Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishermen’s Trust Looks to the Future

January 7, 2016 — After a strong year, the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust is pressing ahead with its mission to support commercial fishermen on the Island. On Tuesday, eight of the nine board members attended a meeting of the Chilmark selectmen to seek further support.

“We have accomplished as much as we possibly can do in a volunteer setting,” board member and commercial fisherman Wes Brighton said, emphasizing the need for funding and other support to help attract young fishermen and sustain the industry. The Island fleet has struggled in the face of increasing costs and regulations in recent years.

Last summer the trust held its first Meet the Fleet event in Menemsha, drawing large crowds to the harbor and raising awareness of the challenges facing the industry. It also partnered with The Nature Conservancy to purchase the Island’s last federal groundfish permit, in its efforts to establish a permit bank to support Island fishermen.

But the Island’s historic fishing harbor is changing. In September, the 75-foot Unicorn dragger was sold in New Bedford, following the path of its sister ship, the Quitsa Strider II, in 2014. Both ships had once landed groundfish and other species by the ton but ended up unused and rusting in the harbor. Trust president John Keene worried that as Island lobstermen retire, a new generation may be unable to replace them.

“Pretty soon the harbor will be without the main attraction,” he said of the commercial fishing fleet. “We’re worried that if that happens, then Menemsha starts changing from what it is to more of a marina.”

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

 

Study: Offshore wind’s impacts on fisheries unclear; federal report calls for more research

December 3, 2015 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Advocates for regional fishing industries and marine life are concerned about the impacts of offshore wind turbines as deep-pocketed, experienced developers eye construction in ocean waters south of Martha’s Vineyard.

The offshore wind industry has been touted as a key piece of New Bedford’s economic future, but advocates’ concerns are reflected in a federal report that says little is known about how turbines could affect fish populations.

“Potential impacts of offshore wind energy development on fisheries resources are not well understood, both here in the U.S. and abroad,” states a study released in July by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), citing a “comprehensive” review of related literature.

“The site-specific project data needed to evaluate the potential impacts on fisheries resources in these (wind energy areas) is lacking, resulting in uncertainty and speculation,” the study also states.

BOEM’s new committee on ocean energy management and the environment will hold its first meeting next week, in Washington, D.C. The group of respected scientists from across the nation — none from SouthCoast — will help guide BOEM’s stewardship of offshore energy resources, a BOEM news release says.

The group could help fill the void of information cited by the BOEM study over the summer.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard – Times

 

European firm pitches huge wind farm off Martha’s Vineyard

November 10, 2015 — A major European energy company is proposing what could be North America’s largest offshore wind farm 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, outlining its plans less than a year after the proposed Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound suffered a stunning financial setback.

Denmark-based DONG Energy A/S, the world’s largest developer of offshore wind farms, Monday said it would build up to 100 giant wind turbines, generating as much as 1,000 megawatts of electricity — more than double the output Cape Wind had proposed for its site off Cape Cod. The Danish company recently acquired one of the leases for a stretch of ocean that the US government has designated for wind farms. It has dubbed the local operation Bay State Wind.

Company officials, seeking to distinguish their plans from the controversial Cape Wind project, pointed to DONG Energy’s long track record in building ocean wind farms. They also noted the turbines would be much farther out to sea, potentially drawing less opposition from oceanfront homeowners than Cape Wind.

“We have the experience and we have the expertise,” said Thomas Brostrom, the company’s North American general manager said in an interview Sunday.

DONG Energy faces lengthy Massachusetts and US permitting processes that include environmental reviews and approvals for where its power lines would come ashore. Once those approvals are in hand, DONG Energy said, it would take about three years to build the wind farm, and the first phase could include 30 to 35 turbines and be in service by early next decade.

Other than getting the transfer of the lease approved by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, DONG Energy has yet to file any applications for the projects with the federal or state government.

The group that battled the Cape Wind project since its inception has adopted a much softer tone for the Danish project and others proposed in the waters south of Martha’s Vineyard.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

MASSACHUSETTS: When the Bay Scallops Beckon, Time and Tide Wait for No Man

November 5, 2015 — Hathaway is a big family name on the Edgartown waterfront. And among them all, Dick Hathaway is a legend. There are many stories that circulate around this hardworking, hard headed, crusty fellow, but no one questions one fact: Dick Hathaway loves to go fishing for bay scallops. At 87 years of age, he was the eldest on Cape Pogue Pond on Monday morning, the opening day of the commercial bay scalloping season.

Dick Hathaway fishes now with his younger cousin, Mike Hathaway. On Monday they were up and out early. Dick’s wife Janice was up early too, well before sunrise, making him a sandwich and putting it in his small cooler.

By 9 a.m., there were close to 40 fishermen out on the pond.

Dick’s earliest memory of scalloping goes back to when he was a kid, just old enough to go commercial fishing. He worked side by side with his uncle. “I went with Lewis Hathaway,” he said. “We were in Anthier’s Pond [Sengekontacket].They didn’t allow motors in the pond.”

In those days they used dip nets, wind and the power of the hand. They rowed.

To harvest the bay scallops, Lewis tossed the drag off the stern of the skiff, Dick said.“He’d hand me the line and I’d go to the bow and pull in the drag.”

Today shellfishermen use powerful outboard motors. Most boats have a winch that is powered by a gas motor to help raise the drag from the bottom.

