Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: By knocking down barriers, bill could help reinvigorate Gloucester fleet

April 10, 2017 — With the wind-swept vista of the nation’s oldest fishing seaport on full display behind him, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton on Saturday stood with his feet on the Gloucester waterfront and his eye on the future of the commercial fishing industry.

Moulton was in Gloucester to announce legislation he believes will help rebuild the industry’s dwindling workforce by removing training and economic barriers to cultivate a new generation of fishermen.

“Today we’re celebrating the industry that is so fundamental to this community and frankly to our entire region,” said Moulton while flanked by a cadre of state and city officials. “The piece of legislation that we’re announcing today will go toward sustaining that industry into the future by ensuring that young people have a future in the fishing industry.”

The legislation, crafted in partnership with U.S. Rep. Don Young of Alaska, is the Young Fishermen’s Development Act. The bill, according to its sponsors, is a vehicle for addressing one of the fishing industry’s most pressing needs — building a new generation of fishermen that will take the industry into the future.

The bill is modeled after a similar and successful program initiated by the Department of Agriculture to re-energize the farming industry. It is designed to provide federal grants to local organizations to develop training, education and outreach to attract younger fishermen to help reverse the trend of an aging industry.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Proposed closure of coral grounds in Gulf of Maine has lobster industry on edge

April 10, 2017 — Over the past 10 years, the issue of how to protect endangered whales from getting tangled in fishing gear has been a driving factor in how lobstermen configure their gear and how much money they have to spend to comply with regulations.

Now federal officials have cited the need to protect deep-sea corals in a proposal to close some areas to fishing — a proposal that, according to lobstermen, could pose a serious threat to how they ply their trade.

“The [potential] financial impact is huge,” Jim Dow, a Bass Harbor lobsterman and board member with Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said Wednesday. “You’re talking a lot of the coast that is going to be affected by it.”

The discovery in 2014 of deep-sea corals in the gulf, near Mount Desert Rock and along the Outer Schoodic Ridges, has prompted the New England Fisheries Management Council to consider making those area off-limits to fishing vessels in order to protect the coral from damage. According to Maine Department of Marine Resources, fishermen from at least 15 harbors in Hancock and Washington counties could be affected by the proposed closure.

 But what has fishermen on edge the most about the concept is that regulators don’t know how much more coral has yet to be discovered in the gulf. They fear the proposed closure could set a precedent that would result in even more areas becoming off-limits to Maine’s $500 million lobster fishery, which is the biggest fishery in Maine and one of the most lucrative in the country.

“They could probably find coral along the entire coast of Maine, outside of 3 miles [in federal waters], if they start hunting for it,” David Cousens, a South Thomaston fishermen and president of Maine Lobstermen’s Association, told more than 100 fishermen last month at a meeting on the topic at the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum in Rockport.

Terry Stockwell, a senior DMR official who represents Maine on the council and other fishing regulatory entities, said the state has been lobbying the council to consider making an exception for the lobster trap fishery at the proposed closure sites in the gulf but so far without success. Traps are lowered and then raised from the bottom and so should cause less damage to coral than other types of gear such as scallop dredges, which are dragged along the bottom, according to Stockwell and others who support making lobster traps exempt.

“Twice I’ve gone down in flames,” Stockwell said of his efforts to date to get the council to agree to an exemption for lobster trap gear.

Further offshore in the Gulf of Maine, beyond the reach of the small boats that make up Maine’s lobster fishing fleet, the council also is proposing coral-related fishing closures in parts of the Jordan and Georges basins.

Outside the Gulf of Maine, roughly 100 to 200 nautical miles southeast of Cape Cod, are 20 underwater canyons at the edge of the continental shelf, where coral closures also could be enacted. Five of those canyons, along with four seamounts off the continental shelf, are part of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which former President Obama created last September and which is being challenged in federal court by the Pacific Legal Foundation.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MASSACHUSETTS: Rep. Moulton bill looks to inject youth into fishing industry

April 10, 2017 — Looking to the future of commercial fishing as well as its troubling present, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton is sponsoring legislation that will attempt to inject more innovation, entrepreneurship and youth into the aging industry.

