Saving Seafood

New Film Highlights Fishing Industry from Fishermen’s Point of View

April 4, 2018 — “The family fishermen are going the way of family farmers,” says one man interviewed in “Dead in the Water,” the new documentary film by Southern California filmmaker David Wittkower showing at Harbor Theater in Boothbay Harbor on Monday, April 9. Shot in New England coastal towns, the film chronicles the struggles of New England fishermen to remain viable in an age of what some might deem excessive federal regulation of the ground-fishing industry.

“It’s a film from the point of view of the fishermen,” Wittkower said in a recent phone interview from his home in Woodland Hills, Calif. “The government regulations have been so tight on fishermen … that they can’t make a living anymore.

“I wanted to show this industry from the human side.”

Increased regulations have driven up costs for fishermen so much that “a three-man boat went down to a one-man boat,” he said. “The amount of work that one man has to do is amazing.”

Running a one-man boat in the ocean can be dangerous. “In the film, someone says that 87 percent of fishermen in the U.S. are suffering from PTSD,” said Wittkower.

“This film opens the door for the world to see how difficult and dangerous the life of a fisherman is. On top of that, the impact of misguided federal regulations on fishermen has never been presented as powerfully as it is in ‘Dead in the Water,’” said John Bell, the former mayor of Gloucester, Mass., in a recent press release for the movie.

“Dead in the Water” was released last November in Rockport, Mass., Wittkower’s hometown, and has since shown in other Massachusetts coastal towns – Cape Cod, New Bedford, and Gloucester, whose declining fishing industry is chronicled in the film.

Read the full story at the Lincoln County News

 

Coast Guard continues to investigate Misty Blue’s sinking

April 4, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The Coast Guard continues to investigate and has not determined the cause of the sinking of the Misty Blue, a New Bedford-based fishing vessel that sank in December, a spokeswoman said.

Two fishermen — Michael Roberts, 49, and Jonathan Saraiva, 32 — died when the 69-foot surf clam harvester sank Dec. 4 about 10 miles southeast of Nantucket. Capt. Eric Arabian, 44, and Colby McMullen, 22, were rescued by a nearby fishing Enterprise.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Nicole J. Groll said Sector Southeastern New England Marine Causality Division is handling the investigation. She did not say when the probe will be completed, but said these investigations can take as long as a year, depending on the nature of the case.

“The investigators are doing their best to be thorough. After it is finalized, it will need to be reviewed through the Coast Guard investigation chain of command that culminates at Coast Guard headquarters before publication,” she said in an email to The Standard-Times.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times   

 

New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center: April Dock-U-Mentaries to feature Counting Fish

April 4, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:   

The Dock-U-Mentaries Film Series continues on Friday, April 20th at 7:00 PM with Counting Fish a film by Don Cuddy.  Dock-U-Mentaries is a co-production of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center, and the Working Waterfront Festival.  Films about the working waterfront are screened on the third Friday of each month beginning at 7:00 PM in the theater of the Corson Maritime Learning Center, located at 33 William Street in downtown New Bedford. All programs are open to the public and presented free of charge.

New England groundfishermen are in trouble. The annual catch limits are now set so low that many boats remain tied to the dock. But controversy abounds. The fishing industry has expressed no confidence in the NOAA trawl survey that provides the raw data for the stock assessment. But counting fish in the ocean is no easy task. While everyone agrees that more and better data is needed NOAA Fisheries says its resources are already overtaxed.

UMass Dartmouth marine scientist Kevin Stokesbury believes he may have found a solution- using cameras to record fish passing through a net that is intentionally left open, allowing them to escape unharmed. The video is then taken ashore and analyzed to obtain an estimate of stock abundance for a variety of species. Don Cuddy documented this new technology in action and the results can be seen in this splendid documentary. He will lead a post-film discussion.

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center, located at 38 Bethel Street, is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and presenting the history and culture of New Bedford’s fishing industry through exhibits, programs, and archives.

