March 27, 2017 — The once-thriving sardine population — made famous in John Steinbeck’s novel “Cannery Row” — has taken a nosedive along the West Coast, where regulators are considering a ban on reeling in the tiny bait fish for a third year in a row.
Senator Shelby leads way on more data on Gulf red snapper populations
March 27, 2017 — Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby paved the way for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to land a multimillion-dollar grant to innovate Gulf of Mexico reef-fish survey assessments and technologies.
This $9.5 million grant program, authored by Shelby, is directed by the 2016 Appropriations Act. The goal is to produce a more-accurate estimate of Gulf red snapper populations and improve fishing access.
Lobster boat captain charged in crewmen’s deaths arrested after reported overdose
March 27, 2017 — A Cushing captain accused of causing the deaths of two crew members when his lobster boat sank in a storm is behind bars again after he reportedly overdosed on heroin.
Christopher A. Hutchinson, 28, was arrested Thursday by the Maine Marine Patrol after U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby issued an arrest warrant for him Wednesday.
Hutchinson was in the Cumberland County Jail on Friday night after being transferred from the Knox County Jail in Rockland.
He is scheduled to go on trial later this year on two counts of seaman’s manslaughter for the deaths of Tom Hammond, 27, of Rockland and Tyler Sawyer, 15, of St. George and Waldoboro. The two were crew members aboard his lobster boat No Limits, which sank on Nov. 1, 2014.
Hutchinson was arrested Dec. 19 on the seaman’s manslaughter charges and released three days later on $10,000 unsecured bail. The court imposed conditions that Hutchinson not use or possess illegal narcotics.
But on March 13, Waldoboro emergency medical services and the Knox County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of an unresponsive man at a residence in Friendship, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Portland.
Officials found Hutchinson unresponsive, not breathing and with a faint pulse, according to the report. Two doses of the drug Narcan were administered to Hutchinson, who then regained consciousness.
Hutchinson refused to be taken to the hospital and claimed he had been working long hours and had not eaten. He also said he was a diabetic.
Read the full story from The Courier Gazette at The Portland Press Herald
Federal agency must revisit listing for blueback herring
March 27, 2017 — WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to revisit a decision not to list the blueback herring as a threatened species.
In a ruling Saturday, a District of Columbia judge said officials failed to offer a rational connection between the facts and two essential conclusions, and also failed to consider other aspects of the issue.
Blueback herring live along the Atlantic coast. They are born in inland rivers, spend most of their adult lives at sea, then return to rivers each spring to spawn.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public Radio
MASSACHUSETTS: Fishermen’s Trust Proposal Aims to Clear the Clutter in Menemsha
March 27, 2017 — The fishing cages, nets and other gear that lie scattered around Menemsha may soon have a place of their own behind the Chilmark landfill.
In an effort to support young fishermen in town and relieve congestion in the historic fishing village, the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust has proposed designating a one-acre lot at the landfill on Middle Line Road as a storage area for fishing gear and larger equipment.
The town owns an eight-acre parcel at the landfill that selectmen say could serve the purpose, and also provide space for the town shellfish and highway departments, and training for the fire department. The shellfish and highway departments currently use a 3.5-acre homesite at Peaked Hill.
At the selectmen’s meeting on Thursday, trust president John Keene, owner of Keene Excavation in West Tisbury, formally proposed the new site, and offered to create the required access road at no charge to the town — and idea that furthered the selectmen’s support.
“That’s not going to hurt,” selectman Bill Rossi said.
Trust board member Katie Carroll pressed for the project to move forward independently of plans for the town departments. But several questions remained, including how much land each fisherman would need, and whether to include a fence around the lot.
Maine lobstermen figured out how to make more money off their catches
March 27, 2017 — A lobstermen-only fishing organization has purchased a local lobster wholesale business, extending the reach of its members further down the distribution chain and giving them a greater share of the profit off their catch.
The Maine Lobstering Union, formed in 2013 in the wake of a sharp drop in prices paid to lobstermen by dealers, is buying Seal Point Lobster Co., a wholesale lobster distribution firm owned by the Pettegrow family. The Pettegrows also own the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound restaurant, which is not part of the sale.
A representative for the group declined to disclose the sale price, but according to media reports the MLU is paying $4 million for the business.
Joel Pitcher, an organizer with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said the purchase of the wholesale business is in keeping with the mission of the lobstering group, which is to promote and protect the financial interests of lobstermen. Maine Lobstering Union Local 207 is a chartered chapter of IAM.