The Salem congresman is scheduled to travel to Gloucester on Saturday morning to announce his filing of the “Young Fishermen’s Development Act of 2017” at an event at Fisherman’s Wharf with fishing stakeholders and local and state officials.

“The fishing economy certainly is critical to our district and state, but it’s also critical to our country,” Moulton said Thursday. “More and more people are eating more and more seafood and it’s in our national interest to protect this food source and do everything we can to rebuild the industry.”

The tenets of the legislation, which is modeled after a similar and successful program run by the Department of Agriculture, include training, education and outreach to attract younger fishermen to the waterfront to help reverse the trend of an aging industry.

The legislation calls for Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, acting through the National Sea Grant office, to establish the program and “make competitive grants to support new and established local and regional training, education, outreach and technical assistance initiative for young fishermen.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Cape gray seal population estimated at up to 50K

April 7, 2017 — While the first day of the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission’s annual meeting, held for the first time on Cape Cod, dealt with threats to a tiny Mexican porpoise and massive Arctic polar bears, Thursday’s sessions brought the focus home with a profoundly local subject: gray seals.

“These animals are reassuming their ecological roles,” said David Johnston, an assistant professor at Duke University. “And people freak out.”

Seals are back in force, with between 30,000 and 50,000 living in the waters of Southeastern Massachusetts, primarily on and around Cape Cod, according to a new estimate produced by Johnston to be published in an upcoming report. Feelings about their return, however, are decidedly mixed.

After seal hunts and bounties exterminated gray seals from New England by the mid to late 60s, few imagined they would come back, certainly not to the point where tens of thousands now inhabit the Cape and surrounding waters.

Fishermen complain about seals taking their catch, boats run into them, some question their effect on water quality or their potential to spread disease, and raise concerns about the threat of a rapidly expanding great white shark population, visiting Cape waters to dine on blubber.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Working Waterfront festival returning this fall

April 6, 2017 — The Working Waterfront Festival returns to the working piers of New Bedford, the nation’s most valuable fishing port, on Saturday, Sept. 23. This free, family-friendly event celebrates the history and culture of New England’s commercial fishing industry in a way that is authentic, hands-on and educational.

The flagship event is back with a new co-producer, a new format, and a new festival director, organizers announced this week in a press release.

This year, the festival is partnering with the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center. Located in the heart of the City’s historic downtown, the Fishing Heritage Center opened its’ doors last June. Its mission is to tell the story of the fishing industry past, present, and future, through exhibits, programs, and archives. This partnership is a natural fit for two organizations dedicated to celebrating the commercial fishing industry.

The 2017 festival will be presented in two locations: on Steamship Pier and at the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center. These two sites will be linked by a free shuttle bus, allowing visitors to enjoy all the festival has to offer.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: SouthCoast officials, business leaders set for trade mission to British wind energy ports

April 6, 2017 — Mayor Jon Mitchell later this month will lead a trade mission to two cities on the British east coast to see what it looks like when the wind energy sector of the economy takes off the way New Bedford hopes it will here.

About 20 people from SouthCoast are expected to be on the four-day trip to Hull and Grimsby, England, both on the Humber River and close to the English Channel and the North Sea.

Kingston on Hull, usually shortened to Hull, is a city of 257,710 people where the construction of wind turbines is an industry that has grown by leaps and bounds.

Nearby Grimsby, population of about 90,000, with an emphasis on installation and maintenance, has a history with uncanny parallels to the story of New Bedford, according to a scouting report by Paul Vigeant, president of the New Bedford Wind Energy, who visited there in January with a small contingent.

What they found was a region of England that is saturated with wind energy development. It is a place that New Bedford would eventually like to resemble, with hundreds of millions of dollars of wind power investment.

Grimsby once looked a lot like New Bedford. It had a thriving whaling industry, transitioning to fish, where it became the world’s largest fishing port for a time in the mid-20th century.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Herring plan gets Gloucester airing this evening

April 6, 2017 — Fishing regulators are hosting a public hearing tonight, April 5, in Gloucester on a plan to make the Atlantic herring fishery run more smoothly.

