Gloucester Archives - Page 24 of 47

Foes, friends praise retiring NOAA official’s approach

December 26, 2017 — He’s been called a Neanderthal and the most reviled man in the region’s fishing community. At a public meeting broadcast on national TV, a fisherman once accused him to his face of lying for a living.

As the regional fisheries administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, John Bullard has drawn ire from all sides — fishermen, environmentalists, and politicians alike. His decisions have been routinely controversial, and he has rarely minced words in defending them.

Yet he has also earned widespread respect during his tenure as the region’s top fishing regulator, the rare public official willing to say what he thinks, no matter how unpopular. Earlier this year, he even publicly criticized his bosses, an offense that nearly got him fired.

As he prepares to retire from one of New England’s most influential — and thankless — government positions, Bullard, 70, has few regrets.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Letter: Fishermen need a fish bill

December 26, 2017 — My name is Sam Parisi from Gloucester, Massachusetts. I am retired and want to devote my time to help our fishing industry at no charge to anyone.

We have many problems, thanks in part to NOAA ‘s restrictions. We have tried to turn the tide. NOAA has grown so big, so rather than fight it, let us together find a solution that would be welcome to all.

I believe the solution is federal legislation. Farmers have a farm bill; fishermen need a fish bill. The drastic cuts in quota that our fishermen have incurred over the last two years are driving even the hardest fishermen out of business. Without fish, fishermen and fish houses cannot survive. We all know Economics 101 and the domino effect of lost revenue. Waterfront properties will become liabilities instead of assets and our tax base will evaporate.

Are we going to sit back and watch what we know will happen and then react? The crystal ball is right in front of us. NOAA has shown us our future. NO FISH MEANS NO MONEY. So what are we going to do about it? Are we going to be proactive and do something before the bleeding starts?

Read the full letter at the Gloucester Times

Massachusetts: UMass placing sustainable fisheries professor at Hodgkins Cove

December 21, 2017 — The University of Massachusetts at Amherst embarked on recasting the role of its Gloucester Marine Station at Hodgkins Cove by hiring Gloucester resident Katie Kahl to serve as the liaison between research elements at the school and the Cape Ann community.

The university’s School of Earth and Sustainability is set to formally announce the appointment of Kahl on Thursday to the newly created position of extension assistant professor in sustainable fisheries and coastal resilience.

“I’m really excited and can’t wait to start,” Kahl said Wednesday. “This is really a great opportunity for the university to re-imagine its role at the Gloucester Marine Station.” Kahl’s mission, which begins Jan. 2, is a new one for the university’s research facility.

The university announced last January that it was establishing a permanent, full-time extension faculty position at the Gloucester Marine Station as the focal point for determining the future role of the facility.

Most recently, it housed the university’s Large Pelagics Research Center, which was nicknamed the “Tuna Lab.” Under the guidance of Molly Lutcavage, the center did internationally groundbreaking research on giant bluefin tuna and other highly migratory pelagic species.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Sanfilippo resigns from fisheries commission

December 19, 2017 — Longtime Gloucester fisherman Gus Sanfilippo has resigned from the state’s Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission, leaving Arthur “Sooky” Sawyer as the only Gloucester resident on the commission.

Sanfilippo, appointed to the commission in May 2016 as part of Gov. Charlie Baker’s wholesale purge of existing commission members, said he resigned so he could spend more time fishing.

“I just didn’t have the time now that I’m back fishing again,” said Sanfilippo, who has been working on the fishing vessel Miss Trish. “I found it really interesting, but it was really just a matter of not having the time.”

Sanfilippo said his time on the commission gave him a greater appreciation for the complexities of the state’s varied fisheries and the overall performance of the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries.

“It’s something I’d definitely do again if I have the time,” he said.

Sanfilippo hails from an established Gloucester fishing family and skippered the 80-foot F/V Lily Jean on the History Channel’s 2012 fishing mini-series, “Nor’easter Men,’ a three-hour documentary that focused on draggers from several New England ports.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Seafood Council backs NOAA nominee

December 11, 2017 — The issue of who exactly will run NOAA for the Trump administration is gathering steam within the Beltway and without, with various special interest groups — fishing stakeholders, environmentalists, scientists, politicians et al — weighing in on the nomination of Barry Myers.

Myers, who most recently served as the chief executive officer of the private weather forecasting company AccuWeather, has been criticized in some quarters for lack of a scientific background and fears that he might begin dismantling the National Weather Service to give private weather forecasting companies an advantage.

There also has been concern that Myers would fall in line with other Trump appointees, such as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, in downplaying the human role in climate change.

