Wednesday 12 November 2014
It's Wednesday.
Even the gulls are complaining about the weather this morning...
while in the auction a few soles with their miserable faces are in need of cheering up...
like the best of the bass...
and a box of which fish?...
there were only a handful of boxes from broken trips...
so quality gurnards like these guys made good money...
while a few boxes of the grey fellas...
and this big brill went down a storm...
the grey mullet's mouth is designed not for opening wide and cathcing small fish like the John Dory but has a mouth specially designed for grazing on the bottom...
another shower passes overhead...
with a few breaks to allow the waning moon to show through...
while some of the fleet get ready to sail...
the soon-to-be removed crane looks beastly this morning...
as it hangs tenaciously to the quay...
the Ocean Harvester takes ice astern of the old Ajax...
while the crabbers wait for bait...
yet another downpour scurries across the Bay...
fuel making its way astern down the quay...
all watched over by Tom.
Tuesday 11 November 2014
Flotsam and Jetsam
More wise words from across the water by Nils Stope on the hottest topic in fishing - recognising the science that determines fish stocks and ultimately the quotas by which EU fish are managed should include data contributed by fishermen themselves.
“Flotsam is floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo. Jetsam is part of a ship, its equipment, or its cargo that is purpose-fully cast overboard or jettisoned to lighten the load in time of distress and that sinks or is washed ashore” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flotsam). They are used together to indicate potentially valuable materials floating on the seas’ surface.
I use this title for periodic FishNets in which I address several issues that should be of value to anyone with an interest in oceans and fisheries in a somewhat abbreviated manner.
Please feel free to reproduce or redistribute this issue of FishNet USA or any others. The only requirement is that you cite the source fully as above. It will be available as a PDF file at http://www.FishNet-USA.com/Flotsam_Jetsam2014.pdf To be removed from this distribution list, please reply to this email with "remove" in the subject line.
First off, a mea culpa
In the last FishNet, which was distributed in early October, I referred to “the most recent cod assessment (or actually an almost-assessment).” It was pointed out to me, and rightfully so, that this could have left readers with the impression that this was somewhat less accurate and/or reliable than a “real” assessment of the cod stock. I was assured that this wasn’t the case and was provided with a wealth of information demonstrating that it wasn’t, so I’ll to take this opportunity to put things right. I also must point out, however, that there are groups and individuals associated with the New England groundfish fishery who take exception to the results of this assessment.
“Anecdotal Information” is what the professional fisheries people call it, usually dismissively.
“In addition to the economic benefits of an expanded fishery industry, the fisheries science and management culture benefited from the private, public, academic partnership, increasing the level of trust among stakeholders and respect for the expertise of partners. Through this approach, the project has demonstrated that taking input from all aspects of the community can leverage scientific capabilities with the applied ecological expertise of the commercial fishing industry.”(IOOS’s - Integrated Ocean Observing System’s - Modeling Advancing Fisheries Management and Improving Butterfish Population Assessments at http://www.ioos.noaa.gov/ioos_in_action/stories/maracoos_butterfish.html.
If things were as they should be in fisheries management, there would be no reason for IOOS to include the words underlined above in their announcement of one of the more successful cooperative research programs that has taken place in the mid-Atlantic. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, and much – though certainly not all – of the reason for that is the fact that fisheries managers and fisheries scientists generally discount most of what working fishermen have to say about the status of particular fisheries, about the ocean ecosystem or anything else that has to do with successfully harvesting fish or shellfish. I suspect that in large part this has to do with fishermen’s paychecks depending on them catching those fish which they are telling the managers and/or scientists about, which is a kind of scary way of looking at things. Consider the many financial transactions, ranging from buying a newspaper to buying a house, that you are regularly a part of. In the majority of these transactions you are dependent on the honesty of the other party or parties in the transactions and more often than not one or all of the parties are in a position to “profit” from acting dishonestly. Does this make them – or what they have to say about the transaction – immediately suspect? If that were the case an awful lot of transactions would never be transacted.
What brought this subject up was the article a review of the past, the present, and the future of fishers’ knowledge research: a challenge to established fisheries science by Edward J. Hind at the School of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland that was published in the issue of the ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) Journal of Marine Science in October, 2104.
