April 20, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Federal regulators and scallop fishermen are meeting to discuss how to regulate the industry in the northern Gulf of Maine.
Scallop fishing rules have caused tension in recent months as fishing boats have moved into the waters off the northern Massachusetts coast to seek scallops.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Seattle Times
April 19, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A monument honoring commercial fishermen could be unveiled on Memorial Day on a waterfront site near the ferry terminal and State Pier, after more than a decade of fundraising and planning efforts, supporters and city officials said.
Deb Shrader, chairperson of the Fishermen’s Tribute Fund Committee, said the unveiling could coincide with the annual Fishermen’s Memorial Service on Pier 3.
Memorial Day is May 30. The holiday’s message reflects that of the monument, which Shrader said will “honor fishermen past, present and future.” The clay creation of local sculptor and Bristol Community College art professor Erik Durant will be cast in bronze, Shrader said. The sculpture depicts a fisherman kneeling and hugging his daughter with one arm, while placing his other hand on his son’s shoulder. His wife stands closely behind, touching her son and her husband.
“You can’t tell whether the fisherman is saying goodbye to his family or returning from a trip,” Shrader said. “Both moments are very intense. If you’ve been part of a fishing family … that’s a moment in time that they remember.”
Mayor Jon Mitchell said the moment is fitting for the statue’s location in Tonnessen Square Park, close to MacArthur Drive and the State Pier entrance.
April 19, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Scallop fishing has increased dramatically off some parts of New England recently, and fishermen and regulators will soon meet to discuss how to avoid overexploiting the valuable shellfish.
The concern over scallop fishing centers on the northern Gulf of Maine, a management area that stretches roughly from the waters off of Boston to the Canadian border. Scallop grounds off of northern Massachusetts have been especially fertile, prompting increased fishing in that area.
The New England Fishery Management Council, a regulatory arm of the federal government, will hold a public meeting about the issue Wednesday and decide how to proceed.
Part of the concern arises from the fact that different classes of fishing boats harvest scallops in the area, and not all of them are restricted by a quota system. Alex Todd, a Maine-based fisherman who fishes off of Gloucester, Massachusetts, said he and others feel the rules are not equal.
“We’re playing by two different sets of rules,” Todd said, adding that fishermen who follow the quota system could reach quota as soon as next month.
But Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney for Fisheries Survival Fund who represents many fishermen who don’t have to abide by the quota system, said he thinks the boats can coexist.
April 18, 2016 – In an April 15 story, the New York Times described in detail the challenges faced at sea by members of the limited access scallop fleet. The story covered the rescue of the Carolina Queen III, which ran aground off the Rockaways Feb. 25, during a storm with waves cresting as high as 14 feet. The following is an excerpt from the story:
Scallop fishing may not conjure up the derring-do of those catching crabs in the icy waters of the Bering Strait or the exploits of long-line tuna fisherman chronicled on shows like “The Deadliest Catch.” But the most dangerous fishing grounds in America remain those off the Northeast Coast — more dangerous than the Bering Sea, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
From 2000 to 2009, the years covered by the agency’s data, 504 people died while fishing at sea and 124 of them were in the Northeast.
The scallop industry had the second-highest rate of fatalities: 425 deaths per 100,000 workers. Among all workers in the United States over the same period, according to the C.D.C., there were four deaths per 100,000 workers. The size of the crew and the time at sea contribute to the dangers.
Drew Minkiewicz, a lawyer who represents the Fisheries Survival Fund, said that since 2010, the number of vessels permitted to fish for scallops has been limited, and with fewer unregistered ships at sea, there have been fewer accidents.
The Atlantic sea scallop — Placopecten magellanicus — has been popular since the 1950s, when Norwegian immigrants first scoured the seas south of New Bedford, Mass. The supply could swing between scarcity and plenty, but in the 1980s huge algae blooms known as brown tides appeared several years in a row and threatened to destroy the scallops’ ecosystem on the East Coast. Even after those tides passed, the industry almost did itself in by overfishing. Only after regulations were passed in the 1990s and the industry banded together with the scientific community to improve fishing techniques did the fisheries rebound.
Now, scalloping along the Atlantic Coast from Maine to North Carolina is among the most lucrative fishing in the world. In 2014, the catch was estimated to be worth more than $424 million.
