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Virtual experiences have become so closely associated with the Internet, it’s easy to forget that virtuality existed before computers.

But even 10 minutes — or, better still, an hour — spent meandering wide-eyed and fingers-ready through the spanking new Gorton’s Seafood Gallery, an airy loft added over the winter to tie together three heretofore separate parts of the Gloucester Marine Heritage Center, will rectify the misconception that virtual reality is the dimension only of the Web.

Indeed, it won’t take long for the "Fitting Out" exhibit, a gallery filled with examples of the many technological fields needed for a marine economy, to remind visitors that it doesn’t take a computer or a personal digital assistant to enter a virtual world.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

What the study did not make sufficiently clear was that some fish populations had bounced back as a result of drastic measures by the authorities. In countries such as Iceland, Norway, the United States, New Zealand and Australia, fisheries management has been strengthened by controls that limit fishing effort (the number of boats out there, the time they spend at sea and the areas where they are allowed to fish). 

Another management approach, especially in Europe, is to control output (the amount of fish landed) using Total Allowable Catch quotas, or TACs. These are designed to maintain a stock’s biomass – the estimated weight of fish left in the sea after fishing and natural deaths are taken into account. It should never be allowed to fall so low that a species is unable to spawn a healthy generation the following year.

Read the Observer UK story at AlterNet.

Frank Muller-Karger has announced he will leave his post as dean of UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology to pursue his own research interests at the University of South Florida, where he formerly worked as an oceanography professor.

Muller-Karger will have served as SMAST dean for nearly two years when he officially leaves the position on Aug. 1.

John Farrington, a retired Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist and New Bedford native, will act as interim dean while SMAST conducts a yearlong national search for Muller-Karger’s replacement.

Read the complete story at South Coast Today.

You can no longer hear the rapid-fire spiel of a fast-talking auctioneer at the fish auction on the Portland waterfront.

These days, the auction at the Portland Fish Exchange is run by a computer program. Instead of raising numbered paddles in the air, seafood buyers place their bids by tapping the space bar on their computer keyboards.

After more than 20 years with an auctioneer, the Fish Exchange, where buyers bid on fresh seafood caught by New England fishermen, has entered the eBay era.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

Chip Hourihan, a film producer who is originally from Plymouth, will come to New Bedford later this year to film "Whaling City," an independent movie about the struggle that a commercial fisherman faces while trying to hold on to his boat during declining catches and restrictive government regulations. His most recent film, "Frozen River," received two Oscar nominations.

Q: What does a film producer do?

A: He finds a project, finds a script, and in my case a writer/director who has a great script and is passionate about telling a certain kind of story. And you find a way to help that story make it to the screen. When I read Jay Burke’s script I realized that he really knew New Bedford, the place and the people, and I really wanted to make that happen.

Q: What did you want to be when you grew up?

A: I was trained as an architect but in my senior year in college I finally had an elective and I took filmmaking. Making a short film, I was using both halves of my brain and I realized that this is what I wanted to do. So I dropped out of graduate school in architecture and went to become a filmmaker.

Read the complete story from South Coast Today.

For over three centuries Portuguese whalers and cod fishermen emigrated from their homes 3,000 miles to the west across the Atlantic Ocean to live and work the in the fertile north Atlantic Fisheries. The members of New Bedford’s United Fishermen’s Club have much in common with the fishermen in their ancestral home of Portugal. They speak the same language and celebrate with great passion an independent way of life. Unfortunately they too are victims of the collapse of the cod fishery.

Read the complete story from PBS.

Read more about the state of the world’s oceans from PBS.

It sounds like a fish tale of enormous proportions: Put fewer lobster traps in the cold waters off Maine, maybe a lot fewer, and still catch the same number of the crustaceans.

Yet state officials and even some lobstermen say the idea has merit and could reduce fishermen’s costs at a time when the $300 million industry is confronting a myriad challenges, from falling prices to higher bait and fuel expenses.

Supporters believe that the ocean floor off Maine is so thick with lobster pots – an estimated 2.5 million, or about two for every resident – that they don’t work efficiently. Fewer traps may not reduce the size of the catch, they say, because more lobsters would be caught in each trap.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

Schooner Adventure could continue a winning streak for Gloucester’s historic maritime landmarks.

Fresh off the decisive election of the Man at the Wheel statue to represent the Bay State on the back of U.S. quarters, the 83-year-old Adventure is vying with 24 other Massachusetts historic sites for a share of $1 million in preservation funding.

"It is going to be a challenge, but Gloucester competed against similar odds for the Man at the Wheel quarter, and we have the wheel he was standing before," said Marty Krugman, president of the nonprofit group restoring the Adventure. "We hope the city will show the same enthusiasm for the Adventure that it did for the quarter."

Like the quarter contest, the winner of this election will be decided by an online vote.

Read the complete story at Gloucester Times.

Ending months of suspense, the winning design for the New Bedford Fishermen’s Monument was revealed Friday night at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Joseph Ingoldsby’s design of a granite fishing vessel was chosen from six finalists by the Fishermen’s Tribute Fund committee. The completed design will grace the northeast corner of Fort Taber by the harbor entrance.

"I think it’s important that New Bedford have a monument that’s going to stand the test of time," the Marshfield artist said at the fundraising event, billed as The Big Reveal.

Read the complete story at South Coast Today.

A Louisiana company has asked a federal judge in New Orleans to exonerate it from any liability in January’s sinking of the Gloucester fishing vessel Patriot, which was lost along with its family crew of two under mysterious circumstances.

Notified by the attorney for the co-owner of the Patriot, Josie Russo, that a suit was pending, Hornbeck Offshore Transportation LLC and a related operating company filed a "complaint for exoneration from and/or limitation of liability."

Hornbeck invoked the U.S. Limitation of Liability Act, which allows the court to limit liability to the actual value of the vessel responsible for the loss, bars any liability pending the results of a trial, and blocks any additional legal action litigants from enjoining the case until the trial is finished.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Times.