Source: Sarasota (Fla.) Herald Tribune, Thursday, July 29, 2010
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. With the Gulf oil spill capped and the huge slicks from it disappearing, the big picture of the environmental disaster looks better than it has for months.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, Thursday, July 29, 2010
Rita Merritt, a Boston fisherman's daughter in a family fishing business in North Carolina and a broadly respected two-term member of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, has been dumped by the Obama administration despite overwhelming support for her reappointment up and down the coast.
Source: FishUpdate.com, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Thursday, July 29, 2010
ICELAND has told the European Union that its fishing grounds are not open to negotiation and must remain under the control of the Reykjavik Government
Source: Providence (R.I.) Journal, Thursday, July 29, 2010
Researchers, concerned about a "critical" decline in lobster stocks in southern New England and the mid-Atlantic states, proposed a drastic remedy: a five-year moratorium on lobster fishing.
Source: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, Thursday, July 29, 2010
Federal authorities are investigating the cause of death of a whale found stuck on the bow of a Princess Cruise ship near Juneau this morning.
Source: Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, Thursday, July 29, 2010
Don Benninghoven is an unlikely martyr to the cause of ocean protection.
Source: Gander (Newfoundland) Beacon, Thursday, July 29, 2010
Basil Goodyear of Lumsden managed to fill his crab quota offshore in the 3K area on the northeast coast of the province, as did other fish harvesters from his area. For inshore fishers, that was not always the case.
Source: Capital Times, Madison, Wisconsin, Thursday, June 29, 2010
One of the most serious economic and environmental threats to Wisconsin in recent years is the imminent invasion of Asian carp into Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes. This invasion must be stopped.
Source: The Chronicle Herald, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Thursday, July 29, 2010
CAPT. DAVID MARTIN was a boy when Jacques Cousteau's adventures inspired him to go to sea.
Source: FishNewsEU.com, Fraserburgh, United Kingdom, Thursday, July 29, 2010
THE Irish Pelagic Sustainability Association Western mackerel fishery has been certified as sustainable following a 19-month MSC assessment.
Source: FishNewsEU.com, Fraserburgh, United Kingdom, Thursday, July 29, 2010
THE European Union is now a signatory to a regional fisheries management convention designed to ensure that fishing from Western Australia to South America is subject to agreed international rules.
Source: Windsor (Ontario) Star, Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Great Lakes Fish Corporation, the largest fish processor in Ontario, has announced it is in bankruptcy protection.
Source: Herald Tribune, Sarasota, Fla., Wednesday, July 28, 2010
POINTE A LA HACHE, La. Way down in the delta, just south of the Belle Chasse Ferry at Beshel's Marina here, black men with work-worn hands and several generations of fishing in their blood sat around on old milk crates, hoping for a piece of the oil cleanup action that seems to have bypassed their little stretch of the bayou.
Source: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Responders have placed containment boom around a sheen leaking from a grounded fishing vessel in Prince William Sound, the Coast Guard said Tuesday.
Source: Newsvine, Seattle, Wednesday, July 28, 2010
A new oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has created a mile-long slick after a tug boat struck an abandoned well off the Louisiana coast.
Source: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News Miner, Wednesday, July 28, 2010
FAIRBANKS It doesn't appear enough Yukon River king salmon will reach Canada to fulfill Alaska's obligation as part of an international treaty.
Source: Tulsa (Okla.) World, Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The shrimp is plentiful at Bodean Restaurant & Market, three months after the BP oil spill began threatening the seafood supply in the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The owner of a Juneau restaurant has pleaded guilty in federal court to violating the Lacey Act by buying thousands of pounds of subsistence-caught halibut on the cheap to sell at his business, according to the U.S. attorney
Source: Redoubt Reporter, Soldotna, Alaska, Wednesday, July 28, 2010
For sport anglers fishing from the banks of the Kenai River or dip-netters wading into the muddy river mouth, sockeye salmon are easy to count it's one at a time, as each fish is reeled in or hauled by a net to shore. For Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists, tracking numbers of sockeye in the Kenai River is no simple matter.
Source: Virginia Business, Richmond, Va., Wednesday, July 28, 2010
A 39,000-square-foot seafood-packing center under construction on the Eastern Shore is expected to give commercial fishermen more control over sales of their catch.
Source: York (Maine) Weekly, Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Town Dock No. 1 on the York River will receive a much-needed renovation through voter and state funds. The half-century-old wooden pier used by commercial fishermen and recreational boaters will be widened and strengthened this winter, at an estimated cost of $1.1 million.
Source: The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Tuesday, July 27, 2010
After extensive lab testing and negotiations between state fisheries managers and the federal government, commercial fishing in most areas east of the Mississippi River could resume by the end of this week, more than 100 days after the beginning of the massive Gulf oil spill.
Source: Canadian Business Online, Tuesday, July 27, 2010
BRUSSELS (AP) Iceland says it wants to keep its fishing sector out of the hands of the European Union when it joins the bloc.
Source: Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass., Tuesday, July 27, 2010
CHATHAM Recent decisions in lawsuits against the federal government have led some to conclude that federal fishery regulators are not doing enough to verify that herring boats are accurately reporting what they catch.
Source: Portland (Maine) Press Herald, Tuesday, July 27, 2010
PORT CLYDE I've been a commercial groundfisherman for 12 years and make my living bringing cod, haddock, dabs, hake and pollock to Maine's dinner tables.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Charlie Baker, the Republican candidate for governor, proclaimed the need Monday for stronger state support for the fishing industry's fight to survive Obama administration policies and he pronounced himself ready to provide it.
The Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Two of Minnesota's top elected officials said Monday that Asian carp are poised to invade state waters and represent a major threat to the state's $2.2 billion fishing industry.
Source: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, Tuesday, July 27, 2010
FAIRBANKS If you want to catch a Chena River king salmon, you'd better do it today.
Source: Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, Monday, July 26, 2010
Twelve miles off the Louisiana coast, an underwater mound known as Ship Shoal teems with blue crabs.
Source: WVUE-TV, New Orleans, La., Monday, July 26, 2010
New Orleans The love for Louisiana Seafood runs deep among locals and visitors and that hasn't changed since the Oil Disaster. But customers will find some of their favorite seafood dishes are no longer on the menu because of the Oil Rig explosion.
Source: Portland (Maine) Press Herald, Monday, July 26, 2010
PORTLAND Patrick Malia told me to pick up the 14-pound salmon be careful, they're slippery, he said and look the silvery beauty in the eye.
Source: KCNC-TV, Denver, Monday, July 26, 2010
HOUMA, La. (AP) As survival stories go, the Voisins have a gem: It goes back more than 200 years ago when the first members of their family to set foot on Louisiana soil weathered a monster storm in spectacular fashion, clinging to their porch while others were washed away.
Source: The Day, New London, Conn., Monday, July 26, 2010
Just as he's done for the past seven years, Bishop of Norwich Michael Cote marked the 56th annual Blessing of the Fleet Sunday by splashing every fishing boat at the Town Dock with holy water. But the greatest blessing, fishermen and residents say, is that despite rising costs and stricter regulations, this small handful of boats, the remnants of Connecticut's last commercial fishing fleet, has survived.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Times, Monday, July 26, 2010
Federal Commerce Secretary Gary Locke has said he is "interested in exploring" the creation of a buyback program for fishing boats grappling with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration policies and catch limits designed to force out "a significant fraction" of the current independent feet.
Source: Daily Times, Salisbury, Md., Monday, July 26, 2010
Commercial watermen, backed by three trade organizations the Chesapeake Bay Commercial Fishermen's Association, the Maryland Watermen's Association and the Maryland Oystermen's Association understand that something must be done to protect and nurture the bay's remaining native oysters.
Source: The Day, New London, Conn., Monday, July 26, 2010
Anyone who has taken a stroll through Stonington Borough can surely attest to the familiar smell of lobster and fish, and the sound of seagulls swarming overhead. These are the smells and sounds of the livelihood of many citizens in southeastern Connecticut. Not only is it a livelihood and career, but for many this is a passed down legacy of generations in the borough.
Source: Standard-Times, New Bedford, Mass., Monday, July 26, 2010
Jarrett Drake's livelihood has been spared, at least for the time being.
Source: Boston Herald, Monday, July 26, 2010
Government regulators have backed off a plan to ban lobstering in southern New England waters for the next five years. That's good news for local lobstermen who won't have to join already long unemployment lines, and for the coastal communities that rely on maritime industries.
Source: Standard-Times, New Bedford, Mass., Sunday, July 25, 2010
Last week brought some good news for lobstermen. A threatened five-year ban on lobstering in the waters from Cape Cod south to North Carolina was shelved when regulators were swayed by the pleas of lobstermen and the absence of definitive scientific evidence that overfishing has resulted in a sharp drop in the number of lobsters in the fishery.
Source: Bangor (Maine) Daily News, Saturday, July 24, 2010
A federal court has ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to reconsider a petition by a group of Port Clyde fishermen who filed a civil action lawsuit against the agency.
Source: Mobile (Ala.) Press-Register, Friday, July 23, 2010
The reopening of more than 26,000 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico to all fishing Thursday won't immediately affect central Gulf Coast fishermen because the area is far southeast of their traditional offshore fishing grounds.
Source: Providence (R.I.) Journal, Friday, July 23, 2010
WARWICK - Faced with angry and skeptical fishermen from along the East Coast, a regional regulatory group Thursday backed off on a proposal that would have banned lobster fishing from Cape Cod to North Carolina for the next five years.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, Friday, July 23, 2010
Gov. Deval Patrick's choice to write to the Secretary of Commerce rather than contact his friend, President Obama, on behalf of the economically hard-pressed fishing fleet is drawing a mix of frustration and anger together - along with fateful resignation that his options, as discussed in a public strategizing session here, are limited.
Source: Kansas City (Mo.) Star, Friday, July 23, 2010
Great Lakes governors and mayors - including Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley - are banding together to explore big changes for the Chicago River to protect the world's largest freshwater system.
Source: Dutch Harbor (Alaska) Fisherman, Thursday, July 22, 2010
Commercial fishermen in the famed Bristol Bay wild Alaska sockeye salmon fishery were heading home in late July with smiles on their faces, warmed by base prices averaging 95 cents a pound for the 28 million reds netted.
Source: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, Thursday, July 22, 2010
KODIAK -- Salmon processed at a Kodiak plant will be getting a new tag.
Island Seafoods plans to tout the plant's connection with sustainable energy on a new label.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, Thursday, July 22, 2010
A draft reauthorization of the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, circulated for comment by a California congresswoman, contains anti-fishing language that would bar commercial trawling in the nation's 14 sanctuaries - including Stellwagen Bank where the vast majority of groundfish landed in Gloucester are caught.
Source: Providence (R.I.) Journal, Thursday, July 22, 2010
Lanny Dellinger says he pulled a lobster trap about five miles off Newport a few days ago and found 18 little lobsters in it, each one the size of a Bic lighter.
Source: Mainichi (Japan) Daily News, Thursday, July 22, 2010
I recently saw "The Cove," a U.S. documentary film featuring the catching of dolphins in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture. It was once feared that the screening of the film might be canceled in the face of fierce protests by opponents who claim it is an anti-Japan movie.
Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, Thursday, July 22, 2010
FAIRBANKS - There was no mirror to confirm the panicked look on my face, but I could feel it.
Source: The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Wednesday, July 21, 2010
With their armored bodies and menacing pincers, Louisiana's blue crabs were shaped by nature to be tough guys in the highly competitive coastal marsh.
Source: Global Post, Wednesday, July 21, 2010
VICTORIA, Seychelles - It takes less than five hours to turn a fresh fish into a canned meal and the biggest tuna cannery in the Indian Ocean produces 1.5 million cans every day.
Source: The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Wednesday, July 21, 2010
South Louisiana residents rejoiced last week when the state reopened most of its recreational fishing grounds, which had been closed because of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: Baltimore Sun, Wednesday, July 21, 2010
OK, so there's a move afoot to increase the commercial striped bass catch in coastal waters.
Source: Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner, Wednesday, July 21, 2010
University of Florida veterinary pathologist Dr. Brian Stacy has seen firsthand the major threats faced by sea turtles over the past few months.
Source: Agricultural Research Service, Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Fast-growing farm-raised salmon and trout that are sterile can now be produced using a method developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists. Blocking reproduction can enhance growth, and is important for fish being reared in situations where reproduction is undesirable.
Source: Portland (Maine) Press Herald, Wednesday, July 21, 2010
PORTLAND - Fishermen are notoriously hard to organize because they don't stay in one place for long. So Willis Spear of Yarmouth took Monday off and motored his 35-foot lobster boat around Casco Bay, meeting up with lobstermen as they worked their trap lines.
Source: Business Week, Wednesday, July 21, 2010
A year after an island feud among lobstermen erupted in gunfire, one of the two lobstermen on the receiving end of island justice is speaking out against a mainland jury's decision to acquit the fellow lobsterman who fired a near-fatal shot.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, Wednesday, July 21, 2010
By executive order, President Obama has hit the go button for the creation of a political system for writing ocean and Great Lakes usage plans overseen by a new National Ocean Council.
Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Tuesday, July 20, 2010
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is asking Americans fishing in the Yukon River to voluntarily reduce the number of chinook salmon they catch.
Source: Boston Globe, Tuesday, July 20, 2010
NEW BEDFORD - Jarrett Drake turns on the ignition - vroom - and the satisfying thrum of the boat's motor suddenly swallows the quiet of early morning. It's 5:06 a.m.
Source: Business Week, Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Seafood from large parts of Louisiana's coastal waters is safe to eat despite the BP oil spill, but the state's processors are running out of inventory because the federal government has been to slow to test the fish, Gov. Bobby Jindal and seafood industry leaders said Monday.
Source: WMBB-TV, Panama City, Fla., Tuesday, July 20, 2010
BP has made sweeping changes to its Vessels of Opportunity program in Franklin County.
Source: Boston Globe, Tuesday, July 20, 2010
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration announced a new national policy yesterday for strengthening the way the United States manages its oceans and coasts and the Great Lakes.
Source: Anchorage Daily News, Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Next time you unhook a feisty rainbow trout, consider where the gorgeous rouge- dappled fish spent its early days.
Source: The Times-Herald, Port Huron, Mich., Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Lake herring could be making a comeback in Lake Huron, part of a cycle that has seen a resurgence of native species.
Source: The Ecologist, London, Tuesday, July 20, 2010
It's one of the healthiest, most versatile 'weeds' around. Asian countries have enjoyed the benefits for centuries. So where is the market for homegrown UK seaweed?
Source: Los Angeles Times, Monday, July 19, 2010
Didactic - however worthy - is not much fun. Ecological and planet-saving literature tends to argue for the essential.
Source: Associated Press, Monday, July 19, 2010
NEW ORLEANS - A Louisiana State University biologist hopes his work will bring crawfish boils to football tailgate parties within a few years.
Source: Boston Herald, Monday, July 19, 2010
Coming to a picnic table near you: Claws - the lobster that can squeeze its own lemon juice.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, Monday, July 19, 2010
There were far more sighs than cheers last week when U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke confirmed he would grant a six-fold increase in the current year's total allowable catch for pollock in the New England fishery.
Source: Providence (R.I.) Journal, Monday, July 19, 2010
Many years ago a restaurant waiter served a single-clawed specimen of a lobster to Ernest Hemingway. When Hemingway asked: "Where's the other claw?" the waiter explained that the lobster had probably lost it in a fight. The notoriously macho author quickly retorted, "Well, take this one back, and bring me the winner!"
Source: The News Journal, Wilmington, Del., Sunday, July 18, 2010
Everywhere eastern oysters grow, from the salty Chincoteagues of Virginia's Eastern Shore to the Apalachicolas harvested in Big Bayou along Florida's Gulf Coast Panhandle, they take on a flavor unique to their habitat.
Source: The Oregonian, Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Monterey Bay Aquarium's decision to include wild-caught salmon from Oregon on its list of products to avoid is an outrage ("Oregon-caught salmon: The science behind an 'Avoid' listing," July 7).
Source: Houston Chronicle, Saturday, July 17, 2010
The Gulf of Mexico isn't dead because of BP's oil spill, but fishermen are fearful that a species may disappear from its waters like the Pacific herring did from Alaska's Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez disaster.
Source: United Press International, Friday, July 16, 2010
ATLANTA, July 15 (UPI) As fans of the reality show "Deadliest Catch" know, commercial fishing can be deadly, with more than 500 fishermen dying from 2000-2009, U.S. officials say.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, Friday, July 16, 2010
Its law enforcement system scarred by a damning Inspector General's report and audit, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is preparing a summit conference to begin fixing the system.
Source: FishNewsEU, Fraserburgh, United Kingdom, Friday, July 16, 2010
THE Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, representing 3,000 commercial crab fishermen licensed by the state, has entered the Louisiana blue crab fishery into the Marine Stewardship Council's certification programme.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, Friday, July 16, 2010
Secretary Gary Locke who last month stood by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco and resisted urgings by a cadre of congressional lawmakers to hike a number of catch limits viewed as being unnecessarily low confirmed Wednesday he was raising the limit on pollock from six to 36 million pounds.
Source: Agence France-Presse, Friday, July 16, 2010
TOKYO A monster tuna caught off Japan turned heads at a Tokyo fish market Friday, where the 445 kilogram (981 pound) bluefin the biggest caught here since 1986 sold for 3.2 million yen (36,700 dollars).
Source: Foster's Daily Democrat, Dover, N.H., Friday, July 16, 2010
SOMERSWORTH When Allen Patterson walked recently to one of his usual fishing spots along the Salmon Falls River, the catch-and-release fisherman expected to reel in some small game and enjoy a day with his stepson.
Source: Portland (Maine) Press Herald, Friday, July 16, 2010
Environmental advocates said Thursday that they have sent letters to the owners of four hydroelectric dams, threatening to sue them under the U.S. Clean Water Act unless they take action to protect Atlantic salmon in the Kennebec River.
Source: Portland (Maine) Press Herald, Friday, July 16, 2010
People who want to eat fish only if it's caught in an ecologically benign way should shop for fish caught by Mainers.
Source: WCTV, Tallahassee, Fla., Thursday, July 15, 2010
Today, Commander Joe Boudrow announced plans to form a working group to improve the Vessel of Opportunity Program (VOO) in Florida, which employs boat owners and their crews to help in the response across the Gulf.
Source: Boston Globe, Thursday, July 15, 2010
BOSTON The U.S. Secretary of Commerce has officially approved a sixfold increase in the catch limit of a key fish stock.
Source: Daily News, Galveston, Texas, Thursday, July 15, 2010
Hopes are high for full and clean nets once the Texas Gulf of Mexico commercial shrimp season opens 30 minutes after sunset today.
Source: Florida Today, Melbourne, Fla., Thursday, July 15, 2010
The fish swimming past Bruce Rotella's boat these days aren't supposed to be there. As Rotella tongs for oysters on the shallow sandbars near the mouth of Apalachicola Bay, he's seeing mullet. Other fishermen are catching grouper, typically a deep-water fish.
Source: Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, Thursday, July 15, 2010
Diners in China could soon help control the Asian carp that are infesting Illinois waterways and threatening the Great Lakes.
Source: Daily Tidings, Ashland, Ore., Thursday, July 15, 2010
New fish habitat projects are on the chopping block, while fish hatcheries are safe from prospective cuts to the upcoming budget for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife budget.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Times, Thursday, July 15, 2010
In a tour of the waterfront and a no-holds-barred meeting Wednesday with officials and representatives of the fishing industry, Gov. Deval Patrick was given an earful about the struggle to keep America's oldest fishing port running and challenged to use his friendship with President Obama to do something about it.
Source: Daily Advertiser, Lafayette, La., Thursday, July 15, 2010
BATON ROUGE After hearing that every oyster, fish, shrimp and crab taken in Louisiana waters has tested safe to eat, the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission voted Wednesday to open most state waters to recreational fishing.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Times, Thursday, July 15, 2010
The state's legislative leadership and coastal caucus have petitioned Massachusetts' congressional delegation to back a plan setting aside some $96 million from the fiscal 2011 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration budget to compensate subjects of miscarriages of justice against the fishing industry.
Source: New York Times, Thursday, July 15, 2010
GAINESVILLE, Fla. The Kemp's ridley sea turtle lay belly-up on the metal autopsy table, as pallid as split-pea soup but for the bright orange X spray-painted on its shell, proof that it had been counted as part of the Gulf of Mexico's continuing "unusual mortality event."
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Times, Thursday, July 15, 2010
So, according to an audit commissioned by the federal Commerce Department's Inspector General's Office, the general counsel's office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has also tapped NOAA law enforcement's Asset Forfeiture Fund.
Source: Sun Herald, Gulfport, Miss., Wednesday, July 14, 2010
HANCOCK COUNTY Just like all successful boat captains do, Van Huynh has learned to roll with it. The Vincent, his 48-foot shrimp boat, sways on the waves as he exits Bayou Caddy on Wednesday morning. He's usually out on the water before the sun and most of the Coast rises, searching for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: Journal Pioneer, Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
TIGNISH A catch and release sport fishery for Atlantic Bluefin tuna would bring sports fishers from around the world and revenue for Prince Edward Island's fishing industry, suggests Mike McGeoghegan, president of the P.E.I. Fishermen's Association.
Source: Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press Democrat, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The meager returns from this year's salmon season should have more than commercial and recreational fishermen concerned.
Source: Boston Globe, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Researchers from the Sea Education Association have removed tens of thousands of plastic fragments from the Atlantic Ocean over the past six weeks in what many believe is just a small part of a giant collection of debris in the middle of the ocean.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Fishing industry attorney Stephen Ouellette is seeking bar association and congressional inquiries into the ethics of enforcement and litigation lawyers who, according to a U.S. Inspector General's report, have covered virtually their entire operating expenses - almost $1 million a year - on inflated fines they levy against fishing boats and shoreside businesses.
Source: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
FAIRBANKS State and federal fisheries managers, worried the bottom has dropped out of the Yukon River's king salmon run and not enough fish will reach their Canadian spawning grounds, are asking subsistence fishermen on the middle and upper Yukon River to voluntarily cut back on the number of kings they catch or face possible restrictions.
Source: The Province, Vancouver, British Columbia, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
It's still too early to tell, but many signs are pointing to a healthy return of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River this summer.
Source: The Northern View, Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Marine Stewardship Council announced on Friday, July 2, that they will granting sustainability certification to British Columbia's Skeena and Nass commercial Sockeye fisheries.
Source: Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass., Wednesday, July 14, 2010
CHATHAM Last summer as many as a dozen great white sharks were seen swimming in the waters off Chatham, feeding on seals that congregate in one of the largest gray seal colonies in New England.
Source: The Telegram, St. John's Newfoundland, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
With much of the province's crab fishery closing today, fisherman Larry Pinksen says he left more than $50,000 worth of crab in the water. He's not alone.
Source: Standard-Times, New Bedford, Mass., Tuesday, July 13, 2010
NEW BEDFORD Four days after the head of NOAA issued a sweeping order to overhaul and repair the Asset Forfeiture Fund, a New York senator demanded on Monday that NOAA cease using the fund and start making plans to return money to aggrieved fishermen.
Source: Willits (Calif.) News, Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Some of the most difficult questions surrounding what would be the largest dam removal project in the world have yet to be answered.
Source: Daily World, Opelousas, La., Tuesday, July 13, 2010
We've all become familiar with the fallout from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill: The idled shrimping and fishing boats and the workers left jobless because of disruptions in energy production or tourism.
Source: Town Talk, Alexandria, La., Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Everyone is trying to grasp what the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico will mean to lives and livelihoods in the long term. That cannot be known, but it is instructive to look to Alaska for a hint of what might be.
Source: The Day, New London, Conn., Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Lobstermen who packed a state Department of Environmental Protection meeting Monday left officials with a simple message: Leave us alone.
Source: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Of all the fishing cliches that have been repeated for decades, "You should have been here yesterday" may be the hardiest.
Source: Vineyard Gazette, Edgartown, Mass., Tuesday, July 13, 2010
A huge fire erupted in the U.S. Coast Guard boathouse in Menemsha yesterday afternoon, completely destroying the 68-year-old building along with an extended wooden pier that leads to the west dock on the Menemsha harbor. Also destroyed in the blaze were at least one truck and an unknown number of small boats nearby.
Source: Press-Citizen, Iowa City, Iowa, Tuesday, July 13, 2010
As those in the Gulf Coast and Washington, D.C., scramble to contain one of the worst ecological disasters in the nation's history, a pair of University of Iowa research students are working to recreate it.
Source: Newsday, Melville, N.Y., Monday, July 12, 2010
State officials will likely get an earful Tuesday at a meeting with Long Island lobstermen to discuss a potential shutdown of the commercial lobster fishery in Long Island Sound and other southern New England waters.
Source: WWL-TV, New Orleans, Monday, July 12, 2010
After nearly three months of oil gushing into the Gulf, the worst-case scenarios for the seafood industry are starting to play out.
Source: Wall Street Journal, New York, Monday, July 12, 2010
SLIDELL, La. Louisiana fisheries regulators are pushing a plan to lure thousands of idled commercial fishermen back onto the water by getting BP PLC to pay them a bonus on their catch.
Source: Anchorage Daily News, Monday, July 12, 2010
Four fishermen who hurriedly evacuated their burning fishing vessel southwest of Kodiak were rescued by U.S. Coast Guard crews Sunday morning.
Source: Wall Street Journal, Monday, July 12, 2010
The world's rising appetite for seafood is on a collision course with its wild fisheries, leaving restaurant companies and other big buyers caught in the middle.
Source: Public Service UK, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, United Kingdom, Monday, July 12, 2010
Conservationists are warning of a potential disaster in the Antarctic as Chinese trawlers prepare to sail to the Southern Ocean to harvest krill.
Source: New York Times, Monday, July 12, 2010
It might not be the "Cheers" bar, but everyone is still sure to know his name when actor Ted Danson appears before the Senate Finance Committee this week.
Source: Time.com, Monday, July 12, 2010
The future of fish-at least the sort that end up on our dinner plates-is not in the ocean. As we've steadily overfished the seas, the stock of wild fish have been declining fast.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, Monday, July 12, 2010
Congressman Barney Frank had it right the first time, when he openly called last week for Jane Lubchenco's resignation or ouster as chief administrator of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
Source: Juneau (Alaska) Empire, Sunday, July 11, 2010
ANCHORAGE Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell said the federal government dramatically underestimated the potential economic impact of designating critical habitat for polar bears.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Times, Friday, July 9, 2010
Massachusetts congressmen Barney Frank and John Tierney called Thursday for national oceans chief Jane Lubchenco to resign or be fired over what they described as her "hostility" and lack of accountability toward the American fishing industry.
Source: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, Friday, July 9, 2010
Unlike the sportsmen targeting Nushagak River king salmon, the commercial fishermen targeting Bristol Bay sockeye salmon are having a decent year.
Source: USA Today, McLean, Va., Friday, July 9, 2010
BILOXI, Miss. Nhan Vo stole out of communist Vietnam 30 years ago in the crowded bow of a boat to come work in the USA. These days, Vo, 49, is not working much. He spends his days in his moored shrimping boat, waiting for a phone call that could put him back to work.
