Saving Seafood

Beto O’Rourke promises to ‘guarantee long-term survival’ of nation’s fisheries

October 4, 2019 — Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, after visiting a small fishing business in New Hampshire a month ago, is releasing a plan Friday that his campaign says will “guarantee long-term survival” of the industry and the nation’s fisheries.

The O’Rourke campaign shared the plan with WMUR.

Visiting New England Fishmongers in Portsmouth in early September, the Democratic former U.S. House member was told by owners Capt. Tim Rider and Kayla Cox and their crew that small fishing businesses are having difficulty surviving due to an encroachment of large fishing corporations, the current trade war with China and warming ocean waters resulting from climate change.

Rider wrote in a letter to a Seacoast newspaper that O’Rourke is “the only presidential candidate that has ever cared enough to show up and listen.”

Read the full story at WMUR

New England Fishmongers say catch shares are driving them out of business

September 9, 2019 — If things can’t turn around for Capt. Tim Rider, the owner of New England Fishmongers, he and his business partner will be out of business at the end of this month.

During a boat tour of Portsmouth Harbor on Sunday morning, Rider and Kayla Cox told Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke about the struggles they have.

The biggest economic hurdle for Rider, who still uses a rod and reel to bring in most of his fish, is catch shares. That’s when part of a share of a species of fish is allocated to individual fishermen or groups. In most cases, fishermen or groups can buy or sell or lease shares.

“Someone owns the rights to the fish and can sell the rights to the highest bidder,” Rider explained before O’Rourke arrived.

O’Rourke had lots of questions for Rider and Cox about the system and what they are doing to make sure they survive in an industry they love but that seems to be getting gobbled up around them.

Read the full story at the Union Leader

Maine Fisherman Says ‘Sea-To-Table’ Is Path To Sustainability — For Oceans And His Business

January 22, 2019 — It’s tough to be an independent commercial fisherman, and regulations designed to manage fish populations are part of the reason why.

The government has imposed a quota system: fishermen have to pay to catch certain kinds of fish, like cod. Cod is deemed to be in low supply. So, fishermen are only allowed to catch a limited amount of it. They can pay to lease someone else’s quotas, so they can catch more. But that’s expensive, and makes it harder to turn a profit.

One fisherman in Maine is trying to fish more sustainably — and make a living doing it.

“The average fish that you go and eat at an average seafood restaurant has been around for 10 days and traveled 7,000 miles. We beat that by about 99.9 percent,” says Tim Rider, who’s adopted a sea-to-table method that means consumers get fresh seafood just a few days — or even hours — after it was caught.

Instead of selling fish through wholesalers who control the price, Rider’s company New England Fishmongers sells fish directly to local restaurants and consumers.

Considering the strict regulations and fishing quotas that commercial fishermen face, Rider focuses on quality over quantity in order to compete with larger fishing companies. The fish are bled and gutted on the boat, which Rider says yields a higher quality product. This approach also proves to be less wasteful, he says.

Read the full story at WBUR

Restaurant demand fuels Maine, NH fish-to-table movement

October 17, 2017 — ELIOT, Maine — The vibrantly colorful Memorial Bridge passes overhead, briefly cutting through the early morning darkness, casting alternating hues of blues, reds, greens and yellows on the slack tide waters of Portsmouth Harbor.

It is 1:36 a.m. Friday, Sept. 8 and the crew of the small fishing boat F/V Finlander, a 36-foot Northern Bay, leaves the protection of the channel and ventures into the open Atlantic Ocean.

The pilot house of the Finlander is dark, illuminated only by a sole Global Positioning System (GPS) display screen showing navigational information and an eastward course plot. The boat begins to pitch as sea swells grow larger and cross winds increase.

“Today is going to be a rough one.” says Capt. Tim Rider, a Dover, New Hampshire, native and owner of the Finlander. “The wind is coming from a different direction than the swells, it’s going to bounce us all over. It’s going to get rougher the farther out we go, but I think we can handle it.”

The Finlander and her five-member crew are headed to fishing grounds approximately 60 miles due east of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, an ocean-going commute of four hours in five-foot seas. They will be fishing for Atlantic pollock, considered a successful and sustainable species of whitefish, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service FishWatch website, and whose popularity among Seacoast chefs is increasing.

Demand for locally caught fresh fish by Seacoast restaurants has created a viable market for the crew of the Finlander.

Read the full story from Foster’s Daily Democrat at the Bangor Daily News