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Posts Tagged ‘fishermen’

Making Art for an Octopus

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 8, 2025| 5 Comments »

Photo: Shimabuku.
Unlike animals that spend their days eating, sleeping or mating, octopuses “have time to wander — time for hobbies,” says Shimabuku, who makes art for sea creatures to enjoy. 

There’s an artist in Japan who makes art for marine animals just to see how they react. The responses of octopuses seem to be the most gratifying to him. The whole time I was reading this story, I was wondering why I had never heard the naturalist Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus, talk about this on Boston Public Radio in one of her her weekly visits. I must have missed that day.

“When the Japanese artist Shimabuku was 31 years old,” writes Francesca Perry at CNN, “he took an octopus on a tour of Tokyo. After catching it from the sea with the help of a local fisherman in Akashi, a coastal city over 3 hours away from the Japanese capital by train, he transported the live creature in a temperature-controlled tank of seawater to show it the sights of Tokyo before returning it safely to its home the same day.

“ ‘I thought it would be nice,’ the artist, now 56, said about the experience, over a video call from his home in Naha, Japan. …

‘I wanted to take an octopus on a trip, but not to be eaten.’

“Documenting it on video, Shimabuku took the octopus to see the Tokyo Tower, before visiting the Tsukiji fish market, where the animal ‘reacted very strongly’ to seeing other octopuses on sale, the artist said. …

“The interspecies day trip, resulting in the 2000 video work ‘Then, I Decided to Give a Tour of Tokyo to the Octopus from Akashi,’ kickstarted a series of projects Shimabuku has undertaken over the decades that engage with octopuses in playful, inquisitive ways. A portion of this work is currently on show in the UK, in two exhibitions that explore humanity’s relationship with nature and animal life: ‘More than Human‘ at the Design Museum in London (through October 5) and ‘Sea Inside‘ at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich (through October 26).

“Fascinated by what the sea creatures might think, feel, or like, Shimabuku has documented their reactions to various experiences, from the city tour of Tokyo to being given specially crafted artworks. ‘They have a curiosity,’ he said. …

“When he lived in the Japanese city of Kobe, Shimabuku would go on fishing trips with local fisherman, taking the opportunity to learn about octopuses. ‘Traditionally we catch octopuses in empty ceramic pots — that’s my hometown custom,’ he said. Fishermen would throw hundreds of pots into the sea, wait two days, then retrieve them — finding octopuses inside. ‘Octopuses like narrow spaces so they just come into it,’ explained Shimabuku.

“When he saw the animals within the pots, he discovered they were ‘carrying things’: shells, stones, even bits of broken beer bottles. He began to save the small objects the octopuses had gathered. …

“Shimabuku started to think, ‘maybe I can make sculptures for them.’ … In his 2010 work ‘Sculpture for Octopuses: Exploring for Their Favorite Colors,’ Shimabuku crafted a selection of small glass balls and vessels, in various colors. At first, he went out in a fishing boat and threw the sculptures in the sea, ‘like a present to the octopuses.’ But then he wanted to see how the animals were reacting to the objects.

“Collaborating with the now-closed Suma Aqualife Park in Kobe, he repeated the effort in a large water tank, where he could film the reaction of octopuses.

“ ‘They played with them, and sometimes they carried them,’ said Shimabuku. … ‘They keep touching, touching.’ The resulting film, and photographs, show the octopuses wrapping their tentacles around some of the glass objects, grabbing and rolling them across the sand, and even holding them in their suckers as they move across the side of the tank.

“In 2024, Shimabuku had a landmark solo show at Centro Botín in Santander, Spain. Specially for the exhibition, he collected an assortment of glass and ceramic pots to offer to local octopuses. Some of the vessels were made by the artist and others were from ‘second-hand shops and eBay.’ …

“Although octopuses are colorblind, Shimabuku wanted to see through these projects whether they were attracted to objects of certain colors. ‘What I heard from fishermen is that octopuses like red,’ he said. ‘Long ago in Kobe, I found an octopus in a red pot, so I believe they like red.’ Perhaps more so than the hue, Shimabuku is convinced that octopuses are drawn to very ‘smooth, shiny’ glass objects. He doesn’t have evidence to back this up, [he’s just] a man entranced by eight-legged mollusks is dedicating his time to engaging with them through art.”