Read the full story at Vineyard Gazette

 

Edgartown Mass. commercial fishermen continue to adjust to new realities

September 2, 2015 — Edgartown’s commercial trap fishing industry is tough work. It is evident as much in the number of working boats and fishermen seeking conch and sea bass as it is anecdotally. Those fishermen who remain put in long days and work under strict quotas and regulations. However, fishing is all they’ve done for most of their lives, and they say they are committed to riding out what wave is left of the local industry.

Island landings of channeled whelk, commonly referred to as conch, the most lucrative species caught in Island waters, are valued at more than $2 million each year since 2011, according to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF).

Behind conch are oysters, with Martha’s Vineyard landings valued at $1.3 million in 2014. There is one important distinction. Unlike conch, which are  wild-caught, oysters are for the most part raised in the protected waters of Island bays and ponds. Bay scallops, which are propagated as part of an extensive taxpayer-supported program, accounted for just over $700,000.

Even as conch fishing holds steady, the number of commercial fishermen registered as Island residents has started to decline, according to the DMF. In 2008, there were 360 registered Vineyard commercial fishermen. As of 2015, there are 263.

“Conch fishing is tough fishing,” commercial fisherman Tom Turner of Edgartown said as he replaced lost or damaged sea bass traps aboard his boat, the Sea Raven, docked at Memorial Wharf in Edgartown on a hot and sunny August afternoon.

The commercial sea bass season is short. Fishermen can only go out three days a week: Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and each day they fish, they’re allowed to catch no more than 300 pounds of sea bass, Mr. Turner said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sets quotas and updates fishermen as they change.

Read the full story at Martha’s Vineyard Times

 

The Shark Fishermen of New England

August 6, 2015 — MARTHA’S VINEYARD, Mass. — Ever since Steven Spielberg set a shark fin gliding through the waters of a fictional New England town, Martha’s Vineyard has become irrevocably associated with the movie “Jaws.” The photographer Maggie Shannon was born more than a decade after the film was shot on the island, in 1974, but growing up on the Vineyard she had a “Jaws” poster hanging from her wall, and would attend the annual Monster Shark Tournament that took place each July. Since then, the Vineyard—its close-knit year-round community, the legacy of “Jaws,” and the island’s relationship to the many tourists who descend upon it each year—has become a central subject of her work.

For her new series, Shannon joined one of the fishing crews who participated in this year’s Monster Shark event, documenting the bait, the blood, and the physicality involved in hauling sharks from the ocean.

Read the full story at The New Yorker

Last Groundfish Permit Stays on Martha’s Vineyard, Though Days Are Numbered

July 23, 2015 — The Nature Conservancy, working with the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, has purchased the Island’s last historic groundfish permit, marking a major milestone in the trust’s efforts to develop a permit bank to support Island fishermen.

The federal New England multi-species permit, also known as a groundfish permit, was held by Greg Mayhew, owner of the Unicorn, a legendary 75-foot dragger out of Menemsha.

“We wanted our fishing permit to stay on Martha’s Vineyard and not go to some corporation or conglomerate,” Mr. Mayhew said in a statement issued Thursday by the conservancy.

Among other challenges facing local fishermen, the decline in groundfish populations in recent years has led to smaller quotas, leaving many businesses unable to compete. Since regrouping last year, the fishermen’s preservation trust has concentrated on developing a permit bank that would allow Vineyard fishermen to lease quota at an affordable rate.

Christopher McGuire, marine program director for The Nature Conservancy, said the Unicorn permit might only support one or two Island fishermen, since the quota is limited.

“There is only so much fish to lease out,” he said. But he added that there are relatively few groundfishermen on the Island, so competition for the quota might be light.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

 

In New England, Plenty of Fish in the Sea, But Red Tape Keeps Them There

July 2, 2015 — Many of the fisheries around the Vineyard have declined as a result of commercial fishing. In 2009 a new regulatory system based on sectors and annual quotas replaced the previous system, which worked by limiting fishing trips and days at sea. But the new system tends to favor larger companies that can afford to purchase quota from other fishermen and reinvest in equipment.

The fisheries have largely rebounded, Mr. Brighton said, but the Island’s commercial fishing fleet is struggling to compete with companies in New Bedford and other large fishing ports in New England.

Along the coast, however, community groups have emerged to reclaim some of the access to their local waters. The Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, a small group of fishermen, businessmen and others, is now working to establish a permit bank to make permits and quota affordable and keep them in the community.

The most active fisheries on the Vineyard — conch, lobster and monkfish — are managed by limited access (only a certain number of permits are issued). But groundfish, which include cod, flounder, haddock and other bottom-dwelling species, are regulated in part by quotas, which can be bought and sold on the open market. As one project, the trust plans to raise money through loans, grants and donations to buy quotas and lease them to fisherman at an affordable rate.

Obtaining a quota, however, requires first obtaining a state or federal permit, and most permits are already in use, placing them in high demand. A conch permit, for example, might sell for $40,000. A monkfish permit might exceed $50,000. A full-time scalloping permit for a large boat could easily run in the millions.

Quotas can be owned and leased by anyone, but permits are tied to individual vessels, so the trust would be hard-pressed to lease a permit without relinquishing control. “There is nothing keeping me from going to any other place in the world at fair market value and just selling it,” said Mr. Brighton, who is also a trustee for the fishermen’s trust.

“Obviously the hope is to one day be able to have boats that could lease quota,” said Shelley Edmundson, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Hampshire who is studying conchs and also working as treasurer for the trust. But the trust has raised only about $20,000 so far and has no immediate plans to purchase a boat.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette