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Bill Lee, who built his own boat and, in 37 years of fishing, became the unofficial ombudsman for the Gloucester fleet, has sold his permit to settle a $19,800 claim for illegal landings and is exiting the industry — with bitterness toward federal fishery law enforcers and the regulatory system.

"I was kind of forced out," Lee said. "I have been more vocal and out front. I've never allowed myself to be intimidated by law enforcement."

Lee also said his plight was not unique.

"Every port is losing a fisherman every week," he said. "This is not a Gloucester story, this is an Atlantic seaboard party."

Law enforcement fines are taking their toll along with conservative catch allocations.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

Federal fisheries scientists have recommended a slightly lower allowable harvest in 2010 for Bering Sea pollock, a major groundfish fishery worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Scientists recommended a maximum catch limit of 813,000 metric tons of Pollock in 2010, down from 815,000 metric tons in 2009.

The recommendation came during a meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s groundfish plan team Nov. 17 in Seattle. The full council will set the 2010 total allowable catch for the pollock fishery during its December meeting in Anchorage.

The council’s advisory panel and scientific and statistical committee, who make their own recommendations to the full council, generally accept the recommendations of the groundfish plan team, said Mark Fina, the council’s senior economist.

Alaskan pollock is commonly used in imitation crab meat, fish sticks and fillet of fish sandwiches.

Read the complete story at The Alaska Journal of Commerce.

AT 7:30am, Sorrento harbour’s small parking lot is full of pickup trucks and empty of people. The lobstermen are already out hauling in their traps; lobstering is big business in coastal Maine. Thankfully, I am here to meet cod farmers, who don’t keep such rough hours. I am awaiting my contact on a bench overlooking the placid bay between Sorrento and the hazy mountains of Acadia National Park. The tide is low. A diesel engine rattles somewhere out on the water. I am in no hurry for him to arrive.

The Victorian homes stretched along Sorrento’s waterfront are shuttered and vacant for most of the year. Like most towns in coastal Maine, the population is split between ‘summer people’, who arrive in July and flee at the first bite of autumn air, and ‘winter people’, real Mainers, who live here year-round, many of whom earn a hardscrabble living catering to tourists in summertime and find any job they can get during the rest of the year.

Read the full story in The Economist

 

His father was a lifelong scalloper, his uncles are fishermen, and 23-year-old Chris Pinto realized as he got older that fishing is "in my blood." It just didn’t look like it was in his future.

His father, Paul, died in June in an accident on his boat, which was carrying too much debt for his family to keep.

But a charity for military veterans, and a boat donated by Westport lobsterman Tim Field, are giving Pinto a chance at a career he thought he’d never have.

On Friday, the Work Vessels for Veterans charity presented a 39-foot-long fishing boat to Pinto, a veteran of two tours in Iraq as an infantryman. Pinto is joining the National Guard — and expects to leave for Afghanistan next year — so he can pay for a commercial lobsterman’s license.

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today.

The recent recommendation from regional fisheries regulators to substantially cut the herring catch — a major source of lobster bait — is another piece of evidence pointing toward the benefits of allowing fewer lobster traps.

The New England Fisheries Management Council last week recommended that the region’s annual herring catch be dropped to 106,000 metric tons. Scientists had suggested a steeper reduction to 90,000 metric tons. The National Marine Fisheries Service will issue a final decision in coming weeks.

The reduction is needed to allow the herring population to grow. In addition to being used for bait, herring are an important food source for larger fish and marine mammals. If herring stocks fall too low, the populations of other commercially important fish could also decline, harming other aspects of the fishing industry and the marine environment in general.

Read the complete story at Bangor Daily News.

His father was a lifelong scalloper, his uncles are fishermen, and 23-year-old Chris Pinto realized as he got older that fishing is "in my blood." It just didn’t look like it was in his future.

His father, Paul, died in June in an accident on his boat, which was carrying too much debt for his family to keep.

But a charity for military veterans, and a boat donated by a Westport lobsterman, are giving Pinto a chance at a career he thought he’d never have.

On Friday, the Work Vessels for Veterans charity presented a 39-foot-long fishing boat to Pinto, a veteran of two tours in Iraq as an infantryman. Pinto is joining the National Guard — and expects to leave for Afghanistan next year — so he can pay for a commercial lobsterman’s license.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

I felt like going down to where the fishing boats tie up, so I drove to Galilee. It was a warm morning for November, and breezy. Out in Block Island Sound, I saw a dragger coming back from a trip. It was called the Kelsi and Morgan. It came through the breachway to the state’s commercial fishing docks, home to about 50 big trawlers and dozens of lobster boats.

As it pulled up, I went to meet it, but then saw an unlikely sight. I’d assumed fishing was a man’s industry, especially the heavy work. But there was a woman in shiny overalls — oilers — and rubber boots. She was shoveling silver herring out of a huge wharf tub into a 250-pound barrel. She filled it, and started another.

I asked if we might chat.

She gave her name as Andrea Incollingo. She is owner of The Bait Company, which sells to lobstermen. The herring were part of a 40,000-pound shipment that just arrived from Maine on an 18-wheeler. They were caught on Georges Bank by trawlers from Gloucester.

Read the complete story at The Providence Journal.

When Peter Benchley wrote "Jaws," when Steven Spielberg turned it into a film more than 34 years ago, and when those of us who acted in it helped create the first summer blockbuster, nobody imagined the unintended consequences that would follow. "Jaws" intensified the public’s already existing fear of sharks, fueling misperceptions that have given cover to an industry which kills vast numbers of these magnificent creatures each year, thereby depleting a keystone predator that helps maintain the health of our oceans.

Although the movie held a kind of delightful terror for viewers, on average fewer than four annual fatal shark attacks have occurred worldwide since 2001, according to the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida. Conversely, up to 73 million sharks are killed annually by people.

Most sharks are killed for their fins, which can command up to $300 per pound in China and other parts of Asia, where they are used in soup and nutritional supplements. The remainder of the shark is of far less commercial value. As a result, millions of sharks are simply tossed back into the ocean, either dead or dying after their fins are removed. Some years ago, for example, a single fishing boat was seized carrying 32 tons of fins taken from an estimated 30,000 sharks.

Read the complete story at The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Declaring the federal government’s newest salmon recovery plan "a good piece of work," U.S. District Court Judge James Redden on Monday appeared eager to resolve a 15-year legal battle about how to restore threatened and endangered fish runs in the Columbia River basin.

The Obama administration plan is backed by the state of Washington as well as six Indian tribes. It calls for wide-ranging efforts to improve fish habitat, reform hatcheries and try to ease the fish passage through hydroelectric dams and slow-moving water that backs up behind the dams.

Unlike a previous plan by the Bush administration, this restoration plan calls for a study on breaching four Snake River dams if runs go into sharp decline.

Read the complete story at The Seattle Times.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge in Portland says he wants an end soon to 15 years of litigation over imperiled salmon and dams in the Columbia River system.

Judge James Redden told lawyers Monday during a hearing expected to last much of the day that "with a little work" a plan is in sight that he could approve.

He said the question is whether the government’s river and dam management plan can set aside more water for fish recovery without breaching dams.

Redden spoke approvingly of the Obama administration’s recent additions to the 2008 plan. A key player in those additions, Oregonian Jane Lubchenco, was in the courtroom as an observer in her role as leader of the federal agency in charge of marine fisheries.

Read the complete story at The Dalles Chronicle Local News.