Saving Seafood

Cape scientists forge ahead with right whale research

April 7, 2020 — Over the past week, New England Aquarium scientist Philip Hamilton, manager of the right whale identification catalog at the aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, has received photos of about 30 right whales taken by people walking the shoreline around Race Point and off Nahant.

Unfortunately, researchers hoping to see them from the air and sea during what they consider the epicenter of right whale migration into Cape Cod Bay essentially have been grounded by weather and coronavirus.

“We lost 22 days there,” said Charles “Stormy” Mayo, a senior scientist and director of the Right Whale Ecology Program at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown.

COVID-19 fears forced the New England Aquarium to close March 13. Admission fees account for 80% of their $3.5 million in annual operating expenses, and the aquarium announced layoffs and furloughs last week to cut costs.

The Center for Coastal Studies did not lay off anyone, spokesperson Cathrine Macort said, but its offices and lab are closed. The center is watching expenses and applying for federal payroll aid.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Endangered right whales spotted in Cape Cod Bay during spring feeding season

April 6, 2020 — An increasing number of endangered North Atlantic right whales have been spotted feeding off of Massachusetts’ coast in recent weeks, a sign that spring is finally here, researchers at the New England Aquarium said.

The right whales live in shallow waters off the southeastern United States during late fall and winter, the aquarium said. After pregnant whales give birth to their calves while living with juvenile and male whales in the region during those months, the whales migrate to Cape Cod Bay during the spring to feed before heading further north.

“In a time when so much is changing around us, I find the appearance of right whales feeding in these waters as they have for hundreds, if not thousands, of years reassuring. Some ancient behaviors remain,” said Philip Hamilton, a research scientist with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the aquarium.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Gulf of Maine Longline Survey in Rocky Habitats Now in Sixth Year

February 21, 2020 — For fisheries managers around the world, trawl gear is an efficient way to sample species inhabiting the sea floor or the benthic column above. Depending on the size of the net, grid surveys will capture enough of the animals in the area at the time to compile data used in abundance models that go into stock assessments.  Unless the fish swim out of the net before it is hauled. Or unless the sea bottom is rocky or pinnacled.

In those areas, longline gear can help fill in the blind spots for regional surveys. Longline gear can be lain across rock piles, and retrieved without destroying the gear itself. It differs from a trawl net in several ways: the longline has baited hooks distributed evenly across its length, it is stationary, anchored to the sea floor with location buoys at the sea surface at each end, and it can be deployed by smaller vessels.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Scientists Sound Alarm After 6 Rare Whale Deaths in a Month

July 5, 2019 — A half-dozen North Atlantic right whales have died in the past month, leading scientists, government officials and conservationists to call for a swift response to protect the endangered species.

There are only a little more than 400 of the right whales left. All six of the dead whales have been found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence off Canada, and at least three appear to have died after they were hit by ships.

The deaths have led scientists to sound the alarm about a potentially catastrophic loss to the population. The deaths are especially troubling because they include females, said Philip Hamilton, research scientist with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.

“If we’re going to have deaths, they just can’t be female,” Hamilton said, adding the population is down to only about 100 reproductive females. “We need a different system.”

Right whales have suffered high mortality and poor reproduction in recent years, particularly in 2017. The whales appear to be traveling in different areas of the ocean than usual because of food availability, said Nick Record, senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times

Making Catch-And-Release Safer For Sharks

June 10, 2019 — Say the word “shark” to a New Englander these days and the mind jumps straight to great white sharks, which have seen a remarkable increase here in recent years.

But great whites aren’t the only sharks around. And it turns out we know little about many of the sharks that frequent New England’s waters.

Now there’s a new effort to understand how catch-and-release fishing of sandbar sharks impacts their survival.

“We want to know if the catch and release processes is harming the fish in any way, and if it is, we want to work with fishermen to try to figure out what is it about the capture event that is causing the sharks to die,” Jeff Kneebone told Living Lab Radio.

Kneebone is a fisheries scientist with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium and much of his research focuses on figuring out where sharks are and what they’re doing as they move around the region.

Twenty years ago, Sandbar sharks had a large population off the mid-Atlantic coast. When the population dropped, it became illegal to catch and keep them. But fishermen still are allowed to pursue them using catch-and-release fishing.

Given the sharks’ susceptibility to population declines, Kneebone wants to know more about what happens after they are caught and released. When they die, why?

“Is it how long they’re being fought? Is it how they’re being handled when they’re landed on the beach? Is it where they’re being hooked?” he said.

Read the full story at WCAI

Lawmakers take up threats to North Atlantic right whales

March 11, 2019 — The sound of an air horn echoed through a Congressional subcommittee hearing Thursday, set off by U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., to mimic what critically endangered North Atlantic right whales might experience during seismic testing for oil and gas.

