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ASMFC 2024 Winter Meeting Presentations, Recordings, and Revised Meeting Summary Now Available

January 29, 2024 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Presentations and recordings from last week’s Winter Meeting are now available athttps://www.asmfc.org/home/2024-winter-meeting; just click on the relevant link at the Board or Committee header in the agenda. Recordings can also be found on the Commission’s YouTube Channel athttps://www.youtube.com/ASMFCvideos.

Please note that the roll call vote for one of the motions of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board has been corrected (the motion at the top of page 13). The revised meeting summary document can be found athttps://asmfc.org/files/2024WinterMeeting/2024WinterMeetingSummary_revised.pdf.

Ørsted agrees to acquire Eversource’s 50% share of Sunrise Wind project

January 30, 2024 — Danish company Ørsted has agreed to acquire utility company Eversource Energy’s 50% stake in a 924-megawatt offshore wind farm in New York, Sunrise Wind.

Eversource, based in Hartford and Boston, previously announced that it would divest its 50% ownership stake in three offshore wind projects in New York and Connecticut, including Sunrise Wind.

As a result, Eversource will take a 2023 fourth-quarter charge of up to $1.6 billion.

Read the full article at Hartford Business 

Plentiful and Ferocious Shark Lurks In Local Waters

January 30, 2024 — The great white shark gets all the coverage, but another shark species, with a far-less cool-sounding name, dominates local waters, at least in sheer numbers.

The Atlantic spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) is the poor cousin to the more-alluring sharks of greater size and fame. They have sharp, albeit little, teeth, are ferocious predators, and are opportunistic feeders. They like to devour mackerel and herring.

Spiny dogfish can arch their backs and inject venom into predators from their dorsal spines. They are harmless to humans — although a jab from one of their dorsal spines could get infected — but they have been observed biting through fishing nets to get at prey, according to the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

They migrate into local waters in the warmer months, and some remain through the winter. But most stocks are highly migratory, and they spawn in the winter in offshore waters. Spiny dogfish females have between two and 12 eggs per spawning season.

The spiny dogfish is the most abundant shark in the western North Atlantic, but they aren’t the only species of dogfish swimming in local waters. Like the spiny version, the smooth dogfish or dusky smooth-hound (Mustelus canis) can be found in Narragansett Bay. The chain dogfish (Scyliorhinus retifer) can’t. It’s also, confusingly, known as a chain catshark.

Read the full article at ecoRI

Cod harvests are down, a trend likely to continue

January 30, 2024 — Global cod landings are down 33 percent over the past decade, and the downward trend has accelerated over the past three years.

On 25 January, at the 2024 Global Seafood Market Conference in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A., Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers Director of Industry Relations, Partnerships, and Fishery Analysis Ron Rogness reported global cod catch declined to 1.12 million metric tons (MT) in 2023.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MAINE: Rebuilding in Maine

Januaery 30, 2024 — Two back-to-back storms devastated the coast of Maine from Jan. 10-13, flooding shoreside infrastructure and tearing away many of the docks that serve the state’s commercial fisheries. Photos of damage from Kittery to Canada filled pages on FaceBook and Instagram.

Now that the waves have diminished and the tides receded, many communities face the prospect of cleaning up and rebuilding.

Milbridge, Maine, lost two important wharfs, Chipman’s Wharf and Jordan Pier. While Jordan is a public pier, Chipman’s Wharf is a private company that buys lobsters, scallops, and other seafood from local boats, and runs a fish market and gift shop.

According to Amity Chipman, a co-owner of the wharf, they sustained considerable damage from the storms and are trying to figure out how to get operational before the 2024 lobster season begins. “We’re buying some scallops right now,” Chipman says. “Our area is closed so the boats are mostly fishing down toward Cutler and Lubec and driving them here. But we lost 110 feet of wharf and the building on the end. We need to get that rebuilt by April.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman

U.S. sets plans to protect endangered whales near offshore wind farms; firms swap wind leases

January 26, 2024 — Two federal environmental agencies issued plans Thursday to better protect endangered whales amid offshore wind farm development.

That move came as two offshore wind developers announced they were swapping projects.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released final plans to protect endangered North American right whales, of which there are only about 360 left in the world.

The agencies said they are trying to find ways to better protect the whales amid a surge of offshore wind farm projects, particularly on the U.S. East Coast. They plan to look for ways to mitigate any potential adverse impacts of offshore wind projects on the whales and their habitat.

The strategy will use artificial intelligence and passive acoustic monitoring to determine where the whales are at a given time and to monitor the impacts of wind development on the animals.

It also calls for avoiding the granting of offshore wind leases in areas where major impacts to right whales may occur; establishing noise limits during construction; supporting research to develop new harm minimization technologies; and making it a priority to develop quieter technology and operating methods for offshore wind development.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Major seafood buyers support US proposals to address IUU fishing and human rights violations in the South Pacific

January 26, 2024 — The following was released by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership:

More than 30 major seafood companies, industry associations and pre-competitive coalitions expressed their support for addressing illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and human rights violations to the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO), which begins its annual meeting in Ecuador today.