And what of fishing? Several stakeholders, such as the Northeast Seafood Coalition, have endorsed Myers’ candidacy, hoping that he will bring a new perspective to the ongoing battle between fishermen and NOAA Fisheries’ science team.

“In our region, NOAA science has struggled to accurately measure the abundance of fish stocks while fisheries management has been guided by management that has served the ‘weakest link’ in the complex,” NSC Executive Director Jackie Odell wrote in the coalition’s endorsement of Myers. “We believe Mr. Myers will bring a fresh and much-needed perspective and approach to strengthening the science underlying the management of our fishery, along with a commitment to achieving sustainability of not only these fish stocks, but also the fishing businesses that rely upon a well-managed fishery.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Fishermen to managers: Our voices are ignored

November 30, 2017 — The New England Fishery Management Council sent its program review roadshow to Gloucester on Tuesday night to gather opinions on the council’s performance and the fishery managers were not spared the lash.

The comments delivered Tuesday night at the sparsely attended meeting at the state Division of Marine Fisheries Annisquam Station facility certainly were not new, at least not to anyone who has spent any time speaking with local fishermen about life under the regulatory gaze of the council.

They revolved around a strong belief among local fishermen that management decisions affecting the fishery are made well before the council convenes its public meetings and the scientific data and on-the-water-expertise of local fishermen are ignored or demeaned when it comes to forming policy.

“We have no faith (in the council),” said retired longtime Gloucester fisherman Sam Novello. “I don’t anyway. Our comments go in one ear and out the other.”

Others decried what they called a lack of transparency throughout the process that sets sector allocations and annual quotas, describing a system that keeps the fishermen outside the sphere of influence when it comes to managing the fishery.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA site aims to help fishing communities bounce back

November 24, 2017 — NOAA Fisheries has introduced a new website designed to help fishing communities be more resilient in the face of climate change, fluctuating fish stocks and even declines in waterfront infrastructure and economy.

The new website endeavor, introduced this week after almost three years of planning, is called Community Resilience in the Greater Atlantic Region.

“It really came out of the strategic plan we developed here in the regional office, which was the first one anywhere,” said Peter Burns of NOAA Fisheries in Gloucester. “One of the goals of that plan centered on building community resilience to help strengthen fishing communities.”

Working with NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, the community resilience working group — which included NOAA staffers from the West Coast, as well — began exploring ways to assist fishing communities in coping with regulatory, environmental and economic changes that challenge the very sustainability of fishing communities.

According to NOAA Fisheries’ own description of the endeavor, the resiliency strategy would provide information on “solutions to improve groundfish business practices and economic vitality,” as well as incorporating climate change, ocean acidification and ecosystem analysis into NOAA Fisheries’ activities.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Massachusetts: Despite Gloucester dialogue, Sector IX fishermen on ice

November 24, 2017 — In late October, about a month after the New England Fisheries Management Council insisted by vote that NOAA Fisheries hold Northeast Fishing Sector IX accountable for allowing the illegal actions of its most dominant member, Carlos Rafael, the Northeast Seafood Coalition brokered a meeting at the NOAA Fisheries office at Blackburn Industrial Park.

The Gloucester-based fishing advocate sought to bring together officials of the sector’s reconstituted board of directors with federal fishery regulators. It’s mission was to begin sifting through the rubble of the Rafael-induced damage to the fishery and begin focusing on future reforms to bring the sector into compliance with its operation plan to preclude widespread abuse from occurring again.

“We facilitated the meeting to open up a dialogue,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the coalition. “That’s our role. We understood the severity of the charges and we certainly don’t condone Carlos’s actions. We just wanted to try communicating in a calm, reasonable manner.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Fish fleet film earns thumbs-up

November 22, 2017 — ROCKPORT, Mass. — John Friedrich drove down here from Amesbury on Saturday afternoon for the sole purpose of attending the premiere of the fishing documentary “Dead in the Water” at the Rockport High School auditorium.

Friedrich had read a story in the Newburyport Daily News about the documentary that chronicles the demise and unceasing challenges faced by the once-mighty Gloucester groundfish fleet and thought it was something he should see, to gauge for himself the true extent of the problem.

“I thought the film was very well done,” he said of the 15th documentary from veteran filmmaker and Rockport native David Wittkower. “But it was also very disturbing, just emotionally disturbing. It’s such a tragedy. The problem is so much more huge than I imagined.”

If Wittkower and producers Angela Sanfilippo and John Bell were looking for a template for the response they sought from Saturday’s packed house, that was it.

From the day he first envisioned the film in 2013, the mantra that has driven Wittkower has been to spread the story of Gloucester’s fishing crisis beyond the rocky shores of Cape Ann, to bring to the rest of America the tale of a disappearing American legacy and one of its first industries.

The showing on Saturday drew almost 300, most of them from Cape Ann and most with at least a nominal sense of the regulatory, environmental and market pressures faced by America’s oldest commercial fishing fleet.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Times at the Salem News

Rockport Premiere Set for Film on ‘Relentless Destruction’ of Ground Fishing Industry

November 13, 2017 — The following was released by Fishing Partnership Support Services:

A documentary film dealing with the devastating impacts of federal regulations on the lives of New England ground fishermen will have its world premiere on the weekend before Thanksgiving on Cape Ann.

“Dead in the Water,” produced and directed by Rockport native and professional filmmaker David Wittkower, will be screened for the first time in public at the Rockport High School Auditorium on Saturday, Nov. 18, at 3:00 p.m.

The film was shot in different coastal towns and it features scenes and interviews with area fishermen, their spouses and other family members; advocates for fishermen; elected officials; and community activists.

“Dead in the Water” was two-and- a-half years in the making.

“This film opens the doors for the world to see how difficult and dangerous the life of a fisherman is,” said John Bell, a former three-term mayor of Gloucester (2002-08). “On top of that, the impact of misguided federal regulations on fishermen has never been presented as powerfully as it is in ‘Dead in the Water.’ This film packs a real punch. It stays with you long after you’ve seen it.”

Wittkower, a graduate of the American Film Institute who’s been living and working in Los Angeles since 1981, describes “Dead in the Water” as an examination of “the relentless destruction of the New England ground fishing industry through government regulations, bad science, and the growing, but
mistaken, belief that everything has been overfished and there aren’t any fish left in the oceans.”

The idea for the film came from a casual conversation he had on a sidewalk in Gloucester three years ago. “I was back in Rockport on a visit and I drove into Gloucester and noticed there were very few fishing boats in the harbor,” Wittkower said. “I asked someone, ‘Where’s the fleet?’ and he said, ‘What fleet? The fleet’s been dwindling for years, and this is what’s left.’ ”

He started asking more questions about the plight of the town’s fishermen and was soon directed to Angela Sanfilippo, the longtime president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association. Sanfilippo encouraged him when he raised the possibility of telling the story of the vanishing fleet of ground fishing boats and their crews on film. “I could see that David was sincerely interested in this topic,” said Sanfilippo, “and I quickly figured out he had the skills and track record to make a serious documentary on it, a film that could generate a lot of interest, here and elsewhere.”

The Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association decided to help and support Wittkower as much as possible. “The first time I saw the rough cut of ‘Dead in the Water,’ I knew we had done the right thing,” said Sanfilippo. “This is something special.”

One of the many friends and professional colleagues of Sanfilippo who appears in “Dead in the Water” is J.J. Bartlett, president of Fishing Partnership Support Services. He notes that physicians who have studied the physical and emotional effects upon ground fishermen of the changes in the industry “have concluded that 87 percent of them are suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”

Bartlett said, “When you watch ‘Dead in the Water,’ you’ll understand why that’s so. And you’ll leave the theater wanting to tell your friends, ‘You have to see this film.’ “Following the premiere in Rockport on Nov. 18, Wittkower is planning a tour where he will show the film in multiple locations and to a variety of audiences. That tour will begin in Massachusetts, with subsequent showings likely in Boston and New Bedford, and will extend to Maine and other coastal
states. Simultaneously, he will be trying for a nationwide showing by getting the film on HBO, Netflix or Amazon.

“Dead in the Water” is Wittkower’s fifteenth documentary film. He has won many awards for his work, including one from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum for a film he did on Lane Frost, a famous rodeo bull rider who was accidentally killed at a riding event. He’s hoping now that “something better than an award” will come from his latest project. Said Wittkower, “I’m hoping to increase public support for U.S. fishermen. I want to help keep fishing jobs in this country. If ‘Dead in the Water’ can do that, I won’t need any more awards.”

The film was recently accepted into the Depth of Field International Film Festival competition under three categories: Documentary, Direction and Cinematography.

Rockport High School is located at 24 Jerdens Lane. Tickets to the premiere cost $20 apiece and may be purchased at the door or in advance by calling 978-282- 4847 or going to the Gloucester office of the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership at 2 Blackburn Center. A portion of all of the proceeds from showing the film on Nov. 18 will go to the Fishermen and Families Fund at the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association.