September 16, 2013 — The National Marine Fisheries Service is offering vessel owners a chance to avoid having to carry a fishery observer in 2014.
The agency plans to exempt up to 14 boats that agree to take part in a pilot project to test electronic monitoring systems.
Find out more at the Deckboss Blog
August 16, 2013 — Alaska’s record salmon season has permit brokers hopping as buyers seek to break into or expand their opportunities in many fisheries.
Notably, brokers say there is “a lot of great buzz” at Bristol Bay, despite a lackluster sockeye fishery that saw the bulk of the red run come and go eight days early.
“Prior to the season the drift permits went for under $100,000, but we just sold one for $125,000,” said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer. Most of the bump is due to optimism about the sockeye base price of $1.50/lb, a $.50 increase from last year.
Data from the state Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission show that Bristol Bay driftnet permit values have remained near or well over $100,000 since 2010, and increased steadily each year after dropping below $20,000 in 2002.
This summer also was a great one for salmon seiners, which has driven up interest in those fishing permits.
“These folks had good seasons and made some money. They’re going to be looking to expand their operations, pick up another permit, another boat or upgrade,” Bowen said.
Salmon seine permits at Southeast Alaska have the distinction of being the highest priced at more than $300,000.
Read the full story at The Fish Site
NEW BEDFORD, Mass., — September 17, 2013 — The following was released by the organizers of the New Bedford Working Waterfront Festival
The Working Waterfront Festival presents a Festival Sampler, Friday, September 27th from 7:30-9:00 pm at the New Bedford Whaling Museum Theater. The ten dollar ticket helps support the free Festival. Seating is limited; tickets will be sold at the door, with advance tickets available through the Festival web site.
Designed to whet the appetite of festival goers, the evening will feature songs, stories and poetry presented by ten performers who hail from fishing communities in Newfoundland, New England, Alaska and the Chesapeake Bay: Anita Best (traditional songs and stories from Newfoundland), Calico Jack (music and poetry celebrating the people, places and history of the Chesapeake), Janice Marshall (parodies drawn from a life in the Maryland crab fishery), Daisy Nell & Captain Stan (traditional and original songs about the seafaring heritage of Essex, MA), Jon Campbell (original poetry and songs about commercial fishing and coastal communities), Jon Broderick, Jay Speakman, and Dave Densmore (poetry and songs about the Alaskan fishing industry). In addition, a retrospective slide show chronicling the first nine years of the event will be shown.
As always, the Festival brings together a unique array of music, storytelling, and poetry. Performances include traditional sea chanteys and music reflecting the fishing industry’s ethnic diversity as well as songs, stories, and poetry about commercial fishing and the sea often performed by musicians who work in the industry. In addition to the performers taking part in the Friday concert, the Festival line up includes: Sharks Come Cruisin’ (sea chantey punk), Joao Cerilo & Pilon Batuku (Cape Verdean funana and batuk), Ana Vinagre (Portuguese fado), SAMspill (Norwegian music), Souls of the Sea (folk-rock), New Bedford Harbor Sea Chantey Chorus. Songwriters Michael Troyand Joanne Doherty, and poet Charlotte Enoksen will also perform. Performer bios and a full festival schedule are available on the festival web site.
The Working Waterfront Festival is a project of the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern MA, a non-profit organization. The FREE festival, a family friendly, educational celebration of New England's commercial fishing industry, features live maritime and ethnic music, fishermen's contests, fresh seafood, vessel tours, films, author readings, cooking demonstrations, kid's activities and more. It all takes place on working piers and waterfront parks in New Bedford, MA, America's #1 fishing port, on the last full weekend in September. Navigate to us at www.workingwaterfrontfestival.org.
September 17, 2013 — BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has taken a step toward making his state’s battered fishing industry eligible for federal disaster assistance from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Earlier this month, Patrick officially certified that Massachusetts fishermen who chase bottom-dwelling groundfish had suffered ‘‘substantial economic injury.’’
He cited the poor health of key fish stocks and this year’s devastating cuts in the allowed catch.
Patrick wrote further in a letter to the SBA that the industry has been so economically damaged, that federal subsidized loans are essential.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe
September 13, 2013 — After suffering from another plunge in fishing-industry business tied to federal catch limits, Scott Memhard wonders how much longer his Cape Pond Ice Co. can remain open.
A half-mile away on Gloucester’s waterfront, Sheree DeLorenzo Zizik wonders when she can finally start work on a new 101-room hotel at the site of a former Birds Eye food plant to serve the influx of tourists this city has seen over the past few years.
The plights of the two companies — a struggling ice maker serving fishing boats since 1848 and a partnership hoping to build a gleaming new hotel hosting out-of-town visitors — shows how this city of nearly 30,000 residents is slowly transforming amidst a depression-like downturn in the local fishing industry.
The transition hasn’t been painless or simple. The industry’s decline has prompted city officials to explore changes to the allowable developments within its port area, in anticipation of potentially opening up some of the land to non-fishing uses. These efforts have raised concerns that city officials could go too far and permanently alter the waterfront’s character, making it tougher for the fishing industry to rebound if the strict catch limits are eventually lifted.
For now, though, the fishing industry seems more concerned with survival. Commercial fishermen are reeling in the wake of new groundfish restrictions that took effect on May 1. “It’s horrible,” said Russell Sherman, owner of the 72-foot Lady Jane trawler in Gloucester. “My catch is way down (by more than 20 percent), and I’m trying to sell my boat. We operate on only a 10-percent margin. But I can’t sell the vessel because no one wants it. There’s no way out of this business, except maybe just to bail out.”
