Saving Seafood

Carlos Rafael scallop boats to stay in New Bedford

September 26, 2019 — Eleven scallop boats from the fleet of convicted fisheries violator Carlos Rafael will keep working out of New Bedford under local ownership, a victory for industry advocates.

Charlie and Michael Quinn, the father and son co-owners of Quinn Fisheries, appeared at the docks Tuesday afternoon with New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell to announce they had closed on a deal to buy six of the boats.

The Quinns paid about $40 million, said Michael Quinn. Mitchell, who with other Massachusetts political and industry leaders pushed to keep the boats in New Bedford, said the other five vessels and their permits are also now going to new owners based in the city.

Rafael is serving a 46-month federal prison sentence for tax evasion, falsifying fisheries landing reports and related offenses. The so-called “Codfather” controlled a large share of the groundfish and scallop fleets, until he was brought down by undercover federal agents.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Call for Pacific regional fisheries committee to ban trans-shipping

September 25, 2019 — American researchers are calling for the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Committee to ban trans-shipping.

The Pew Charitable Trust said tens of millions of dollars each year was lost to the practice of offloading catch before it reached its final destination.

A 2016 survey found that dozens of vessels were likely carrying out unauthorized trans-shipment in the Pacific.

Read the full story at Samoa News

Forced sell-off of Rafael assets begins

September 24, 2019 — A father-and-son team from Massachusetts and other buyers are acquiring scallop fishing boats owned by a disgraced fishing magnate nicknamed the Codfather, signaling the beginning of the former mogul’s forced exit from fisheries.

The sale of Carlos Rafael’s 11 scallop boats, and their associated permits, is part of a civil settlement Rafael agreed to with the federal government that will result in his permanent removal from the U.S. fishing industry.

Rafael, once the owner of one of the largest commercial fishing operations in the U.S., was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for dodging quotas and smuggling profits overseas.

Scallopers Charles Quinn and son Michael Quinn are buying seven of Rafael’s scallop boats and selling one of them, their attorney, Andrew Minkiewicz, told The Associated Press. Court documents state the Quinns paid about $46 million for the boats.

Rafael’s attorney, John Markey, of New Bedford, confirmed the other boats have also sold, but declined to disclose the other buyers or purchase prices.

Read the full story at The Associated Press

Mexico, Ecuador, Korea in the spotlight of IUU activities

September 24, 2019 — In 2017’s report, NOAA identified Mexico, Ecuador and Russia for reported IUU fishing activities but have since taken corrective actions to remedy those activities.

In 2019’s report, Mexico, Ecuador and the Republic of Korea were identified for reported IUU activities.

In the report:

  • Republic of Korea: Failed to apply sufficient sanctions to deter its vessels from engaging in fishing activities that violate conservation and management measures adopted by an international fishery management organization.
  • Mexico: The country was again identified for the same matter in 2015 and 2017. It continued unauthorized activities of its fishing vessels in U.S. waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read the full story at Safety4Sea

3 charged with breaking herring fishing laws in Maine

September 20, 2019 — The Maine Marine Patrol says it has cited three men for violating laws designed to protect an economically important species of fish.

The laws protect Atlantic herring, a bait fish that has been the subject of deep fishing quota cuts in recent years. The marine patrol says it has charged fishing boat captain Glenn Robbins of Eliot with exceeding the weekly limit of 160,000 pounds of herring and failing to file accurate reports.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

State judge’s order thwarts auction owners’ apparent last stab at buying Rafael vessels

September 19, 2019 — Raymond and Richie Canastra, the long-time owners of the Buyers and Sellers Exchange (BASE), the New Bedford, Massachusetts-based seafood auction, have made another apparent attempt to purchase some of Carlos Rafael’s commercial fishing vessels and again have been thwarted, Undercurrent News has learned.

This time the two brothers’ effort, which involved stepping in front of another buyer, has been done in by a state judge’s order.

Merita Hopkins, an associate judge in the Bristol County, Massachusetts, Superior Court, on Friday vacated her approval, given two days earlier, of a request by BASE for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that would have stopped Rafael from selling seven of his 11 scallop vessels to Charlie and Michael Quinn, the father-and-son owners of Quinn Fisheries, a 33-year-old, New Bedford-based scallop operation with six vessels already harvesting, for nearly $46 million.

The move by the Canastras, whose auction handles roughly half of all the Atlantic scallops caught in New England as well as a considerable amount of groundfish, seems to have been a prelude to them making an offer themselves for the boats, which also come with some groundfishing quota.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Licensed Tuna Vessels Blamed for Exploitation: FFA

September 18, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — More than 95 per cent of the Pacific’s challenge from the unsustainable exploitation of its fisheries resources come from licensed, not illegal fishing vessels, the region’s top fisheries official has warned.

