Other News

April 24, 2013 — A Texas teenager caught an eleven foot long, 759-pound marlin on a Make-A-Wish Foundation trip. Sterling Ellis, 19, is in remission from Hodgkin’s lymphoma is scheduled to undergo a bone marrow transplant had the fortune of seeing his wish come true.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. The foundation, as a aprt of a month-long celebration encourages people around the United States to donate dollars or airline miles to fund airline tickets for wishes that involve travel.

Captain Karl Adams began the story, “We just call it a blind strike out of nowhere. At first we just thought it was a tuna.”

“I was reeling it in, and then I saw this big black fin and then it just started going the opposite direction, taking my line,” the young Ellis explained, “My arm hurt a little bit and he’s like just keep reeling and I’m like, I don’t think I can any more. Not that it’s like pressure on me, but my arm is like locked up and I can’t really reel.”

Read the full story at The Examiner

 

 

April 22, 2013 — Marion Natural History Museum is holding its Public Program and Annual Meeting with a special look at the region's shark population. Sharks in New England: A Closer Look will take place at 7 p.m. on May 14 at the museum.

The speaker at the event is Dr. Gregory Skomal, a senior marine fisheries biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and director of the Massachusetts Shark Research Program.

An accomplished marine biologist, underwater explorer, photographer, and author, Skomal has been studying and diving with sharks for over 25 years. He is best known locally for leading the effort to extract the Great White Shark from the salt pond on Naushon Island and his work tagging basking sharks in Cape Cod Bay.

Skomal has written numerous scientific research papers and appeared in a number of film and television documentaries, including programs for National Geographic, Discovery Channel, and PBS. His most recent book, The Shark Handbook, explores the world of sharks.

The May 14 presentation will highlight current research being conducted by the Massachusetts Shark Research Program and will include new information on the biology and ecology of local shark species, while touching on the conservation and management of these often misunderstood creatures.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

April 22, 2013 — As long as there have been fishermen, there has been overfishing. Breaking that cycle is the central challenge facing fishermen, fishery scientists and regulators, and anyone who likes to eat fish or have fishermen as neighbors.

In his latest book, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail, Professor Jeffrey Bolster chronicles more than a millenium of overfishing. Depletion of river fish in Europe, he argues, is what led to the rise of ocean fishing around 1000A.D. Five hundred years later, European coastal waters had become so depleted that fishermen once again moved on to more fruitful waters. By 1600, tens of thousands of Europeans could be found fishing the waters of the northwest Atlantic – the now storied fishing grounds that stretch from Cape Cod to the Scotian Shelf.

When the 2013 fishing season opens in a week and a half, Gulf of Maine cod fishermen will be facing a nearly 80% cut in their catch allowances. That’s what fishery scientists say is necessary to halt overfishing and allow fragile cod stocks to rebound.

Read the full story and listen to the audio from NPR affiliate WCAI 

 

April 22, 2013 — The Northeast Seafood Coalition, the region’s largest industry group, has announced plans to host a public rally at the Boston Fish Pier next Monday at 11 a.m. to build support for the government to provide disaster assistance to the groundfishing industry and communities from which home-port the fleet.

“This is the time for industry, friends of the industry, and seafood consumers to come together and ask for help,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based coalition. “We’re excited to unite in Boston, the hub of the Northeast groundfish fishery, to discuss important issues affecting the industry today and how we can preserve the fleet for tomorrow.”

The coalition’s rally will come just two days before the start of the 2013 fishing year for the groundfishing industry, which has been in accelerating decline since the Obama administration’s policy push to convert the fishing industry to a catch share management system that encourages fishermen to sell or trade shares of quota — and has steered more and more quota to bigger boats and corporations while smaller, independent vessels, like many of the day boats out of Gloucester, have been driven to the sidelines.

The May 1 start of the new fishing year is also set to bring dramatic cuts in catch limits, up to a 77 percent cut in allowable landings of Gulf of Maine cod, a standard of the New England seafood industry.

The acting commerce secretary, Rebecca Blank, declared the Northeast groundfishery to be an “economic disaster” last September, but neither the Commerce Department nor Congress have committed any money or regulatory changes toward addressing the problem.

The rally marks a dramatic change in tact for the Seafood Coalition, which has not participated as an organization in the industry’s rallies in the past.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

View a press release for the rally here 

 

 

April 17, 2013 — The NOAA Northeast Region website's Fish Species Pages are sporting a new look, the agency says. The first redesigned page being rolled out is for squid, mackerel and butterfish.

The plan, NOAA says, is to redesign all of its species pages over the next several months. NOAA is also encouraging users to comment on the new design as well as make suggestions on how to further improve the pages to make it easier for them to find information they need about the species and current regulations.

