May 23, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Discovery, an 84-foot commercial fishing vessel based in New Bedford, and its crew of seven became disabled early Friday about 100 miles off Nantucket, the Coast Guard reported.
Crewmembers aboard the Discovery contacted watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Southeastern’s command center at 2:30 a.m. Friday, reporting they had a disabled rudder and needed assistance.
May 23, 2016 — HARWICH PORT, Mass. — The scalloping was pretty poor north of Provincetown last month for the crew of Aidan’s Pride; they towed their dredge for hours just to get a hundred pounds.
So the Wellfleet scallop vessel, owned by Aidan Lapierre and captained by Sean Gray, was heading south to Maryland about three weeks ago, hoping for a more bountiful harvest, when it broke an outrigger in rough water transiting the Cape Cod Canal.
It turned out to be a fortunate break, as the delay lasted just long enough that they were still around when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries office in Gloucester approved a plan May 3 to open a scallop-rich spot around 70 miles southeast of Saquatucket Harbor where Aidan’s Pride was tied up Thursday.
Catches in near-shore areas petered out over the past few years for members of what is known as the general category scallop fleet, smaller vessels around 40 feet in length that are only allowed to land 600 pounds of scallop meats a day. They were not able to harvest their allotted quota and petitioned NOAA and the New England Fishery Management Council to open a portion of the so-called Nantucket Lightship closed area exclusively to them because their vessels are not suited to the long trip to prime scalloping grounds on Georges Bank. In addition, the profits from the relatively small amount of scallops they were allowed to catch would quickly be eaten up by fuel costs.
Their only alternative: head south to the Mid-Atlantic.
But a window of opportunity opened after scientific surveys of the Nantucket Lightship area showed there weren’t enough mature scallops available to open it this year. Members of what is known as the limited access fleet — vessels 80 to more than 100 feet long which harvest as much as 17,000 pounds a day and are responsible for 95 percent of the scallop catch — wanted it kept closed to everyone.
“We chose not to go in there because the science said it wasn’t ready,” said Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney representing the Fisheries Survival Fund, which has many of the limited access fleet as members.
“We wanted the scallops to be larger, to get the maximum yield,” he said.
Since 2001, scallops have been managed under a rotational scheme much like letting a field lie fallow. Sampling is done to determine whether an area has enough large scallops to be opened to fishing. Areas with a lot of seed or immature scallops remain closed until they grow large enough for harvest.
It’s an approach that works but allowing someone into an area before it’s ready violates that management principle, Minkiewicz said. Scallopers faced with only being able to land 600 pounds would likely sort through the catch, discarding smaller animals in favor of the large ones that fetched higher prices, he said.
“They’re human,” he said. “We don’t blame them for it, but they will kill a lot more scallops than 300,000 pounds.”
Kevin Stokesbury, principal investigator at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s sea scallop research program, is also opposed to letting general category boats into the Lightship area, saying the dredge would likely kill a lot of small scallops. Surveys and studies by UMass Dartmouth’s School of Marine Science and Technology showed a small amount of growth actually doubled the amount of meat available. He agreed with Minkiewicz’s argument that killing off large numbers of young scallops, even if limited by a relatively small quota, could significantly affect future harvests in the area.
“While 300,000 pounds of harvest is not a lot compared to the biomass there, how many small scallops will you have to sort through to get to the few large ones?” he said.
May 20, 2016 — SCITUATE, Mass. — The weather is getting better and many people are thinking about getting out on the water. A few sail boats can be seen offshore in the brisk springtime wind and more than a few recreational fishing boats are at mooring in Scituate Harbor.
This is also the traditional time for the North Atlantic right whales to leave their wintertime home in Cape Cod Bay and head for the Great South Channel southeast of Nantucket. This year the right whales are acting differently and scatting more than their normal migration.
Dr. David (Dave) Wiley, research coordinator at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, suggests that the change in behavior is probably due to warmer than normal waters in the Gulf of Maine, a change that is having effects on many species.
We are lucky to have a variety of whales that make their home in the Gulf of Maine or are seasonal visitors. Watching a whale breach or play with other whales is a truly amazing experience that many of us can enjoy simply by boarding a private vessel in Scituate Harbor. Along with the joy and excitement of observing the whales comes responsibility.
May 19, 2016 — New shellfish regulations in Chilmark aim to better monitor the 10 oyster grants in Menemsha Pond and protect the town’s inshore fisheries.
Following a public hearing on Tuesday, the selectmen unanimously adopted the regulations, as drafted by the town shellfish department.
