Ahab's Journal

FDA Accepting Comments on Genetically Engineered Salmon

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) has scheduled a public hearing regarding the labeling of food made from AquAdvantage Salmon. AquAdvantage Salmon is a genetically engineered Atlantic salmon produced by AquaBounty Technologies, Inc.

Written comments accepted until November 22, 2010.

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Feds shut down fishermen's access to dogfish

The federal government has announced a decision to stop all landings of dogfish — an action widely seen as another body blow to the inshore groundfishing fleet as it struggles with limited access to preferable table food fish.

The action was taken by Patricia Kurkul, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Gloucester-based regional administrator of fisheries. And it comes after the six-month NOAA Fisheries allocation was landed in three months.  

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Sector system working for, against fishermen

NEW BEDFORD — The newly imposed system of groundfish catch shares appears to be working just the way both its detractors and its supporters believed it would.

Now, about four months into the first year of "sector management" and catch share allocations, the results of the experiment are becoming apparent. Many boats are idle and some are being decommissioned. Some people are getting out of the business as the government hoped they would. Those that remain are settling in with the new system, like it or not. 

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Fishing frustration: Many issues arise from new regulations

NEW BEDFORD — Four months after the introduction of a new management system for the multi-species New England groundfishery, there is no conclusive evidence yet as to its efficacy. But one fact has become abundantly clear: Since May 1, when the new rules took effect, the majority of New Bedford draggers have yet to put a net in the water.

That represents bad news not just for the fishermen and their families but to the many support businesses along the waterfront whose health depends on a thriving fishing industry. 

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Local grouper fishermen: "Things getting worse" after oil spill

Madeira Beach, Florida - It's an 11-day commercial fishing trip that cost $7,000 in expenses and brought in 4,000 pounds of grouper.

But for the long-line grouper fishermen at Madeira Beach Seafood, it adds up to "an 11-day waste of time", to use the words of one fisherman.

Since the oil spill, business at Madeira Beach Seafood is down 60 percent. 

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Navy hears from public

The goals of this EIS effort is to secure a January 2014 re-authorization under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which will be in place through 2019.

Some of the potential impacts from Navy training and testing include noise from ships, subs, helicopter prop wash and sonar; ship strikes with animals that swim near the surface; debris including disposable parachutes and toxic compounds; explosives; and ship and sub operations limiting boating activities in the operation areas at the times of the operations.

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Fishermen look to put human face on regulations

Thirty-six-year-old Carlos Amarim hasn't worked a lot lately.

A New Bedford fisherman with a wife and three kids to feed, he's finding it hard to get on a dragger when well over half the city's fishing boats are tied up at the dock more than half the time.

That's what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's latest ham-handed fishing regulations have done to families like Amarim's.

So on Thursday, Carlos, his wife Elizabeth and their three children rode out to Martha's Vineyard for the day on the Bulldog, a Carlos Rafael-owned groundfish dragger.

They were there to essentially beg the vacationing president of the United States to pay attention to their desperate plight.

They and the Bulldog were part of a 25-boat flotilla of fishermen — both commercial and recreational — protesting unfeeling federal fishing policies that seem right out of Charles Dickens' Bleak House.

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Meet the real faces of the Gulf Coast

What does that mean? To "threaten the life of the Gulf Coast"? We can talk of the seafood economy, of cultural heritage, of the fear of poisoned shrimp being more of a threat than the oil itself. But all this talk would be in the abstract, and so I'm grateful to my friends at the Southern Foodways Alliance for the latest issue of their newsletter, Gravy. In it, writer Ashley Hall is called to the Gulf, to meet and talk with the families of fishermen, of fishmongers, of people who struggle with their decision to abandon their trade to work in BP's cleanup fleet.

Reading it, I had to admit that I smiled when she met Frank Parker and Richard Gollott, two proud Biloxians I had also had the pleasure of getting to know when I lived there. And I nearly cried when I read of Teresa Fagan's humiliation at having to sell "someone else's seafood" to try to keep her family's decades-old fish market in business.

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Core Sound/Parts of Pamlico Sound to Open Under Restrictions to Protect Sea Turtles

MOREHEAD CITY – The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries will reopen Core Sound to large-mesh gill net fishing Sept. 1 under restrictions to protect sea turtles.

