Saving Seafood

Massachusetts: Region’s emergency responders drill for danger on the seas

May 4, 2018 — The Coast Guard cutter Key Largo was anchored out past Ten Pound Island on Thursday, near the section of Gloucester’s Outer Harbor known as the Pancake Ground.

But for the purposes of Thursday’s mission, the Key Largo wasn’t the Key Largo and it wasn’t a Coast Guard cutter. On this day, as part of an expansive hazardous materials response drill, the Key Largo played the starring role of a rusting old fishing vessel that had hauled up a load of World War II ordinance — talk about bycatch — along with its fish.

The replicated hazmat incident, which closely mirrored a true event that occurred in New Bedford in 2010, was the springboard to a coordinated marine response involving specially trained first responders, harbormaster personnel and about a dozen vessels from the Coast Guard, Gloucester and several other nearby coastal communities such as Marblehead, Beverly, Newburyport and Salisbury.

The drill, organized by the state Department of Fire Services’ Hazardous Material Response Program, helped team members practice their response to an offshore incident possibly involving hazardous materials. It was an exercise designed to test established response protocols, as well as the levels of cooperation among the array of participating agencies.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

A whale of a heart: Life-size model of a blue whale heart arrives at New Bedford Whaling Museum

May 4, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A life-size model of a blue whale heart arrived at the New Bedford Whaling Museum on Thursday, all the way from New Zealand.

Visitors are welcome to crawl inside the heart, which has four chambers and is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

“It’s pretty spectacular,” Chief Curator Christina Connett said.

The heart is the first major element in a complete redesign of the Jacobs Family Gallery and other spaces for an exhibit titled Whales Today, which focuses on ecology and conservation. Other elements to come include a model of a whale’s head with baleen, plus life-size silhouettes of whale flukes.

The museum staff had waited for days to hear that the heart had cleared customs. Finally it was ready, and it arrived at 8:05 a.m. in a shipping container trucked from Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Massachusetts: Fishing season begins, but New Bedford still on sidelines

May 3, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The 2018 fishing season began Tuesday with nearly 60 permits aligned in Sectors VII and IX not receiving quota allocation from NOAA.

The oceanic governing agency announced the measure a day prior to the opening of the fishing season. It leaves the two sectors on the sidelines as groundfishing begins and continues the ban that was installed in November.

The announcement wasn’t surprising after NOAA attended a New England Fishery Management Council meeting in Mystic, Connecticut, last month to discuss the ban as well as the restructured enrollment in Sectors VII, VIII and IX.

Fifty-five permits stationed in Sector IX in 2017 relocated to Sector VII at the end of March. The move was done to potentially allow those permits to lease quota despite not being able to fish.

The meeting extinguished those hopes revealing neither sector would be allowed to lease or fish when the season began.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

US scallop prices dip at New Bedford auction to kick off 2018 season

May 3, 2018 — Scallop harvesting may have just resumed off the Atlantic Coast of the United States  but great bargains are already being had, reveals a review by Undercurrent News of prices paid at the Buyers and Sellers Exchange (BASE), in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

At a range of $7.20 to $7.55 per pound, the boat prices paid Monday for 10/20s from the Mid-Atlantic Access Area (MAAA) – one of the country’s most prolific scallop harvesting zones — were more than a dollar below the $8.60 to $8.75 range paid a month earlier, for example.

Similarly, the $9.45 to $10.00 boat prices paid on Thursday for U-10s from the Nantucket Lightship Closed Area are well below the $12.20 to $14.75 paid for the same scallops on April 3.

With prices so low, now is the best time to lock in and buy, asserts Tony Figueiredo, the director of international sales for Oceans Fleet Fisheries. It’ll be months before prices drop like this again, and when they do it will be for the remaining warm-water product, he told Undercurrent at the Seafood Global Expo, in Brussels, Belgium, last week.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Feds closing part of New England scallop fishery

May 2, 2018 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — Federal regulators are closing a key scallop fishing area off of New England for nearly 11 months.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration says it is closing the northern Gulf of Maine to a class of fishermen who fish under a federal permit starting Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. The closure will last until March 31, 2019.

NOAA says the vessels will not be allowed to fish for, possess, or land scallops from the area, which is off of Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The agency says regulations require that it closes the area once it projects that all of the quota has been harvested.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Seattle Times

 

Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery; Closure of the Northern Gulf of Maine Scallop Management Area for Limited Access General Category Vessels

May 2, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Northern Gulf of Maine (NGOM) Scallop Management Area is closed to all federally permitted Limited Access General Category (LAGC) scallop vessels effective 0001 hr, on May 2, 2018, except as exempted below.  The scallop regulations require that we close this area once we project that 100 percent of the 2018 LAGC total allowable catch for this area will be taken.  This closure is effective through March 31, 2019.

LAGC vessels that have declared a trip into the NGOM Scallop Management Area using the correct Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) code, and have crossed the VMS demarcation line before 0001 hr, May 2, 2018, may complete their trip and retain and land scallops caught from the NGOM Scallop Management Area.  Except for vessels that have met these trip completion requirements, no LAGC scallop vessel fishing under federal scallop regulations subject to this closure may fish for, possess, or land scallops in or from the NGOM Scallop Management Area.

This closure does not apply the Limited Access (LA) fleet.  The LA TAC will be harvested solely by vessels who are participating in the 2018 scallop Research Set-Aside Program and have been issues letters of authorization to conduct compensation fishing activities.

Exemption for Maine and Massachusetts Vessels Fishing Exclusively State Waters

Vessels issued a Limited Access General Category (LAGC) NGOM (LAGC B) or Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) scallop permit (LAGC A) may continue to fish in the Maine and Massachusetts state waters portion of the NGOM Scallop Management Area under the State Waters Exemption program provided they have a valid Maine or Massachusetts state scallop permit and fish only in that states waters.

Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) Vessel Owners Please Note:  An IFQ scallop vessel must have scallop IFQ allocation to fish for scallops at any time or place.  For vessels fishing under an (IFQ) scallop permit (category LAGC A), all scallop pounds landed, including scallops caught under a state waters only trip, will be deducted from the vessel’s IFQ allocation.

Read the full bulletin at NOAA Fisheries 

 

Massachusetts: GOP Senate candidate Geoff Diehl visits New Bedford waterfront

May 1, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The endorsed GOP candidate for U.S. Senate visited the city’s Pier 3 on Monday promising to be more hands on for the city and fishermen, according to a news release.

“New Bedford deserves a dedicated senator who will put in the long hours to make a positive difference,” state Rep. Geoff Diehl said in the release. “Sen. (Elizabeth) Warren has been more focused on selling books than saving the fishing licenses in New Bedford. … Her lack of action will cost New Bedford vital jobs and cripple the local economy.”

Diehl, an early President Donald Trump supporter who served as co-chair of his Massachusetts campaign, was endorsed by Saturday’s state Republican convention with 55 percent of the vote.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Massachusetts Business Leaders Call for Wind Development that Works with Fishing Industry

April 30, 2018 — A group of leading Massachusetts executives have endorsed a call from Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities to ensure that the commercial fishing industry is protected in any offshore wind power development. The group, a standing committee of the New Bedford Economic Development Council’s (NBEDC) know as the “Regeneration Project,” made the recommendations as part of an April 19 letter to Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker to ensure on the ongoing offshore wind solicitation process.

The Regeneration Project is a coalition of New Bedford-area business and community leaders with c-level experience in industry, finance, communications, and public affairs whose goal is to “articulate a strategy for the city’s economic regeneration.” In the letter, the Council touts New Bedford as a liaison to the region’s important commercial fishing industry, and positions the city as a future hub of offshore wind development.

The NBEDC emphasizes the need for the Commonwealth to work closely and cooperatively with the commercial fishing industry to avoid negative impacts from offshore wind projects. The letter states that offshore wind must be “developed in such a way that it ‘fits in'” with commercial fisheries, and must not “exacerbate unintended consequences of negative impacts to commercial fishing and ongoing maritime trades.”

To avoid these impacts, the letter asks that initial wind development be limited to 400mw, to allow for study of its impact on other ocean users. The NBEDC further recommends that the Port of New Bedford serve as the main facilitator between offshore wind and commercial fishing interests.

The letter also highlights New Bedford’s previous experience with wind energy, and the city’s plans to be become “the central cluster of offshore wind for the east coast.” According to the NBEDC, the city “includes all major facets of the industry such as port services, construction training, research, engineering and manufacturing.”

Read the letter here

 

Frozen fish: NMFS approves Sector IX management plan

April 25, 2018 — Fishing boats in New England’s Sector IX groundfish fleet that were in danger of being barred from leasing groundfish quota moved into Sector VII in late March in order to recoup losses from a post-Carlos Rafael trip shutdown of the New Bedford groundfish industry. But the process of approving new operating plans will keep that quota frozen until midsummer at the latest.

NMFS reported that Sector IX was shut down completely in order to determine how much of the sector’s quota was illegaly used to cover Rafael’s quota evasion scheme.

Under a new plan operating plan put forward by the sector, which was narrowly recommended for approval by the New England Fishery Management Council with a 7-5-5 vote, NMFS will treat illegal catch in each fishing year as if it was known immediately after the end of the season, eliminating any carryover of unused quota into the next fishing season if there was any illegal fishing.

The council recommended that that NMFS authorize the “lease only” operations plan “with the condition that all overages attributable to the known misreporting are paid in full.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Massachusetts: Through the Lens: Our Fishing Heritage

April 24, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:       

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is pleased to announce the opening of Through the Lens: Our Fishing Heritage on Thursday, May 10th at 6:30 p.m. during AHA.  This juried show captures the working waterfront and our fishing heritage as seen through the lenses of area photographers.

Photographers allow us to look at life through their lens and capture moments we might otherwise miss.  Through their art, they focus our attention on the world around us.  This exhibit explores a world many do not see – our working waterfronts and those who make their living at sea and on shore.

Organized by the Whaling City Camera Club, this show showcases the talents of local photographers. Award winning photojournalist, Peter Pereira, will select the winners with awards being presented during the opening reception.  Proceeds from this show benefit the Center and its educational programs.The Center is grateful to the Whaling City Camera Club for the support with a special thanks to guest curator Sally Erickson and juror Peter Pereira.

The New Bedford 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. For information, email programs@fishingheritagecenter.org or call (508) 993-8894.