Saving Seafood

FLORIDA: FWC not on board with NOAA’s proposed right whale-related vessel speed restrictions

December 1, 2022 — Scientists believe there are fewer than 340 total North Atlantic right whales remaining.

New rules drawn up to protect North Atlantic right whales in their southern calving grounds picked up opposition from charter boat captains, port operations and now the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

A 10-knot vessel speed rule was in effect for areas where right whales transit, but it was for vessels 65 feet or longer. The new rule drops the length to 35 feet, with the speed zone in effect Nov. 15-April 15 each calving season.

“The issues here are strikes from boats killing the right whales, and fishing entanglements,” FWC Executive Director Eric Sutton said during the Commission’s meetings in Panama City. “There’s no doubt that the right whales are critically endangered, and there’s no doubt that boat strikes are one of the leading causes.”

Read the full article at Florida Politics

FLORIDA: Still Reeling from Ian, Florida Shrimpers are Desperate to Get Back on the Water

November 10, 2022 — Jimmy Driggers, 85, got into the fishing business when he was just 13 years old. He’s a shrimper in Fort Myers, Fla.

“I was a mullet fisherman, [a] commercial fisherman in my younger days,” he said.

Driggers walks with a prosthetic leg from an injury he sustained on his boat about a decade ago. It’s decorated with a sea lighthouse.

He owns one shrimping boat — the Miz Shirley — named after his wife. It can carry 50,000 pounds of shrimp.

Driggers said the industry has been hurting for decades, and that he was paid more back in the 1980’s than he is today. Fuel prices have skyrocketed.

“You have to produce a lot of shrimp to stay afloat,” Driggers said. “And that’s what we were doing for the last year — just staying afloat, not making enough to fix anything that broke. It was tough.”

Then came Hurricane Ian. It pushed The Miz Shirley half onto a seawall and half was left in the water –- unusable.

When Ian made landfall in Florida in late September, it hit the shrimp fishing industry particularly hard. For decades, it’s been an important part of the economy in Fort Myers — integral to the region’s culture and identity. Now, it’s at a standstill.

“We thought about selling out, but I don’t want to do that, if we can hold on,” Driggers said. “If we can get the boat off and get it repaired, and back in working order.” He acknowledges that it’s going to take a lot of work.

Driggers’ home, which backs a water channel, will have to be demolished. It got four inches of water during the storm and mold is growing everywhere. He and Shirley don’t have flood insurance.

The couple has been sleeping in a donated camper in their front lawn. They’re hoping the insurance on the boat will cover enough of the repairs to keep them in business — but they haven’t been able to assess the damage yet.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

FLORIDA: Marco Rubio, Rick Scott urge NOAA to drop proposed right whale protection rule

November 2, 2022 — Organized pushback against federal efforts to reduce North Atlantic right whale deaths continues to grow in South Atlantic states as shipping and charter fishing interests try to stall or stop the implementation of new speed restrictions for vessels of 35 feet or larger.

As the days wound down on NOAA Fisheries’ public comment period, U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott teamed up with fellow Republican Senators from the Carolinas to oppose the new rule.

Their main beef with the rule is it alters “the long-standing and effective navigation safety ‘deviation clause’ contained in the current regulations.’ With regard to port safety and commercial viability, the rule was originally amended in 2008 to provide a navigation safety deviation clause that would allow large commercial ships to safely navigate within the confines of the narrow offshore Federal Navigation Channels (FNC) along the U.S. east coast.”

Read the full article at Florida Politics

FLORIDA: Fishing industry in Lee County ‘wiped out’ by Hurricane Ian

November 2, 2022 — Matlacha is among the places in Southwest Florida hit hardest by Hurricane Ian: buildings were destroyed, roads were washed out and debris is everywhere.

Among the wreckage, a small lime-green building – the Island Seafood Market – is somehow still standing. Owner Casey Streeter has had to tear out everything that was once inside.

“The front was washed out,” he recalled first seeing it after the storm. “We came in through the window on this door. Our coolers floated up, tipped over. We had about two-and-a-half feet of mud in the shop.”

But the biggest hit was to what’s behind the shop. Streeter said all of their grouper boats were damaged by Ian, and even worse, they lost their docks and ice house to the hurricane.

Read the full article at NBC

FLORIDA: Okaloosa County Lionfish initiative featured in PBS documentary Ocean Invaders

October 28, 2022 — The Coastal Resource Team with Visit Destin-Fort Walton Beach is front and center for the new PBS documentary ‘Ocean Invaders.’