 The Pamlico Sound Gill Net Restricted Area will operate Sept. 1 through Sept. 17 under the same protective measures.  Other waters of Pamlico Sound will close to large-mesh gill net fishing Sept. 1 under a federal closure, as has been the case since 2001.

Community-Supported Fisheries - Why They Matter

If the only discussion that can exist about fishermen and fish involves a management relationship, then there is almost no opportunity to talk about fishermen as a source of local food, as contributors to healthy diets, finding solutions to hunger, and as part of a community economy. Instead, the only discussion to be had is around how exploiters must be managed and fish must be counted more accurately.

The brilliance of the community-supported fisheries concept is that it takes all that has been deemed external to the fish/fishermen relationship and brings these factors into discussions about the ocean. In other words, CSFs enable entirely new dialogues about fish and fishermen that have not existed for decades. Health, community, conservation, the benefits of local foods, etc. become a part of discussions about the importance of healthy ocean resources. 

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NOAA Claims Scientist Reviewed Controversial Report; The Scientists Say Otherwise

In responding to the growing furor over the public release of a scientifically dubious and overly rosy federal report about the fate of the oil that BP spilled in the Gulf of Mexico, NOAA director Jane Lubchenco has repeatedly fallen back on one particular line of defense -- that independent scientists had given it their stamp of approval.

Back at the report's unveiling on August 4, Lubchenco spoke of a "peer review of the calculations that went into this by both other federal and non-federal scientists." On Thursday afternoon, she told reporters on a conference call: "The report and the calculations that went into it were reviewed by independent scientists." The scientists, she said, were listed at the end of the report.

But all the scientists on that list contacted by the Huffington Post for comment this week said the exact same thing: That although they provided some input to NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), they in no way reviewed the report, and could not vouch for it.

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Worried About Gulf Seafood? Imports May Be Bigger Risk

Consumers are caught in the middle as food safety experts ponder the potential risks from shrimp, crab and fish from the Gulf of Mexico while mostly ignoring the frightening evidence of years of foreign seafood arriving at U.S. ports tainted with drugs, chemicals and bacteria.

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Good news for turtles?

The amount of plastic floating in the Atlantic does not seem to be increasing

THE Pacific gyre is a well-known graveyard for plastic. That ocean’s currents conspire to sweep flotsam into an area south of Hawaii variously described as being from the size of Texas to the size of the United States. Its Atlantic equivalent is less well known, but the currents conspire here, too, to create a zone south of Bermuda into which the detritus discarded by North Americans tends to spiral. In both cases this is bad news for sea creatures, and pictures of choked dolphins and strangled turtles are regularly used to wring the withers of uncaring consumers in the hope that they might use less packaging.

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EIS Underway on Navy's Activities in U.S. Waters

John Van Name, the project manager for the Navy's Atlantic Fleet Training and Testing program, said the Navy is doing a comprehensive study of the potential environmental impacts from its training and testing activities on over 2.6 million square miles of the ocean, bay and Gulf of Mexico.

The study, called an environmental impact statement, will include analysis of technologies and weapon systems that might not yet be in widespread use, like unmanned underwater vehicles. UUVs, as they're known, are becoming increasingly prevalent in the search for underwater mines and will be included in the study.

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Scoping Comments on Use of Sonar and Explosives in U.S. Waters Due by Sept. 14, 2010

The U.S. Navy proposes to conduct military training and testing activities including the use of active sonar and explosives in the waters off the east coast of the U.S., the lower Chesapeake Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico. 

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Council Seeks Fishery Achievement Award Nominations

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) is seeking nominations for the annual Fishery Achievement Award.  This award recognizes individuals, entities, and fishermen in the Mid-Atlantic region who exhibit professionalism, diligence, and effort to protect living marine resources through partnership, public education, and enforcement actions.  Anyone can submit a nomination and any person or organization can be nominated.  Previous awardees include Captain Jim Ruhle of North Carolina, Nelson Beideman of New Jersey, and personnel of the USCG Station Manasquan Inlet.

Sitka's Community Supported Fisheries shortens the distance between local fishermen and local plates

While some Southeast Alaskans are able to purchase locally caught fish from direct marketers, the majority of the seafood harvest is exported. One Southeast Alaskan community group is working to make local seafood more available to locals.

This summer, more fish caught in Sitka will stay in Sitka thanks to Alaska's first Community Supported Fisheries (CSF) program launched by the Alaskan Own brand. The boats that supply fish to the CSF are part of the Fishery Conservation Network started by the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association with start-up funding from the North Pacific Fisheries Trust and EcoTrust. 

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Boaters aim to sink prez’s fishing policy

A flotilla of fishing boats is expected to form off Vineyard Haven tomorrow in protest of President Obama’s administration policies on Atlantic fisheries.

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Fishing debris recycling program welcome

BARNEGAT LIGHT — Commercial fisherman plan to go green through Fishing for Energy, a national program aimed at recycling fishing nets and crab pots into alternative energy. 

The program, which will kick off here next week, allows commercial fishermen to recycle their gear, rather than dump it in a landfill or the ocean.

Recycling officials and program administrators will set up a Fishing for Energy bin Aug. 30 at the public works yard at 9 W. 10th St. so old nets and traps can be collected. The discarded gear will later be shipped to Covanta Energy-from-Waste facilities in New Jersey and Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. in New England.

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Shrimp boats are blamed anew in turtle deaths

GALVESTON — Shrimp trawlers are killing several endangered species in unacceptable numbers, triggering a federal review process that could lead to more restrictions on the struggling shrimping industry, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Houston Chronicle obtained an internal memo sent to Roy Crabtree, regional administrator of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, that says a re-evaluation of the effects of shrimping shows harm to the smalltooth sawfish, Gulf sturgeon and sea turtles.

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Salmon Baby Food: How to get kids to eat fish

If there's one hard rule of childhood, it's that kids don't like fish. Yes, they'll scarf down tuna salad and fish sticks, but even Mrs. Paul would tell you that doesn't count. However, Susan Brewer, a professor of food science at the University of Illinois, is convinced that babies' growing bodies — particularly their growing brains — need fish, and she's developed just the baby food that she thinks could pass their taste (and tolerance) test.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2013098,00.html#ixzz0xhwWUW3E

Not just another pot pie

Local seasonal seafood, a community in search of a way to add value to traditional fishing, and few good ideas from an educational and socially oriented non-profit are the basic ingredients of Cobscook Bay Company's Maine Fresh seafood pies.

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America's Fastest Growing Seafood Soup Company

From humble beginnings on the Downeast coast of Maine, Look's Gourmet Food Company has grown its authentic, all-natural brand, Bar Harbor– into one of America's fastest growing shelf-stabile seafood brands!

Mike Cote purchased the historic Downeast Maine cannery, started in 1917 by the Look family, prior to its doors being closed in 2003. Realizing immediately the marketability of Maine, a memorable trademark and a portfolio of authentic Maine seafood-based products, Cote has, in less than 8 years, turned the company into a highly successful national specialty food brand.

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Taskforce to Review Commercial Fishing License Requirements

MOREHEAD CITY – The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission Commercial License Review Taskforce will meet at 10:30 a.m. Friday at the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries Central District Office, 5285 Highway 70 West in Morehead City.

FDA Finds Seafood Importers have HACCP Problems

Seafood importers from Venezuela and Malaysia operating process facilities without proper Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans recently received warning letters from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

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Comments on the "Sonar-like project brings new precision to fish counts" article

Comments On the “Sonar-like project brings new precision to fish counts” article from the Gloucester Daily Times, August 17, 2010, and posted on Ahab’s Journal and Saving Seafood.com

 "The experimental approach — known as Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing, or OAWRS —expands by a factor of 'roughly one million', according to a peer-reviewed article in Science Magazine, the effectiveness of traditional trawl surveys, now the starting point for regulatory controls."  (see above mentioned article by Richard Gaines in Gloucester Daily Times))

 NOAA funding must be made available for the testing of this survey instrument. This is the kind of project that the "Fisheries Service" is mandated to spend money on, ---not junkets to Mozambique. 

 The research and testing of this survey technology would actually be of "Service" to the fisheries and the fish consuming public.  Surely NOAA can take one million of its eight billion dollar budget and spend it on testing something that might benefit everyone, ---including the fish.

 If NOAA was truly interested in fulfilling its purpose of promoting sustainable fisheries, and serious about restoring some belief in the veracity of its stock surveys and analyses, wouldn't you think funding would be automatic for such a promising and  potentially important scientific innovation, ---and timely, since currently there is no trust in the integrity of the agency?

 This is an opportunity for NOAA to try something different, to honor their incessantly proclaimed commitment to science-based regulation, and to abandon quoting the cartoon science of Pauly, Worm, Costello, et al.  It's time for NOAA to quit the net-towed-sideways, stab-in-the-dark, stop-and-drop, trawl surveys, and let go the admittedly hyperbolic, agenda-driven, bogus junk they've been fostering and calling scientific data for too many years. 

It is time for NOAA to pay attention to the sound science that is available from many of their own scientists and from the cooperative studies involving reputable fishing Captain Jim Rhule and The F/V Darana R. working with scientists from the NEAMAP Virginia Institute of Marine Technology program.  NOAA seems to discount all but the results that can be “spun” into support for the avowed NOAA agenda formula of “overfishing” therefore “fleet reduction”.

Peppery Taste and Flushing of Skin

Histamine fish poisoning is responsible for over a third of all seafood-related illnesses in the United States.

Histamine is present in various amounts in many foods. Fresh fish at harvest, however, are virtually free of histamine, but post-harvest conditions that allow the growth of spoilage bacteria can result in histamine formation.

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Sonar-like project brings new precision to fish counts

NAHANT — Scientific research for the U.S. Navy inadvertently discovered that low frequency acoustic waves can be sent over considerable distances — much of the Gulf of Maine or Georges Bank, for example — in a matter of seconds and produce a real-time picture showing the status of stocks in America's oldest fishery.

But officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have not included any money to further test or utilize it despite widespread questions around the credibility of their own science — and despite the consternation of two Massachusetts federal lawmakers.

The experimental approach — known as Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing, or OAWRS — expands by a factor of "roughly one million," according to a peer-reviewed article in Science Magazine, the effectiveness of traditional trawl surveys, now the starting point for regulatory controls.

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Britain prepares for mackerel war with Iceland and Faroe Islands

Scottish fishermen and politicians call for EU action after two countries raise combined quota from 27,000 to 215,000 tonnes

In a dispute echoing the cod wars of the 1970s, Britain and the EU are on the brink of a mackerel war with Iceland and the Faroe Islands, who have ripped up agreed quotas, unilaterally awarding themselves the lion's share of north Atlantic stock.

UK fishermen are furious; the EU is condemnatory. Those in the industry, meanwhile, claim that the dispute puts at risk not only the future of Britain's pelagic fishing industry, but the future of mackerel itself as a healthy, sustainable fish.

Last week 50 fishermen blockaded Peterhead port in Aberdeenshire, physically preventing the Faroese vessel Jupiter from offloading 1,100 tonnes of the fish to a processing plant.

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Congressman talks seafood

When Gov. Beverly Perdue learned Elizabeth City restaurateur Andy Montero didn’t know he could buy North Carolina shrimp already processed, she promised to enlist the state’s Department of Agriculture to inform restaurants across the state about the local shrimp option.

During a meeting Montero hosted Thursday at his restaurant with Perdue, Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., and seafood industry and restaurant representatives from northeastern North Carolina, the chef and businessman confessed somewhat sheepishly that while he regularly buys North Carolina fish and scallops — along with a lot of local produce — he buys his shrimp from elsewhere because he needs it already sized, peeled and de-veined.

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U.S. Government Will Take a New Look at Impacts of Shrimp Trawling on Imperiled Sea Turtles

Scientists Say Alarming Rise in Sea Turtle Deaths in Gulf Likely Linked to
Failure to Properly Use Turtle Excluder Devices

PENSACOLA, Fla.— The National Marine Fisheries Service announced on Tuesday that it will examine whether shrimp trawling in the southeast United States, including the Gulf of Mexico, is jeopardizing threatened and endangered sea turtle populations. The government made this decision after finding unprecedented numbers of drowned sea turtles in the Gulf, particularly in Mississippi Sound.

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Fishing vessels get eviction notices

NARRAGANSETT - Rent is due for 28 commercial fishing vessels in Galilee that were served eviction notices by the state Department of Environmental Management on July 20.

The eviction notices are one more sign of the economic pressures facing the port's fishermen.

"There is a financial problem here that needs to be addressed with the fishing industry," said Richard Fuka, president of the R.I. Commercial Fishermen's Alliance. "It's quite disturbing that they are all commercial boats."

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News from Recent MFC Meeting in Wilmington

MOREHEAD CITY – The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission is well on its way toward adopting a new way to determine when to open waters to bay scallop harvesting.

Woods Hole says oil trapped deep, degrading very slowly

Study’s findings contrast with government’s

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution researchers have mapped a snaking, 22-mile-long underwater oil plume from the BP PLC well in the Gulf of Mexico, work they say provides strong evidence that oil from the disaster could remain trapped deep in the ocean for a prolonged period.

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Fishermen Demand Changes From NOAA

 Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, received an all-business, New York reception when she met with members of Long Island’s commercial and recreational fishing industries last Thursday in Hampton Bays.  

    The complaints and calls for emergency action, though voiced articulately and with due respect, were delivered to the administrator high and hard, none harder than those pitched by Senator Charles Schumer. The seriousness of the occasion was marked by the appearance of Warren Carter, who blamed the policies of the enforcement wing of the National Marine Fisheries Service, a NOAA agency, for causing his partner’s suicide.

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Thoughts on the Buyout

Our national debt is now over $13 trillion dollars. Senators Kerry, Snowe, and 6 other Senators, want the taxpayers to buyout fishermen again. I appreciate their attempt, but feel more lost jobs will be detrimental to
our struggling coastal communities.

Our federal fisheries management (NOAA/NMFS) is so bad, many in the fishing industry claim it has to be intentional. The money would be better spent fixing the problems-the fisheries management and the corrupt
Councils. We need to invest in co-operative research and stop using their agenda-driven science. The agenda seems to be getting rid of fishermen. We are stakeholders in the way.

The Ocean Zoning Plan by the Obama administration wants to take control of our nations waters. President Obama used an executive order to help achieve this vision of water real estate.  Marine Spatial Planning for the oceans betterment is commendable; it is the "who" behind the conquest that concerns me.  Besides that, more bureaucracy means more "red tape" delays. Oceans are constantly changing.

N.C. Shrimpers Can Apply for Assistance

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced that U.S. shrimp producers in the Gulf and South Atlantic States are eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) for Farmers and Fishermen Program benefits.

To be eligible to receive TAA training and financial benefits, North Carolina shrimp producers must apply at their local USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) office by Sept. 23, 2010.

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Reports Sharply Contradict Claims About Vanished Oil

Two new reports from different groups of academic scientists are providing a counterweight to the government's rosy assertions that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis is drawing to a close. One says that as much as 79 percent of the oil is still loose in the gulf; the other expresses the fear that oil on the ocean floor may not stay there but could resurface at a later time.

Researchers at the University of Georgia announced Monday that between 70 and 79 percent of the oil and its toxic byproducts are still present under the surface of the gulf. That finding stands in stark contrast to the calculations released by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists during the first week of August, which say that only 26 percent of the spilled crude remains after the rest of it was collected or dispersed or naturally evaporated or dissolved.

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Lack of fishermen on panel draws complaints

GULFPORT, Miss. -- The first meeting of a state oil spill recovery commission drew complaints about the absence of commercial fishermen on the panel.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/18/1781350/lack-of-fishermen-on-panel-draws.html#ixzz0wzv3k2hX
 

Public Comment Sought on Slate of Proposed New Fishing Rules

MOREHEAD CITY – The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission will hold a public hearing Sept. 30 to receive comments on several proposed new rules.

Link to the Oceana Latitude Video Tour

Watch Video Here

Nils Stolpe: The Oil Slick – Pew/Oceana scientists “roughing it” in the Gulf

When I received a fund raising email from Andrew Sharpless, the Chief Executive Officer of Pew/Oceana, to help support Oceana’s scientific efforts in the Gulf of Mexico with a $500 donation, I was a bit intrigued in a positive sort of way. Anything that distracts him and his minions from persecuting fishermen is well on the way to being a winner in my estimation.
As I was getting my checkbook out, I followed the link (here) to the YouTube video of a tour of the Oceana “research vessel” identified as the Oceana Latitude that was to be employed in this two month long scientific “expedition” (Pew/Oceana’s term for the undertaking). Some of the content of the video tour, conducted by researcher Margot Stiles, really piqued my interest. First, there was more well-kept teak decking on the Oceana Latitude than I had ever associated with a research vessel.

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Fishing legacy fades from some New England ports

Today, Plymouth's fishermen are all but gone. Last year, according to federal statistics, Plymouth had zero landings of groundfish - such as cod, haddock and flounder.

Tough new rules enacted in May have fishermen at New England's major ports, Gloucester and New Bedford, worried their history will fade away as fishermen faced with low catch limits sell out to larger interests. It's already happened in smaller ports, slowly changing the character of the New England coast.

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Fishing activists dig in vs. buyout

Amid pleas for the $100 million relief package, backed by U.S. Sen. John Kerry, are a growing number of hardline arguments by prestigious fishing industry backers — including Gloucester-based attorney Stephen Ouellette and academic scientist Brian Rothschild — that throwing money at the problem would merely allow politicians to escape their own complicity in the growing crisis and undercut efforts to forge policies aimed at the root of the industry's clash with the federal regulatory system.

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Day at the Docks - September 18, 2010

White Shark Sightings On The Rise On East Coast

Marine biologist Greg Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries says the increase in white shark sightings on the East Coast may be due to booming gray seal populations, which lure the sharks closer to shore, as well as bigger crowds on beaches -- meaning more potential shark-spotters.  

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Catch down, revenues up for Northeast fishermen

BOSTON — The catch for fishermen in the Northeast during the first three months following drastic rule changes fell 10 percent compared to last year but revenues rose 17 percent, according to federal statistics released this week. 

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MFC Receives Updates on Oil Spill Impact and on Gill Net and Turtle Interactions

While the long-term environmental impacts remain to be determined, officials with the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries on Friday said the Deepwater Horizon spill hasn’t sent oil or desperate Gulf Coast fishermen streaming into the state’s waters.

Officials at Friday’s N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission meeting in Wilmington also received an update on the hot-button issue of gill nets and sea turtles.   

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New England aims to protect fishing towns with permit banks

Catch share programs can cause consolidation, trimming the number of vessels and stakeholders in a fishery. After all, that's a primary goal: to rein in too many boats going after too few fish.

Too often, rights to the fish get bought, sold or leased away from small, fishing dependent fishing towns.

New England fishing communities are making sure that doesn't happen to them as they transition to a catch share program for groundfish next year. Bankrolled by $5 million from the federal government, "permit banks" are being set up to buy fishing permits for 19 groundfish species, and lease the catches to boats ported in Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The permit banks will be operated by each state or by private nonprofits. A permit may be worth between $150,000 and $400,000 depending on the number of pounds attached and the species.

"Without a permit bank, there would be a handful of large boats fishing right off our communities that had no access to the resource right off their shores," said Philip Conkling, president of the Island Institute in Rockland, Maine.

The institute and Nature Conservancy piloted the program two years ago. They lease poundage to fishermen who also test new net configurations.

There are two important qualifications to access the permits: a boat must be 45 feet or shorter, and homeport in a town with fewer than 30,000 residents. That's a lesson learned from Alaska, said the institute's Rob Snyder.

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NCWU Asks Locke to Reconsider SAFMC Appointment

August 9, 2010

Dear Secretary Locke,

 

The North Carolina Watermen United would like to respectfully request that you reconsider the appointment selection for the North Carolina seat on the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

 

We would like Mrs. Rita Merritt to be reappointed to the seat. She has served two terms on the South Atlantic Council, and her participation has been exemplary. She has been endorsed by Governor Bev Perdue as the preferred nominee. Our North Carolina US Congressional Delegation, including Senators Richard Burr and Kay Hagan and Congressmen Walter Jones and Mike McIntyre, has also supported her reappointment to the Council.