Saving Seafood

Carlos Rafael’s boats set to sail again with new owners

February 27, 2020 — Several boats once owned by disgraced fishing mogul Carlos Rafael, infamous in the region for being nicknamed the “Codfather,” will once again set sail, thanks to new management.

Blue Harvest Fisheries has bought several of the boats that became disused due to Rafael’s conviction for ignoring fishing quotas and limits, as well as smuggling profits overseas. Rafael was sentenced to four years in prison and can never run a fishing operation ever again.

The company says its acquisition will help keep locals employed on the New Bedford waterfront and maintain the tradition that made it the Whaling City for generations of fishermen.

“Our goal here is to create jobs and opportunities for New England fisheries,” Blue Harvest CEO Keith Decker said. “Everyone, in general, is very excited about what this means to the greater New Bedford area.”

Read the full story at WPRI

Coast Guard Commandant: Illegal Chinese Fishing a ‘National Security Challenge’ That Warrants U.S. Response

February 27, 2020 — The “Great Power Competition” with Russia and China isn’t limited to winning allies in geostrategic flash points or sailing through contested areas to promote freedom of the seas, according to the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Near-peer adversaries “are actively exploiting other nations’ natural resources, including fish stocks. In many cases [they are] challenging the sovereignty of smaller or less-developed nations,” Adm. Karl Schultz said in his annual State of the Coast Guard address, live-streamed Feb. 20 from Charleston, South Carolina.

Schultz identified China, which has the world’s largest distant water fishing fleet, as “one of the worst predatory fishing offenders,” engaging in Illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing (IUU). The problem goes beyond conservation and sustainability, he said — “This is a national security challenge warranting a clear response.”

An essential protein source for more than 40% the world’s population, fish stocks are critical to the sovereignty and economic security of many nations. The most conservative estimates put the annual loss to the global economy from IUU fishing at more than $23 billion.

Read the full story at Seapower

USCG Intercepts Illegal Fishing Vessels Off Guam and Hawaii

February 27, 2020 — For the first time in eight years, the U.S. Coast Guard has intercepted illegal fishing vessels within American EEZ areas in the Central and Western Pacific. Fishing boat interdiction is a common task for the Coast Guard off the coast of Texas, where Mexican “lancha” fishing boats are routinely intercepted in U.S. waters, but IUU fishing by foreign vessels is almost unheard of in America’s far-flung Pacific Ocean EEZ regions.

“While we’ve seen incursions into the EEZs of partners and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing on the high seas, these are the first interdictions we’ve had in the U.S. EEZ since 2012,” said Lt. Jason Holstead of the Coast Guard’s 14th District, which is responsible for most of the Pacific from Hawaii west. “The combination of partnerships, electronic methods, and putting assets on the scene to catch violators in the act is essential to deterring IUU fishing in Oceania.”

In both cases, the Coast Guard was conducting surveillance flights in the zones off Guam and Hawaii with HC-130 aircraft crews based near Pearl Harbor. Case packages for the intercepts were forwarded to the NOAA Office of Law Enforcement for further action, and the investigations are pending.

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

Seafood importing countries could lock out illegal fish with better control schemes, group says

February 26, 2020 — Aligning countries’ seafood import control schemes would reduce cost burdens for seafood companies while helping prevent illegally caught fish from reaching global markets.

A coalition of NGOs is arguing that major seafood importing countries and Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs) need to ensure that their import regulations require the collection of 17 key data points that reveal the who, what, when, where, and how of seafood in the supply chain. Currently, a lack of data prevents cross-checking against authorization records – making it impossible to confirm the legality of imported seafood.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

FLORIDA: Proposed shark fin sale ban dismays fishermen

February 24, 2020 — Dave Campo has been catching sharks since he was 12. He spends his nights bobbing on the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean, waiting patiently in the dark for his catch and hauling the 80- to 300-pound fish on board his boat, the Miss Maggie, with his crew.

When the Miss Maggie docks, each shark, already gutted and beheaded, is carefully lifted out of a large icebox that takes up about a quarter of the boat. Crew member Ed Zirkel, 30, dressed in white rubber overalls and bright orange gloves, grabs a sharp knife and, from the dorsal to the lower tail lobe, systematically slices off each fin. With the rubber waders off, a thick scar is visible on the front of his leg — it’s from a shark bite.

Once the sharks’ stomachs are removed, each heavy carcass is weighed, chopped into fillets, skinned, packaged and weighed again. By the time the men have finished their work, the floors of the boat and the fish house are covered with a thin layer of watery blood.

Pending state legislation in Florida could soon quash this scene.

In the U.S., shark finning — the gruesome process of stripping living sharks of their fins, dumping the fish back in the water and leaving them to struggle for life, drown or bleed to death — has been outlawed since the Shark Finning Prohibition Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on Dec. 21, 2000. Many states since then have also banned the import, export and sale of fins, which is different from finning, but nonetheless controversial. Two bills — HB 401 and SB 680 — are currently moving through the Florida Legislature to ban all fin sales.

Robert Hueter, director of the Sarasota-based Mote Marine Laboratory’s Center for Shark Research, said the anti-finning bills may be well-intended but would have negative consequences.