The head of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA),Dr Manumatavai Tupou-Roosen, cited research from the organisation showing that licensed vessels present 95 per cent of the problems associated with Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IIU) fishing.

“Our challenge is not purely illegal [or] unlicensed vessels; our big challenge, over 95 per cent [of it] is licensed vessels which are not reporting, under reporting [or] misreporting,” said Dr Manu, who is the first female head of the FFA.

“So when we look at our monitoring control surveillance tools, we need to ensure that we put in place equipment that will ensure we get the right data in a timely fashion.

“For example electronic monitoring, electronic reporting is very much front and centre of our developments.”

In the same study from a few years ago by FFA discovered that although the cost of IUU fishing to the region is not in the billions anymore, the estimated figure of US$616 million is still very significant.

“The number that has been estimated of fish that has been harvested or transshipped waters in our region is in the order of US$616 million and so it is still a significant number and still a significant challenge that none of our countries can tackle alone,” she said.

This loss amounts to more than 12 per cent of the US$5 billion in dock value the Pacific generated in 2014.

“Which is why the way FFA has been set up is based on our cooperation we have put together and integrated monitoring control and surveillance framework to combat IUU fishing,” she said.

The FFA. are looking at baseline indicators to determine fishing levels in all countries including Samoa as part of a challenge to eliminate IUU fishing by 2023.

“It’s really important that we set baseline information so that we can tell by 2023 that we [have] worked down that figure and so as part of that exercise, we’ll look at how we do it across the board for the region plus the possibility of doing it for individual countries,” she said.

The challenge has also been marked as a key priority by the region after being taken to the Pacific Islands Forums and demanded cooperation between the FFA and the Pacific Community (SPC).

“In the context of climate change there is an intensified pressure on coastal resources and so there will be an increasing call on tuna the off shore resources to supplement local food security needs,” she said.

“So there is a responsibility on FFA, the SPC and all of our regional organisations to see how we best support our people, our members and their priorities including in this context of this serious threat of climate change.”

Although tools have been put in place to combat the issues, the Agency says it is still not satisfied as the perpetrators are constantly improving in their methods as well.

“We’re not complacent; the tools put in place are quite advanced but always the technology for fishers are quite smart and advancing how they will extract more fish and we need to stay in tune, in step with these sophisticated technologies and calibrate our [monitoring],” said Dr Manu.

Asked about China’s role, the FFA Chief said it does not matter who member states issue licenses to.

“For any vessel that we license, whether it is China or another partner, what we have to be clear on and our members are very good at underlining [is] what our minimum conditions of access are,” she said.

“And that it applies to all across our members so that our countries are not played off against each other and our members are leading in terms of monitoring control and surveillance tools.”

Dr Manu also highlighted that the Association’s work is not just about ensuring that members are maximising economic returns but regulating the labour market too.

“It’s also the human side to our works and the social responsibility and making sure that when we do license vessels to fish in our waters, whether they are foreign or domestic that they also ensure that crew on board [and] the conditions for their work are safe and decent,” she said.

“And it’s not just the source of employment, it comes hand in hand with ensuring a decent and worthwhile occupation for our people and so it’s the social responsibility together with the economic sustainability and the biological sustainability of our tuna fisheries resources.”

Fisheries access fees paid by foreign fishing vessels are significant sources of government revenue in several Pacific Island countries.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Tuna Transshipment Management Compromised

September 16, 2019 — The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission’s (WCPFC’s) management of transshipments in its waters is compromised by significant gaps in reporting, monitoring and data sharing, according to a report released by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Transshipment is the transfer of fish from the vessel that caught the fish to a carrier vessel that will deliver the fish to port, an activity that often takes place on the high seas and outside the view and reach of authorities. The practice allows unscrupulous fishing vessel operators to obscure or falsify data on their fishing practices. This contributes to millions of dollars of illegally caught fish entering the seafood supply chain each year.

The Pew Charitable Trusts combined commercially available Automatic Identification System data with the application of machine learning technology to analyze the track histories of carrier vessels operating in WCPFC convention area waters in 2016. Researchers then compared this analysis with publicly available information on transshipments and carrier vessels.

Read the full story at The Marine Executive

German company proposes using UAVs to combat IUU

September 12, 2019 — Bbcom Secure, a German security company, has proposed a new method for combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing: Unmanned Aerial Systems, which are carried on vehicles commonly known as UAVs.

The proposal by the company would use unmanned drones that can survey fishing activities from the air, allowing for real-time monitoring from the shore day and night. The advantage, the company said, is that with modern video and drone technology, UAVs can provide a low-operating cost deterrent around the clock.

Read the full story at Seafood Source