Saving Seafood

Seafood Expo North America – 2019 Expo Preview

March 12, 2019 — We look forward to welcoming those of you attending the 39th edition of Seafood Expo North America / Seafood Processing North America in Boston next week. This year’s edition will feature more than 1,300 exhibiting companies from 49 countries and continues to be the largest seafood event in North America.

There is a lot for you to see and do at the expo:

The conference program is packed with educational sessions covering corporate social responsibility, seafood business and leadership, aquaculture, food safety, policy, sustainability, traceability and transparency.  It includes the free-to-all keynote presentation from Dr. Lindsey Piegza, chief economist for Stifel Fixed Income, who will discuss the pace of the U.S. economic recovery and what it means for future growth, interest rates, and monetary policy. She’ll also cover macro-economic consumer behavior trends and the potential economic effects of new Federal Reserve policy initiatives. A series of free sponsored presentations will also take place in the conference area on Monday and Tuesday morning.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MASSACHUSETTS: Meet the New England Aquarium’s robotic research assistant

March 4, 2019 — It weighs around 100 pounds, is about the size of a mini-fridge, and comes with single robotic arm and an 800-foot cord.

The New England Aquarium’s new, remote-controlled underwater vehicle — an unexpected gift from software giant Autodesk Inc. in 2017 — has a range of abilities, from locating lost fishing gear in the Boston Harbor to recording video of sea life that would be off-limits to human divers. Importantly, the device helps fulfill the 50-year-old institution’s often-overlooked core research mission.

“There’s this supposition that aquariums don’t do scientific research,” said John Mandelman, vice president and chief scientist of the Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. “I think the (vehicle) is a surprise to people because it’s an example of using high-technology to do scientific research at an aquarium that people don’t realize has a scientific research angle.”

It was a couple years ago now that Autodesk’s Boston office called out of the blue to say it wanted to donate a remote-controlled vehicle, or ROV, made by San Diego-based Teledyne SeaBotix, said Mandelman. The company had bought it three years earlier for a one-time project, but it had sat on a shelf unused ever since.

Read the full story at the Boston Business Journal

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester looks to up seafood matchmaking

January 28, 2019 — The city continued its outreach to Gloucester seafood businesses on Thursday, hoping to bolster its presence — and the array of fresh Gloucester seafood products — at the upcoming Seafood Expo North America in Boston.

Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken and other city officials met at City Hall with executives from Mortillaro Lobster Inc., Intershell and Cape Seafoods and its North Atlantic and Pacific Seafood subsidiary to expound on the benefits of attending one of the largest seafood shows in the world.

In a sense, the city was preaching to members of the choir. Intershell and Cape Seafoods already have booked their own booths at the show, which is set to run March 17 to 19 at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in South Boston.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Survey on US seafood consumption contains surprises

January 23, 2019 — While almost half of all Americans eat little to no seafood, many Americans love the stuff – and are willing to spend more time shopping for it and more money to buy it so they can eat it regularly.

The Food Marketing Institute’s first-ever Power of Seafood survey of more than 2,000 U.S. shoppers found numerous reasons as to why more Americans aren’t buying seafood, and discovered hurdles preventing even the most ardent fans of seafood from buying more.

FMI Vice President of Fresh Foods Rick Stein presented the initial results of the survey at the 2019 Global Seafood Market Conference in Coronado, California, U.S.A. on 17 January.  FMI surveyed 2,096 grocery shoppers representative of the general U.S. population in regard to geography, age, and gender. FMI also incorporated data from sources including IRI, Nielson, Technomics, and Datassentials into its results. The full results of the survey will be released at the 2019 Seafood Expo North America in Boston, Massachusetts, in March.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MASSACHUSETTS: Wind turbine company picks Boston for US HQ

January 14, 2019 — This country’s nascent offshore wind industry doesn’t yet have its own capital city. But Boston could be in the best position of any place to earn that title.

Boston’s reputation gets a significant boost on Friday when executives at MHI Vestas Offshore Wind meet with Governor Charlie Baker to announce plans for the Danish turbine manufacturer to put its US headquarters here.

The new office will be small at first, just a handful of staffers. Employment will grow over time, along with the sector. But its opening is important symbolically, the kind of move that can build momentum by encouraging others to take a look.

The precipitating event: a 2016 state law that requires utilities to buy up to 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind power. Vineyard Wind was picked in May to develop an 800-megawatt wind farm south of Martha’s Vineyard. In November, the developer said it chose MHI Vestas as its preferred turbine supplier; the project would consist of 84 turbines made by MHI Vestas, with blades reaching as high as 600 feet in the sky.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Carlos Rafael vessel captain sentenced for thwarting Coast Guard inspection

November 30, 2018 — A former captain of one of Carlos “Codfather” Rafael’s fishing boats has been sentenced in Boston federal court for interfering with a U.S. Coast Guard vessel inspection off the coast of Massachusetts.