The loud demonstration occurred at a hearing focused on permits that could soon be issued by the U.S. Department of Interior to five companies to explore oil and gas reserves off the mid- and southern Atlantic states. Critics of the move argue that the North Atlantic right whales, many of which visit Cape Cod Bay to feed, could be harmed in the process.

“We must reduce exposure of all whales but particularly females to stressors that can slow or stop reproduction,” said Scott Kraus, an expert witness with the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, who appeared during a hearing before the Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Meet the New England Aquarium’s robotic research assistant

March 4, 2019 — It weighs around 100 pounds, is about the size of a mini-fridge, and comes with single robotic arm and an 800-foot cord.

The New England Aquarium’s new, remote-controlled underwater vehicle — an unexpected gift from software giant Autodesk Inc. in 2017 — has a range of abilities, from locating lost fishing gear in the Boston Harbor to recording video of sea life that would be off-limits to human divers. Importantly, the device helps fulfill the 50-year-old institution’s often-overlooked core research mission.

“There’s this supposition that aquariums don’t do scientific research,” said John Mandelman, vice president and chief scientist of the Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. “I think the (vehicle) is a surprise to people because it’s an example of using high-technology to do scientific research at an aquarium that people don’t realize has a scientific research angle.”

It was a couple years ago now that Autodesk’s Boston office called out of the blue to say it wanted to donate a remote-controlled vehicle, or ROV, made by San Diego-based Teledyne SeaBotix, said Mandelman. The company had bought it three years earlier for a one-time project, but it had sat on a shelf unused ever since.

Read the full story at the Boston Business Journal

Whale-saving efforts target oil and gas companies

February 21, 2019 — In an effort to protect endangered whales, conservation groups today filed a motion to stop oil and gas companies from conducting seismic airgun exploration from Delaware to Florida.

“In my expert opinion, the introduction of seismic airgun surveys off the U.S. East Coast represents an existential threat to the North Atlantic right whale, an endangered species that is already in a dangerous state of decline,” Scott Kraus, vice-president and senior science adviser for the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium, said in an expert declaration filed with the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is poised to issue permits to five oil and gas exploration companies, and seismic surveys could begin as early as March 30, according to the motion.

The plaintiffs want to halt “seismic airgun blasting” in the Atlantic until the merits of their claims are resolved in court, according to the motion.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Mini baby boom births hope for right whales

February 14, 2019 — It appears that there has been some North Atlantic right whale whoopee going on, but whale researchers on Wednesday cautioned against viewing the recent sightings of six right whale calves as a sure sign of resurgence for the beleaguered species.

Whale researchers on Tuesday confirmed the sighting of the sixth right whale calf off the coast of Florida, elevating the 2018-2019 calving season above each of the past two years, but still well below the 20-year average of 17 calves per calving season.

“It’s definitely not enough to take the view that things have turned around for right whales,” said Philip Hamilton, a research scientist at the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life.

Right whales migrate along the Atlantic coast each year, arriving in New England waters to feed in the late winter and early spring, congregating on Stellwagen Bank and off Cape Cod. They migrate south in the fall to give birth off Florida and Georgia.

Going into this calving season, whale researchers estimated there are only 411 North Atlantic right whales remaining in the oceans, down from about 500 in 2010.

The imperiled state of the North Atlantic right whale stock has thrust fisheries regulators, such as NOAA Fisheries, conservationists and fishing stakeholders into action to try to reverse the dire trend of a shrinking right whale population.

So, producing any right whale calves during the 2019 calving season— which runs roughly from Dec. 1 until late March —remains something of a cause for celebration. It represents a significant improvement over 2018, when none were born, and a (to date) modest increase over 2017, when five calves were born.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Right whale calves a hopeful sign for researchers

January 28, 2019 — The future of the North American right whale remains perilous, but researchers following their progress see hope in three calves spotted so far this winter off the Florida coast.

“It’s a spark of hope,” said Philip Hamilton, a research scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium. “It’s not even quite to the point of guarded optimism.”

The massive marine mammals migrate in the winter from the waters off Maine and Canada to the waters off northern Florida and southeastern Georgia for a calving season. Considered critically endangered, their total population is estimated at 411 animals. After a deadly year in 2017, with 15 deaths, and no calves born during the 2017-2018 season, whale advocates and researchers had awaited this calving season with trepidation.

An aerial survey team from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute photographed the latest mother-calf pair, whale No. 1204 and her calf, on Jan. 17 off Amelia Island.

No. 1204 has been particularly prolific, giving birth to at least nine calves in her lifetime. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission researchers said she’s one of only three right whales known to have given birth to nine calves.

Read the full story at the Daily Commercial