August 27, 2015 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:
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Scientists gauging health of 20 New England fish stocks
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — August 29, 2015 — Scientists are gauging the health of 20 stocks of important New England commercial fish species.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will use the assessments for information needed to set annual catch limits for fishermen.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the San Francisco Chronicle
New Hampshire fishermen see no shortage of lobsters
August 28, 2015 — If lobsters are running scared from warmer southern New England waters, local lobstermen aren’t experiencing a similar shortage.
According to Red Perkins, manager at Seabrook’s Yankee Fisherman’s Cooperative, lobsters are in good supply this year, although not as abundant as a few years ago.
“We’re not noticing a shortage here,” Perkins said yesterday. “Last year we had a realistic lobster harvest and this year is the same as last year. A couple of years ago it was a very good year. It’s not strange for quantities to vary over the years.”
Salisbury Ring’s Island resident and amateur lobsterman, Jerry Klima said he had heard the rumors and read the reports that claim warmer waters in places like Long Island Sound are causing lobsters to head north, seeking colder climes. Recently, he spoke with a veteran fisherman who said he’s hauling up fewer lobsters in his traps by as much as a third.
“But (we) just went out and caught a lot of lobsters,” Klima said. “Supply varies from year to year.”
Read the full story at the Daily News of Newburyport
Gulf of Maine shrimp fishery may allow fewer fishermen in future
August 26, 2015 — Gulf of Maine shrimp might come back on the market eventually but there could be fewer fishermen catching them.
Regulators are considering putting a limit on the number of shrimp fishermen, which include a small number of fishermen from Gloucester and other portions of Cape Ann, who can participate in the Gulf of Maine’s beleaguered shrimp fishery in an attempt to revive the shuttered industry.
A board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is developing a proposal to control the number of fishermen who can fish for the shrimp that are prized for their sweet, tender meat. The plan will likely be the subject of public hearings next year, and could apply as soon as the 2017 fishing year, said commission spokeswoman Tina Berger.
The fishery has been shut down to shrimping since 2013 because of historically low levels of recruitment and spawning which has left the shrinking shrimp population in a perilous state.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times
NOAA Fisheries Seeks Comments on Proposed Rule for Atlantic Herring
August 27, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
NOAA Fisheries is seeking comments on proposed measures for limited access herring vessels as part of the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan. The New England Fishery Management Council recommended these measures to improve catch monitoring and address discarding in the herring fishery.
These proposed measures would require:
- Fish holds to be certified and observers to collect volumetric catch estimates for a cross-check of vessel and dealer data;
- Fish holds to be empty of fish before leaving port, unless a waiver is issued by an authorized law enforcement officer when fish have been reported but cannot be sold;
- Slippage (i.e., catch discarded prior to sampling by an observer) to be reported via the vessel monitoring system;
- Moving 15 nautical miles following an allowable slippage event (one due to safety, mechanical failure, or excess catch of spiny dogfish); and
- Terminating a fishing trip and returning to port following a non-allowable slippage event (one for any reason not listed above).
We have concerns with the proposed measures 1 and 2, above. We are seeking public comment on the justification for these proposed measures and whether the utility of the measures outweighs compliance and enforcement costs.
Read the proposed rule as published in the
Federal Register. Submit your comments online through regulations.gov, or send your comments by mail to:
John Bullard
Regional Administrator, Greater Atlantic Region
National Marine Fisheries Service
55 Great Republic Drive
Gloucester, MA 01930.
An Open Letter to John Bullard
August 26, 2015 — To NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard: As a fellow MIT alumnus, I am baffled at your stubborn adherence to a fish monitoring plan that the most cursory analysis shows is not only unsustainable, but will simply not provide the data you say you need to understand New England fish populations.
Unfortunately, you have painted yourself into a corner by making enemies of the most valuable source of information on New England fish — the fishermen themselves:
–You have branded them as biased liars whose reports cannot be trusted — hence the need for “monitors.”
— You have established draconian quotas that force fishermen to avoid certain species, then use the low quantities seen of these fish to prove there aren’t any.
— You have attempted to find fish with your own boats and use your lack of success as proof that the fish have not recovered.
Read the full letter at the Gloucester Daily Times
Massachusetts: How Gloucester won lion’s share of fishing aid
August 25, 2015 — All things considered, it could not have gone much better.
The small working group assembled by Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken in February was tasked with helping identify and contact city waterfront businesses that might be eligible to receive some of the $750,000 in federal funds set aside to help Massachusetts shoreside businesses damaged by the ongoing groundfish disaster.
The committee identified 15 Gloucester businesses willing to go through the application process. All 15 were qualified by the state Division of Marine Fisheries to receive financial aid, with 13 maxing out at $26,786, and two of the businesses receiving $16,071.
Collectively, the 15 Gloucester fishing-related businesses — companies that sell fishermen everything from fuel to ice, from fishing slicks and gear to accounting services — received $380,360.
It was the greatest number of businesses from any single fishing community to receive the assistance, as well as the largest amount of money (50.7 percent of the total $750,000) sent to any of the Bay State’s groundfishing ports to help shoreside, fishing-related businesses.
By comparison, consider New Bedford. The historic whaling city on the state’s southeast coast — and now, thanks to its burgeoning scallop fleet, the state’s most lucrative port — had 10 of its shoreside businesses collectively receive $246,430.
Boston, Salem and South Dennis each had one business qualify for the financial assistance that was earmarked for shoreside businesses from the $8.3 million contained in the second phase, or Bin 2, of the federal disaster relief. Scituate had two.
There was, it seemed, a true recognition on the part of state officials at the Division of Marine Fisheries, as well as other fishing stakeholders throughout the state, that Gloucester — on the water and off — still sits at the very epicenter of the groundfish fishing disaster.
“We were thrilled with the result,” city Chief Administrative Officer Jim Destino said. “We thought if we could get $370,000 of the $750,000, that would have been fabulous. I don’t think we really believed we would get anything above that.”
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times
New England fishermen say federal money needed for monitors
August 25, 2015 — Federal fisheries regulators want fishermen to pay to have somebody watch what they catch and what they throw back.
And, while Gov. Charlie Baker told federal officials last week that they should foot the bill, local fishermen are hoping the state will reconsider and use its share of federal disaster money to pay for the observers required on commercial fishing trips.
The extra eyes on deck cost $710 daily, and fishermen say that hits smaller vessels especially hard.
“What small business can afford to be $710 in the hole before they even open their doors?” Chatham fisherman John Our said.
Expenses are already high for fuel, crews, bait and gear, fishermen say. Haddock, though plentiful, are too far offshore for them to catch, and their traditional species of choice, cod, have disappeared from local waters, mired at historically low population levels.
Cape boats now have to travel farther to catch monkfish, or land skates and dogfish from local waters at just a fraction of the price of cod.
A typical skate trip, at 35 cents per pound and grossing $1,100, would be left with less than $400 to split between the boat and crew, said Chatham fisherman Jan Margeson.
“We don’t gross enough money to afford this,” said Margeson, who proposed allocating federal disaster money to fishermen who actually carried observers.
The fleet will pay an estimated $10,000 per vessel annually to cover the cost of the observers, but its fishermen catch very little of the groundfish species that are in trouble, Our said.
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times
Massachusetts: Oars and Flowers: Gloucester Remembers Lost Fishermen
August 25, 2015 — There were tears — there always are — as the flowers were thrown on the water, recognizing Gloucester’s many losses to the sea.
There were Carol Figurido, Vincie Curcurum and Josie Russo, Gloucester women who lost loved ones to the ocean deep. They were just three among the many who attended Gloucester’s annual Fishermen’s Memorial Service held Saturday evening at the Fishermen’s Memorial on Stacy Memorial.
Figurido spoke of her grandfather — and the 5,383 other Gloucestermen whose names grace the Fishermen’s Memorial Cenotaph — at the ceremony. She came to know Thomas Isaac Moulton through relatives and family history. A ship’s cook, Moulton, 48, and five other Gloucestermen went down with the fishing vessel Mary E. O’Hara in 1941, before Figurido was born.
Vincie Curcuru lost her brother, John Orlando, 59, when the fishing vessel Patriot went down on Jan 3, 2009. He was crewing for his son-in-law.
Thomas Glynn: Boston’s future depends on a thriving seafood industry
August 25, 2015 — THERE IS A REASON a cod hangs in the State House as our official emblem. For almost as long as there has been a port in Boston, seafood has been a part of it. Seafood is linked to our regional identity, it is embedded in New England’s food system, and it needs to be — and can be — part of our economic future. But it should not be taken for granted.
The metropolitan area’s neighborhoods are, in many ways, known by their industries. Longwood equals medicine. Kendall Square is high tech. South Boston’s waterfront has become an innovation center. But few know it’s also home to innovative ways to process seafood. Long before the biotech firms, cool restaurants, and law firms made a home there, seafood companies were doing business in that part of town. It is important that there be room for the industry going forward.
Massachusetts ranks second to Alaska in the value of seafood caught nationally. Several of the state’s ports — especially New Bedford and Gloucester — bring in bigger catches than Boston. But Boston has the rare ingredients that position it as an epicenter of the state’s seafood processing industry. In close proximity, it has dockside access to fishing boats and seafood processors, an international airport, the interstate highway system, and a global shipping container facility.
Read the full story at the Boston Globe
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