Saving Seafood

Weighing in on whales: Maine’s delegation asks for accuracy

May 31, 2019 — Maine’s congressional delegation issued a letter this week to NOAA’s acting director in an effort to clarify the agency’s mission and goals for right whale protections.

Maine’s lobster industry stakeholders have concerns about the federal data tool used to establish levels of risk, varying standards for risk reduction, and sharing the burden of whale protection by enlisting Canadian fisheries to adopt similar management measures.

Following an April meeting of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team, Maine lobster officials agreed to reduce vertical trap lines by 50 percent and overall risk to right whales by 60 percent, with the understanding that other state-run fisheries would make the same commitment to overall risk reduction.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Lobstering industry objecting to ‘unfair closure’

May 9, 2019 — Lobstering industry members plan to gather in Plymouth on Thursday to speak out against what they see as the unfair closure of lobstering in the waters south of Scituate.

Industry representatives on the South Shore say they have worked to implement fishing techniques to protect right whales but say their efforts have been ignored by regulators in favor of blanket policies. They plan to make the case that there have been no whale entanglements in certain parts of Cape Cod Bay.

In late April, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team recommended measures that could protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA Team Reaches Consensus on Right Whale Survival Measures

May 6, 2019 — After many hours of discussion over a span of four days, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team was able to reach nearly unanimous consensus on right whale survival measures.

The agreement consists of a package of measures that would achieve at least a 60-percent serious injury and mortality reduction goal in each of the lobster management areas. Two general risk reduction approaches emerged as the Team’s preferred options: line reduction and gear modification.

“This is hard work. The Team members brought not only their expertise but also their passion for the people and communities they represent to the table. Everyone understands that there are real and difficult consequences to fishermen as a result of the choices made in this room,” said Sam Rauch, NOAA Fisheries deputy assistant administrator for regulatory programs.

“I am confident that the meaningful measures supported by the majority of the Team today present a substantial opportunity to reduce the impacts of U.S. fisheries on right whales and an opportunity to support the recovery of this species.”

The measures in the package include reductions in vertical buoy lines as well as gear modifications to reduce the strength at which lines will break. Reduced breaking strength lines would allow entangled whales to more easily break free of gear.

Additionally, an expansion of gear marking to create larger and more frequent marks on U.S. trap/pot fishery buoy lines throughout U.S. East Coast waters was supported by most team members.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Some whale protection rules on hold

May 3, 2019 — Inshore lobstermen will get a break when the federal government adopts new whale protection rules, but it remains to be seen for how long.

On Thursday, May 2, Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher announced on the DMR website that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will delay imposing any whale protection rules to see whether measures likely to be adopted by NOAA Fisheries offer sufficient protection to endangered right whales.

Late in April, NOAA’s Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team (TRT) recommended a 50 percent reduction in the number of vertical endlines (which connect lobster traps on the sea bottom to marker buoys on the surface) in the water. The TRT also called for the use of weaker rope, likely for the upper 75 percent, of the endlines that remain so that if whales swim into the rope it will break.

According to DMR spokesman Jeff Nichols, while the 50 percent reduction in endlines applies to both inshore and offshore fisheries, “the weak rope provision targets federal waters,” outside the three-mile limit.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Whale woes: Maine lobster reps agree to 50 percent cut in vertical lines

May 1, 2019 — After months of speculation and hand-wringing, Northeast lobstermen got a clear message from NMFS at the federal Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team meeting last week: Make drastic changes, or we’ll do it for you.

“On day three of the TRT meeting, NMFS Deputy Assistant Administrator Sam Rauch… did not mince words in stating that the TRT’s job is to identify measures to reduce right whale serious injury and mortality from lobster gear by 60-80 percent,” said Maine Lobstermen’s Association Executive Director Patrice McCarron in an April 29 letter to members. “He was clear that the TRT meeting gave the fishing industry its opportunity to shape how that reduction is achieved. If we failed that task, NMFS would begin rulemaking without our advice and decide for us.”

