In May 2010, just at the moment NOAA put into operation a free trading commodity market for groundfishermen who were given an allocation and joined into a fishing cooperative, a perfect storm of constrictions began strangling the industry.
Hard catch limits and penalties merged with deadline-driven rebuilding requirements came into being just as science-based assessments of the stocks led to government decisions to constrict the availability of the commodity, all sending the industry spiraling into a crisis that many in industry, including Gloucester’s Vito Giacalone, saw coming.
As policy director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, the region’s largest industry group, Giacalone and other members of his organization had read the converging vectors of regulation and prepared as well as possible by establishing 13 sectors — the fishing cooperatives that aggregated fishermen largely by port, gear type and boat size — and digging in to make the best of the awful circumstances.
Now, with the crisis unfolding, with NOAA certain to mandate even more extreme constrictions in the harvesting of fish stocks next year, and with harvesters struggling to hang on by leasing out their allocation to bigger operators, the coalition has recommended against a corrective initiative — a move favored by many fishermen, non-government organizations and NOAA’s Gloucester-based Northeast regional administrator, John Bullard.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times>>
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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