| August 24, 2015 — JERRY’S UPDATE
Jerry’s comments will be sent separately later this week. SOUTHERN FLOUNDER SUPPLEMENT VOTE POSTPONED The Marine Fisheries Commission did not vote on the proposed supplement to the southern flounder plan at its business meeting last week as expected. More information will be posted as it becomes available. ASMFC FINDS DELAWARE OUT OF COMPLIANCE WITH AMERICAN EEL PLAN The ASMFC has found the state of Delaware out of compliance with the mandatory management measures contained in Addendum III to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Eel. The commission has notified the secretaries of Commerce and the Interior of its finding. This action was taken pursuant to the provisions of the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act of 1993. For more information see the news release. NMFS MAINTAINS CURRENT BLUEFIN TUNA COMMERCIAL LIMIT The National Marine Fisheries Service maintains the current Atlantic bluefin tuna general category (commercial handgear) daily retention limit of four large medium or giant bluefin (i.e., 73″ or greater) per vessel per day/trip for Sept. 1 through Dec. 31, 2015. This adjustment is intended to provide a reasonable opportunity to harvest the U.S. bluefin tuna quota without exceeding it, while maintaining an equitable distribution of fishing opportunities; help achieve optimum yield in the fishery; and collect a broad range of data for stock monitoring purposes. For more information see the news release. REGULATION AND RULE CHANGES: -South Atlantic Gag and Wreckfish Catch Limits Change Effective Sept. 11 -Atlantic Mackerel Slippage Consequences Measures Effective Sept. 11 -USCG Mandatory Dockside Inspections Required Effective Oct. 15 DEADLINES: Aug. 26 – Green Sea Turtles ESA Uplisting Comments Aug. 31 at 5 p.m. – Snapper-Grouper Regulatory Amendment 36 Comments Sept. 1 – SAFMC Snapper-Grouper Draft Vision Blueprint Comments Sept. 4 – Cape Fear River Restoration Scoping Document Comments Sept. 10 – NMFS Updated Draft Acoustic Guidelines Comments Sept. 14 – NMFS Generic Amendment to Snapper-Grouper, Golden Crab and Dolphin-Wahoo FMPs Comments Sept. 17 – 2016 Commercial Atlantic Shark Season Comments Sept. 21 at 5 p.m. – 2016-2018 Atlantic Herring Research Set Aside Applications Oct. 2 – MFC Proposed Rules Comments MEETINGS: If you are aware of ANY meetings that should be of interest to commercial fishing that is not on this list, please contact us so we can include it here.
Aug. 31-Sept.1 – ASMFC Menhaden Ecosystem Management Workshop Sept. 9 at 6 p.m. – MFC Rules Public Hearing, DMF Central District Office, 5285 Hwy 70 W, Morehead City Sept. 9-10 – Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel Meeting, Sheraton Silver Spring Hotel, 8777 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring, MD and via webinar PROCLAMATIONS: COMMERCIAL AND RECREATIONAL SHARK HARVEST CRAB TRAWLING AND TAKING SHRIMP WITH NETS (OPENING CAPE FEAR RIVER) |
Massachusetts: Oars and Flowers: Gloucester Remembers Lost Fishermen
August 25, 2015 — There were tears — there always are — as the flowers were thrown on the water, recognizing Gloucester’s many losses to the sea.
There were Carol Figurido, Vincie Curcurum and Josie Russo, Gloucester women who lost loved ones to the ocean deep. They were just three among the many who attended Gloucester’s annual Fishermen’s Memorial Service held Saturday evening at the Fishermen’s Memorial on Stacy Memorial.
Figurido spoke of her grandfather — and the 5,383 other Gloucestermen whose names grace the Fishermen’s Memorial Cenotaph — at the ceremony. She came to know Thomas Isaac Moulton through relatives and family history. A ship’s cook, Moulton, 48, and five other Gloucestermen went down with the fishing vessel Mary E. O’Hara in 1941, before Figurido was born.
Vincie Curcuru lost her brother, John Orlando, 59, when the fishing vessel Patriot went down on Jan 3, 2009. He was crewing for his son-in-law.
Seafood technology: When ‘net’ means more than catching fish
August 24, 2015 — For generations Maine’s fishermen have used nature — both their own internal sense of navigation and measurements like water temperature — to find rich fishing grounds. But with increasing competition, broader distribution, more government regulations and a desire by customers to trace food sources, the seafood industry is turning to technology to help automate tasks from the boat through the dock, processors, distributors, wholesalers, retailers and onto the consumer’s plate.
“Boat to Plate” is one such nascent effort by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association and other collaborators. The goal is within a few years to create a database including the boat, fisherman, catch, distribution and other information so the seafood can be traced if there’s a food safety issue, and so consumers can download an app to learn about the fish on their plate using a QR or quick response code, the two-dimensional code that contains and retrieves more information more quickly than a traditional bar code.
“We’re thinking of ways to get more value out of fish and catch more fish,” explains Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association in Brunswick. “Farmers are successful [in the farm-to-table movement]. Until recently, we haven’t been.”
Gulf Council Shifts Red Snapper Quota
August 25, 2015 — Debate over regional management of the Gulf of Mexico recreational red snapper fishery moved from Washington, D.C. to the Crescent City as the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council met for the fourth time this year. In a highly contested vote, the Council voted to remove snapper quota from the commercial fishery while allocating additional quota to the recreational sector.
The Council’s action on Reef Fish Amendment 28 would allocate the increase in allowable harvest due to recalibration of Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) catch estimates to the recreational sector. The resulting allocation for 2016 – 2017 would be 48.5% commercial and 51.5% recreational.
For years, Amendment 28 has gone through numerous iterations as it has been under consideration by the Gulf Council. The current red snapper fishery is divided almost 50-50 between the commercial and recreational sectors. Some alternatives considered in Amendment 28 could have shifted millions of pounds of fish and done untold damage to commercial fishermen, the seafood supply chain, restaurants and grocery stores.
The Council’s final action will retain a portion of the commercial red snapper quota in 2016 to ensure that the IFQ quota intended for reallocation is not distributed among commercial fishermen before Amendment 28 is implemented.
“Gulf Council members friendly to the commercial coalition were able to defeat Alternative 9, the effort to take approximately 1.2 million pounds of red snapper from the commercial sector, but were unable to stop the motion to reallocate 380,000 pounds of our commercial quota,” said Gulf Seafood Institute (GSI) Board President Harlon Pearce, owner of Harlon’s LA Fish in New Orleans. “Amendment 28 was passed with an allocation change of approximately a 2.5% shift in the recreational fishery’s favor, and is now being sent to the Secretary of Commerce for final approval.”
Read the full story at the Gulf Seafood Institute
Can Boston’s Cult-Favorite Sushi Bar Cut It in New York?
August 25, 2015 — You know from that first bite of nigiri, a ripple of Japanese amberjack under pureed banana pepper, that you’ve arrived at the beginning of something good. The fish has been torched at the counter, and it’s glossy with melted butter. The rice is this close to falling apart in your fingers. It’s simply composed, but every element—fish, pepper, rice—is on the same level, warm and mellow and soft around the edges, like three friends who’ve been smoking from the same pipe all afternoon.
Boston-based restaurateurs Tim and Nancy Cushman opened their sushi bar O Ya in South Boston back in 2007. A year later, then-New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni declared it one of the best new restaurants in the country. Some dishes the Cushmans served back then have made it over to their new location, which opened a couple of months ago in Manhattan’s Curry Hill; the bare, sliced chanterelles and shiitake mushrooms under a sesame-flavored froth, for example, are still slick with a beloved rosemary-garlic oil.
Read the full story at Bloomberg Business
Massachusetts: 15 shoreside businesses to receive disaster aid
August 25, 2015 — In this case, for Gloucester and 15 of the city’s shore-side businesses, the glass is decidedly half-full.
Those Gloucester businesses comprise precisely half of the 30 Massachusetts businesses that will receive groundfish disaster aid.
Collectively, they will receive by far the largest portion of the $750,000 set aside to assist shoreside businesses affected by the federally declared ground fish disaster now grinding through its third year.
The 15 Gloucester fishing-related enterprises — the most from any single Bay State groundfishing community — will share $380,360, or 50.7 percent of the $750,000 included in the second phase, or Bin 2, of the federal groundfish disaster relief distribution plan.
Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said the city’s success in garnering more than half of the available aid earmarked for businesses underlined the city’s prominence at the epicenter of the groundfish disaster, both on the water and on the waterfront.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times
NEFMC Asking for Additional Comments on Herring Amendment 8
August 24, 2015 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:
The New England Fishery Management Council is in the process of preparing an environmental impact statement for Amendment 8 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan. Amendment 8 would specify a long-term acceptable biological catch control rule for the herring fishery and consider alternatives for this control rule that explicitly account for herring’s role in the ecosystem. The Council recently decided to expand the scope of Amendment 8 to include consideration of localized depletion in inshore waters. During this comment period, the Council is only seeking comments on the expanded scope of Amendment 8.
DATES: Written scoping comments must be received on or before 5 p.m., local time, September 30, 2015.
ADDRESSES: Written scoping comments may be sent by any of the following methods:
• Email to the following address: comments@nefmc.org;
• Mail to Thomas A. Nies, Executive Director, New England Fishery Management Council, 50 Water Street, Mill 2, Newburyport, MA 01950; or
• Fax to (978) 465–3116.
• Please indicate ‘‘Herring Amendment 8 Re-Scoping Comment’’ on your correspondence.
Requests for copies of the Amendment 8 scoping document and other information should be directed to Sherie Goutier, New England Fishery Management Council, 50 Water Street, Mill 2, Newburyport, MA 01950, telephone (978) 465–0492, ext. 102. The scoping document is accessible electronically via the Internet at www.nefmc.org/library/amendment-8-2.
For further details, please visit http://www.nefmc.org/news/herring-amendment-8-scoping-comment-period-extended-to-september-30-2015
ASMFC Atlantic Herring Area 1A Days Out Meeting Notice
August 24, 2015 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
Atlantic Herring Section members from the states of Maine and New Hampshire and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are meeting via conference call on August 26, 2015 at 2:30 p.m. to discuss “days out” effort control measures for the 2015 Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) fishing season from June 1 to September 30 (Trimester 2).
The 2015 Area 1A sub-annual catch limit is 30,290 metric tons (mt) after adjusting for the 2013 carryover, 3% Herring Research Set-Aside awarded in 2015, and 295 mt fixed gear fishery set-aside. The Section set the seasonal split as 72.8% allocated from June 1 – September 30 and 27.2% allocated from October 1 – December 31. As of August 13, the cumulative catch for 1A has reached 12,597 mt, representing 41.59% of the quota.
Fishermen and other interested parties are welcome to listen in and participate at the Chair’s discretion. Join the conference call by dialing 1.888.394.8197 and entering the passcode 499811 when prompted and register for the webinar at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5681527693678231297 .
Please contact Ashton Harp, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at 703.842.0740 or aharp@asmfc.org for more information.
International Experts to Review Innovation, Trade Relationships at World Seafood Congress
August 24, 2015 — GRIMSBY, UK — Innovations in processing technology and global supply chain solutions will be revealed by a panel of international speakers at next month’s World Seafood Congress (WSC).
The programme, which includes speakers from the US, Brazil, Vietnam and Australia, will discuss how developments in technology and trade relationships can improve the catch and supply of seafood products globally.
Innovation in seafood testing and processing technology
Cristiane Neiva from the Fishery Institute of Brazil will discuss the benefits of investing in new technologies for the fish filleting process. The presentation will give the industry a first look at how technology could generate higher yields and help boost consumption.
From the US, Dr Keith Cox from Seafood Analytics, will explain how emerging technologies can give more accurate readings on the quality and freshness of seafood, in comparison to traditional sensory testing techniques.
Nguyen Van Minh, from the Faculty of Food Technology at Vietnam’s Nha Trang University, will also provide insight into how the industry can produce more accurate sensory test results by adjusting the way fish is prepared for freezing.
Recycling old fishing nets is catchy concept
August 23, 2015 — A Bay State native’s upcycling firm is turning discarded fishing nets — a significant source of ocean pollution — into skateboards and sunglasses, with the backing of the New England Aquarium.
“We had been all around the world and we had seen the global issue of ocean pollution,” Buero Inc. co-founder Ben R. Kneppers said, adding that fishing nets account for about 10 percent of marine pollution. “We wanted to see if we could create an innovative solution to prevent this material from entering the ocean.”
Patagonia has partnered with Kneppers and his partners, David M. Stover and Kevin J. Ahearn, to put the “Minnow” skateboard on the shelves of more than 90 stores across five continents, and the skateboards are now available for purchase in the aquarium gift shop as well.
The company, based in Chile, started two years ago and Kneppers said the New England Aquarium and Northeastern University, his alma matter, were two of the biggest initial backers.
Read the full story at the Boston Herald