More at CNN, here.

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The Dangers of ‘Ghost Nets’

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on August 30, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Danielle Khan Da Silva.
Divers risk their lives to protect whales from “ghost nets” abandoned by fishermen.

Today’s article presents one of those impossible challenges pitting the environment against the need to make a living. In this case, it involves the ocean, specifically marine animals.

Danielle Khan da Silva has the story at the Guardian.

“After a day of scuba diving, Luis Antonio ‘Toño’ Lloreda was exhausted. Then a friend brought urgent news. ‘Toño, man, there’s a whale caught in a net out there.’ Lloreda, 43, had freed other, smaller wildlife from fishing nets but this would be his first marine animal of such size.

“The four- to five-meters-long juvenile humpback, accompanied by its mother, had a net studded with hooks wrapped around its fin and mouth. One wrong move could have been fatal for Lloreda or the whale.

‘To connect with the whale, I used what we call intuitive interspecies communication,’ says Lloreda, explaining that this involves non-verbal, energetic communication.

“ ‘I asked the mother for permission – energetically,’ he says. ‘At first, she didn’t want our help. But when I showed her we meant no harm, she let us in.

“ ‘She positioned herself below us. Then I asked the calf. When the calf became very still, I reached into her mouth and removed the net.’ The mother and calf swam for 50 meters before pausing to rest.

“Lloreda is one of nine Guardianes del Mar (Guardians of the Sea), a grassroots African-Colombian collective from six coastal communities around Colombia’s Gulf of Tribugá, a biodiversity hotspot on the Pacific coast that spans 600,000 hectares of ocean, forest and mangroves. The region, where dense Chocó rainforest meets the ocean, is a Unesco biosphere reserve and is designated a ‘hope spot‘ by the nonprofit organization Mission Blue for its ecological significance.

“Scuba diving is crucial for identifying and removing ghost fishing gear – lost or abandoned commercial nets made mostly of near-indestructible plastics – but it is prohibitively expensive. With sponsorship from Ecomares and Conservation International, Lloreda and his colleagues have trained not only in diving, but in removing fishing gear from coral with quick, precise and safe techniques.

“Many guardians double as coral gardeners and reef surveyors, collecting data for both their communities and scientific partners. Three, including Lloreda, are trained to free marine animals.

“According to WWF, 50,000 tons of fishing gear are lost or abandoned in the oceans globally each year. These ‘ghost nets’ drift across borders, ensnaring coral, turtles, sharks – and whales. In the Gulf of Tribugá alone, Guardianes del Mar estimates that 3-4 humpback whales become entangled each year. …

“Guardianes del Mar is working to certify more local divers so they can have a greater impact. But it faces mounting logistical and financial hurdles.

” ‘We used to send the nets to Buenaventura for recycling, but fuel costs are too high,’ says Benjamin Gonzales, 53, one of the senior guardians. There are no roads – the communities are connected mainly by boat – so any rubbish or recycling must be transported out by boat or plane.

“Today, the nets are repurposed into bracelets and sold in Germany and locally in Nuquí, the main coastal municipality. Lead weights are melted down into new dive weights for the local shop, run by Guardianes del Mar advocate Liliana Arango.

