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CNN photojournalist John Bena introduces us to a new delicacy that may help save the Chesapeake Bay.

See the video from CNN.

 

 

 

 

 

A free health fair coordinated by Addison Gilbert Hospital, the Healthy Gloucester Collaborative and the U.S. Coast Guard, is slated for Saturday.

And it will have a special focus — local fishermen and their families.

Gloucester's first Fishing Families and Friends Health & Safety Day is slated to run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and will feature health screenings and health information on such issues as ultra-violet screening, smoking cessation, prostate screening, diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol screenings.

The event will also provide services on body mass and bone density screenings, pain management, Hepatitis A & B vaccinations, tetanus and H1N1 shots, HIV & Hepatitis C testing, stress management, posture and balance screening and health insurance information and sign up.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

 

 

 

 

 

The Obama administration next week reintroduces to the nation the rough outlines of an offshore ocean aquaculture policy dating back more than a decade, which while still lacking specifics, offers powerful economic incentives if environmental, technological and political problems can be solved.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where the policy template has resided since the Clinton administration, announced a series of "listening sessions" in Rhode Island, Louisana, Washington state, Hawaii and California to be followed by a national call-in event on May 6.

The first listening session will be held in Narragansett, R.I., next Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Corless Auditorium on the Narragansett Bay campus of the University of Rhode Island.

The launch of the ocean aquaculture policy begins four days after the public comment period on the pending catch share program closes Saturday. The radical transformation of the wild stocks from shared ownership into allocated catching rights ripe for investment has dominated the national debate on oceans and fishing almost from the moment Jane Lubchenco was confirmed by the Senate to head NOAA 13 months ago.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

 

 

 

 

 

A Queensbury grocery and department store was among six stores statewide found selling frozen seafood that illegally included the weight of ice in the price, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Markets.

The Super K-Mart at 308 Dix Ave. allegedly sold overpriced frozen shrimp supplied by a New Jersey seafood packer, said department spokeswoman Jessica Ziehm.

Ziehm said the stores, also located in Batavia, Canandaigua, Rochester, Queens and Hauppauge on Long Island, received warning letters. She said no stores in the immediate Capital Region were part of the state survey.

The state is considering enforcement action or penalties against seafood packers, she added. The overpriced shrimp sold at the Queensbury K-Mart was supplied by Eastern Shrimp Co. of Teaneck, N.J., Ziehm said.

Read the complete story at The Times Union.

 

 

 

 

 

Over 1 billion people across the world rely on fish as their main source of protein, mostly in developing countries.

In America, fish consumption is rapidly increasing with the growing awareness of its health benefits. Due to overfishing, over 70% of the world's fish are either fully exploited or depleted. As a result, fish farming, or aquaculture, has quickly stepped up to meet the demands of fish consumption. While there are methods of sustainable and environmentally friendly fish farming, many of the current methods employed are unregulated and can be extremely harmful to the environment.

See the photos at The Huffington Post.

The value of the halibut catch is more than triple that of a few decades ago and reflects halibut's transformation from a blue-collar staple to a pricey seafood that retails for more — often far more — than $10 a pound. The harvests also have undergone a radical transformation from a pressure-packed derby to a system of individual catch shares that some see as a 21st-century blueprint for reforming other troubled U.S. fisheries.

"From Florida to Alaska, catch-share programs help fishing communities provide good jobs while rebuilding and sustaining healthy fisheries," said Jane Lubchenco, a U.S. Commerce Department undersecretary.

Gjerde claims his shares with the help of a five-man crew. In a grinding season that stretches from April through early September, Gjerde and each of his crew often make more than $100,000.

In 1995, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, a federal group with appointees drawn largely from the industry, imposed radical reforms. For the first time, vessel owners would receive quota shares for halibut and black cod that could be fished each year or sold for what the market would bear.

Crew members were not awarded shares.

Critics decried the quota system as an inequitable privatizing of a public resource. They said it would shut newcomers out of the fishery, or take away dollars the government might have earned by leasing out rather than giving away fishing rights.

Others said the quota shares were a just reward for years spent fishing for halibut and would give the remaining vessel owners the opportunity to fish in a safer, more leisurely fashion and produce a higher-quality product.

A federal study showed that fishery safety improved greatly under the new system. Fish quality also improved as crews took more time to clean, dress and then quickly ice the catch. Prices rose as fish moved onto the market over a period of months rather than swamping buyers after a short season.

Gjerde and other schooner skippers were big winners. Today, most schooner skippers hold shares of black cod and halibut worth $2 million to $6 million, according to industry officials.

But there is a limited market for these shares. Most shares can only be sold to other qualified fishermen. These rules were crafted to keep the shares out of the hands of investors with no connection to the fishery.

Even heirs of fishermen can't hold onto the shares unless they, too, venture out to sea. That means that Gjerde's two children, a daughter who works as a paralegal and another daughter now raising children, couldn't keep the shares without a big change in lifestyle.

Read the complete story at The Seattle Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to order the emergency closure of Chicago-area shipping locks to prevent voracious Asian carp from slipping into the Great Lakes, leaving disappointed environmentalists and state officials vowing to continue their fight.

In a one-line ruling, the nation's highest court for the second time rejected a request by Michigan and several other Great Lakes states to issue a preliminary injunction shutting the locks in the increasingly desperate battle against the invasive fish, which have migrated up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers toward the lakes after escaping from fish farms in the South decades ago.

Asian carp often leap high out of the water when boats are near. They can weigh 100 pounds and consume up to 40 percent of their body weight daily in plankton, the base of the food chain for Great Lakes fish. Many fear that if they reach the lakes, the invaders could lay waste to a $7 billion fishing industry by starving out competitors such as salmon and walleye.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

From Multispecies fishery bulletin, March 2010.

A sector is a group of vessel permit holders who voluntarily agree to fishing measures and procedures in exchange for a share of the total catch allocated to the industry.

NOAA fisheries service does not consider groundfish sectors to be Limited access Privilege Programs (LaPPs) because [1] sector vessels are not issued a federal permit nor a permanent allocation and [2] a vessel owner can choose to join a sector or not, and can change his/her decision from one year to the next, and fish in another sector or in the common pool, based on what he/she considers the best opportunity at that point in time.

Read the Multispecies Fishery Bulletin here.

The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is "fluid" and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn't issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.

Fishing industry insiders, who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force, had grown concerned that the public input would not be taken into account.

"When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to end one of the best scientifically managed big-game hunts in North America (spring bear), the results of their agenda had severe economic impacts on small family businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario," said Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano. 

Read the complete story at ESPN.

 

Maine's lobstermen are working harder for less, as demand drops for their expanding harvest.

Lobstermen pulled in a robust 76.3 million pounds in 2009, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. That's the largest harvest in years, according to state records and estimates, but only in terms of volume.

The 2009 take was worth $223.7 million, which is about $22 million less than the prior year, according to the department. State statistics show that the harvest has dropped in value, year-to-year, since 2005, when it totaled nearly $318 million.

Read the complete story at CNN Money.