Jes Hathaway is the editor in chief of National Fisherman magazine and NationalFisherman.com.
Thursday, 15 February 2007
Ten years ago, El Nino was throwing West Coast fishermen for a loop. Warming water temperatures led to migrating species.
Now fishermen in California, Oregon and Washington are dodging dead zones and Marine Protected Areas, and some would argue that the difficulties are all man-made.
Today's Los Angeles Times article "Dead zones off Oregon and Washington likely tied to global warming, study says," reports that a group of scientists from Oregon State University believe the growing dead zones off the northwest coast are the result of global warming.
Scientists were tipped off to the study by crabbers who found pots full of dead, dying or very weak crab. It was like nothing they'd ever seen.
The record-breaking dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico has been tied to fertilization of corn crops, which are growing by the square mile to respond to the call for ethanol as an alternative fuel.
While it's clear we have to do something to prevent dead zones, I worry about how the solutions will affect fishermen.
So many American farmers have lost their land to expanding suburbs, and others can't find two dimes to rub together because cheap imports have taken over the market. It's not a stretch to correlate dead zones to suburbs and cheap imports to, well, cheap imports.
Farmers markets, community supported agriculture (the CSAs that provide the abundant farm boxes so many of us have come to rely on) and the popularity of heirloom varieties are the response to mass-market, often bland produce. And those efforts are keeping many small U.S. farms alive.
But it takes an informed, involved public to keep those efforts going. It's up to us to do the same thing for fishing.
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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