Okaloosa County’s tourism branch has a dedicated team working to control the invasive lionfish population. Tourism Director Jennifer Adams said team leader Alex Fogg has been at the forefront of this work for more than five years.

“Alex and the work that he does is really getting recognized on the national and international level,” said Adams. “For me, as the department director to be able to give him and the team the opportunity to continue to do this good work and to grow the scope of work has really been something new for us.”

Read the full article at WKRG

FLORIDA: Florida lawmakers press Commerce secretary to help fishing, seafood firms hurt by Hurricane Ian

October 20, 2022 — A bipartisan group of Florida lawmakers sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Tuesday urging her to approve the state’s request to declare a nationwide fishery resource disaster in response to Hurricane Ian.

A disaster declaration would allow for further federal assistance to seafood businesses harmed by the storm. Ian was the strongest hurricane to hit the Tampa Bay area in a century and killed more than 100 people in the state.

Read the full article at The Hill

FLORIDA: Gov. DeSantis requests federal support for Florida fisheries in aftermath of Hurricane Ian

October 17, 2022 — Gov. Ron DeSantis is requesting that the areas affected by Hurricane Ian be declared a federal fisheries disaster by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which would open up channels for more aide for those in the fishing industry.

DeSantis announced the request Saturday at a press conference providing updates on Hurricane Ian relief efforts, highlighting support for those who work on the water. If approved, NOAA will be able to provide more support to commercial fishermen, wholesale dealers, charter boat captains and fisheries, he said.

“Clearly a storm of this magnitude — this is appropriate for this declaration,” DeSantis said. “So once this is approved, then that provides these groups and people in the industry to work with NOAA to be able to get more support. So we’re happy to help facilitate that request.”

Read the full article at Florida Politics 

FLORIDA: Hurricane Ian devastated Lee County’s commercial fishing industry

October 14, 2022 — Southwest Florida’s commercial fishing industry has been struggling for some time from the recent red tide and the graying out of the fleet. But now, Hurricane Ian has put the fishing industry on the ropes.

“Lee County’s seafood industry took a major hit,” said Casey Streeter, a commercial fisherman and the owner of Island Seafood Market on Matlacha.

Hurricane Ian’s powerful storm surge destroyed a large portion of Southwest Florida’s fishing industry from boats to docks to fish houses.

“Fort Myers beach, our shrimp fleet is decimated, that’s about a 200-million-dollar loss with what they do,” said Streeter. “Their boats are obviously tanged up onshore…Here on Pine Island, we lost four of our five fish houses. We lost many of the grouper boats. The infrastructure of our fishery is gone.”

Read the full article at Fox 4

FLORIDA: Florida fishermen scramble to return to work

October 14, 2022 — With an impending stone crab season opening, Southwest Florida fishermen whose boats and traps survived Hurricane Ian are working hard to get back on the water.

On San Carlos Island, the commercial fishing homeport of devastated Fort Myers Beach, stranded shrimpers continue doing what they can to repair boats in the state’s largest fleet. But much heavy equipment is needed for the task ahead.

“There’s 300 people who work for us and all of them are out of a job right now,” Jesse Clapham, fleet manager at Erickson and Jensen Seafood told the Associated Press. “I’m sure they’d rather just mow all this stuff down and build a giant condo here, but we’re not going to give up.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

FLORIDA: After Hurricane Ian, reckoning looms for Southwest Florida fishermen

October 7, 2022 — Casey Streeter lost everything to the monstrous winds and storm surge of Hurricane Ian when it roared over southwest Florida.

His Island Seafood Market in Matlacha?  Gone.  Home in St. James City on Pine Island?  Gone.  Retail market on Sanibel Island?  Gone.  It’s pretty much the same for most of his commercial fishing colleagues and neighbors in the region.

“We are devastated here,” Streeter said.  “Four out of five fish houses in Pine Island are gone.  The shrimp fleet is gone. Nowhere to unload.  No docks are here. Everybody went out of business at one time.  We worked ten years and it was gone in ten hours.  We’re dealing with impossible things.”

Despite his overwhelming losses, though, Streeter vows he’s not giving up on the commercial fishing industry here.  He’s got four grouper boats that got tossed around that he’s hoping he can fix, and a seafood truck he’s been using to ferry food, ice, and other supplies from the mainland to Pine Island, now that a temporary bridge has been erected.

“We’re gonna build back, “ Streeter declared.  “This is the next chapter of our island.  It’s important for our area to have a fishery.  It’ll be the people here that bring it back.  We’re not going to let this go away.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman