Free Republic

A group of fishing associations is sounding the alarm about new plans from the Biden administration to industrialize the Gulf of Maine by leasing two million acres of area for wind farm construction, a move that fishermen say will be detrimental to their business and marine life.One large portion of the WEA is frequented by the endangered North Atlantic right whale, the groups said. Leasing the area to wind farming "is flatly inconsistent with a policy of endangered species protection."

A fishing-boat dock at Grimsby, U.K., at the turn of the 20th century. Over the last century or so, trawlers have gotten more powerful engines, fish-detecting radar, lighter nets, and vast onboard freezers. What the fleets might really need, though, is a time machine.After all, bottom-fishing fleets in United Kingdom waters today have to work 17 times harder to catch the same amount of fish as their sail-powered Victorian counterparts did, according to a new study.To address innovations have made fishing more efficient over the years, the study authors devised a new measure: units of "fishing power."After analyzing historic...

Two Norwegian trawler skippers have revealed that they have been offered large sums of money for smuggling groups of refugees from Norway to Canada. Skipper Einar Bjoerhovde from Vesteraalen says he was offered NOK 1 million for smuggling 25-30 refugees from Norway to Canada. When he declined, he was offered NOK 100,000, if he could arrange for another boat to transport the refugees. Bjoerhovde says that even after he had turned down the offers, he was contacted another couple of times by the same people. They said the refugees involved could not be sure they would be offered residence permits...

<p>VICTORIA, British Columbia (AP) -- Trawl fishing will be banned in areas off the Queen Charlotte Islands inhabited by rare colonies of glass-like sponges to protect the living fossils from further damage, officials say.</p> <p>"Soon the sponge reefs will be closed to groundfish trawling," said Allan Macdonald of the Canadian Fisheries Department.</p>