Saving Seafood

Fisheries grant program to top $10 million

July 28, 2016 — NOAA Fisheries estimates it will provide $10 million in funding for the 2017 Saltonstall-Kennedy grant program for projects concentrating on sustainable fisheries and coastal fishing communities, the federal fisheries regulator announced.

The $10 million is based on initial estimates of seafood import tariff revenues and could fluctuate higher or lower, according to Susan Olsen, who coordinates the Saltonstall-Kennedy program within NOAA’s Gloucester-based Greater Atlantic Region.

“It has the opportunity to grow or shrink, but based on our estimates, the $10 million figure was reasonable,” Olsen said.

In 2016, NOAA Fisheries recommended $11 million in funding for 50 projects nationally, which was about $1 million more than the agency initially said it expected to distribute as part of the grants program. Neither of the two applicants from Cape Ann — Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute and the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund — made the final cut for funding in 2016.

This year’s application process includes changes from years past that NOAA Fisheries said “will help applicants sharpen their submissions for greater success.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Cowhide? Lobstermen looking at bait alternatives

July 25, 2016 — Gloucester is Massachusetts’ No. 1 lobster port when it comes to landings, with Rockport in the No. 3 spot.

And when it comes to bait to catch the shellfish, local lobstermen usually use herring.

But the Massachusetts herring fishery will be restricted in an attempt to mitigate a shortage of the bait fish that threatens the lobster fishery.

So, lobstermen are looking further afield to tempt lobsters’ palates and into their traps.

Gerry O’Neill, who owns the two 141-foot mid-water trawlers Challenger and Endeavour, says while fresh herring may be in shorter supply on Cape Ann than in the past, he has frozen fish ready to go at Cape Seafoods on the Jodrey State Fish Pier.

Joey Ciaramitaro of Capt. Joe & Sons, a lobster dealer on East Main Street, says many of the lobstermen who sell their catch to his company are already using alternative baits.

“They’re using cowhides and stuff,” he said.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Massachusetts fishing restricted amid lobster bait crunch

July 22, 2016 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — The Massachusetts herring fishery will be restricted in an attempt to mitigate a shortage of bait fish that threatens the lobster fishery.

The interstate Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has voted to cut the number of days that herring boats can bring the fish ashore from five to two. The changes are in effect from Sunday to Sept. 30.

Maine cut its herring days down to two earlier in the season. Regulators say that reducing the number of days will prevent the fishery from catching its entire quota too quickly.

The problem is that fishermen aren’t catching herring far out at sea, which has increased pressure in inshore waters.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Boston Globe

Herring limits expanded to prolong catch of lobster bait

July 21, 2016 — An interstate fishing council has extended some of Maine’s emergency Atlantic herring restrictions to Massachusetts to try to close a loophole that threatened to derail the summer supply of lobster bait.

On Wednesday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted 2-1 to cut the number of days that herring boats can land fish each week within its jurisdiction from five to two, with Maine and New Hampshire representatives voting in favor of the landing day reduction and Massachusetts voting against it. Under its emergency rules, Maine had already cut its landing days down to two in an attempt to prolong the availability of fresh herring throughout the lobster season, but boats that fished that area could still land for five days if they sailed to a Massachusetts port such as Gloucester.

Maine regulators are trying to balance the lobster industry’s demand for fresh bait now, when season is just beginning but offshore herring is in short supply, with its need for fresh bait through the end of summer, when the inshore summer herring quota is in danger of running out. While lobstermen don’t like a bait shortage at any time, the industry is supporting Maine’s herring restrictions to make sure there will still be fresh bait available when they need it most.

Maine regulators who lobbied on behalf of the regional rule change say one large boat that usually fished for menhaden has begun to fish heavily for herring and bring it to Gloucester. They argued that boat, which fishermen described as 160 feet long with a 50-foot seine, could undermine Maine’s efforts to stretch the 19,400 metric ton quota of herring that can be taken from Maine’s coastal waters through September, and punish Maine’s herring fleet, which has supported the state’s effort to balance the need to prolong the quota and still keep at least some herring coming in for lobstermen to bait their traps.