“We wish to see the Commission accelerate the fight against the IUU fishing in the Convention area by implementing appropriate procedures and measures to identify infringements and violations by vessels on the high seas,” the companies wrote, in a letter submitted to the Heads of Delegation of Members and Cooperating Non-Contracting Parties (CNCPs) to the SPRFMO.

The letter asks the State Members and CNCPs to take the following actions at the 12th Annual SPRFMO meeting, which takes place all week in Manta, Ecuador:

1.    Support the introduction of labor issues to the SPRFMO agenda, including the creation of a specialized working group and the establishment of the first Conservation and Management Measure (CMM) on guidelines for crew members’ safety and equitable treatment, as proposed by the US, Ecuador, Australia and New Zealand.

2.    Amend the jumbo flying squid CMM to progressively increase onboard observer coverage to 20%, as proposed by Australia and New Zealand.

3.    Fully discuss and consider the five proposals on increasing monitoring, control and surveillance to combat IUU fishing in the jumbo flying squid fishery.

The 17 State members of the SPRFMO Commission, including the US, China and EU, will meet from January 29 to February 2 to consider proposals to improve the jumbo flying squid Conservation and Management Measures. If adopted, these actions will improve transparency and controls to prevent IUU fishing in the world’s most important squid stock.

NEW JERSEY: Fish mortalities up in New Jersey waters due to low oxygen levels

January 26, 2024 — Dead fish, lobster, and crab were found in the ocean off the U.S. state of New Jersey in the summer of 2023, and the suspected cause of death was low oxygen and pH levels, according to a report by Rutgers University researchers.

Lower dissolved oxygen levels alone are not uncommon in summer months, as they are a natural part of the seasonal stratification of warmer and cooler waters off the U.S. Mid-Atlantic, but 2023 was notable for both lower than usual oxygen and a drop in pH – the measure of relative acidity in the water – the study found.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Maryland offshore wind developer pulls out of state agreement, seeks new financial support

January 26, 2024 — Maryland’s nascent offshore wind energy industry suffered a major blow late Thursday when one of the two companies planning to install wind turbines off the coast of Ocean City announced that it was “repositioning” its plans, pulling out of its agreement with the state and seeking alternative financial arrangements to keep the project going.

Ørsted, the world’s largest developer of offshore wind, emphasized that it was still committed to building its project in federal waters, but said it was opting out of the agreement it had reached with the Maryland Public Service Commission for financial clean energy credits intended to help fund the development. The company said that while it would still seek permits for the proposed wind farm from the federal government, and would continue to develop construction and operations plans for Maryland, the current financial realties of the offshore wind industry made it impossible to continue under the present arrangement.

A statement Ørsted issued late Thursday said the projected revenue from the state’s clean energy credits, which cap what the company can charge ratepayers for its wind power, is “no longer commercially viable because of today’s challenging market conditions, including inflation, high interest rates and supply chain constraints.”

Through two separate but adjacent leases known as Skipjack 1 and Skipjack 2 that had won state approval, Ørsted is ticketed to provide 966 megawatts of wind energy beginning later this decade. A company executive said Ørsted was determined to work with state officials, potential investors and other stakeholders in an effort to find a better way to finance and save the project.

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current

MAINE: Maine aims to rebuild after devastating storms

January 26, 2024 — Mainers watched in disbelief as an extraordinary combination of high winds, heavy rain, and a never-before-seen high tide caused unprecedented damage and destruction along Maine’s long jagged coast in just a matter of hours. It’ll take years for things to be completely restored.

A record-high tide and powerful storm surge on Jan. 13 destroyed generations-old fishing wharves, damaged and flooded oceanside homes, swamped neighborhoods, demolished roadways, eroded beaches and swept old fishing shacks and other structures out to sea.

In Camp Ellis, a small seaside community in the southern Maine town of Saco, the ocean washed away roads, wiped out seawalls and crashed into beachfront homes. Waters destroyed a marina pier and flooded the town-owned Camp Ellis Pier in knee-high water, leaving behind a foot-and-a-half of sand when they receded.

“I think people are still in that anxiety mode to figure out what the next step is,” said Camp Ellis homeowner David Plavin as he walked over sand-covered streets pointing out the damage. “We’re getting there, but it’ll take time.”

Maine’s coast was first hit by a torrential storm on Jan. 10 with near-hurricane winds, rain and snow, and the third-highest tide ever recorded in Portland, the state’s largest city. Still reeling from that battering, an even more-intense storm lashed three days later with an even higher tide — the highest on record — along with 20-foot waves and wind gusts up to 60 mph that wreaked havoc along the state’s 3,500-mile coastline.

Maine’s coast is a tourist destination in the summer with its beaches and rocky coast, lobster shacks and temperate weather. But one of the most pressing concerns now is the impact to the state’s working waterfronts, which fishermen and other commercial interests rely on for their livelihoods. Maine has a diverse seafood industry, known not only for lobsters but also for clams, scallops, tuna, mussels and fish species such as haddock and cod.

An aerial survey by the Maine Department of Marine Resources and reports from property owners showed extensive damage from Kittery in the south to Eastport, the nation’s easternmost city, along the Canadian border. Maine’s 15 year-round island communities also bore the brunt.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service