With all the change the fishing industry has already seen, the idea of building offshore wind farms creates some anxiety. The post After Wind Blade Failure, Newport Fishing and Offshore Wind Event Draws Crowd, Questions, Some Ire appeared first on ecoRI News ..read more

PROVIDENCE — More transplants, more research, but no more nitrogen — at least not yet. That’s the message coming from the state’s own panel studying the decline in quahog landings. The commission, impaneled last year and jointly chaired by Rep. Joseph Solomon, D-Warwick, and Sen. Alana DiMario, D-North Kingstown, released its final report late last month, on the same day the state House of Representatives unveiled its version of the state budget. The 11-page report lists three broad recommendations, each one chosen by consensus during the study commission’s meeting on April 30. Notably absent ..read more

PROVIDENCE — More transplants, more monitoring, and maybe even more nitrogen in Narragansett Bay. Those are the main recommendations coming from a joint legislative study commission investigating the decline of quahog catches in the bay. The commission, which has been meeting every month since September, concluded its work during a final meeting on April 30, when it approved a final report outlining its findings and recommendations on what to do about them. The decline of the quahog in Narragansett Bay has been something of an ontological mystery for quahoggers and bay scientists during the pa ..read more

BOSTON — Hundreds of blue economy businesses from around the globe made their way to New England this week for the Seafood Expo North America. The event brings together people from every part of the supply chain, including fishers and buyers, to talk about the latest and most popular products and methods in the industry. From salmon to soy sauce, many touted “sustainable” practices. But what does that really mean? Gear and bycatch One of the byproducts of the fishing industry is bycatch — animals that fishers unintentionally catch in the process of getting what they actually want. According to ..read more

PROVIDENCE — It was a good-news bad-news week for quahoggers on Smith Hill last week. First, the good news. It may be possible to bump up the population of good-quality quahogs in the northern half of Narragansett Bay by releasing more nitrogen and other nutrients into the waters during the winter. Nutrients such as nitrogen, which were abundant throughout Narragansett Bay thanks to near-centuries of human dumping and waste, are a key food source for phytoplankton, the microscopic organisms that are also the chief food source for quahogs. Rhode Island’s commercial shellfishermen have alleged t ..read more

Offshore wind turbines have a toehold in the Atlantic off the New England coast and, despite some recent retrenchment in the industry due to rising costs and supply chain problems, the safe bet is that more turbines are coming. Most Rhode Island commercial fishermen deeply dislike the prospect, even as a subset of people in the fishing industry has started planning to share the ocean with the three-armed giants. “We need to find alternative ways to fish so that we don’t end up with Point Judith as a ghost town,” said Fred Mattera, executive director of the Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode ..read more

PROVIDENCE — An autumn afternoon in a Smith Hill committee room isn’t the usual habitat for a small group of quahoggers. The cloistered halls of the Statehouse are a far cry from the open waters and shorelines of Narragansett Bay, but for the four shellfishermen chosen to serve on a joint legislative study commission, it could mean their livelihood. Their chief product is a literal state symbol: the northern quahog, also called hard clams. With their iconic shape and brown or gray concentric rings lining the outside of their shells, they are instantly recognizable to most Rhode Islanders. They ..read more

Recreational saltwater fishing is an important economic driver for the Ocean State, bringing in as much as $160 million annually when you include hotel stays and restaurant, bait shop, and marina spending by visitors. More than 80,000 Rhode Islanders fish recreationally, with an equal number of out-of-staters coming here to fish, according to the Rhode Island Environmental Monitoring Collaborative. Warming seas, habitat loss, and changes in the movement of bait fish are impacting the state’s recreational and commercial fisheries. Atlantic bluefin tuna, a popular species commonly fished off the ..read more

Eating oysters is good for the environment, according to a pair of Narragansett Bay-centric experts. Scientists Robinson Fulweiler of Boston University and Christopher Kincaid from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography shared their latest findings during a recent webinar. Fulweiler studies the impact wild and aquaculture oysters have on their surrounding waters. A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water daily. Their most important service, and the one Fulweiler studies most, is removing nitrogen from marine waters that could trigger algal blooms. “Aquacult ..read more

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. — From the shore on a sunny afternoon in August, the Aquidneck Island Oyster Co.’s farm, which sits offshore about 500 feet from Glen Manor House, looked like little more than rows of small, dark buoys floating on top of the waves. But inside each box, there is a micro-ecosystem, fed by the fresh ocean water pulled in by the Sakonnet River, teeming with life — not just the oysters that the company sells, but also seaweeds, mussels, and tiny crabs. Lucky for the plants and other shelled animals growing in the boxes, it’s just the oysters that will end up on someone’s plate in o ..read more