Monday, October 18, 2010

Final dose of Exxon Valdez money

After nearly two years of handing out winnings from the Exxon Valdez oil spill case, the court-appointed administrator of the process is now talking about a "final distribution."

- Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss

More:deckboss.blogspot


Bigger pollock catch?

Results of a bottom trawl survey of the eastern Bering Sea shelf conducted last summer by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service yielded higher biomass estimates than last year for all species except Alaska plaice, which was down slightly from 2009.

- Nome Nugget

More:www.nomenugget.net

(Scroll down to Page 12.)

'Flippin fun' with Sarah

"Flippin fun," the former GOP vice presidential candidate is heard saying in the trailer for her new show, Sarah Palin's Alaska.

- Los Angeles Times

More:latimesblogs.latimes.com

'Real' Alaska fishing

If the new trailer for Sarah Palin's Alaska is too slick and tame for you, check out The Real Alaska trailer for a promised series of videos and stories from the 2010 Chignik commercial salmon season.

- Anchorage Daily News

More:www.adn.com

New Zealand tests king crab fishery

The Government has approved a special exploratory permit to see if deepwater king and red crabs can be caught at commercial levels.

- Voxy.com, New Zealand

More:www.voxy.co.nz

Killer whales killing off otters

A report by government scientists identifies killer whales as the No. 1 reason there are so few sea otters in southwest Alaska.

- Canadian Press

More:www.google.com

Naknek utility bankrupt

A risky quest to lower the cost of making electricity has generated a battery of financial troubles for a rural Alaska power utility.

- Anchorage Daily News

More:www.adn.com

Protesting proposed B.C. oil port

Under the watchful eye of several security forces, a flotilla of protesters took to the waters off Vancouver Sunday to stop oil-tanker traffic along the fragile B.C. coast.

- Victoria Times-Colonist

More:www.timescolonist.com

Testing seines on the Columbia

Vern Forsberg and Mark Huettl move up and down the beach of Bachelor Island, pulling and tugging a 900-foot-long fishing net to shore.

- The Oregonian

More:www.oregonlive.com

 

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Deadliest Catch squabble was 'hell'

"Emotionally, it was hell," Johnathan Hillstrand said of the conflict with The Discovery Channel that prompted the trio to throw the future of the popular show into doubt.

- Seattle PI

More:blog.seattlepi.com

 

Exxon Valdez payout options

Depending on the outcome of certain remaining issues in court, the administrator intends to pay claims according to one of these three very long lists

- Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss

More:deckboss.blogspot.com

Alaska salmon: a record

Alaska's 2010 salmon season could be one for the record books! Based on preliminary data, stronger prices, hefty fish and a good haul will combine to make the salmon fishery the most valuable in two decades.

- Pacific Fishing columnist Laine Welch, writing for SitNews, Ketchikan

More:www.sitnews.us

2010 has been hot

The first nine months of 2010 tied with the same period in 1998 for the warmest combined land and ocean surface temperature on record.

- Fish News EU

More:www.fishnewseu.com

Secret ingredient: Whale poop

A new study from Harvard University and University of Vermont has revealed that whale faeces is rich in nutrients, and has a huge positive influence on the productivity of ocean fisheries.

- Oneindia

More:news.oneindia.in

Feds stingy with Cal water

Federal fisheries managers have never used hundreds of millions of gallons available each year since 2004 to improve conditions in the lower Eel River for salmon and steelhead.

- Pacific Fishing columnist John Driscoll, reporting in the Eureka Times-Standard

More:www.times-standard.com

County wants Navy plan delayed

Mendocino County Supervisors voted 4-1 to ask the U.S. Navy to again postpone its final deadline for public comment and to hold congressional hearings on the West Coast about plans to expand its training and testing off Northern California, Oregon and Washington.

- Fort Bragg Advocate-News

More:www.advocate-news.com

More sea otter hunting for Natives

Congressman Don Young has introduced legislation aimed at increasing sea otter harvests and pelt sales in Southcentral and Southeast Alaska. It's targeting a growing population of marine mammals that are consuming more and more shellfish in Southeast.

- KSTK, Wrangell

More:kstk.org

Marine deaths increase

Marine deaths increased from 783 to 817, with the vast majority occurring in recreational boating (736). Other marine categories, including cargo transport and commercial fishing, showed increases as well, although commercial passenger vessels showed a slight decrease.

- Docuticker

More:web.docuticker.com

 

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Deadliest Catch brawl


Drunken crew members of two vessels from the quasi-reality show Deadliest Catch squared off against each other in the lobby of the Grand Aleutian hotel. Those interviewed claimed "bad blood" between the two vessels had instigated the altercation.

– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss

More:deckboss.blogspot.com

 

Tuna canner sued over mercury

A suburban New York City man has filed a lawsuit that claims he got mercury poisoning from eating 10 cans of tuna a week.

– Penfield (N.Y.) Post

More:www.penfieldpost.com

Alaska king crab manager resigns

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is losing its longtime crab fishery manager at Dutch Harbor.

– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss

More:deckboss.blogspot.com

CG rescues crewman near Tatoosh

The Coast Guard medically evacuated an injured crewmember from a fishing vessel 38-miles southwest of Tatoosh Island near Neah Bay.

– Coast Guard

More:www.piersystem.com

Fatal 'problems' doom Katmai

It was after midnight on Oct. 22, 2008, when lifelong Alaska fisherman Guy Schroder was woken up in his bunk on board the F/V Katmai. "Guy, we've got problems," crewman Carlos Zabala told the 50-year-old deck boss. "We've lost steering."

– Popular Mechanics

More:www.popularmechanics.com

Letter: Mines mean B.C. jobs

British Columbia's mining industry is on the cusp of a major renaissance, and it could not come at a better time. With mineral and metal commodities on the rise, several major new mining projects are in construction or in the final stages of regulatory approval. One of these, Prosperity, is the biggest of them all.

– Vancouver Sun

More:www.vancouversun.com

New study of Chukchi drilling

Two months after a judge found flaws in the government's environmental assessment of petroleum drilling in the Chukchi Sea, federal offshore regulators released a revised analysis that was immediately denounced by environmental and Alaska Native groups.

– Anchorage Daily News

More:www.adn.com

UN marine summit begins

International governments will decide on measures to minimize the impacts of human activities on the marine environment at the UN summit on biodiversity – the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – which has opened in Nagoya, Japan.

– World Fishing

More:www.worldfishing.net

 

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Volcano belches, sockeye thrive?


A volcano blows and Fraser sockeye come back in record numbers. Is there a connection? There could well be. Roberta Hamme, at University of Victoria, and colleagues have just had a new paper published in the Geophysical Research Letters that studies the issue.

– Victoria Times Colonist

More:www.timescolonist.com

 

Jail time for shooting sea lion

A Sacramento County fisherman was sentenced to 30 days in jail and a $51,000 fine – payable to the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito – for shooting a California sea lion.

– San Francisco Chronicle

More:www.sfgate.com

Enviros want catch shares for sport fishing

Advocates from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) want recreational fishing captains to know – “catch shares” aren't just for commercial fishermen anymore.

– World Fishing Network

More:www.wfn.tv

Report: Canada oceans are hurting

A multi-year study by the federal government has produced a troubling report card on the health of Canada's marine environments, with major changes detected in all three oceans.

– CBC

More:www.cbc.ca

Lawyers argue Alaska polar bear fate

Lawyers for the federal government, the state of Alaska, and oil and gas interests were in court to fight efforts by a coalition of environmental groups trying to force the Obama administration to put polar bears on the endangered species list, not just list them as threatened.

– Anchorage Daily News

More:www.adn.com

New Naknek ways for tugs, barges

Leader Creek Fisheries, a cooperative between a group of fish harvesters and a cutting-edge processor, has expanded to include a large vessel storage facility at Naknek, with specially designed equipment to haul out tugs and barges weighing several hundred tons.

– Seward Phoenix

More:www.thesewardphoenixlog.com

Hundreds concerned about Cal protected areas

More than 700 people weighed in on plans by the California Fish and Game Commission to protect marine life by expanding coastal areas that limit fishing and other activities.

– North County Times, California

More:www.nctimes.com

Farm Credit offers fish-business class

Northwest Farm Credit Services will present an "Understanding Financial Statements" workshop on the day before Fish Expo begins: Wednesday, Nov. 17. This workshop offers a free, hands-on, interactive environment for those who want to learn the basic financial skills of managing a fishing business.

Attendance for the class is limited to 20, with priority given to Northwest Farm Credit Services customers, in the Nordby Center at Fisherman's Terminal.

More information:www.farm-credit.com

Fish Board in Kenai

Although there were no "big, burning issues" on the agenda of the Alaska Board of Fisheries work session in Kenai last week, Roland Maw of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association said he attended the session to get to know the regulators and make sure his association's interests are not left out of the process.

– Homer News

More:homernews.com

 

Friday, October 22, 2010

Oregon crab tests good


Good news is in about the upcoming Oregon Dungeness Crab season  – the first round of quality testing completed on Wednesday has revealed that crab are looking healthy and packed with meat, said Nick Furman, the executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission.

Points north of Cascade Head must show a track record that indicates they're positioned to surpass 23 percent meat fill and points south must reach 25 percent.

Crabbers saw plenty of crab in their pots in the late summer, when they pulled them out of the water for the last time, Furman explained. "We think we'll have another good harvest this year."

