Saving Seafood

SALEM NEWS: A small victory for at-sea monitoring

May 9, 2016 — New England fishermen got some good news last week when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced plans to scale back the amount of on-board monitoring required of the commercial fleet. However, there is still work to be done.

Late last week, NOAA said it will cut monitoring to 14 percent of all vessel trips for the season that began May 1. That’s down from about 24 percent of trips in 2015.

“Fishermen appreciate the changes and the evolution of the at-sea monitoring program,” Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, told reporter Sean Horgan. “We think what they’ve done is prudent and responsible.”

Read the full opinion piece at The Salem News

MASSACHUSETTS: Hometown team running new fish plant

May 9, 2016 — Gloucester Seafood Processing Inc. is based in Gloucester. It is a stand-alone subsidiary of Mazzetta Co., which is not.

Problem?

Well, this is Gloucester, where life tends to be a tad provincial, as you might expect from a city that coined the phrase “up the line” to deal with the remainder of the North American continent.

It’s not surprising then that the arrival of Gloucester Seafood Processing about a year ago at the former Good Harbor Filet plant in the Blackburn Industrial Park was greeted with a measure of uncertainty and — in some quarters — downright suspicion and veiled whispers of carpet-bagging.

“The whole thing, while the place was being set up, was that we wanted it run by local people,” said Dave Fitzgerald, the New Zealander brought in by Highland Park, Illinois-based Mazzetta for the plant’s startup. “You see some of those comments about, ‘Here’s that company from Chicago’s going to take everything out of here.’ It’s not that. It’s a locally run company.”

Fitzgerald, as he uttered those words, sat at the head of a table in a conference room inside Gloucester Seafood Processing’s administrative offices, surrounded by front office colleagues, all of whom are sons and daughters of Gloucester.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Fishing Monitors To Accompany Fewer Trips

May 2, 2016 — After protesting for months about having to pay for the government observers who monitor their catch, the region’s fishermen are catching a break.

The National Marine Fisheries Service on Friday approved a measure that will ease the financial burden on fishermen by reducing the number of times observers must accompany them to sea.

They will now have to take monitors on only 14 percent of their fishing trips, down from nearly a quarter of all trips.

“With the experience and data from five years of monitoring, we have determined that the lower coverage levels in this rule will allow us to effectively estimate discards,” said Jennifer Goebel, a spokeswoman for the Fisheries Service in Gloucester.

The move comes after federal regulators last year decided to end the multimillion-dollar subsidy that paid for the observer program, passing the cost to the fishermen.

A federal report found the new costs could cause 59 percent of the boats in the region’s once-mighty groundfishing fleet to lose money. Many of the estimated 200 remaining fishing boats are already struggling amid reduced quotas of cod and other bottom-dwelling fish.

“The agency has used better statistical methods every year to create a more most efficient monitoring system,” said Robert Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, which represents the fishing industry. “This year’s regulations are a reflection of an effort to make the system as efficient as possible.”

“This should be something that’s applauded by both the environmental community and the fishing industry,” he added.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

NOAA to reduce monitoring in new season

April 29, 2016 — In a victory for groundfishermen, NOAA will significantly reduce at-sea monitoring coverage for Northeast multispecies groundfish vessels in the season that begins Sunday.

NOAA, according to the final rule filed Friday in the Federal Register, will cut monitoring to 14 percent of all vessel trips in 2016, down from about 24 percent in 2015.

The reduction was welcomed by fishermen, particularly following recent federal policy changes leaving permit holders on the hook for the cost of at-sea monitoring. It was a disappointment for conservationists and environmental groups, who were seeking more coverage, not less.

The new rule, known as Framework 55, is expected to be formally published Monday, but will go into effect at the start of the 2016 fishing season on May 1.

“Fishermen appreciate the changes and the evolution of the at-sea monitoring program,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, which strongly advocated for the adjustments to the monitoring program. “We think what they’ve done is prudent and responsible.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Coast Guard tows Gloucester dragger 90 miles into Portland, Maine

April 29, 2016 — The U.S Coast Guard, with a good Samaritan boat serving as its closer, towed the Gloucester-ported Paulo Marc into Portland, Maine, this morning after the 63-foot boat became disabled due to engine problems, according to the Coast Guard.

The Paulo Marc, owned by a Maine-based limited liability company with David J. Osier listed as the permit holder, was trawling for groundfish about 90 miles off the coast of Maine at about 1 p.m. Wednesday when engine trouble related to a failed reduction gear left it wallowing in the water without power.

“It was pretty hectic for a little while,” Osier said this morning. “I was looking for another boat to tow it in, but that’s become hard because there’s just not that many draggers left out there fishing.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Chinese delegation tours Gloucester’s seafood businesses

April 26, 2016 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — Zhang Minjing, a consul in China’s consulate general’s office in New York City, did a little homework before making the journey to Gloucester on Monday as part of a visiting delegation of Chinese government and seafood executives.