The industry operates under strict guidelines, many aimed at ensuring sustainability of the fisheries. To fish some areas with known scallop beds, a permit is needed, and the haul is capped. Open-sea fishing, on the other hand, is restricted only by the annual 32-days-at-sea limit.
The clock is always ticking.
“We get so few days to go out, we have to find every efficiency to maximize our days at sea,” said Joe Gilbert, who owns Empire Fisheries and, as captain of a boat called the Rigulus, is part of the tight-knit scalloping community.
In preparation for the Carolina Queen’s voyage, the crew would have spent days getting ready, buying $3,000 in groceries, loading more than 20,000 pounds of ice and prepping the equipment on the twin-dredge vessel.
The vessel steamed north from the Chesapeake Bay, traveling 15 hours to reach the coast off New Jersey, where the crew would probably have started fishing. Then the work would begin.
It is pretty standard for a crew to work eight hours on and take four hours off, but in reality it often is more like nine hours on and three off. If you are a good sleeper, you are lucky to get two hours’ shut-eye before heading back on deck.
The huge tows scouring the ocean bed for scallops dredge for about 50 minutes and are then hauled up, their catch dumped on deck before the tows are reset and plunged back into the water, a process that can be done in as little as 10 minutes.
While the dredge did its work, the crew on duty on the Carolina Queen sorted through the muddy mix of rocks and sand and other flotsam on the ship’s deck, looking for the wavy round shells of the scallops.
“The biggest danger is handling the gear on deck,” Mr. Gilbert said. “It is very heavy gear on a pitching deck, and you get a lot of injured feet, injured hands.”
Once the scallops are sorted, according to industry regulations, they must be shucked by hand.
The crew spends hours opening the shells and slicing out the abductor muscle of the mollusks — the fat, tasty morsel that winds up on plates at a restaurants like Oceana in Midtown Manhattan, where a plate of sea scallops à la plancha costs as much as $33.
A single boat can haul 4,000 pounds in a day.
April 18, 2016 — HULL, Mass. — Few people around the state paid much attention recently, when officials with the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said they may consider moving the agency’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center from its original site at Woods Hole.
But elected officials in Hull took notice – and they’ve gone into action to lure the research facility and its 275 employees to their town.
“It would be a real coup,” Selectmen Chairman John Brannan said. “We have the water, we have the marine life right here. The bay and the beach are within a half mile of each other. There’s a lot of opportunity for them to do what they need to do.”
Brannan and Hull Redevelopment Authority member Robert DeCoste said the boards have already contacted Congress members and others in Washington, where the ultimate decision will be made – among them, Congressman Stephen Lynch – whose 8th District includes Hull – and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Lynch and Warren’s spokesmen couldn’t be reached for comment.
April 14, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — In regards to state Rep. William Straus’ recent letter to the editor (“Your View: Impact of the federal fisheries arrests in New Bedford,” March 22), I appreciate his concern for the fishing industry. It doesn’t really matter how the fish are regulated — days at sea, catch shares, ITQ. Under any of these systems an ownership cap is necessary, as he pointed out.
The scallop industry has had an ownership cap for years, and it seems to be working out fairly well. The groundfish industry should follow a similar path. For some reason many members of the groundfish industry don’t seem to want a cap. They say they will have difficulty selling their permits if a cap is put into place.
April 14, 2016 –Members of the Massachusetts state legislature have written to Dr. William Karp, the head of Science and Research at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC), in response to a recent rejection of a scallop research set-aside proposal from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science & Technology (SMAST).
In their letter, the legislators asked Dr. Karp to renew the funding, which they contend has been critical in producing accurate, independent estimates of the scallop resource. They state that past SMAST studies “have stood the test of time,” and have “positively helped the [New England Fishery Management] Council in its regulatory functions under Magnuson [Stevens Act].”
They conclude that “cutting out the independent approach provided by the University of Massachusetts is not only scientifically questionable, but undercuts the ability of the Federal government to make sound assessments, formulate plans and explain those actions in the very complicated areas of fisheries management.”