According to the author, “documented to be approaching at least a century old, fishers’ knowledge research is an approach to fisheries science that to date has struggled to take a place at the top table of fisheries science. Its focus is the study of the experiential knowledge of marine and freshwater environments that fish harvesters accumulate while operating in their respective fisheries. Those who seek in different guises to achieve greater consideration for this experiential knowledge in mainstream fisheries science and management can be considered fishers’ knowledge researchers.” Yet, according to him, and according to many – and I was tempted to say most – of us who observe and/or participate in the fisheries management process from the fishermen’s perspective, after these 100 plus years “the profile of fishers’ knowledge research compared with established approaches towards conducting fisheries science can currently be described as marginal.”
Scientists are never going to know for certain how many fish are in a given area, how long those that are in that area are going to remain there, what factors will have an effect on where they are, how successful next year’s spawning will be, what the larval, juvenile and adult mortality rates will be over the life span of the species, or much of anything else above and beyond what the few specimens that they are immediately observing are doing.
It seems like a successful fisherman must have a broader perspective than a fisheries scientists. Fishing success depends on observing what’s going on today and knowing enough history to put today’s observations into their proper context. And successful fishermen generally have a community of fishermen that they share their observations with. It might be done with the precision that a fisheries scientist or manager thinks is necessary for legitimacy, but it’s done precisely enough for the fishermen to put fish in the hold and food, fuel in the boat and food on the table.
Below are a quotes from Hind’s paper that I think are particularly relevant:
“As with any knowledge system, the picture LEK (Local Ecological Knowledge) produces will be partial. However, we have found that LEK can be an invaluable addition to scientific and historical archival resources that are also partial. Harvesters are and were the central human actors in these social ecological systems and their observations and interpretations can contribute significantly to our efforts to understand the interactions in these systems.” ( Murray, G., Neis, B., Schneider,D. C., Ings,D., Gosse, K.,Whalen, J., and Palmer, C. T. 2008a. Opening the black box: methods, procedures, and challenges in the historical reconstruction of socio-ecological systems. In Making and Moving Knowledge: Interdisciplinarity and Community-Based Research in a World on the Edge, pp. 100–120. Ed. by J. S. Lutz, and B. Neis. McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal, Kingston, Canada.)
“Finding ways to make comparisons between fishers’ observations and data drawn from more traditional scientific sources could improve the potential for more informed and more accepted decisions on stock status and management.” (Neis, B., Schneider, D. C., Felt, L. F., Haedrich, R. L., Fischer, J., and Hutchings, J. A. 1999. Fisheries assessment: what can be learned from interviewing resource users? Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 56: 1949–1963.)
“It is suggested that analysis of approximate data, quickly acquired at low cost from fishers through interviews, can be used to supplement other data-recording systems or used independently to document the changes that have occurred in the resource base over a lifetime of fishing. The results can be used to guide the assessment and management of resources to conserve ecosystems and livelihoods.” (Tesfamichael, D., Pitcher, T. J., and Pauly, D. 2014. Assessing changes in fisheries using fishers’ knowledge to generate long time series of catch rates: a case study from the Red Sea. Ecology and Society, 19. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-06151-190118.
Hind closes by presenting three possible futures for fishers’ knowledge research. The first suggests that “fishers knowledge research could become obsolete.” The second suggests that “fishery-dependent data research may be the only approach mainstreamed in fisheries science” and the third is that “multiple approaches to fishers’ knowledge research may be mainstreamed in fisheries science.” Considering the wealth of multi-generational knowledge that is resident in our coastal fishing communities, let’s hope that the first possible future is unthinkable, that the second is recognized as automatically limiting the value of fishermens’ contributions to the management process and that, as suggested in the last approach, fishermen’s input is finally recognized as being a critical part of the management process. He follows this with “the warning of Robert Johannes’ et al. (Johannes, R. E., Freeman, M. M. R., and Hamilton, R. J. 2000. Ignore fishers’ knowledge and miss the boat. Fish and Fisheries, 1: 257–271.) to any fisheries scientist who continues to ignore all or some dimensions of fishers’ knowledge is still pertinent. The sizeable literature reviewed in this paper includes many examples of where referencing fishers’ knowledge did prevent or could have prevented further fish stock declines when mainstream fisheries science had failed to provide answers. It is likely that future fishers’ knowledge literature will provide further examples of how the consideration of fishers’ knowledge could complement existing biological, ecological, and economic approaches to fisheries science to deliver better management outcomes. With the fisheries paradi
We can only hope that the people in the fisheries management process those words to heart.When you’re used to those big bucks you’ve gotta keep ‘em coming in
It’s hard to imagine that anyone reading this has managed to avoid one of the anti-fishing claque’s most recent declarations of disaster/calls to arms (and for donations) campaigns, the one dealing with the misidentification of various species of fish. According to the usual plethora of reports and press releases and the usual uninformed and extensive media coverage that those reports and releases generated, unscrupulous members of the fish and seafood industry (in the various foundation-funded campaigns are there any other kind?) were mislabeling not-so-valuable ocean critters as much more valuable critters, pricing them accordingly and raking in even more tainted profits.