“Without constraints on the landing (in Massachusetts) we would not make it into August, much less September,” said Terry Stockwell of Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester Schooner Festival: Preparations For Another Great Weekend

July 14, 2016 — The following was released by Maritime Gloucester:

There are three key story lines for this year’s 32nd annual Gloucester Schooner Festival, which runs from September 2nd to September 4th.

First, the Schooner Columbia, last year’s winner, returns to the Festival to defend its title. The original Columbia was a 141’ classic Gloucester Fishing Schooner built at the historic A.D. Story shipyard of Essex, Massachusetts in 1923. The replica Columbia was built by Brian D’Isernia at his boat yard, Eastern Shipbuilding Group, in Panama City, Florida. “It is great to have her here in Gloucester,” says Schooner Committee Chair Daisy Nell, “and her captain Karl Joyner raced her to victory. What a tribute to the old Essex schooners to have this modern recreation join us.”

Second, Gloucester’s flagship schooner Adventure celebrates its 90th birthday this year. Built in Essex at the Story Shipyard in 1926, she is celebrating with a busy summer including welcoming thousands across her deck during the Festival weekend.

Third, this year’s Festival is dedicated to a great friend of the festival and to Cape Ann, Kay Ellis, who passed away earlier this year. Kay, with her husband Tom built the Schooner Thomas A. Lannon in Essex in 1997, and brought her to Gloucester Harbor to offer public sails and charters. Kay’s warm personality, business acumen, and commitment to promoting maritime heritage on Cape Ann are sorely missed. Their son Capt. Heath Ellis continues to operate the Lannon and will, once again, participate in this year’s races.

Despite the changes on the waterfront this year – Maritime Gloucester’s docks are being torn down in August — nearly twenty schooners have signaled their interest in returning to Gloucester to participate in the weekend. Maritime Heritage Day takes place Saturday, September 3rd from 10:00 am to 3:30 pm. This year Heritage Day will take place on Harbor Loop and under the First Ipswich Tent located in front of Maritime Gloucester. Maritime heritage organizations and area environmental groups and will be set up with interactive exhibits along with local crafters demonstrating their art. Music will be provided during the afternoon and lunch will be available on the pier. This is a great and fun event for families and visitors to Gloucester Schooner Festival weekend. Admission to the Museum will be free this day, and deck tours will be available on some boats, such as the Schooner Adventure, which will be berthed at the State Fish Pier. The event is followed by a Lobster Bake at the Gloucester House and Fireworks over Gloucester.

The race on Sunday includes the Esperanto Cup, the Mayor’s Award, Ned Cameron Trophy and the Betty Ramsey Trophy.

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 website. The Festival raises much needed funds from the community by offering Schooner Festival raffle in addition to corporate support. Please purchase raffle tickets (available at Maritime Gloucester) or during Maritime Heritage Day. These funds directly support our efforts to put kids on the water.

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishing line recycling program comes to Gloucester

July 12, 2016 — The state Division of Marine Fisheries is trying to get the word out to recreational anglers: It’s time to begin recycling discarded monofilament fishing line before it finds its way into the state’s oceans, streams and lakes as a danger to marine creatures and vessels alike.

DMF has initiated a new program, aimed at both education and conservation, called the Monofilament Recovery and Recycling Program, based largely on a program started by the Iowa-based Berkley Conservation Institute.

The program’s ultimate goal is to create a network of marked recovery bins at popular fishing locations throughout the state where recreational anglers can dispose of the monofilament as a first step toward recycling the synthetic fishing line into fishing habitats or other products.

“Our focus is to educate the recreational fishermen so they can understand the substantial impact this material has on wildlife,” said Maren Olson, who works on the angler education and clear vessel programs at DMF. “It doesn’t biodegrade and it doesn’t go away.”

Read the full story in the Gloucester Daily Times

Massachusetts to invest $1.1M on Jodrey fish pier renovations

July 8, 2016 — The Jodrey State Fish Pier is the best performing and most well-run of the state’s four fish piers, emerging as a model for potential changes to Massachusetts’ other three fish piers, according to an evaluation of the state fish pier system by the administration of Gov. Charlie Baker.

The evaluation, funded by the Seaport Economic Council and performed by a working group of representatives from a number of state agencies, has resulted in two positives for the 78-year-old fish pier named for Edward R. Jodrey, the Gloucester barber who championed its construction in 1930s:

The Baker administration announced this week it will fund $1.1 million in renovations at the pier that covers approximately 8 acres at the head of the harbor, part of what the administration says is its continued “commitment to deepening the economic impact of state maritime facilities.”

