In Mixed Catch, NF Senior Editor Linc Bedrosian spotlights a wide range of commercial fishing-related news items from coast to coast.
Friday, 24 February 2012
Given all the obstacles to rebuilding West Coast salmon stocks, I'd wager you didn't know marijuana was one of them.
To clarify, it's not as if salmon have become stoners with a bad case of the munchies who now swim upstream in a desperate search for a bag of Doritos.
Rather, according to a story in the Eureka (Calif.) Times Record, the conservation group Friends of the Eel River says marijuana cultivation is having a negative impact upon coho salmon and the watershed. It was the topic of a presentation the group's executive director, Scott Greacen, was giving at California's 39th Annual Fisheries Forum in Sacramento on Wednesday.
The daylong forum enables those involved in fisheries and aquaculture in the Golden State to directly address the state legislature about issues important to them.
Greacen was to discuss the negative impacts marijuana cultivation is having upon California's third largest salmon producing river. The group says poorly planned outdoor growing operations are resulting in problems stemming from over-use of fertilizers and pesticides that are toxic to fish, growers taking river water for their operations, and poor land-use practices that result in sediment slipping into the rivers.
Under California law, individuals can grow a limited amount of marijuana for personal and medicinal purposes. Amid conflicting county, state, and federal laws regarding marijuana growth (federal law prohibits it), growing operations have mushroomed in Northern California, and become big business.
Greacen told the newspaper that Northern California officials had been successfully regulating growing operations. But when the federal government started cracking down on marijuana dispensaries, growers slipped into the shadows.
Consequently, growing practices aren't eco- or fish-friendly and subject coho salmon that spawn and live in the river to pollution. Greacen told the newspaper that he hopes California legislators will understand the need for cooperation, transparency and regulation that can make marijuana grows more salmon and river friendly.
Callifornia crabbing: Here's a fun video shot on the decks of the Majestik while catching Dungeness crab off the coast of northern California.
Over 500 lots of seafood processing equipment formerly owned by Adak Seafood will be sold at auction on Tuesday, June 18, starting at 10 a.m. Hawaiian-Aleutian Daylight Time at the Hilton Garden Inn in Anchorage Alaska.
The equipment is located in a recently updated 250,000 square foot state-of-the-art processing facility in Adak, Alaska. Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Hilco Industrial, which conducts 75 machinery and equipment auctions in a wide range of industries annually, will conduct the auction.
Adak Seafood opened originally as Ada Fisheries in Anchorage in 1986. The facility, updated in 2005, is located on the island of Adak, the southernmost city in Alaska near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. The facility processed cod primarily, as well as halibut, blackcod, crab and pollock, Hilco says.
Alaska fisherman and commercial fisheries activist Kevin Adams was elected chairman at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors meeting on May 9 in Anchorage.
The governor-appointed board consists of seven members: five seafood processors and two industry representatives actively engaged in commercial fishing. Adams was appointed to fill a harvester seat by Gov. Frank Murkowski in 2004.
With 38 years of fishing experience in Bristol Bay, Adams has long been an active member in the Alaska fishing industry, ASMI says. He has worked for both the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation and the Bering Sea Fisherman's Association, and represents Alaska fishermen on numerous boards.
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