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Viking Village: New Jersey’s storied fishing dock at Barnegat Light thrives on a century of heritage

February 5, 2021 — When the covid-19 pandemic sent graphic designer Britton Spark back home to Long Beach Island, N.J., the creative void in his life had to be filled.

“I felt stalled. There wasn’t any reason to make stuff,” said Spark.

He and his girlfriend, Anna Panacek, began taking morning walks in Barnegat Light, where she had family connections at the Viking Village fishing dock. There the solution hit Spark.

“I thought, ‘How cool would it be to document this?’” Spark recalled.

Growing up in nearby Harvey Cedars, the dock was “something I always took for granted,” said Spark. But seeing the buzz of daily activity up close, he began toting his camera.

“I’m probably at the docks five days a week,” said Spark, who posts his Instagram photos @couchchronicles. He says the imagery has been a hit with readers “who never saw fishing in that light… so the response has been really cool from non-fishermen. They just love following the project.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NEW JERSEY: Historic Viking Village is a hidden haven for shoppers and seafood lovers alike

July 9, 2020 — Founded in the 1920s by first generation Scandinavian fisherman, Long Beach Island’s Viking Village is a place that will take you back to the days of quaint Jersey Shore fishing villages and salty sea captains.

Perched along the bay at the northernmost end of the island in scenic Barnegat Light, the seaside hamlet features a row of tiny fishing shacks that have been transformed into shops and commercial fishing vessels humming in and out of the harbor, which is a major hub for seafood in the state. Visitors can not only shop for treasures at assorted boutiques or grab a cup of coffee or casual meal, but they also have the opportunity to tour the busy docks in the summer and see firsthand where the sea scallops they order at a restaurant come from.

“Most people think seafood just ends up on your plate at a restaurant, they don’t realize what it takes to get it there,” said shop owner Pam Larson, whose husband’s family owns and runs Viking Village.

Almost a century after Norwegian brothers John and Ole Larson founded the Independent Fish Company, which was renamed Viking Village in the 1970s, the commercial docks, shops and eateries remain a family affair. Larson owns The Seawife, an antique store filled with an assortment of collectibles, and is married to Kirk Larson, whose father took over the operation when his own father retired and renamed it Viking Village.

Read the full story at Jersey’s Best

Disruption in the seafood supply chain ripples from empty Philly restaurants to idle N.J. docks

April 2, 2020 — The Monica should be steaming across the open Atlantic right now, cruising 80 miles southeast off the coast of New Jersey over the deep Hudson Canyon on a 10-day hunt for lucrative golden tilefish.

But the Monica’s owner, Dan Mears, had to call his boat back to the Barnegat Light docks after just two days. The COVID-19 pandemic had shuttered virtually every restaurant dining room in the nation. And by the time Mayor Jim Kenney ordered the closure of nonessential businesses for Philadelphia on March 16, the market value for tilefish had dropped by more than 50% overnight. Ernie Panacek, Mears’ seafood wholesaler at Viking Village, told him his catch wasn’t worth the price of diesel, bait, and tackle.

“Never had to do that in 42 years of fishing,” said Mears, 60, the son of a Barnegat Light fisherman, whose own son, Dan Jr., is now the Monica’s captain. “It’s Lent and people should be eating fish right now — but they aren’t. The (crew’s) food is still on the boat. We’re ready to go. But we just have to wait and wait for the word.”

That word — a return to normalcy of some sort — can’t come soon enough for Rodney Dickson, 55, a fish hauler who normally packs the Monica’s catch on ice but who’s spent his days of unemployment walking up and down Long Beach Island like a zombie: “Yesterday I took 22,945 steps and walked 10.9 miles.”

Read the full story at The Philadelphia Inquirer

NEW JERSEY: Commercial fishermen scale back production as market demand plummets

April 2, 2020 — With restaurants only permitted to offer takeout and delivery, and many specialty seafood markets offering limited products or temporarily closing amid the COVID-19 outbreak, commercial fishermen are scaling back operations, too, and they’re feeling the impact.

“It’s scary what’s out there, it really is,” said Ernie Panacek, 69, general manager of Viking Village, a commercial seafood producer in the borough.

“The money that we get comes from those people going out to dinner and going to retail,” he said. “It’s going to be a hardship for a while. No one is going to flip a switch and have it go away immediately. We’re going to feel this for a long time.”

Read the full story at The Press of Atlantic City

Virus Economic Damage to Commercial Fishing Grows Daily

April 2, 2020 — The pulse of Viking Village’s commercial fishing industry this year will greatly depend on how long the coronavirus extends into the coming spring and summer season, local leaders say. But boats are already tied up at the docks.

Viking Village Inc. Commercial Seafood Producers in Barnegat Light sells a large chunk of its catch right now to wholesalers, who last week were still buying product and freezing it, but with restaurants closed down to all but takeout and delivery, the chain is tightened.

“There’s no place to sell them in the restaurants,” said scallop fleet owner Kirk Larson, whose family co-owns Viking Village with the Puskas family. Larson was speaking about metropolitan markets beyond New Jersey as well. Prices paid had also dropped. “We’re selling a few in New York markets, but not as many as we’re catching.

“If it doesn’t get sold at a seafood market, it doesn’t go anywhere, because restaurants are closed. They can sell takeout, but that’s not like when restaurants are full-bore. In summer, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Larson said last week. “There are plenty of stocks to catch; it’s whether we will have a place to sell them.”

Read the full story at The Sand Paper

New Jersey Department of Agriculture visits local producer to highlight state’s seafood industry

August 27, 2019 — Officials with the New Jersey Department of Agriculture (NJDA), as well as state and local officials, paid a visit to Viking Village in Barnegat Light as a part of the department’s efforts to highlight the importance of seafood in the state.

The commercial fishing industry generated USD 6.2 billion (EUR 5.6 billion) for the state in 2018, according to stats from NOAA, placing the state at fifth in the U.S. for the value of its commercial fishing. Viking Village, a commercial seafood producer in Barnegat Light, New Jersey, works with the National Marine Fisheries Service and the various management councils to emphasize the state’s seafood.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NEW JERSEY: A tasty look into a thriving industry

February 13, 2019 — Dozens of people visited the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences for one of their Science Saturdays events. This one focused on commercial fishing at Viking Village and it’s thriving scallop industry.

“It is the most healthiest fishery that we have. There’s never been so many scallops off the East Coast ever because of the way they farmed it,” said Karter Larson, assistant manager of Viking Village. “Closed area, open bottom, closed area kind of thing – sort of like farming when you don’t use the land that year.”

There are about 10 scallop boats at Viking Village, Larson says. The scallopers are only allowed to fish a set number of days throughout the year starting in March.

“It’s rough. It’s a rough life, but they bring food to your table, and it’s better than importing from other countries,” Larson said.

NOAA Fisheries indicates New Jersey scallop landings generated more than $123 million in revenue in 2016.

According to Chef John Grifo, the secret to delicious seafood is to make sure not to overcook it.

“Especially with scallops, you want to get a nice, hot pan and get a good sear. When you sear the scallops, what it does is it brings out, caramelizes the sugar in them,” he said.

Visitors had a chance to watch Grifo prepare the Viking Village scallops.

“They’re going to have a lot of amazing flavors in their mouth, you know, because they’re going to have sweet, a little heat, they’re going to have the crunch of the candied bacon,” Grifo said.

Read the full story at NJTV

National Coalition for Fishing Communities: An Open Letter to America’s Chefs

October 31, 2018 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

Members of the National Coalition for Fishing Communities have long believed that the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) is one of the great success stories in fisheries management. Originally co-sponsored in the House over 40 years ago by Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska) and Gerry Studds (D-Massachusetts), the MSA has become a worldwide model, and is one of the reasons the U.S. has some of the best-managed and most sustainable fish stocks in the world. The bill is named for its Senate champions, Warren Magnuson (D-Washington) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

But we are concerned by a new “nationwide #ChefsForFish campaign targeted at the new 2019 Congress, to launch after the elections in early November,” being organized by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which the Aquarium calls the “next phase” of its “defense” of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The Monterey Bay Aquarium described this campaign in an October 25 email sent to its “Blue Ribbon Task Force chefs.” The email asked this network of chefs to support the “Portland Pact for Sustainable Seafood” (attached).