“The spirit of mutual care between people and nature runs deep in Tribugá, where the population numbers about 7,000. African-Colombian communities here are descended from formerly enslaved people who escaped Spanish rule and crossed the jungle to reach the coast. They were welcomed by the Indigenous Emberá, and today co-govern the region through a state-recognized model of local autonomy. …

“Says Camilo Morante, 25, the youngest guardian and the group’s legal representative … ‘Everyone in this community fishes, so we can’t tell anyone to stop using nets. … The most important thing is that we raise consciousness locally so that we understand the consequences of our actions.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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Fishing Lines Kill Whales

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 2, 2025| 6 Comments »

Photo: Associated Press.
This image from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA], shows a North Atlantic right whale in the waters off New England, May 25, 2024.

Recently a long Inside Climate News essay about NOAA’s efforts to get lobster fishermen to switch to ropeless gear — and save a few whales — appeared in the Boston Globe. The approach is sound but costly for lobster fishermen struggling to make a living.

Kiley Price wrote, “It was a blessedly calm day as Scott Landry’s team set out in their inflatable boat to scan the glistening waters of Great South Channel between Rhode Island and Massachusetts for an endangered whale affectionately known as Wart. They were on a mission to save her life.

“The group, from the nonprofit Center for Coastal Studies located in nearby Provincetown, had spent the better part of three years monitoring Wart after an aerial team spotted the North Atlantic right whale with a large piece of rope lodged in her mouth.

“Instead of coming loose on its own, the fishing rope slowly tangled itself deeper into Wart’s baleens, hindering her ability to eat and reproduce. Finally, Landry’s team decided to take a more hands-on approach — a dangerous but necessary last resort. …

“His team had to rig up a tool that could slice the rope at a distance — essentially a crossbow with an arrow like a throwing star. Eventually, Wart came up for air close enough to Landry’s dinghy for him to get a single clean shot. He took a breath and fired. The whale immediately dove underwater again, leaving the team in suspense. A few minutes later, she popped back up, revealing the knife had cut right through the chunky rope. …

“Wart’s case is a rare bright spot in the pervasive problem of rope entanglements, one of the leading causes of death for whales. …

“The situation is particularly dire for North Atlantic right whales like Wart, with only around 350 left in the wild. Found along the East Coast of North America, the whales’ migratory paths overlap with highly productive lobster fishing areas in Maine and Massachusetts, where scientists say the whales struggle to dodge copious amounts of gear and traps. …

“Scientists and conservationists are scrambling to find a strategy to reduce entanglement risk without threatening the lobster industry, which is facing its own struggles with climate change. In recent years, a seemingly simple approach has taken center stage: getting rid of the rope.

“The traditional lobster traps that sit on the seafloor are connected to the surface by a line of rope attached to a floating buoy. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is working with manufacturers and partners to help develop different high-tech traps that they can sink to the seafloor without the rope tethered to the surface — in hopes of giving whales an unobstructed path through fishery waters. Then lobstermen can use a device to call these wireless traps back up to the surface with their catch.

“Officials say this ‘ropeless’ on-demand gear could help people continue to work during seasonal fishing closures. Enacted by the federal government in New England over the past decade, these restrictions limit lobster harvesting at different times of the year during the whales’ migration season. As whale populations struggle to bounce back, more potential closures loom. …

“The problem? Many lobstermen don’t want it.

“Rob Martin’s lobster boat carved through the gray waters off Cape Cod’s Sandwich Marina this May, temporarily transformed into a gear testing laboratory. NOAA scientists and tech experts had squeezed in alongside Martin, a Massachusetts lobsterman, and his crewmate, former lobsterman Marc Palombo.

“Martin brought the boat to a halt once they were far enough out in the bay, and the team dropped on-demand traps into the water, which quickly sank to the seafloor. Several minutes later, Martin activated the gear using a device onboard. … A few yards away, a bright yellow buoy that had been underwater a moment before now bobbed in the water. Martin and Palombo fished the float out of the water, revealing a cage with a string of lobster traps attached to it. …

“This year, fishers from 19 vessels participated in restricted area trials using on-demand equipment borrowed from a NOAA-run ‘gear library’ located in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Under a special permit, the participants are allowed to keep and sell their catches throughout the winter and spring months. …

