Other News

The great white sharks have returned to area waters early this year, with an 18- to 20-foot shark spotted off Aquinnah on Friday morning.

Menemsha fisherman Jeff Lynch was trying to catch some mackerel for bait when he saw a whale carcass floating close to shore. Lynch maneuvered his 23-foot center console boat closer to take a picture when suddenly a shark materialized from underneath the whale.

"It was like, whoa! It surprised me," said Lynch, 28, who lives in Chilmark. The telltale flash of white belly and the triangular fin cutting the surface indicated Lynch was in the presence of one of the world's great predators. The shark swam around the whale then around Lynch's boat.

Read the complete story from The Cape Cod Times.

 

 

 

 

 

In a setback to the offshore wind industry, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement eliminated more than half of the area offshore Massachusetts that will be open to wind energy leasing, the bureau announced Monday.

Comments by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, fishing groups and several members of the state's congressional delegation prompted the decision, BOEM Director Michael Bromwich said in a press release.

"We have heard significant concerns from the people of Massachusetts and we have acted on those concerns," Bromwich said. "BOEMRE is committed to continuing the public engagement process as we look to identify the potential areas for offshore energy development in the federal waters south of Massachusetts."

BOEM could not immediately provide the acreage of the area removed from consideration. In comments filed April 18, Patrick requested that about 50% of the proposed wind leasing area be removed, leaving about 1,300 square miles still available.

Read the complete story from Platts.

 

 

 

 

 

"Big Al" Wutkowski earned a reputation as one of the Jersey Shore's best striped-bass charter captains during his 30-plus years on the water.

Now, Wutkowski wants to land something much bigger — the involvement of Barnegat Bay's immense boating and fishing population in efforts to restore the bay's ecology.

"I'll be looking out for wildlife, pollution, and hopefully I'm going to try to educate people. I won't be out there like a cop," said Wutkowski, who volunteered through the Environmental Commission in his town of Point Pleasant.

That in turn led him to interviews with the Sandy Hook-based American Littoral Society, which decided to take up his offer. "I told them there wouldn't be any expense to them — my boat, my fuel, my time."

Read the complete story from Asbury Park Press.

 

 

 

 

 

The chance to build wind turbines south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket has sparked a wave of interest from almost a dozen developers, including a community-organized cooperative on the Vineyard.

“We believe we are well positioned to hold and get these leases,” said Richard Andre, executive director of Vineyard Power, an electricity cooperative based in West Tisbury.

Vineyard Power has joined forces with New Jersey-based OffshoreMW to develop a project that could provide electricity for the entire island. OffshoreMW is the sister company of German-based WindMW, which already has plans to build an 80-turbine wind farm in the North Sea.

The partnership between a private developer and a cooperative is unique among applicants seeking to lease the areas in federal waters off Massachusetts opened earlier this year for offshore wind energy projects by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

Read the complete story from The Cape Cod Times.

 

 

 

 

 

In April 2010, Standard-Times reporter Don Cuddy voyaged to Georges Bank aboard the New Bedford dragger Sea Escape to experience for himself the life of a fisherman. The Dock-U-Mentaries Film Series continues on Friday with "Finest Kind," a 51-minute documentary film that resulted from this experience.

Dock-U-Mentaries is a co-production of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park and the Working Waterfront Festival. Films about the working waterfront are being screened at 7 p.m. on the third Friday of each month in the theater of the Corson Maritime Learning Center, 33 William St., downtown New Bedford. All programs are open to the public and presented free of charge.

Read the complete story with all the event details from the South Coast Today.

 

 

 

 

 

A visitor to this year’s International Seafood Show in Boston last month could take in pavilions touting products from Alaska, Florida, Louisiana, Quebec, Japan, China, Chile and even Oman. Notably absent: Maine.

Although a few individual Maine companies had booths, no larger Maine brand was promoted. “This is the biggest international seafood show in the United States and we’re lost in the shuffle,” says Dane Somers, executive director of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council, which has a booth at the show each year. “It’s ironic.”

In recent years, Maine’s relatively fragmented seafood industry has been unable to organize itself for the purposes of marketing like, say, Alaska, where the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute has promoted all Alaskan seafood — from wild-caught salmon to king crab — and the Alaska brand since 1980. Lacking an overarching organization and funds, Maine’s

seafood sectors — lobster, scallops, clams, groundfish — have no united voice in international markets.

That could change, however, if a Maine-backed initiative to create a National Seafood Marketing Coalition reaches fruition. Discussed for years, the coalition now has 70 organizations backing it who are seeking support for federal legislation to create a national seafood marketing fund. The fund would be capitalized through an allocation of $100 million a year from existing duties on imported seafood, which totaled roughly $378 million in 2010.

