Tag Archives: Surf Clam
Our surf clam fishery is headed for disaster
When it comes to fishery management controversy never seems to be too far away. Last month you may have read about the dubious nature of a decision by the New England Fishery Management Council to close a large area of Nantucket Shoals to fishermen who harvest surf clams there, ostensibly to protect fish habitat. Questionable actions such as these undermine industry confidence in fishery regulators and serve only to alienate, and embitter, fishermen and the many others on the waterfront whose livelihoods are threatened by such draconian measures. >click to read<20:47
LETTER: Clam fishermen put forth proposal that protects the resource
Last week, the New England Fishery Management Council voted to kick Massachusetts surf clam fishermen off of 80 percent of our historic Nantucket Shoals fishing grounds. Our fishery in these treacherous local waters grosses $10 million per year to the dozen or so boats and their crews, and multiples more to the South Coast fishing economy. Our catch is hand-shucked for a higher value. New Bedford, Fall River, Gloucester, and Bristol, R.I. families stand to lose hundreds of jobs. While the council’s decision was based on habitat considerations, it rejected an option that would have allowed us to fish on about 80 percent of the available surf clam resource while allowing access to less than 20 percent of the overall habitat zone. >click to read<19:45
Fisheries and Oceans quietly cancels plans to award Indigenous surf clam licence
The federal government says it has cancelled plans to issue a controversial clam fishing licence to a First Nations company with ties to the Liberal party and several sitting Liberal MPs — including the former fisheries minister. A news release from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans says the process to issue a fourth licence to harvest arctic surf clam off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia was cancelled in early July, and that it won’t be issued this year at all. That multimillion-dollar licence was supposed to go to the Five Nations Clam Co., a company court documents suggest did not initially meet key eligibility requirements spelled out in the government’s tender process. >click to read<15:16
‘This process was wrong’: N.L. fisheries minister says criticism of surf clams decision is building
Provincial Fisheries Minister Gerry Byrne says there were so many problems with the way a lucrative surf clam contract was awarded that the decision should be reversed. Byrne said it’s not just the government and Indigenous communities and nations in this province taking a stand. “Indigenous nations and communities from all over Atlantic Canada and Quebec seem to be taking a much stronger, much more vocal and negative reaction to not just the decision, but how the decision was taken,” the MHA for Corner Brook, said on Thursday. >click to read<13:24
Names of Indigenous groups who won coveted Arctic surf clam quota announced >click to read<
Cape Fishermen hook access to surf clam fishery
Some locally-owned, independent fishing vessels from Cape Cod will begin testing new methods of harvesting surfclams that should help improve product quality and bring a better market price. [email protected]
