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Log inCool reception awaits scallopers in Nova Scotia
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Cool reception awaits scallopers in Nova Scotia
by Outspoken on Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:23 am
Cool reception awaits scallopers in Nova Scotia
Canadian lobster fishermen say inshore draggers tear up lobsters and the sea bottom.
The Associated Press
BARRINGTON, Nova Scotia — Some lobster fishermen are angry that as many as 45 inshore draggers are expected to arrive in waters off southwestern Nova Scotia on Monday morning to beginning dragging the bottom for scallops.
Scallop rakes smash, puncture and cut up lobsters, they say.
"We've had a lot of crushed lobsters -- claws gone, tails squished. They're not only destroying lobsters, they're destroying the bottom," Kevin Ross, a Cape Sable Island lobster fisherman, said Friday about the scallop boats.
"We don't want them here."
But Dick Stewart of the Full Bay Scallop Association said "it's not their area."
"Just because they don't want us there, that's not reason enough not to fish there," he said.
Scallopers have been dragging the inshore for many years now.
A federal Fisheries Department document from 2002 noted a significant bycatch of molting lobsters during scallop fishing in the area. But Fisheries Department scientists have also suggested the mutilated lobsters are casualties of storms.
Lobstermen who have seen up to 60 years' worth of storms at sea don't believe it, saying storms don't punch holes in shells.
Earlier this year, some local lobster fishermen sent photos of damaged lobsters to Bob Glenn, the chief lobster biologist for the state of Massachusetts.
"The wounds are from mechanical damage," he e-mailed back after examining the close-up photos.
He said the pictured wounds seem to be consistent with those caused by mobile fishing gear like otter trawls and scallop dredges.
"I also do not think that the damage on the lobsters were the result of storms," he wrote. "Storm-damaged lobsters usually have a lot of missing legs as a result of rolling around the bottom in the surge ... but you usually do not see large cracks and missing pieces of shells."
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=195198&ac=PHnws
Canadian lobster fishermen say inshore draggers tear up lobsters and the sea bottom.
The Associated Press
BARRINGTON, Nova Scotia — Some lobster fishermen are angry that as many as 45 inshore draggers are expected to arrive in waters off southwestern Nova Scotia on Monday morning to beginning dragging the bottom for scallops.
Scallop rakes smash, puncture and cut up lobsters, they say.
"We've had a lot of crushed lobsters -- claws gone, tails squished. They're not only destroying lobsters, they're destroying the bottom," Kevin Ross, a Cape Sable Island lobster fisherman, said Friday about the scallop boats.
"We don't want them here."
But Dick Stewart of the Full Bay Scallop Association said "it's not their area."
"Just because they don't want us there, that's not reason enough not to fish there," he said.
Scallopers have been dragging the inshore for many years now.
A federal Fisheries Department document from 2002 noted a significant bycatch of molting lobsters during scallop fishing in the area. But Fisheries Department scientists have also suggested the mutilated lobsters are casualties of storms.
Lobstermen who have seen up to 60 years' worth of storms at sea don't believe it, saying storms don't punch holes in shells.
Earlier this year, some local lobster fishermen sent photos of damaged lobsters to Bob Glenn, the chief lobster biologist for the state of Massachusetts.
"The wounds are from mechanical damage," he e-mailed back after examining the close-up photos.
He said the pictured wounds seem to be consistent with those caused by mobile fishing gear like otter trawls and scallop dredges.
"I also do not think that the damage on the lobsters were the result of storms," he wrote. "Storm-damaged lobsters usually have a lot of missing legs as a result of rolling around the bottom in the surge ... but you usually do not see large cracks and missing pieces of shells."
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=195198&ac=PHnws
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Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
