Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: New fish commissioners OK emergency sea bass rules

June 29, 2016 — WESTBOROUGH, Mass. — The newly recast state Marine Fisheries Commission convened its first business meeting Tuesday since Gov. Charlie Baker backed up the moving truck in late May and jettisoned seven members whose terms had expired.

The seven new members, along with holdovers Bill Adler and Ray Kane, met in a hushed conference room at the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife’s spiffy zero-net-energy field headquarters — think green as green can be — here in central Massachusetts, about 45 miles from the closest wave coming off the Atlantic Ocean.

Following opening comments by state Fish & Game Commissioner George Peterson and state Division of Marine Fisheries Director David Pierce, the new commissioners waded into a number of issues, including an escalating focus on the state of the black sea bass population and the possibility of changing the joint federal/interstate manner in which the stock is managed.

The commissioners unanimously voted to approve DMF’s recommended emergency regulations for the recreational black sea bass fishery for the 2016 season that began May 21, including a reduction in the available harvest for the second consecutive year.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Criteria for fishing aid likely to be relaxed

September 11, 2015 — WESTON, Mass. — It probably isn’t going to be the so-called Gloucester Plan that dictates which Massachusetts-based fishermen receive shares of the approximately $6 million in the final installment of federal fishing disaster aid, according to state fisheries officials.

Massachusetts Fish & Game Commissioner George Peterson said Thursday he anticipates the final spending plan, which the state expects to submit to NOAA Fisheries for approval by Oct. 1, will be much closer to the plan put forward by a cadre of Cape Cod fishermen, legislators and stakeholders at last Friday’s contentious meeting of the disaster aid working group in New Bedford.

That plan, with a lower standard of qualifying criteria needed to share in the assistance than the initial recommendations by the city of Gloucester and the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, would provide assistance to any fisherman who landed at least 10,000 pounds of groundfish in any of the fishing years from 2010 to 2014 or who had one vessel trip with an at-sea monitor aboard in 2014.

“After the public hearing and a lot of comment, we think it’s a better plan, a more inclusive plan,” Peterson said.

Peterson said he expects the state Division of Marine Fisheries, which he oversees, will provide him, Secretary of Environmental Affairs Matthew Beaton and Gov. Charlie Baker with the final draft proposal of the distribution plan sometime at “the beginning of next week.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times 

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Interim director to lead state’s marine fisheries

September 11, 2015 — The state Marine Fisheries Commission in July rejected the candidate Fish & Game Commissioner George Peterson had put forward to replace Paul Diodati as the director of the state Division of Marine Fisheries, but on Thursday, Peterson shifted gears to give the commission what it wanted.

He provided an internal candidate from the current pool of DMF senior staff and the commission gave Peterson a new DMF director to succeed the retired Diodati.

The commission, in a process that required almost no comment and took about five minutes, voted unanimously to appoint longtime DMF staffer David Pierce as the agency’s new director, effective immediately.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times