Saving Seafood

Local fishermen upset about new marine monument

September 16, 2016 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — President Obama has created the first marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean saying it’s an effort to protect the planet from climate change.

The president said the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument, located off George’s Bank, will help safeguard the oceans.

The monument consists of nearly 5,000 square miles including three underwater canyons and underwater mountains.

While the decision makes environmentalists happy, many fisherman said the announcement is deeply disappointing.

“People have made business plans to use this area and then all of a sudden the rug is getting pulled out from under them,” commercial fisherman Al Cottone told FOX25. “How do you plan for the future when you can be basically be shut down with a stroke of the pen?”

The head of the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership and Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association said these farmers can’t just pick up and move their operation.

“The ocean is huge but fish are not everywhere. Fish live in designated area by nature. Just like we live,” Angela Sanfilippo said.

Read the full story at Fox25

JOEANN HART: CO2 and feeling blue

September 14, 2016 — When we swim in the sea there is no visible footprint left behind so it easy to believe we make no mark. But all of us leave a carbon footprint in the ocean. Every time we use fossil fuels to drive our cars, charge our phones and heat and light our homes, we add heat and carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, more than 1.5 trillion tons of it since the Industrial Revolution. The last time so much CO2 was pumped into the air was 250 million years ago, when volcanic eruptions almost wiped out life on Earth. Humanity has survived the current environmental assault so far because of the oceans, which have absorbed about a third of the CO2 and much of the heat. The price we pay for that favor is rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and the destruction of fisheries throughout the world.

We are all at risk, but most especially for a fishing town like Gloucester. Coastal erosion from rising seas threaten not just our homes, but fragile wetlands, the nursery of many marine species. Other dangers from CO2 are not so visible but even more catastrophic. When the CO2 we’ve released into the air falls into the ocean it turns the water acidic, which weakens phytoplankton, the bedrock of the ocean’s food chain. No fish, no fishing industry. Reduced calcification from a lower pH also makes it difficult for shellfish to build their shells. No shells, no clams, no lobsters. Many marine animals can only live at a specific temperature, and as the water warms those populations decline or migrate. Again, no fish, no industry, and for people around the globe who rely on fish as their major source of protein, no food. The World Wildlife Fund believes that climate change is one of the main reasons for the decline of marine species in the last 30 years. Yet fisheries managers are not mandated to address the impact of non-fishing activities such as climate change, oil spills and water pollution. Instead, they focus on catch quotas.

Fishermen shouldn’t have to shoulder alone the consequences of a problem that all of us are responsible for creating. Since we cannot wait for nations to act, it is up to local communities to lower their carbon footprint. Unlike volcanoes, we can control the amount of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere, but to do that we need to restrict our use of fossil fuels. As a community, we already have wind turbines thanks to Gloucester’s Clean Energy Commission. Future options could include offshore wind farms, tidal energy systems and solar parking lots but there is plenty that individuals can do as well. Request a free energy audit from the Mass Save Program (masssave.com), which comes with help in replacing old appliances and insulating homes. Walk more, bike more, then lobby for bike lanes and better public transportation. Buy an electric or hybrid vehicle and take advantage of federal tax credits; install some solar panels and get Massachusetts incentives and rebates. Consider the carbon footprint of groceries. Eating seasonally and locally helps reduce the amount of fuel needed to get food to the table. Even using less plastic can help lower one’s carbon footprint, because plastic is a petroleum product. And in a coastal community like Gloucester, balloons and single-use bags often blow into the ocean where they can become death traps for whales, sea turtles and dolphins, all of whom mistake floating plastic for a dinner of jellyfish. We’re doing enough damage to them as it is with the CO2.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Discovery Channel Acquires Worldwide Rights to Revealing Documentary ‘Sacred Cod’

September 12, 2016 (NEW YORK) — SACRED COD will make its premiere on Sept. 17 at the Camden International Film Festival in Maine. Tickets can be found here. It will also be screened at 7 p.m. on Oct. 2 at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, as part of the GlobeDocs Film Festival. Tickets are available here. For more information, visit the SACRED COD website. The following was released by Discovery Communications:

Discovery Channel announced the purchase of global rights of the revealing documentary SACRED COD. The film will make its world premiere at the 2016 Camden International Film Festival and debut on Discovery in 2017 under the Discovery Impact banner.