Needless to say this was reported as a significant and growing threat and needed to be stopped immediately. And the principal way of stopping it was by increasing the administrative burden placed on an already overburdened fish and seafood industry by requiring its members to identify where, when and how their fish and shellfish were caught. Traceability, it was called.
As a result of all of this alarmism the federal Food and Drug Administration completed a study involving the DNA testing of 696 samples at the domestic wholesale distribution chain prior to retail sale. Limited samples were also taken at the point of import. The species sampled were those with a history of being misidentified. Samples were taken in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine, Mississippi (if any FDA people read this, please note that Mississippi has four s’s), New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Washington. The fish that were sampled were cod, haddock, catfish, basa, swai, snapper and grouper. There were three series of samples.
Imagine my surprise – yea, right! – when I read that “the three sampling projects found that the fish species was correctly labeled 85% of the time.” In total 174 lots of samples were tested and 26 were found to be incorrectly labelled, but 25 of those 26 were in the snapper and grouper categories (the remaining sample was Pangasius hypopthalamus mislabeled as Pangasius bocourti). However, 14 of the 18 mislabeled snapper samples were different species of snapper than what they were identified as, as were 4 of the 7 mislabeled grouper. That’s about like the difference between Angus, Hereford and Longhorn beef.
Only 7 out of 174 samples could be said to have been egregiously mislabeled (for those of you who had – a still remember – Biology 101, identified incorrectly at the Family level or above). That’s not much of a crisis in seafood labeling, and it surely doesn’t require any additional legislation or any additional administrative burdens inflicted on fish and seafood businesses.
What it does require is beefed up seafood inspection at the federal, state and local levels, something that the industry has been seeking for years.
From the breakout of the results of the samples tested by the FDA:
For fish for which 5 or more samples were collected and tested (85% labeled properly)
For fish for which fewer than 5 samples were collected and tested (90% labeled properly)
It sure seems like the foundation-funded ENGOs are beating another empty drum, protecting neither the fish nor the consumers from anything they need protecting from, but keeping that cash flow flowing. Unfortunately, for most of them it appears as if that’s what it’s all about. And for them the fact that fishermen and fishing dependent businesses are going to pay for it probably makes it that much better.
“Flotsam is floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo. Jetsam is part of a ship, its equipment, or its cargo that is purpose-fully cast overboard or jettisoned to lighten the load in time of distress and that sinks or is washed ashore” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flotsam). They are used together to indicate potentially valuable materials floating on the seas’ surface.
I use this title for periodic FishNets in which I address several issues that should be of value to anyone with an interest in oceans and fisheries in a somewhat abbreviated manner.
Please feel free to reproduce or redistribute this issue of FishNet USA or any others. The only requirement is that you cite the source fully as above. It will be available as a PDF file at http://www.FishNet-USA.com/Flotsam_Jetsam2014.pdf To be removed from this distribution list, please reply to this email with "remove" in the subject line.
First off, a mea culpa
In the last FishNet, which was distributed in early October, I referred to “the most recent cod assessment (or actually an almost-assessment).” It was pointed out to me, and rightfully so, that this could have left readers with the impression that this was somewhat less accurate and/or reliable than a “real” assessment of the cod stock. I was assured that this wasn’t the case and was provided with a wealth of information demonstrating that it wasn’t, so I’ll to take this opportunity to put things right. I also must point out, however, that there are groups and individuals associated with the New England groundfish fishery who take exception to the results of this assessment.
“Anecdotal Information” is what the professional fisheries people call it, usually dismissively.
“In addition to the economic benefits of an expanded fishery industry, the fisheries science and management culture benefited from the private, public, academic partnership, increasing the level of trust among stakeholders and respect for the expertise of partners. Through this approach, the project has demonstrated that taking input from all aspects of the community can leverage scientific capabilities with the applied ecological expertise of the commercial fishing industry.”(IOOS’s - Integrated Ocean Observing System’s - Modeling Advancing Fisheries Management and Improving Butterfish Population Assessments at http://www.ioos.noaa.gov/ioos_in_action/stories/maracoos_butterfish.html.
