Saving Seafood

Activity increasing all along New Bedford, Mass. Harbor

September 6, 2015 — The Port of New Bedford is not only home to the vastly profitable scallop industry, making it the No. 1 value fishing port in the nation, it is also the No. 2 commercial port in Massachusetts, after Boston.

Commercial and recreational activity in the port has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, with an occasional setback. Plans for a waterfront casino fell through this year when the developer could not find financing. The state-funded development of a $100 million-plus maritime shipping terminal in the South End wound up without its major client when the Cape Wind offshore wind energy    project was abandoned.

Even at that, there is activity everywhere. This summer has seen a large increase in the number of recreational boaters who have decided to dock in New Bedford. Some of that is a reflection of the good publicity that the port received when the Boston 2024 Olympic Committee, now disbanded, chose New Bedford to be the home of the sailing competition in those games.

Shipping is also increasing. Cargo ships carrying clementines from Morocco or Spain have sharply increased their number of arrivals at State Pier in the last couple of years. Plans are in place to refrigerate the State Pier storage facility so clementines can be shipped through the port during warm weather, which they cannot do at present.

Read the full story from the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: State floats new plan for fishing disaster money

September 5, 2015 — The state Division of Marine Fisheries listened to those who wanted a wider distribution of $6.7 million in federal fisheries disaster money. At a meeting of the groundfish disaster aid working group in New Bedford on Friday, the agency laid out a plan where more than $6 million of the money would be used in direct aid to fishermen.

While an earlier proposal set a fairly high bar of 20,000 pounds of groundfish landings in any year from 2012 to 2014 to qualify for aid, the new plan would require 10,000 pounds of groundfish or have at least one trip in 2014 on which a vessel carried an observer.

Groundfish once were the bread and butter of New England fishermen, and include bottom-feeding species such as cod, haddock and flounders.

According to DMF analysis, 138 vessels would have qualified under the 20,000-pound criteria and 164 can receive aid under the reduced landings or observed trip scenarios. Only 10 of the 24 vessels in the Chatham-based Georges Bank Fixed Gear Sector would have qualified under the higher amount and 18 now qualify under the new plan. Claire Fitz-Gerald, manager of the sector, believes this number is closer to 22 or 23 based on her own calculations.

Read the full story from the Cape Cod Times

Read Rep. William Straus’ letter to Massachusetts Gov. Charles Baker

Gloucester, MA seeks director for Fisheries Commission

September 4, 2015 — The quest to appoint an executive director of the Gloucester Fisheries Commission continues, with interim Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken saying she hopes to fill the paid position by the end of the year.

The position, which has been vacant since Vito Calomo left it almost two decades ago, remains on the books and Romeo Theken and the members of the Fisheries Commission seem to be in strong agreement that the time has come to put someone back in the job.

“I said right from the beginning of my term that this is something I want to do and something I think we need,” Romeo Theken said. “This would be someone not only to advocate for all of our fishermen and fishing-related industries, but enhance the profile of the city of Gloucester.”

Given the state of the commercial fishing industry, the job could be an arduous one, involving attendance at an unceasing schedule of meetings related to the regulation of the fisheries, as well as working with other city departments on economic development projects related to fishing and seafood.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Exhibit to Showcase Fishing Industry Artwork

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — September 2, 2015 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

Inside Out: The New Bedford Fishing Industry Through Industry Eyes, a multi-media exhibit featuring the work of six artists who are all employed in or retired from the local fishing industry will be on display at the main branch of the New Bedford Public Library (613 Pleasant Street) through October 31st. The public is invited to meet the artists at an exhibit opening on September 10th (AHA night) from 6:30-8 pm.  The exhibit, which features photographs of Alan Cass, Serina Gundersen, and Phil Mello, illustrations of Bobby Bowers, knot work of Manny Vinagre, boat models of Manuel Silva, is a project of the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center.

While many past exhibits have explored aspects of the working port and the fishing industry through the eyes of artists and photojournalists, this exhibit features the work of those on the inside. From this vantage point, these artists have access to what is often a closed world. Their often intimate work provides viewers a unique opportunity to see the fishing industry from the “inside out”.

Each of the artists focuses on a unique aspect of the fishing industry. Serena Gundersen’s photographs industry objects and provides an intimate portrait of a single family business.  Phil Mello documents shoreside workers over a forty year period. Alan Cass captures the everyday and extraordinary aspects of life at sea.  Bobby Bowers creates detailed drawings of the boats and their gear.  Manny Vinagre uses his knot tying skills to create pieces that are both decorative and functional. Manny Silva, who recently passed away, created, in miniature, the workboats on which he spent so much of his life.

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is dedicated to the preservation and presentation of the history and culture of New Bedford’s fishing industry through archives, exhibits, and programs. For more information contact the Center at 508-993-8894 or nbfishingheritagecenter@gmail.com.

Cape Cod’s great white sharks head closer to shore

August 31, 2015 — July and the first week of August are often thought of as the dog days of summer, but if last year and this year are any indication, August and September could become the shark days of summer.

On Monday, researchers encountered 23 great white sharks from Chatham to Orleans, including three off Nauset Beach. The burgeoning population of sharks visiting the Cape has prompted local officials to rethink how they protect the swimming public from a potentially dangerous encounter.