Those funds will be used to repair the deteriorating roof atop the 40,000-square-foot cold storage and freezing operation that is one of the array of businesses housed in the three buildings on the pier.

Perhaps more important in the long run, the evaluation showed the Jodrey State Fish Pier, which is operated at a profit by MassDevelopment, is at the top of the class among the state’s four fish piers, an operations model for those located in New Bedford, Fall River and Plymouth.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

GLOUCESTER TIMES: A partial victory for fishermen

June 28, 2016 — New England fishermen got a piece of good news last week when the federal government agreed to pay for a large portion of the cost of its at-sea monitoring of the actions of the industry fleet.

But let us be clear — it is only a bit of good news. There is much more work to be done before the monitoring efforts can be considered fair to cash-strapped fishermen and successful from an information-gathering standpoint.

The at-sea monitoring program, run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, places observers on fishing vessels to record details of their catch and make sure government regulations are being strictly followed.

The program is far from perfect. The regulations are at worst byzantine and contradictory, and at best merely confusing. The quality and experience of observers varies greatly, and extra people on the deck of a fishing vessel can add to safety concerns in what is already a dangerous profession. And then there’s the cost — about $710 a trip, by some estimates.

For months, NOAA was insisting fishermen pay the cost of monitoring, which surely would have bankrupted some of the vessel owners. It would be like paying to have a state trooper sit in the back of your car to make sure you weren’t speeding.

Fishermen and their elected officials lobbied for months to get the federal government to pick up the costs, and last week NOAA capitulated. The agency will reimburse fishermen for up to 85 percent of monitoring costs.

Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘He was like us’: Gloucester celebrates St. Peter

June 27, 2016 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — On a day when Greasy Pole walkers and seine boat racers crowned their champions, when musical finales ranged from the U.S. Navy Band Northeast concert band to Jimmy Geany and Paul London, the namesake of St. Peter’s Fiesta was the real center of attention.

Thousands lined Gloucester’s streets under idyllic, sunny skies Sunday for the Procession of St. Peter, with bearers carrying the life-sized 1927 statue of the patron saint of fishermen through Gloucester’s streets to culminate the final day of the 89th St. Peter’s Fiesta.

The procession, which over two hours primarily wound from St. Peter’s Square up Washington and Prospect streets, then into the Sargent Street neighborhood before returning to Prospect and the churches of St. Ann and Our Lady of Good Voyage, featured a handful of marching bands and floats.

More than one statue

But it was the appearance of St. Peter and the statues of other related saints that drew the grandest cheers, punctuated with the familiar chants of “Viva, San Pietro” throughout the nearly two-mile route.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

US offers fishermen help in paying monitors

June 24, 2016 — Over the past year, the region’s groundfishermen have argued that the federal government was jeopardizing their livelihoods by forcing them to pay for a controversial program that requires government-trained monitors to observe their catch.

On Thursday, after months of heated debates with fishermen, officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that they have found money to cover most of the observer costs for the rest of the fishing year.

NOAA officials said that a contractor they hired to place observers aboard fishing vessels failed to do so for about one-third of the total number of days that they were expected to accompany fishermen to sea. As a result, NOAA has enough money to cover an estimated 85 percent of the rest of the so-called at-sea monitoring program.

“That’s an estimate because it depends on how much fishing occurs over the year,” said Samuel D. Rauch, deputy assistant administrator for regulatory programs at NOAA Fisheries.

Groups representing groundfishermen, who have been required since March to pay hundreds of dollars every time an observer accompanies them to sea, have argued that the costs were too much to bear and would put many of them out of business. NOAA estimates it costs $710 every time an observer joins them, though most fishermen have negotiated lower fees.

But many groundfishermen, who catch cod, flounder, and other bottom-dwelling fish, have already been suffering from major quota cuts. NOAA last year, for example, cut the region’s cod quota by 75 percent.

“This will definitely lessen the economic burden on small, family-owned fishing businesses, and will allow time to address many logistical issues that have surfaced since industry payments began,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, an advocacy group for groundfishermen in Gloucester.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe