June 19, 2012 – Sen. Charles Schumer (D, NY) has scheduled a new Congressional oversight hearing on the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Omega Protein catches up, fish oil yields down
June 15, 2012 – Omega Protein Corp., a nutritional ingredient company and the nation's leading vertically integrated producer of omega-3 fish oil and specialty fish meal products, today announced an update on its fishing efforts as of the close of business on June 8, 2012, the end of the eighth week of the Company's 2012 fishing season.
As of June 8, 2012, the Company's total fish catch was at approximately 162,200 short tons, a 29 percent increase compared to the corresponding eight-week period in the 2011 season, and a 68 percent increase compared to the Company's five-year average through week eight.
Omega Protein's fish oil yields were lower by 27 percent compared to those in the comparable eight-week period in the 2011 fishing season and were lower by 45 percent compared to the Company's five-year oil yield average through week eight. Total yields decreased 9 percent compared to the first eight weeks of the 2011 fishing season, and decreased 13 percent compared to the Company's five-year average through week eight with the decreases due primarily to the lower fish oil yields.
"We are pleased with our strong fish catch and fish meal production, despite experiencing disappointing fish oil yields season-to-date," commented Bret Scholtes, the Company's president and CEO. "Going forward, we remain focused on managing the controllable aspects of our business and we will continue to work on improving our marine operations to best position the Company to capitalize on improvements in market fundamentals as they may occur for fish meal and fish oil."
Sen. John Kerry: On Eve of Rio+20, An Honest Assessment of Climate Change Challenge
June 19, 2012 – The following was released by Senator Kerry's office:
WASHINGTON, DC – As world leaders meet this week for the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, delivered a major floor speech today urging U.S. action to combat the threat of global climate change.
The conference, which takes place June 20 – 22 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, marks the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio, which Senator Kerry attended along with almost every other conference held.
“Twenty years ago this month, a Republican President of the United States helped bring together all the world’s largest economies in Rio to confront the issue of global climate change. The President was unequivocal about the mission. George Herbert Walker Bush said simply, ‘The United States fully intends to be the world’s preeminent leader in protecting the global environment,’” said Sen. Kerry. “How dramatic and sad it is that twenty years later, shockingly, we find ourselves in a strange and dangerous place on this issue—a place this former President wouldn’t even recognize. When it comes to the challenge of climate change, the falsehood of today’s naysayers is only matched by the complacency of our political system…We should be compelled to fight today’s insidious conspiracy of silence on climate change—a silence that empowers misinformation and mythology to grow where science and truth should prevail. It is a conspiracy that has not just stalled, but demonized any constructive effort to put America in a position to lead the world on this issue, as President Bush promised we would and as Americans have a right to expect we will.”
Senator Kerry is the leading advocate in the United States Senate for action to address international climate change. In 2010, he formed a tri-partisan climate effort with Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to produce the “American Power Act,” comprehensive climate change legislation in the Senate. In 2009, the Senator traveled to China to urge leaders to join the upcoming “cap and trade” negotiations ahead of the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, where he helped forge a political agreement on global greenhouse gas reduction. He has also represented U.S. at international climate negotiations for two decades: Rio,’92, Kyoto, ’97, Buenos Aires, ’98, The Hague, ’00, Bali, ’07, Poznan, ’08, and Copenhagen, ’09.
View the video of Sen. Kerry’s floor statement here.
Maine’s Lobster Advisory Council considers whether renaming soft-shell lobsters would increase demand
June 19, 2012 – The state's Lobster Advisory Council, as part of a broader initiative to rebrand Maine lobster to increase demand and boost prices, is considering recasting the name of the soft-shell lobster as something more … attractive.
"Not that many people have nice things to say about soft-shells," John Sauve, a consultant for the Lobster Advisory Council and president of the Food and Wellness Group in Portland, said last week at a meeting of lobstermen.
Soft-shells are lobsters that have molted recently, shedding their old hard shells so they can grow into new, larger shells. They have less meat per pound than hard-shells, but that meat is perceived as more tender and sweet. And they're easier to crack and eat.
So what's so bad?
For Maine's lobster industry, whose catch was worth more than $331 million last year, the problem is that soft-shells fetch lower prices because they have less meat and they're too fragile to pack and ship long distances.
Read the full story from the Portland Press Herald.
Tuna fishermen fear smaller quotas
June 19, 2012 – Fishery managers are considering new regulatory alternatives for Atlantic bluefin tuna — majestic fish that can fetch thousands of dollars each — but New England fishermen fear the rule changes could result in smaller quotas for them.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been holding hearings on various options that will be developed into new regulations aimed at protecting and rebuilding tuna populations. The new regulations will go into effect in 2014.
The possible measures focus on bluefin that are inadvertently caught by boats fishing for swordfish, yellowfin tuna and other species in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Eastern Seaboard.
Those boats can keep a small number of the bluefin they catch, but have to throw most of them back into the sea, even though they're dead.
New England fishermen who catch bluefin with rods and reels and harpoons are worried their quotas could be cut to account for the "sins" of other boats with their dead discards, said Rich Ruais, executive director of the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Association, which represents rod-and-reel and harpoon fishermen.
In a worst-case scenario, he said New England fishermen could lose more than 100 tons of annual quota, a catch worth millions of dollars. Last year, U.S. commercial and recreational fishermen were limited to about 950 metric tons, which equates to about 3,800 fish.
Read the full article from the Associated Press.
New England tuna fishermen fear smaller quotas
June 18, 2012 – Fishery managers are considering new regulatory alternatives for Atlantic bluefin tuna — majestic fish that can fetch thousands of dollars each — but New England fishermen fear the rules changes could result in smaller quotas for them.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been holding hearings on various options that will be developed into new regulations aimed at protecting and rebuilding tuna populations. The new regulations will go into effect in 2014.
The possible measures focus on bluefin that are inadvertently caught by boats fishing for swordfish, yellowfin tuna and other species in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Eastern Seaboard. Those boats can keep a small number of the bluefin they catch, but have to throw most of them back into the sea, even though they're dead.
New England fishermen who catch bluefin with rods and reels and harpoons are worried their quotas could be cut to account for the "sins" of other boats with their dead discards, said Rich Ruais, executive director of the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Association, which represents rod-and-reel and harpoon fishermen.
In a worst-case scenario, he said New England fishermen could lose more than 100 tons of annual quota, a catch worth millions of dollars. Last year, U.S. commercial and recreational fishermen were limited to about 950 metric tons, which equates to about 3,800 fish.
Read the full story from the AP at the Boston Globe.
Hearing Tuesday to consider tuna regulations
June 14, 2012 – Fishery managers are considering new regulatory alternatives for bluefin tuna that New England fishermen fear could result in smaller quotas for them.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been holding hearings on different options that will be developed into new regulations aimed at protecting and rebuilding tuna populations. The new regulations will take effect in 2014.
Possible measures now being looked at focus on bluefin that are inadvertently caught and discarded by boats fishing for swordfish, yellowfin tuna and other fish from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada.
The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Association says New England fishermen who catch bluefin with fishing rods or harpoons are worried their quotas could be cut to account for the dead discards.
A public hearing will be held in Portland on Tuesday.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times.
CANADA: Science, not politics, should be at the heart of fisheries
June 16, 2012 – Four good men with extensive government experience tried to stop the Harper government. Predictably, they failed – predictably, because this government listens to almost no one who actually knows about given policy fields.
In this instance, four former ministers of Fisheries and Oceans from previous Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments pleaded with the Harperites not to water down environmental protection for fish habitats.
“A competent science establishment and vigorous enforcement programs are essential to protect fish stocks and the habitat on which they depend,” wrote former ministers Thomas Siddon, Herb Dhaliwal, John Fraser and David Anderson.
Too late. The government monster budget bill that assaulted the traditions of parliamentary oversight by lumping together all sorts of unrelated measures was already steamrollering through the Commons when the former ministers’ letter arrived. Part of the bill they deplored gutted protection for certain fish habitats, since this government is much more interested in clearing paths for pipelines, roads, bridges and other pieces of infrastructure than worrying about fish.
Neither the brave four, nor any other experts in the field of fisheries (or other scientific fields for that matter), can deter this government once its mind is made up. And this government, as is repeatedly seen, cares little for environmental protection.
Read the full story at the Globe and Mail.
In New England, the fishing stinks
June 16, 2012 – It's a weekday morning, and the cavernous refrigerated hall of the Portland Fish Exchange — the country's oldest wholesale fresh-fish auction — is at a 10th of capacity.
It's not a bad day, given the state of the Gulf of Maine's fisheries, but all told there are just 25,000 pounds of product on the floor. Bert Jongerden, the exchange's general manager, estimates that the publicly owned facility is on target for 5 million to 6 million pounds in 2012, ahead of the record low of 3.8 million pounds in 2010, but a fraction of the 20 million pounds it took in annually in the 1990s.
"We're limping along, but you can't plan adequately because the science is so speculative," Jongerden said, alluding to the federal fisheries service's recent radical downward revisions of the health of New England's cod populations. "No one has any faith in the science anymore."
"Everyone's trying hard to stay in business," he said of the fishermen who still land their fish in Maine. "They've got so much capital investment in this they can't just bail on it, so they hope the government can get the science straightened out."
Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service released its annual report on the status of the nation's fisheries.
The report, released May 15, indicated that management is working and that fish stocks are, in fact, improving.
According to the report, six once-threatened fish populations had been rehabilitated to healthy levels over the previous year, from Bering Sea snow crab to summer flounder on the mid-Atlantic coast.
Over the past 11 years, 27 damaged stocks have been declared rebuilt, leaving just 45 to be restored out of the 219 that the agency tracks.
Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald.
Rep. Keating forms fishing advisory panel
June 16, 2012 – In an effort to improve communication between Congress, the fishing industry and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which manages federal fisheries, Rep. William Keating has put together a fishing advisory panel that he says will seek to promote greater transparency and cooperation among those involved.
"It became clear to me after the hearings in Boston with NOAA about a year ago that it was a three-legged stool and there were no strong lines of communication," he said. "It doesn't have to be like that."
Keating is currently running against Bristol County District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter for the Democratic nomination in the new 9th Congressional District.
The advisory group is an informal one, according to Dr. Brian Rothschild of UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and Technology. "But we hope it's the beginning of a new way of doing things," he said.
The panel met for the first time in Plymouth this week and fishermen from along the Massachusetts coast met with representatives from the state and congressional delegations and fishery scientists to share ideas and information.
"It's always helpful to meet outside of the fishery council process and see where people can agree," said Tom Dempsey, policy director for the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association, who also serves on the New England Fishery Management Council.
The meeting provided an opportunity for stakeholders to discuss the difficulties facing the fishing industry, according to Keating.
Cooperative research for stock assessment, more industry involvement in surveys and more frequent assessments were among the topics of greatest concern. The group will meet periodically as needs arise, he said.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times.