The hearing is at 6 p.m. at the  Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries’ Annisquam River Station, 30 Emerson Ave., and is on the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Herring Draft Addendum I to Amendment 3 

Herring are a key fish on the East Coast because they are important bait for lucrative species, especially lobster. Last year’s lobster season was hindered for several weeks by a herring shortage.

Gloucester reigns as the state’s most prolific lobster port, both in terms of landings by weight and number of permitted lobstermen fishing here, followed by Plymouth and Rockport, according to the state Division of Marine Fisheries.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Call for Photos for Fishing Heritage Center Exhibit: Taken Out to Sea

April 5, 2017 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

New Bedford, MA – The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center invites commercial fishermen to submit their original photos for a new exhibit, Taken Out to Sea, opening June 8, 2017.  This exhibit provides fishermen with an opportunity to share their world with those on-shore.

Commercial fishermen have a unique view of our world.  They can describe the beauty of a sunrise at sea, the assortment of sea life they encounter, or explain the work they do but words do not always have the same power as an image.  For many years, fishermen could not truly share their world with their loved ones at home. With the advance of camera technology, fishermen can capture and share images, opening up their world to us all.

To be considered for the exhibit, fishermen may submit one to three original, at-sea photos by May 15, 2017 to programs@fishingheritagecenter.org.  Please include name, phone number, vessel name, type of vessel, and a caption for the photo.  Fishermen and their families will be invited to the exhibit opening on June 8th.

The Center is open Thursday – Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission is free. Located at 38 Bethel Street in the heart of the National Park, the Center is wheelchair accessible with free off-street parking.  The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is dedicated to preserving and presenting the story of the commercial fishing industry past, present, and future through archives, exhibits, and programs. For more information please contact the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center at info@fishingheritagecenter.org or call (508) 993-8894.

MASSACHUSETTS: Coastal commerce impacts tackled in new report

April 5, 2017 — Settled four centuries ago by seafaring pilgrims, Massachusetts continues to draw sustenance from the water as more than 90,000 people are employed in its maritime economy, according to a new report.

The Bay State’s maritime economy accounts for $6.4 billion, or 1.3 percent, of its gross state product, and it has outpaced other industries, according to a report commissioned by the Seaport Economic Council.

Fishing, marine transportation and tourism are some of the fields that make up the sector, according to the report produced by the UMass Public Policy Center’s Massachusetts Maritime Economy Study. The study highlighted offshore wind and aquaculture as “two opportunities” for the marine economy. In 2013, Massachusetts had an estimated 145 aquaculture operations generating $18 million in revenue, and while no offshore wind has yet been installed off the coast of Massachusetts, it has “the largest offshore wind potential of any U.S. state,” according to the report.

The report will inform the council in its work to promote job growth on the coast and prepare for sea-level rise. The council anticipates awarding about $8 million in grants over the next year and a half, according to the Baker administration.

“This council is focused on the economics of our coastline and the waters that exist here and leveraging those natural assets and those infrastructure assets for more jobs and more economic development,” said Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, who chairs the council and said it has given out about $20 million in grants. “My hope is that we continue to protect and preserve our resources and at the same time build a talent pool that can really fuel these emerging industries and promote what we have here in our Commonwealth.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Maritime economy outpacing other sectors

April 5, 2017 — The Massachusetts maritime economy grew faster than the state’s economy as a whole from 2005 to 2015 despite declines in commercial fishing and seafood processing.

Those findings, contained in an analysis of the state’s maritime economy by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Public Policy Center, paint a portrait of a maritime economy in transition while providing a potential template for future maritime growth in Gloucester.

The analysis said the state maritime economy includes 5,555 establishments that pay $3.4 billion in total wages to 90,482 workers. It produced $6.4 billion in gross state product and represents 2.6 percent of the state’s direct employment.

“Massachusetts has the largest maritime economy in terms of employment and GSP among New England coastal states,” according to the analysis funded by the state Seaport Council and released Tuesday.

According to the findings, the maritime economy saw robust growth in employment (up 18.2 percent) and gross state product (up 48 percent) from 2005 to 2015 — each significantly higher than totals for other segments of the state’s overall economy.

But the news isn’t nearly as positive within the living resources sector of the maritime economy, which includes fish hatcheries, fishing, seafood markets and seafood processing.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times