Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Aquarium’s New Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life to Focus on Fisheries Conservation, Aquaculture, Marine Mammal Health, Research

June 10, 2016 — The New England Aquarium is celebrating the launch of its new Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life in Boston, a scientific institute focusing on fisheries conservation and aquaculture solutions, marine mammal research and conservation, habitat and ecosystem health, and marine animal health – a major new initiative for the Aquarium.

“The New England Aquarium has done excellent research and conservation work for 40 years,” said Nigella Hillgarth, the Aquarium’s President and CEO, who marked her second anniversary in late May and sees the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life as the culmination of her work to date to raise the profile and public understanding of the Aquarium’s vital marine science work internationally.

“The idea of combining our strengths to create a center of excellence that can focus on solving some of the anthropogenic problems of the oceans was the right thing to do,” particularly around climate change, said Hillgarth who sought to create the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life so scientific research can help shape international conservation policy.

Hillgarth and the Aquarium’s Board of Directors joined Massachusetts Environmental Secretary Matthew Beaton, National Geographic underwater photographer and Aquarium Explorer in Residence Brian Skerry along with other dignitaries on Wed. June 8 to celebrate the launch at the Aquarium’s Simons IMAX Theatre.

Read the full story at Newswise

Gloucester seafood executive indicted on tax fraud charges

June 9, 2016 — The U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston has indicted Richard J. Pandolfo, a senior executive at Gloucester-based National Fish & Seafood, on four counts of filing false federal tax returns between 2009 and 2012.

The Pandolfo indictment, unsealed Wednesday night, comes seven months after Jack Ventola, then president and part-owner of National Fish & Seafood, stepped down following his federal indictment on conspiracy to defraud the United States government by failing to pay taxes on about $2 million in income he received between 2006 and 2009.

The Ventola case has not yet gone to trial, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston.

According to the federal indictment, Pandolfo, 70, of North Andover, received about $95,000 in “supplemental income” from Ventola — some directly to Pandolfo and others to his wife — and did not accurately report or pay taxes on about $90,000 of it.

The indictment also alleges that other payments were made to a shell company established in the name of Pandolfo’s wife, who is not named in the indictment, and were directed to it through a shell company controlled by Ventola.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Chinese travel pros test Gloucester’s waters — and lobster

June 9, 2016 — The world, it seems, keeps coming to Gloucester. And eating pretty well when it’s here.

The last two years have seen the city’s international profile grow significantly through its participation in events such as the Seafood Expo North America in Boston and subsequent city-organized visits to America’s oldest seaport by seafood buyers from around the world.

In April, the city hosted a large delegation of Chinese seafood buyers and executives to lay the groundwork for potentially generating more seafood trade — particularly lobsters — between Gloucester and the most populous country on the planet.

Each of the events has usually involved a luncheon showcasing the bounty of seafood that local fishermen pull from the waters around Cape Ann and the Gulf of Maine.

On Wednesday, the city shifted gears a bit by welcoming a group of 10 travel and tour professionals from Sichuan Province in southwest China. The group is being hosted by the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism to explore bringing more Chinese tourists to Massachusetts — and, by extension, Gloucester.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Judge sets new hearing date for indicted fishing magnate Carlos Rafael, sheriff’s deputy

May 26, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The next scheduled court date for indicted fishing magnate Carlos Rafael is a June 22 status conference in Boston, and a trial would have to begin by early September should the case go that far, according to court documents filed this week.

The status conference also will include indicted Bristol County Sheriff’s Office deputy Antonio M. Freitas, a 46-year-old Taunton resident. The conference will be held at U.S. District Court in Boston, and signals the transfer of Rafael’s and Freitas’ cases from Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy to District Court Judge William G. Young.

This week’s documents also shed light on when potential trials for Rafael and Freitas could begin.

Prosecutors’ indictment of Rafael and Freitas was unsealed May 9, and Freitas appeared in court that day, meaning the Speedy Trial Act would require a trial to begin within 70 days of that initial appearance. Young ruled this week, though, to start the 70-day clock at the June 22 status hearing, rather than May 9. A motion requesting the extension had been agreed upon by prosecutors and defense counsel.

“They might want a little time to stall and delay in order to explore a plea bargain,” said Boston criminal defense attorney Peter Elikann, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bar Association and legal analyst who is not involved in either case.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Sheriff’s deputy charged with smuggling in fishing scheme

May 10, 2016 — BOSTON — A Bristol County sheriff’s deputy has been indicted on charges he helped a New Bedford fishing mogul smuggle profits out of the country.

Antonio Freitas, of Taunton, was arrested Monday for bulk cash smuggling and related crimes.

Prosecutors say Carlos Rafael, who owns Carlos Seafood, Inc., lied to federal authorities for years about the quantity and species of fish his boats caught to evade federal quotas.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Boston Globe

Carlos Rafael, New Bedford’s ‘Codfather’, indicted on 27 counts

May 9, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Local fishing magnate Carlos Rafael has been indicted by federal prosecutors for lying about fish catches and smuggling cash to Portugal through Logan airport in Boston, in a multi-year scheme involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to records filed last week and unsealed Monday.

The indictment lists 27 counts against Rafael, for charges including conspiracy, false entries and bulk cash smuggling. Rafael is alleged to have falsely reported the species of more than 815,000 pounds of fish to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) between 2012 and January of this year, according to the Office of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz.

“On a yearly basis, Rafael’s routine falsification of dealer reports he submitted to NOAA created substantial discrepancies between the fishing activity he reported and the fish caught by his fishing vessels and acquired by Carlos Seafood,” the indictment states.

Bristol County Sheriff’s Office deputy Antonio M. Freitas, a Taunton resident, also is named in the indictment. Freitas is charged with two counts, one for bulk cash smuggling and one for international structuring.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Scallopers to White House: Marine monument a bad idea

May 6, 2016 — A fishing trade group that represents scallopers from Maine to Virginia has joined Northeast groundfishermen in opposing the designation of any marine national monuments in New England waters.

The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF) penned a May 4 letter to Obama administration officials stating its opposition to the establishment of the monuments while also criticizing the unilateral process — presidential decree through the Antiquities Act — being considered for designating them.

“A monument designation, with its unilateral implementation and opaque process, is the exact opposite of the fisheries management process in which we participate,” FSF legal counsels David Frulla and Andrew Minkiewicz wrote to Christy Goldfuss and Whitley Saumwebber, executives in the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “Public areas and public resources should be managed in an open and transparent manner, not an imperial stroke of the pen.”

The FSF letter comes almost two months after Goldfuss, the managing director of the White House environmental council, told fishing stakeholders at a March 24 meeting in Boston the White House has shelved the proposal pushed by environmental and conservation groups to establish a marine national monument about 80 miles east of Cape Ann in the area around Cashes Ledge.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Vessel owners fined for fishing in protected areas

May 4, 2016 — BOSTON — The owners of two fishing vessels paid civil fines after fishing in protected areas in 2013 and 2014.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration resolved the civil penalty cases after the crews of the vessels were found to have violated the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, according to a press release from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Following up on a referral from NOAA law enforcement officers, on March 21, 2014, a crew from Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod spotted the fishing vessel Warrior, of New Bedford, fishing for scallops in Closed Area II Essential Fish Habitat, according to the release. The area, about 120 miles east of Cape Cod, is one of five closed fishing areas in New England that cover 8,000 square miles of protected waters, according to the release.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Chinese delegation to talk lobster, fish

April 22, 2016 — Gloucester will add more international visitors to its guest register when it welcomes a delegation of Chinese government officials and seafood executives, as well as Chinese-American business leaders, on Monday to talk about economic development opportunities.

The visit has been in the works since February, when Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken extended an invitation during a meeting with Chinese-American business leaders, many of them restaurateurs, and officials from Boston’s Chinatown Main Street association at an occasion celebrating the Chinese New Year.

The Chinese government delegation will feature some heavy hitters, including four officials from the the New York-based consulate general’s office of the People’s Republic of China. The visitors also will include three executives from The American Chinese Culinary Federation, a restaurant trade group that represents thousands of restaurants and seafood sellers nationwide, as well as officials of Chinatown Main Street and other businesses leaders from Boston’s Chinese-American community.

The mayor will host a meeting at City Hall with the visitors, who then will embark on a tour of the city’s waterfront and seafood infrastructure.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Why homemade gefilte fish is becoming an endangered species at Passover

April 19, 2016 — As if preparing for Passover wasn’t enough work and worry, now comes a gefilte fish crisis.

This might not be as consequential as, say, the Atlantic cod crisis. But for the diminishing few of us who still patshke (slave away) in the kitchen before Passover to make traditional gefilte fish from scratch, it’s definitely troubling.

What’s happened is that the freshwater fish used in making it — that tried-and-true trifecta of pike, carp, and whitefish — has become so hard to find and so expensive that homemade gefilte fish could someday soon be an endangered species. I worry we Jews are being priced out of our tradition.

“It’s all about supply and demand,” said Mike Machado, purchasing director of Boston Sword & Tuna, a fish wholesaler. “The species aren’t indigenous to this area. A lot of the whitefish nowadays, it goes to New York, which has the highest contingent of Jewish people.”

Read the full story at The Boston Globe