Saving Seafood

Public reaction to New Bedford fishing industry investigation: ‘This is a disgrace’

July 18, 2022 — New Bedford Light reporter Will Sennott’s deep investigation into how foreign private equity is taking over New Bedford’s lucrative waterfront sparked passionate and often angry responses from ordinary citizens.

The article, written in partnership with ProPublica, uncovers a business model that undercuts fishermen and shifts control of the waterfront out of New Bedford.

Following is a collection of email and social media reaction:

“I always learn so much reading The New Bedford Light. The title really lives up to the name, as it truly sheds a light on issues of importance to our community.

Will Sennott’s article on the fishing industry’s rapid takeover by private equity firms was most informative. This is a development that should concern all of us.

New Bedford’s hard-working, devoted fishermen have been the backbone of our economy for generations. What hurts them and their families, hurts me.

Folks are complaining now about the high price of fish and scallops, but it will only get worse. And, personally, I think putting the squeeze on the very people who do the backbreaking work is unconscionable.

Corporate greed at its best.

The question is, ‘Who has the power to stop this practice, and can it realistically be stopped?’”

— Dawn Blake Souza, retired educator and New Bedford Public Schools principal, via email

“This @willsennott and @NewBedfordLight piece on how private equity firms and foreign investors like the Brenninkmeijer family, living in moated castles in Germany, have taken over much of New England’s fishing industry for @propublica, is something else #fishing.”

— Aleksander @aleksanderrr_, via Twitter

“Private equity owns everything with very little regulatory oversight and extremely generous tax treatment. #TaxWealth.”

— JO @JO_loves_coffee, via Twitter

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

 

These fish are critical to New England, and they’re disappearing

July 14, 2022 — Hutchins, a habitat restoration biologist with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, lives and works on Cape Ann. Along with a small group of volunteers, he monitors the baby eels migrating upstream at Mill Brook between spring and fall. In a year, sometimes they’ll document well over a thousand elvers.

Half a century ago, fishermen harvested millions of pounds of American eels annually up and down the Atlantic Coast. By 2013, however, researchers estimated the population had dropped by half.

Experts suspect overfishing and coastal development have played a role in the decline, along with eutrophication — when nutrients from sewage and fertilizers choke the oxygen from ponds and streams.

Another fish fundamental to fresh and saltwater ecology is the river herring.

Alewives and bluebacks are migratory herring that range along the East Coast from Florida to Maine. Whereas eels are born in the ocean but live in freshwater, river herring live in coastal waters and only venture inland to spawn.

As with eel, river herring populations began to crash in the 1980s, coinciding with advances in commercial fishing techniques and new construction along the coast.

Massachusetts is home to about 3,000 dams, with many built in the 19th century for water power, reservoirs, or flood control.

“A dam in a river is like a blocked artery; it’s like a heart attack,” said Robert Kearns, a climate resiliency specialist at the Charles River Watershed Association. “It degrades the water quality behind it; reduces the dissolved oxygen which fish rely on to breathe and to live … and creates a habitat that’s better for invasive species.”

Beyond commercial fishing, a report by the American Sportfishing Association found saltwater sport fishing generates over $500 million dollars a year in sales, wages, and taxes in Massachusetts.

But amid the reality of human-made climate change, the future of the herring and the eels, on which so much depends, remains very much in question.

Read the full story at WBUR

Justin Mello: First, ground fishing takeover — next is the scallop industry

July 8, 2022 — I’ve spoken at every scallop leasing meeting and webinar against consolidation, leasing, stacking. Whatever name they throw on it, it’s bad.

We can clearly see the negative impacts on crew and community in other fisheries, for example, ground fish. Many companies, including my father’s, suffered after changes were made in the ground fish industry. I myself witnessed the quick transition when I first started unloading boats. We would unload many draggers when I first started. And about three years later we didn’t have one left. And we transitioned mostly to scallops.

The big companies push for this every so many years. They come up with different angles every time. Flexibility, safety, efficiency. But it only comes down to greed. And the sad part is, every year there are less and less voices to speak up. Especially in a year like this. Many single boat owners are selling. And there are less voices to communicate the point we are trying to make.

The bigger the company, the more bills they have, the more they take from their money makers: the boats. Even when they say they don’t take from the crew, they just take off the top. So it comes off the crew one way or another. So who’s to say they won’t pass off leasing costs? No one. All they do is add a little section on your settlement and call it “miscellaneous expense” and take whatever they want or need.

Read the full story at The New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: How foreign private equity hooked New England’s fishing industry

July 6, 2022 — Before dawn, Jerry Leeman churned through inky black waters, clutching the wheel of the fishing vessel Harmony.

The 85-foot trawler, deep green and speckled with rust, was returning from a grueling fishing trip deep into the Atlantic swells. Leeman and his crew of four had worked 10 consecutive days, 20 hours a day, to haul in more than 50,000 pounds of fish: pollock, haddock and ocean perch, a trio known as groundfish in the industry and as whitefish in the freezer aisle.

As sunrise broke over New Bedford harbor, the fish were offloaded in plastic crates onto the asphalt dock of Blue Harvest Fisheries, one of the largest fishing companies on the East Coast. About 390 million pounds of seafood move each year through New Bedford’s waterfront, the top-earning commercial fishing port in the nation.

Leeman and his crew are barely sharing in the bounty. On deck, Leeman held a one-page “settlement sheet,” the fishing industry’s version of a pay stub. Blue Harvest charges Leeman and his crew for fuel, gear, leasing of fishing rights, and maintenance on the company-owned vessel. Across six trips in the past 14 months, Leeman netted about 14 cents a pound, and the crew, about 7 cents each — a small fraction of the $2.28 per pound that a species like haddock typically fetches at auction.

“It’s a nickel-and-dime game,” said the 40-year-old Leeman, who wore a flannel shirt beneath foul weather gear and a necklace strung with a compass, a cross, and three pieces of jade — one piece for each of his three children. “Tell me how I can catch 50,000 pounds of fish yet I don’t know what my kids are going to have for dinner.”

Leeman’s lament is a familiar one in New Bedford, an industrial city tucked below Cape Cod on the south coast of Massachusetts. In recent years, the port of New Bedford has thrived, generating $11.1 billion in business revenue, jobs, taxes and personal income in 2018, according to one study. But a quiet shift is remaking the city and the industry that sustains it, realizing local fishermen’s deepest fears of losing control over their livelihood.

Read the full story at The New Bedford Light

Port of New Bedford Applauds Appointment of Eric Hansen to New England Fishery Management Council

June 28, 2022 — The following was released yesterday by the Port of New Bedford:

The Port of New Bedford applauds today’s appointment of Eric Hansen, a New Bedford scalloper and president of the Fisheries Survival Fund, to a seat on the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC). Hansen’s appointment will help ensure the concerns of New Bedford’s vital fishing community are represented at the Council level. New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, chairman of the New Bedford Port Authority, recommended Hansen for the seat in a February letter to Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker.

The Port thanks Gov. Baker, who nominated Hansen to the Council, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who made the appointment. The Port also thanks NOAA Assistant Administrator Janet Coit and NOAA Greater Atlantic Regional Administrator Michael Pentony.

For the past 21 years, New Bedford has been the most valuable fishing port in the country, with $451 million worth of seafood landed in 2020. In addition to species like surf clams and ocean quahog, a major share of the Port’s success is due to the value of New England’s scallop fishery, one of the most valuable fisheries in the country.

Prior to Hansen’s appointment, there was no representative from New Bedford on the NEFMC. Having a voice on the Council who understands the needs of our fishermen and our fishing community is critical to preserving the economic and cultural future of the Port.

“As the most valuable commercial fishing port in the nation, New Bedford deserves a seat at the table where management decisions are made, and we appreciate Secretary Raimondo’s recognition of that fact,” Mayor Mitchell said. “Eric’s extensive knowledge and experience, and his solid reputation in the industry, will enable him to serve with distinction.”

Hansen brings years of fisheries management experience to his new role on the NEFMC. He has previously served on the Council’s Scallop and Monkfish Advisory panels. In his role as president of the Fisheries Survival Fund, he has effectively advocated for the scallop fishery as it has become one of the most sustainable and effectively managed species in the country.

Study: Offshore wind development could reduce surf clam catch revenue by as much as 15%

June 28, 2022 — Offshore wind farms could reduce the catch of Atlantic surf clams in the mid-Atlantic, according to a new study from Rutgers University.

The research published last week was funded by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Rutgers associate professor Daphne Munroe found that the leases for wind projects could reduce surf clam revenue by 3-15% in the area from Virginia to Massachusetts. The fishery is worth more than $30 million annually.

The study did not include Maine, but adds to a sparse but growing body of research about potential conflicts between offshore wind and fishing.

Read the full story at Maine Public

 

New England waters are teeming with fish species. The problem is we eat too few of them.

June 22, 2022 — Jared Auerbach stands with a box of monkfish livers at his feet. They are pale pink and streaked with blood, each one packed in plastic and nestled on ice.

Behind him on the processing floor at the Boston Fish Pier, an ice machine releases an avalanche of cubes at two-minute intervals. Dozens of gloved and aproned workers mill about, offloading, packing, and filleting. They work with the usual suspects: blue mesh bags of oysters, live scallops, and lobsters with banded claws in plastic crates.

But plenty of other local species fill the floor. There’s the monkfish, of course, plus a box of conch. There are halibut bellies and skate wings and whole black sea bass.

“On our busiest day, we unloaded 376 different boats,” says Auerbach, who founded fish distributor Red’s Best in 2008 to connect fishermen with wholesalers and retailers. He deals that catch around the world — to buyers as close as the Boston Public Market and as far as South Korea.

The shellfish stand a good chance of staying within New England, he says, finding a home at a local restaurant or fish market. But the finfish may still have a long journey ahead of them.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

New federal regulations on lobster fishing in effect, aimed at protecting endangered whale species

June 9, 2022 — Statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show less than 350 endangered North Atlantic Right Whales still exist. The new regulations that went into effect for fishermen on May 1 aim to help those numbers increase.

Besides closures – which dictate specific areas in federal and state waters where fishermen cannot fish during certain times of the year due to whale activity – it also includes the need for using weak rope that breaks on contact.

Fishermen also have to mark gear so if it does get wrapped around a whale, it can be identified.

“This is actually weak rope, but I actually have to have a one-foot green mark on it,” Rob Martin said. Martin has been lobster fishing in these waters off Cape Cod in Massachusetts for more than four decades.

He said changing the rope and following the new regulations takes time.

“It’s a lot of man-hours to do,” Martin said.

Read the full story at ABC 7 Denver

Lobster industry and lawmakers await court decision to determine legality of new restrictions

June 8, 2022 — Maine and Massachusetts harvest more than 90% of the American lobsters sold in the U.S. and most lobstermen and New England lawmakers want to keep it that way.

Over the past year, a dispute over new federal regulations on Maine’s lobster industry, intended to protect the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, have become heated as Maine’s lobster industry fights to protect the livelihoods of its workforce.

Mike Sargent, who became the captain of his own boat at 15, told Spectrum News Maine that things haven’t been too bad since the restrictions went into effect in May.

“Yes, it’s an added expense and something I’ll look into as I rewrite my business model for this year and for years in the future. But, it’s not a deal breaker yet,” said Sargent, who grew up in Milbridge and is now part of an advocacy campaign called Lobster from Maine.

The 29-year-old is worried, however, that if regulations adopted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2021 are ruled lawful by the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, that more expensive and stricter regulations could follow.

Read the full story at Spectrum News 1

New project aims to protect whales while developing offshore wind energy

June 3, 2022 — A new partnership between conservation and renewable energy is coming to Massachusetts.

The Right Wind project, through the combined efforts of the New England Aquarium, Cornell University, and LAUTEC US, aims to help offshore wind developers protect the North Atlantic right whale.

“We’re excited to be starting this project because it gives us an opportunity to develop tools that can help reduce the potential risks of wind energy development to North Atlantic right whales, a critically endangered species that numbers less than 350 individuals,” said Dr. Laura Ganley, an associate research scientist at the New England Aquarium.

Read the full story at Boston.com