August 14, 2013 — The following was released by NOAA's Ocean Service: Read the Capitol Hill Ocean Week 2013 Summary Report
PEI government offering lobster fishermen low interest loans
SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [Seafoodnews.com] By Jack MacAndrew — August 14, 2013 — Charlottetown PEI, The government of Prince Edward Island has opened the vault to lobster fishermen in financial trouble because of low prices for their catch during the spring season.
"We are re-opening and expanding the Fishers Low-interest Loan Program because we know there are fishers who have good prospects for long – term sustainability in this province, provided they are able to get some help with their current financial challenges , " said Innovation and Advanced learning Minister Allen Roach, in making the announcement.
Fishermen in LFAs 24 , 25 and 26A are eligible for the financial help . After the PEI Lending Agency has conducted due diligence , a bona fide lobster fishermen in LFAs 25 and 26A will be eligible to borrow up to $CDN200,000, while a fisherman in LFA 24 may borrow up to $CDN300,000.
Participating fishermen must agree to give the province "… a first security interest over all fishing related assets and power of attorney over all fishing licenses".
A four per cent interest rate will be charged on the loans over the next six years , but may be renewed at the expiration of the first term of the loan.
" This really helps , especially the young fishers , " commented Mike McGeoghegan , President of the PEI Fishermen's Association.
Mr.McGeoghegan says some fishermen may need their current payments to be forgiven because they do not have the money to pay them.
The newly renovated program will be offered to fishermen currently not in debt to the provincial lending agency , and to the 260 fishermen who are paying on outstanding loans.
However , Minister Roach warns there will be no blanket forgiveness on loans currently in default.
" If they meet the requirements , everything is on the table , " he said."We're not here to try to put any fisherman out of business".
The PEI Lending Agency has issued a list of guidelines which must apply to fishermen seeking a new loan. They must hold a valid lobster fishing license from the department of Fisheries and Oceans ; and they must have a net cash position of "… less than $CDN40,000 per annum…".
A fisherman's debt must be directly attributable to fishing activity , and any loans made under the program "… cannot be used for capital acquisition , or to acquire licenses."
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It has been reprinted with permission.
MAINE: Two men found guilty of criminal elver fishing, sentenced to pay $4,250
August 13, 2013 — BELFAST, Maine — The smelts were just a red herring.
That was the determination of Judge Susan Sparaco Tuesday afternoon in Belfast District Court, after overseeing the criminal trial of two Hancock County fishermen who were charged with fishing for elvers without a license. The two men said they’d been fishing for smelts with their finely-meshed dip nets one night this April in the Goose River in Belfast, but Sparaco didn’t buy it.
“The story just does not stand up in my mind,” she said before finding the men guilty of all charges. “It really defies credibility that they would travel so far to go to a river not known for smelting.”
Ralph E. Fowler, Jr., 41, of Franklin, and Gregory A. Trundy, 49, of Hancock, may be the first in the state to face a criminal trial for charges related to fishing for the tiny, lucrative glass eels. Fishing for elvers without a license became a criminal offense on April 23, the same day that Matthew Talbot and Wesley Dean of the Maine Marine Patrol spotted Fowler and Trundy fishing with headlamps and dip nets in the Belfast river.
Sparaco sentenced the men to pay fines of $4,250 each but did not sentence them to any jail time. The class D crime of elver fishing without a license carries a mandatory $2,000 fine. Additionally, they were charged with fishing for elvers during a closed period, which also carries a mandatory $2,000 fine and elver fishing while standing in the water, for which they were fined $250 each.
Defense attorney Ferdinand Slater of Ellsworth said that his clients will appeal their convictions.
“They were fishing for smelts, not elvers,” he said after the trial concluded. “The evidence, in my opinion, doesn’t support a conviction of beyond reasonable doubt of fishing for elvers.”
Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News
MASSACHUSETTS: All’s quiet at sea during shark expedition
August 14, 2013 — CHATHAM, Mass. — Michael McCallister, a fisheries scientist from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, believed he might have a chance to use his ultrasound wand Tuesday, running it down the sides of a pregnant great white, hoping for a glimpse of her pups.
Instead, McCallister wielded a modified roofing tool pulping sardines in a 5-gallon bucket, turning them into brown mush that he emptied into a barrel of fish heads. Seawater sluiced through the barrel and emptied into the sea creating a slick of fish oil and bits that fanned out behind the stern of the 167-foot modified Alaskan crab boat OCEARCH.
Chum is used to attract sharks so that they can be caught, but Tuesday was the 10th day of fishing on the great white shark expedition off Chatham without catching one of the large predators that hunt the seals that frequent the Northeast's largest gray seal colony. The OCEARCH has been anchored within sight of Monomoy for more than two weeks, astride what scientists hoped was a great white shark highway.
Expedition leader Chris Fischer pointed to an orange buoy that marked the submerged receiver that had recorded the most frequent hits from acoustic tags on great whites.
"We're following the data," Fischer said. Although they had encountered 10 white sharks, they proved to be picky eaters.
"They don't want anything to do with the bait," Fischer said, before stepping off the mother ship onto a 28-foot vessel that would search for sharks closer to shore.
