Saving Seafood

Cape fishermen push dogfish, skate at expo

March 21, 2017 — Chatham fishermen Charlie Dodge, Jamie Eldredge, and Greg Connors walked the crowded aisles of the Seafood Expo North America Monday, one of the largest seafood shows in the world, drawing more than 21,000 attendees and exhibitors over three days.

The men were there to meet wholesale fish buyers and distributors looking to market their catch: skates — a kite-shaped fish related to sharks — and dogfish, a small coastal shark.

Dogfish and skates may not be ready to join heavyweights like salmon and shrimp, but with help from the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, as well as federal and state grants to assist with marketing, they are slowly gaining a foothold in domestic markets.

“It would be way better if it stays within the country,” Dodge said of dogfish, which, like skates is largely exported to Europe and Asia, and fetch relatively low prices, with skates at 23 cents per pound on average in 2015 and dogfish fluctuating between 11 cents and 22 cents per pound. In 2015, cod, by comparison, averaged $1.90 per pound.

Not long ago Chatham was one of the top cod ports in the country, but that stock is considered to be at historically low levels and landings state-wide collapsed from 27.5 million pounds in 2001 to 2.9 million pounds in 2015. Both skates and dogfish are plentiful and considered sustainably managed by organizations like the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the Marine Stewardship Council and Seafood Watch. That message — a local, sustainable and affordable fish — has helped convince institutional clients like the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Plan to save New England shrimp fishery will go to public

March 20, 2017 — The public will have a chance to comment on a plan to change the way New England’s shuttered shrimp fishery is managed with an eye toward saving it.

The regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has been working on a plan to try to make the fishery more sustainable in the long term. It includes options such as changing the way the quota system is managed.

An arm of the commission has voted to send the plan out for public comment.

Regulators shut down the fishery in 2013 amid declining populations of shrimp. Scientists say warming ocean temperature is one factor hurting them.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WCSH 6

Tour of New Bedford’s port ‘sparked ideas’ for global seafood buyers

March 20, 2017 — Xi Du didn’t know anything about New Bedford until last year.

A native of central China, Du works as a customer relationship specialist at Greenco International, a U.S. based exporter of agriculture to Asia.

The company began exporting in 2012, but purchased its first load of scallops last year from New Bedford.

“It’s really interesting. Before I took part in this group I had no idea. What’s New Bedford,” Du said. “But then I looked at the schedule. ‘What a moment, you’re going to bring me here?’ It’s so fantastic. It’s wonderful.”

Du joined 25 others on a tour, which included seafood buyers from around the world, through New Bedford’s port on Friday.

Each buyer is in Boston for the weekend as part of the North American Seafood Expo scheduled for March 19-21 at the Boston Convention Center.

Other buyers from China accompanied Du as well as some from Thailand, France and Poland to name a few.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Cape Cod may use high-tech balloon to spot great white sharks

March 20, 2017 — Researchers and public safety officials may soon have a new tool to track the growing great white shark populations off the coast of Cape Cod.

Shark researcher Greg Skomal, a scientist with the state’s Department of Marine Fisheries whose team recently completed a major study of the region’s shark populations, is considering launching a pilot program to use a high-tech balloon to spot sharks in the waters near Chatham, according to a report in the Cape Cod Times.

A Miami-based company, Altametry SmartBalloon, has developed a balloon with high-definition cameras, video streaming capability and specialized lens filters to peer under the ocean’s surface and alert officials to sharks that near the shoreline.

“I think it has great potential and I’m excited to be trying it,” Skomal told the Cape Cod Times.

Read the full story at Mass Live

New Bedford Standard-Times: Congress can realign the bureaucracy

March 17, 2017 — The designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts as a national monument last summer might have appeared to be the end of a battle between environmentalists and commercial fishermen, but the installation of an administration focused on deregulation has revived the fight.

The House Committee on Natural Resources on Wednesday held an oversight hearing on the creation of national monuments that included testimony from New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, as well as representatives of extractive industries, academia and commercial tuna fishing. Mayor Mitchell, who couldn’t attend the hearing because of weather-disrupted travel plans, testified about the impact on both the red crab fishery and those fisheries that involve migratory fish that swim in the upper part of the water column. There were questions from committee members that reflected both sides of the issue, including one from a Democrat questioning the validity of the mayor’s argument about migratory fish. The response by University of North Carolina biology professor John Bruno to Democratic Virginia Rep. Don Beyer was that the entire water column needs protection.