While video footage of each shark seen Monday will still have to be analyzed to make sure they are 23 unique sharks and not repeats, it continues a trend in recent weeks, with 17 new sharks identified in one day three weeks ago and 19 in one day a week and a half ago.

More disturbing to beach managers is a pattern in recent weeks of great white sharks cruising in shallow water at swimming beaches along the coastline of the Outer Cape, prompting the temporary closing of some of the region’s most popular beaches.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘It’s really wicked bittersweet’

August 31, 2015 — Well, they could have just laid him out atop a wooden pyre and lit him up like a viking, but that might have been a tad extreme even for Bill Skrobacz’ friends at the Crow’s Nest.

So, the dozens that showed up at The Nest on Thursday night to bid adieu to Scrobacz — Billy or Skrobie to just about everyone but the IRS — had to settle for personalizing the wooden cap the long-time fisherman built over the back of his Dodge truck in anticipation of his final move to Florida.

Many of the messages were touching, wishing him fair winds and all that. Some were bawdy because, well, this is The Nest, and this is Skrobie. And some had absolutely no shot of making it verbatim into a family friendly newspaper. If you want to read them, you’re just going to have to stake out Interstate 95 this weekend and look for the old salt heading south.

In his 63rd year, after more than four decades of being whipsawed by the life of a commercial fisherman, William Dixon Skrobacz has had enough. He’s had enough of the physical rigors of fishing that have gnarled his hands and hobbled and scarred his legs. He’s had enough of NOAA regulations up the ying and last winter’s snow up the yang.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times

An Open Letter to John Bullard

August 26, 2015 — To NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard: As a fellow MIT alumnus, I am baffled at your stubborn adherence to a fish monitoring plan that the most cursory analysis shows is not only unsustainable, but will simply not provide the data you say you need to understand New England fish populations.

Unfortunately, you have painted yourself into a corner by making enemies of the most valuable source of information on New England fish — the fishermen themselves:

–You have branded them as biased liars whose reports cannot be trusted — hence the need for “monitors.”

— You have established draconian quotas that force fishermen to avoid certain species, then use the low quantities seen of these fish to prove there aren’t any.

— You have attempted to find fish with your own boats and use your lack of success as proof that the fish have not recovered.

Read the full letter at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

Massachusetts: Oars and Flowers: Gloucester Remembers Lost Fishermen

August 25, 2015 — There were tears — there always are — as the flowers were thrown on the water, recognizing Gloucester’s many losses to the sea.

There were Carol Figurido, Vincie Curcurum and Josie Russo, Gloucester women who lost loved ones to the ocean deep. They were just three among the many who attended Gloucester’s annual Fishermen’s Memorial Service held Saturday evening at the Fishermen’s Memorial on Stacy Memorial.

Figurido spoke of her grandfather — and the 5,383 other Gloucestermen whose names grace the Fishermen’s Memorial Cenotaph — at the ceremony. She came to know Thomas Isaac Moulton through relatives and family history. A ship’s cook, Moulton, 48, and five other Gloucestermen went down with the fishing vessel Mary E. O’Hara in 1941, before Figurido was born.

Vincie Curcuru lost her brother, John Orlando, 59, when the fishing vessel Patriot went down on Jan 3, 2009. He was crewing for his son-in-law.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Massachusetts: 15 shoreside businesses to receive disaster aid

August 25, 2015 — In this case, for Gloucester and 15 of the city’s shore-side businesses, the glass is decidedly half-full.

Those Gloucester businesses comprise precisely half of the 30 Massachusetts businesses that will receive groundfish disaster aid.

Collectively, they will receive by far the largest portion of the $750,000 set aside to assist shoreside businesses affected by the federally declared ground fish disaster now grinding through its third year.

The 15 Gloucester fishing-related enterprises — the most from any single Bay State groundfishing community — will share $380,360, or 50.7 percent of the $750,000 included in the second phase, or Bin 2, of the federal groundfish disaster relief distribution plan.

Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said the city’s success in garnering more than half of the available aid earmarked for businesses underlined the city’s prominence at the epicenter of the groundfish disaster, both on the water and on the waterfront.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

‘The Long Haul’ looks at the future of Cape Cod fishing

August 23, 2015 — PROVINCETOWN, MA — Eight years ago, Pedro Verde, captain of the dragger F/V Blue Ocean, stood on MacMillan Pier and blasted scientists and fisheries regulators for allowing him to fish only 52 days the previous year. He was talking to Sean Corcoran, a reporter at public radio station WCAI who was investigating the decline of the Provincetown dragger fishery.

“We catch tons and tons of the dogfish here,” Verde told Corcoran. “So the guys close up the dogfish for 17 years. Endangered species. The guys don’t even know what they are talking about.”

Eight years later, the dogfish fishery is not just open but is booming, and it is a sustainable local species of whitefish, though you will be unlikely to find it in many local markets or on local tables.

The complex issues surrounding the decline of the Cape Cod fishing industry, the tensions between fishermen and regulators, changing people’s attitudes about which fish they want to eat, and the future of fishing here were the subjects of a gathering at the Provincetown Public Library last week. Corcoran, now news director at WCAI, and Heather Goldstone, the station’s science editor, presented some of the findings of a series of reports broadcast over the last two years.

Read the full story at the Provincetown Banner