Cod — Building the Fishery of the Future
The Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation will be holding a conference on the theme Cod —Building the Fishery of the Future at the Quality Hotel and Suites in Gander on November 22 and 23, 2017.
We are holding the conference to provide people who expect to be part of the future cod industry with information they will need to prepare for it.
In this column, I don’t usually talk much about the work we do at CCFI. My purpose is more to challenge the industry to think about what we do ...
The Shark Whisperers – Part II
It’s another day at work. You attach your six to seven-metre office to the back of a truck, haul it out to a wharf and launch it into the water. You’re open for business and looking for clients.
Meet Chris Holloway, Trevor Maddigan, Ana Storch and Brad Vaters, research technicians for Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) with the Marine Fish Species At Risk team.
They’re looking for a face-to-face with one of the oldest groups of fish in the world; the sharks that swim the waters ...
Initial Offering of the Aquaculture Management Program a Huge Success
By Keith Rideout and Craig Parsons
During the winter of 2017 and in partnership with the Newfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association (NAIA), the Fisheries and Marine Institute (MI) of Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Community Based Education Delivery (CBED) unit delivered the inaugural offering of the Technical Certificate — Aquaculture Management (CAM) program.
The CAM program grew out of the success of the Technical Certificate in Aquaculture (TCA) that was offered to ...
Sharks are Making Waves – Part I
To say that sharks go a long way back in history is a colossal understatement.
Sharks have lived on this planet 200 million years before dinosaurs. For the last 450 million years, the shark has been making waves.
“They are among the most ancient branch of fish. They survived most of the mass extinctions in the past. They’re very plastic in the sense they can occupy many different habitats,” says Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) Aquatic Sciences biologist Dr. Luiz Mello with the ...
Maximizing Value From Limited Resources
Total commercial fish landings in Atlantic Canada were under 700,000 metric tonnes every year from 2012 to 2016.
They were the lowest levels recorded since 1994 through 1996, just after the various moratoriums on fishing groundfish species were declared, starting with the Northern cod stock in 1992. Lobster landings have been at record levels in recent years, but landings of practically every other species have been in steady decline.
Because of recent announcements, landings are likely ...
Shore-Grown Seaweed a Major N.S.-Based Industry
After eating a sumptuous lunch in Barrington Passage, in a place where lobster is pronounced “lobsteh,” my daughter and I decided to take the old shore route back to Yarmouth.
At Shag Harbour, I pointed out the spot where one of the world’s best documented UFO crash landings occurred a few decades ago. It was witnessed by a whole slew of people. Fishermen actually went to the spot with their fishing boats thinking the object might have been an aircraft. They were met with slimy waters ...
While Trump Cuts Funding to Science, Ottawa Adds Positions in Atlantic Canada
I have to note the difference between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when it comes to science.
President Trump will cut major programs such as the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA — the agency which is predicting an eight-foot plus rise in ocean levels by 2017), while at the same time our federal government has announced $325-million to be shared among the four Atlantic Provinces for fisheries growth.
Included in the package, an informant ...
Emergency Ready
“Does anyone know where the love of God goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours?”
This poignant line from the Gordon Lightfoot song Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, sums up the reason that Canadian Coast Guard and Search and Rescue personnel go to work every day.
On the east coast of Canada, from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, to the rugged coast of Labrador, to the tidal waters of the Bay of Fundy and throughout the Gulf of St. Lawrence, these men and women have provided ...
Living on the Edge
According to the Collins English Dictionary, “living on the edge” means “taking a risk above and beyond what most people would do, pushing your horizons, be it physical, mental or otherwise.”
It goes on to say that “This is a common trait among daredevils and over-the-top sports enthusiasts.”
The dictionary might also have said it is a common trait among those daredevils who work in the fishery in Atlantic Canada.
Other than fish, risk is probably the dominant characteris...
You Say Crustacean, I Say Lobster
Oh, that lobster.
Besides tasting great with a bit of butter, they’re very interesting. To some people, they look like a huge insect. In fact, they’ve been called the cockroach of the sea. And — get this — they taste with their legs and chew with their stomachs.
They can walk backwards or forwards. Really, they should work with Cirque du Soleil.
They seem to keep growing and growing and growing, too.
The largest lobster ever caught was in Nova Scotia in 1977 and weighed ...