“The end goal for these ropeless gear efforts is to give lobstermen an option to get back out on the water during seasonal fishing closures or restrictions. That includes one in place since 2015 across a stretch of Cape Cod Bay every February to April. The federal government is likely to establish new large closures in just a few years to prevent right whales from going extinct. …

“In 2022, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries published a report to assess the feasibility of ropeless gear throughout the state, produced by the ocean policy consulting company Homarus Strategies. To assess potential economic impacts, Homarus combined the estimated costs of switching to ropeless gear with the potential loss of revenue from the additional time it takes to operate the gear compared to traditional traps — and the findings were stark. If the government mandates a fisheries-wide shift to ropeless gear, the state could lose around $24 million in revenue per year, according to the report.

“There’s a big caveat to that conclusion: The government has no plans to require this type of shift, said Colleen Coogan, branch chief for the Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Team at NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region’s Protected Resources Division.

“ ‘We’ll never require fishermen to use ropeless gear, but that means that if they don’t use it, there will be areas that will be closed for fishing,’ she told Inside Climate News. ‘It’s more that the closure is what helps the whales; the ropeless [gear] is what helps the fishermen.’ …

“ ‘Personally, I don’t think there’s anything that they’re going to be able to do to make it viable … to deal with the financial burden,’ said Cape Cod lobsterman Jeff Souza, whose house is the collateral for a loan he took out a few years ago to build a new boat. … ‘I just want to keep being able to fish and not go broke.’ …

“In the fight to pull right whales back from the brink of extinction, there is a bright spot. Last year, NOAA released the annual population estimate for the species using the most up-to-date data, and found that the rate of their decline is slowing down, likely due to the regulations protecting them. Research suggests that ropeless gear could further help. …

“Landry thinks whales can deal with ‘some level of challenge that we throw at them, but, you know, it’s pile upon pile. There’s the changing of the prey, there’s the rope, there’s the boats. You’re asking a lot of a population of 350 animals.’ ”

More at Inside Climate News via the Globe, here.

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The Disappearing Squid

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 22, 2022| 11 Comments »

Photo: Bulletin of the US Fish Commission.
The massive Humboldt squid has adapted to climate change. But that’s a challenge for fishing communities who depended on it.

Climate change is forcing the creatures of the Earth to adapt or perish. This is the story of one creature that adapted but, in doing so, forced a more painful adaptation on some human creatures.

Michael Fox reports at PRI’s the World, “On a late afternoon in Kino Bay, Mexico, Gerardo Hernandez is repairing his fishing nets. He strings them out in front of his home, made from old pieces of plywood and corrugated tin. 

“He lives along the Gulf of California, the body of water that separates most of Mexico from the Baja California peninsula. Hernandez, a seasoned fisherman now in his 60s, can still remember the time of the giant Humboldt squid — a massive invertebrate that used to grow up to 6-feet long. Their abundance made for a robust squid industry fueled by 2,000 fishing boats — the vast majority being small pangas like Hernandez’s.

‘There were always a ton of squid,’ Hernandez said. ‘You would go out, and you’d see them on the surface of the water. The more squid you took, the more there were.’

“The days of the giant jumbo squid are over now. About 13 years ago, after a hurricane and an abnormally warm El Niño year, the squid disappeared from the Gulf. Eventually, they returned. But by 2015, they were gone again. Scientists attribute the shift to animal adaptation amid a rapidly changing climate. 

“Hernandez’s kids say they want him to retire now. But he still goes out fishing every night with other members of his small fishing cooperative, and they mostly catch Pacific Sierra fish and crab. He said he brings home enough — but not nearly as much as he did in the days of the Humboldt squid. 

“ ‘They’ve left,’ Hernandez said. ‘They’ve emigrated. Only God knows where they’ve gone.’

“But scientists think they have an idea. They say they haven’t actually disappeared. Instead, the Humboldt Squid that live in the Gulf have shrunk from about 6-feet long to less than a foot, and they’re sticking to deeper depths and cooler waters offshore. 

