Fishermen end strike, net bountiful harvests of market squid

Local Flavor: About half of the dozen boats fishing squid in Monterey Bay this spring are residents of the Monterey and Moss Landing harbors, according to Monterey Harbormaster Steve Scheiblauer. Above, fresh catch at Monterey Fish Company.

Glowing boats bob in the night off Pacific Grove’s coast, their lights luring lusty Loligo opalescens from the depths.

The romantic sight marks the return of Monterey Bay’s 150-year-old market squid fishery after an unofficial fishermen’s strike threatened to delay this year’s harvest.

When the squid season began April 1, local fishermen held back in hopes of pressuring processors to bump the price of calamari from $500 to $600 per ton, according to David Haworth, vice president of the California Wetfish Producers Association.

Blame it on gas prices: Boat captains, who aren’t unionized, negotiated with the four local squid processors in hopes of recovering some of their increased fuel costs. But the processors, who ship squid to Europe and China, are feeling the squeeze too.

“Our costs are up because of ocean freight being higher,” says Sal Tringali of the Salinas-based Monterey Fish Company. “The fuel’s killing us.”

Fishermen and processors were still at an impasse in early May. But some of the captains couldn’t pass up a good squid year, even at $500 per ton. Once they’d broken the liquid picket line, Haworth says, the other boats resumed fishing too.

The catch has been good: Royal Seafood founder Joe Pennisi says his son, Gino, recently unloaded 200 tons in a single evening.

“When there’s quantity,” he says, “you don’t worry about the price so much.”

Read the rest in the Monterey County Weekly.

Where farmers, fishermen agree

Lance Iversen / The Chronicle

Brett Baker

Congress Defunds Wasteful Catch Shares Program

Washington, DC – In a big victory for commercial and recreational fishermen, the U.S. Congress on April 14 voted to defund the “catch shares” program, a controversial and wasteful fisheries management fiasco.

Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, said the program has been “blocking access to fish for thousands of smaller scale fishermen, destroying their livelihoods and our coastal and fishing communities.”

The widely-contested “catch shares” program on the East and West Coasts, a pet project of Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NOAA administrator and also under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, serves to privatize public trust resources by concentrating ocean fisheries in a few corporate hands.

This amendment, offered by Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina, is part of the FY2011 budget that President Barack Obama signed into law on April 15.

Read the rest of the story here.

Budget measure blocks new catch share programs

photo © 2006 Jeff Kubina | more info (via: Wylio)

NEW BEDFORD — As a budget amendment blocking catch share management from spreading in America’s fisheries makes its way to President Barack Obama’s desk, new concerns have cropped up about the arrival of private brokers of fishing allocations.

The measure in the budget prohibits the Commerce Department from funding the implementation of fisheries catch share programs such as the one imposed in the Northeast one year ago. It was introduced by U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., and backed by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., among others.

The language in the amendment was softened somewhat in the budget deliberations. Originally, it stopped funding for even the study of new catch share systems. Now it simply prohibits their approval.

“This is a shot in the arm for fishermen and a shot across the bow of the National Marine Fisheries Service,” said Jones in a prepared statement. “The last thing our government should be doing in these economic times is spending millions of taxpayer dollars to expand programs that will put even more Americans out of work. NMFS would be wise to take heed of the opposition of fishermen, the public and the Congress to their catch shares agenda; we’re not going away.”

Catch shares and sector management are being blamed (or credited) with sharply reducing the size of the groundfish fleet in the Northeast and the rapid consolidation of catch into the top 10 percent of the boats. The measures are being challenged in federal court in a lawsuit filed by New Bedford, Gloucester and other fishing interests.

Read the rest on SouthCoastToday.com.

Thousands of dead fish scooped from Ventura Harbor

(Credit: Los Angeles Times)

Tsunami: Fisheries hit by safety fears

photo © 2011 Dominic Alves | more info (via: Wylio)

The Road to End Overfishing: 35 Years of Magnuson Act

Assistant Administrator Schwaab for Fisheries Talks about the Cornerstone of Sustainable Fisheries

photo © 2010 Deepwater Horizon Response | more info (via: Wylio)

As we look toward Earth Day next week, I want to acknowledge and highlight the 35 th anniversary of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Simply called “the Magnuson Act”, this law, its regional framework and goal of sustainability, has proven to be a visionary force in natural resource management – both domestically and internationally. The Magnuson Act is, and will continue to be a key driver for NOAA as we deliver on our nation’s commitment to ocean stewardship, sustainable fisheries, and healthy marine ecosystems

Because of the Magnuson Act, the U.S. is on track to end overfishing in federally-managed fisheries, rebuild stocks, and ensure conservation and sustainable use of our ocean resources. Fisheries harvested in the United States are scientifically monitored, regionally managed and legally enforced under 10 strict national standards of sustainability. This anniversary year marks a critical turning point in the Act’s history. By the end of 2011, we are on track to have an annual catch limit and accountability measures in place for all 528 federally-managed fish stocks and complexes. The dynamic, science-based management process envisioned by Congress is now in place, the rebuilding of our fisheries is underway, and we are beginning to see real benefits for fishermen, fishing communities and our commercial and recreational fishing industries.

But, we did not get here overnight. Our nation’s journey toward sustainable fisheries has evolved over the course of 35 years. At this particular moment it is important to take time and reflect back on where we have been to understand where we are and fully appreciate the historic visions and strategic investments that got us here, particularly by the Act’s principal architects, the late U.S. Senators Warren G. Magnuson of Washington State and Ted Stevens of Alaska.

Read the rest on SavingSeaFood.org.

Sardines return by the millions to B.C.

Ucluelet, Zeballos and Port Hardy harvested 22,000 tonnes of fast-swimming fish last year

BY GORDON HAMILTON, VANCOUVER SUN

photo © 2008 Mattie B | more info (via: Wylio)

Sardines have returned to the B.C. coast in schools “thick enough to walk on,” creating a fascinating spectacle and new fishery on Vancouver Island.

Fishing fleets in resourcedependent communities like Ucluelet, Zeballos and Port Hardy harvested 22,000 tonnes of sardines last year, a tiny fraction of the schools that observers say can be hundreds of metres long as they move into the island’s bays and inlets.

“I’ve seen them on the west coast of Vancouver Island thick enough to walk on,” Barron Carswell, senior manager of marine fisheries and seafood policy for the provincial Agriculture Ministry, said in an interview. “It’s incredible. They are all over the place. You can go into little bays and the surface of the water is all sardines.”

Sardines, also called pilchards, were at one time a major B.C. fishery, but they mysteriously disappeared in the 1940s. Overfishing along their migration route from California to Alaska is believed to be a prime cause.

Their return is being attributed to changes in ocean conditions.

Read the rest at the Vancouver Sun.

175 tons of dead sardines scooped from CA marina

photo © 2000 Robin | more info (via: Wylio)

Associated Press

By NOAKI SCHWARTZ  03.31.11

LOS ANGELES — Three weeks after a huge fish die-off in Southern California, officials have a body count but still can’t say what drove 175 tons of sardines into a marina.

Dave Caron, professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern California, said Thursday that as many as 2.5 million sardines blanketed the surface and floor of King Harbor Marina.

Read the rest of the story here.

The End of Overfishing in America

A fisherman unloads a portion of his catch for the day at Pigeon Cove Whole Foods docks in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Eric Schwaab, the administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service, announced this week that overfishing will end in U.S. waters. (AP/Lisa Poole)

 

By Michael Conathan | March 25, 2011

This feature is part of a new series from CAP dealing with fisheries management issues. The series will publish biweekly on Fridays. It is a joint column with Science Progress.

Eric Schwaab, the administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, stood before a crowd of fisheries experts on Monday at the Boston Seafood Show. Schwaab had made many forays to New England—home of some of the squeakiest wheels in our nation’s fishing industry—since taking over the job about a year ago. But this time was different. He came bearing a remarkable message: We are witnessing the end of overfishing in U.S. waters.

One of the biggest changes to fisheries law in the 2007 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act was the imposition of strict annual catch limits, or ACLs, in fisheries experiencing overfishing beginning in 2010, and for all other fisheries in 2011, “at a level such that overfishing does not occur.” Schwaab said the 2010 target of putting ACLs in place for all overfished fisheries was achieved, and “We are on track to meet this year’s deadline of having [ACLs] in place, as required, for all 528 managed stocks and complexes comprising U.S. harvest.”

Schwaab went on to call this accomplishment an “enormous milestone.” Quite frankly, that is an even more enormous understatement.

The end of overfishing should be shouted from rooftops from New England to the Carolinas to the Gulf Coast to Alaska to the Pacific Island territories and back to NMFS’s Silver Spring, Maryland headquarters. This is the biggest national news story our fisheries have seen in years.

Read the rest of the story from America Progress.