“It’s about putting lobstermen in a better position in the value stream on the shore side of the industry that they’ve never had access to,” Pitcher said recently.
The sale came about, Pitcher said, after Warren Pettegrow, who oversees the family businesses, started talked to MLU officials about ways that fishermen could secure a greater stake in the industry’s distribution chain. Attempts Thursday and Friday to contact Warren Pettegrow were unsuccessful.
NEW JERSEY: Measuring flounder a complex undertaking with a big impact
March 27, 2017 — It’s likely few people have written more about summer flounder than Mark Terceiro.
Terceiro has published a 44-page journal article about the science, politics and litigation surrounding the species from 1975 to 2000. A 32-page follow-up covered the period from 2001 to 2010, and another article regarding developments in recent years is in the works.
But it’s Terceiro’s summer flounder stock assessment update, released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in December, that has him in the crosshairs of New Jersey politicians and recreational fishing leaders.
That’s because his report led federal regulatory agencies to reduce this year’s summer flounder catch by 30 percent.
Some say the move will cripple recreational flounder fishing, a multimillion-dollar industry in New Jersey that supports bait-and-tackle shops, boat dealerships and other businesses that cater to fishermen.
“It is based on a questionable, out-of-date stock assessment and a flawed modeling,” Bob Martin, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, wrote in a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross last month.
But federal fisheries experts, including Terceiro, say they have confidence in the measurements, which show the flounder population has been “experiencing overfishing” since 2008.
“A stock assessment is one of our best ways to estimate the population and status of a resource we manage,” said Kirby Rootes-Murdy, senior fishery management plan coordinator for summer flounder at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, one of the agencies that regulate the species.
MASSACHUSETTS: Group plans to promote commercial fishing
March 27, 2017 — In many ways, the upcoming year for the Fishing Partnership Support Services organization will be a journey back to its roots in Gloucester, where it all began in 1997.
The Gloucester-based fishing stakeholder, which provides a bevy of financial, medical, safety and other support services to fishermen and fishing families, is planning a yearlong marketing campaign to promote the economic, cultural and health benefits provided U.S. consumers by the commercial fishing industry.
J.J. Bartlett, FPSS executive director, laid out the pillars of the campaign in a quick presentation Thursday night to the Gloucester Fisheries Commission at City Hall.
Bartlett told commission members FPSS envisions the campaign as a vehicle for closing the gap between fishermen and consumers buying their fish, as well as a platform for uniting the industry in the face of the ever-growing appetite for sustainability and accountability.
“The connection between the people that do the work and the people that eat the fish has been lost,” Bartlett said.
The campaign will stretch fully across the state using social media, traditional marketing tools and events, he said.
“It’s really going to be a 12- to 18-month process, starting this spring,” Bartlett said.
He said the schedule includes a large event in Gloucester sometime in August, followed by another in Boston in September.
“We’re going to keep pushing until we change the conversations about what fishermen do and how they’re recognized,” Bartlett said. “Uniting the industry will get us 90 percent of the way there.”
Bartlett also offered some chilling statistics to reinforce the rigors of commercial fishing and the high physical costs that often come from a career on the water.
They include:
Northeast groundfishermen are 37 times more likely to die on the job than police officers. New England waters, according to Bartlett, are the nation’s deadliest.
The Winds Of War Swirl Around Off-Shore Turbines
March 24, 2017 — As a concept, ocean-based wind-energy harvesting is gaining momentum on Long Island – but don’t expect completely smooth sailing for the increasingly popular alternative-generation movement.
Although wind farms are rising around the globe and contributing ever-larger percentages of the electricity flowing through international energy grids, the “green” projects often face stiff opposition – ironically, from environmentalists, and often from commercial fishermen who say the ocean-based platforms disrupt natural breeding grounds and threaten their livelihoods.
Long Island anglers, for instance, are paying close attention to a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, aimed at stopping wind-farm developments off the New York and New Jersey coasts.
Despite the rough seas, Stony Brook University’s Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center is jumping in with both feet. The AERTC is hooking the imminent launch of its Advanced Energy Center Symposium Series – a collection of next-generation energy discussions and workshops uniting industry experts, government officials and assorted stakeholders – on a day-long May 5 event focused on offshore wind, slated to be held at the Montauk Yacht Club.
While offshore wind interests have made progress on Long Island – including LIPA’s January approval of what would (at least temporarily) be the nation’s largest offshore wind farm, to be located 30 miles off Montauk by Rhode Island-based Deepwater Wind – the AERTC is clearly wading into disputed waters.
