June 20, 2024 — Canada will ban open-net salmon farms off the coast of British Columbia by the middle of 2029 in order to help protect dwindling wild Pacific salmon populations, the federal government said on Wednesday.
June 20, 2024 — Governor Ron DeSantis made a South Florida stop Wednesday to announce an additional $5 million in funding to create additional artificial reef habitats. He also announced an extra day for the spiny lobster mini-season exclusively for Florida residents.
The office of the governor says the funding will support the establishment of an innovative framework for installing, overseeing, and preserving artificial reef habitats in the Florida Keys.
Officials close to DeSantis said the governor had previously allocated $9.5 million to Florida’s Coral Reef Restoration and Recovery Initiative.
June 20, 2024 — Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday in the Florida Keys that the has made conservation efforts a top priority and will continue to do so through continued appropriations for coral reef restoration.
“We have done, since I’ve been governor, historic investments and conservation efforts in making sure that Florida’s waterways are clean and making sure that we’re restoring the Everglades so water flows to Florida Bay like God intended,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis said that an important focus of the is coral reefs and supporting the restoration and protection of reefs. He added that no other administration in the history of the state of Florida has done more.
June 19, 2024 — Fortress Credit Corp. has been confirmed as the stalking horse bidder in the auctioned sale of Red Lobster, approved to take place in late July by the judge overseeing the Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.-based seafood restaurant chain’s bankruptcy proceeding.
Fortress, a private investment firm with USD 48 million (EUR 44.7 million) under management and a focus on distressed companies, has become one of Red Lobster’s largest creditors.
June 19, 2024 — Mainers know it’s pogy season when you’re boating along the coast and see a dark underwater cloud with quick shimmers of scales flashing near the surface. Not only are striped bass, tuna, and seals happy, but Maine lobstermen are also happy when they know fresh bait will be available in the near future.
The commercial fishery opened for Atlantic menhaden yesterday in the state, while the non-commercial fishery opened on May 1. A species that occupies coastal waters from Nova Scotia down to northern Florida is believed to consist of a single population, and during mid-June, there seems to be no shortage of them along Maine’s coast.
The preliminary allocation of the Atlantic menhaden quota for the 2024 fiscal year is 24,464,561 pounds. However, this allocation is expected to decrease significantly due to an overage in 2023, when the commercial fishery landings for the species reached 20,036,403 pounds. Despite this, the small-scale fishery continues with open harvest days on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with a daily limit for harvester vessels set at 5950 pounds, according to the Maine DMR.
June 19, 2024 — Four species of sea turtles—Kemp’s ridley, loggerhead, green, and leatherback—are seasonal residents of New England. They arrive in May and June, feeding in our coastal waters through the summer and early fall. When temperatures drop in mid-fall, these reptiles need to migrate south into warmer waters for the winter. However, sometimes their migration is affected by geographic barriers: The hook shape of Cape Cod can trap them within Cape Cod Bay for weeks to months. This puts turtles at risk of being exposed to waters that are too cold for them.
Since they are cold-blooded, sea turtles’ body temperatures mirror those of surrounding waters. When turtles have a low body temperature, they stop feeding; their body systems slow down; their immune systems become suppressed. This is all part of a condition called cold stunning. When cold-stunned turtles wash up on local beaches, they need immediate rescue or they will not survive. Luckily,the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network collects sick, injured, and cold-stunned turtles from beaches and brings them to rehabilitation facilities for medical care.
In Massachusetts, Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary rescues cold-stunned sea turtles off Cape Cod beaches. They bring live turtles to two Massachusetts rehabilitation facilities: the New England Aquarium and the National Marine Life Center. There, turtles are slowly warmed up, given medical care, reintroduced to swimming and feeding, and stabilized. It can take weeks to months for these debilitated turtles to be healthy enough to be released again into the ocean.
June 19, 2024 — The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations, which met in Apulia, Italy, from 13 to 15 June, have issued a lengthy “Communiqué” that includes criticism of Russia’s seafood-trading practices.
The statement covers topics ranging from fostering partnerships in African countries to committing to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.
June 19, 2024 — Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Friday that shells of the invasive European green crab were spotted along the shores of Bostwick Inlet on Gravina Island near Ketchikan.
European green crabs have the potential to wreak havoc on commercial and subsistence fisheries in Alaska — the crabs are highly competitive and very hungry. They eat clams, oysters, scallops, other crabs and are known to rip up seagrass in their search for food. Fish and Game said that as a result, they can displace local crab populations like the Dungeness crabs in Bostwick Inlet. They can also decimate eelgrass and saltmarsh habitats, disrupt ecosystem balance, and cheapen overall intertidal biodiversity.
According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, they have even been reported in British Columbia eating juvenile salmon. The International Union for Conservation and Nature ranks them as one of the top 100 worst invasive species in the world.
June 19, 2024 — The U.S. government on Tuesday acknowledged, for the first time, the harmful role it has played over the past century in building and operating dams in the Pacific Northwest — dams that devastated Native American tribes by inundating their villages and decimating salmon runs while bringing electricity, irrigation and jobs to nearby communities.
In a new report, the Biden administration said those cultural, spiritual and economic detriments continue to pain the tribes, which consider salmon part of their cultural and spiritual identity, as well as a crucial food source.
The government downplayed or accepted the well-known risk to the fish in its drive for industrial development, converting the wealth of the tribes into the wealth of non-Native people, according to the report.
June 18, 2024 — U.S. fishing groups are praising federal lawmakers for incorporating significant fisheries support into a U.S. Farm Bill framework recently released by Senate Republicans.
The Farm Bill is the main piece of legislation governing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and fishing industry groups have been working to use the forthcoming renewal of the law as an opportunity to raise the profile of seafood within the department.