View the redesigned Fish Species Page for squid, mackerel and butterfish.

Read the full story at National Fishermen

 

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [seafoodnews.com] — April 15, 2013 — The Northeast Seafood Coalition will hold a Groundfish Industry Rally at the Boston Fish Pier on April 29 where the groundfish industry will ask for federal assistance to keep the region's businesses viable under deep cuts to the groundfish quota beginning May 1st.

"The upcoming fishing years for the Northeast groundfish fishery were supposed to be a time of prosperity–key stocks were on target to rebuild by 2014.  Now, however, despite adhering to strict science and management measures and remaining within allowable catch limits, the Northeast commercial groundfish fishery has been declared a disaster and faces a catastrophic "perfect storm" of circumstances on May 1," the Coalition said. "Every segment of the fleet will hurt in 2013. The reductions will trickle down and affect our fishing communities, our economies, and the American seafood consumer.  Now, more than ever, we have to work together for the future of this fishery."

Participanats are asked to arrive at 10:15 a.m. at the Boston Fish Pier in Boston's Waterfront District for the program that will begin at 11 a.m. 

The Coaltion will provide a free shuttle service from the designated parking area on Kennedy Ave to the Pier.

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

 

April 12, 2013 — There’s no getting away from it: your average monkfish looks seriously badass. To all intents and purposes it’s just one giant head, supported by an after-thought of a body and capped with a cavernous mouth fringed with razor-sharp teeth. If that isn’t the kind of thing to keep you awake at night, you’re a braver person than me. Or possibly another monkfish.

Also known as the goosefish, these bottom-dwelling Atlantic fish use their pectoral fins to ‘walk’ along the seabed until they find a spot to their liking, at which point they half-bury themselves in the sediment and use a fishing ‘lure’ at the end of a long antenna to tempt potential prey to their fate.

But when New England fishermen began finding the remains of birds called dovekies (Arctic seabirds that are the smallest members of the puffin family) in the stomachs of monkfish they had caught – well, that was something of a surprise. For one thing, although predation of birds by fish (or, for that matter, by cephalopods) is not without precedent, there remains little understanding of how frequently it occurs.

Stomach studies of New England fish caught on research cruises show that spiny dogfish, Atlantic herring, pollock, Atlantic cod, red hake, and fourspot flounder also eat birds; and it’s reasonable to infer that something called the goosefish might have avian tastes. But monkfish generally feed at depths well outside the range of dovekies, which can dive to about 100 feet in pursuit of small fish, crustaceans and zooplankton.

Read the full story at Discovery News

 

 

April 10, 2013 — The following was released by NOAA:

We have a new look for our Fish Species Pages. See our first redesigned page for Squid, Mackerel, Butterfish. Our plan is to redesign all of our species pages over the next several months. 

We'd love to hear your thoughts on the new design.  And, we welcome other suggestions for how we can further improve these pages so it is easier to find the information you need about these species and current regulations.

See the new Fish Species Page at the NOAA website

April 4, 2013 — From Thom Beers' Original Productions, the multiple Emmy Award-winning DEADLIEST CATCH returns for its ninth season at 9 PM E/P, Tuesday, April 16 on Discovery Channel. Adventure is their call, crab is their trade and a one hundred million dollar plunder could be the reward for their sacrifice. 

This season the seven skippers and their crew are fighting through hell and back again in search of King and Opilio crab. But as the fleet faces off with the raging sea, they are quick to realize, that sometimes the most violent storms can come from within.

"This year a lot of young guys are trying to get a start, make a name for themselves. When you've got guys that are hungry, that's when things get nasty, that's when the gloves are off," Northwestern Captain Sig Hansen said. "Especially when you've got experienced and inexperienced people playing in the same sandbox. That's when it's a war."

Read the full release from the Discovery Channel

 

 

April 4, 2013 — In this weeks news, a threat of red tide has been reported once again for New England, USA during 2013. Similar to last year, the red tide has been predicted as 'moderate', writes Lucy Towers, TheFishSite Editor.

Red tide is caused by an alga Alexandrium fundyense, which produces a toxin that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP).

Meanwhile, the Philippines Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has reassured fishermen and the public that seafood from the coastal waters of Alaminos City, Anda, Bolinao and barangay Wawa in Bani are safe to eat, as the waters remain red tide free.

In aquaculture news, a new study from The Freedonia Group predicts that global demand for aquaculture supplies and equipment is expected to moderate, growing 7.4 per cent per year to $63.6 billion in 2017 at the farm gate level.

Read the full story at The Fish Site