“Stanford University biologist William Gilly said the squid seem to have developed this strategy long ago to deal with fluctuating water temperatures that come with El Niño cycles. … It’s a species that seems evolved to adapt to the warming waters brought on by climate change. At least, that’s the theory.

“ ‘There’s a lot we don’t know,’ said Rufino Morales, a fisheries biologist and the coordinator of the Producto Calamar subcommittee, a Mexican group that researches and supports squid fishers. ‘We assume that the shift is due to climate change, or global warming, or because it coincides with El Niño, but these are scientific theories. We haven’t been able to prove them yet.’

“The squid seem to be adapting.  The fishing communities they used to support are trying to as well.

“On a warm afternoon in La Manga, a fishing village about an hour west of the port city of Guaymas, a handful of residents gutted a stack of manta rays, whitefish and parrotfish caught that morning. …

“ ‘When the squid was abundant, this was another Guaymas,’ said Maria Collins, a member of the Francisco Flores small fishing cooperative in town. ‘We lived well.’ When the squid left, a lot of people lost their jobs. …

“Many fisherfolk now work in factories off the highway on the northern side of town. Others are doing construction, gardening or plumbing. 

“Some boats began to hunt for jellyfish, which they sell to Asian markets. But the season is short. Locals up and down the coast say none of the catches are doing well. They blame the large sardine ships for overfishing and depleting stocks. 

“ ‘We are fishermen in danger of extinction,’ said Hernandez as he repaired his fishing net. ‘I think everything that’s happening in the ocean is our fault. Like, we aren’t taking care of it. Or, we don’t care for it, and there’s the proof.’ ”

More at PRI’s the World, here.

Fondly remembered fantasy squid.

This is just pretend, you know.

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Protecting the Nile from Plastic

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 12, 2021| 9 Comments »

Photo: Reuters.
An Egyptian nonprofit has enlisted fishermen from Al-Qursaya, an island near central Cairo, to collect plastics that have been reducing the catch.

At the Center for Biological Diversity, I recently learned about the enormity of the plastics problem in waters where people fish. The website states: “Plastic accumulating in our oceans and on our beaches has become a global crisis. Billions of pounds of plastic can be found in swirling convergences that make up about 40 percent of the world’s ocean surfaces. At current rates, plastic is expected to outweigh all the fish in the sea by 2050.” Yikes!

New efforts large and small are needed to reverse what’s happening. On Twitter, the World Economic Forum is promoting one of the small efforts, which is how I learned about it.

Reuters reports, “For 17 years, Mohamed Nasar has supported his family of five by fishing in the Nile River near the banks of the tiny island of Al-Qursaya close to central Cairo.

“But the 58-year-old says fishermen like himself catch fewer fish every year as the Nile has become clogged with plastic bottles, bags and other waste.

‘The fish get caught in the bottles, and they die,’ said Nasar.

“A local environmental group named ‘VeryNile‘ has asked the island’s fishermen to use their boats to collect plastic bottles from the river. VeryNile says it buys the bottles at a higher price than the general market price on offer from traders or recycling plants.

“The initiative provides a sustainable solution for helping to clean up the Nile, while providing an additional source of income for fisherman like Nasar.

” ‘This job helped us a bit. We come and collect about 10 to 15 kilos (of plastic bottles), we get about 12 Egyptian pounds ($0.7682) for each,’ Nasar said as he sat in his boat collecting bottles. …

“Another fisherman, Saeed Hassanein, said cleaner Nile water would mean more fish.

” ‘On the one hand, the Nile is cleaner, and on the other hand the fisherman now has more than one source of income,’ he said.

“With the help of more than 40 fishermen, VeryNile has over the past year collected around 18 tons of plastic bottles, most of which were sold to recyclers.” More at Reuters, here.