New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park was established by Congress in 1996 to help preserve and interpret America’s nineteenth century whaling industry.  The park, which encompasses a 13-block National Historic Landmark District, is the only National Park Service area addressing the history of the whaling industry and its influence on the economic, social, and environmental history of the United States.  The National Park visitor center is located at 33 William Street in downtown New Bedford. It is open seven days a week, from 9 AM-5 PM, and offers information, exhibits, and a free orientation movie every hour on the hour from 10 AM-4 PM.  The visitor center is wheelchair-accessible, and is free of charge.  For more information, call the visitor center at 508-996-4095, go to www.nps.gov/nebe or visit the park’s Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/NBWNHP. Everyone finds their park in a different way. Discover yours at FindYourPark.com.

 

NOAA Fisheries Announces New Habitat Management Measures for New England Fisheries

April 4, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries has approved measures of the New England Fishery Management Council’s Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment 2. This amendment updates the Essential Fish Habitat designations required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act with the latest scientific information, and minimizes the effect of fishing on that habitat while balancing the economic needs of the fishing industry.

The approved measures include:

  • Revisions to the essential fish habitat designations for all New England Fishery Management Council-managed species and life stages;
  • New Habitat Areas of Particular Concern to highlight especially important habitat areas;
  • Revisions to the spatial management system within the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and the southern New England area to better align with scientific advice on how and where to protect essential fish habitat while balancing the economic needs of the fishing industry;
  • Establishment of two Dedicated Habitat Research Areas, seasonal spawning protection measures, and a system for reviewing and updating the proposed measures.

The approved measures are effective on April 9, 2018.  

Two important notes:

Closed Area I North will remain closed until April 15 to protect spawning. This closure applies to all fishing vessels, except vessels in transit, vessels fishing with exempted gears, vessels fishing in the mid-water trawl exempted fishery, charter and party vessels, private recreational vessels, and scallop dredges.

The Spring Massachusetts Bay Spawning Closure will be closed April 15-30. This closure applies to all vessels, except vessels without a federal northeast multispecies permit fishing exclusively in state waters, vessels fishing with exempted gears or in the mid-water trawl purse seine exempted fishery, scallop vessels on a day-at-sea, scallop vessels in the dredge exemption area, transiting vessels, and charter/party and private recreational vessels.

For more information, read the permit holder bulletin. Also, see the map of the final approved habitat areas below. The dashed lines show the boundaries of the existing closed areas and habitat closures.

Learn more about NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region by visiting the site here.

 

Feds begin environmental review of Vineyard Wind

April 3, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The federal government is gathering public comments for an environmental report on the Vineyard Wind offshore wind proposal.

Five public meetings are scheduled this month in New Bedford, Vineyard Haven, Nantucket, Hyannis, and at the University of Rhode Island.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management plans to prepare an environmental impact statement on Vineyard Wind’s construction and operations plan. Vineyard Wind, a partnership between Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables, has proposed an 800-megawatt project off the coast of Massachusetts.

The project could include up to 106 wind turbines, beginning about 14 miles southeast of Martha’s Vineyard.

A 30-day comment period runs through Monday, April 30.

As whales fade, movement they spawned tries to keep up hope

April 3, 2018 — Regina Asmutis-Silvia, a biologist who has dedicated her career to saving right whales, is cleaning out a file cabinet from the early 1990s, and the documents inside tell a familiar story — the whales are dying from collisions with ships and entanglements in commercial fishing gear, and the species might not survive.

Fast forward through a quarter-century of crawl-paced progress, and it’s all happening again.

“It’s a little scary to think if we hadn’t been working on this all these years, would they have been relegated to history instead of Cape Cod Bay?” said Asmutis-Silvia, of Plymouth, Massachusetts-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation. “We’re standing on the cliff and going, ‘It matters, they’re still here, they’re still something to fight for’.”

Despite eight decades of conservation efforts, North Atlantic right whales are facing a new crisis. The threat of extinction within a generation looms, and the movement to preserve the whales is trying to come up with new solutions.

The whales are one of the rarest marine mammals in the world, numbering about 450. The 100,000-pound animals have been even closer to the brink of extinction before, and the effort to save them galvanized one of the most visible wildlife conservation movements in U.S. history.

But the population’s falling again because of poor reproduction coupled with high mortality from ship strikes and entanglement. Scientists, environmentalists, whale watch captains and animal lovers of all stripes are rallying to renew interest in saving right whales, but many admit to feeling close to defeated.

Charles “Stormy” Mayo, director of the right whale ecology program at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, and other scientists have said the species could be extinct as soon as 2041. Mayo, a ninth generation resident of Cape Cod whose ancestors harpooned whales in the 18th and 19th centuries, now leads expeditions to find the animals and try to learn how to save them.

“There’s a fair amount of sadness, dealing with these creatures. They are on the brink of extinction now, and their future is truly in doubt,” he said. “I don’t think any of us are discouraged, but many of us are fearful. I certainly am.”

The decline of right whales dates back to the whaling era of centuries ago, when they were targeted as the “right” whale to hunt because they were slow and floated when killed. They were harvested for their oil and meat, and might have dwindled to double digits until international protections took hold in 1935.

Preserving the whales became an international cause, championed by environmentalists, scientists and the U.S. government, and their population grew to about 275 in 1990 and 500 around 2010. But then things changed.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

Word of Gloucester Seafood Processing reopening catches city leaders by surprise

April 3, 2018 — The comments last week by the founder of the Mazzetta Company that the seafood processor will resume processing fresh fish at its largely dormant Gloucester Seafood Processing plant caught many by surprise — including city officials.

Tom Mazzetta, the chief executive officer of the Illinois-based seafood conglomerate that bears his family’s name, told a respected fishing website that the Gloucester Seafood Processing plant in the Blackburn Industrial Park will resume operations before the year is out.

“We’ll be processing the finest fish in New England before the end of the year,” Mazzetta was quoted as saying in the Undercurrentnews.com piece.

On Monday morning, Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said the city has not heard a peep from anyone at the Mazzetta Company about re-firing daily operations at Gloucester Seafood Processing which the company unexpectedly — and without explanation — shuttered in December 2016, a little more than a year after it first opened.

“We haven’t heard a word, not from anyone in Illinois or from anyone associated with the plant here,” Romeo Theken said during an event Monday with NOAA Regional Administrator Mike Pentony at the city’s alewife fishway in West Gloucester.

According to the online story posted late last week, Mazzetta declined to expand on the company’s plans beyond his simple statement.

He wouldn’t say if Gloucester Seafood Processing also would be processing lobsters, as it did when it first opened in 2015, or what the size and composition of the new work force will be following the re-opening.

He didn’t reveal whether the property at 21-29 Great Republic Drive, which was listed online for sale last December (with an asking price of $17 million) will be coming off the market. He also refused to shed any light on why Gloucester Seafood Processing was closed in the first place.

Mazzetta did not respond Monday to phone calls from the Gloucester Daily Times seeking clarification and amplification on his comments to the website.

Mazzetta, with the assistance of city and state tax sweeteners, bought the former Good Harbor Fillet property in the industrial park for about $5 million in 2014 from High Liner Foods.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Tech to the rescue: The race to save the right whales

April 2, 2018 — The critically endangered North Atlantic right whale historically earned its name because its slow-moving coastal patterns made it the easiest, or right, whale to hunt.

Today, it’s nicknamed the “urban whale” – most notably by New England Aquarium biologists Scott Kraus and Rosalind Rolland in the title of their 2010 book – because ocean commerce off the east coast of Canada and the United States is accidentally killing off the species.

This modern conundrum has been the bane of existence for the school-bus-sized mammal for decades, and while conservation efforts have long been in place and led to a modest comeback in the 1990s, for the past seven years the species has shifted back into decline.

Today there are just 450 right whales left in the world. A record death toll of 18 over the past year including 12 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence last summer, coupled with zero calves this year, has raised the alarm for scientists and government. They’ve now shifted into high gear with several science, technology and management initiatives designed to trace migration patterns, prevent mammal and ship collisions, and contend with what they say is the biggest threat to the right whales: fishing-gear entanglements.

“If we’re going to save the right whales from extinction, tech is going to be part of the solution,” said Patrick Ramage, director of marine conservation for the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Cape Cod, Mass.

“It’s going to require a lot more technology and some of the things just coming online offer new hope for this species, but the answers lie not so much in restrictions being placed on the fishing and shipping industries as in unleashing their knowledge and creativity, and enlisting fishermen and mariners in the cause of right whale protection.”

Ropeless fishing, lower breaking strength rope and acoustic underwater monitoring are all on the table right now, but still require testing and investment.

Read the full story at the Globe and Mail

 

Sector IX vessels make a move to lease quota

March 30, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Fifty-five vessels have left Sector IX, but they still can’t fish. However, they can lease their groundfish quota.

The 55, including four Carlos Rafael vessels subject to forfeiture, were submitted to be included in Sector VII for the 2018-19 fishing season, according to NOAA and Sector VII.

The move comes after six months of negotiations with NOAA in trying to get an operational plan approved, which would have lifted the groundfishing ban.

Had a move not been made, the vessels would have remained in Sector IX without the ability to lease quota. Three Sector IX vessels will remain in the sector.

The deadline for vessels to change sectors was Monday.

“What are we supposed to do,” Sector VII President Richie Canastra said. “The enrollment was Monday where you have to choose your sector for the 2018 and 2019 fishing season. No answer (from NOAA) was there yet. So those vessels and the permits owned by Carlos went to Sector VII.”

Canastra said the vessels affected by NOAA’s ban can only return to fishing with authorization from the agency or if they are sold to an independent party.

“It’s really straight forward. None of this was done to try to pull the wool over someone’s eyes or being sneaky,” Canastra said. “I just think it’s the right thing to do. I really believe the people in the industry will understand it’s the best move for everyone.”

The shift in sectors also included the additions of Richie Canastra as President, Tor Bendiksen as Treasurer and Cassie Canstra as Clerk to Sector VII.

In a letter from NOAA’s Regional Administrator Michael Pentony to the Chair of the New England Fishery Management Council John Quinn, he confirmed that the vessels would be allowed to transfer quota. He also confirmed that all vessels owned by Rafael would be inactive, unless they are sold to in independent party.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Atlantic marine monument suit can move forward

March 30, 2018 — Fishing organizations are set to proceed with their suit against the federal government to reopen fishing grounds in New England.

President Obama established the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Marine Monument, which included a blanket commercial fishing ban in an area that was already closed to some gear types under the New England Fishery Management Council’s jurisdiction.

The lawsuit has been held up since April 2017 by a Trump administration review of several national monuments created under the Obama administration. Recent filings at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia say the hold was lifted in mid-March.

The lawsuit argues that Obama never had the authority to establish the monument under the the Antiquities Act, given that the ocean is not “land owned or controlled by the federal government,” as the act stipulates.

In December, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended making changes to marine national monument policies and proposed shifting the responsibility for controlling fishing within the monument to the regional fishery management councils.

“No president should use the authority under the act to restrict public access, prevent hunting and fishing, burden private land, or eliminate traditional land uses, unless such action is needed to protect the objects,” wrote Zinke in his recommendation.

Since Zinke’s official recommendations, no public action has been taken by the administration to address his statement.

Fishing industry leaders involved with the suit are ready to pick up where they left off.

“The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association is optimistically encouraged, given the forward movement of the lawsuit,” said Beth Casoni, executive director of The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association. “We are hopeful to regain the fishing grounds that were taken away from the fleet and to set a legal precedent through the court that will prevent any further draconian actions against the fleet.”

While lobster and deep-sea red crab fisheries were granted a 7-year grandfather period, all other commercial fishing was banned when the 5,000-square-mile monument was established in order to protect deep-sea corals and vulnerable species like North Atlantic right whales.

“To lose a big area that we have historically fished has quite an impact on quite a lot of people here,” Jon Williams, a New Bedford, Mass., crabber and a member of plaintiff group Offshore Lobstermen’s Association told the Associated Press.

Read the full story at National Fisherman