Saving Seafood

State and Local

Governor Terry McAuliffe hails menhaden ruling’s benefits

June 5, 2015 — REEDVILLE— Gov. Terry McAuliffe traveled to the Omega Protein menhaden rendering plant Thursday to sign a proclamation officially raising this year’s catch limit by 10 percent.

The ceremony comes on the heels of last month’s decision by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to allow an increase in menhaden harvests along the Atlantic Coast after scientists reworked models and found a healthier stock than first determined.

Omega Protein, which employs about 300 workers from the Northern Neck, says it is bringing back the Reedville, making a total of eight ships in its fleet that fishes the Chesapeake Bay and the southern part of the Atlantic Coast.

Monty Deihl, vice president of Omega’s operations, said he has hired 16 fishermen and another eight people to work at the plant.

“That’s why I’m here today,” said McAuliffe. “An additional $7–8 million in annual revenues will now flow through this plant, which has been in operation for more than 100 years.”

Read the full story from the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star

 

NEW JERSEY: Commercial fishing celebrated in Cape May

June 5, 2015 — LOWER TOWNSHIP — A railroad spur, an unknown treasure trove of sea scallops, and diesel motors replacing sail all played a huge part in catapulting the Port of Cape May into the second largest fishing port on the East Coast.

You can have that education with some fresh seafood.

It all happens this Saturday and Sunday at the first Cape May Port Commercial Fishing Festival here at the Lobster House docks on Schellenger’s Landing.

The festival will have plenty of fresh seafood, but organizers also want to give the public an education on the history of the port and the process of getting fish from the briny deep to the dinner plate.

Read the full story at PressofAtlanticCity.com

Sustainable Seafood Week Swims Into NYC June 22-28

June 3, 2015 — The following was released by Sustainable Seafood Week National:

NEW YORK CITY—June 2, 2015—Get ready, fish fans: The third annual Sustainable Seafood Week NYC returns Monday, June 22 and runs to Sunday, June 28. The weeklong celebration will unite acclaimed chefs, restaurateurs, environmentalists, fishermen, culinary business leaders and everyday diners for a lively celebration of responsible seafood sourcing.

True North Salmon presents a diverse lineup of delicious events from Brooklyn to the Bronx that build public and industry awareness of the stories behind America’s seafood. The week is produced by sustainable seafood company Village Fishmonger NYC, the nonprofit Future of Fish and its affiliate Flip Labs.

“A fish’s journey from the water to your plate is generally complicated and hard to trace in our current seafood system” said Sean Dixon, a co-founder of Village Fishmonger. “Seafood is emerging as a crucial part of the American conversation about sustainable food, and this year we have even more partners and richer programming to further the dialog about transparency in the industry.”

“Sustainable Seafood Week NYC makes the discussion of complex issues fun, celebratory and communal,” said Future of Fish and Flip Labs Founder Cheryl Dahle.

New for 2015, Sustainable Seafood Week will expand nationally to Seattle in August, and San Francisco and Washington D.C. in September.

Signature Events

The annual Sustainable Seafood Week NYC Gala kicks off on Tuesday, June 23. Presented by Blue Water Grill, the gala will feature top chefs Rick Moonen, Dave Pasternack and Sam Talbot, with BR Guest Hospitality Culinary Director Sam Hazen and Blue Water Grill Executive Chef Luis Jaramillo cooking the catch. New York Times best selling author Paul Greenberg will share stories about our region’s seafood history. The intimate tasting experience will bring diners together to celebrate and connect with their food and the people who sustainably farm, catch and cook it. Proceeds will benefit local nonprofit NY/NJ Baykeeper.

On June 23, Future of Fish leads SSWNYC’s Industry Lab, an invitation-only convening at Riverpark restaurant that brings together professionals across the seafood supply chain including fishermen, chefs, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, marketers, resource managers and policy makers to discuss major topics in the sustainable seafood industry.

Seven Days of Sustainable Seafood Celebrations

For the duration of SSWNYC, select restaurants across the city will feature a special dish for the week created around a sustainable finfish or shellfish as a part of Sustainable Seafood Week’s Dine-Out program with OpenTable. Participating restaurants include Crave Fishbar, Louro, Oceana, Print and ICI.

For the full event lineup that includes cooking classes, tastings, fish market tours, and supper clubs, and for future programming announcements, visit Sustainable Seafood Week NYC online at www.sswnational.com/nyc. Connect on Facebook at @SustainableSeafoodWeekNYC and on Twitter at @iloveseafoodnyc with the hashtag #SSWNYC.

Sustainable Seafood Week 2015 is supported by generous sponsors and partners including Whole Foods Market, Taylor Shellfish Farms, TriplePundit, OpenTable, FishChoice.com, True North Salmon, Blue Water Grill, GrowNYC, Edible, and Heritage Radio Network. Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch is Sustainable Seafood Week’s national education partner. Other NYC event partnerships include Riverpark, Luke’s Lobster, Pierless Fish, Grand Banks, Northern Divine Caviar, Natural Gourmet Institute, Sea to Table, Widow’s Hole Oyster Farm, InaHalfShell.com, and Mayanoki.

ABOUT SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD WEEK

Sustainable Seafood Week is a culinary-fueled celebration of responsibly sourced fish. Featuring exciting, educational programming and creative event collaborations, Sustainable Seafood Week will showcase the efforts of local fishermen, chefs, organizations and communities to promote traceable, renewable and trustworthy seafood. For more information visit www.sswnational.com.

SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD WEEK IS PRODUCED BY:

Village Fishmonger

Village Fishmonger is a sustainable seafood company in NYC looking to reinvent how people select, prepare, and eat fish. Village Fishmonger works to spark interest in fish provenance and to help people become more aware of the benefits of purchasing sustainable, local fish for themselves and for the planet. For more information, visit www.villagefishmongernyc.com or follow on Twitter at @VlgFishmongrNYC.

Future of Fish

Led by entrepreneur and journalist Cheryl Dahle, Future of Fish is a nonprofit systems change incubator that works with entrepreneurs, industry players and investors to create business solutions to ocean challenges. Visit Future of Fish online at www.futureoffish.org and on Twitter at @FutureofFish.

Flip Labs

Flip Labs is a Future of Fish affiliate that launched in 2014. This B Corporation-certified consultancy believes in the power of entrepreneurship, story and collective impact as forces for positive change. Find more information online at www.fliplabs.com and on Twitter at @ChangeUnstuck.

Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association Wary of Proposed Changes to Federal Fisheries Law

WASHINGTON — May 29, 2015 — Maine’s groundfishing industry will be paying close attention next week when the U.S. House of Representatives considers key changes to the law governing fisheries management in federal waters.

Supporters of a Republican-backed bill to re-authorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act say it would give regulators more flexibility in rebuilding fish stocks. But one groundfishing group says the measure would set back efforts to rebuild the severely depleted cod population in the Gulf of Maine.

Cod have been disappearing in the waters off New England for decades. In 2009, fishermen off Maine’s coast caught more than 500 metric tons of the fish. By last year, that total had dropped to less than 130 metric tons. Ben Martens runs the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

Read the full story and listen to the audio from MPBN News

MAINE: Elver fishermen report ‘horrible’ season

FRANKLIN, Maine — May 30, 2015 — The 2015 elver fishing season has come to a disappointing end, local fishermen say.

“Horrible,” fisherman Abden Simmons described it. “I don’t think I’ve caught half of what my quota was.”

“Normally we have an eight-week season, but this year we had a four-week season,” Darrell Young, head of the Maine Elver Fishermen Association, said.

The season actually began March 22, but Young didn’t catch his first elvers until May 3.

Before then the water was just too cold, he said.

“It was a really cold winter,” Jeff Nichols, spokesman for the Department of Marine Resources, said. “Cold weather does have a tendency to reduce the fishery and slow things down and make it so the elvers aren’t moving up into the rivers and streams.”

Elvers are juvenile eels that are born in the Sargasso Sea region of the Atlantic Ocean and then migrate to North American freshwater lakes and rivers. Elvers generally are caught at night in tidal rivers and streams by fishermen using funnel-shaped fyke nets or small, hand-dip nets mounted at the end of poles.

A lack of spring rain also hurt elver fishing. When water levels are low, eels swim up the middle of the streams and rivers instead of along the edges, where fishermen can catch them, Young said.

Read the full story from The Bangor Daily News

MASSACHUSETTS: Saving the sacred cod

May 29, 2015 — Young students throughout Massachusetts look on with wonder at the large wooden Sacred Cod during field trips to the State House. Down in Berkley, at the Dighton Rock Museum, a similar cod sculpture was unveiled in 2011, in what the former DCR commissioner called a symbol of friendship. The cod is very important to the local Portuguese community and culture, which was part of the reason for the formation of the Academy of Codfish of New England, in addition to promoting the health benefits of eating the white, protein-laden fish.

That beloved fish remains as important as ever and for that reason a group of Massachusetts researchers have been cutting open the abdominal cavities of cod, implanting acoustic transmitters and then tracking their movements using a system of receivers attached to anchors in the Gulf of Maine. Doug Zemeckis, a fisheries research technician for UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology, said with declining cod populations in New England fisheries, he is glad that the research is actually being put to use as part of recommendations to state and federal regulators.

“Most of our work studying the remnant cod spawning areas is to understand their behavior, connectivity and movements during the year,” said Zemeckis, who started his work in 2009 as a master’s student, now finishing his doctorate.

Read the full story at The MetroWest Daily News 

 

Chesapeake Bay Watermen win changes to oyster reef restoration

Not far from the waterfront palaces bordering this picturesque Eastern Shore town, a barge-mounted crane is busily building new homes — in the water. Tons of broken clam shells and granite are going into the Tred Avon River to give a new start to millions of oysters.

Maryland’s ambitious campaign to restore the Chesapeake Bay’s once-legendary bivalves opened a new front this spring, continuing the largest shellfish restoration effort of its kind on the East Coast, if not anywhere.

But watermen, still bothered over losing harvestable waters to the restoration effort five years ago, have managed to get a few changes in the construction of new reefs in oyster sanctuaries in the Tred Avon and two other tributaries of the Choptank River. Officials are using less granite and suspending the use of fossilized oyster shell from Florida, both of which waterman complained about.

Those minor changes in construction of the sanctuaries — plus the recent departure of the state Department of Natural Resources official overseeing shellfish programs — could be signs of watermen’s growing influence in fisheries management under Gov. Larry Hogan, who has vowed to end what he has called his predecessor’s “war on watermen.”

“We’re looking for some more changes, but the attitude has already changed,” said Robert T. Brown Sr., president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association. “They are sitting down and negotiating with us some.”

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

Delaware regulators eye changes to conch fishing rules

May 28, 2015 — DOVER, Del. (AP) — Officials are eyeing changes to Delaware’s conch fishing rules to keep commercial fishermen on equal footing with their New Jersey counterparts.

Officials planned to hold a hearing Thursday evening on lowering the minimum size limits for licensed knobbed conch dredgers.

Currently, Delaware requires a six-inch minimum size limit, while New Jersey has a five-inch minimum. Officials say that poses a potential economic disadvantage to Delaware conch harvesters fishing the shared waters of the Delaware Bay.

Read the full story at the Washington Times

Florida fisherman catches 552-pound grouper on kayak

Next time he should bring a bigger boat

A Florida man made a once in a lifetime catch when he reeled in a 552-pound grouper fish May 20 while sitting on a kayak in Sanibel, Fla.

Jon Black, owner of Crazy Lure Bait & Tackle shop in Cape Coral, and Capt. Ben Chancey were filming a spot for the online fishing show “Chew On This”and were trying to land a big catch while on the tiny one person kayak.

Read the full story at the NY Daily News

The Ice Fishermen of Schroon Lake, New York

I know that everyone is getting ready to slip into their flip flops and sandals, but let us all not forget that less than a few months ago, the east coast, New York in particular, was experiencing a pretty brutal winter. I decided that instead of fighting the cold harshness of mother nature, embracing it might be a better approach! That is when I decided to travel up to the beautiful town of Schroon Lake, NY to photograph the annual ice fishing derby.

Read the full story at The Huffington Post