An official selection of the 2016 Camden Film Festival, SACRED COD chronicles the collapse of the historic cod fishery in the waters off New England in the United States. Scientists and environmental advocates have attributed the collapse to overfishing, climate change, and government mismanagement. Many of the fishermen — who are losing their livelihoods and way of life as the species have declined — have argued that the science is wrong and have protested government policies that have banned them in recent years from fishing for cod. SACRED COD features interviews with fishermen and their families, along with scientists, advocates, and federal officials who warn about the risks of overfishing and climate change and say that the plight of cod could be a harbinger for fish around the world. The film tells a complex story that shows how one of the greatest fisheries on the planet has been driven to the edge of commercial extinction, while providing suggestions about how consumers can help support sustainable fisheries.

“For centuries, cod was like gold. Wars were waged over it. Settlers sailed across oceans in search of it. And early America used it to finance a revolution,” said David Abel, one of the filmmakers and a Boston Globe reporter who has covered the fishing industry for years. “Cod were so abundant in the waters off New England that fishermen used to say they could walk across the Atlantic on the backs of them, and generations of men from places like Gloucester and Cape Cod spent their entire lives chasing the coveted fish. Cod played such an important role in the early history of New England that a carved replica of the fish has hung for centuries in the Massachusetts State House. It’s called the Sacred Cod.”

“Unfortunately, what is happening in New England is being seen in many fisheries and fishing communities across the world,” said John Hoffman, EVP Documentaries and Specials, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Science Channel. “The decline or collapse of fish stocks is a complex issue rooted in climate change, overfishing and shifting legislative policies, which together have destroyed many once thriving communities. SACRED COD is an epic tale of our times about a collapsing ocean ecosystem, which threatens a community’s livelihood, and the scientists who are working to rescue a species and way of life.”

SACRED COD is directed and produced by Steve Liss, Andy Laub and David Abel. The film is presented by Discovery Channel in association with Endicott College, The Boston Globe, In Our Own Backyard, and As It Happens Creative. For Discovery: Ryan Harrington is Supervising Producer and John Hoffman is executive producer.

Read the release at Discovery Communications

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester Fresh banks on ocean-to-table appeal

September 12, 2016 — This is a story that starts at 2 o’clock in the morning, when those who work on Gloucester fishing boats rise for the day, ready to hit the water.

“Gloucester Fresh” is the mantra coming from America’s oldest fishing port, intended to tap into the farm-to-table trend while applying it to the Atlantic Ocean. The bid to reinvigorate the city’s historic industry conjures a tradition of hard work, blue water, fresh air, and one of nature’s most beneficial resources.

“This is a very healthy protein,” said Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, whose husband, John, is one of the hardy souls who sets off in the early morning and returns to the dock at 3 p.m. with that day’s catch. “It’s the only natural protein left in the world. You’re talking about the North Atlantic, the cleanest water around the United States. We’ve fought very hard so we can keep a clean ocean for the fish.”

While cod, flounder, and haddock continue to serve as the breadwinners, the ocean-to-table movement is promoting underused species such as whiting and redfish that are often eaten by fishermen’s families but not often found on restaurant menus. Exposing consumers to new species is the reason Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken has been demonstrating how to cook redfish soup at seafood shows.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

National Marine Monument off New England coast?

September 12, 2016 — The third installment of the Our Ocean forum will convene in Washington, D.C., this week and the betting window is open on whether the Obama administration will use the event to announce the designation of new National Marine Monuments.

No one — neither conservationists nor fishing stakeholders — claims to know exactly what will happen when the two-day, international event opens Thursday. But it has not escaped anyone’s attention that the Obama administration has used the same forum in the past to make similar announcements.

[In March], in a victory for fishing stakeholders, the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality removed Cashes Ledge, which sits about 80 miles off of Gloucester, from consideration as a possible site for a new National Marine Monument.

The Obama administration’s decision not to use the Antiquities Act to designate any portion of Cashes Ledge as a monument validated fishing stakeholders and others who characterized the proposal — which originated with the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Pew Charitable Trusts — as an end-run around the existing fisheries management system and wholly unnecessary given the existing protections already afforded the area.

Cashes Ledge currently is closed to commercial fishing.

In the wake of that defeat, conservationists redoubled their lobbying efforts, urging Obama to invoke the 1906 Antiquities Act to unilaterally designate a number of potential sites, including canyons and seamounts off southern New England and off the coast of Monterey, California, as Maritime National Monuments.

“All eyes are on the canyons and seamounts,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Film on Gloucester’s fleet hooks local boost

September 9, 2016 — It’s now been more than three years since David Wittkower, struck by the spiraling decay of the Gloucester groundfishing fleet, decided to make a film chronicling its decline from the robust fleet he remembered as a kid growing up in Rockport.

The making of Wittkower’s film “Dead in the Water,” as with nearly every film project ever devised, has been an arduous slog through an endless array of creative decisions and more earthly problems — chief among them how to raise enough money to create the film the Los Angeles-based director first envisioned.

Now, with the assistance of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association and generous benefactors throughout Cape Ann, Wittkower is closing in on having enough capital to finish the film and assemble a working print, possibly by as early as Thanksgiving.

To do that, though, he still needs— what else? — more money.

“The fundraising by the Fishermen’s Wives Association has been an incredible benefit, affording me the chance to work on making the film 24/7 instead of having to run around trying to raise money,” Wittkower said. “The fundraising has been very, very important.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Selling ‘Gloucester Fresh’ to middle America

September 6, 2016 — More than 1,500 miles separates Gloucester from Bentonville, Arkansas. But if Barry Furuseth has his way, he’ll connect the two geographical dots with an unceasing supply of fresh seafood from America’s oldest seaport.

Furuseth, the owner of Blu Fresh Fish Marketplace in Bentonville, has become one of the staunchest acolytes of fresh Gloucester seafood and the city’s rich fishing heritage, incorporating both onto his restaurant menu and into the cases of his seafood market.

“I want to showcase the American fishermen and I want showcase ‘Gloucester Fresh’,” Furuseth said Friday afternoon, invoking the name of the city’s overarching seafood marketing brand. “I want to show people that this is where their seafood is coming from, from these cold, clear, fresh waters. And to do that, we will market and sell ‘Gloucester Fresh’ seafood.”

The Minnesota native, now transplanted to the Arkansas city that boasts the headquarters of giants Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club, was standing in the stern of lobsterman Mark Ring’s FV Stanley Thomas as it made its way across Gloucester’s Inner Harbor to Capt. Joe & Sons Inc. in East Gloucester, passing some of the early arrivals for the weekend’s Gloucester Schooner Festival along the way.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Battle over Cashes Ledge continues between fishermen, environmentalists

August 29, 2016 — Despite the Obama administration’s declaration that Cashes Ledge has been taken off the table as a possible location for a marine national monument, the divisive issue of the monuments continues to percolate nationally between fishermen and conservationists.

From Hawaii to New England, the lines are clearly drawn.

Conservation groups have sustained a steady lobbying campaign to convince President Obama to employ the Antiquities Act to create new marine national monuments in the waters around Cashes Ledge, about 80 miles off Gloucester, and the seamounts off southern New England and Monterey, California.

On Friday, Obama ended a contentious process in the Pacific Ocean when he expanded an existing marine national monument area in the northwest Hawaiian Islands to create the largest protected area on Earth — 582,578 square miles.

Fishing stakeholders and fishing communities have countered with their own public campaign that sharply criticizes the collateral impact of closing more areas to commercial and recreational fishing, as well as the method of using the Antiquities Act as an end-run around the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act.

“The Antiquities Act does not require transparency or a robust analysis of the science,” the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition said in a statement. “It does not require any socioeconomic considerations be taken into account. No process is required other than an executive action by the president of the United States.”

The coalition and others, including several members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation and Gov. Charlie Baker, have tried to drive home the point that the current system of federal ocean management requires fishing businesses and communities to follow the established and intricate regulatory procedures established under Magnuson-Stevens.

To allow the creation of marine national monuments by what amounts to presidential fiat, they say, is unfair to those who have operated under the established rules and makes a mockery of Magnuson-Stevens.