The May 5 conference is akin to Montauk being swallowed into “the belly of the beast,” according to Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, who said placing wind turbines in the middle of “traditional, historically productive fishing grounds” is a “recipe for disaster.”
Worldwide Industry, NGOs Advocate for Policy Changes in Tuna Fisheries in 2017
March 24, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — A diverse, global group of commercial and non-profit organizations has joined the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation’s (ISSF) call for immediate improvements on tuna management, including developing harvest strategies, strengthening monitoring, control and surveillance tools, and improving the management of fish aggregating devices (FADs).
A March 21 outreach letter to four tuna Regional Fishing Management Organizations (RFMO) was co-signed by 83 nongovernment organizations, tuna processing companies, fleet associations, retailers, importers and food service operators. The RFMOs are IATTC (Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission), ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas), IOTC (Indian Ocean Tuna Commission), and WCPFC (Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission).
These groups manage tuna fisheries in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. In 2015, more than 4.8 million tonnes of tuna were harvested, as reported in ISSF’s recent Status of the Stocks report.
Harvest strategies are based on science-based frameworks that include guidelines and limits for fishing vessels. The tools for monitoring, control, and surveillance include human observers, satellite vessel monitoring systems, electronic monitoring systems on vessels, and data collection and dissemination.
The ISSF-coordinated joint outreach letter urges the RFMOs to:
- Develop precautionary harvest strategies, including specific timelines to adopt target reference points, harvest control rules and other elements
- Where it is not already in place, require 100%observer coverage for all purse seine fishing vessels and all at-sea transshipment activities
- Identify and sanction non-compliance with the existing mandatory 5% observer coverage requirement for longline vessels
- Develop and adopt standards for electronic reporting and electronic monitoring, for all major fishing gear types, and modernize vessel monitoring systems
- Develop science-based recommendations for managingFADs (fish aggregating devices), including for stock assessments
- Adopt measures for using non-entangling FAD designs, to protect sharks and other non-target species
The letter requests that the above points are addressed in 2017.
The letter’s 83 signatories are:
Ahold Delhaize (Global)
Aldi North (Global)
Aldi South (Global)
American Albacore Fishing Association
American Bird Conservancy
American Tuna
ANABAC
Anova (US)
Anova Seafood, BV
AP2HI
Atunlo
Auchan Retail (Global)
BirdLife International
Bolton
Bumble Bee Seafoods
Carrefour (Global)
Casino (FR)
Caterers Choice (UK)
Chancerelle
Client Earth
Conservation International
Co-op (UK)
Coop Italia (IT)
Coop Trading (All Scandinavia)
Davigel
Edeka (DE)
Environmental Defense Fund
Eroski (ES)
Fishwise
Frinsa
Greencore (UK)
Grupo Conservas Garavilla (Isabel)
Grupo Maritimo Industrial (Grupomar)
Herdez del Fuerte
Horizon Fisheries
IPNLF
ISSF
IUCN SSC Tuna & Billfish Specialist Group
Jealsa
Kroger (USA)
Lidl (Global)
Loblaws Canada
M & J Seafood (UK)
Marks & Spencer (UK)
MDPI
Mercadona (ES)
Migros (CH)
MMP
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Morrisons (UK)
New England Seafood International (UK)
Ocean Brands
Ocean Harvesters Operative
OPAGAC
Orthongel
Pacific Alliance for Sustainable Tuna (PAST)
Pesca Azteca
Pick N Pay (South Africa)
Princes
Procesa
REWE GROUP (Global)
RS Cannery
Sainsbury’s (UK)
Salica
SEAPAC (a subsidiary of Kingfisher)
Sodexo (Global)
Spar (Austria)
Spar (South Africa)
Subway
Sustainable Fish Cities
Sustainable Fisheries Partnership
Tesco
Thai Union/COSI
Thai Union Europe
The Nature Conservancy
Thunnus Overseas Group/Conserveries des Cinq Océans
Tri Marine
Tunago Fishery, Ltd.
Warenverein (DE)
Wegman’s (USA)
Woolworths (South Africa)
Worldwise (UK)
WWF
The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) is a global coalition of scientists, the tuna industry and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) — the world’s leading conservation organization — promoting science-based initiatives for the long-term conservation and sustainable use of tuna stocks, reducing bycatch and promoting ecosystem health. To learn more, visit http://iss-foundation.org/.
This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.