cover story 6 results

A Hard Year For Ice: Plant Workers Included in Federal Compensation Plan

Newfoundland and Labrador is no stranger to ice floes, but even the most seasoned marine veteran will tell you that the 2017 season has been unprecedented. Almost daily northeasterly gales blasted the province’s east coast all spring, leading to unusually thick arctic ice being rafted unto the shore, blocking harbours and preventing many fishermen from reaching the snow crab grounds. As a result of the constant fishing delays and much lobbying by stakeholders in the province, the ...

Healthy Tuna Fishery off Newfoundland’s South Coast

When one thinks of bluefin tuna fishing hotspots in the north Atlantic, the south coast of Newfoundland is probably not the first place that comes to mind. But over the last few years a brief, but lucrative tuna fishery is taking place in the area of the St. Pierre Banks and Burin-based fisherman Winston Pitcher is one of the Newfoundland harvesters involved. Pitcher, who has been catching the large, sought after fish for about six years, explained the south coast fishery is a competitive ...

P.E.I. Allocation Increase: Fishermen Will Land More Giant Bluefin Tuna This Year

Neil Perry might have a chance to land another bluefin tuna this year. The Tignish, Prince Edward Island, fisherman, captain of the Little Moses and operator of Island’s End Tuna Charters, is one of more than 300 commercial tuna license holders in the province who received some good news in late June. Their quota was confirmed to be going up by 30 tonnes, bringing it to a total of about 156 tonnes for the 2015 season. Prior to the increase, the quota was sufficient to allow each licence ...

Lucrative Spring Fisheries Finally Underway

Weather Created Major Delays in Starting Lobster and Crab Seasons In the week leading up to Mother’s Day on Prince Edward Island, there seemed to be one overarching topic of conversation around the coffee shops. Was mom going to get her traditional feed of fresh lobster? In this part of the country, May 10 is the first big sales day of the year for fish markets. But with copious amounts of ice still clogging the North Shore, setting day kept being pushed back from its original May 1 ...

Unified Support for 2015 Shrimp Quota Status Quo

LIFO issue continues to bubble under the surface It appears the shrimp quota battle might be over before it really got started – for now at least. Last month, in the midst of a ramped up protest movement by the Fish, Food and Allied Workers (FFAW-Unifor), the offshore and inshore shrimp fleets unexpectedly approved a plan that would see no cuts to quotas in fishing areas off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2015 — notably in critical northeast coast Area 6. The unified ...

Valuable P.E.I. Oyster Industry Facing Battle for Future

Wild Oyster Harvesters Say Mussel Industry is Eyeing Their Market Share It was a beautiful Prince Edward Island day at Hurds Point on June 2, 2014, but there were fighting words drifting on the wind. The shore, opening up to historic Bedeque Bay, was dotted with small oyster dories as men and women unloaded countless boxes of valuable oysters. Out on the water, still more people leaned over the sides of their boats, using oyster tongs to labouriously gather heaping rakes full of red muck, ...