Saving Seafood

EAGLE-TRIBUNE: Another tragedy underscores fishing’s dangers

November 25, 2020 — It was almost exactly a year ago that a scalloper out of New Bedford sank, taking the lives of three men on board and adding to the long roll call of people who die each year to put flounder, scallops and haddock on the table.

Tragically, that toll continued to go up this week with word the Emmy Rose, a Portland-based fishing boat, sank in high winds and rough seas off the coast of Provincetown. Although the U.S. Coast Guard was continuing to search for the four crew members, the empty life raft and debris found Monday morning near the last known location of the vessel left little reason for hope.

Fishing has always been a dangerous job. Even with improvements in technology, emergency location devices, life rafts and survival suits, the quest for seafood has pushed fishermen and some women farther out to sea in often treacherous and unpredictable weather. The Emmy Rose disappeared at a time when the wind was gusting to 30 mph or more, and seas were reportedly 6 to 8 feet – conditions severe enough to force a rescue helicopter to return to base.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health regularly documents the dangers of working conditions in many industries. Working on a commercial fishing boat means working in a hazardous environment. It’s strenuous work with long hours and in all kinds of weather – often on a slippery, rolling work surface with heavy equipment and many moving parts.

Read the full opinion piece at The Eagle-Tribune

Owner of New Bedford vessel capsized off Martha’s Vineyard fears 3 crew members perished

November 25, 2019 — The owner of a scalloping vessel that capsized and sank in choppy seas southwest of Martha’s Vineyard on Sunday afternoon said the single fisherman found in a lifeboat a few hours after a distress signal was sent is in the hospital.

“The other three fishermen are presumed lost,” Luis Martins, owner of the fishing vessel Leonardo, said Monday morning. “That’s all I can say.”

He declined to provide any names of the crew members.

Coast Guard crews from Air Station Cape Cod were continuing the search for the three missing fishermen Monday morning, with the 87-foot cutter Cobia and 270-foot cutter Escanaba scouring the waters off Martha’s Vineyard while a Jayhawk helicopter searched from the air.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

See long hidden historic photos of the gritty, compelling lives of tough Maine fishermen

April 30, 2019 — This month, the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport finished preserving, scanning and cataloging National Fisherman magazine’s massive photographic archive. The images were stuffed into filing cabinets at the publication’s Portland office for decades. Now, every image is online, in a searchable database, for the whole world to see for free.

The broad ranging archive reveals the compelling, gritty world of commercial fishing. The collection of prints and negatives originally accompanied stories and advertisements. They show emerging technology, as well as everyday fisherfolk hauling nets, processing the catch, repairing trawlers, building boats and setting Coast Guard buoys.

The Penobscot Marine Museum’s mission is to preserve, interpret, and celebrate the maritime culture of the Penobscot Bay region. The museum dedicates significant resources to preserving historic photographs. It currently holds more than 140,000 negatives, prints, slides, postcards and daguerreotypes. All are available for research, reproduction and licensing.

National Fishermen is still published by Diversified Communications. It’s headquartered on Commercial Street in Portland. It covers the fishing industry all over the country. It began publishing in Camden in 1946 as Maine Coast Fisherman. Over the ensuing decades, it bought and consolidated several regional fisheries magazines. It became National Fisherman in 1960.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

NOAA looks to unjam fishing permit backlog

March 7, 2019 — The 35-day, partial shutdown of the federal government is forcing NOAA Fisheries to make some accommodations to the permitting process for the upcoming 2019 commercial fishing season.

The federal fishery manager, still digging out from the administrative backlog created by the shutdown in December and January, will accept fishing permit applications for the upcoming season even if they include expired or un-issued Coast Guard certificates of documentation.

Those applications will be accepted at the Gloucester-based Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO) through May 1, the start-date for the new season.

Fishermen must meet at least one of several conditions to submit an application without a current certificate of documentation:

* The permit renewal application contains no changes in vessel ownership or only a change in the name of the vessel.

“We will accept expired certificates of documentation for fishing vessels that are renewing their fishing permits but are not changing ownership or are simply changing the vessel name on the certificate of documentation,” GARFO said in a statement. “Applicants must provide a copy of their most recent certificate of documentation.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Coast Guard makes arrest after boarding fishing vessel in Sandy Hook Bay

February 11, 2019 —  A man wanted on an outstanding warrant out of Union County was apprehended by the Coast Guard aboard a commercial fishing vessel on Friday.

The crew from the 87-foot Coast Guard cutter Shrike boarded the vessel at 1:30 p.m. in Sandy Hook Bay to arrest the suspect, who was a member of the commercial fishing vessel’s crew sought in New Jersey for the “use of dangerous drugs,” the Coast Guard said in a prepared statement.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

Coast Guard crews in Maine to be paid Monday after all, despite shutdown

December 31, 2018 –After a last-minute intervention by Sen. Susan Collins, employees of the Coast Guard, including hundreds in Maine, will receive their pre-shutdown pay Monday on schedule.

Previously, the employees had been told they would not be getting their second paycheck of the month because of the partial shutdown of the federal government.

A spokesman for Collins said she contacted the White House on Friday afternoon to urge an immediate fix to the payment issue, and a few hours later was told that Coast Guard members would now receive pay for their pre-shutdown work.

