May 20, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — The city of Ellsworth has landed a state grant to support development of bioscience businesses in the region, as part of a series of grant awards that will also give money to support seafood industry initiatives.
The Maine Technology Institute announced Thursday that it awarded $658,765 through its Cluster Initiative Program, aimed at studying or implementing ways to support or grow certain industries in the state.
The state-financed economic development agency awarded $398,306 to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute to advance its study of creating a market and supply chain for sustainable seafood in Maine.
The latest grant round also delivered $134,189 to Coastal Enterprises Inc.’s Maine Scallop Aquaculture Project, which MTI said aims to study the Japanese scallop aquaculture industry and explore how to adapt them to Maine waters.
SMAST founding dean, chancellor medal recipient Brian Rothschild, reflects on state of fisheries science
May 16, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Dr. Brian Rothschild already had a stellar career in fisheries and marine science when he came to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 20 years ago to head the fledgling Center for Marine Science, now known as the School for Marine Science and Technology.
He built that institution from the ground up, recruiting top talent and developing a strong reputation in the field of fisheries, ocean science, and industry regulations. At 81, he is officially retired, but continues his scientific work unburdened, he says, by the demands of management.
For his contributions to science and his service to the community, Rothschild on Friday was awarded the UMass Dartmouth Chancellor’s Award. He recently sat down for an interview by The Standard-Times.
Q: You said earlier that in your long career you have had some jobs you don’t remember.
A: Yeah, not exactly. I started in 1953 working fisheries for the New Jersey Division of Fish and Game. I’ve always been devoted to marine science, fish and marine science. Underneath that is a much deeper interest in science per se, finding out the unknown. I have been fortunate in my career to produce some classic papers that relate to that.
Q: You have had recognition all around the world, also traveling around the world.
A: Yes, I‘ve been in many countries. I used to consult for the Food and Agriculture Organization at the United Nations. I’ve spent a lot of time in Rome as a result of that. I worked on the Egyptian trawler fleet. I helped write the draft plan for the Indian Ocean Program at the United Nations. I worked on a plan for fisheries in Namibia and many other activities outside the United States.
Puzzling out the red drum: Fish population surveys contradict each other
May 16, 2016 — The sought-after red drum might be severely overfished since 2010 in the Southeast but not the mid-Atlantic, according to the latest survey. Or the reverse might be true.
The problem is in the metrics: Just how do you count all the fish in the sea? That’s what a federal commission in charge of regulating the catch told its staff recently while not approving — yet — an assessment that would suggest the Southeast stock is in trouble again. Improve the metrics.
At stake is whether or how to tighten management, and potentially catch restrictions, on one of the most popular game fish in the Lowcountry.
The bottom line is that some sort of tighter management is expected to be mandated of that stock, said Robert Boyles, S.C. Department of Natural Resources deputy marine resources director and a member of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the federal group in charge of maintaining the fishery.
“The results basically suggest there are reasons to be concerned. The questions are how concerned should we be and what do we do about it,” he said.
Hilborn: Greenpeace attacks funding issue because science is sound
May 13, 2016 — University of Washington fishery scientist Ray Hilborn has responded to Greenpeace’s accusation that he often fails to disclose industry funding when writing or speaking about the extent of overfishing.
In a letter sent Wednesday to university president Ana Mari Cauce, Greenpeace filed a complaint against Hilborn’s research practices, and asked for an investigation.
Hilborn, over the years, has been a critic of Greenpeace as well as other environmental groups and researchers he accuses of overstating the impacts of fishing on marine resources.
“Greenpeace is unable to attack the science I and my collaborators do; science that threatens their repeated assertions that overfishing is universal and that the oceans are being emptied,” he said in a response on his blog.
“On the contrary it is clear that where effective fisheries management is applied, stocks are increasing not declining, and this is true in North America and Europe as well as a number of other places. Overfishing certainly continues to be a problem in the Mediterranean, much of Asia and Africa.”
Survey delay might hurt fish population research
May 12, 2016 — The following is an excerpt from a story published today by the Boston Globe.
NEWPORT, R.I. – Even before mechanics found deeply pitted bearings near crankshafts in its generators, problems that could have led to catastrophic engine failure, the Henry B. Bigelow was running more than a month behind.
Now, the government research vessel is embarking on its annual spring voyage later than ever before, a delay that could have serious consequences for scientists’ ability to assess the health of some of the 52 fish stocks they survey, from the waters off North Carolina to the eastern reaches of the Gulf of Maine.
Fish migrate and change their feeding patterns as waters warm, which might make it difficult for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists to compare this spring’s survey of fish populations with previous counts.
The prospect of skewed data could complicate efforts for policy makers to set proper quotas, potentially leading either to overfishing or unnecessarily strict catch limits.
“I worry that this will create statistical noise and more uncertainty,” said Gary Shepherd, a fishery biologist at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, where he and other scientists recommend quotas based on what the Bigelow catches, along with other data.
As the waters warm, some of the fish, such as herring, migrate out of the survey area and into the region’s rivers. Other species, such as squid, which are short-lived, might not survive in representative numbers through June, when the Bigelow is now scheduled to finish its survey.
“If the survey had started at its normal time, it would have found squid on the continental shelf,” said Robert Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, a Washington-based group that represents the fishing industry. “But now it won’t because the survey doesn’t sample Nantucket Sound.”
Changing Migration Patterns Upend East Coast Fishing Industry
May 11, 2016 — Summer flounder that once amassed in North Carolina have gradually shifted about 140 miles to New Jersey—one facet of the northward migration of fish species that is upending traditional fishing patterns.
