National Fish executive makes deal in fraud case
April 24, 2017 — A senior executive at Gloucester-based National Fish & Seafood pleaded guilty to one count of tax fraud Thursday in U.S. District Court in Boston and is set to be sentenced in July, the Justice Department announced.
Richard J. Pandolfo, 71, of North Andover, was indicted by a federal grand jury last June on four counts of filing false federal tax returns between 2009 and 2012.
The charges were reduced to one count as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. Pandolfo, an executive vice president at the East Gloucester seafood processor, faces up to three years in prison, one year of supervised release, a fine of $100,000 and restitution of $25,879 to the Internal Revenue Service.
Prosecutors charge Pandolfo failed to pay federal tax on about $90,000 of the $95,000 in “substantial supplemental income” he received from former National Fish & Seafood executive and part-owner Jack Ventola from 2008 to 2012.
According to the original indictment, some of the supplemental income went directly to Pandolfo, while other payments went to a shell company established in the name of Pandolfo’s wife, who is not named in the indictment, through another shell company controlled by Ventola.
Coast Guard Rescues Man From Fishing Ship Dozens of Miles off Montauk
April 24, 2017 — The Coast Guard rescued a man who was suffering a medical emergency on a ship 65 miles south of eastern Long Island.
The 47-year-old man was lifted from the deck of the Braedon Michael after the fishing vessel contacted the Coast Guard around 8:30 a.m. Friday for help with a crewmember who was experiencing flu-like symptoms and was in and out of consciousness.
An MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter launched from an air station in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and arrived at the ship about an hour later, where it swooped in and rushed the man to a local medical center.
Boats may be hitting whales in Gulf of Maine more often, study suggests
April 24, 2017 — A group of marine scientists says collisions of whales and boats off the New England coast may be more common than previously thought.
The scientists focused on the humpback whale population in the southern Gulf of Maine, a body of water off Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. They found that almost 15 percent of the whales, which come to New England to feed every spring, had injuries or scarring consistent with at least one vessel strike.
The researchers, who published their findings in the March issue of the journal Marine Mammal Science, said the work shows that the occurrence of such strikes is most likely underestimated. They also said their own figure is likely low because it does not account for whales that are killed in ship strikes.
“Vessel strikes are a significant risk to both whales and to boaters,” said Alex Hill, the lead author of the study, who is a scientist with the conservation group Whale and Dolphin Conservation in Plymouth, Massachusetts. “Long-term studies can help us figure out if our outreach programs to boaters are effective, what kind of management actions are needed and help to assess the health of the population.”
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald
Researchers study whales and the food they eat
April 24, 2017 — North Atlantic right whales need a lot of food each day — the caloric equivalent of 3,000 Big Macs — and right now there’s plenty of it in Cape Cod Bay, in the form of a tiny crustacean.
“The food resource is the thickest we have seen in 32 years,” Charles “Stormy” Mayo, head of the right whale ecology program at the Center for Coastal Studies, said of the zooplankton that whales consume.
In years past, the center’s water sampling in the bay has shown total zooplankton densities usually less than 5,000 organisms per cubic meter. While the individual zooplankton are measured in millimeters, the whales that eat them are among the largest animals on earth, reaching lengths of more than 50 feet and weighing up to 79 tons.
But on April 14, for example, the densities reached well over 40,000 organisms per cubic meter across most of the bay, according to Christy Hudak, the center’s associate scientist. Some areas west of Great Island in Wellfleet reached 72,000 organisms per cubic meter.
On that same day, more than 40 percent of the total population of right whales left in the world, 217 out of 524, were spotted in the bay.
“It might be that the food resource is particularly strong this year, and if it continues that will bode well for right whales,” biologist Mark Baumgartner of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said. “Alternatively, food in other habitats at other times of the year may be poor, leading to right whales concentrating in fewer places and fewer times, such as Cape Cod Bay in early spring.”
Scientists are looking at possible connections between the high concentration of right whales in the early spring in Cape Cod Bay and low calving rates.
MASSACHUSETTS: Loss of Rafael’s permits could hurt New Bedford
April 24, 2017 — By late morning just before Easter weekend, three fishing vessels lined up at the docks to unload their catch, and they all belonged to one man — the local mogul known as the “Codfather,” Carlos Rafael.
“It’s a good haul,” a passing auction worker at the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction said under her breath, as crew members, some still in their orange waterproof bibs, unloaded the ice-packed fish.
