N.L. Ropeless Fishing Gear Needs Work to be Viable: CCFI
The Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation (CCFI), an organization that supports research and development within the seafood industry, recently tested the viability of ropeless fishing gear in Newfoundland and Labrador’s crab and lobster fishery.
While ropeless gear, also known as rope-on-command (ROC) gear, would allow harvesters to fish in areas closed due to the sighting of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, the CCFI has identified a number of issues with the ...
Whale Entangled in LFA 33 Gear Found in N.L. Waters
A humpback whale, found entangled in rope in Newfoundland waters from lobster fishing area (LFA) 33 fishing gear, was successfully freed from its extra baggage by Newfoundland and Labrador’s Whale Release and Strandings group in July.
“Fishermen saw it over several days and kept telling us about it,” said Julie Huntington co-director of the group. “We went out for one day and couldn’t find it but we did the next.”
Huntington said the whale was entangled in rope from lobster ...
The Fisheries Problem from Hell: Right Whales and Gear Entanglement
The North Atlantic right whale population is hovering at the brink of failure, with around 400 surviving individuals.
In some years, there has been some population increase and in other years not. But the fact is that unintentional killing of right whales through both ship strikes and gear entanglements is preventing the population from increasing to a safer level and exacerbating the risk the entire species will go extinct.
Although the population increased between 1990 and 2010, since ...
