State and Local

Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker says he views the federal government's new regulatory system for groundfish as a "borderline tragedy" to the industry, and one that is based on sketchy science. At a campaign "Town Hall meeting" stop at the Gloucester House Saturday morning, he wondered why Gov. Deval Patrick, who is running for a second term, has not joined the legal challenge mounted by fishing interests and the cities of Gloucester and New Bedford. "The federal government is putting the screws to the fishing industry in ways that will over time decimate it," Baker told a morning gathering of about two dozen people, including the commercial fisherman Joe Orlando and Christine Sherman, wife of commercial fisherman Russell Sherman. Baker fit the struggles of the fishing industry into his "Had enough?" campaign stump speech, which identifies excessive taxation, overregulation and business costs as the three anchors dragging the state's economy behind the region's and nation's. He criticized the current regulatory policy as so "unpredictable and unreliable."   Read the complete Gloucester Times story      

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Mayor Scott W. Lang honored Captain Martin Manley and Howard W. Nickerson in perpetuity with the Mayor’s Professional Mariners Award and announced Harriet Didriksen as the 2010 award recipient at the Commercial Marine Expo on June 9.

Harriet Didriksen was honored for her work constantly fighting for fishing families, the fishing way of life, and the American dream. She steadfastly attends New England Fisheries Management Council meetings from Connecticut to Maine, and never misses a gathering where she can help fishermen oppose government bureaucrats’ undue interference. Didriksen is a regular at hearings in Washington – which she attends at her own expense – and is a tireless advocate. She owns the F/V Settler and is owner and operator of New Bedford Ship Supply, one of the oldest ship chandleries on the East Coast. She also owned the F/V Bagatell, which is now an educational vessel at Stony Brook University. Didriksen’s father dragged in the winter and scalloped in the summer. He emigrated from Norway to Brooklyn and moved to New Bedford to be closer to Georges Bank. Her uncles were also fishermen. Her brother is a shore-side business and vessel owner. She is the mother of two.

The late Capt. Martin “Marty” Manley was a commercial fisherman for 38 years, and at the age of just 19, was one of the youngest skippers out of the Port of New Bedford. Manley was a tireless advocate for the commercial scallop fishing industry. He was recognized as an industry leader and received numerous awards and accolades, including Helmsman of the Year from the Port of Gloucester. He was a member and former president of the Offshore Mariners Association. During his career, he owned and operated several scallopers along the eastern seaboard, the last being the F/V Mary Anne, which he designed, built, and operated with great pride. He served as the director of the City of New Bedford Harbor Development Commission, and later served as manager of the Popes Island Marina until his retirement in 2007. The building of that marina was one of his life’s accomplishments. He served as a member of the New Bedford Redevelopment Authority and the Economic Development Commission.

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today [subscription site]

NOTE: The Standard-Times is a subscription site.  Unregistered visitors are able to read three stories per month, and registered visitors may view ten.  For unlimited access, please follow the subscription instructions on the site.

 

 

 

 

 

Gloucester's mayor and state legislative delegation will host fishermen and others tied to the commercial fishing industry Friday morning in a City Hall meeting to exchange insights and track problems in the six-week-old rollout of Amendment 16 — the new groundfishing regimen that mixes catch share fishing cooperatives and "common pool" holdouts still working independently.

The meeting in Kyrouz Auditorium will be hosted by Mayor Carolyn Kirk, state Sen. Bruce Tarr and state Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante and is scheduled to run from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The session is the second of its kind hosted by Kirk, Tarr and Ferrante. The first was held May 7. That was less than a full week after the May 1 start of the fishing year, when the new regulatory scheme debuted to exasperated complaints that the system was filled with conceptual and technical glitches.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Jersey anglers find themselves in the strange position of opposing a regulation that would give them more fish to catch.

The issue is striped bass, a game fish that migrates between North Carolina and Maine.

A proposal from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, or ASMFC, would allow greater commercial catches all along the East Coast.

Recreational fishermen, or anglers, normally oppose greater commercial catches amid worries there will be fewer fish for them to catch. Recreational and commercial fishermen have fought such battles for decades.

Read the complete story at The Press of Atlantic City.

 

 

 

 

 

Boston — Decrying new federal regulations he said could devastate the Massachusetts fishing industry, Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker called Democratic Congressman Barney Frank his “new hero” for taking on the Obama administration on the issue.

Frank, the head of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, is frequently the target of criticism from across the aisle, often serving as a target of Republican mockery. He has called the federal regulations on New England fisheries, which took effect May 1, “completely unworkable” and a “radical change” that could harm commercial fishermen in New Bedford and Gloucester.

The regulations, aimed at limiting overfishing, implement a system of “catch shares,” which limits the total number of certain species of fish that may be caught in one season. Under the plan, fisheries and individual fishermen may buy and sell catch credits. If a company reaches its limit on any of 19 species of groundfish, regulations preclude it from catching any additional fish for the rest of the season.

Read this Wicked Local Gloucester story in full

 

 

The slick from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill edges closer to Florida's westernmost panhandle, yet as of this writing Florida beaches and waterways remain clean and oil free.  Florida's gulf coast guides indicate the weather and fishing are better now than last year at this time yet they are experiencing massive cancellations of charters due to rumors and speculation about the oil spill's effects on Florida waters.