The OCEARCH expedition, which is funded mainly by Caterpillar Tractors, has had success elsewhere. In 2011, they tagged more than 40 great whites off South Africa. Last winter, they placed electronic trackers on one shark near Jacksonville, Fla., and two in Chatham last summer.
But the Chatham sharks were not attracted to baited hooks and were hooked by hand as they passed the boat. In retrospect, Fischer felt he may have misjudged his success in other countries where cage diving is allowed and is prevalent and where sharks are accustomed to having bait and chum in the water.
"It's like ringing a dinner bell," he said.
Fischer still has plenty of time with three weeks remaining on the permit that allows him to catch and tag sharks in state waters. And he wouldn't rule out the option of asking for an extension to the permit.
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times
Cape Cod Lobstermen oppose gear changes
CHATHAM, Mass. — August 14, 2013 — The region's commercial lobster fishermen want no changes in federal rules governing vertical ropes in the water as they face proposals meant to protect rare whales.
About 60 people attended a public hearing Tuesday hosted by federal regulators at the community center, one of 16 hearings held in August and September along the East Coast.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Fisheries Service is attempting to tighten regulations that protect rare North Atlantic right whales, humpbacks and fin whales from getting killed or seriously hurt from commercial fishing gear.
The regulations have changed over the years to address whale entanglement in gillnet and trap/pot gear. But more protection is needed to prevent the whales from getting entangled in vertical lines that hang from a single buoy at the water's surface to a trap on the ocean floor, federal officials say.
Along the Massachusetts coast, the idea favored so far by federal regulators would close waters along the Outer Cape and east of Chatham to trap/pot fishing from Jan. 1 through April 30. The favored approach would require more than one trap/pot on a single vertical rope, called a trawl, depending on region and distance to shore, and fishermen would have to put more and bigger identifying tags on both trap/pot and gillnet gear.
Rhode Island Menhaden fishermen upset over low quotas
August 14, 2013 — Last week the Atlantic Menhaden advisory panel of the RI Marine Fisheries Council met to review new catch limits and management plan amendments that will go to public hearing this week. Both commercial and recreational fishing community representatives at the meeting expressed concern over the extremely low quota the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) assigned to RI. The quota, based on the historical catch of Atlantic Menhaden landed in RI, is so low that it effectively eliminates any fish being caught commercially and landed in RI (this includes fish sold to bait shops for striped bass fishing). For years out-of-state fishermen have caught fish in RI but landed them in other states. Millions of pounds of fish have been caught in RI, however, they have not counted toward our quota as they were landed in other States. The advisory panel urged DEM fish managers and ASMFC representatives to be very vocal about the low quota and demand more fish for RI.
Meeting participants suggested the quota be based on fish caught in RI waters as DEM has records of fish caught in the Bay as all commercial boats fishing in the Narragansett Bay Management Area for Atlantic Menhaden call in and out when fishing in RI and are required to report the amount of fish taken.
Mr. G. Goodwin of Seafreeze Ltd., Rhode Island (one of the largest producers of sea-frozen fish on the east coast), said, "Atlantic Menhaden were part of our plans and now we are completely shut out of the fishery. We planned on catching fish in federal waters and in other states and would then have the product brought back to RI for marketing. These plans are now impossible with this management plan."
The Marine Fisheries Divisions of DEM will solicit public comment on Atlantic Menhaden and a variety of other proposed commercial management plan regulation amendments this week. The meeting will take place Thursday, August 15, 2013, 6:00 p.m. at the University of Rhode Island, Graduate School of Oceanography, Corless Auditorium, South Ferry Road, Narragansett, RI. Visit www.dem.ri.gov for details.
Commercial and recreational fishermen are urged to attend this meeting as it is one of the opportunities we have to express our point of view on fishing regulations in RI.
Protection of Mid Atlantic corals conflicts with squid fishery
DOVER, Del. — Members of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council discussed options for protecting deep sea coral from being damaged by commercial fishing as the panel began a three-day meeting in Wilmington Tuesday.
The council last year initiated an amendment to a management plan for Atlantic mackerel, squid and butterfish to protect deep sea corals from impacts of bottom-tending fishing gear in the Mid-Atlantic.
It is aimed at protecting areas known or highly likely to contain deep-sea corals, which provide habitat for many commercially and recreationally important fish species. According to the council, deep sea coral species in the mid-Atlantic do not form large reefs but are fragile and slow-growing, making them vulnerable to physical disturbances.
The proposals include establishing both broad and discrete coral zone areas, and responses ranging from no action to prohibiting all bottom-tending gear.
On Tuesday, members of the council’s ecosystems and ocean planning committee wrestled with how to balance the goal of coral protection with the interests of commercial fishermen. After lengthy debate, committee members voted to add an exemption for short-finned and long-finned squid fishing to the list of proposed alternatives for management measures for discrete coral zones.
The full council — which includes representatives from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — was to review the proposed alternatives on Wednesday.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Post
The price of fish: Fish are getting more expensive, but they do not all move at the same speed
August 10, 2013 — It is a good time to be a fisherman. The global fish-price index of the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) hit a record high in May. Changing consumer diets, particularly in China, explain much of the sustained upward movement. High oil prices, which increase the cost of fishing and transportation, also add to the price of putting fish on the table.
