fisherman who friends say was killed moments after freeing a whale that was entangled in fishing line. Mackie Green of the Campobello Whale Rescue Team said Joe Howlett was on board a Fisheries and Oceans Canada rib vessel off Shippagan on Monday to help cut heavy lines from a large whale. Green was not on the boat but says he was told the 59-year-old lobster fisherman, who founded the rescue team with Green in 2002, was hit by the whale just after it was cut free and beginning to swim away. A Fisheries and Oceans Canada statement late Monday said only that someone was killed on board one of its vessels and would not provide any details out of respect for family members. click here to read the rest 12:00
‘Everybody knew Joe Howlett and everybody respected Joe Howlett,’ says Mayor Stephen Smart – “There’s only 850 people here on Campobello Island now and Joe was a very lively character, he had a great sense of humour. Everybody knew Joe Howlett and everybody respected Joe Howlett,” said Stephen Smart, mayor of Campobello Island, which is located in southwestern New Brunswick near the U.S. border. click here to read the story
‘I was thinking I will just die there:’ Fishermen caught in Acadian Peninsula storm
During the worst of the storm, Christian Duguay wasn’t sure if he’d survive the night. In his 25 years as a lobster and crab fisherman, he’s never experienced a storm like the one that hit the Acadian Peninsula on Thursday night. Duguay was fishing off Lamèque Island with three of his crew when the wind picked up. They saw tornadoes on the water, he said. The first one “got the boat,” he said. “She lifted everything in the boat, all the things and the cover on my big box there, just go right away with the tornado.” He said the boat stopped dead in the water, and then the water came up around them. At one point, the waves were one and a half metres high. He’s still not sure how the boat didn’t sink. click here to read the story 18:45
N.B. island cut off from mainland due to thunderstorm – More than 4,100 NB Power customers remained without power Friday evening after a violent thunderstorm ripped through the Acadian Peninsula the previous night. At its peak, close to 7,000 NB Power customers in the province were without power. There are no reports of injuries or fatalities. click here to read the story, video 11:20 5/20/2017
Family that fishes together: Bill MacEachern passing on tradition to next generation
Lobster season is under way in northeastern New Brunswick. Fishermen set out from wharves all along the north shore and Acadian Peninsula at first light Monday morning to set their traps. It’s a time-honoured tradition, especially for Bill MacEachern, who has been fishing out of Tabusintac for 55 years. Everything went well on day one, he told Shift‘s Vanessa Vander Valk. “It went great. It was a beautiful day, everybody got set, there were only two or three boats that had little problems,” he said. “Usually a few fellows have their motors go or something like that happen, but this year everybody was really lucky.” After 55 years on the water, he’s seen it all in the industry. “You wouldn’t believe the changes,” he said. click here to read the story, and watch a video 09:21
‘King Louie’, the 23-pound lobster bought by a vegan who wanted it returned to its watery home
A massive lobster taller than a toddler was caught in the Bay of Fundy and then bought by a vegan activist so it could be returned, alive, to its chilly home. Catherine MacDonald, co-owner of the Alma Lobster Shop in southern New Brunswick, said the 23-pound lobster, dubbed “King Louie,” was possibly a century old. “It’s beautiful,” said MacDonald in a phone interview Tuesday. “For a lobster to be 23 pounds and to be that large, there was nothing else that was going to be a predator, except man.” The lobster is very healthy, and about four feet long, said MacDonald. It was caught by a fisherman in St. Martins, N.B. MacDonald said the crustacean was sold for $230 to a Nova Scotia vegan who requested it be released back into the ocean. And so King Louie returned home on Tuesday, she said. Read the rest here 09:58
New Brunswick fisherman hauls in rare ‘ghost lobster’
A New Brunswick lobster fisherman has beaten the odds by catching a rare albino lobster. Eugene Richard, 64, caught the “ghost lobster” on Tuesday in the Northumberland Strait, off eastern New Brunswick. It’s estimated that one in 100 million lobsters are albino. The odds of winning Lotto 6/49, on the other hand, are 14 million to one. Richard has been fishing lobster in Richibucto Cape for 50 years and calls this the catch of his career. Bernice says her husband thought he was seeing things when he hauled it up the lobster, which weighed about three-quarters of a pound. She says he called her from the boat to say he had a surprise for her. Bernice says when she first saw the crustacean, “I thought it was a rubber lobster.” Read the rest here 11:34
Early New Brunswick crab season opener sees higher prices
The early opening of the crab season has resulted in good catches and increased prices for crab fishermen. The season opened April 22, three eeks earlier than the 2015 season. The early opening was due to a milder winter in New Brunswick and an earlier break up of ice. Crews on wharves on the Acadian Peninsula are busy unloading the good catches. The good catches have resulted in prices ranging from $3.50 to $3.60 a pound, which is 75 cents higher than last season. “The crab this season is as good and better than anytime,” said one crab fisherman who added many people on the Acadian Peninsula are enjoying eating the crabs. link 09:10
Turf War: Lobster fishermen charged after confrontation with First Nations
Anthony Peter-Paul expected his first season as a lobster fisherman to be tough and profitable, but it turned into a situation where, he says, he “felt helpless.” The St. Thomas University student, and Pabineau First Nation man, spent the 2015 season fishing lobster in the Bay of Chaleur with a first-time licence-holder, also from Pabineau. It started off with a fishermen’s meeting which they have every year at Stonehaven,” said Peter-Paul. Read the rest here 11:11
2014 Atlantic Salmon tags from New Brunswick recovered in Greenland and Ireland
The recovery in Greenland and Ireland of two electronic tags attached to salmon in New Brunswick in 2014 is giving researchers valuable insight into the travels of the fish. The tags are attached to selected salmon by the Atlantic Salmon Federation in an effort to try and discover the reasons for high mortality at sea. On May 14, 2014, a 93-cm kelt — a salmon that spawned the previous fall and was returning to sea to feed before turning to span again — was tagged in the Red Bank area on the Northwest Miramichi River. Read the rest here 08:47
I like this! Alma sending off lobster fleet with all-night party – They love their lobstermen!
Lobster fishermen will depart the wharf in the southeastern New Brunswick community of Alma Tuesday morning after a major send-off — an all-night party. Jane Chrysostom, one of the organizers of the Alma Fleet Launch Festival near Fundy National Park, says the event is a celebration of the fishing families and the dangerous, unpredictable work of the fishermen. Read the rest here 08:20
Canadian Fishermen See Red in Fight Over Lobster Size – At issue: About 10 Millimeters
Fishermen in the provinces of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick are at loggerheads over how big a lobster’s carapace must be for a lobster to be harvested. Fishermen in Prince Edward Island are fighting to keep the minimum carapace at 72 millimeters, or about 2.8 inches, while their counterparts in would like to see fishing restricted to lobsters with larger shell sizes—as much as 10 millimeters longer. That is .39 inch. Read the rest here, Video 11:38
