Tag Archives: Pete Kaizer
Herring disaster funds should be used to phase out harmful trawling
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is releasing $11 million in disaster relief funds to Atlantic herring harvesters, of which $7 million will go to Maine. These funds should be used to phase out herring trawling by buying back fishing permits in an effort to increase herring stocks and to protect other marine life. U.S. Atlantic herring landings in the 2000s averaged 206 million pounds annually but have since decreased to below 22 million pounds in 2020 and 2021. The New England Fishery Management Council led a process to craft a 10-year rebuilding plan. This dramatic downturn in herring is likely because variables with climate change are reducing ocean productivity resulting in seven consecutive years of low numbers of young fish surviving to maturity. >click to read< 12:58
After a record run of squid, local fishermen warily eye competition, regulatory challenges
It was the best single run of longfin squid anyone on the East Coast had ever seen – and it happened fast and was over fast. In two months last summer, June and July, the East Coast-based squid fleet landed approximately 14 million pounds, with Rhode Island landing more than 50 percent of that quota, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration landing reports. “I’ve never seen anything like it. The squid just kept coming,” said Point Judith fisherman Jeff Wise of Narragansett. “I’ve never seen volume and catch rates that high before.”,,,Three policy issues surfaced in recent months that could affect Rhode Island squid vessels and processors. One concerns managing the number of squid permits allowed, an issue perennially raised by the commercial fishing industry. The other two concern the possible loss of fishing ground – one by proposed wind farms off Long Island, and the other from lobbying pressure for a buffer zone in a key squid area south of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Big read! Read the article here 07:47
Nantucket fishermen implore state to protect squid, DMF director balks!
For the past couple of years, Nantucket fishermen have had a hard time finding striped bass in the rips and alongshore where they were accustomed to catching them. They think they know why: no squid. “This was where all the bass were caught. Now, no bait, no fish, no stripers to speak of,” said Pete Kaizer, a charter boat captain and commercial tuna fisherman. Kaizer and other Nantucket fishermen petitioned the state Division of Marine Fisheries to prohibit fish draggers and scallopers that tow nets or large metal dredges along the ocean bottom from state waters, up to 3 miles out from shore all around the island. The ban would run from May 1 to Oct. 31 with the idea of protecting spawning longfin squid.,, The Nantucket fishermen have an online petition, signed by over 1,200 people, asking state DMF director David Pierce to enact the Nantucket fishing prohibition. Pierce said there was little science to back up the proposal, and said he opposed it and would not forward it to his state Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission for approval. Read the story here 07:40
Cape Cod fishermen want to see “buffer zones” for midwater trawling in the region
Cape Cod fishermen are looking for regulators to address the impacts of industrial midwater trawling in the region. The New England Fishery Management Council recently voted to analyze possible “buffer zones” to limit where trawlers can fish to help manage the herring fishery. Current regulations protect waters up to 40 miles offshore from Canada through Cape Cod Bay for about 10 months out of the year, according to local fisherman Pete Kaizer, from the fishing vessel Althea. “What they’ve done in the last seven or eight years is they have depleted this whole flow of forage food coming down this coast and therefore we have seen a decline, and the localized depletion, of predators,” Kaizer said. Read the rest here 11:13
Mass DMF giving Rec fishermen chance to reverse regulations – Because someone is bothered!
Pete Kaizer can remember how the rips east of the island looked from the deck of the Althea K, his charter- fishing boat, just a few years ago. “The squid would come into the Sound, spawn, exit out through Monomoy and Great Point. Today he is bothered by the idea of losing that lush fishing ground. (To the squid fishermen so the State is holding a hearing to get rid of them!) Read the rest here. Notice of Public Hearing and Comment here, Item 2. 17:07
