Saving Seafood

New Bedford fishermen net sea scallops—and the richest catch in the country

October 28th, 2016 — Who knew a such a tiny mollusk could turn such a hefty sum?

According to a federal report Wednesday, the city of New Bedford retained its pole position as the nation’s most-valued port in 2015, pulling in a total catch worth $322 million.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual fisheries report, New Bedford’s total haul weighed 124 million pounds.

While that amount wasn’t even enough to land New Bedford in the top 10 ports for total quantity (Dutch Harbor, Alaska topped that list with 787 million pounds of mostly pollock and cod), it yet again made the Massachusetts port the richest—by more than $100 million. They were first by even a wider margin in 2014.

Why? Sea scallops.

According to the Associated Press, the pricey seafood delicacy (the larger counterpart to the bay scallop) accounted for more than three-quarters of New Bedford’s catch. More than 60 percent of the 35.7 million pounds of sea scallops were caught in Massachusetts, according to the NOAA.

The NOAA put the price of sea scallops at $12.26 per pound in 2015, slightly down from $12.55 per pound in 2014. But that’s still more than double the market price during the mid-2000s.

As The Boston Globe reported in 2013, the New Bedford scallop industry has buoyed the lives of fishermen in an otherwise struggling city.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe 

NOAA reports on state of US fisheries: Landings up, values down

October 27, 2016 — Gloucester improved its standing among all U.S. commercial ports in both the volume and value of its commercial seafood landings in 2015, according to the NOAA Fisheries annual Fisheries of the United States report released Wednesday.

The report is described by NOAA officials as an “annual snapshot of key national fishing and seafood statistics.” It showed the quantity of U.S. commercial seafood landings rebounded slightly in 2015 to 9.7 billion pounds valued at $5.2 billion. But the value of those landings decreased by almost 5 percent nationally from the previous year.

Gloucester’s performance in 2015 mirrored the national picture, with an increase in landings, but a decline in the overall value of those landings.

Gloucester, which ranked 22nd in volume of landings in 2014 among all U.S. commercial fishing ports, moved up two spots to 20th in 2015 by landing 68 million pounds of seafood — an increase of 11.5 percent from 2014.

And while America’s oldest seaport moved up four spots to No. 22 in the value of its landings, its 2015 value of $44 million actually represented a 4.3 percent drop from the $46 million worth of commercial seafood it landed in 2014.

The declines in value locally and nationally were reflected in prices off the boat, as the price index for edible fish declined by 9 percent nationally in 2015.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Poland to honor fisherman for saving treasure

October 27, 2016 — One of Poland’s greatest and most sacred works of art might not be there if not for the actions of a Gloucester fisherman and other Americans during World War II.

Curtis Dagley on Thursday will receive the Bene Merito medal from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland for his part in returning to Poland cultural treasures plundered by Nazi Germany. The honor also recognizes the imprisonment he suffered at the hands of the Communist authorities of Poland.

Drafted in 1945, the 18-year-old Dagley was a private when he was assigned a special mission in 1946. He was not told any details of the job.

He found himself one of 12 guards aboard a special train from Nuremberg, Germany, to Krakow, Poland, guarding artworks plundered by the Nazis in 1939, including a 15th century altarpiece hand-carved by Bavarian sculptor Veit Stoss. The works had been recovered by a special commission, known as The Monuments Men, which included Lanesville sculptor Walker Hancock, and were being returned to their owners.

The largest such Gothic piece in the world, the Voss altar measures 43 feet high (about four stories) by 36 feet wide when the two side panels are opened completely at the altar of St. Mary’s Church in Krakow. The revered altarpiece tells the story of the role of Mary in the expiation of the sins of the world by her son Jesus Christ. Some 200 incredibly realistic figures, some 12 feet tall, adorn it. It has been compared in its significance to the Polish nation to the U.S. Liberty Bell.

The return of the treasures coincided with and became a focal point of the Third of May anticommunist demonstrations in Poland in 1946.