For the first time, anyone holding an aquaculture permit in town must provide an annual report to the selectmen that includes harvest data, approximate numbers of adult and seed oysters at the site, and a record of mortalities and growing conditions, among other things.
“We really had a lack of aquaculture rules in general for the town,” shellfish constable Isaiah Scheffer said Wednesday. “We need to make sure that everybody that has an oyster grant is compliant.”
May 19, 2016 — Get ready – the sharks are coming. And local officials are hard at work tracking them.
“It’s a lot of laborious work, but it really kicks off the season for us,” said Dr. Greg Skomal of the Division of Marine Fisheries.
On Wednesday, Skomal and volunteers were busy preparing receivers that track tagged great white sharks when they arrive in Massachusetts waters.
May 16, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Dr. Brian Rothschild already had a stellar career in fisheries and marine science when he came to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 20 years ago to head the fledgling Center for Marine Science, now known as the School for Marine Science and Technology.
He built that institution from the ground up, recruiting top talent and developing a strong reputation in the field of fisheries, ocean science, and industry regulations. At 81, he is officially retired, but continues his scientific work unburdened, he says, by the demands of management.
For his contributions to science and his service to the community, Rothschild on Friday was awarded the UMass Dartmouth Chancellor’s Award. He recently sat down for an interview by The Standard-Times.
Q: You said earlier that in your long career you have had some jobs you don’t remember.
A: Yeah, not exactly. I started in 1953 working fisheries for the New Jersey Division of Fish and Game. I’ve always been devoted to marine science, fish and marine science. Underneath that is a much deeper interest in science per se, finding out the unknown. I have been fortunate in my career to produce some classic papers that relate to that.
Q: You have had recognition all around the world, also traveling around the world.
A: Yes, I‘ve been in many countries. I used to consult for the Food and Agriculture Organization at the United Nations. I’ve spent a lot of time in Rome as a result of that. I worked on the Egyptian trawler fleet. I helped write the draft plan for the Indian Ocean Program at the United Nations. I worked on a plan for fisheries in Namibia and many other activities outside the United States.
May 16, 2016 — A deal struck earlier this spring is already paying dividends for Gloucester.
Back in March, the Ninety Nine Restaurant & Pub group announced it would feature Gloucester-landed haddock on the spring menu at its 105 restaurants in New England and upstate New York.
The agreement seemed like a nice bit of news for the local fishing fleet at a time when it was sorely needed.
If the last few weeks are any indication, however, the deal is more than window dressing. It can be measured in jobs.
May 16, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD — J.J. Bartlett, president of Fishing Partnership Support Services, said the most dangerous job in America isn’t firefighting or police work.
It’s commercial fishing, Bartlett claimed Tuesday at the new Fishing Heritage Center downtown. Bartlett said groundfishermen in the northeastern U.S. work in the most dangerous waters in the country — more hazardous than Alaska — and, from 2000 to 2009, were 37 times more likely to die on the job than police officers.
He said that figure came from a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and workforce data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Bartlett’s comments came at an event announcing the release of RESCUES — Responding to Emergencies at Sea and Communities Under Extreme Stress — a new safety and resources manual created by Fishing Partnership Support Services, the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership and other collaborators.
Madeleine Hall-Arber, an anthropologist with MIT’s Sea Grant College Program, is one of the manual’s authors. The MIT program funded the manual’s printing. Hall-Arber said at the Heritage Center that collaborators’ intent is to distribute the free manual to fishing boats and fishermen’s families across the region.
May 13, 2016 — New Bedford fishing mogul Carlos Rafael pleaded not guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Worcester to conspiracy, lying to NOAA Fisheries about the exact species of fish he landed through a four-year span, and illegally smuggling cash out of the country.
Rafael, know widely as “The Codfather,” remains free on the $1 million bond set after his February arrest for conspiracy and submitting falsified records. The arrests of Rafael and his bookkeeper Debra Messier capped an undercover sting operation by federal authorities, some of whom posed as Russian mobsters looking to buy his business.
The 64-year-old Rafael, who appeared before Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy, controls one of the largest commercial fishing fleets in the United States and has been a powerful force in Northeast commercial fishing circles through his ownership of 32 fishing vessels and a block of 44 federal fishing permits with a value estimated in the tens of millions of dollars.
May 13, 2016 — Almost 40 fishermen and others who work on the water participated in safety and survival training Thursday at the Coast Guard’s Station Gloucester. Little did they know that session would provide a real-life safety incident.
According to Nina Groppo of the Fishing Partnership and Support Services, one of the participants encountered a problem during an in-water drill when his survival suit inadvertently opened as he was trying to get into a life raft and instructors had to fetch him out of the water.