The World Economic Forum, which defines itself as the “international organization for public-private cooperation,” is increasingly focused on addressing the consequences of global warming, and I hope it is serious about that. It’s easy to feel cynical about the forum’s annual conference for the world’s rich and powerful — called Davos because it takes place in Davos, Switzerland — but I have to believe it’s helping to make both the problems and the possible solutions more widely accepted. Besides, I know there are many altruistic people on the staff, like my friend Kai, who was one of them several years ago.

In a recent podcast, Radio Davos discusses initiatives tackling climate change, calling the current decade “the decade of ocean science, and one in which we must get on track for net-zero by 2050.”

So there’s that. Meanwhile, in Egypt, impoverished fishermen are pulling out plastic that corporations, cruise ships, and too many individuals keep dumping.

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Some Lobstermen Would Help Whales

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 11, 2020| 6 Comments »

This morning, three Blue Jays were arguing over something they thought was good to eat in my backyard, and I got to thinking about how my attitudes are evolving as from the kitchen window I watch creatures come and go during the pandemic.

It occurred to me that the Blue Jays don’t know it’s my backyard. They don’t even have a way of registering the information. Nor, for that matter, do the baby skunk, the possum, the chipmunks, the squirrels, the cardinals, or the numerous rabbits.

Perhaps we’re all just a bunch of critters using this space for now.

That’s my prelude to a post on the conflicting interests of the endangered North Atlantic right whale and the lobster fisherman.

Some lobster fishermen are doing their bit to live in harmony with nature. Karen Weintraub reported on this issue at the New York Times late last year, after a right whale well known to scientists was found dead.

“Marc Palombo has been fishing lobster for 41 years, and he wants fishermen who come after him to be able to do the same. That’s why he’s testing a new type of fishing gear that, along with other efforts in New England and Canada, is being designed to avoid harming North Atlantic right whales. …

“This year [2019], about 10 have been found dead, but that number is uncertain. Not one of the nearly 30 right whale deaths in the last three years has been attributed to natural causes, said Philip Hamilton, a research scientist with the New England Aquarium, which maintains a catalog of North Atlantic right whales. Mr. Hamilton blames climate change, which has driven the whales northward in search of food.

“Over the last decade, warming in the Gulf of Maine has driven zooplankton, which the whales feed on, northward into Canada’s waters. As the whales follow, they are swimming across fishing and shipping lanes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they are vulnerable to being struck by ships or entangled in fishing lines — often long lines of rope connecting buoys at the surface with traps at the bottom.

“ ‘The only way to save the right whale is to have all stakeholders, including industry, at the table collaborating on proactive solutions that will protect them while ensuring the future of the lobstering industry,’ Patrick Ramage, director of Marine Conservation, for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said in a statement.

“Fishermen, like Mr. Palombo, and others have been testing new equipment, like ropeless gear, to protect the passing whales, and their fishing livelihood. …

“ ‘We know that entanglements in fishing gear and collisions with ships are killing these ocean giants,’ Megan Jordan, spokeswoman for Oceana, an international advocacy and conservation organization, said via email. ‘Reducing the amount of vertical lines from fishing gear in the water and requiring ships to slow down can help save North Atlantic right whales from extinction.’ …

“In Canada, a multipronged effort to protect the North Atlantic right whales is underway. After 17 whales were killed in the 2017 fishing season, including 12 in Canada’s waters, the Canadian government initiated a three-year research project. …

“For example, snow crab fishermen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence use rope that can withstand 14,000 pounds of force, Mr. Cormier said. His team is testing rope that breaks below 1,700 pounds, a weight that would allow a whale to free itself. …

“[Meanwhile,] the Maine Lobstermen’s Association recently pulled out of an agreement to reduce the number of fishing ropes in the water by 60 percent. The association’s executive director, Patrice McCarron, said the deal treats Maine lobstermen unfairly, because their fishing gear has not been the cause of any of the whale deaths in the last five years. She also said almost 30,000 miles of floating rope have been replaced with line that sinks.