For decades, Rafael’s fleet of some 40 vessels has been a staple of this city’s fishing industry, a sight as common as the seal that patrols the docks.
But now, Rafael’s recent conviction on federal charges that he cheated fishing regulations to boost his profits is putting his many vessels and permits up for grabs — potentially distributing them to ports along the New England coast. That would deliver an economic blow to New Bedford and the people who depend on the business created by Rafael’s fleet.
Rafael, 65, whose nickname given by locals derives from his brash business style, is expected to be sentenced in June to about four years in prison. Local officials are urging the federal government to keep the permits in New Bedford, home to the country’s most valuable fishing port and one of the last true ports on the East Coast.
MASSACHUSETTS: Steamship Authority begins exploration of New Bedford freight options
April 19, 2017 — The Woods Hole, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority is working with a maritime consultant to determine if any existing facilities in New Bedford could handle freight ferries to Martha’s Vineyard and possibly relieve some truck traffic to the Woods Hole ferry terminal.
The ferry line has hired Craig Johnson, a partner in the Florida-based maritime executive search firm Flagship Management who was involved the time the Steamship offered freight service from New Bedford more than a decade ago, said Wayne Lamson, the Steamship Authority’s general manager. Lamson updated the boat line’s board on the matter at its Tuesday meeting at the Hyannis ferry terminal.
“He’s in the discovery phase and going around and seeing what facilities might be available before (we) approach certain potential private carriers to see if it would be something they would be interested in and if it would be something that is feasible in the long term,” Lamson said.
The Steamship Authority will pay $19,500 for the work, which will include the review of New Bedford shipping facilities, interviewing potential customers of the freight service and identifying private operators that might provide the service under a license agreement, Lamson said. Johnson is expected to report his findings to the Steamship Authority in three or four months.
The first step in a report issued last year outlining recommendations for a potential New Bedford freight line is to explore private operators to provide the service. If no operator can be found, the next steps would include pursuing funding to improve either the New Bedford State Pier or New Bedford Marine Commercial Terminal to allow for freight service.
SEAN HORGAN: Fisherman on hunger strike to protest rules
April 17, 2017 — Stop us if this sounds familiar.
Last Thursday, Canadian fisherman Richard Gillett, a vice president of the Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador, decided enough was enough.
Gillett had had enough of the regulations and enough of scientists telling him that six critical fishing stocks in the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries were in dire shape despite what he and other fishermen were witnessing on the water.
“There’s fish there,” Gillett told The Telegram newspaper. “We’ve never seen fish like it before. The fish are overrunning our crab grounds, eating our shrimp, eating our crab and we’re still at one-third of the level (regulators) would like to see.”
So Gillett went rogue. He camped out in a tent and began a hunger strike he said will continue until representatives from the Fish-NL organization get to meet with the federal minister of Fisheries and Oceans and receive an independent review of the science and management of the region’s fisheries.
MASSACHUSETTS: Cape Cod boaters asked to use caution due to presence of extremely endangered right whales
April 17, 2017 — Boaters have been urged by officials with the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) to use extreme caution when enjoying the waters of Cape Cod.
According to a statement released by the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game on Friday, an unusually large amount of endangered North Atlantic right whales have been observed in the bay area.
The right whale, which is known to congregate and feed near the bay on an annual basis, is a species of whale so endangered that their entire population is only about 500 animals, the statement says.
An aerial survey conducted on April 12 by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies showed that roughly 163 of those whales were present in the Cape Cod Bay, meaning that some 30 percent of the known population of the species was sighted in the same bay on a single day.
“Aggregations of this magnitude have never been observed in Cape Cod Bay before,” said Gronendyke.
Boat owners have been urged to “proceed with extreme caution” and to reduce speed to less than 10 knots.
UPDATE: Court rules in government’s favor in New England fishing monitor dispute
April 17, 2017 — An appeals court has found in favor of the federal government in a challenge by a New England fishermen’s group over the cost of at-sea monitoring.
The monitors are workers who collect data that help the government craft fishing regulations. The government shifted the cost of paying for monitors to fishermen last year.
A group led by New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel sued the government over the rule change. The fishermen lost in federal district court and appealed. A 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Boston agreed with the lower court Friday.
Monitors can cost hundreds of dollars per day. Fishermen argue it represents an illegal new cost burden they can’t shoulder in an era of tight quotas.
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