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SEAN HORGAN: Of whale poop and lobster claws

September 4, 2018 โ€” Well, Happy Labor Day. We hope you are celebrating by lying in a hammock, dozing in the sun while listening to a ballgame on the radio, taking a swim and any and all activities completely separated from the concept of work. Take the day. Youโ€™ve earned it. Even if you havenโ€™t, we wonโ€™t spill.

As an homage to the chill, weโ€™re going to abridge the top of the column, providing another piece to your day that doesnโ€™t require much intellectual or emotional heavy lifting. Iโ€™m telling you, this Labor Day thing is the catโ€™s whiskers.

To the items:

Whale of a story

It feels as if any time we write about whales, itโ€™s with a certain hand-wringing about their imperiled status. But there is another side to the coin and that is that the great beasts have been a constant and immensely pleasurable presence near the Cape Ann coastline all summer.

Our waters have been filled with the largest mammals of the sea from mid-spring. There was an early appearance of a dozen or so northern right whales, followed by humpbacks, minke and fin whales. We even heard from one Rockport lobsterman, whose name is being withheld because of his continued ties to the radical Weather Underground, of pilot whales feeding on schools of pogeys in as little as 9 feet of water hereabouts.

Perhaps you saw the story in the pages of the Gloucester Daily Times and online at gloucestertimes.com, where our intrepid correspondent, along with photographer Paul Bilodeau, journeyed out aboard a whale watch boat to check out all the hubbub.

Now comes a different type of whale story: how the scientific community is mustering even more arguments for protecting whales because of the benefits of their, well, poop.

According to the piece in Scientific American, a 2010 study showed whale feces injects about 23,000 metric tons of nitrogen into Gulf of Maine waters each year and conceivably could help with climate change.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

SEAN HORGAN: Fate of Raphaelโ€™s permits being debated

May 8, 2017 โ€” As we have mentioned several times in the past, they donโ€™t seem to brook a whole lot of foolishness up in Maine, particularly when it comes to cheating in the commercial fishing business.

So, it wasnโ€™t really surprising when the Gloucester Daily Times received โ€”  ran โ€” a letter last week from Maggie Raymond, the highly respected executive director of the Associated Fisheries of Maine, with her take on what should happen to convicted scammer Carlos Rafaelโ€™s surrendered groundfishing permits.

โ€œFor law-abiding fishermen, this day is long overdue,โ€ Raymond wrote. โ€œWhile other fishermen were complying with steep reductions in fishing quotas, Rafael decided those rules didnโ€™t apply to him. Rafaelโ€™s violations set back groundfish rebuilding requirements, and forced others to compete with his illegal activity on the fishing grounds and in the market.โ€

But Raymond wasnโ€™t done there. She followed by offering a solution for the distribution of Rafaelโ€™s still-to-be-decided permit forfeitures. Itโ€™s one sure to make New Bedford Mayor Jon F. Mitchell choke on his Wheaties.

โ€œRafaelโ€™s history is so egregious that the National Marine Fisheries Service is obliged to cancel all his groundfish permits and fishing privileges,โ€ she wrote. โ€œExisting regulations describe a process for redistributing the fishing privileges from cancelled permits to all other permit holders in the fishery โ€” and this is precisely the process that should be followed in this case.โ€

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Times

SEAN HORGAN: Swedes still fighting lobster imports

February 27, 2017 โ€” Our travel budget here at FishOn is just about enough to get us over to McDonaldโ€™s on Maplewood Avenue for a vegan Happy Meal, but we donโ€™t let that dilute our international sophistication or our global reach.

So, letโ€™s go to Sweden, where the Swedes continue to pour their Nordic angst all over our American lobsters by trying to label them an invasive species and ban their importation by the entire European Union. 

The Swedish effort continues, but an interesting analysis by the Atlanta-based King & Spalding law firm specializing in international law says Swedenโ€™s request to ban the lobsters most likely violates rules of the World Trade Organization.

โ€œThe EU ban on American lobster, based on the risk allegedly posed by 32 lobsters that escaped during transportation, would seem to require the WTO to look very carefully at the proportionality of the measure to determine whether it is maintained without sufficient scientific evidence, as well as examining the necessity of the measure in light of alternative measures, such as stricter controls on transportation and more effective enforcement of existing relevant laws and regulations,โ€ the analysis stated.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: A National Marine Monument for New England? Maritime Gloucester Talk

March 23, 2016 โ€” A National Marine Monument for New England. Should the President designate the Cashes Ledge Closed Area and the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts as the first Marine National Monument in the Atlantic? Come and hear experts Vito Giacalone from the Northeast Seafood Coalition and Peter Shelley of Conservation Law Foundation tackle the issues and the controversies surrounding Presidential action. A Panel with Vito Giacalone, Volunteer Chair of Governmental Affairs, Northeast Seafood Coalition and Peter Shelley, Senior Counsel, Conservation Law Foundation Massachusetts, with moderator, Sean Horgan, Gloucester Daily Times. Recorded at Maritime Gloucester on 3/3/2016

Watch the full video at Cape Ann TV

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