January 13, 2016 — ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York environmental officials say they have collected almost 17 million fish eggs that can be used for stocking waterways.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation said the collection from wild and captive adult fish sets the stage for a good year at the state’s fish hatcheries.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at New Jersey Herald
January 8, 2016 — A New Bedford fishing vessel’s voyage was cut short Thursday after the Coast Guard found multiple safety violations, according to a statement from the Coast Guard.
The 83-foot Amber Nicole did not have a life raft, had improperly marked survival suits, and no record of performing mandatory monthly drills, all serious safety deficiencies, according to the Coast Guard statement. The boat was operating about 44 nautical miles off Nantucket with a crew of seven.
January 8, 2016 — A group of extraordinary East End chefs have joined forces in the kitchen for The Montauk Fishburger Project, an initiative that aims to familiarize local elementary and high school students with one of the area’s plentiful, nutritious resources, which is being conscientiously harvested under firm federal and state fisheries management regulations, incredibly close to home.
The program is being pioneered by the founding members of Dock to Dish, the first Restaurant Supported Fishery program in the U.S., who have now established the inaugural partnership with The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and the Bridgehampton Edible School Garden program, with the goal of making wild, sustainable, traceable local seafood readily available to East End youth.
Read the full story at Hamptons Online
January 7, 2015 — (CN) – The D.C. Circuit cut the line on a case accusing the government of failing to protect ocean fish that feed New York and New Jersey eagles and striped bass.
Led by the New Jersey-based Anglers Conservation Network and its founder, Capt. Paul Eidman, the case centers on four dwindling stocks of fish – alewife, blueback herring, American shad and hickory shad – that school in the Atlantic Ocean from New York to North Carolina.
As those fish migrate up rivers during their annual spawning in the spring, they are prey for bald eagles, ospreys and other birds, like cormorants and gulls, as well as for other fish at sea and for striped bass making their annual spawning run into many of the same rivers.
The case at hand contends that there are even fewer river herrings and shads available for bigger species on the food chain, thanks to a 2013 inaction by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, one of eight established by the 1976 Fishery Conservation Act, or Magnuson-Stevens Act.
That year, the council was considering adopting Amendment 15 to add river herring and shad to the 1983 Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan.
Rather than approving the amendment, however, the council voted 10-9 to table the issue for three years while a working group studied the fish further.
The plaintiffs say this decision violated the Magnuson-Stevens Act, but U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler dismissed the complaint on Sept. 30, 2014.
A three-judge panel with the D.C. Circuit affirmed Tuesday.
Read the full story at Courthouse News Service
January 5, 2016 — Fish lovers have slapped Trader Joe’s with a class-action lawsuit accusing the grocery store of “cheating” customers by not filling their 5-ounce cans of tuna all the way.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, says tests by a US government lab found that the cans of various Trader Joe’s tuna brands actually contain less than 3 ounces of the fish and that “every lot tested, and nearly every single can, was underfilled in violation of the federally mandated minimum standard of fill.”
One test found that 24 cans of Trader Joe’s Albacore Tuna in Water Half Salt contained, on average, just 2.43 ounces of pressed cake tuna — 24.8 percent below 3.23 ounces, the federally mandated minimum standard of fill.
Read the full story at the New York Post
January 5, 2015 (AP) — TOKYO — It’s among the biggest of Japan’s many New Year holiday rituals: Early on Tuesday, a huge, glistening tuna was auctioned for about $118,000 at Tokyo’s 80-year-old Tsukiji market. Next year, if all goes as planned, the tradition won’t be quite the same.
The world’s biggest and most famous fish and seafood market is due to move in November to a massive complex farther south in Tokyo Bay, making way for redevelopment of the prime slice of downtown real estate.
The closure of the Tsukiji market will punctuate the end of the post-war era for many of the mom-and-pop shops just outside the main market that peddle a cornucopia of sea-related products, from dried squid and seaweed to whale bacon and caviar.
The auction is typical of Japan’s penchant for fresh starts at the beginning of the year — the first visit of the year to a shrine and the first dream of the year are other important firsts — and it’s meant to set an auspicious precedent for the 12 months to come.
Sushi restaurateur Kiyoshi Kimura has prevailed in most of the recent New Year auctions, and he did so again this year in the bidding for a 440-pound tuna.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New York Post
SOUTH STREET SEAPORT, N.Y. — December 22, 2105 — A decade after the Fulton Fish Market shut down its longtime home in the South Street Seaport, artist Naima Rauam said she’s still “transfixed’ by the memories of its bustle and charming grit.
“The light, the activity, the hard work — it was all so captivating,” said Rauam, 69. “I could paint the fish market forever.”
From memories, photos and old sketches, Rauam continues to paint colorful scenes of the long-shuttered market from her seaport studio.
A collection of some of her latest watercolors, along with older works and variety of prints, are now on display in a new exhibit titled, “10th Anniversary, Remembering Fulton Fish Market.”
December 22, 2015 — Michael Chernow doesn’t want people to step inside Seamore’s, his fish-fixated restaurant on the rim of Little Italy, worrying that they’re about to get a heap of science homework dumped onto the table.
“Our goal is not to say: ‘Welcome to Seamore’s School. We’re going to teach you all about sustainable fish,’” said Mr. Chernow, who is also one of the entrepreneurs behind the Meatball Shop chain.
But there is a blackboard. Labeled “Daily Landings,” it covers a wall of the restaurant, operating as a shortcut syllabus for anyone who wants to learn not only what fish are being cooked in the kitchen at Seamore’s, but also what species have been deliciously available for human consumption for centuries: dogfish, tilefish, Acadian redfish, porgy, hake, cusk, striped black mullet.
“Once they see the board, everybody gets pumped,” Mr. Chernow said. “‘Wow, look at all these fish, and I’ve never tasted them before.’”
Over the last decade or so, restaurant diners in this country have become more sophisticated about, and open to, ingredients that used to throw them for a loop: bone marrow, pork belly, sunchokes, orange wine, the ubiquitous kale.
Read the full story at The New York Times
December 10, 2015 — Mid-Atlantic fishermen and their advocates told four members of Congress on Monday that inaccurate stock assessments needlessly limit their catch and endanger their livelihood as the House of Representatives’ Committee on Natural Resources held an oversight hearing in Riverhead.
Bonnie Brady of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and Captain Joe McBride of the Montauk Boatmen and Captains Association were among those providing testimony to Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District and three members of the natural resources committee. Witnesses also included representatives of fishing and seafood trade associations and a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which manages fish species in federal waters.
At issue in the field hearing, called Restoring Atlantic Fisheries and Protecting the Regional Seafood Economy, were the science and data collection used in management of fish stocks.
Along party lines, the committee members either defended or disparaged NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Services’ stewardship and stock assessments, from which quotas are determined. They disagreed on assessments of striped bass and fluke, for which the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council have recommended 2016 harvest reductions of 25 and 29 percent respectively.
December 7, 2015 — New York State extended the application deadline for marinas, aquaculture facilities, commercial boat operators, harvesters and other fishery industry professionals to apply for superstorm Sandy recovery money.
The new deadline to apply for the Superstorm Sandy Fishery Disaster Grant is Jan. 29 and is open to businesses and individuals that lost more than $5,000 in revenue or gross income as a result of the 2012 storm.
Eligible businesses must have at least $15,000 in annual earnings and be in operation at the time of the application.
The Governors Office of Storm Recovery and state Department of Environmental Conservation will issue up to $3.6 million in grants, funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Eighty applications have been filed since the grant program was announced in September.
Read the full story at Newsday