Saving Seafood

Ropeless fishing, called ‘crazy’ by some, could be real in five years

December 29, 2020 — The possibility of hauling lobster traps from the ocean’s bottom by using an acoustic signal rather than a length of rope has been called crazy and viewed as impossibly expensive by many in the lobster industry.

But trials underway off the Massachusetts coast could be moving the impossible to the realm of reality, according to Sean Hayes, chief of the protected species branch at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass.

Although the trials are in Massachusetts, Maine is the nation’s biggest lobster fishery, with over 100 million pounds landed last year.

Hayes presented an update on the technology to the New England Fishery Management Council at its virtual meeting in earlier this month.

Studies of the technology were launched in response to the decline of the endangered North Atlantic right whale, which migrates through U.S. and Canadian waters that also are lobstering grounds. Vessel collisions and fishing gear entanglements are considered the two leading causes of injury and death of the whales.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

MASSACHUSETTS: Whale Rescued in Cape Cod Bay a Decade Ago Spotted with Calf

December 29, 2020 — A right whale rescued in Cape Cod Bay a decade ago was recently spotted with a newborn calf in the waters off of North Carolina and Florida, a good sign for the critically-endangered marine animal.

The Center for Coastal Studies said that the calf was one of the first two right whales of the 2021 season, and the mother is right whale #4040, Chiminea.

Chiminea was found entangled in Cape Cod Bay by the Center’s aerial survey team in April 2011, in the waters west of Truro.

The Marine Animal Entanglement Response team cut the entangled then-juvenile whale free of a long line caught in the mouth, after which she swam away free.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Wellfleet fisherman among those trained in Sandwich to survive the winter sea

December 28, 2020 — Temperatures at the Sandwich Marina on Friday morning, Dec. 18, stood at the freezing mark, with a bitter wind and driving snow. Despite this, 25 crewmen and captains from Cape and New Bedford fishing vessels sat down in slushy snow to wriggle into what could be the most important article of clothing they will ever try on.

They call them Gumby suits, and it’s easy to see why. A survival suit is bright orange with oversized hands and feet and a tight-fitting hood that reveals only a small moon of flesh: eyes, nose and mouth.

The water temperature in the marina was 47 degrees, and Dan Orchard, the vice president of Fishing Partnership Support Services, had the men suit up and jump into the water within a half-hour of arrival. The shock of going from comfort to cold, disorienting water temperatures was about as close to the real thing as could be had shoreside.

Orchard and other staff from the fishing partnership were conducting a day of survival training for fishermen after captains requested it following the sinking of the Emmy Rose. Four fishermen died with the wreck 20 miles east of Provincetown in the early morning hours of Nov. 23.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Fishermen Team Up With Food Banks To Help Hungry Families

December 28, 2020 — As the COVID-19 pandemic hit hard in the spring, fishermen watched their markets dry up. Restaurants and cafeterias — normally major fish buyers — closed or cut back orders significantly. Fishermen weren’t sure if they were going to get paid for what they brought to the dock.

Meanwhile as people lost jobs, food banks started to see an unprecedented demand for services. Things were getting desperate, with long lines for food assistance in many states.

Out of these dual crises, a new idea was born. Food assistance programs across the country have started connecting with local fishermen to stock up on local seafood, many for the first time. And the arrangement seems to be helping the fishermen, the economy and those in need of healthy food.

In Massachusetts, the Greater Boston Food Bank, which serves more than 500,000 food-insecure people with its 600-plus network partners, was looking for ideas.

Read the full story at WNYC

Roger Berkowitz: Legal Sea Foods sale allows for retail, QVC expansion

December 23, 2020 — Transitioning from building a successful seafood restaurant chain to focus on retail, e-commerce, and other channels is almost like going home for Legal Sea Foods President and CEO Roger Berkowitz.

On 22 December, the Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based company announced it is selling its 27 restaurants to PPX Hospitality Brands, which also operate the Smith & Wollensky and The Strega Group restaurant chain.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MASSACHUSETTS: Legal Sea Foods restaurant chain sold to Boston company

December 23, 2020 — The Boston-based restaurant chain Legal Sea Foods has been sold, Legal’s chief executive said Tuesday.

Legal’s 25 locations will now be operated by Boston-based PPX Hospitality Brands, which owns the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse restaurants and Strega Italian restaurants, according to a statement.

“It’s a bit of mixed emotions,” Legal President and CEO Roger Berkowitz told Boston.com. “It was a family business — particularly a family business that deals directly with the public. One of the great things, I suppose, about the restaurant business in general is that you come in contact with so many people from so many walks of life.”

Berkowitz will retain ownership rights of the Legal Sea Foods name for the company’s e-commerce and retail business.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Massachusetts officials plan lobster-fishing bans to protect right whales

December 22, 2020 — Officials in the U.S. state of Massachusetts are proposing a complete ban on lobster fishing in all state waters during periods when the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale is in the region.

The new regulations would prevent lobstermen from setting traps between February and May – and potentially longer if the whales remain offshore, according to The Boston Globe. The regulations would also require lobstermen to use more easily breakable rope, limit the state’s lobster catch, and curtail the use of gillnets in state waters.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MASSACHUSETTS: A lifeline to the next generation of fishermen

December 22, 2020 — Ken Baughman has fished since he was a kid and loves being on the water. The Falmouth resident, smart and determined, bought a second-hand motor, built his own boat and launched his career as a commercial fisherman this summer.

It has been tough going.

 “It’s virtually impossible. You really have to come in as an apprentice,” he said.

That may soon be a possibility as the Young Fishermen’s Development Act passed Congress this week.

The act, modeled after the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s successful Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, creates the first federal program dedicated to training  the next generation of commercial fishermen and includes an apprenticeship program to connect retiring fishermen and vessel owners with new and beginning fishermen.

It provides education in sustainable and accountable fishing practices, marine stewardship, successful business practices, and technical initiatives that address the needs of beginning fishermen through a competitive grants program for collaborative state, tribal, local, or regionally-based networks or partnerships.

“The Young Fishermen’s Development Act is crucial to the success of the Cape’s small-boat fleets and the communities that rely on commercial fishing, an industry that helped build the peninsula and is a vital part of the new blue economy,” said John Pappalardo, CEO of the Chatham-based Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

MASSACHUSETTS: Seasonal Ban on Lobstering Aims to Protect Right Whales

December 21, 2020 — With the North Atlantic right whale population at a dangerously low ebb, the state Division of Marine Fisheries is proposing a statewide seasonal ban on lobstering in a last-chance effort to save the critically endangered species from extinction.

Floated by the DMF during public hearings on Dec. 8 and 9, the proposed regulations come in the wake of a report that estimated right whale populations at only 366 marine mammals — down from the 481 estimated in 2011 — and a continued “unusual mortality event” that has seen more than 30 right whale deaths in the past three years.

The dramatic rule changes propose extending the state’s existing Feb. 1 through April 30 lobster trap closure in Cape Cod Bay to all waters under the jurisdiction of the commonwealth, including the Vineyard and Nantucket Sound. Buoyed recreational lobster and crab trap fishing would also be closed. The recreational closure would run from the Tuesday after Columbus Day through the Friday preceding Memorial Day.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

Cape Cod, New Bedford fishermen train to survive the winter sea

December 21, 2020 — Temperatures at the Sandwich Marina on Friday morning stood at the freezing mark, with a bitter wind and driving snow. Despite this, 25 crewmen and captains from Cape and New Bedford fishing vessels sat down in slushy snow to wriggle into what could be the most important article of clothing they will ever try on.

They call them Gumby suits, and it’s easy to see why. A survival suit is bright orange with oversized hands and feet and a tight-fitting hood that reveals only a small moon of flesh: eyes, nose and mouth.

The water temperature in the marina was 47 degrees, and Dan Orchard, the vice president of Fishing Partnership Support Services, had the men suit up and jump into the water within a half-hour of arrival. The shock of going from comfort to cold, disorienting water temperatures was about as close to the real thing as could be had shoreside.

Orchard and other staff from the fishing partnership were conducting a day of survival training for fishermen after captains requested it following the sinking of the Emmy Rose. Four crew members and their captain died with the wreck 20 miles east of Provincetown in the early morning hours of Nov. 23.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times