January 8, 2020 — Northern Wind, based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A., is nearing completion on a state-of-the-art 38,000-square-foot processing and freezing facility on the New Bedford waterfront.
The new facility represents a significant expansion of the company, which is a direct off-loader, processor, and distributor of fresh and frozen scallops. According to a release from the company, the new expansion represents a USD 12 million (EUR 10.7 million) investment.
January 8, 2020 — A group representing New England fishing interests on Tuesday called for special travel lanes through offshore wind farms proposed off the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, putting the fishermen at odds with wind farm developers who want to retain as much space as possible for their turbines.
The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance called for the creation of six travel lanes, each one four nautical miles in width, through the entire lease area off the coast of the two states. The offshore wind developers in November had proposed no special travel lanes, choosing instead to let fishermen navigate through turbines set one nautical mile apart traveling north and south and seven-tenths of a nautical mile going diagonally.
Federal regulators, who had hoped the two sides would find some common ground on their own, will now have to decide the best approach.
Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, criticized federal regulators for leaving the issue of safe navigation through the wind farms to negotiations between fishermen and wind farm developers outside the regulatory process. She said it was disappointing that such an important safety issue is still being talked about so late in the regulatory process.
January 8, 2020 — In late December, on the doorstep to the Christmas holidays, New England’s groundfishermen received an early present.
As part of a $1.4 trillion spending package, the U.S. Senate passed a $79.4 billion appropriations bill that includes another $10.3 million for NOAA Fisheries — once again secured by New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen — to fully fund at-sea monitoring in the Northeast groundfish fishery for the 2020 fishing season that begins May 1.
When President Donald Trump signed the bill into law the next day, the mandated shouldering of the full financial weight of at-sea monitoring by the groundfish industry — at a cost of up to $700 per day per vessel — had been deferred for at least another fishing season.
“This is obviously very good news for our commercial groundfishermen,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition. “At-sea monitoring has become such a huge financial issue for everyone in the fishery.”
It was the third consecutive year that Shaheen, a ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, bailed out the groundfish industry on at-sea monitoring. Shaheen secured the first $10.3 million in the 2018 appropriations process that fully funded at-sea monitoring during the current fishing season.
January 7, 2020 — Scientists from the New England Aquarium and the Massachusetts-based engineering firm Draper are teaming up to save the whales. The researchers are weaving together a myriad of data in order to create a probability map of where whales might travel to and why. Knowing where whales go can help scientists better understand the environmental conditions that most impact the various species, reports 90.9 WBUR.
Changing water temperatures, for example, can shift where populations of krill, plankton, and fish—common food sources for whales—may go. Shipping lanes can also impact how whale populations travel: From 2010 to 2014, there were 37 reported ship strikes along the east coast of Canada and the U.S. and in the Gulf of Mexico, according to NOAA Fisheries data. Recent evidence has suggested that the ocean is getting noisier, which can stress whales and alter their behavior. (Luckily, groups like the U.S. Navy are taking note.)
In order to track these whales, the team plans to tap reliable sources of sonar, radar and satellite data to keep a watchful eye on our planet’s largest mammals. Eventually, the team hopes to input this data—collected from European Space Agency satellites to amateur radio operators—into an algorithm that will process that data and then track whales’ movements.
January 7, 2020 — A coalition of commercial fishing groups is calling for 4-mile-wide transit lanes through offshore wind turbine arrays off New England, as federal ocean planners and the Coast Guard consider maritime safety aspects of the projects.
In a Jan. 3 letter to those agencies, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance proposed six vessel traffic lanes — each 4 nautical miles wide and up to 70 miles long — through wind turbine areas proposed by energy companies south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket off Massachusetts.
Without endorsing that spacing — opposed by Rhode Island squid fishermen and others who say they cannot not work amid such arrays — the alliance letter is a counter-proposal that superimposes wider transit lanes on the developers’ plan.
“The proposal presented here utilizes the uniform 1×1 nm spaced turbines presented in the Nov. 1 proposal and includes transit lanes of adequate widths to preserve safe and efficient passage along the routes most often used by fishermen,” the letter states.
January 6, 2020 — After nine years in a rebuilding plan with strict management, including a prohibition on landings, Gulf of Maine smooth skate was declared rebuilt in 2018.
The declaration was included in “Status of U.S. Fisheries Annual Report to Congress,” prepared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and submitted to lawmakers this fall.