If things were as they should be in fisheries management, there would be no reason for IOOS to include the words underlined above in their announcement of one of the more successful cooperative research programs that has taken place in the mid-Atlantic. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, and much – though certainly not all – of the reason for that is the fact that fisheries managers and fisheries scientists generally discount most of what working fishermen have to say about the status of particular fisheries, about the ocean ecosystem or anything else that has to do with successfully harvesting fish or shellfish. I suspect that in large part this has to do with fishermen’s paychecks depending on them catching those fish which they are telling the managers and/or scientists about, which is a kind of scary way of looking at things. Consider the many financial transactions, ranging from buying a newspaper to buying a house, that you are regularly a part of. In the majority of these transactions you are dependent on the honesty of the other party or parties in the transactions and more often than not one or all of the parties are in a position to “profit” from acting dishonestly. Does this make them – or what they have to say about the transaction – immediately suspect? If that were the case an awful lot of transactions would never be transacted.
What brought this subject up was the article a review of the past, the present, and the future of fishers’ knowledge research: a challenge to established fisheries science by Edward J. Hind at the School of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland that was published in the issue of the ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) Journal of Marine Science in October, 2104.
According to the author, “documented to be approaching at least a century old, fishers’ knowledge research is an approach to fisheries science that to date has struggled to take a place at the top table of fisheries science. Its focus is the study of the experiential knowledge of marine and freshwater environments that fish harvesters accumulate while operating in their respective fisheries. Those who seek in different guises to achieve greater consideration for this experiential knowledge in mainstream fisheries science and management can be considered fishers’ knowledge researchers.” Yet, according to him, and according to many – and I was tempted to say most – of us who observe and/or participate in the fisheries management process from the fishermen’s perspective, after these 100 plus years “the profile of fishers’ knowledge research compared with established approaches towards conducting fisheries science can currently be described as marginal.”
Scientists are never going to know for certain how many fish are in a given area, how long those that are in that area are going to remain there, what factors will have an effect on where they are, how successful next year’s spawning will be, what the larval, juvenile and adult mortality rates will be over the life span of the species, or much of anything else above and beyond what the few specimens that they are immediately observing are doing.
It seems like a successful fisherman must have a broader perspective than a fisheries scientists. Fishing success depends on observing what’s going on today and knowing enough history to put today’s observations into their proper context. And successful fishermen generally have a community of fishermen that they share their observations with. It might be done with the precision that a fisheries scientist or manager thinks is necessary for legitimacy, but it’s done precisely enough for the fishermen to put fish in the hold and food, fuel in the boat and food on the table.
Below are a quotes from Hind’s paper that I think are particularly relevant:
“As with any knowledge system, the picture LEK (Local Ecological Knowledge) produces will be partial. However, we have found that LEK can be an invaluable addition to scientific and historical archival resources that are also partial. Harvesters are and were the central human actors in these social ecological systems and their observations and interpretations can contribute significantly to our efforts to understand the interactions in these systems.” ( Murray, G., Neis, B., Schneider,D. C., Ings,D., Gosse, K.,Whalen, J., and Palmer, C. T. 2008a. Opening the black box: methods, procedures, and challenges in the historical reconstruction of socio-ecological systems. In Making and Moving Knowledge: Interdisciplinarity and Community-Based Research in a World on the Edge, pp. 100–120. Ed. by J. S. Lutz, and B. Neis. McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal, Kingston, Canada.)
“Finding ways to make comparisons between fishers’ observations and data drawn from more traditional scientific sources could improve the potential for more informed and more accepted decisions on stock status and management.” (Neis, B., Schneider, D. C., Felt, L. F., Haedrich, R. L., Fischer, J., and Hutchings, J. A. 1999. Fisheries assessment: what can be learned from interviewing resource users? Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 56: 1949–1963.)
“It is suggested that analysis of approximate data, quickly acquired at low cost from fishers through interviews, can be used to supplement other data-recording systems or used independently to document the changes that have occurred in the resource base over a lifetime of fishing. The results can be used to guide the assessment and management of resources to conserve ecosystems and livelihoods.” (Tesfamichael, D., Pitcher, T. J., and Pauly, D. 2014. Assessing changes in fisheries using fishers’ knowledge to generate long time series of catch rates: a case study from the Red Sea. Ecology and Society, 19. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-06151-190118.