Five days after the train’s arrival, Dagley was arrested at random by the Communist-controlled Polish security police, accused of shooting a Polish militiaman during an incident involving a woman. Another officer admitted to the shooting, but to protect artifacts still on the train, U.S. officers decided to say nothing; they told Dagley he’d be in jail a week.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

NOAA hosting fish reporting, discard workshops

October 26, 2016 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — NOAA Fisheries is hosting two workshops in Gloucester for fishermen and permit holders, the first dealing with sector and vessel reporting and the second with possible modifications to the manner in which the agency estimates discards.

The sector-and-vessel reporting workshop, set to run Friday from 9:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. at NOAA’s regional offices at 55 Great Republic Drive in the Blackburn Industrial Park, is designed to increase awareness and understanding of the reporting process.

Organizers say the workshop also will include a discussion on potential streamlining and adjustments to the reporting system.

The workshop is open to all fishermen, permit holders and stakeholders, who can can participate either in person, online through a WebEx Link or by phone.

For the WebEx link, the event number is 667422398 and the event password is Meeting 123.

Those participating via conference call should call 866-708-9484 and use the participant code 2946980.

Questions should be directed to Mark Grant at 978-281-9145 or mark.grant@noaa.gov.

On Monday, NOAA will hold a webinar and conference call on cumulative discard methodology. The presentation is set to run from 1 to 4 p.m.

Read the full story at The Salem News 

MASSACHUSETTS: Learn first hand about the fishing industry

October 25th, 2016 — The following was released by the Fishing Heritage Center: 

The Fishing Heritage Center is pleased to announce the launch of “A Day in the Life” a speaker series about all aspects of the fishing industry. The first program will take place on Wednesday, November 2nd at 7:00 p.m.  Programs are presented free of charge for members and volunteers, there is a $5 fee for the general public. The Center is wheelchair accessible and located at 38 Bethel Street in New Bedford’s historic downtown.  Free off street parking is available. 

At 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 2, veteran fisherman Rodney Avila will talk about the groundfishing industry.  Rodney has spent over 50 years working in the fishing industry. He began fishing at the age of nine. He was the fourth generation in his family to fish out of New Bedford.  He fished offshore for swordfish, tuna, and groundfish for 47 years before taking work on shore as the director of the Fishermen’s Family Assistance Center. He now works as a marine safety instructor, teaching other fishermen the skills they need to be safe at sea. In 2007 he received the National Fisherman Highliner award. Today, Rodney’s son and five of his grandsons continue to earn their living as commercial fishermen.  Rodney will talk about the fishery, the gear, and daily life at sea, providing a rare firsthand look at the work and life of a fisherman.  

For more information please contact the Fishing Heritage Center at: info@fishingheritagecenter.org or call (508) 993-8894.

Health, fisheries officials track and test for norovirus, toxic blooms

October 24th, 2016 — It was the night of Oct. 12 — Yom Kippur — and town health inspector Hillary Greenberg-Lemos was stirring a pot of matzo ball soup. The Department of Public Health was on the line telling her they were going to close Wellfleet Harbor to all shellfishing and recall all shellfish harvested in the town back to Sept. 26.

Her heart sank. There were only two days until OysterFest, a weekendlong festival when tens of thousands of shellfish lovers descend on the town, craving Wellfleet oysters. But it was those oysters, the town’s most prized and well-known commodity, that had sickened at least 81 people who ate them at weddings and restaurants the previous weekend.

“I felt sick,” Greenberg said of a different phone call she had received the previous day, from the mother of the bride at an Oct. 8 wedding, informing her that guests and members of the wedding had experienced days of diarrhea, nausea, vomiting. Greenberg took information from her and from other callers, initially believing it might be a food-handling problem, a classic food poisoning case.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times 

Tropical Fish in Cape Cod Waters: “The More You Look, the More You See.”