The oil spill's negative impact on the charter, tourism and commercial seafood industries has prompted Florida Governor Charlie Crist to send a letter to the United States Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke requesting him to make a declaration of a commercial fishery failure in Florida under the provisions of Section 312(a) of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

"…news reports helped foster the mistaken impression that the entire Gulf of Mexico has been tainted by the oil spill.  This misinformation has affect tourism and seafood consumption in Florida and resulted in severe economic impacts throughout the state." claims Governor Crist.

Read the full story at World Fishing Network TV

 

 

The ground fish regulations that went into effect May 1 remain the number one controversial topic, in an industry that gets more controversial daily.

For as long as the federal agency has been trying to manage marine fisheries, fishermen, scientists, environmentalists and others have been critical of federal practices and policy.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the run up to the May 1 deadline, an army of litigants has gathered around the National Marine Fisheries Service fortress in Gloucester. Towns, states, politicians, and fishing organizations are filing suit against NMFS.

Fisheries scientist Dr. Brian Rothshield has been calling for the dissolution of the management council system as it exists. He set it up 30 years ago. Rothshield was in Washington the last week of April trying to convince congress to make changes to the fisheries bill they were voting on.

Read the complete editorial at Fishermen's Voice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my fishing career, I recycled myself into my new career as a marine surveyor.

As for the rest of the fishermen in there, all I can say is you have somebody who will always support the industry. Even after I sold my license I did go to Washington, DC. Whenever there is a rally or meeting, I will be there. Whenever there is a vote, whenever there is anything a fisherman needs from me, I promise I will be there forever.

In light of BP, the oil companies and the oil slick coming up the coast, how do you think that affects regulation?

Read the complete story at Fishermen's Voice.

 

 

 

 

 

Tourists around the nation travel to Myrtle Beach looking for fun, sun, and local seafood cuisine. What these tourists don't know is that fresh-caught seafood is hard to come by these days.

Harsh fishing regulations are keeping fresh fish off the menu and out of local markets, including mine. Regulations are also hurting jobs: Right now I have seven boats — with three crew-members each — tied to the dock. I was born the son of a commercial fisherman and have worked in the fishing industry since I was 13. I run my family's small fish house and fishing business out of Murrells Inlet.

I'm a young guy who would like to own the family business one day. That is, if it can last that long. Now I constantly ask myself if I should find another job.

When fishing seasons do open up again, our fishermen will have to race to catch as many fish as they can before they're off limits again, even in bad weather. This is dangerous — I have seen crews and boats lost in bad weather as recently as last week — amid nothing more than a race to the end of the fishing industry.

There is a ray of hope.

Catch shares, a fisheries management concept with a strong history of rebuilding fisheries and commercial fishing, reduces the need for closures and keeps fishermen working on the water, all the while aggressively rebuilding depleted fish stocks.

Read the complete story at The Sun News.

Groundfishermen in Maine are fishing under a new management system, and no one is sure how the fish stocks, or the fishermen, are going to react.

Under the new system, called sectors, fishermen can choose to opt into a "sector" with other like-minded fishermen in order to work together to catch a certain percentage of the overall fish available during that season.

Maine's fishermen have divided into three different sectors, each with their own mission, goals and rules.

Fishermen see different potential benefits in the new system. According to Soule, "one of the hopes that our fishermen have is that this new system will encourage the reduction of discards in the industry. Discards were required in the days-at-sea system. Under the sector management system, discards of legal sized fish are prohibited. I think its something that all fishermen like."

Fishermen are able to avoid catching fish they would otherwise discard because, according to Dority, "you now have the opportunity and flexibility to move around and look for fish." Under the previous days-at-sea management system, time was limited and fishermen were forced to catch whatever they could catch as quickly as they could catch it.

Libby sees another benefit to the new management system, "One of the things you hear about, even where there are more fish, is that the quotas are wrong. Sectors will provide more science because of all the monitoring and observing that's required. We're going to have a much clearer picture of what's going on in the Gulf of Maine."

There has long been frustration for both fishermen and scientists about the lack of information available with which to manage fish. According to Libby, "You have to have good science for people to have trust in it."  With the shift to sectors, which requires a much higher level of monitoring, "you're going to have more real-time data and the quotas are going to be more accurate."

Libby admits that this could mean a cutback in quotas over the short term, however he believes that "ultimately it's going to speed up the recovery and make things better for the long term."

This isn't to say that the transition to sectors will be easy for Maine's fleets. There is fear that individuals and boats could go out of business, and nobody wants to see that happen in an already hard-hit fishery. "People feel trepidation about the new management system," says Soule. "About half of our boats have gone fishing at this point. The jury is still out at this point in time. Folks are still trying to puzzle out how to work under this new management system."

However, coming out of a days-at-sea management system that did little to benefit Maine's fleet, there is hope that sectors will give fishermen more control over their own destiny. As Dority says, "The challenge for sectors is thinking; how can we use sectors to change how we are doing business, bring the fish back, and make sure we have our fishing communities?"

Read the complete story at The Working Waterfront.