Source: Asbury Park (N.J.) Press, Friday, July 9, 2010
A booming 2009 year class of summer flounder, perhaps the best showing of young flatfish in 28 years, could give the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council a chance to substantially boost catch limits for 2011 almost to levels not seen since the liberal 30 million pound quota of 2005.
Source: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, Friday, July 9, 2010
A run that started slowly, floundered and finally flopped has left one of Alaska's premier king salmon fisheries shuttered for the first time in more than a decade.
Source: The Citizen, Key West, Fla., Friday, July 9, 2010
Trap molestation and theft of spiny lobster is an ongoing problem and serious financial burden to the livelihoods of law-abiding citizens in the commercial fishing industry. The estimated loss to commercial fishermen due to theft is eight to 10 percent of the total annual harvest. That translates into huge numbers at 450,000 pounds of lobster with a wholesale value of $2.7 million dollars for the 2009-2010 season alone.
Source: The Day, New London, Conn., Friday, July 9, 2010
Groton Just like his fellow lobstermen, Richie Maderia says he just wants to continue earning his living the way he's done it for decades.
Source: Times Picayune, New Orleans, Friday, July 9, 2010
With oil still pouring into the Gulf of Mexico from a rig explosion almost three months ago, a cluster of Westwego seafood vendors are facing increasingly harder times financially.
Source: Florida Today, Melbourne, Fla., Friday, July 9, 2010
Merritt Island shrimper Capt. David Bates waits in Panama City with his two 85-foot shrimp boats to begin cleaning up the crude oil gushing from the BP well beneath the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: Examiner.com, Friday, July 9, 2010
North Carolina has convened a fisheries taskforce to consider narrowing the requirements necessary to get a state commercial fishing license, in part due to fears that commercial fishermen from the areas affected by the Gulf oil spill will begin operating in NC.
Source: Shore News Today, Egg Harbor Township, N.J., Thursday, July 8, 2010
WASHINGTON, D.C. Commercial fishing boats working out of Cape May and elsewhere may not have to try to prevent rainwater from washing off their decks, or face big federal fines.
Source: The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash., Thursday, July 8, 2010
Sockeye salmon have returned to the Columbia River in record numbers this summer, more than tripling the forecast of state and tribal biologists.
Source: WBUR-FM, Boston, Thursday, July 8, 2010
BOSTON New Bedford and Gloucester may be Massachusetts' biggest fishing ports. But in the Boston Harbor, amid the cruise ships and cargo vessels and whale-watching boats that motor in and out, a handful of fishing vessels still make their livelihoods from the bounty from the port's waters.
Source: AgriMarketing, Chesterfield, Mo., Thursday, July 8, 2010
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is adding additional strain to already struggling shrimp and fishing industries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Thousands of shrimpers and fishermen who depend on the region for their livelihood are struggling to retain their businesses following recent major hurricanes, and now, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The Gulf region accounts for about a fifth of total U.S. commercial seafood production and nearly three-quarters of the nation's shrimp output.
Source: Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, Thursday, July 8, 2010
Although sales have dropped at area seafood restaurants since the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, local elected officials say the seafood served in central Alabama restaurants is safe, and they'll be happy to tell you why over a dozen oysters.
Source: Martha's Vineyard Times, Vineyard Haven, Mass., Thursday, July 8, 2010
A Washington-based law firm has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of Vineyard commercial fishermen to stop the Cape Wind project on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound.
Source: Town Talk, Alexandria, La., Thursday, July 8, 2010
HOUMA, La. One of Louisiana's most troublesome spring shrimp seasons came to a close with many shrimpers getting little chance to fish because of the BP oil spill.
Source: Martha's Vineyard Times, Vineyard Haven, Mass., Thursday, July 8, 2010
Because of declining lobster stocks in southern New England, the American Lobster Technical Committee (TC) of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) has recommended a five-year moratorium on harvesting lobsters south of Cape Cod. If enacted, the moratorium would put Vineyard lobstermen out of business until 2016.
Source: Seattle Post Globe, Thursday, July 8, 2010
Shrimp is the country's most consumed seafood. But it comes with a heavy price. More than 90 percent is grown on shrimp farms in the global south that clear cut mangrove forests and displace coastal communities.
Source: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, Thursday, July 8, 2010
Alaskans weighed in on the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher at a public meeting in Anchorage on Wednesday night, some calling for drastic changes to the federal government's handling of oil spill response.
Source: Standard-Times, New Bedford, Mass., Wednesday, July 7, 2010
NEW BEDFORD The city's attorneys will oppose a request by U.S. Commerce Department lawyers to delay proceedings on the city's lawsuit challenging the new "catch shares" program and fishing industry allocations.
Source: Havelock (N.C.) News, Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Chris McCaffity has been fishing since he was 11 years old, setting nets and clamming near his home in Beaufort. The 37-year-old has been fishing commercially for more than 20 years now, but fears the end may be near for that way of life, in part due to tightening regulations being imposed on commercial fishermen.
Source: Yahoo! Asia News, Wednesday, July 7, 2010
At 3:15 in the morning, Jamie Powers and Kevin Thomas, environmental conservation officers for New York state, ease their 31-foot boat into the inky waters of Jamaica Bay, which bisects the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. The city's lights project ethereally across the starry, cloudless sky. There isn't a hint of wind in the air. "Can't ask for a better night," says Powers. "They'll be out there I bet."
Source: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, Wednesday, July 7, 2010
FAIRBANKS Yukon River king salmon reached Canada during the weekend, but it remains to be seen if enough fish will make it across the border to meet goals laid out in an international treaty between Alaska and Canada.
Source: Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif., Wednesday, July 7, 2010
As Tribune writer David Sneed reported Sunday, Morro Bay's beleaguered fishing industry is experiencing an upturn. That's great news not only for the fishermen and their families, but for Morro Bay's economy as well, which was devastated by the decline in the fishing industry that began in the mid-1990s.
Source: Jacksonville (N.C.) Daily News, Wednesday, July 7, 2010
RALEIGH The Senate on Tuesday gave its approval to a bill allowing the Marine Fisheries Commission to suspend and revoke coastal recreational fishing licenses.
Source: Mail Tribune, Medford, Ore., Wednesday, July 7, 2010
The Klamath Basin is one of America's treasured landscapes. It is a place of beauty and it offers its abundance to farmers, fishermen, ranchers, Indian tribes, landowners, recreation interests, and the public in general.
But there also is ample evidence that much of this historical abundance has reached its limit.
Source: Daily Times, Salisbury, Md., Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Chesapeake Bay oysters seem to be gaining resistance to MSX, a disease that has contributed to a decline in population in recent years. This excellent news comes at a time when their cousins in the Gulf of Mexico are closed to harvests because of contamination from the ongoing oil gusher subsequent to the explosion and sinking of a Deepwater Horizon/BP drilling rig in April.
Source: KEZI-TV, Eugene, Ore., Tuesday, July 6, 2010
ASTORIA, Ore. Fishermen targeting Pacific whiting will tie up their boats until July 20 to avoid bycatch.
Source: Union-Tribune, San Diego, Tuesday, July 6, 2010
He has been busy setting traps off the San Diego coast for just three seasons, but Shad Catarius is so taken with being a commercial lobster fisherman that he is willing to tax himself $300 a year to help keep the fishery healthy.
Source: Baltimore Sun, Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Fewer oysters in the Chesapeake Bay are dying from the diseases that have devastated the bivalve population in recent decades, leading some to believe they may be developing a natural resistance, says a new report by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Source: Port Clinton (Ohio) News Herald, Tuesday, July 6, 2010
PORT CLINTON Ask most Lake Erie anglers about commercial fishing and the nets they set on the lake, and they definitely have opinions.
Source: Standard-Times, New Bedford, Mass., Tuesday, July 6, 2010
EW BEDFORD It will not be business as usual when skipper Charlie Quinn takes the New Bedford scalloper Celtic out to sea this week. On board will be two researchers from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, David Rudders and William DuPaul, who will gather data during the trip to an area of Georges Bank that is normally off-limits to scallopers.
Source: Boston Globe, Tuesday, July 6, 2010
HARWICH For the past seven years, scientists have been alarmed by the mysterious death of marsh grasses on Cape Cod, which is transforming expanses of lush green wetlands into lumpy mudflats with the appearance of Swiss cheese.
Source: Baltimore Sun, Tuesday, July 6, 2010
For tourists streaming into Ocean City this summer, the coastal bays are easily overlooked. To many they are merely the broad, sparkling waters glimpsed briefly from the family sedan along U.S. 50 or Route 90, perhaps that must be crossed on the way to the sandy beaches and rough and tumble of the Atlantic Ocean surf. But from an ecological standpoint, they provide as valuable a wildlife habitat as any found within their big sister estuary to the west, the Chesapeake Bay.
Source: Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass., Tuesday, July 6, 2010
EASTHAM The way Rick Weeks sees it, he needs $100,000 to avoid foreclosure on his home. He believes the town needs his one-fifth acre lot next to Collins Landing for more parking spaces for a chronically overcrowded boat landing.
Source: Garden City Patch, New York City, Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Back in April a British Petroleum (BP) oil rig exploded 5,000 feet below the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico. Considered the greatest environmental catastrophe in the nation's history, some reports suggest the rig is hemorrhaging over a million gallons of oil a day.
Source: Vineyard Gazette, Edgartown, Mass., Tuesday, July 6, 2010
A group of Island lobster fishermen plan to attend a meeting later this month in Warwick, R.I. to express their opposition to a proposed ban on lobster fishing in southern New England and beyond.
Source: The Advertiser, La., Monday, July 5, 2010
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham has announced the following closure to recreational and commercial fishing in portions of Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes, effective immediately.
Source: Standard Times, New Bedford, Mass., Monday, July 5, 2010
Without credibility, any regulatory agency is sunk. And that is the case with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's law enforcement office, which is charged with enforcing the rules and regulations governing the nation's fisheries.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Times, Friday, July 2, 2010
Tens of millions in fines levied against U.S. commercial fishermen held in an unrecorded account were used by the fisheries law enforcement division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to fuel extravagant purchases and foreign travel, according to a forensic audit for a U.S. inspector general made public Thursday.
Source: Daily Comet, Thibodaux, La., Friday, July 2, 2010
The 2010 spring inshore shrimp season in Shrimp Management Zone 2 will close at 6:00 am Monday, July 5, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries announced today. Zone 2 includes state waters from the eastern shore of South Pass of the Mississippi River to the western shore of Vermilion Bay and Southwest Pass at Marsh Island.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, Friday, July 2, 2010
The gleaming cod delivered whole from Paul Mettivier's Debra Ann II to shareholders in the Cape Ann Fresh Catch program were pulled from the ocean just hours earlier and only a few miles from the dock.