The initiative originated in Alaska, but Somers and the Maine Lobster Promotion Council quickly got on board and have been heavily involved the past couple of years, Somers says. Marketing the $90 billion domestic seafood industry is important for the economy and jobs, especially in Maine, he says. “We spend taxpayer money and industry money on rebuilding, protecting and maintaining this valuable resource,” Somers says. “But we don’t really spend anything on how we bring this resource to market and to make sure we get a return on that investment.”

Read the complete story from Maine Biz.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s time for the Discovery Channel to either rename its reality television series about commercial fishing or change the setting. Turns out Deadliest Catch is a title better suited to a reality series about the Northeast groundfish fishery than it is Alaskan king crabbing.

Groundfishermen in the Northeast suffer the highest death rate among commercial fishermen, according to a study recently published by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Twenty-six of 4,340 full-time groundfishermen died on the job between 2000 and 2009, the study found. The dubious honor of second-deadliest catch goes to Atlantic scalloping. Forty-four of 10,384 scallop fishermen lost their lives at sea during that same decade. By comparison, twelve of 4,658 Alaskan crab fishermen were killed.

The findings don’t surprise Captain Dave Haggerty of Harpswell, whose big catches have earned him the title of the “Haddock King” among his peers in the Northeast groundfishery. “I can’t speak to Alaskan crab fishing because I’ve never been there,” says Haggerty, who skippers the eighty-five-foot trawler Harmony out of Portland, “but I’d guess the two regions are equally bad in winter. The icing situations here are very dangerous.” In 2007, the New Bedford dragger Lady of Grace capsized in Nantucket Sound from the heavy weight of the ice that encased its deck and rigging. “All hands were lost,” Haggerty says.

Read the complete opinion piece from Down East.

 

 

 

 

 

The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) was enacted in 1972 largely in response to concerns that human activities were contributing to the decline of the populations of certain marine mammal species. The underlying focus of the MMPA is the implementation of policies to prevent the decline of marine mammal species beyond the point where they would stop being functioning parts of their ecosystems.

The MMPA prohibits the taking of any marine mammal in U.S. waters, with the exception of certain cases such as through permitted activities, where "take" is defined as hunting, harassing, capturing, or killing a marine mammal or attempting to do so. The MMPA is unique in that its underlying intent is the management of marine mammal stocks to help them achieve their optimum sustainable populations within their ecosystems, rather than managing for the benefit of commercial exploitation. The MMPA was amended in 1994 to provide certain exceptions to the take prohibitions, establish provisions for the preparation of marine mammal stock assessment reports, implement a program addressing interactions between commercial fisheries and marine mammals, and institute studies of pinniped interactions with fisheries. NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is charged with carrying out the mandates of the MMPA for the protection of whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, and sea lions, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is charged with protecting walruses, manatees, otters, and polar bears.

Read the grant notice.

 

 

 

 

 

February 24, 2011 – The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) will accept applications for a grantto fund development of a commercial menhaden bait supply for Louisiana fishermen. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Grant, and theGulf States Marine Fisheries Commission have made available these project funds to aid the recovery from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The supply of menhaden bait is a crucial component of the commercial fishing industry throughout Louisiana. The last menhaden bait supplier in Louisiana went out of business following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Currently, commercial fishermen must order menhaden bait from suppliers based in fisheries along the Atlantic coast. The increasing cost of bait, like menhaden, and fuel continue to make recovery for Louisiana’s fishing industry more difficult than ever. Ensuring the availability of a Louisiana-based menhaden supplier is an essential component of the commercial fishing industry’s recovery.

LDWF intends to award applicant(s) with the most developed business plans, competitive amounts of working capital, and experience for the purpose of establishing a locally harvested menhaden bait operation that will offer a continual supply of bait throughout the year. Award amount(s) will be subject to program allocation. All reasonable requests will be considered.

The deadline for submitting an application is March 15, 2011. To request more information or to receive an application packet, please contact Jason Froeba at (225) 765-0121.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is charged with managing and protecting Louisiana's abundant natural resources. For more information, visit us at www.wlf.louisiana.gov on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ldwffb or follow us on Twitter @LDWF.

For editorial questions, please contact Olivia Watkins at (225)210-8660 or at owatkins@wlf.la.gov.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When: Fri, February 11, 1:00pm – 3:30pm

Where: Yankee Fisherman’s Co-op, 725 Ocean Boulevard, Seabrook, NH

Description: Do you currently work on a groundfish vessel enrolled in a sector or have you worked as crew on a sector vessel in the past? If so, and if you’d like NMFS to know how sectors are affecting you, join us for a discussion about the social and economic impacts on crew. For crew located in other New England ports, we would like to hear from you too. Contact us to find out about sessions in your port. This event is hosted by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. For more information, contact Jessica Joyce on (207) 228-1654 or Meredith Mendelson on (401) 932-0070, or visit our website: http://www.gmri.org/community_socioeconomics and click on the link for ‘current research’.

Visit the Saving Seafood Events Calendar to see this and other upcoming events.