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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.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

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

Massachusetts: 15 shoreside businesses to receive disaster aid

August 25, 2015 — In this case, for Gloucester and 15 of the city’s shore-side businesses, the glass is decidedly half-full.

Those Gloucester businesses comprise precisely half of the 30 Massachusetts businesses that will receive groundfish disaster aid.

Collectively, they will receive by far the largest portion of the $750,000 set aside to assist shoreside businesses affected by the federally declared ground fish disaster now grinding through its third year.

The 15 Gloucester fishing-related enterprises — the most from any single Bay State groundfishing community — will share $380,360, or 50.7 percent of the $750,000 included in the second phase, or Bin 2, of the federal groundfish disaster relief distribution plan.

Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said the city’s success in garnering more than half of the available aid earmarked for businesses underlined the city’s prominence at the epicenter of the groundfish disaster, both on the water and on the waterfront.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NEFMC Asking for Additional Comments on Herring Amendment 8

August 24, 2015 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council is in the process of preparing an environmental impact statement for Amendment 8 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan. Amendment 8 would specify a long-term acceptable biological catch control rule for the herring fishery and consider alternatives for this control rule that explicitly account for herring’s role in the ecosystem. The Council recently decided to expand the scope of Amendment 8 to include consideration of localized depletion in inshore waters. During this comment period, the Council is only seeking comments on the expanded scope of Amendment 8.

DATES: Written scoping comments must be received on or before 5 p.m., local time, September 30, 2015.

ADDRESSES: Written scoping comments may be sent by any of the following methods:

• Email to the following address: comments@nefmc.org;

• Mail to Thomas A. Nies, Executive Director, New England Fishery Management Council, 50 Water Street, Mill 2, Newburyport, MA 01950; or

• Fax to (978) 465–3116.

• Please indicate ‘‘Herring Amendment 8 Re-Scoping Comment’’ on your correspondence.

Requests for copies of the Amendment 8 scoping document and other information should be directed to Sherie Goutier, New England Fishery Management Council, 50 Water Street, Mill 2, Newburyport, MA 01950, telephone (978) 465–0492, ext. 102. The scoping document is accessible electronically via the Internet at www.nefmc.org/library/amendment-8-2.

For further details, please visit http://www.nefmc.org/news/herring-amendment-8-scoping-comment-period-extended-to-september-30-2015

Coast Guard aids fishing vessel southeast of Nantucket

August 24, 2015 — Crews aboard two Coast Guard cutters brought an 83-foot fishing vessel safely to anchorage off Nantucket at approximately 8 p.m. Sunday.
Watchstanders at the First Coast Guard District Command Center, were notified at 11:30 a.m. Saturday that the scallop fishing vessel Chaz’s Toy lost propulsion during a living marine resource boarding by the Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba crew 120 miles southeast of Nantucket.

The crew of the 270-ft Escanaba issued a marine assistance request broadcast for Chaz’s Toysoliciting commercial or good Samaritan assistance for the vessel, which went unanswered.

The cutter took the vessel in stern tow at approximately 4:30 p.m. Saturday. The following morning, the crew of the 110-foot Tybee relieved the Escanaba crew and continued to bring the vessel toward shore.

Read the full story at the Inquirer and Mirror

Recycling old fishing nets is catchy concept

August 23, 2015 — A Bay State native’s upcycling firm is turning discarded fishing nets — a significant source of ocean pollution — into skateboards and sunglasses, with the backing of the New England Aquarium.

“We had been all around the world and we had seen the global issue of ocean pollution,” Buero Inc. co-founder Ben R. Kneppers said, adding that fishing nets account for about 10 percent of marine pollution. “We wanted to see if we could create an innovative solution to prevent this material from entering the ocean.”

Patagonia has partnered with Kneppers and his partners, David M. Stover and Kevin J. Ahearn, to put the “Minnow” skateboard on the shelves of more than 90 stores across five continents, and the skateboards are now available for purchase in the aquarium gift shop as well.

The company, based in Chile, started two years ago and Kneppers said the New England Aquarium and Northeastern University, his alma matter, were two of the biggest initial backers.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald

‘The Long Haul’ looks at the future of Cape Cod fishing

August 23, 2015 — PROVINCETOWN, MA — Eight years ago, Pedro Verde, captain of the dragger F/V Blue Ocean, stood on MacMillan Pier and blasted scientists and fisheries regulators for allowing him to fish only 52 days the previous year. He was talking to Sean Corcoran, a reporter at public radio station WCAI who was investigating the decline of the Provincetown dragger fishery.

“We catch tons and tons of the dogfish here,” Verde told Corcoran. “So the guys close up the dogfish for 17 years. Endangered species. The guys don’t even know what they are talking about.”

Eight years later, the dogfish fishery is not just open but is booming, and it is a sustainable local species of whitefish, though you will be unlikely to find it in many local markets or on local tables.

The complex issues surrounding the decline of the Cape Cod fishing industry, the tensions between fishermen and regulators, changing people’s attitudes about which fish they want to eat, and the future of fishing here were the subjects of a gathering at the Provincetown Public Library last week. Corcoran, now news director at WCAI, and Heather Goldstone, the station’s science editor, presented some of the findings of a series of reports broadcast over the last two years.

Read the full story at the Provincetown Banner

Some Washington restaurants serve New England-style seafood over usual Chesapeake blue crabs and Old Bay

August 19, 2015 — Apponaug Harbor is a small secluded part of Rhode Island’s Greenwich Bay, whose waters eventually flow into the mighty Atlantic Ocean.

It was within a tiny restaurant on this tiny harbor that I had one of the most delicious lobster rolls I ever tasted, proving that you cannot escape mouth-watering seafood in New England — the place I call home.

Fortunately for everyone at University of Maryland, it turns out seafood like New England’s can be found elsewhere in the country, like in Washington, where a couple restaurants have earned high marks from customers craving a bite from the Atlantic.

“We’re the most authentic and highest quality New England experience you can get in the District,” said Ben Coniff, vice president at Luke’s Lobster — a popular seafood restaurant in the capital region that serves seafood New England-style.

Luke’s receives its seafood and accompaniments, like sodas and dessert ingredients, through its sister seafood company called Cape Seafood which is based in Saco, Maine.

Read the full story at The Diamondback

DAVID GOETHAL: Fishermen’s anger justified

August 18, 2015 — Recently, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker called the requirement for fishermen to pay $710 per day for catch monitoring “the most perfect example of an unfunded mandate” and continued on to call the policy “ridiculous” and “outrageous.” As a fisherman with close to 50 years experience in the fishery, I could not agree more but think your readers and editors need more context to understand the fishermen’s anger.

Philosophically, we are opposed to this idea because other industries do not pay for their monitoring. The airlines do not pay for the TSA, agribusiness does not pay for meat inspection, and pharmaceutical companies do not pay for the FDA, to name a few. These are considered functions of government and so is catch monitoring.

Read the full letter at the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA Fisheries Adjusts Fishing Year 2015 Catch Limits for NE Groundfish Sectors

August 17, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries announces adjustments to the 2015 groundfish catch limits based on current sector enrollment, to account for unused sector quota from 2014, and to account for a 2014 common pool overage.

Each year we publish an adjustment to the groundfish catch limits after we know the final sector enrollment. This adjustment is necessary since the sector enrollment deadline is April 30, while the annual catch limits are effective at the start of the fishing year on May 1.

This action also incorporates carryover quota available to each sector (i.e., sector quota unused in fishing year 2014 and that can be fished in fishing year 2015).

This rule also reduces the Eastern Georges Bank cod common pool sub-annual catch limit by 1.3 metric tons to account for a 2014 fishing year overage, leaving an allocation of 1.4 metric tons for the remainder of fishing year 2015, which ends April 30, 2016.

Another adjustment rule may be necessary to account for any additional underages or overages after final catch accounting is concluded later this fall.

For more information, read the rule as filed in the Federal Register and read the permit holder bulletin.

Questions? Contact William Whitmore, Regional Office, at 978-281-9182 or william.whitmore@noaa.gov.

Credit: NOAA

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