“Mr. Palombo and collaborators at the New England Aquariumare testing a ropeless system that would leave lobster pots attached to a spool of rope at the bottom of the sea rather than to a buoy on the surface. A few days after setting his pots during a testing, Mr. Palombo headed back to the area and pushed a button on his boat that sent an audio signal to the spool. The rope rose to the surface where it took only a few minutes to retrieve.

“ ‘It’s pretty gratifying,’ he said about testing the ropeless system. ‘We’re the adventurers, we’re the people that are breaking the ground.’ ” More here.

In January, David Abel at the Boston Globe reported on delays in new regulations: “Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is responsible for protecting the critically endangered species, had planned to issue the regulations last year. But they were delayed after months of criticism from the region’s powerful lobster industry, which is worried that new requirements could be harsh and expensive.”

I sure am hoping for compromises that take everyone’s concerns seriously, including the whales’.

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Fishermen as Poets

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 10, 2019| 3 Comments »

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Photo: New York Times
Fisher poet Dave Densmore, on his boat, wrote his first poem as a joke in the 1970s. Now he studies writing.

Jobs like commercial fishing can provide a lot of of time to think, and it’s amazing how thinking often leads to poetry. That is also true of experiences that are so hard to capture they must be addressed obliquely.

Poetic storytelling is alive and well in the fishing community, it seems. Consider this transcript of a National Public Radio (NPR) report, in which Melanie Sevcenko describes an annual fisher poet event.

“MELANIE SEVCENKO: Moe Bowstern named herself after the front and back end of a ship. She calls herself a fishing woman. And for her, writing poetry comes with the job.

“MOE BOWSTERN: Well, I mean, have you ever been fishing? …  It’s unbelievably boring. And so you just have to think of something else to do.

“SEVCENKO: Now retired from commercial fishing, Bowstern is one of dozens of fisher poets who have been meeting for their annual gathering in a Astoria, Ore. During the last weekend of February, the far-flung fisher people interpret the commercial fishing industry in prose, poetry and song. …

“Bowstern started fishing in Kodiak, Alaska, in the mid-’80s when women on commercial boats were scarce. Her zine shares a name with a popular brand of deck boots, XTRATUF. This piece is called ‘Things That Will Be Difficult.’

“BOWSTERN: ‘It will be hard, if you are a man, to understand why your female crewmate, who started out so friendly, is so silent now when you are only trying to help. It will be hard if you are a woman to go’ …

“SEVCENKO: The poetry onstage at FisherPoets touches on what Bowstern calls an incredibly difficult life.

“BOWSTERN: Not just because of the rigors of the actual physical experience of the life, but it’s just, how can you be a fisherman at a time of climate change? And, like, where are you going to position yourself with resource extraction?

“SEVCENKO: That’s something John Copp has written about. For 20 years, he ran operations in Bristol Bay in the Bering Sea. Multinational corporations want to mine gold and copper from the area nearby and have been angling to do so for years. His poem ‘Tsunami’ is inspired by his opposition to the proposed Pebble Mine. … Many commercial fishermen have been against the Pebble Mine because of the damage it could do to the biggest salmon run on the planet. Copp is retired and lives in Oregon now. But he’s still inspired to write by the natural beauty of Alaska. …

“This weekend, once again, the fisher poets will do what they’ve done for more than two decades — gather on piers, in cafes and in theaters to perform their poetry for grateful audiences in this seaside town. Bowstern feels lucky that people who’ve never even been fishing want to hear their stories.

“BOWSTERN: We’re participating in two traditions that have been going on. Like, storytelling is probably only a little bit older than fishing, you know? So we get to tell stories in our special, weird language. And people just can’t get enough of it.”

The NPR transcript is here, and there’s another good article at the New York Times, here. If you know people who fish and also write poetry, have them check out the Fisher Poets website, here.