Mayor Mitchell also lamented the lack of stakeholder input involved in the monument designation through the executive instrument of the Antiquities Act used by President Barack Obama last year.

Republican Alaska Rep. Don Young also wondered at the Antiquities Act during the hearing, attributing more than just conservation as the goal to the former president: Rep. Young believes the ocean designations made under President Obama were calculated to limit offshore drilling and mining.

Rep. Young noted forcefully that Congress did not create the Antiquities Act to protect oceans, and it represented a clear case of executive overreach.

The Standard-Times is generally in favor of policies that reduce fossil fuel extraction. Nevertheless, Rep. Young’s observation about the Antiquities Act, Mayor Mitchell’s complaint about its use, and the duty of oversight point to the issue of Congress’ intent, which should have weight in the committee’s opinion. Congress has the authority to rein in the bureaucracy, though it doesn’t always exercise that authority.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

The Stubborn Staying Power of the Alewife Herring

March 16, 2017 — Among the rich natural resources that attracted humans to New York’s harbor was a small migratory fish the colonists called the alewife or sawbelly. As these river herring crowded into spawning creeks every spring, they were noted by the earliest French Jesuits, Dutch trappers and English settlers, and were caught and consumed with abandon by Native Americans and colonists alike.

Alewives are bony, tasty, nutritious and relatively easy to preserve; and, in colonial times, they were abundant. The fish could be eaten by humans or fed to pigs or other livestock. It is highly likely that the famous agricultural mentoring between Squanto, a Patuxet native to what is now Massachusetts, and the pilgrims memorializes yet another less obvious use of herring: as fertilizer for the colonists’ inaugural crops.

Middens and hearths excavated throughout the Northeast are filled with the bones and scales of herring dinners past. But as human settlements grew, both the value and limits of this communal resource became obvious. Alewives were protected by the first known fishery regulations in North America, which date to 1623 in Plymouth Colony. Over time, net sizes, harvest schedules and set locations, as well as catch limits, were all strictly regulated in order to protect these valuable fish.

Read the full story at the New York Times

Carlos Rafael plea hearing postponed to March 30

March 16, 2017 — Carlos Rafael’s court date where the fishing tycoon is scheduled to plead guilty to charges in connection with evading fishing quotas and smuggling profits to Portugal has been postponed, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts said on Wednesday.

Rafael will appear in U.S. District Court in Boston on March 30 at 2:30 p.m. He was originally scheduled to appear in court as part of the settlement with the government on Thursday.

The U.S. Attorney’s office had no further details regarding the plea deal.

Often referred to as the “Codfather” as the owner of 36 boats, Rafael faced one count of conspiracy, 25 counts of lying to federal fishing regulators and one count of bulk cash smuggling.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford Mayor questions decision-making process behind marine monuments

March 16, 2017 — Tuesday’s winter storm prevented Mayor Jon Mitchell from appearing in front of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources on Wednesday, but he still voiced his opinion on the matter of national marine monuments through written testimony.

Mitchell submitted five pages laying out criticism of President Barack Obama’s executive order that created a protected marine area about 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod last September.

“The monument designation last fall puts New Bedford jobs in peril, specifically jobs associated with the crab and lobster industries,” he told The Standard-Times. “More generally, the authority exercised by the president is something that could be used again and put other jobs at risk.”

In his testimony, Mitchell highlighted two key concerns with the monuments. First, he called the monument “poorly conceived” and again questioned the process of establishing the protected waters.

“It lacks sufficient amounts of all the ingredients that good policy-making requires: Scientific rigor, direct industry input, transparency and a deliberate pace that allows adequate time and space for review,” Mitchell wrote in his testimony.

He also questioned the effectiveness of the monuments in protecting marine life, stating that fisheries focused on fish near the surface of the water would “have no impact on the integrity of the bathymetry and substrate that a monument is meant to protect.”

Proponents of the monument refer to the order as a vital piece to the future of marine life. Dr. John Bruno, a biology professor at the University of North Carolina who attended Wednesday’s hearing, supported the protected waters. He criticized past legislation like the Magnuson-Stevens Act saying it’s failed to protect oceanic ecosystems.