On the surface, the Portland Pact matter-of-factly states sound principles:

  • “Requiring management decisions be science-based;
  • Avoiding overfishing with catch limits and tools that hold everyone accountable for the fish that they remove from the ocean; and
  • Ensuring the timely recovery of depleted fish stocks.”

However, in the last Congress, the Monterey Bay Aquarium used similar language to falsely characterize legitimate attempts to pass needed improvements to the MSA as betraying these principles. In fact, these changes would have made the landmark law even better.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has repeatedly called on Congress to reject efforts, such as H.R. 200, which passed the U.S. House in July, and was sponsored by the now Dean of the House Don Young, that would amend the Act to introduce needed updates for U.S. fisheries management. If the chefs being asked to sign onto the Portland Pact were to talk to our fishermen, they would know how important these reforms are for the health of our nation’s fishing communities.

Any suggestion that the original co-sponsor of the bill would, 40 years later, act to undermine America’s fisheries, is inappropriate. In fact, most of the “fishing groups” that opposed Congressman Young’s bill, are financially supported by environmental activists and their funders.

No legislation, no matter how well designed is perfect or timeless. In fact, Congress has twice made significant revisions to the MSA, first in 1996 with the passage of the Sustainable Fisheries Act and in 2007 with the MSA Reauthorization Act. Like many other valued and successful laws, the Magnuson-Stevens Act is both working well, and in need of updates.

We agree that “management decisions be science-based.” One of the most significant issues with the current MSA is that it requires that fish stocks be rebuilt according to rigid, arbitrary timeframes that have no scientific or biological basis. Bills like H.R. 200, officially the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, would instead require that stocks be rebuilt according to an appropriate biological timeframe determined by the regional councils that manage the stocks.

H.R. 200 would also introduce other important measures that would better allow the councils to adapt their management plans to fit changing ecological conditions and the needs of fishing communities, which will become increasingly important as our coastal areas experience the effects of climate change.

American fishermen, like many American chefs, are committed to sustainable fishing and healthy oceans. Our businesses need sustainable, abundant fish stocks for us to make a living, and we all want a thriving resource that we can pass down to the next generation. We would never endorse a law that would threaten the long-term survival of our environment or our industry. That is why we endorse changes to the MSA that would ensure both.

We ask that any chef who is considering signing onto the Monterey Bay Aquarium letter to Congress first consult the local fishermen who supply them with fresh, quality products to learn how this law affects their communities.

NCFC members are available to connect chefs with seafood industry leaders, who would be happy to discuss how the MSA can be updated to help both fish and fishermen.

Sincerely,

Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries
Kathy Fosmark, Co-Chair
CA

Atlantic Red Crab Company
Jon Williams, President
MA

California Wetfish Producers Association
Diane Pleschner-Steele
CA

Delmarva Fisheries Association
Capt. Rob Newberry, Chairman
MD, VA

Fishermen’s Dock Co-Op
Jim Lovgren, Board Member
NJ

Garden State Seafood Association
Greg DiDomenico, Executive Director
NJ

Hawaii Longline Association
Sean Martin, Executive Director
HI

Long Island Commercial Fishermen’s Association
Bonnie Brady, Executive Director
NY

Lunds Fisheries, Inc.
Wayne Reichle, President
CA, NJ

Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance
Rich Fuka, Executive Director
RI

Seafreeze, Ltd.
Meghan Lapp, Fisheries Liaison
RI

Southeastern Fisheries Association
Bob Jones, Executive Director
FL

Viking Village
Jim Gutowski, Owner
NJ

West Coast Seafood Processors Association
Lori Steele, Executive Director
CA, WA, OR

Western Fishboat Owners Association
Wayne Heikkila, Executive Director
AK, CA, OR, WA

PRESS CONTACT

Bob Vanasse
bob@savingseafood.org 
202-333-2628

View the letter here

 

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