Tag Archives: tourism businesses

Craig Medred: Fish fight end?

The North Pacific Fisheries Council has taken an unprecedented step to try to increase the value of halibut to the Alaska economy by allowing a yet-to-be-created, charter-boat fishing entity to buy fish from willing commercial fishing interests in order to boost sport harvests. Efforts to shift some of the halibut harvest back toward tourism businesses comes in the wake of a study indicating that “individual fishery quotas” created for the commercial halibut fishery in the early 1990s have not worked out quite as planned. A well-intentioned idea, IFQs (Eye-F-Cues) as everyone in the fishing industry calls them, were intended to shift halibut harvests away from big-boat operations toward individual fishermen working as owner-operators of fishing businesses hopefully  based in Alaska. But that isn’t exactly how things turned out. Read the rest of the story here 10:58

Chesapeake Bay commercial fishermen reinvent themselves in an effort to stay afloat

When you begin a new career at 61, you’re bound to hit snags. Farley is building a tourism business around his expertise in the Chesapeake Bay. After a winter spent oystering, Farley fills his summer with educational sailing tours on his historic skipjack. This sail-powered oystering boat is part of a rapidly dissolving fleet; with only 23 still in the water, he says, a mere six skipjacks continue to oyster. The dwindling fleet was designated one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2002. Read more here  19:40