The 64-member team — established in 1996 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act — includes East Coast fishermen and associations representing fixed-gear fisheries, fishery managers, environmental organizations and scientists. Maine’s lobster industry holds four seats on the team, including McCarron’s.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

New restrictions placed on New England fishing industry to protect whales

April 29, 2019 — Fishermen across New England are facing new restrictions after a panel of experts convened by the federal government agreed on Friday to a plan to step up protection of the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

The group of federal and state officials, scientists, fishermen and environmental advocates, created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, capped a four-day meeting in Providence by reaching consensus on a plan to reduce entanglements in fishing gear, which is the leading cause of injuries to the whale and deaths. The measures, which include using weaker ropes or breakaway ropes and reducing the number of vertical lines in the water, will primarily affect the region’s lobster fisheries.

While the plan agreed to by the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team sets an overall goal of reducing whale deaths caused by fishing gear by 60 percent, each state will meet that target through a combination of different measures.

In Rhode Island, lobstermen will cut the number of end lines — the ropes that run vertically from traps on the ocean bottom to buoys on the surface — by 18 percent over the next three years and, on the remaining lines, use rope sleeves that would break apart under enough force. In Massachusetts, the reduction in vertical lines will be 30 percent and in Maine 50 percent.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

UPDATE: New fishing rules on agenda to protect rare whale

April 23, 2019 — This week is shaping up to be the week of the North Atlantic right whale, as regulators, conservationists and fishing stakeholders convene in New England to hammer out new measures to protect the imperiled cetaceans from potentially deadly entanglements in fishing gear.

The Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team is set to meet Tuesday through Friday in Providence, Rhode Island. The proceedings will be closely watched by segments of the Northeast commercial fishing industry — particularly Massachusetts and Maine lobstermen — to gauge the impact on future fishing.

“Tackling entanglements is critical to the recovery of the North Atlantic right whale population, and we can’t do it without the assistance and cooperation of those who know best how the fishing industry interacts with large whales,” Mike Pentony, the Gloucester-based regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries, said in a statement. “The continued participation and dedication of our industry, science, (non-governmental organizations) and agency partners is absolutely necessary to future success.”

The population of the North Atlantic right whales peaked at about 480 in 2010 before another downward trajectory emerged, fueled in part by an unprecedented 17 mortalities in U.S. and Canadian waters in 2017, particularly in the Gulf of St. Lawrence snow crab fishery.

Today, whale researchers estimate the North Atlantic right whale population hovers around 411.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Protection of Rare Whale, Fishing Rules on Agenda This Week

April 22, 2019 — A federal government group that seeks to keep whales safe from threats is meeting in Rhode Island this week to try to find solutions to save the North Atlantic right whale.

The right whales are among the rarest marine mammals, numbering about 411. Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team is holding its meeting in Providence from Tuesday to Friday. The team was created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to reduce injuries and deaths that whales suffer due to entanglement in fishing gear.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S News and World Report

First dead right whale of 2018 found off Virginia

January 26, 2018 — A whale carcass tangled in fishing line that was reported off Virginia Monday is confirmed as the first documented death of a North Atlantic right whale this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The imperiled right whales, which lost nearly 4 percent of their total population last year in Canadian and U.S. waters, and with only five documented births, faces significant man-made threats from both fishing gear and ship strikes, according to researchers.

“This isn’t just a crisis, this is a countdown to extinction,” said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conservation, which has an office in Plymouth.

A stranding response team with the Virginia Aquarium received notice and a photo of the carcass Wednesday, at which point the whale was identified as a North Atlantic right whale that appeared to show it was was alive and swimming when it ran into the line.

Entanglements of whales in ropes prevents them from surfacing for air, leading to drowning, or creates a drag that hampers feeding, movement and reproduction, and reduces energy stores, according to scientists.

NOAA requested a drift analysis from the Coast Guard to determine where the carcass might be, and to determine if it can be towed to shore for a necropsy.

The sex and identify of the dead whale has not be determined.

“Disaster, depressing,” said Charles “Stormy” Mayo, who directs right whale research at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, said of the latest whale carcass. “These are our whales, the humans who live along the Gulf of Maine. We are obviously not doing a very good job as stewards. Something’s got to change soon.”

In addition to a voluntary ship slow-down announced this week for 30 miles south of Nantucket, NOAA announced Thursday another voluntary slow-down 100 miles east-southeast of Virginia Beach, where a U.S. military ship crew had seen the carcass and four other live right whales.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times