“The New England Fishery Management Council is in charge of carrying out this requirement in our region,” the NSC said. “Last year, the council approved Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2 and is presently working on an Omnibus Deep Coral Amendment. These areas include the very areas now proposed and under consideration for a national monument.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Community gathers for Fishermen’s Memorial Service, honoring those lost at sea

August 29, 2016 — With the long line of American flags rippling above the crescent of Stacy Boulevard and the postcard of its harbor serving as the backdrop, Gloucester on Saturday once again wrapped its arms around those who went out to sea and never returned.

The number of Gloucester fishermen who have perished harvesting seafood from the cauldron of the North Atlantic Ocean now reaches into the thousands — the most recent loss that of David “Heavy D” Sutherland last December during a rescue attempt after his boat, the Orin C, went down about 12 miles off Thacher Island.

On Saturday evening, America’s oldest fishing community gathered to pay homage and remembrance to those who never returned to their hailing port from their last trip, with about 400 fishing friends and family circling the iconic Gloucester Fishermen’s Memorial for the annual Fishermen’s Memorial Service.

Speaker after speaker, from master-of-ceremonies Barry Pett to Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken and on to keynote speaker Linda Greenlaw, framed some remarks in the language of loss and remembrance.

But the indelible thread that ran through the service was that of the city’s perpetual resilience and its unwavering grip on the traditions and sense of community that sustain it through good times and bad, through bounty and crisis.

“I grew to love this place,” said Greenlaw, who rose to prominence first through her depiction in both the book and cinematic rendition of “The Perfect Storm” and later as an author. “It’s one of the very few remaining true fishing ports on the entire Eastern Seaboard.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester Schooner Festival: Next Weekend!

August 26, 2016 — The following was released by Maritime Gloucester:

This year’s Gloucester Schooner Festival will set a record for number of schooners participating. Twenty five schooners will descend on Cape Ann to participate in the 32nd annual Festival.

In the large schooner category, Columbia returns to defend her  title as fastest schooner in the fleet, while Adventure, Roseway, Lettie Howard, American Eagle and Liberty Clipper will attempt to dethrone last year’s champion. Adventure is particularly excited about this year’s race as it seeks to celebrate its 90th birthday with a win on Sunday.

We welcome five schooners that have not been here before, or have not been here in some time. These vessels include Ishmael, Principles and Tree of Life in the mid-sized schooner category, and Ishtar and Malabar II in the small schooner category. A complete list of participating schooners is included with this press release.

“This is my favorite weekend of the year,” says Tom Ellis, long-time schooner captain and one of the patriarchs of the local schooner community.

The celebrations begin Friday evening. The City will be hosting a Block Party on Main Street and Maritime Gloucester, host of the Schooner Festival, will host its annual Gala, Evening Under the Spars at Gloucester’s new Beauport Hotel (sold out).

Festivities on Saturday start at 10:00 am on Harbor Loop under the First Ipswich Pavilion Tent at Maritime Gloucester. Maritime Heritage day celebrates our fishing and schooner heritage with an array of organizations offering interactive exhibits as well as local vendors and artists who will be in attendance. Heritage day is fun for all ages and is a great way to kick off Schooner Festival Weekend. Maritime Gloucester’s museum will be open free of charge throughout the day. Schooners will be located around the Harbor and information about the schooners and their locations will be available at Heritage Day. For example, the Schooner Adventure will be located at the State Fish Pier and will be open for deck tours.

Additional Saturday activities include a lobster bake at the Gloucester House Restaurant followed by the Boat “Parade of Lights” which kicks off at 7:30pm and Fireworks over Gloucester Harbor around 9:15pm

Sunday’s Parade of Sail Kicks off at 10:30 am, proceeding from Gloucester’s Inner Harbor past Stacy Boulevard to the starting area of the Mayor’s Race on Eastern Point. Key viewing areas include the Boulevard and Stage Fort Park. The Mayor’s Race starts at 1:00pm. The race is a remembrance of the rekindling of the schooner race of the 1920’s off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia between the Canadian Schooner Delawanna and the U.S. Schooner Esperanto.  A press boat is available for a limited number of photographers.

Lead sponsors of the Festival include: First Ipswich Bank, the City of Gloucester, Market Basket and Institution for Savings. For a full list of sponsors, go to the Schooner Festival website. The Festival raises much needed funds from the community by offering a raffle in addition to corporate underwriting support. Please purchase raffle tickets at Maritime Gloucester or during Maritime Heritage Day.