The report details the status of 479 federally managed stocks or stock complexes in the U.S. in an effort to identify which stocks are subject to overfishing, are overfished, or are rebuilt to sustainable levels.
Building on a trend of the past few years, the report noted that the vast majority of U.S. fish stocks were at sustainable population levels in 2018, and the number of U.S. fish stocks subject to overfishing remains at a near all-time low.
According to the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, the Northeast skate complex fishery includes seven skate species and operates from Maine to North Carolina. The bottom-dwelling, kite-shaped skate is taken with long lines and gill nets, both as a targeted fishery and as by catch.
January 3, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
Today, NOAA Fisheries published a proposed rule to designate coral protection areas on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine. This action would:
Read the proposed rule as published in the Federal Register. We will be accepting public comment on this proposed rule through February 18, 2020. You may submit comments via the online portal or submit written comments to NMFS, Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930. Mark the outside of the envelope “Comments on Omnibus Deep-Sea Coral Amendment.”
January 2, 2020 — A unique new fishing boat joins the fleet in New Bedford.
The scalloper Viking Power is now docked at Fish Island.
The different shape of the orange boat is what most people probably notice first.
“It’s designed to cut through the water better, to be more fuel efficient,” says the boat’s captain, Marty Harris.
Harris brought the Viking Power up from Alabama where it was built.
“Seemed like it didn’t slow down as much going into the weather and it seemed like it didn’t roll as much going into the weather,” Harris told NBC 10.
The weather it will likely face is 15 to 20 foot seas as scallop boats fish about 150 miles off shore.
“You’d probably be scared for your life,” Harris says of those kinds of conditions.
To him, though, “Just a day at work.”
January 2, 2020 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:
In 2020, New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center will launch “We Came to Fish, We Came to Work,” a series of exhibits and programs exploring the rich cultural heritage of New Bedford’s fishing industry. The Port of New Bedford has long drawn immigrants from around the world. Despite differences in language and culture, a highly-valued fishing industry developed, drawing on the strengths of immigrants from all over the world including the Azores, Cape Verde, El Salvador, Guatemala, Newfoundland, Norway, Nova Scotia, and Portugal. Cultural traditions of these various immigrant groups including needlework, ceramics, holiday practices, music, and recipes are still practiced today. Through two temporary exhibits, cooking and craft demonstrations, performances, film screenings, and panel discussions, the Center will consider why people chose to leave their homeland, what fishing was like in the old country, what brings people to New Bedford, and in what ways their cultural heritage has endured.
These exhibits and programs are funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Creative Commonwealth Initiative, and Dartmouth and New Bedford Cultural Council grants.
The first related programs will be “Stories of Immigration Scanning Days” on January 11th and February 8th from 10:00am- 12:00pm. Community members are encouraged to bring in any photographs, documents, or objects related to their own stories of immigration or enduring cultural heritage traditions.These items will be scanned and documented by Fishing Heritage Center staff and volunteers. Such items help the Center tell a more complete story of immigration and cultural heritage in New Bedford’s working waterfront.
Music is an integral part of a community’s cultural heritage, and the Fishing Heritage Center will host several concerts throughout the year that reflect these traditions. On Saturday, February 8th at 7:00pm, Golden Lane, a traditional Irish dance music group, will perform at the Fishing Heritage Center. Tickets are $10/ members, $12/ general public. On Wednesday, March 11th at 7:00pm, Matthew Byrne, a traditional singer, storyteller, and guitarist from Newfoundland, will perform at the Center. Tickets are $12/ members, $15/ general public. Tickets for both concerts are available at Brown Paper Ticket links accessible through the Center’s website calendar, by calling the Center at 508-993-8894, or at the Center’s gift shop.
For more information on these upcoming exhibits or programs, email programs@fishingheritagecenter.org.
December 27, 2019 — The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance is working with local partners and fishermen to conduct a pilot training program that will cover basic training such as navigation, boating safety, personal survival, and today’s fisheries.
The course will run in two sessions from late January to early February and from late February to early March in the coming year.
Students will learn about basic maritime terminology, crew responsibilities on board different types of fishing vessels, basic knot tying, offshore survival, first aid, Cape Cod fisheries, and the types of gears used in the region.
Upon successful completion of the course, students and interested captains will be given an opportunity to attend a meet-and-greet event at the Fishermen’s Alliance office to discuss potential hiring opportunities.