December 7, 2013 — Dwindling stocks, an exclusion zone and patrolling Israeli gunboats all make life difficult for the fishermen of Gaza.
Photographer Gianluca Panella goes aboard for a terrifying experience
Feds order permanent speed limits in right whale turf
PROVINCETOWN, Mass., — December 7, 2013 — The National Marine Fisheries Service will make it a permanent requirement that large ships slow down in Atlantic coast areas where North Atlantic right whales breed and feed.
The federal agency posted its preliminary ruling Friday online and will make it official Monday when the current five-year regulation expires. All aspects of the rule remain in place until circumstances warrant further changes, according to the ruling.
There are 510 right whales in the world, according the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, which compiles population estimates from the latest research. Cape Cod Bay and waters north and east of Cape Cod are feeding areas.
Whale conservation groups contend that ship strikes, fishing gear entanglements and climate change are the whales' greatest threats.
"It's a huge thing," Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conservation in Plymouth, said Friday. "It really is going to give the species an opportunity to recover."
The slow-down rule restricts vessels 65 feet or longer to not more than 10 knots in certain locations at certain times of the year along the Atlantic coast.
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times
Fisherman Tried To Sell Shark Fins To Hawaii Restaurant, Fined $100
HONOLULU — December 6, 2013 — A fishing boat captain has pleaded guilty to trying to sell shark fins to a Honolulu hotel restaurant.
Matthew Brian Case says he finned dead sharks while at sea, with the hopes of selling them to earn extra money for his crew.
Prosecutors say he concealed about 100 shark fins in a hidden compartment of the boat.
Read the full story by the Associated Press at the Huffington Post
Fishery Closure Puts New England’s Shrimp Season On Ice
December 7, 2013 — This week, regulators shut down the New England fishery for Gulf of Maine shrimp for the first time in 35 years. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission judged the stocks of the popular shrimp, also known as northern shrimp, to be dangerously low.
"Shrimp is just one of those treasures in the winter of Maine," says Taylor, who co-owns the upscale Hugo's Restaurant in downtown Portland with Wiley. The restaurant sits just yards from the city's working waterfront and the two pride themselves on serving fresh, local seafood.
Maine shrimp normally hit the menu in January or February. They may not be big — they're about an inch-and-a-half long — but Taylor says they're full of flavor.
"You see them on other menus as 'bay shrimp,' and they're the tiny little tails that come in all those salads," he says. "A lot of those are provided by the state of Maine. They're used frozen all over the country and all over the world."
Wiley says shrimp will be sorely missed this winter, but he understands the rationale behind the moratorium.
"It means one less exciting local product to work with, but we'd like to see Maine shrimp on menus 10 years from now more than we need to have it on the menu for this upcoming year," Wiley says.
Read the full story and listen to the audio at NPR
Protection for baitfish sought by environmental groups
TAMPA, Fla., — December 8, 2013 — When the Asian market developed an insatiable taste for Florida's freshwater turtles, commercial harvesters swept across the state, shipping tons of the native reptiles across the ocean.State officials in 2009 began scrambling to implement protections before global demand could wipe out the creatures.
Audubon Florida and the Pew Charitable Trusts want to head off a similar potential problem with small forage fish that are the major food source for many imperiled bird species, snook and tarpon.
They might be little fish, members of these environmental groups say, but they are a big deal to birds and other marine creatures, and they need protection.
“We need to get ahead of these issues, instead of waiting until there is a dire situation,” said Julie Wraithmell, director of Wildlife Conservation for Audubon Florida. “As some of these new forage fisheries develop, we need to look at how many fish we need to leave in the ocean so birds can continue to recover.”
Many of the coastal birds that depend on forage fish nest and live along the Tampa Bay coastline and on Pinellas County beaches, said Marianne Korosy, coordinator of Important Bird Areas for Audubon Florida.
Fish landings December 9, 2013
December 9, 2013 — The Buyers And Sellers Exchange (BASE), an electronic auctioning company that sells landings at owner Whaling City Seafood Display Auction in New Bedford, Boston’s Whaling City Auction, and Gloucester’s Whaling City Auction, handled 36,900 pounds of fish and 5,500 pounds of scallops Thursday.
Top species landed and average prices were:
Scrod haddock: 4,600 pounds ($1.54)
Medium pollock: 4,500 pounds (92 cents)
Medium hake: 4,000 pounds ($1.21)
Sea scallops, 10 to 20 NLCA: 4,200 pounds ($14.53)
Market cod: 3,500 pounds ($2)
FLORIDA: Recreation, preservation clash at Biscayne National Park
December 9, 2013 — The watery world of coral reefs, undersea shipwrecks and mangrove shorelines of Biscayne National Park has become the scene of a fight over the rights of the public and the needs of nature in our national parks.
Like conflicts over swamp buggies at Big Cypress National Preserve and snowmobiles at Yellowstone National Park, the controversy concerns whether too many people in motorized vehicles — in this case, boats — are harming the natural treasures for which the park was created.
Public meetings begin Monday at the University of Miami on a proposal from the park's leadership to restrict anchoring, fishing and other activities in the park, which encompasses southern Biscayne Bay. But while the plan would impose some limits on fishing, it drops the idea of a 16-square-mile no-fishing zone, a plan that had been hailed by environmentalists and bitterly opposed by fishing groups.
Read the full story at the Sun Sentinel
Success for large-scale cobia air shipments from Belize
December 9, 2013 — Marine Farms Belize has successfully transported close to 170,000 cobia juveniles by air to a farm in Panama. There were two shipments which were sent by a specially chartered Boeing 727-200 from Belize City. The first shipment consisted of 92,000 juveniles and was sent on 6 September, and the second of 95,000 juveniles went on 1 November.
"I believe it was the first time live marine fish have been shipped out of Belize in such commercial quantities," said Jorge Alarcon, CEO of Marine Farms Belize. "Also, I think this was the first time so many cobia had been packed and shipped in a single day by air (in both instances). Normally, cobia juvenile shipments by air consist of a maximum of 20 or 30 large boxes at a time. Ours were 43 and 48 boxes."
The fingerlings, weighing an average 1g each, were selected from two juvenile production runs at the hatchery directed by juvenile production manager Willy Meresse and totaled close to 250,000 fingerlings combined.
"We aimed to produce 100,000 juveniles each time," Alarcon said, "but in the second cycle we obtained higher survival than expected (about 20 percent from newly hatched larvae to 1g). We would normally produce in excess of what is ordered and take out the smallest individuals to ensure we ship the best performing fish to our clients.
Read the full story at Seafood Source
Canceling of Gulf of Maine shrimp season a heavy blow
December 4, 2013 — Fishermen will lose income and shrimp processors fear their industry will be harmed worldwide because of regulators’ decision Tuesday to cancel the 2014 shrimp fishing season in the Gulf of Maine in response to the species’ collapse.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted to close the Gulf of Maine to shrimping after a harvest last winter that was the smallest since the last shutdown of the fishery, in 1978.
“We are screwed,” said Mel Cushman of Port Clyde, whose husband, Randy Cushman, has been fishing for shrimp and groundfish for more than 30 years. “Shrimping is half of our (yearly) income. We don’t know what we are going to do.”
North Atlantic shrimp provide a small but valuable fishery for New England fishermen, with several hundred boats going after them using nets and traps. About 85 percent to 90 percent of the annual harvest in the Gulf of Maine is typically caught by Maine boats.
This summer, a survey indicated that the northern shrimp stock was at its lowest level since the annual trawl survey began in 1984. A report released Nov. 21 by the fisheries commission’s Northern Shrimp Technical Committee concluded that the stock has collapsed.
The report recommended a moratorium on shrimping in 2014 to maximize the species’ spawning potential. It attributed the collapse in part to warming ocean temperatures.
Pacific salmon abundance still near record levels
December 9, 2013 — Data compiled by its member countries during the 21st annual meeting of the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission shows that Pacific salmon abundance in the North Pacific remains at near record high levels, the NOAFC said in late November.
The meeting took place Nov. 12-15 in an email format for the first time in the commission's history, with 71 participants from NPAFC member countries Canada, Japan, Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the United States.
The vast majority of North Pacific salmon originate from NPAFC member countries, the organization said in comments from Vancouver, British Columbia headquarters.
Initial North Pacific-wide 2013 commercial catch data indicate catches of 313,800 tons of pink salmon in Alaska, 241,292 tons in Russia and 13,171 tons in Canada, plus catches of 101,395 tons of chum salmon in Russia and 65,120 tons in Alaska. Catches of Chinook salmon remain at low levels, with reported landings of 1,640 tons in Alaska, 512 tons in Russia and 214 tons in Canada.
Read the full stoy at The Cordova Times