April 14, 2016 — I am writing regarding your recent editorial and news coverage of the Atlantic Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside Program and the projects that have been selected for 2016-17. The Scallop RSA Program is one of the best examples of cooperative fisheries research with industry in the nation, serving an important role in supporting the management of this fishery, which is such a part of New Bedford’s economy. Your readers should know that the program is very competitive, that all proposals are evaluated using independent reviews, and that although all have worthy points, not all can be funded.
As director of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, it is my goal to build stronger strategic partnerships with regional research partners, including UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology, an institution with a strong record in educating students and in carrying out research that is directly relevant to managing living marine resources. NOAA funds a faculty member at SMAST and there are many examples of productive collaborations involving SMAST students and faculty, and NEFSC researchers. A number of these activities include Dr. Kevin Stokesbury, a member of the SMAST faculty who is recognized for his work on survey methodology and scallop assessment, and for his effective collaboration with industry.
When Dr. Stokesbury’s RSA proposals for further sea scallop surveys were not selected for funding in 2016, I was greatly concerned about how this would be received. I appreciate his concern over the result, well publicized in your paper, but I believe his criticism of the grants process is unfounded.
April 14, 2016 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — When young photographer Nubar Alexanian first came to Gloucester, he witnessed a thriving fishing community, rooted deep in the city’s culture. Families worked together in the fishing business, with the next generation often groomed to take over the fishing vessel. Linked by their strong connections to fishing, the families toiled together, celebrated together and, at times, mourned together when fishermen were lost at sea.
All of this caught Alexanian’s attention nearly 40 years ago, and with a cloth-covered view camera, he began shooting the scenes that touched him profoundly. The more he learned, the more he wanted to delve deeper.
“I wanted to get to know the place so I picked up 35 mm cameras, he recalled. “I wanted to find one of the most successful fishing families and follow them. So from 1979 to 1981, I followed the Brancaleone family. I literally became part of the family.”
Alexanian braved 10-day trips at sea, with much sea sickness, and he still wanted to immerse himself more in their world on the frigid northern Atlantic.
The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:
April 13, 2016 — NEW BEDORD, Mass. — The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is pleased to announce its plans to open to the public on Saturday, June 25th with a Grand Opening Celebration. The Center has leased space at 38 Bethel Street in the heart of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. The 3000 square foot, handicap accessible space will accommodate changing exhibits, public programs, school groups, archives, and community gatherings.
“The commercial fishing community deserves a place to preserve and present its stories and artifacts, share its skills and knowledge, and educate the public about its rich traditions, heritage, and contemporary existence. We are excited to provide that opportunity.” Executive Director, Laura Orleans.
The Center’s initial exhibit From Boat to Table will include sections on Gearing Up, At Sea, Sustainability, and Landing the Catch, touching on all aspects of the industry from the time a keel is laid on a vessel to the time the catch is landed and brought to market. The centerpiece of the exhibit will be a wheelhouse complete with demo/simulator navigational equipment. More details including preliminary elevations are available on the Center’s website: www.fishingheritagecenter.org
In addition to providing information about the organization and its programs, the website includes several digital exhibits exploring various aspects of the fishing industry past and present as well as an industry timeline. The website project was funded through grants from Mass Humanities, the Henry H. Crapo Foundation, and the New Bedford Cultural Council. Several local teachers developed standards-based curriculum materials and various community historians contributed to the timeline and accompanying articles.
The June 25th Grand Opening is envisioned as a mini-festival with demonstrations of industry skills such as net mending, dredge making, shucking, and filleting, as well as safety demos, model boat making, fishermen-led walking tours, and hands on kids activities. Fresh local seafood will be available for sale and Center exhibits will be open free of charge during the event.
During 2016 the Center will continue to present Dock-u-mentaries, its monthly film/speaker series and Something Fishy, its free summer camp program presented in collaboration with the National Park and Whaling History Alliance. Weekly cruise ship programs and fishermen-led walking tours will be offered during the summer months. A variety of public programs including author readings, talks, occupational demonstrations, and performances will be presented. The Center is also working in collaboration with MIT Sea Grant, UMass Dartmouth, UMass Boston, and the New Bedford Public Library on a year-long initiative to create a digital archive of fishing community history with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The 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. The Center is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. For more information visit www.fishingheritagecenter.org.