– Pacific Fishing correspondent Deeda Schroeder

The numbers:
• Astoria, 18.5 percent
• Garibaldi, 21.3 percent
• Newport 24.9 percent
• Coos Bay, 24.3 percent
• Port Orford, 18.6 percent
• Brookings; 18.2 percent

Oil spill killed no fish?

Press release: There is no evidence the Deep Water Horizon oil spill killed any fish, according to federal and state officials overseeing the oil cleanup, while captured commercial fish passed testing by multiple government agencies.

– Perishable News

More:www.perishablenews.com

Restaurateur sentenced for halibut buy

A former owner of a Juneau restaurant has been sentenced to community confinement for buying subsistence halibut.

– Anchorage Daily News

More:www.adn.com

Study: We’re taking too many fish

Entire ecosystems on the Pacific coast rely on salmon and humans are taking more than their share, a new study concludes.

– Victoria Times Colonist

More:www.timescolonist.com

Cal protected area corruption hard to prove

When it comes to proving corruption in the Marine Life Protection Act, fishing groups have had that fish on the hook more than once, only to see it slither away into what is becoming a very deep and protected ocean.

– San Diego Union Tribune

More:www.signonsandiego.com

Don’t mess with protected area pact

Seventeen local government agencies have signed and sent a resolution to the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative insisting that rulemakers adopt a unified, locally generated proposal for marine protected areas off the North Coast.

– Eureka Times-Standard

More:www.times-standard.com

Alaska Fisheries Report on line

The Alaska Fisheries Report is now on line for you listening and/or
downloading pleasure.

More:www.kmxt.org (Scroll down)

Oregon D. crab fleet in decline

It would be easy to read raw statistics about the recently concluded 2009-10 commercial Dungeness crab season at the mouth of the Columbia and think crabbers must have it pretty good. After all, the total of 2.1 million pounds compares to a 20-year average of 950,000 pounds. What could be wrong with that?

– The Daily Astorian

More:www.dailyastorian.info

More on new Puget Sound crab rules

New rules that shift the balance of Puget Sound’s annual crab take toward recreational fisherman have many in the commercial industry scratching their heads and wondering if by this time next year the only thing they will be fishing for is a new job.

– Seattle P-I

More:blog.seattlepi.com

 

Thurday, October 11, 2010

California D. crab good for opener

The local Dungeness crab season, which officially starts Monday, looks to be quite excellent. Certainly better than recent years.

– San Francisco Chronicle

More: www.sfgate.com

 

Some NE fishermen profit from quota

A small but influential association of Cape Cod commercial fishermen, granted access to a disputed, oversized portion of the harvest when the New England groundfishery was converted to a catch shares system last year, has been leasing out much of its allocation for profit, according to a market report posted by the government.

– Gloucester (Mass.) Times

More: www.gloucestertimes.com

Australia fishermen worry over Pew group

The Pew Environment Group in the U.S. has been working with anglers to campaign for a ban on commercial long-lining in the Gulf of Mexico.

– Fishing World, Australia

More: www.fishingworld.com.au

China to farm Chinook salmon

The tank will then be stocked with Chinook salmon from Canadian ova, marking the first time that this type of Pacific salmon will be grown in closed containment in Chinese waters.

– MarketWire

More: www.marketwire.com

Lisa keeping her lead in recount

The Lisa Murkowski wristbands seem to have worked, as early numbers Wednesday from the Election Division teams counting write-in ballots for her U.S. Senate seat show excellent spelling by Murkowski supporters.

– Juneau Empire

More: www.juneauempire.coml

Kodiak gillnetting on agenda

Among the topics that will be hashed out at the Board of Fisheries meeting that starts in Homer on Monday are proposals to open up areas of the outer coast of the Kenai Peninsula, the Barren Islands, and Resurrection Bay to drift gillnetting for salmon.

– Homer News

More: www.homernews.com

Crescent City sees water spout

A possible water spout was spotted off of Pebble Beach Drive on Sunday evening.
A water spout is basically a small tornado over the ocean.
 
– Crescent City Triplicate

More: www.triplicate.com

Navy restricted in NW Coast training

The U.S. Navy must shut down sonar use if marine mammals are spotted near training exercises and take other precautions when using the sound-wave technology or explosives off the Northwest coast, NOAA's Fisheries Service said.

– Coos Bay World

More: www.theworldlink.com

Panel: Kill more Columbia sea lions

Oregon and Washington should kill more California sea lions at Bonneville Dam next year to test whether the states' 3-year-old controversial "lethal-take" program can actually meet its goal of reducing sea lion consumption of wild salmon, a key task force concluded Wednesday.

– The Oregonian

More: www.oregonlive.com

 

 




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