May 4, 2020 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
The final meeting materials for the ASMFC Spring Meeting Webinar can be found at http://www.asmfc.org/home/
Massachusetts congressional delegation urges feds to include seafood in food aid purchases
May 4, 2020 — Members of the all-Democratic Massachusetts congressional delegation are pushing to include East Coast seafood in purchasing agreements funded by the federal Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.
Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Reps. William Keating and Seth Moulton said in a letter Friday to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue that when the U.S. Department of Agriculture begins its purchasing programs intended to assist those the pandemic has affected, the USDA should include domestic seafood.
Purdue in April announced that the USDA would be making about $19 billion in purchases through the coronavirus assistance program, the lawmakers said.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News
In Alaska town, calls to shut down fishing season amid coronavirus fears
May 4, 2020 — Robin Samuelson grew up hearing stories about mass death in his Alaska community, victims of a pandemic so brutal that dogs were found feeding on human bodies.
Some locals fear that history could repeat itself unless Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) shuts down the upcoming salmon fishery, which attracts more than 12,000 workers from across the country for a frenetic, two-month season that begins next month.
Dunleavy’s administration has pledged to implement safety measures to prevent the importation of the novel coronavirus, including a mandated two-week quarantine for arriving fishers. But some local officials say they’re not convinced the state can enforce those rules.
“Our streets, they start looking like Fifth Avenue in New York during the summer,” Samuelson said. “It puts you in a real funny mood listening to the stories [about the 1918 pandemic] and what our people had to go through.”
There have been no confirmed infections of the coronavirus in the region, and Alaska has one of the lowest infection rates of any state. It has recorded just 368 cases and nine deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Northeast Observer Waiver Extended through May 16
May 1, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
NOAA Fisheries is extending the waiver granted to vessels with Greater Atlantic Region fishing permits to carry human observers or at-sea monitors for an additional two weeks, through May 16, 2020. This action is authorized by 50 CFR 648.11, which provides the Greater Atlantic Regional Administrator authority to waive observer requirements, and is also consistent with the criteria described in the agency’s emergency rule on observer waivers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
NOAA Fisheries will continue to monitor and evaluate this situation. As we have done in other parts of the country, we will use this time to work with the observer service providers to implement adjustments to the logistics of deploying observers, ensuring qualified observers or at-sea monitors are available as soon as safely possible.
Observers and at-sea monitors are an essential component of commercial fishing operations and provide critical information that is necessary to keep fisheries open and to provide sustainable seafood to our nation during this time. We will continue to monitor all local public health notifications, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for updates. We are committed to protecting the public health and ensuring the safety of fishermen, observers, and others, while fulfilling our mission to maintain our nation’s seafood supply and conserving marine life.
East Coast, West Coast: Very Different Offshore Wind Industries
May 1, 2020 — In order for many states to fulfill the goals they set to significantly reduce emissions or reach complete carbon neutrality by 2050, they will have to rely on a variety of renewable energy sources. Only by using a combination of wind, solar, battery storage, hydropower, electric and alternative fuel vehicles can states attain their carbon-reduction goals.
In a series of recent webinars, IPF Virtual, hosted by the Business Network for Offshore Wind, industry leaders congregated to discuss the current state of the offshore wind industry, as well as to offer their insights and research concerning various obstacles that need to be overcome in order for the U.S. offshore wind industry to reach its full potential.
Offshore wind is one of the resources that must be utilized to maximum capacity in the next 30 years if states on both the East and West Coasts hope to make the transition to carbon-neutrality. California, Washington, Maine, Rhode Island, Virginia, New Jersey and New York have all pledged to significantly reduce their carbon emissions, if not reach complete carbon-neutrality, by the 2050 milestone – a handful of ambitious states set 2045 as their target.
The potential for U.S. offshore wind energy is enormous. If utilized to capacity, the country’s shores have a power potential of 2,000 GW – almost double the nation’s current energy use. Besides creating jobs, harnessing the U.S.’ offshore wind will revitalize ports and coastal communities, improve national security and deliver vast amounts of clean energy to the country’s biggest population centers.
A Flood of Catastrophe: How a Warming Climate and the Bonnet Carré Spillway Threaten the Survival of Coast Fishermen
May 1, 2020 — On a warm, sunny September morning, bait salesman Roscoe Liebig scanned the harbor’s vacant piers and shook his head in disgust. Liebig recalled his usual surroundings: a full parking lot, a line of fishermen hooking their bait, and oysters peaking out in a low tide. That day, all of it was gone.
In a typical year, he’d be outside peddling his shrimp and croakers, a type of bait fish, to fishermen passing by.
“This is catastrophic,” he said. Referencing another historic disaster, Liebig put 2019 in perspective: “BP could blow up a well and you’d do better than this. It’s a dying freaking industry, and this is just the icing on the cake.”
Inside “Roscoe’s Live Bait Works,” sitting on a barge in the Mississippi Sound, Liebig grows restless as he reviews his finances. Sales are down sharply from the previous year, and he worries that making even a small repair or upgrade to his boat could break the bank.
Less Seasonal Help, Coronavirus Deliver One-Two Punch To Bay’s Blue Crab Industry
May 1, 2020 — Crab season is off to a slow and foreboding start around the Chesapeake Bay, with many crabmeat processors crippled by an inability to import seasonal workers and by watermen worried they’ll be unable to sell all they can catch as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Chilly, windy weather limited commercial harvests of blue crabs through much of April, the first full month of the season. Warming spring weather usually brings better fortunes, but those in the business of catching or picking crabs say they fear for their livelihoods amid the double whammy that’s hit the Bay’s most valuable fishery.
“It’s kind of a really scary situation,” said Bill Sieling, executive vice president of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, which represents Maryland companies. “It just doesn’t look good.”
Read the full story from the Chesapeake Bay Journal at Patch.com
Brexit trade talks face collapse unless EU abandon demands for continued access to UK fishing waters
May 1, 2020 — Brexit trade negotiations face collapse unless the EU abandons its demands for continued access to UK fishing waters, sources close to the talks have said.
Brussels has called for EU boats to keep access under “existing conditions” as a price for the free trade agreement being negotiated by the two sides. The UK insists any fishing agreement must be separate from the trade deal with access negotiated annually in a similar fashion to Norway’s agreement with the bloc.
A UK source close to the negotiations said that the EU’s red line would need to change, otherwise the talks could be terminated in June.
“There are some fundamentals that we’re not going to change, nor going to move on. Because they are not so much negotiating positions as they’re sort of what an independent state does” the source said.
MASSACHUSETTS: Lobster season opens on time after right whales move out of Cape Cod bay
May 1, 2020 — Lobster season for the South Shore will begin as planned after endangered right whales, spotted in Cape Cod Bay, moved out of the area.
The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies estimated five whales, including two mother-and-calf pairs, were feeding in Cape Cod Bay, following an aerial survey on April 25. On Wednesday, another aerial inspection over the area found the whales had moved out of the bay and adjacent waters, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries said in an announcement Thursday afternoon.
The Division previously extended the opening of the season to May 8 because the whales were spotted, spokesman Craig Gilvarg said in a statement. North Atlantic right whales are an endangered species and vulnerable to buoy entanglement and getting hit by boats, because they feed near the surface.
“Everybody is anxious to go,” John Haviland, president of the South Shore Lobster Fishermen’s Association, said. “They’ve been standing around for three months, basically in quarantine.”
‘Another punch in the gut’: Gulf Coast shrimpers navigate the coronavirus crisis
May 1, 2020 — David Chauvin of Dulac has worked in the shrimp business since 1986, the year he graduated from high school. His father, grandfather and great grandfather also fished the waters off Louisiana’s Cajun coast.
Gulf Coast shrimpers, who bring in three quarters of the nation’s catch, have been battered with waves of bad luck. Hurricanes. A flood of cheap imports. The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Fresh water diversions that kill seafood. And now the coronavirus.
“You always wonder how you’re going to die,” Chauvin said. “I always thought it would have been Thailand or India that would have wiped the domestic shrimp out. I never would have dreamed that it could possibly be a virus.”
Restaurants buy 80% of both imported and domestic shrimp, according to the Southern Shrimp Alliance. With restaurants closed or offering only takeout, no one is buying much shrimp. Next month would typically launch the peak of shrimp season as Gulf states begin their annual opening of nearshore waters to shrimping.
The United States caught 289.2 million pounds of shrimp, worth $496.1 million, in 2018, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (a full 2019 report has not yet been released). Louisiana shrimpers, working in both state and federal waters, brought in 90.7 million pounds of that catch, followed closely by Texas with 72.1 million pounds.