Saving Seafood

Management & Regulation

State lawmakers say fishing penalties excessive

Five members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation have asked the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to investigate allegations of excessive penalties and retaliatory actions by the Northeast branch of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s law enforcement agency.

U.S. Reps. William Delahunt, John Tierney and Barney Frank and Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry signed the May 1 letter to NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco. They pointed out that, in 12 of the past 19 years, the agency has collected total fines exceeding $400,000.

"(A) fine of tens of thousands of dollars could easily bankrupt fishermen struggling to survive in this intensely competitive business with fewer days at sea," they wrote. The congressmen also noted that many of the fines were for violations that are difficult to avoid given the complex suite of regulations New England fishermen operate under, and that they have little to do with saving fish stocks.

Read the complete story at Cape Cod Times.

Southern Offshore Fishing Association Letter to NOAA Director

Robert Spaeth  of the Southern Offshore Fishing Association and Glen Brooks of the Gulf Fisherman’s Association with the support of 11 additional fisheries organizations have written to to Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the Director of NOAA.  The letter conveys the groups’ "shock and disappointment" regarding last week’s action by the NMFS’ Southeast Regional Office to close commercial longline fishing for reef fish in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The closure is for five months via emergency rule effective May 18, 2009.

The announced closure extends out to the 50-fathom contour; however, the longline fishery’s principal resource is red grouper, and this species along with other species in the “shallow water grouper” complex are scarce at greater depths. Once the limited quota for deeper-living reef-fish has been harvested, this will be a de facto total closure for most of the longline fleet.

Read the complete letter at S.O.F.A.

Missing Federal Money for Salmon Causes Stir

State officials and congressional leaders from throughout the Northwest were stunned this week to learn that the Obama administration had eliminated federal funding to rescue threatened and endangered salmon.

The news of the missing money — possibly as much as $90 million — was so shocking that 10 U.S. senators and 20 U.S. representatives quickly fired off a joint letter to the White House.

"On the West Coast and especially in the Pacific Northwest, salmon are part of our heritage, our culture and our economy," they stated in the letter. "Federal funding, together with state and local resources, has allowed local citizens and officials to initiate thousands of restoration and conservation projects, including hatchery reform, within our states."

Read the complete story at Kitsap Sun.

OPINION: My View by Jim Balsinger – Can gear, technique ideas solve fisheries’ challenge?

One of the big challenges in New England is to find ways to fish healthy fish stocks like haddock, while leaving stocks that need to rebuild their populations. This problem confronts fishing communities around the nation, but is particularly difficult in the Northeast, where one net can often catch some 19 types of groundfish.

Using Yankee ingenuity, two Rhode Island fishermen and a local gear maker, along with university and Northeast Fisheries Science Center researchers, developed, scientifically tested and then manufactured new gear that effectively targets haddock while letting other species, such as cod, to swim free.

The story of how the fishermen — Phil Ruhle and his son, Phil Ruhle Jr. — and others invented a trawl, now called the Ruhle trawl, and trademarked the Eliminator, might spur other fishermen to contribute their solutions to other problems. For example, fishermen need gear or new fishing techniques that allow the catching of healthy stocks while allowing depleted flounders, such as winter flounder, to swim free and rebuild. We also need to reduce the incidental or unintentional catch, called bycatch, in other fisheries, such as the ocean herring, squid and shrimp fisheries.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

BLOG: Oceana: Motion For The Ocean

The global ocean conservation organization has some major ocean campaigns ready for protecting the world’s most vast bodies of water.  With leading marine scientists, economists, activists, lawyers, advocates, and policymakers from all over the world on its side and important projects for conservation like dirty fishing, climate change, and shark and sea turtle conservation, it’s taking full charge with its campaign!

We had the amazing opportunity to speak with lead Oceana blogger and Online Editor Fellow Emily Fisher on some of the group’s strongest programs and most important contributions to protect the world’s oceans.  Read Emily’s choice worsds below, then log onto their official site to find out how you can help!

Oceana is the largest international organization focused 100 percent on ocean conservation. We believe that change is best effected through concrete, policy-oriented goals and targeted campaign work. 

Read the complete story at The Reef Tank.

Nautica Makes Waves With Announcement of Oceana Corporate Sponsorship

Nautica(R), a leading global lifestyle brand, has announced the launch of a new cause-marketing platform that will focus on ocean conservation. For 2009, Nautica(R) is a proud corporate sponsor of Oceana, a global ocean conservation organization, and supports its mission to protect the world’s oceans.

Oceana with its team of marine scientists, economists and advocates win specific and concrete policy changes to reduce pollution and help prevent the irreversible collapse of fish populations and other sea life. In 1999, researchers discovered that less than one-half of one percent of all resources spent by North American conservation policy groups went to ocean advocacy. No organization was focused exclusively on ocean threats on a global scale until Oceana was created in 2001.

"Nautica is passionate about preserving the world’s oceans and we are happy to be working with Oceana to reach consumers with important messages about how to get involved with this important cause," said Karen Murray , President of Nautica.

Read the complete story at Ajax World.

Striped bass back in Cape Ann waters

The improvement of the quality of the water in the Hudson, Delaware and Chesapeake and size limits and the new catch and release ethos has generated a revival of historic proportions.

While no verified catches have been reported — not by Al Williams, Cape Ann’s striper guru and traditional first catcher, not by Nubar Alexandrian, the photographer who got credit for the first catch in 2007, and not by Porter Bingle, who was credited with the first striper last year — a spin caster yesterday did say he’d caught two schoolies in the Little River two weekends ago.

Two other fishing hopefuls — one, pink-hatted, who insisted he was "Just Plain Bill" from Manchester, the other John Adams from Rockport — were throwing flies into the channel at low tide in the afternoon behind Nichols Candies shop where the first bass are generally found.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

Two senators and three congressman request NMFS enforcement probe

Two U.S. senators and three congressmen who represent the state’s fishing communities have asked NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco for an investigation into allegations of "excessive penalties and retaliatory actions" by Gloucester-based federal fishery law enforcers against unnamed interests.

The letter to Dr. Lubchenco noted "the agency has collected total fines exceeding $400,000 twelve times between 1989 and 2008" with six of those times coming in the "past 10 years when fishing capacity dropped steeply."  And it observed that  "a fine of tens of thousands of dollars could easliy bankrupt fishermen struggling to survive."

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

Read the NMFS probe request.

OPINION: NMFS, Coast Guard’s broken ‘judicial’ system needs reform

What if a local police department were to not only charge you with speeding, but set its own scale of fines, have a chief or other officer serve as a judge — and then keep all of the money from the fines within its own department? That would inherently be viewed as unfair — yet NMFS and the Coast Guard are able to carry out this precise system of supposed "justice."

The news that seven more fishing boats have been socked with fines and penalties by the National Marine Fisheries Services should not have come as any surprise.

Despite federal officials’ hearing fishermen’s complaints about NMFS and the Coast Guard’s enforcement tactics — and state legislators’ push to get a handle on NMFS’ law-enforcement stance and the use of state environmental police as some sort of marine "deputies" — it’s painfully clear the agency itself remains bent on continuing its over-the-top crusade against the industry and, in particular, the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

PRESS RELEASE: Unprecedented alliance forms Fishermen Organized for Rational Dogfish Management

An unprecedented alliance of commercial, recreational and party/charter boat fishermen and associated businesses has formed Fishermen Organized for Rational Dogfish Management (FORDM).  FORDM has requested assistance from Dr. Jane Lubchenco, newly appointed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration head, in dealing with an out-of-balance population of highly predatory spiny dogfish that is depleting other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic fisheries. Scientists estimate their biomass at up to four billion pounds.

The classic Fishes of the Gulf of Maine says of this shark species, ‘voracious almost beyond belief, the dogfish entirely deserves its bad reputation.

Not only does it harry and drive off mackerel, herring, and even fish as large as cod and haddock, but it destroys vast numbers of them… they prey on practically all species of Gulf of Maine fish smaller than themselves.’ Spiny dogfish can exceed 5 feet in length.

Read the complete story at Jaymann Today.