Hind closes by presenting three possible futures for fishers’ knowledge research. The first suggests that “fishers knowledge research could become obsolete.” The second suggests that “fishery-dependent data research may be the only approach mainstreamed in fisheries science” and the third is that “multiple approaches to fishers’ knowledge research may be mainstreamed in fisheries science.” Considering the wealth of multi-generational knowledge that is resident in our coastal fishing communities, let’s hope that the first possible future is unthinkable, that the second is recognized as automatically limiting the value of fishermens’ contributions to the management process and that, as suggested in the last approach, fishermen’s input is finally recognized as being a critical part of the management process. He follows this with “the warning of Robert Johannes’ et al. (Johannes, R. E., Freeman, M. M. R., and Hamilton, R. J. 2000. Ignore fishers’ knowledge and miss the boat. Fish and Fisheries, 1: 257–271.) to any fisheries scientist who continues to ignore all or some dimensions of fishers’ knowledge is still pertinent. The sizeable literature reviewed in this paper includes many examples of where referencing fishers’ knowledge did prevent or could have prevented further fish stock declines when mainstream fisheries science had failed to provide answers. It is likely that future fishers’ knowledge literature will provide further examples of how the consideration of fishers’ knowledge could complement existing biological, ecological, and economic approaches to fisheries science to deliver better management outcomes. With the fisheries paradi
We can only hope that the people in the fisheries management process those words to heart.When you’re used to those big bucks you’ve gotta keep ‘em coming in
It’s hard to imagine that anyone reading this has managed to avoid one of the anti-fishing claque’s most recent declarations of disaster/calls to arms (and for donations) campaigns, the one dealing with the misidentification of various species of fish. According to the usual plethora of reports and press releases and the usual uninformed and extensive media coverage that those reports and releases generated, unscrupulous members of the fish and seafood industry (in the various foundation-funded campaigns are there any other kind?) were mislabeling not-so-valuable ocean critters as much more valuable critters, pricing them accordingly and raking in even more tainted profits.
Needless to say this was reported as a significant and growing threat and needed to be stopped immediately. And the principal way of stopping it was by increasing the administrative burden placed on an already overburdened fish and seafood industry by requiring its members to identify where, when and how their fish and shellfish were caught. Traceability, it was called.
As a result of all of this alarmism the federal Food and Drug Administration completed a study involving the DNA testing of 696 samples at the domestic wholesale distribution chain prior to retail sale. Limited samples were also taken at the point of import. The species sampled were those with a history of being misidentified. Samples were taken in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine, Mississippi (if any FDA people read this, please note that Mississippi has four s’s), New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Washington. The fish that were sampled were cod, haddock, catfish, basa, swai, snapper and grouper. There were three series of samples.
Imagine my surprise – yea, right! – when I read that “the three sampling projects found that the fish species was correctly labeled 85% of the time.” In total 174 lots of samples were tested and 26 were found to be incorrectly labelled, but 25 of those 26 were in the snapper and grouper categories (the remaining sample was Pangasius hypopthalamus mislabeled as Pangasius bocourti). However, 14 of the 18 mislabeled snapper samples were different species of snapper than what they were identified as, as were 4 of the 7 mislabeled grouper. That’s about like the difference between Angus, Hereford and Longhorn beef.
Only 7 out of 174 samples could be said to have been egregiously mislabeled (for those of you who had – a still remember – Biology 101, identified incorrectly at the Family level or above). That’s not much of a crisis in seafood labeling, and it surely doesn’t require any additional legislation or any additional administrative burdens inflicted on fish and seafood businesses.
What it does require is beefed up seafood inspection at the federal, state and local levels, something that the industry has been seeking for years.
From the breakout of the results of the samples tested by the FDA:
For fish for which 5 or more samples were collected and tested (85% labeled properly)
- 100% (5 out of 5) of the catfish samples were labeled properly
- 100% (15 out of 15) of the cod samples were labeled properly
- 89% (57 out of 64) of the grouper samples were labeled properly
- 100% (11 out of 11) of the haddock samples were labeled properly
- 63% (31 out of 49) of the snapper samples were labeled properly
- 100% (20 out of 20) of the swai samples were labeled correctly
For fish for which fewer than 5 samples were collected and tested (90% labeled properly)
- 0% (0 out of 1) of the basa samples were labeled properly
- 100% (1 out of 1) of the mackerel samples were labeled properly
- 100% (1 out of 1) of the mahi mahi samples were labeled properly
- 100% (1 out of 1) of the monkfish samples were labeled properly
- 100% (3 out of 3) of the orange roughy samples were labeled properly
- 100% (1 out of 1) of the swordfish samples were labeled properly
- 100% (2 out of 2) of the tilapia samples were labeled properly
It sure seems like the foundation-funded ENGOs are beating another empty drum, protecting neither the fish nor the consumers from anything they need protecting from, but keeping that cash flow flowing. Unfortunately, for most of them it appears as if that’s what it’s all about. And for them the fact that fishermen and fishing dependent businesses are going to pay for it probably makes it that much better.