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1968: The Women Behind the Hull Fishermen

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 6, 2018| 5 Comments »

Photo: Mirrorpix
In 1968, Hull fishermen’s wives and mothers successfully fought the dangerous conditions perpetuated by trawler owners. They refused to take no for an answer.

It’s good to be strong, but sometimes the tough guys don’t know when to complain, don’t know when complaining can prevent the premature deaths of family and friends that leave children fatherless and devastate communities.

That’s when women have to take charge. And as a group of women showed in Hull, UK, in 1968, angry wives and mothers can be tougher than men.

Lucy Beaumont writes at iNews, “In January 1968, several Hull trawlers set off to the icy, dangerous waters of the Arctic in their quest for the biggest catch.

“They headed straight into one of the worst storms in living memory. Within three weeks, three of the ships had sunk and 58 men had lost their lives. For their families back home in the Hessle Road area of Hull, the news was devastating. It was known as the Triple Trawler Tragedy. Out of this tragedy came something incredible. Hull women – wives, mums, sisters, daughters – rose up to protest against the dangerous working conditions.

“They wanted a safer fishing industry and they were prepared to do anything to get it. They marched, they spoke out and they went straight to the top demanding change. During their campaign they were verbally and physically attacked – one woman was even punched in the face. They made headlines around the world and managed to change British law after getting over 10,000 signatures in support and not giving up until the authorities listened to them. …

“The [so-called] headscarf heroes should always be remembered. The women of Hessle Road were so strong. They had to be because they could lose their husband, their father or their son at any time. They had to cope with it and carry on looking after the family – and that’s exactly what they did. The women’s campaign was one of the biggest and most successful civil action campaigns of the twentieth century and coming from Hull, I’m so proud of those women.”

Beaumont’s personal connection to the story sometimes overwhelmed her as she worked on a BBC documentary about the women. “My grandad is from a family of men and women born and bred in the fishing community on Hessle Road. His granny lost two sons at sea. John was only 19 when he was washed overboard and Herbert died from pneumonia. She had poppies on their photos and swore that she heard John calling for her at the time. It was later confirmed that he had perished.” More here.

The life of a fisherman continues to be one requiring toughness from all the women and men who go to sea. There are a few more protections today than there were in 1968, but no one controls the weather. With global warming reportedly causing more storms, the dangers are actually likely to increase.

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New Bedford

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 16, 2012| 4 Comments »

My husband and I are often drawn to New England’s older postindustrial cities, with their walkable town centers and their old brick warehouses. They are sometimes called Gateway Cities because for generations they have served as immigrant gateways into the American life. We explored North Adams, Massachusetts, with Suzanne and Erik a couple years ago, and this weekend we went to New Bedford with Suzanne.

Once the whaling capital of the world, New Bedford today is home to an anxious fishing industry, clothing manufacturing, and tourism. We went to the Whaling Museum and came out feeling glad that most countries are more focused on whale preservation than whale hunting.

We sought out Portuguese restaurants and sat on the patio near an outdoor fireplace at one place. We knew there would be Portuguese restaurants as Portuguese speakers have come to New Bedford for generations — from Portugal, the Azores, Cape Verde, and Brazil.

At our beautiful Bed & Breakfast, the hosts (who have spent most of their working lives doing economic development overseas with US A.I.D.) told us that a large Guatemalan community has grown up in the city. They said that most of the Guatemalans speak an indigenous language, Spanish being a second language for them. That’s a particular challenge when Guatemalans go to the hospital as none of the staff speak that indigenous language.

My husband and Suzanne and I walked around. We passed lively Pentecostal churches and a storefront church full of dancers and clowns. We noted lamp posts bearing inspirational banners on how to be a good citizen or how to volunteer. I include one on “Responsibility.”

We also liked the cooperative shops run by members of the local arts community. And we had fun checking out a salvage warehouse for cool architectural bits, here. Among other things, it has rather a lot of bathtubs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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