Last month I wrote about the need for fishing sectors to come together to fend off some of the larger threats facing all fisheries: resource decline, loss of access, and all of the other anthropogenic and physical phenomena that are making fish harder to catch. These affect everyone in the fishing industry, whether recreational, commercial, […]
Photo: Red Snapper in Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary, by Greg McFall/NOAA. Out here on the West Coast, we’ve been watching the Gulf Coast red snapper management battle with a keen interest. It’s been an ugly one. Fishing sectors pitted against one another. Fundamental disagreements on whether management is necessary, let alone effective. And an […]
On 4 May, U.S. Federal District Court Judge Michael Simon ruled for fishing and conservation groups on every major issue in a long-standing landmark lawsuit, National Wildlife Federation, et al. vs. National Marine Fisheries Service, et al., challenging the most recent version of the federal Columbia-Snake River Salmon Recovery Plan and Biological Opinion (the “Columbia […]
Photo: Pacific Sand Lance The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) this month finalized a new rule put together by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) that protects forage fish between California and Washington. On the West Coast, we’re celebrating. Forage fish are the little marine critters that transfer energy up the food chain – from […]
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration after just about twenty years of wrestling with the issue, has announced the approval of the first genetically engineered (GE) animal product fit for human consumption. It’s an iteration of farmed Atlantic salmon-esque fish capable of growing in two years as long as its non-GE counterparts will grow in […]
A short while back, I had occasion to join my friend Pietro Parravano on a mission to have his lifeboat repacked. Pietro is a commercial salmon troller out of Half Moon Bay, California, with over thirty years’ experience on the water. He picked me up in his dented, cobwebbed pickup truck from my office in […]
There is a small but perhaps growing contingent of folks who believe that the fate of the West Coast’s salmon fisheries lies entirely in hatcheries. It’s a logical line to follow: Salmon naturally spawn in freshwater streams located deep in watersheds. But those streams are running dry because of drought, diversions and dams. Hatcheries, on […]
Most folks reading this blog already know about the death of the inimitable William F. “Zeke” Grader, Jr., a legendary veteran of the fight to protect fishing communities and the fishing way of life. Zeke ended a long, vicious battle with pancreatic cancer earlier this month, throughout which he never lost his quintessential combination of […]
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