Saving Seafood

NEW YORK: Strained Fluke Quotas, Hurricanes and Safe Harbor

Case of fisherman bound for North Carolina caught in José’s rough seas highlights inadequacies in interstate fishing regulations

September 29, 2017 — Less than a month after a bill granting vessels safe harbor in New York was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a fishing vessel bound for North Carolina carrying 6,000 pounds of fluke has tested the new policy, straining New York’s federally designated fluke quotas.

The F/V Rianda S., which has long been a part of the Montauk fleet, was in transit to land its fish in North Carolina, where it has fishing licenses, on Sept. 17 after fishing in federal waters when it encountered the rough seas generated by Hurricane José and requested safe harbor in Montauk.

New York’s fluke fishery is closed for the month of September,  due to banner fluke landings this summer that strained the state’s already low federally mandated quotas.

The law granting safe harbor, sponsored by South Fork State Assemblyman Fred Thiele and East End State Senator Kenneth LaValle, allowed vessels fishing with licenses from other states immunity from prosecution for violations of state fishing regulations if they seek safe harbor under certain emergency situations, including weather, mechanical breakdown, medical emergencies and loss of essential gear that renders vessels unable to remain at sea.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) guidelines for safe harbor were drawn with input from commercial fishermen after an incident in January 2015, when the arrival of bad weather forced a commercial fisherman with New Jersey fishing permits to land his fish in Hampton Bays instead of continuing on to New Jersey.

Read the full story at the East End Beacon

NEW YORK: Thousands of dead fish clogged a New York canal. Why?

November 16, 2016 — Residents of Hampton Bays, N.Y., awoke Monday morning to find their local canal clogged with tens of thousands of silvery, dead fish. The bodies were packed together so tightly that it looked as though you could walk across them, one man told the local news channel News12. The air was thick with their noxious smell.

This was a classic fish kill — a massive die-off that occurs when too many fish are in a body of water with too little oxygen. Under ordinary circumstances, fish extract oxygen that has been dissolved in water as it filters through their gills. When the amount of dissolved oxygen is insufficient, the fish become hypoxic — they suffocate and die.

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation issued a statement saying the closing of locks at Shinnecock Canal early Monday inadvertently trapped a large school of Atlantic menhaden — small silvery fish also known as bunker — in the canal. The school of normally saltwater fish had probably been chased into the canal by predators.

“They chased them in here, but unfortunately the locks are closed so it’s just a dead end, they can’t get out,” Chris Paparo, a lab manager at Stony Brook University Marine Sciences Center, told the New York Daily News. “And with the sheer number of fish in here, it just sucks the oxygen out of the water and they suffocate.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post

NEW YORK: Long Island Fishermen Trying To Prevent Repeat Of Last Year’s Massive Fish Die-Off

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — There is a new plan on Long Island to prevent a repeat of last year’s massive fish die-off.

CBS2’s Jennifer McLogan reported it involves bunker – a species of fish used for bait – that are being captured alive in Riverhead as East End fishermen are looking to avoid another Peconic River fish kill.

“We are over half-a-million pounds,” Lenny Nilson of L&L Wholesale Bait said. “In three weeks we are seeing a difference.”

Nilson is using small seine netting as Will Caldwell and his team are using a 300-foot nylon net rigged to a system Caldwell invented just for this purpose.

“We are trying out best here. I am losing sleep over it because I don’t want to be wrong about this,” Caldwell of Hampton Bays said. “I think it is definitely working. Just keep up hope the bluefish don’t come in great herds.”

This time last year the river, bay and marinas chocked with dead bunkers, which became a biological and tourism nightmare.

Read the full story at CBS New York