Source: Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, Friday, July 2, 2010
The dreaded Asian carp, known for devastating other fish species and threatening a Great Lakes invasion, is still rare in the upper reaches of the Ohio River, although they are abundant down river from Louisville.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Times, Friday, July 2, 2010
n 1977, 18-year-old Terri Farscone showed up at the Coast Guard station in Boston to apply for a 100-ton boat captain's license. The officers on duty laughed and told her to go home. She was not amused.
Source: Vineyard Gazette, Edgartown, Mass., Friday, July 2, 2010
Like David against Goliath, the Marthas Vineyard/Dukes County Fishermens Association and a well-known Menemsha draggerman last week filed a lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, claiming that the giant wind farm planned by Cape Wind Associates for Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound threatens to put Island fishermen who work the shoal, including squidders and conchers, out of business for good.
Source: Gloucester (Mass.) Times, Friday, July 2, 2010
Dave Marciano sold his federal groundfishing permit earlier this year putting him on the outside of a way of life that had given him the chance to work for himself, something that looked pretty darn good to "a guy with a high school diploma."
Source: New York Times, Thursday, July 1, 2010
MONTAUK, N.Y. Not long before dark, a large crowd gathered as usual last Saturday at the Montauket Hotel, perched high on a bluff over Fort Pond Bay and known as the best spot on the East End of Long Island to watch the sunset. On the back patio, a man in a "Clam Power" T-shirt lifted an Amstel Light and bellowed along with a Springsteen anthem: "No retreat, baby!"
Source: Bangor (Maine) Daily News, Thursday, July 1, 2010
WINTER HARBOR, Maine Local lobsterman Phil Torrey shook his head slightly Thursday as he recalled how his boat rammed into another the day before off Schoodic Point.
Source: Ventura County (Calif.) Reporter, Thursday, July 1, 2010
It was as easy as hook, line and sinker. A captain would ready his boat, navigate the channel toward a designated Channel Islands fishery, and reel in his catch to provide a living for himself and sustenance for the seafood-loving public.
Source: KCBY-TV, Coos Bay, Ore., Thursday, July 1, 2010
CHARLESTON, Ore. After shutting down production for a few months at the beginning of the year, a staple in the Charleston fishing community is up and operating again, producing a vital staple for commercial fishermen.
Source: The Alternative Press, New Jersey, Thursday, July 1, 2010
Today, New Jersey residents, environmental advocates and business owners gathered at the East coasts oldest fishing co-op to announce the start of Clean Ocean Actions summer 2010 campaign to raise awareness about ocean pollution issues.
Source: Standard-Times, New Bedford, Mass., Thursday, July 1, 2010
NEW BEDFORD Scientists from the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology have launched a new initiative showing fishermen where not to catch fish, and the New Bedford fleet has lined up in droves to participate.
When the wholesale price for lobster dropped below $3 a pound last year, Marshfield lobsterman Bob Tice took matters into his own hands, selling directly to customers out of the back of his pickup truck at Marshfield's town pier.
CHICAGO A single Asian carp has been found for the first time beyond the electric barriers constructed to keep the dreaded invasive species out of the Great Lakes, state and federal officials announced Wednesday.
Diners at an upscale New Orleans-style restaurant in Washington, D.C., a thousand miles from the Gulf of Mexico, will feel the impact of the massive BP oil spill for the first time this Sunday.
The Gerry E. Studds Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary is considered a jewel of New England coastal waters. Its 842-square-mile ecosystem is about three times more productive than the Gulf of Maine and twice as productive as Georges Bank, with over 575 known species of animals.
There are shrimp kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp and shrimp salad. But there's one variety not included in that oft-quoted litany from the movie "Forrest Gump." There's also believe it or not Indiana shrimp.
The 32nd annual Mandeville Seafood Festival offers the opportunity to savor seafood and a gumbo of entertainment.
Commercial salmon fishing opens for 12 hours in the Quinhagak area starting at 9 a.m. on Friday, according to Fish and Game.
BOSTON Although fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico have been soaked by the BP oil disaster, Massachusetts's fishing industry is unlikely to see a surge in demand, a state environmental official said Tuesday.
PORTLAND, ORE. In 26 years, Frank Dulcich has transformed Pacific Seafood Group from a minor fish distributor in Southeast Portland to perhaps the dominant seafood player in North America.
PORTLAND City officials plan to move a lobster bait dealer away from the warehouse on the waterfront where Maine's largest law firm plans to open its new headquarters.
Whether they're deep-fried, baked or served on the half-shell, most of the oysters eaten by Americans start their journey to the gullet in the Gulf of Mexico.
A Haines commercial fisherman has become the second Alaskan in less than a week to die from a suspected case of paralytic shellfish poisoning, said the state Department of Health and Social Services.
The signs aren't easy to miss at the Crab Shack seafood market on Brigantine Avenue in Brigantine. One placard has gone up on an outside window, and another is posted right next to the checkout counter.
LUBEC Out on the mud flats in the easternmost nook of the United States, generations of clam diggers have dug deep into the muck for tasty soft-shells to satisfy New Englanders' cravings for steamers and fried clams.
A decision by a nonprofit organization to certify a company's Antarctic krill harvesting has drawn fierce criticism from conservationists and undercut the group's image as a diligent steward of ocean fishing stocks.
The NOAA has again had to modify the commercial and recreational fishing closure in the oil-affected areas of the Gulf of Mexico.
New footage taken by fishermen shows the flagship of the Sea Shepherd tuna conservation campaign, the Steve Irwin, deliberately ramming a tuna cage even though there were men on the gangway of the cage.
SAN PABLO BAY, Calif. - Millions of baby salmon have been released into Northern California waterways to help the struggling fish recover from population declines.
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