“Good news for the Coast Guard!” Collins, a Republican, tweeted at 8:26 p.m. Friday. “White House staff called to tell me CG members will receive their paychecks as did other federal employees. I continue to work to end the shutdown, but this will provide immediate relief to CG members & their families.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Overboard death rate falls for fishermen

November 26, 2018 — So, welcome back. We hope you had a fine Thanksgiving, whether you shared it with friends, family or that prickly tribe that inhabits North Sentinel Island out in the Andaman Sea. Though if it were the latter, it’s hard to imagine you’d be around to read this.

So, let’s open this week with some good news: Overboard deaths of commercial fishermen have declined by almost half to 204 in the period between 2000 and 2016, with credit going to better training, awareness and equipment.

According to studies by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the decline is a product of major safety initiatives by the U.S. Coast Guard in the wake of a series of accidents that killed 10 fishermen off the East Coast in 1999.

The most dangerous fisheries for overboard deaths, however, include the East Coast (particularly the Maine lobster fishery), the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishery and Northwest salmon gillnetters.

The studies show overboard deaths have declined 47 percent since 2000, but remain the second leading cause of death among fishermen after vessel disasters.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Seafood Harvesters Applaud Passage of Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2018

November 15, 2018 — The following was released by the Seafood Harvesters of America:

Today, the Senate passed the “Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2018.” This bill updates and authorizes U.S. Coast Guard activities and provides long-sought relief for the fishing industry by providing a permanent exemption for fishing vessels from the Environmental Protection Agency’s incidental discharge regulations. It also increases the maximum length for vessels that must be maintained to class, and provides for regional and fishery specific alternative safety compliance programs to be developed.

“The passage of this bill is a breakthrough for the commercial fishing industry and it’s been a long time coming,” said Chris Brown, President of the Seafood Harvesters of America. “We are grateful to the numerous Senators who worked hard to permanently exempt fishing vessels from onerous regulations that would require us to monitor and log any water running off boat decks. We now have regulatory certainty for our businesses instead of operating under stopgap exemptions to these regulations. We applaud the Senate for passing this bill that also addresses our concerns with vessel classification and the development of the alternative safety compliance program.

The bipartisan nature of this bill is reflected in its maintenance of strong environmental protections for our nation’s waters, along with the reduction of nonsensical regulatory burdens on the commercial fishing industry. The bill effectively safeguards our waters from invasive species and provides the Great Lakes states flexibility with regards to the discharge of ballast water standards. Additionally, the bill increases the maximum length of vessels that must be maintained to vessel class standards for newly built vessels and includes language that allows alternative safety compliance programs to be developed in regional and fishery specific manners for existing vessels.

Seafood Harvesters Executive Director, Leigh Habegger, applauded the bipartisan bill, noting that the national commercial fishermen’s organization that represents over 3,900 small businesses and $1.25 billion in economic output has been pushing for enactment of a USCG reauthorization bill for five years. “Nothing unites fishermen more than the waters we navigate and the commitment we share to protect them.” Habegger said. “With the passation of this bill, fishermen are freed from the fear of having to remain tied to the docks from erroneous regulations. They can now focus on responsibly harvesting domestic seafood enjoyed by millions of consumers every day. This bill took a lot of work and we appreciate the sincere efforts and ongoing negotiations on both sides of the aisle. We look forward to working with the EPA and the Coast Guard through the implementation process.”

Fisherman Risks His Life to Save a Humpback Whale

November 14, 2018 — As they headed back toward the central California coast after fishing for slime eel in the Pacific Ocean, Sam Synstelien and Nicholas Taron made a troubling discovery: a humpback whale was entangled in a buoy’s rope, frantically trying to free itself.

Synstelien immediately called the U.S. Coast Guard but was told it might take a few hours for someone to get there. The two commercial fishermen thought that could be too long for the whale to survive its predicament.

“(The whale) was just swimming in counter-clockwise circles,” Taron told NBC Bay Area. “You could tell he was stressed and being held to the bottom.”

Instead of waiting for the Coast Guard or leaving the whale behind, Synstelien and Taron decided to try to save its life. They cranked up the volume on the radio of their 27-foot-long boat (aptly named “Persistence”) and shouted into the microphone to get the frantic, 40-foot-long humpback’s attention.

“We were screaming at the whale, ‘You’re either going to help us out and quit swimming away or else, like, good luck,’” Taron said.

The two were able to cut through the rope wound around the whale’s tail, but the rope still entangled its midsection. Synstelien decided to try to free it himself. As Taron recorded a video on his cell phone, Synstelien jumped onto the whale and shimmied up its back.

Read the full story at Care2

Rescue Efforts Continue For Whale Trapped In Fishing Net

July 3, 2018 — A rescue effort is underway in New Jersey’s Raritan Bay as the Coast Guard and state police try to free a humpback whale entangled in fishing lines.

The whale is believed to be the same one spotted a year ago and hasn’t been able to shed the line since then. “It’s in the whale’s mouth… wrapped around the top of the head, across the blow hole,” photographer Artie Raslich told CBS2’s Meg Baker.

The Coast Guard has made several attempts to free the whale to no avail.

Monday afternoon state police escorted a disentanglement officer out to find and help the whale off the shores of Keyport, New Jersey.

The Coast Guard is warning boaters in the area to keep a close eye out for the whale and to stay 100 yards away for their safety and for the safety of the giant mammal.

“I think terrible need to be aware of what we are leaving out there being responsible terrible animal out there suffering.” Keyport resident Christina Greenberg said.

Read the full story at WLNY