Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Light shows to honor fishermen’s wives

August 3, 2021 — Twenty years ago on the morning of Aug. 5, Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, was attending to the final details of the public dedication celebration of the 12-foot Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Memorial on Stacy Boulevard along Gloucester’s historic harbor.

Her joy would soon turn to utter despair.

“We had a wonderful event planned but it was very painful because we lost a boat that day,” she recalled. Early that morning, the Gloucester fishing vessel Starbound was struck by a freighter; one crewman survived and three died at sea.

But the women of the fishermen’s wives association carried on with the event which attracted an estimated 5,000 people.

“It wasn’t easy that day but we carried on and we wanted to acknowledge the pain of the widows. As women in the fishing industry, we carry on to help with the needs of fishermen, their families and the community. That comes with the title of being a fisherman’s wife,” said Sanfilippo.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Station Gloucester says first-all female boat crew sent out

July 20, 2021 — The station, which blasted out the news via its Facebook page, said it is believed to be the maiden voyage at Station Gloucester of the all-maiden voyage.

The pictures show six beaming Coasties who happen to be female. There’s also a dog in one of the photos, but its gender is unknown. Our investigative desk is on it.

There are always going to be firsts. There’s always going to be an event, an achievement or a performance that’s never been viewed, recorded, streamed or experienced before.

Should they all be celebrated? That’s up to the beholder. We here at FishOn, who actually love space travel, couldn’t give two farthings for a space race between two billionaires. Let us know when CATA’s offering it, with the senior discount.

But this? With the importance of this job, with the dangers inherent in the selflessness of military service? This is to be celebrated.

What makes it so special is not only that it was an all-female crew. Probably no one who watched the boat slice through Gloucester Harbor that day could chart their gender.

What makes it special is that it was a full crew of young women serving their country and their community; women, like their male colleagues, who accept the responsibilities of the gig and are up to the task.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Haddock chowder a winner for small boat fishermen — and the hungry

July 7, 2021 — When the pandemic hit last winter, restaurants and fish markets were among the first businesses to shut down.

The combination hit the region’s fishing fleet really hard, said Seth Rolbein, director of the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust at the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance. May starts the new fishing year and summer is by far the industry’s busiest season.

“It took the legs out from under the fleet,” said Rolbein.

Additionally, fish processors in ports like New Bedford and Gloucester had the same issues as meat packing plants in the Midwest, Rolbein said. With employees working in close proximity, the fish processing plants weren’t built to contain the spread of the virus, said Rolbein, and they shut down too.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: 40 rescued when charter fishing vessel catches fire in Gloucester Harbor

July 7, 2021 — Forty people had to be rescued from a charter fishing boat that caught fire in Gloucester Harbor on Wednesday morning, but there were no reported injuries, the Coast Guard said.

The Coast Guard as well as local harbormasters responded to the fire aboard the Yankee Patriot II, the Coast Guard posted on its official Twitter feed.

The vessel returned to its home berth under its own power using its port engine due to a fire in the starboard engine, the Coast Guard said.

No other information, including the cause of the fire, was immediately available.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Boston.com

MASSACHUSETTS: Count of locally spawned alewives on the rise

June 16, 2021 — The annual spring river herring census at the city’s West Gloucester fishway is in the books, with 2021 continuing to show low — if slightly improving — numbers of returning fish observed near the end of their spawning journey.

Rebecca Visnick, the Harbormaster’s Office staffer who shepherded the 2021 count, said her cadre of 40 fish counters officially observed 12 river herring, also known as alewives, from April 1 until Memorial Day.

While that pales in comparison to years such as 2017, when counters tabulated 3,300 of the fish making their way up the fishway, it is markedly better than 2020 (five alewives counted) and incrementally better than 2019 (11 alewives counted).

Visnick said the final number also might not reflect the actual number of alewives returning from the Atlantic Ocean — by way of the Little River — to spawn in Lily Pond at the top of the fishway.

“There were other observations (of the alewives) that weren’t part of the official count,” she said. “They were observed below the steep pass ladder and up around the Lily Pond.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

GLOUCESTER DAILY TIMES: Money and focus on endangered whales

June 3, 2021 — Money and focus on endangered whales

A move to earmark more money for Massachusetts Environmental Police to conduct more patrols to monitor the endangered right whales in state waters is the right step but must be part of a comprehensive plan to save this species.

Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, filed an amendment to the $47 billion state budget to add just $250,000 for more of these patrols, which many people say could sharpen the lookout for whales and spot lost or abandoned fishing gear, which often entangles and kills right whales.

Although some advocates for North Atlantic right whales, which scientists say number about 360, urge a ban on lobstering and fishing in state waters, that extreme measure is impractical and would doom a vital Massachusetts industry.

Fisheries officials do impose temporary closures of some areas when whales are migrating, one of many measures meant to protect the species. The most recent example was earlier this year, when the state’s lobster fishery was closed for more than a month following whale sightings.

Statehouse reporter Christian Wade reported last week that fishing groups support more funding for marine patrols, because more surveillance could help reduce collisions with non-fishing vessels and likely pinpoint more “ghost nets” which have been broken off or abandoned by fishing boats.

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Fighting for fishing grounds in face of wind farms

June 1, 2021 — For almost a half century, Angela Sanfilippo has spearheaded campaigns to protect the physical and economic health of commercial fishermen, their families and the communities in which they live.

The longtime president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association waged battle with energy behemoths while opposing two live natural gas pipeline terminals within about a dozen miles of Gloucester’s shores.

She fought foreign encroachment into U.S. fishing grounds and wrestled with fishing regulators over onerous fishery management regulations that have shrunk access to the rich fishing grounds that surround Cape Ann.

Now Sanfilippo is saddling up one more time to try to prevent the inexorable march of offshore wind projects in Massachusetts waters from blowing away elements of the Bay State’s historic and productive fishing industry.

“We are not crazy enough to think we’re going to stop this massive thing now,” Sanfilippo said at the beginning of an extended interview following the federal government’s final approval on May 10 of the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind project, located south of Martha’s Vineyard. “But we want to be at the table.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Fishermen Rescued in Gloucester After Being Swept off Rocks

May 24, 2021 — Two fishermen were rescued from the water in Gloucester after a wave swept them off the rocks, according to officials.

Several people were fishing at Rafe’s Chasm Saturday when two men were knocked off by a wave. Two other people with them dove in the water to help, and managed to bring one of the victims safely back to shore.

The second man, however, was pushed further into the ocean, prompting a response from authorities.

Read the full story at NBC Boston

MASSACHUSETTS: Pandemic, new NOAA rules sink tuna tourney

May 21, 2021 — The COVID-19 restrictions on personal protections and public gatherings are easing. They just didn’t ease in time to save this summer’s Bluefin Blowout tuna fishing tournament.

The organizers of the popular Gloucester-based tournament, which raised $366,000 in charitable donations in the last year the tournament was held in 2019, have canceled the 2021 tournament that was to run July 29 to 31 at the Cape Ann’s Marina Resort off Essex Avenue.

It would have been the ninth year the tournament was held. Now, it is the second consecutive year it has been canceled because of the pandemic and its impacts.

“As restrictions to the COVID pandemic loosen up, it is apparent that we have to make a decision based on current conditions facing the tournament,” Warren Waugh, the producer and driving force behind the Bluefin Blowout, said Wednesday in a statement. “Presently, we understand that NOAA regulations are very restrictive for a weekend tournament and there are changes proposed that would make the tournament very difficult to pull off.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Harbors hold challenges for fishermen

May 20, 2021 — Gloucester remains the state’s second-most valuable commercial fishing port by landings despite the decline of its groundfisheries and the challenges facing its aging waterfront and fleet.

A new analysis of the Massachusetts commercial fishery ranked Gloucester second among Bay State commercial ports with $53.2 million — or 8.2% — of the $647 million in state seafood landings in 2018.

For that year, America’s oldest commercial seaport trailed only the scallop-fueled ex vessel dominance of New Bedford ($431 million, or 66.6%), while more than doubling the value of landings from No. 3 Chatham ($19 million).

But the analysis also warns of storm clouds on the horizon for Gloucester and the state’s other commercial fishing ports, particularly related to shrinking access to harbors and deteriorating waterfront infrastructure.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times