Read the full story at the Boston Business Journal
September 13, 2013 — Governor Andrew M. Cuomo visited Montauk on Thursday morning to call for updating flounder regulations that he argues stifle the state fishing industry—otherwise the state will sue. Mr. Cuomo urged the U.S. Department of Commerce to immediately reassess regulations on the number of summer flounder that may be caught legally by commercial or recreational fishermen and said the state is prepared to file suit to ensure that the fishermen get a fair deal.
Read the full story from The East Hampton Press
PORTLAND, Maine, — September 11, 2013 — Maine’s lobster industry is trying to market its brand more broadly and increase sales of the state’s best-known seafood.
Now, Maine’s lobster industry is trying to market its brand more broadly and increase sales of the state’s best-known seafood.
The annual marketing budget for lobsters will increase more than sixfold to $2.2 million under a law taking effect in October, launching what some call a new era for the industry.
The goal is to get more people in the U.S. and abroad to buy Maine lobster and related products at restaurants and in stores, while increasing prices to help fishermen boost their incomes.
Marketing was little more than an afterthought in the lobster industry before the 1990s, when the annual catch was typically 20 million pounds or less. That changed in 1991 with the creation of the industry-funded Maine Lobster Promotion Council, a small operation whose budget last year was about $370,000.
But the lobster harvest has ballooned to previously unimagined levels — a record 127 million pounds was hauled in Maine last year — and prices have remained low since tanking when the global economy went sour in 2008.
Read the full story at the Times Dispatch
September 15, 2013 — A mystery of sorts threatens to stunt Massachusetts' small but growing oyster industry after illnesses linked to bacterial contamination forced the state to shut down beds for the first time ever.
The culprit is the Vibrio parahaemolyticus bacterium, which has occurred in state waters since the 1960s. Theories abound about the recent increase in illnesses linked to Massachusetts — but those are only theories.
"Honestly, I'm confused by the whole thing," said Don Merry, an oyster grower from Duxbury, where oyster beds have been closed.
Average monthly daytime water temperatures in the region rarely approach the 81 degrees believed to be the threshold that triggers dangerous Vibrio growth. Rising average water temperatures locally, while not reaching that threshold, could be causing environmental changes that cause strains of Vibrio to thrive, said Suzanne Condon, associate commissioner of the Department of Health.
In addition, virulent Vibrio strains that aren't as temperature-sensitive may have been carried from overseas in ships' ballast water in the past decade, said the state's chief shellfish biologist, Michael Hickey.
Meanwhile, it has been only six years since states were required to report Vibrio illnesses to federal officials. So testing for it is relatively slow and underdeveloped and can't yet predict, for instance, if outbreaks are coming, Hickey said.
The bacterium causes gastrointestinal problems, including vomiting and cramping, but the illness is generally severe only in people with weakened immune systems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the U.S. has about 4,500 cases of Vibrio infection annually.
Read the full story by Jay Lindsay of the Associated Press at the Cape Cod Times
September 16, 2013 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The following was released by Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay:
Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay thanks the over 650,000 people who expressed their support for protecting Bristol Bay from harmful mining development in the most recent public comment period for EPA’s draft Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment. In numbers released today, nearly 75% of the over 895,000 comments supported the assessment, which detailed the risks associated with large scale hard rock mining in the region. Bristol Bay is home to a vibrant and lucrative commercial fishery, which supplies nearly 50% of the world’s wild sockeye salmon, sustains 14,000 jobs, and a $1.5 billion annual economy.
“Commercial fishermen across Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and throughout the United States understand just how special the Bristol Bay fishery is,” said Bob Waldrop, Executive Director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association. “We are extremely thankful to the hundreds of thousands of others who agree that Bristol Bay is worth protecting for both current and future generations of fishermen. Bristol Bay’s fishermen have spent decades building a strong brand for Bristol Bay seafood; we simply can’t risk that hard work and investment by allowing foreign mining companies to build North America’s largest open pit mines where our salmon spawn.”
The comments coming from Alaska provided even stronger support for the assessment, with over 84% (or nearly 5,000) of comments supporting the EPA protecting Bristol Bay. In Bristol Bay, 98% or 1,206 of the 1,227 comments welcomed the EPA’s assessment.
Commercial fishermen were among the original groups who petitioned the EPA to use its Clean Water Act authority to protect Bristol Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine. The EPA’s Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment, which was conducted in response to the petition, is expected to be finished later this year and will inform the agency on future regulatory decisions in the region.
The assessment is based on realistic mining scenarios derived from official documents filed by the Pebble Limited Partnership, the foreign mining conglomerate behind the proposed Pebble Mine. Even without incident, the mine’s footprint would destroy the spawning habitat for the nearly 40 million salmon who return to Bristol Bay each year.
For more information and breakdown on the comments, please click here.
MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. — September 16, 2013 — North Carolina fisheries officials are trying to protect Flipper by banning people from fishing with nets within 100 yards of beaches along most of the state's coast.
The effort to protect bottlenose dolphins takes effect Sunday.
The new rule bans small-mesh gill nets within 100 yards of most beaches. Exceptions are for Bogue Banks between Cape Lookout and Bogue Inlet and between Carolina Beach Inlet and the South Carolina line. The nets hang vertically in the water and allow a fish's head to pass through the meshes before snaring its gills when it tries to back out.
Read the full story by the Associated Press at the Times Union