Fisheries

“There is no higher priority for me and for my department in British Columbia than addressing the Big Bar landslide on the Fraser River,” – Bernadette Jordan, Canada’s new Fisheries Minister

A judge has sentenced Mark Edward Zywotko, 47, of Cape Coral to 60 days in federal prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, for committing mail fraud in the perpetration of a fraudulent scheme to overharvest more than 50,000 pounds of Gulf reef fish from the waters off Southwest Florida.

New Hampshire is drafting plans for how its lobster fishery will help meet new federal goals for protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Innovative efforts are underway to help turn the tide for small-scale fishers in a way that benefits both these vulnerable communities and the natural resources they depend upon for survival. For this to happen, the supply chain has to be disrupted.

Members of the American lobster industry are hopeful the thawing of trade relations between the U.S. and China will reopen one of the biggest markets in the world for lobsters.

Friends of RGV Reef has launched a major new phase of its artificial reefing project off South Padre Island, even as fishing boats reel in large numbers of red snapper the reef is already producing.

Cermaq Canada, a division of a multi-national salmon farming company, was granted a lease option by the provincial government last year to pursue open-pen farming in 20 sites throughout Nova Scotia including in Chedabucto Bay. Since that time the company has been investigating the feasibility of expansion, examining the business, environmental and social climate related to the proposed site areas.

Presented with evidence that the striped bass population is struggling along the East Coast, a regional panel empowered to set catch limits reduced the harvest 18 percent for the coming season.

Lance Underwood fears for local fisheries

The Russian Agency for Fisheries has officially launched “The Russian Fish,” a new public-private partnership focused on marketing Russia’s seafood products abroad.

The Russian federal fisheries agency has put licenses for three aquaculture sites in the northerly Murmansk region up for auction, Undercurrent News has learned.

Marine conservation campaigners have called for trawlers to be banned from fishing within three miles of Scotland’s shoreline to help depleted fish stocks and seabeds to recover, reports The Guardian.

Governor Andrew Cuomo is pleading with federal officials to declare the recent scallop die-off in Peconic Bay waters a commercial fishery disaster.

A newly developed method for assessing how abundant fish populations are and how fishing is affecting them revealed that several fish stocks across oceans are far below internationally agreed minimum levels and in urgent need of sustainable management.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration held a public hearing in Petersburg Monday night on their proposal to establish critical habitat areas for humpback whales in Southeast Alaska including areas from the Alaska Peninsula down the coastline to Southern California.

Marine protected areas in the Mediterranean Sea are home to more fish species, with the greatest gains found among species most sensitive to exploitation

It should come as no surprise to anyone who follows Maine’s fisheries that the state’s aquaculture industry is growing in value and number of producers.

A proposed fish farm, called the Velella Epsilon Project, that would be anchored in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, 45 miles west of Sarasota Bay and slightly south, is under review.

A great white shark was spotted in False Bay on Tuesday - for the first time in 20 months, a City of Cape Town official confirmed.

In volumes, the seafood export corresponds to 25,000 meals per minute, or 36 million meals every day.

Every year since 1991 Fish Factor has selected “picks and pans” for Alaska’s seafood industry -- a no-holds-barred look back at some of the year’s best and worst fishing highlights -- and my choice for the biggest fish story of the year. Here are the 2019 picks and pans, in no particular order.

New rules by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have gone into effect on Jan. 1 to increase protections to deep-sea ecosystems by creating one of the largest marine protected areas off the U.S. West Coast while simultaneously re-opening newly restored fishing grounds.

The potential environmental and economic consequences posed by proposals for fish farming in federal waters dictate that Congress — not a federal agency — must decide how to regulate the industry, an attorney told a federal appeals court Monday.

On Friday, Dec. 20, the United Tribes of Bristol Bay and Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay released a joint response to a CNN investigative report that accused Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy of collaborating with the Pebble Limited Partnership to lobby on the corporation’s behalf.

LOBSTER WAR is an award-winning feature film about a climate-fueled conflict between the United States and Canada over waters that both countries have claimed since the end of the Revolutionary War. The disputed 277 square miles of sea, known as the Gray Zone, were traditionally fished by US lobstermen. But as the Gulf of Maine has warmed faster than nearly any other body of water on the planet, the area’s previously modest lobster population has surged. As a result, Canadians have begun to assert their sovereignty, warring with the Americans to claim the bounty.

Augusta – In response to requirements under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) has submitted a proposal for regulatory changes to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in advance of federal rule making.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Commerce ordered Virginia’s menhaden fishery in the Chesapeake Bay, the largest on the East Coast, to close down because a fish-oil company exceeded the fishing limit enforced by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Robert T. Brown pulled an oyster shell from a pile freshly harvested by a dredger from the Chesapeake Bay and talked enthusiastically about the larvae attached — a sign of a future generation critical to the health of the nation’s largest estuary.

There's no denying that keeping livestock has deeply benefited humanity over the millennia. But, while sheep and cows may have adapted well to farm life, there's one animal humans like to eat that would fare poorly in farms.

Bipartisan language was added to the 2020 spending bill Dec. 16 that will forgive more than $10 million in accrued loan interest that was forced onto the Pacific Coast ground fishing fleet.

A rare environmental success story is unfolding in waters off the U.S. West Coast.

“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mandate to phase out ocean net pen salmon farming in British Columbia flies in the face of the region’s commitment to responsible aquaculture,” – Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA).

In an unprecedented response to historically low numbers of Pacific cod, the federal cod fishery in the Gulf of Alaska is closing for the 2020 season.

Hempstead Town biologists hope that breeding their own clams and oysters can help clean up Reynolds Channel.

The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) collected public comments and feedback at a heated scoping meeting in Manteo on Tuesday night as part of their long-term process to create management strategies for the upcoming Amendment 3 to the Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan.

The holiday tradition that some in San Francisco Bay Area have crab over the holidays is alive this season now that the risk of whale entanglements has diminished and the fishery is open!

Consistently ranked as the 4th largest farmed Atlantic salmon producer in the world, farmed salmon continues to be B.C.’s most valuable seafood export

ROCKPORT, Maine (AP) – The cod isn‘t so sacred in New England anymore. The fish-and-chips staple was once a critical piece of New England‘s fishing industry, but catch is plummeting to all-time lows in the region. The decline of the fishery has made the U.S. reliant on foreign cod, and cod fish fillets and steaks purchased in American supermarkets and restaurants are now typically caught by Norway, Russia or Iceland in the north Atlantic.

Bernadette Jordan, the new Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, deserves a mandate that compliments Canada’s vision to lead the Global Blue Economy, not contradict it

A new study published by scientists from the Faroese Marine Research Institute reveals that traces of DNA left behind in seawater can be used to predict the biomass of Atlantic cod. The findings show that the so-called environmental DNA approach can track the regional patterns of commercially important fish in the ocean. The paper, led by Dr. Ian Salter, was published on the 10th December in Nature Communications Biology.

Researchers found clearer water right next to aquaculture, but had hard time quantifying changes farther awa

Something fishy’s going on at the back of the Ocean Springs High School parking lot.

University of Delaware researcher makes direct link in first-of-its-kind labor study

A month after early hopes for a robust scallop harvest on the East End were dashed when baymen found next to no living specimens in their dredges on opening day, scientists gathered at Stony Brook Southampton Friday night to deliver their post-mortem.

A powerful new player has emerged out of the results of controversial government-run auctions for crab quotas in Russia.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is requesting federal support to address the recent scallop die-off, which killed an estimated 90 to 100% of adult scallops between last spring and fall in local bays.

In an unprecedented response to historically low numbers of Pacific cod, the federal cod fishery in the Gulf of Alaska is closing for the 2020 season.

ELLSWORTH — The fate of the shrimp fishery for the coming year, if any, will likely be determined Friday afternoon when the Northern Shrimp Section of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission meets to review the 2019 Stock Assessment Update Report and updates from the section’s Summer Survey Work Group and the Northern Shrimp 2019 Summer Survey Results.

White shrimp are being pulled by the thousands from the water off the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

A pair of studies by Maine-based scientists suggest the U.S. lobster industry is headed for a period of decline, but likely not a crash.

The labyrinthine process of obtaining the proper permits to establish fish farms in federal waters has been frequently cited as a major obstacle to the advancement of the U.S. aquaculture sector.

Louisiana anglers can now fish for red snapper seven days a week.

While scientists, bureaucrats and politicians are making policy around fisheries, are the voices of the fishing communities represented?

Every Winter, many North Atlantic right whales make their way home to the ocean off Georgia's coast to calve, seeking safe and warmer waters to have their babies before the long voyage home to the New England and Canadian waters in the Spring. North Florida and Georgia coastal communities play an important role in the stewardship of one of the largest whales roaming the seas.

A pair of studies by Maine-based scientists suggest the U.S. lobster industry is headed for a period of decline, but likely not a crash.

The governor of Virginia is calling on the U.S. chief of commerce to stop all menhaden fishing in his state, in order to punish fish-oil producer Omega Protein for taking too much menhaden from the Bay.