Open letter to Fisheries Minister - "What's good for the goose....."
This is an open letter to Scottish fishing minister Richard Lochhead and UK fishing minister George Eustice published by the Shetland News.
"Dear Mr Lochhead and Mr Eustice,
I would like to draw your attention to the lack of control and enforcement being carried out by Marine Scotland's SFPA vessels, regarding Faroese pelagic vessels carrying out mackerel fisheries south of Sumburgh, east of Fair Isle and east of Orkney. Over the past week, while fishing for mackerel on our own doorstep, Shetland's coast, I and all the rest of the Scottish pelagic fishermen have been keeping a rightfully suspicious eye on our close neighbours from the Faroe Islands.
Being a pelagic fisherman for 20 years now, it's hard enough, knowing the facts and figures involving the huge magnitude of deliberate overfishing of mackerel carried out by Faroe/Iceland, which went on, season after season, for the past five years. The Faroese pelagic fleet is now fishing around our shores, and it's very worrying to say the least, going by the experience we've endured and witnessed over the past five years, that there's not much trust being afforded to our Faroese neighbours. They have now begun their endeavour to catch every last tonne of Scottish mackerel. Faroe has been granted an unbelievably huge 46,850 tonne mackerel access quota to catch in our waters. If the rationale behind granting Faroe their large mackerel share is on the back of more fish in their zone, why do they need an access quota in our waters for a third of it? This is a travesty, which needs to be rectified.
I have watched and watched over this past week, Faroese boats coming in and going out of our waters time and time again, without being inspected by any of the three SFPA vessels. While the Faroese are filling their RSW (refrigerated seawater) tanks full of mackerel from our waters, the SFPA vessels are carrying out their usual routine of either running away from the wind, or on calm days hassling our own Scottish demersal and pelagic fishing boats, basically for an easy life, less paperwork and less agro. It's plain and simple for anyone to see, this is totally and utterly unacceptable, it's become a sham. You can watch the SFPA game on Marine Traffic's AIS any day of the week. If the forecast is above Force 5 the protection fleet immediately run for cover, then the Faroese shoot, take a haul or two and run for Faroe, unhindered in any way. So the 46,850 tonne access allocation can very easily become a whole lot more! Why Messrs Lochhead and Eustice is no one stopping them?
 |
| As of 12:55 11/11/2014 the Trodur i Gotu now steaming back out to the fishing grounds west of Shetland - AIS courtesy of VesselTracker |
As I write this I'm frustratingly watching, on Marine Traffic, the Jura lying in Kirkwall, while the Faroese super pelagic trawler (81.5m x 16.6m) Trodur i Gotu, which has a huge RSW capacity of 2700m3, fishing among other Faroese and Norwegian vessels south east of Fair Isle. While Jura was ashore the Trondur i Gotu steamed at 13 knots west of Fair Isle then set course homeward bound for Faroe, and that's just one of many huge RSW ships now under the Faroese flag!
As per the EU/Faroe bi-lateral agreement, a Faroese vessel must first notify the Fishery Control Centre in Edinburgh four hours before leaving UK waters and must exit through one of four control areas, where the vessel should be inspected to see their catch coincides with what has been declared to Edinburgh. That's all fine and well, but where are the three SFPA vessels? To our utter dismay nowhere near the four designated areas! So who knows how much more than 46,850 tonnes will leave UK waters?
When we fish Atlanto-Scandian herring inside Norwegian waters, we must declare and notify the Norwegian control authorities prior to leaving their waters with our catch, and at times we have to wait for many hours at a set designated area until our tanks are dipped before being allowed to go. Our own control agency isn't showing the slightest bit of interest in policing third country vessels fishing in our waters. The policy seems to be anything for an easy life, hassle the locals and leave the foreigners alone as it involves way too much paperwork if something unfolds. Pathetic! The SFPA has become a total laughing stock to the foreign fleet, the Dad's Army of the North Sea.
While we were fishing herring off Orkney in August this year, we were chosen to be boarded for a routine inspection while towing. After three attempts in Force 4 winds and a slight sea state, they abandoned the boarding, saying it was not possible with the weather. We all knew then, god help our mackerel stocks if SPFA can't undertake a boarding in the height of the summer, how on earth will they ever even think about boarding a Faroese vessel in the winter with wind, swell and darkness? Impossible! The Faroese know this, so it's obvious they'll make their break for home at the same time SFPA vessels are running from the wind.
The only secure and correct procedure is to have several designated ports around the north of Scotland, where all Faroese vessels must enter giving four hours notice. Then, either inside harbour limits or alongside the quayside if weather dictates, SFPA would definitely be in a position to carry out ullage of all RSW tanks before the vessel is allowed to leave to land their mackerel. Double standards are being practised by Marine Scotland between Scottish fishing vessels and foreign fishing vessels. Marine Scotland enforced a regulation on our pelagic fleet, regarding our RSW tanks, before we were allowed to begin fishing. We all had to pay to have a specialist laser measurement company carry out accurate calculations on our tank capacities, and new ullage charts made up and approved through Marine Scotland. Fair enough, but I have asked Marine Scotland twice now if the Faroese pelagic tank ships also needed the same high specification calculations carried out on their RSW tanks before being allowed to fish the 46,850t access quota around our shores? Nobody can answer this, because they know the answer is NO!
So who's to know accurately what is actually on board any of these giant tank ships before they leave to land our mackerel into their factories? Usually, what's good for the goose is good for the gander! But not in this case. Ministers, please use your influence to rectify this situation before there is irreversible damage done to our healthy sustainable mackerel stocks. Colin Leask Antarctic II (LK145) Vaarhjem Symbister Whalsay Shetland
The new Ajax is about to make her maiden voyage.
The new Ajax PZ36 is about to make her maiden voyage from Newlyn. She has left her berth in Penzance wet dock and made her way across the Bay to Newlyn to take ice, fuel and grub...
She will undertake gear and boat trials today out in Mount's Bay...
so that the crew get a chance to test the new working arrangements for hauling and shooting the nets...
before they get to the fishing grounds proper...
and check out that the new Spencer Carter N10 hauler which has just been fitted...
and the fish handling system designed to keep the Ajax's famous hake in tip-top condition...
the boat features all the latest safety equipment atop the shelterdeck...
and the wheelhouse is equipped with a much improved navigation and fish-finding electronics than the old Ajax...
even the net hauler when moved in-board is then fully covered by a hydraulically operated shelterdeck hatch.
Monday 10 November 2014
"Biggest fish haul landed in Plymouth in 20 years"
More fish was landed in Plymouth last month than during any other month since the fish market first opened almost 20 years ago.
Plymouth Fisheries, England’s second largest fresh fish market based at Sutton Harbour, reported record landings for October, with the unseasonably warm weather late into the year thought to be one reason behind the increase.
Gross sales of fish sold at auction at Plymouth’s thriving fisheries hub exceeded £2.14 million in October, compared to £1.22m during the same month last year. This is believed to be the highest amount sold during a month-long period since the fish market first opened in Sutton Lock in 1995. The high profits are also largely the result of especially diverse range of species being offered for sale last month, which experts believe is the result of warmer weather in the autumn months. Pete Bromley, harbour master of Sutton Harbour and Manager of Plymouth Fisheries, said: “October was probably the best month for landings at Plymouth since we opened the new fish market back in 1995.
“The transition between summer and winter has been proceeded at a slow pace this year, and species of fish more associated with summer fishing have remained on the ground, whilst traditional autumn runs of cuttlefish and monkfish have appeared in good numbers. "We have also seen a good showing of herring and pilchards often shoaling close inshore. “Good catches of red mullet, dories, bass and Dover sole along with the cuttlefish have provided a good living for the fishing fleet working on grounds local to Plymouth, and this is in contrast to previous years when skippers generally had to travel further to the east for the best fishing in the autumn and early winter months.”
The news follows positive figures released in September by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) in its annual UK Sea Fisheries Statistics 2013 report, which showed that the amount of cod, haddock and whiting landed into the three major South West fishing ports last year increased by 10%.
The increase in the amount of demersal fish such as cod being landed in Plymouth, Brixham and Newlyn rose to 13,300 tonnes in 2013, the highest level for 10 years, which Plymouth Fisheries manager Pete Bromley said showed that fish stocks were “healthy and being fished at sustainable levels”.
Last year, Plymouth had the second highest quantity of landings in England, with 11,600 tonnes of fish including shellfish landed, with a value of £13.5 million. Fish landed at many other South West ports is regularly transported to be sold through Plymouth Fisheries because the market is unique in the region by offering an electronic auction system, operated by Plymouth Trawler Agents, which ensures fishermen receive a fair price for their catch.
Plymouth Fisheries sells more than 6,000 tonnes of fish every year – of which 75 per cent arrives by road – and is viewed by many as the fisheries hub of the region, sustaining over 600 direct and indirect jobs.
Sutton Harbour Holdings plc is currently investing in improving and updating facilities at the fish market, and work is well underway on the construction of a vital new £1.2m ice production facility due to open in early 2015 to enable Plymouth Fisheries to strengthen its position as one of the best places in the region to land a catch.
Read the full story here from the Western Morning News:
Gross sales of fish sold at auction at Plymouth’s thriving fisheries hub exceeded £2.14 million in October, compared to £1.22m during the same month last year. This is believed to be the highest amount sold during a month-long period since the fish market first opened in Sutton Lock in 1995. The high profits are also largely the result of especially diverse range of species being offered for sale last month, which experts believe is the result of warmer weather in the autumn months. Pete Bromley, harbour master of Sutton Harbour and Manager of Plymouth Fisheries, said: “October was probably the best month for landings at Plymouth since we opened the new fish market back in 1995.
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| Trawling days - Taffy (L) and Pete Bromley take a short break from mending duties aboard the stern trawler Dumnonia circa 1989 |
“The transition between summer and winter has been proceeded at a slow pace this year, and species of fish more associated with summer fishing have remained on the ground, whilst traditional autumn runs of cuttlefish and monkfish have appeared in good numbers. "We have also seen a good showing of herring and pilchards often shoaling close inshore. “Good catches of red mullet, dories, bass and Dover sole along with the cuttlefish have provided a good living for the fishing fleet working on grounds local to Plymouth, and this is in contrast to previous years when skippers generally had to travel further to the east for the best fishing in the autumn and early winter months.”
The news follows positive figures released in September by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) in its annual UK Sea Fisheries Statistics 2013 report, which showed that the amount of cod, haddock and whiting landed into the three major South West fishing ports last year increased by 10%.
 |
| A number of Newlyn boats regularly land their fish and send it to Plymouth market to be auctioned. |
The increase in the amount of demersal fish such as cod being landed in Plymouth, Brixham and Newlyn rose to 13,300 tonnes in 2013, the highest level for 10 years, which Plymouth Fisheries manager Pete Bromley said showed that fish stocks were “healthy and being fished at sustainable levels”.
Last year, Plymouth had the second highest quantity of landings in England, with 11,600 tonnes of fish including shellfish landed, with a value of £13.5 million. Fish landed at many other South West ports is regularly transported to be sold through Plymouth Fisheries because the market is unique in the region by offering an electronic auction system, operated by Plymouth Trawler Agents, which ensures fishermen receive a fair price for their catch.
Plymouth Fisheries sells more than 6,000 tonnes of fish every year – of which 75 per cent arrives by road – and is viewed by many as the fisheries hub of the region, sustaining over 600 direct and indirect jobs.
Sutton Harbour Holdings plc is currently investing in improving and updating facilities at the fish market, and work is well underway on the construction of a vital new £1.2m ice production facility due to open in early 2015 to enable Plymouth Fisheries to strengthen its position as one of the best places in the region to land a catch.
Read the full story here from the Western Morning News:
Monday's market is missing some fish!
A bevvy of ex-Scottish boats, joined most recently by the new Ajax PZ36 wait in Penzance wet dock for the neap tides to begin...
outside the dock entrance the dredger Margarethe Fighter works on clearing the Scillonian's berth now that she has finished her 2014 season's runs to the Scillies...
waiting for the auction prices on the bass...
as there were no trip boat fish on the market this morning...
with just a good shot of bass and mackerel from a handful of inshore boats that braved the big ground sea still running around the coats after a few days of strong westerly winds...
enough to keep auctioneer Olly on his toes this morning...
tagged and ready to grace the plates in fine dining rooms around the country...
just some of the bass on offer...
along with those iridescent mackerel, you know they are fresh...
contrasted with the silver-grey hues of the bass
the harbour sees many of the boats ready for sea as their deck lights flood their decks and the water...
the latest artistic happening in Newlyn - maybe some sort of illuminated fountain?
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