Saving Seafood

MAINE: Rally over whale rules planned

July 19, 2019 — It was almost 45 years ago when a fictional news anchor named Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch in the film “Network,” shouted out to listeners “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!”

Last week, Stonington lobsterman Julie Eaton, speaking for most members of her industry said just about the same thing in a posting on Facebook announcing plans for a rally on the Stonington Fish Pier at noon this Sunday to protest a proposed NOAA Fisheries rule that would force Maine lobstermen to remove half their buoy lines from the Gulf of Maine to reduce the risk that endangered right whales might become entangled in the fishing gear.

“It is official,” Eaton wrote. “We are holding a Lobstermen’s Rally … on the Stonington Commercial Fish Pier.”

Last March, NOAA Fisheries announced that the risk of harming right whales in the Gulf of Maine had to be reduced by 60 percent. Not long afterwards, the regulators adopted a “consensus” recommendation by a stakeholder group including representatives from the Department of Marine Resources, other state and federal fisheries regulators and several conservation organizations — the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team — that to reach the risk reduction target, Maine lobstermen would have to reduce the number of vertical buoy lines in the Gulf of Maine by 50 percent even though evidence showed that Maine fishing gear was not the primary cause of most of the right whale deaths over the past several years and that the vast majority of recent whale mortalities had occurred in Canadian waters.

According to Eaton, Sunday’s gathering is emphatically not a protest of the whale rule proposal but is intended “to inform the public that we are not killing whales in Maine, voice our concerns about the proposed whale regulations and how they will not only affect our own futures and safety but the future of our children and our coastal communities.”

Read the full story at The Mount Desert Islander

A Life-Long Lobsterman Also Works Hard On Ways To Avoid Whales

June 28, 2019 — Rob Martin was five miles out on his boat, Resolve, lobstering with his crew, and made a call on his way back to port.

Martin wasn’t calling his buyer. He was joining a conference call for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team, of which he is a member.

Martin intended to just listen, but they started talking about gear modifications, which he knows a good deal about.

They asked him to chime in as he was offloading, but there was quite a bit of background noise on his end.

“Can you hold on a second? I have to shut the boat down,” he remembers asking. “Actual fisherman here out fishing and coming in to talk!”

The conversation revolved around installing breakaway sleeves in vertical lines from traps to buoys so whales can snap them on contact and not become entangled.

Martin wasn’t required to make those changes, but he already had. He has been working for years to find a way to continue fishing and protect whales, like other proactive lobstermen. So when managers and others first started talking about “breakaway” lines he took the hint and started retrofitting his gear. In the 1990s, when regulators were looking at sinking lines to help avoid whales, he got ahead of that too. Sinking lines, weighted to drop to the bottom if they break free, are now a requirement.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

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