Conservation & Environment

The catastrophic oil spill that is still unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico must not be repeated anywhere near the shores of New Jersey and Delaware.

Since the blowout at a BP deep-drilling rig on April 20, more than four million gallons of oil has spilled. By comparison, the Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska in 1989 spilled almost 11 million gallons.

The accident has fouled gulf waters, threatened beaches, and imperiled the fishing industry. Eleven workers lost their lives.

Three weeks after the explosion, the leaking undersea well continues to gush 220,000 gallons of crude per day. BP officials say they hope to contain the leak within a few weeks.

Read the complete story at Philly.com

 

 

 

 

 

The 700-pound giant Atlantic bluefin tuna carrying satellite radio tag number 5108024 entered the Gulf of Mexico on March 23, 2009, hugging the coast of Cuba, and speeding along a straight line to the warm water body's center.

The huge fish meandered north toward what would become its spawning and feeding territory over the next two months, the deep Gulf slope between Louisiana and western Florida. Finally, it left the Gulf for colder water in the Atlantic on May 24. Its tag was jettisoned for pickup by scientists a few days later.

More than once, the fish's squiggly path took it right across the mouth of the Mississippi River, alongside the drilling ship developing BP's Deepwater Horizon well.

If the fish had been tagged this year, the tag would likely have shown the tuna following the same path, where it and its eggs would have been swimming or floating in the oil being released from the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig, said Barbara Block, a Stanford University marine biologist who has participated in the tagging of more than 1,000 bluefins during the past 10 years.

Read the complete story at The Times-Picayune.

 

 

 

 

 

At least 20 sea turtles have been found dead this weekend along a 30-mile stretch of Mississippi beaches from Biloxi to Bay St. Louis.

While wildlife officials can't say with certainty the turtles, some endangered, died as a result of the oil spill, the number concerns them.

Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Miss., said Sunday this is typically the time of year when turtles wash up on shore.

See the rest of the story and the photos at The Huffington Post.

 

 

 

 

 

The ocean's denizens have been benefiting from New York City's subways for a few years now as old subway cars are used to create artificial reefs of the coasts of Delaware, New Jersey Maryland, Georgia and South Carolina.

The successful Red Bird Reef off Delaware's coast is even named after New York's Redbird subway cars.

Read the full story and watch the video in The Huffington Post

 

 

The Gulf of Maine is characterized by its unseen elements: the intricate mix of freshwater, tidal currents, cold water and sunlight creates life where we can't see it. One sees only the evidence of this alchemy on one's plate or at a local fish market. Imagine a time when yellowtail flounder, hake or pollock suddenly vanished.

In the Gulf of Mexico right now, creatures that I have never heard of are dying due to the effects of the BP oil spill. With them go a multitude of fishermen, bait dealers, boat repair yards, processing plants and small restaurants. In 2008, the last year for which the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has records, $362,865,000 of seafood was landed in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Each dollar metamorphosed into several other dollars that were generated by the ancillary businesses related to commercial fishing.

And what did these fishermen catch? In Alabama, fishermen landed bearded brotula, gag, scamp and ladyfish. In Louisiana they brought in buffalo fish, escolar and goldface tilefish. Mississippi fishermen landed spotted sea trout and liza mullet. I enjoy learning these names. These aren't the the cold-water cod, haddock and flounder with which I grew up, yet to Gulf Coast fishermen they must be equally familiar, symbols of southern water.

Read the Free Press story in full

 

 

Four fisheries stocks, including Atlantic swordfish, have now been rebuilt to healthy levels, according to a report to Congress from NOAA’s Fisheries Service issued on May 11, 2010.

Three stocks were removed from the overfishing list – those fished at a level that would threaten the stocks. For the first time since the report was issued in 1997, no stocks were added to the overfishing list.

In Status of US Fisheries, NOAA scientists reported that 85 percent of the stocks examined (212 of 250 stocks) were free from overfishing, or not fished at too high a level. The report also examined whether stocks are overfished – a fish population too low to ensure a maximum sustainable harvest – and found that 77 per cent of the stocks examined (157 of 203 stocks) were not overfished.

“By working with our regional fishery councils and commercial and recreational fishermen, we are getting closer every year to ending overfishing in our waters,” said Eric Schwaab, NOAA assistant administrator for NOAA’s Fisheries Service. “With annual catch limits coming into effect this year, we expect our progress to accelerate.”

Read the complete story at The Fish Site.

 

 

 

 

 

America's fisheries continued to recover and grow stronger in 2009, with swordfish — once the subject of a "do not eat" campaign mounted by environmentalists fearing its pending extinction — leading a group of four stocks taken off the overfished/overfishing watch list of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Along with Atlantic swordfish, Atlantic scup, Gulf of Maine thorny skate and Gulf of Mexico pink shrimp were also removed from the overfished/overfishing list. NOAA defines "overfishing" to mean a harvest rate higher than what would produce a maximum stainable yield, and "overfished" to mean a stock whose biomass level is below a biological threshold established under a management plan.

Overall, the Stock Sustainability Index, which measures the performance of 230 key stocks, went up for the ninth straight year. The increase in 2009 was 3.1 percent; for the nine-year era of improvement, the index is now up 60 percent.

NOAA's Office of Sustainable Fisheries described the index as representing "significant progress."

The report, released Monday, held that 85 percent of the stocks examined were free from overfishing and 70 percent were not overfished.

GULFPORT, Miss.—Federal authorities are investigating whether fishermen eager to maximize their catch ahead of the massive oil slick threatening the Gulf Coast have been killing endangered sea turtles, an official said Wednesday.

Wildlife officials say at least 35 endangered sea turtles have washed up on Gulf coast beaches, but it's not clear what's killing them. Necropsies have shown no signs of oil.

Investigators will look into whether some shrimp boats taking part in an emergency shrimping season removed devices from their nets that are intended to allow turtles to escape, said Sheryan Epperly, sea turtle team leader for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

How ironic that a public hearing on oil exploration off the North Carolina coast was held last week, just as a frantic effort to contain the thousands of gallons of crude gushing into the Gulf of Mexico as the result of an April 20 explosion. And President Obama, who not long before the spill proposed limited expansion of drilling as part of a comprehensive energy plan, is eating a little crow.

The accident involving the oil rig Deepwater Horizon should shake us up and make us think twice about whether we’re willing to risk our coastline for the sake of fossil fuel.

As crews were working to prevent oil from sloshing into Gulf coast wetlands and beaches, Southeastern North Carolina residents were questioning federal officials’ capability to ensure the safety of our shorelines. The spill dominated the April 29 hearing by a panel that’s weighing the costs and benefits of allowing oil and natural gas drilling off our coast.

Read the complete story at Star News Online.

 

 

 

 

 

Since leaving Maryland government to become federal fisheries chief two months ago, Eric Schwaab has been besieged by unhappy recreational anglers, called ineffective by commercial fishermen and labeled an unknown, know-nothing by New England editorial writers.

But that was just a warm up for the Catonsville resident's latest turn in the hot seat as point man for federal efforts to protect and save fish and shellfish in the path of the Gulf oil spill.

"The biggest challenge in this case is that it's still a developing event," said Schwaab, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service. "There's still oil spilling into the Gulf at a fairly substantial rate. We're still very much in an adaptive posture, trying to use different tools to deal with the leak."

Wednesday, he was on a conference call with more than 100 stakeholders, ranging from Louisiana shrimpers and Florida red snapper fishermen to environmental groups and recreational tournament directors. Thursday, it was a second conference call and a tour of the Mississippi coast to make sure programs to sample pre-spill conditions are adequate to provide a baseline for restoration efforts.

Read the complete story at The Baltimore Sun.