Under the Magnuson-Stevens act, temporary fishery management plans are enacted for finite periods. Monuments like those enacted by Obama under the Antiquities Act, are permanent.

“Permanent is an awfully long time to state the obvious,” Mitchell said. “When decisions like that are made, they have to be subjected to the fullest possible input. I’m certainly not taking the position that this sort of thing should never happen but rather these decisions need to be more carefully made.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell Voices Coalition Concern Over Marine Monuments at House Hearing

WASHINGTON – March 15, 2017 – The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

Today, New Bedford, Mass. Mayor Jon Mitchell delivered written testimony to the House Natural Resources Committee on behalf of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities. His testimony expressed serious concerns about the impacts of marine monuments, designated using executive authority under the Antiquities Act, on fishermen and coastal communities.

Mayor Mitchell had planned to testify in person before the Subcommittee on Water, Power, and Oceans as a representative of the NCFC, but was unable to attend the hearing in Washington due to snow and severe weather conditions in the Northeast.

In his testimony, Mayor Mitchell questioned both the “poorly conceived terms of particular monument designations,” as well as “more fundamental concerns with the process itself.” Mayor Mitchell also delivered a letter to the committee signed by eleven NCFC member organizations further detailing their concerns with the monument process and how fishing communities across the country are affected by monument designations.

The letter was signed by the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, the California Wetfish Producers Association, the Fisheries Survival Fund, the Garden State Seafood Association, the Hawaii Longline Association, the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition, the North Carolina Fisheries Association, the Southeastern Fisheries Association, the West Coast Seafood Processors Association, and the Western Fishboat Owners Association.

In addition, three NCFC member organizations, the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, the Hawaii Longline Association, and the North Carolina Fisheries Association submitted individual letters outlining in further detail their opposition to marine monuments.

Mayor Mitchell was also critical of the monument designation process, by which a president can close off any federal lands or waters on a permanent basis using executive authority under the Antiquities Act. He instead praised the Fishery Management Council process created by the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which he said affords greater opportunities for input from stakeholders, scientists, and the public.

“The monument designation process has evolved effectively into a parallel, much less robust fishery management apparatus that has been conducted entirely independent of the tried and true Fishery Management Council process,” Mayor Mitchell said. “It lacks sufficient amounts of all the ingredients that good policy-making requires: Scientific rigor, direct industry input, transparency, and a deliberate pace that allows adequate time and space for review.”

Mayor Mitchell used his testimony to call attention to issues affecting fishing communities across the country, including New England fishermen harmed by the recently designated Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, and Hawaii fishermen harmed by the expansion of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. He also expressed the concerns of fishermen in Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Pacific waters in dealing with the monument process.

Mayor Mitchell concluded by calling on Congress to integrate the executive branch’s monument authority with the established processes of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, ensuring that the long-term interests of all stakeholders are accounted for.

“This Congress has an important opportunity to restore the centrality of Magnuson’s Fishery Management Councils to their rightful place as the critical arbiters of fisheries management matters,” Mayor Mitchell said. “Doing so would give fishing communities much more confidence in the way our nation approaches fisheries management. And it could give the marine monument designation process the credibility and acceptance that it regrettably lacks today.”

The mayor spoke at the hearing on behalf of the NCFC. The city of New Bedford, as Mayor Mitchell stated in his testimony, was instrumental in the founding of the Coalition, providing an initial seed grant for its creation.

Read Mayor Mitchell’s full testimony here

Read the NCFC letter here

Read the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association letter here

Read the Hawaii Longline Association letter here

Read the North Carolina Fisheries Association letter here

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell set to testify to Congress about impact of marine monument

March 15, 2017 — Weather permitting, Mayor Jon Mitchell on Wednesday will be in Washington giving testimony to Congress about an underwater marine monument which former President Obama created with a stroke of the pen in 2016 over the protests of the fishing community.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument spans nearly 5,000 square miles 150 miles off Cape Cod, and it was hailed by environmentalists for preserving enormous underwater mountains and vast, deep canyons only now being explored.

Three years earlier, an underwater remotely-operated vehicle sent back pictures of incredible life forms and geological features.

“These images, shared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, demonstrated to the world that this bit of the Atlantic was an ecological hot spot, a veritable underwater Serengeti,” said the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The NRDC was among the leaders of many organizations that jumped at the opportunity to preserve the monument against human activity, fishing in particular.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times