And what did he learn from his research on America’s Oldest Seaport?

“I know that Gloucester is very famous for its lobster and fishing industry,” Zhang said. “I know that people are very industrious. They’re hard working. I found the mayor very enthusiastic and very good at her job at promoting her businesses here.”

It appears China has taken notice of Gloucester and its bounty of fresh seafood, especially the lobsters for which the Chinese population seems to have an insatiable — and growing — appetite.

Consider: In 2009, U.S. lobster exports to China totaled a minuscule $2 million. Five years later, it hit about $90 million, with estimates for future annual growth pegged at roughly 15 percent a year.

Read the full story in the Gloucester Daily Times

Monitoring The Catch Aboard Groundfishing Vessels

April 22, 2016 — While the feds used to pay for [at-sea] monitors, as of March 1st, fishermen have had to start footing the roughly $700-per-day cost.

John Bullard is Regional Administrator for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fishery Office in Gloucester. His agency uses input from fishermen and scientists to set quotas and other regulations for the industry.

“It’s not that we wanted the industry to pay,” Bullard said. “We understand the hardship that the groundfish industry is under, believe me.”

Bullard explained that NOAA covered the costs of at-sea monitors for as long as it could. But that money is now gone. And he said the industry has had plenty of warning.

“We’ve been saying to industry, ‘You guys are gonna have to pay for this…not because we want you to, but because the money’s gonna run out.’ So this hasn’t been a sudden thing,” said Bullard.

Most groundfishermen now must scramble to come up with ways to pay for at-sea monitors. Meanwhile, others are trying another option: electronic monitoring with video cameras.

Read and listen to the full story at WCAI

MASSACHUSETTS: Chinese delegation to talk lobster, fish

April 22, 2016 — Gloucester will add more international visitors to its guest register when it welcomes a delegation of Chinese government officials and seafood executives, as well as Chinese-American business leaders, on Monday to talk about economic development opportunities.

The visit has been in the works since February, when Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken extended an invitation during a meeting with Chinese-American business leaders, many of them restaurateurs, and officials from Boston’s Chinatown Main Street association at an occasion celebrating the Chinese New Year.

The Chinese government delegation will feature some heavy hitters, including four officials from the the New York-based consulate general’s office of the People’s Republic of China. The visitors also will include three executives from The American Chinese Culinary Federation, a restaurant trade group that represents thousands of restaurants and seafood sellers nationwide, as well as officials of Chinatown Main Street and other businesses leaders from Boston’s Chinese-American community.

The mayor will host a meeting at City Hall with the visitors, who then will embark on a tour of the city’s waterfront and seafood infrastructure.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Scallop fishermen poised for fight over shellfish

April 19, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Scallop fishing has increased dramatically off some parts of New England recently, and fishermen and regulators will soon meet to discuss how to avoid overexploiting the valuable shellfish.

The concern over scallop fishing centers on the northern Gulf of Maine, a management area that stretches roughly from the waters off of Boston to the Canadian border. Scallop grounds off of northern Massachusetts have been especially fertile, prompting increased fishing in that area.

The New England Fishery Management Council, a regulatory arm of the federal government, will hold a public meeting about the issue Wednesday and decide how to proceed.

Part of the concern arises from the fact that different classes of fishing boats harvest scallops in the area, and not all of them are restricted by a quota system. Alex Todd, a Maine-based fisherman who fishes off of Gloucester, Massachusetts, said he and others feel the rules are not equal.

“We’re playing by two different sets of rules,” Todd said, adding that fishermen who follow the quota system could reach quota as soon as next month.

But Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney for Fisheries Survival Fund who represents many fishermen who don’t have to abide by the quota system, said he thinks the boats can coexist.

Read the full story at The Salt Lake Tribune

Gloucester photojournalist launches coffee-table book about the life of a fisherman, the families, the community and much more

April 14, 2016 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — When young photographer Nubar Alexanian first came to Gloucester, he witnessed a thriving fishing community, rooted deep in the city’s culture. Families worked together in the fishing business, with the next generation often groomed to take over the fishing vessel. Linked by their strong connections to fishing, the families toiled together, celebrated together and, at times, mourned together when fishermen were lost at sea.

All of this caught Alexanian’s attention nearly 40 years ago, and with a cloth-covered view camera, he began shooting the scenes that touched him profoundly. The more he learned, the more he wanted to delve deeper.

“I wanted to get to know the place so I picked up 35 mm cameras, he recalled. “I wanted to find one of the most successful fishing families and follow them. So from 1979 to 1981, I followed the Brancaleone family. I literally became part of the family.”

Alexanian braved 10-day trips at sea, with much sea sickness, and he still wanted to immerse himself more in their world on the frigid northern Atlantic.

See the full story at the Gloucester Times