South Portland, Maine’s Thomas D. Simpson, 57, was sentenced to two years of probation – with the first four months to be served in home confinement with electronic monitoring – in U.S. District Court this week, after pleading guilty in August 2018 to one count of destruction or removal of property subject to seizure and inspection. Simpson was also ordered by the court to pay a USD 15,000 (EUR 13,195) fine, according to a report from WBSM.

The former captain of Rafael-owned fishing vessel Bulldog, Simpson and his crew were engaging in commercial fishing practices on 31 May, 2014, when the U.S. Coast Guard came onboard to conduct a routine inspection of the boat and its equipment.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Former captain in Bristol sheriff’s department gets one year probation in Codfather smuggling case

November 6, 2018 — He got caught in the net, but he avoided prison.

A former captain with the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office was sentenced Monday to a year of probation for helping the infamous New Bedford fishing magnate dubbed the Codfather smuggle profits from his overfishing scheme to Portugal, prosecutors said.

The convict and former captain, Jamie Melo, 46, of North Dartmouth, learned his fate during a sentencing hearing in US District Court in Boston, according to US Attoney Andrew E. Lelling’s office.

A jury in that courthouse convicted Melo in June of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States and structuring the export of monetary instruments, Lelling’s office said in a statement.

Melo was acquitted of bulk cash smuggling, the release said. He’ll be confined to his home during the first eight months of his yearlong probation, according to Lelling’s office.

“During the trial, evidence showed that while at Logan International Airport Melo asked his friends and travel companions to carry envelopes of cash for [Codfather Carlos] Rafael on a flight to the Azores in Portugal,” the release said. “At the time, Melo was an Administrative Captain with the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office and was traveling to the Azores with Rafael for a charity event sponsored by the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office. Prior to the flight, Melo asked three of his travel companions to follow him into the men’s bathroom at Logan Airport before going through the TSA Security Checkpoint.”

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Fishing crew member charged with murder in attack at sea

September 26, 2018 — BOSTON — A member of a fishing boat crew attacked his fellow crew members at sea with a knife and a hammer, killing one of them, federal prosecutors said.

Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez, 27, was charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with the attack Sunday on the Virginia-based fishing vessel Captain Billy Haver about 55 miles off Nantucket, Massachusetts, the U.S. attorney’s office for Boston said in a statement.

Vazquez will appear in federal court in Boston at a time to be determined. The Associated Press could not locate a lawyer for him Tuesday.

He assaulted three crew members with a knife in one hand and a hammer in the other, authorities said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Two dead humpback whales wash up in Boston area

September 24, 2018 — A whale carcass reported by state police Friday morning at Revere Beach is a male humpback calf that had originally washed up in Cohasset on Sept. 7 and was towed out to sea Sept. 14, according to Jennifer Gobel with the National Marine Fisheries Service. Biologists with the New England Aquarium in Boston inspected the carcass in Cohasset but were unable to do a full necropsy because of the weather, aquarium spokesman Anthony LaCasse said.

Gobel said the federal agency is working with local authorities in Revere on a disposal plan for the carcass.

Also on Friday, an aquarium team planned to inspect another humpback carcass that washed up on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor, LaCasse said.

Since January 2016, an elevated number of humpback whale deaths have occurred from Maine to Florida, leading to a federal declaration of an unusual mortality event. That declaration allows for the release of more money and support to investigate the deaths. Since the unusual mortality event was declared, there have been 81 documented deaths as of Aug. 29, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Historic Maine cod fishery had all-time worst year in 2017

July 30, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — One of the most historic fisheries in the country hit an all-time low last year as cod fishermen continued to struggle with choking quotas and low abundance of the fish.

Maine’s cod fishery has existed since at least the early 17th century, and it was once one of the strongest in the country. The fishery peaked at more than 21 million pounds of cod, a fish often used with the fish and chips dish, in 1991.

But fishermen only brought 79,816 pounds of cod to land in Maine in 2017, mirroring a downward trend around New England, where cod fishermen have also struggled in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, state data said. Maine’s total was less than half the 2016 haul and by far the lowest on record according to state data that go back to 1950.

One reason for the collapse is that federal quotas for cod are so low many fishermen are just avoiding them altogether, said Terry Alexander, a veteran fisherman out of Portland and Boston. Cod fishermen typically also seek other species, such as haddock and flounder, and they must stop fishing altogether once they reach quota for cod, per the rules.

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