October 24th, 2016 — Gulf Stream Orphans are appearing in our region. That’s not the name of a rock band, and they’re not unaccompanied children. Gulf Stream Orphans is the research term for Caribbean fish that show up in our Cape Cod waters, and scientists are looking to see if their numbers are increasing.

Owen Nichols, Director of Marine Fisheries Research at the Center for Coastal Studies, joins us to talk about these fish, what types they represent, and new efforts to understand whether they’re appearing more often, or simply being noticed more now that researchers are looking for them.

Read the full story and listen to the audio at Cape and Islands 

MASSACHUSETTS: Shellfish, except bay scallops, still off-limits

October 24th, 2016 — Shellfish harvesting — with the exception of bay scallops — continues to be banned in Nantucket waters because of toxic plankton, which first arrived Oct. 7 in Cape Cod waters and made its way to the island a few days later.

“On Tuesday the state Division of Marine Fisheries requested shellfish to sample and we sent them 20 oysters from the harbor for tissue testing,” said Jeff Carlson, Nantucket’s natural resources coordinator.

“Hopefully they can get the testing done quickly and if it comes back clean, we can open things back up.”

Carlson said he did not know how long the state would take to test the samples and added it had sent out similar requests to towns bordering Nantucket Sound that have been included in the harvesting ban.

The reason for the state-mandated closure is plankton called Pseudo-nitzschia that produces a toxin that if consumed leads to amnesic shellfish poisoning. Symptoms of such poisoning include nausea, abdominal cramps, vomiting, dementia, amnesia, permanent loss of short-term memory and, in extreme cases, coma or death.

Read the full story at The Cape Cod Times 

MASSACHUSETTS: Gorton’s taps into consumer demand to meet market challenge

October 24th, 2016 — Gorton’s Seafood has been around for 167 years, but Gloucester’s most prominent seafood processor now finds itself sailing through a retail climate as volatile and shifting as any the company has experienced, company executives told a touring group of city and state officials on Friday.

The market turbulence, according to the Gorton’s executives, stems from rapidly evolving consumer demands for healthier choices and convenience, as well as from waves of international competition that have laid siege to the U.S. and Canadian retail frozen seafood markets.

“We are in a very, very competitive business,” said Judson Reis, Gorton’s president and chief executive officer for the past seven years. “We have competitors from all over the world who want to get into this market.”

In the past 10 years, Reis said, more than 800 new brands have entered the North American frozen seafood market from around the world — many of them from out along the Pacific Rim.

“They didn’t all stay,” Reis said. “But that gives you an idea of how competitive a business it is.”

The growth within the frozen seafood market, according to Gorton’s Vice President of Marketing Chris Hussey, is being driven financially by the expanding middle class and overall diversification of the consuming public and culturally by an overarching awareness of the health benefits associated with eating seafood.

Reis said Gorton’s, the largest frozen seafood company in the U.S. and the second largest in Canada through its BlueWater Seafoods subsidiary, is meeting the market challenge with a consumer-centric culture and a commitment to innovation that, taken together, help form the “Gorton’s Way.”

Gorton’s response includes new lines of products — marketed as Delicious Classics, Smart Solutions and Everyday Gourmet — that tap into new consumer demands with more healthy choices, more nuanced packaging and an emphasis on simplicity and convenience.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times 

Fairhaven man dies of apparent drug overdose on New Bedford fishing boat

October 21, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — State and local police are investigating the apparent fatal overdose of a man, who was found unresponsive on a fishing boat docked at Pier 3 in New Bedford.

The 49-year-old Fairhaven man was pronounced dead at St. Luke’s Hospital Thursday night after being found on the fishing vessel Saint Jude.

The death appears to be an overdose, police said, but the state’s medical examiner was investigating.

Signs of drug use were found. A co-worker on the boat attempted CPR before police, fire and EMS arrived at about 8:38 p.m. The victim was transported to St. Luke’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:05 p.m.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times