Hueter said banning the import and export of fins in Florida will merely push the illegal trade underground, preventing regulation, and promote wastefulness by forcing local fishermen to throw away the fins on the sharks they catch.

Read the full story at The Gainesville Sun

MASSACHUSETTS: Most of ‘Codfather’ fishing fleet sold

February 24, 2020 — Except for a few loose ends, Carlos Rafael’s fleet has now been sold.

Blue Harvest Fisheries, with facilities in Newport News, Virginia, and Fairhaven and New Bedford, finalized the purchase Thursday of 12 large fish trawlers, 27 fishing permits and their quota allocations that once belonged to the disgraced New Bedford fishing industry mogul.

Once dubbed “The Codfather” for his outsize presence and influence across the Northeast commercial fishing industry, Rafael is serving a 46-month sentence in a federal prison at the former Fort Devens in Harvard. He pleaded guilty to falsely labeling fish, smuggling cash, tax evasion and falsifying federal records as part of a scheme to catch and sell fish for which he did not have the necessary quota.

Under the terms of an agreement in a civil case brought by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Rafael agreed to leave commercial fishing and to sell off all his vessels by December 2020. His attorney, John Markey, said 95% of that divestiture is now complete. All that remain are a herring trawler and its permit, two fishing permits that are already under a sales agreement that has not been executed and two fishing vessels that have no permits.

Blue Harvest CEO Keith Decker and Markey would not disclose the amount paid for the dozen trawlers, but Markey said Rafael has now paid off his debts.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

National Marine Fisheries chief speaks out against shark fin sale bans

February 21, 2020 — Passing state or federal bans on sales of now-legally harvested shark fins would unnecessarily penalize U.S. fishermen and have little impact on the illicit global fin trade, said Chris Oliver, assistant administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, in an unusual position statement.

“The United States has some of the best managed shark fisheries in the world. Our laws and regulations prevent overfishing while maximizing commercial fishing opportunities and the economic value of our shark fisheries,” Oliver said in the statement issued Feb. 18. “Part of our science-based management is allowing fishermen to sell both the meat and fins of sustainably harvested sharks.”

Sentiment among NOAA officials has long been that U.S. fin sale bans — sought by environmental and conservation groups who want to end the practice of finning live sharks at sea — would not benefit shark management in U.S. waters. As campaigns for state- and federal-level fin sale bans continue the agency is becoming more outspoken about its position.

Oliver’s statement comes as Florida state lawmakers move closer to imposing a ban on the legal shark fin trade. Advocates say the state is a center for U.S. shark landings, and their avowed goal is to reduce fishing mortality on sharks. A bill for a federal sales ban passed the House of Representatives in November 2019 but remains bottled up in the Senate.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Twelve of Carlos Rafael’s vessels officially sold to Blue Harvest

February 20, 2020 — The boxing match over a large portion of the Codfather’s fleet with its counter punches and knockouts has come to an end and Blue Harvest Fisheries is left standing to take its victory lap.

Blue Harvest announced in a statement Thursday that they closed a deal with Carlos Rafael for 12 of his groundfishing vessels and 27 of his permits.

Those vessels and permits will be staying in New Bedford, according to the statement.

“This agreement ensures a major portion of the groundfish fishery remains in the Port of New Bedford, with vessels docked in New Bedford and crewed by local fishermen,” Blue Harvest Fisheries said.

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell has long been vocal about his hope that the permits and vessels would remain in the Whaling City.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Blue Harvest finalizes acquisition of portion of Carlos Rafael fleet

February 20, 2020 — Last year in New England, U.S.A., 90 percent of the haddock quota and 92 percent of the pollock quota was left in the water.

Blue Harvest, based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, is aiming to change those numbers and the company’s recent acquisition of 12 groundfish vessels and 27 fishing permits is a part of its efforts to begin utilizing the resource. The vessels, and permits, were formerly part of the fleet of Carlos Rafael – a.k.a. “The Codfather” – who pleaded guilty in 2017 to falsifying fish quotas, tax evasion, and conspiracy and then subsequently settled a civil case with NOAA that forced him to permanently stop all commercial fishing by 31 March, 2020.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Oversight of fishing vessels lacking, new analysis shows

February 19, 2020 — Policies regulating fishing in international waters do not sufficiently protect officials who monitor illegal fishing, the prohibited dumping of equipment, or human trafficking or other human rights abuses, finds a new analysis by a team of environmental researchers.

“These fisheries observers risk their lives to watch over industrial fishing activities, and yet they are often not afforded sufficient legal safeguards,” says Jennifer Jacquet, an associate professor in New York University’s Department of Environmental Studies and a co-author of the study. “If we are serious about protecting ocean life, we must first put policies in place to protect fisheries observers.”

The analysis, co-authored with the nonprofit Greenpeace and the Association of Professional Observers, appears in the journal Marine Policy.

There are an estimated 2,500 observers globally, and in recent years many have been subject to human rights and safety violations, including intimidation, assault, and even murder or disappearance under suspicious circumstances. The researchers add that since 2010, at least seven fisheries observers have disappeared while monitoring fisheries under the authority of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs). Notably, very little information is available regarding the circumstances.

Read the full story at Science Daily