Not all fish are created equal, however. There are two types of fish production: “capture” (or wild) and “aquaculture” (or farmed). And they seem to be on different trajectories. Fish such as tuna, the majority of which is caught wild, saw much bigger price increases than salmon, which are easier to farm. Overall, the FAO’s price index for wild fish nearly doubled between 1990 and 2012, whereas the one for farmed fish rose by only a fifth. What explains this big difference?
The amount of wild fish captured globally has barely changed in the past two decades. The ceiling, of about 90m tonnes a year, seems to have been reached at the end of the 1980s. Overfishing is one reason, as is the limited room for productivity growth, particularly if consumers want high quality.
Patrice Guillotreau of the University of Nantes tells the story of a fleet in France that decided to trawl, rather than line-catch, its tuna. It brought more back to shore, but the fish were damaged. It could not be sold as high-value fillets and was only good for canning. The old ways of catching fish are still best if you want the highest profits, says Mr Guillotreau.
In contrast, the farmed-fish industry continues to make productivity improvements. Fish farms have found crafty ways to use lower quantities of fishmeal as feed. In the early days of aquaculture, it could take up to ten pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of salmon. Now the number is down to five. That may still be an inefficient use of protein, but the ratio is set to improve further. Fish farms have also become more energy-efficient, meaning that they are less affected by higher energy prices. And they have learned how to handle diseases better, reducing the quantity of fish that ends up being unsellable.
Read the full story at The Economist
MAINE: First elver cases against Passamaquoddy fishermen dismissed on technicality
August 12, 2013 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Three members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe who were facing civil charges of fishing for elvers without a license have had their cases dismissed because they were charged using the wrong paperwork.
Dozens of members of the tribe are facing civil and criminal elver charges as a result of a dispute between the state and the tribe over what kind of authority the tribe has to determine how many elver fishing licenses it issues to its members. Elvers are juvenile American eels, which are in great demand in Asian markets.
This past March, just as the lucrative elver season was set to begin, the state set a limit of 200 licenses for the Passamaquoddys but the tribe instead issued 575. In response, the Maine Department of Marine Resources declared all but 200 of the tribal licenses to be invalid.
Tribal officials have said they have legal authority to manage their fishery and to issue as many tribal elver licenses as they see fit. In March, however, Maine Attorney General Janet Mills issued a legal opinion that indicated Maine’s “tribal members are subject to Maine’s regulatory authority over marine resources to the same extent as other Maine citizens.”
Before April 23, when fishing for elvers without a license became a criminal offense, any first offense for the infraction was considered a civil violation under Maine law.
In Hancock County, tribal member Christopher Neptune was facing a civil charge of fishing elvers without a license but the charge was dismissed on Aug. 1 by Ellsworth District Court Judge Bruce Mallonee, according to court documents.
Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News
MASSACHUSETTS: Working Waterfront Festival to Collect Fish Tales
New Bedford, Mass., — August 13, 2013 — The following was released by the Working Waterfront Festival:
Anyone who has worked the waterfront or fished the sea for any length of time has tales to tell. The Working Waterfront Festival and the NOAA Fisheries Voices from the Fisheries Project wants to hear them and will partner once again to collect Fish Tales at the 10th Working Waterfront Festival September 28 and 29 in New Bedford.
Storms and close calls, unusual catches, workplace pranks, and tales from the home front are among the many topics fishermen and others from the industry are invited to share at the Fish Tales Tent. Stories recorded during the Festival will be archived and shared through the Voices from the Fisheries website and Working Waterfront Festival publications. Recordings from last year’s festival can be found at www.voices.nmfs.noaa.gov by searching Fishtales under Collections on the Search page of the website.
The Working Waterfront Festival has been collecting and sharing stories since 2004 through their Narrative Stage, Oral History Project, Radio Series and Publications. Voices from the Fisheries is a website based, central repository for oral histories related to the fisheries of the United States. Created in 2007, the website has become a resource for those interested in the lives and experiences of those who fish our nation’s waters. It currently houses over 500 oral histories, the majority of which are from the Northeast Region, along with podcasts focused on key themes or collections within the archive.
The Working Waterfront Festival is a project of the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern MA, a non-profit organization. A family friendly, educational celebration of New England's commercial fishing industry, the festival is free and features live maritime and ethnic music, fishermen's contests, fresh seafood, vessel tours, author readings, cooking demonstrations, kid's activities and more. It all takes place in New Bedford, Mass, America's #1 fishing port. Navigate to us at www.workingwaterfrontfestival.org.
NOAA’s Voices from the Fisheries is a central repository for consolidating, archiving, and disseminating oral history interviews related to commercial, recreational, and subsistence fishing in the United States and its territories. It is part of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Social Science Branch’s efforts to better understand the human dimensions of marine fisheries – http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/read/socialsci/ – and funded by the NOAA Office of Science and Technology. To learn more, visit www.voices.nmfs.noaa.gov