The move north has sparked debate among regulators over how to respond to changing natural resources that could affect commercial fisheries across the eastern seaboard.
For the first time, a group of researchers backed by the federal government is trying to ascertain what the northward movement means for fishermen’s income and way of life.
“Some fisherman will end up losing out and some will win big,” said Malin Pinsky, an assistant professor of ecology and evolution at Rutgers University, who is part of a team of scientists from Rutgers, Princeton University and Yale University studying the phenomenon.
Funded through a piece of a $1.4 million National Science Foundation grant, the team of scientists is examining how shifting patterns of where fish congregate is affecting commercial anglers and how they are changing their practices. They are also studying what kind of regulations may be needed to adapt to these changing realities.
For Lund’s Fisheries, for example, the northward creep has forced the company’s boats to catch the flounder in New Jersey and then spend time traveling to North Carolina, where regulations allow them to bring them on shore in more abundant quantities. When the boats travel south, the fishery can’t catch sea bass, scup and other species they may have reeled in at the same time in waters off New Jersey.
“It does cause us to drive fish around the ocean longer than we have historically. That gets factored into the cost of doing business,” said Jeff Kaelin, an executive at the company, which has facilities in Cape May, N.J., and North Carolina.
SMAST Fisheries scientists to present current cooperative research projects at Dock-u-mentaries program
May 9, 2016 — The Dock-U-Mentaries Film Series continues on Friday, May 20th at 7:00 PM with Fishing for Knowledge: Cooperative Research for Sustainable Fisheries in New England. Dock-u-entaries is a co-production of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center, and the Working Waterfront Festival. Films about the working waterfront are screened on the third Friday of each month beginning at 7:00 PM in the theater of the Corson Maritime Learning Center, located at 33 William Street in downtown New Bedford. All programs are open to the public and presented free of charge.
No fish left? Let’s build an app for that
May 6, 2016 — Behold a few of the marvelous things the internet has done for us: filed our taxes, found us dates, recommended that we watch the film Repo Man. Is there anything the internet can’t do? No, there’s not, and for proof I offer the fact that I am sitting in a room, watching people try to use the internet to save fish. Fish are in serious trouble, thanks to both overfishing and climate change. Could the tech world, with its legendary affinity for sushi, come to the rescue?
The U.S. State Department thinks so, and has a few ideas about how best to go about keeping the world’s remaining supply of fish alive and reproducing. For the last three years, it’s held a weekend-long coding competition (aka “hackathon”) as a way of getting those ideas implemented. It’s called the Fishackathon.
In cities around the world, coders work around the clock for a weekend to come up with software (and sometimes hardware) to tackle the problem of overfishing. At the end of it, a panel of judges in each city picks a winning team, and then the State Department unveils the winner of all winners on June 8 (World Oceans Day). That victorious team gets a $10,000 prize and a chance to develop their project with a U.S. government contractor.
Helping Fishermen Catch What They Want, and Nothing Else
May 3, 2016 — Heather Goldstone, of NPR affiliates WGBH and WCAI, discusses bycatch reduction in fisheries on a recent episode of “Living Lab.” Her guests were veteran gear designer Ron Smolowitz of the Coonamessett Farm Foundation, who has worked with the southern New England scallop industry; Steve Eayrs, a research scientist at Gulf of Maine Research Institute, who has worked with groundfishermen in Maine; and Tim Werner, a senior scientist with the New England Aquarium, who put acoustic pingers on gill nets to warn away dolphins. An excerpt from the segment is reproduced below:
It’s the holy grail of commercial fishing: catch just the right amount of just the right size of just the right species, without damage to the physical environment. It’s a tall order, and few fisheries are there yet.
Leaving aside the issue of straight up over-fishing, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that, each year, fishermen around the world accidentally catch more than seven million tons of marine life – everything from whales and turtles, to sea cucumbers – that they weren’t even after. Such by-catch, as it’s known, is essentially collateral damage.
And fishing has other environmental impacts. In some parts of the ocean, the scars left by trawls dragged across the sea floor can be seen for years.
But, it doesn’t have to be that way. Over the past decade or so, a lot of effort has gone into designing fishing gear and related equipment that allows fishermen to catch more of what they do want, and less of what they don’t, while also minimizing damage to the environment. For example:
- Veteran gear designer Ron Smolowitz and the Coonamessett Farm Foundation have worked with the southern New England scallop industry over the past several years to develop a trawl that excludes loggerhead sea turtles. It turns out, it’s also better at capturing scallops, with the end result that scallopers can use smaller areas and less fuel – 75% less – to make their catch.
Research supports blaming warmer waters for lobster decline
May 2, 2016 — HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut researchers found no pesticides in lobsters collected in Long Island Sound in late 2014, a new study has found, boosting evidence that warming water temperatures are the main culprit in a huge crustacean decline that has decimated the local lobster industry.
The findings raise questions about restrictions Connecticut passed in 2013, amid concern over declining lobster stocks, limiting coastal use of pesticides that can control mosquito populations that transmit diseases, including the West Nile and Zika viruses.
Lobstermen supported the restrictions, believing pesticides contributed to lobster die-offs. Some municipal and environmental officials were opposed, saying the rules would restrict the use of effective mosquito-controlling pesticides that can protect public health and there was no proven connection between pesticides and lobster die-offs.
The renewed debate about pesticides and lobsters comes as concern grows about the Zika virus spreading to the U.S. from Latin America and the Caribbean. The virus is mainly spread through mosquito bites and causes mild illness or no symptoms in most people. But it can cause microcephaly, a severe birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald
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