Saving Seafood

Drones hold promise as a new technique for tagging and monitoring endangered right whales

September 10, 2023 — North Atlantic right whales are notoriously difficult to track, but a new method for tagging them could hold promise for federal efforts to monitor the critically endangered species.

Researchers have traditionally approached right whales in a small boat and applied suction cup tags using a long pole. The method is often risky for both researchers applying the tags and for the whales themselves. And with a population of fewer than 340 right whales, poor weather conditions make it difficult to consistently tag and monitor them.

Read the full article at Maine Public

Ropeless Lobster Gear Study Released: Could Cost Industry $40 M in Annual Revenue

August 2, 2023 — The second phase of a multi-year project evaluating the operational, technological, and socioeconomic impacts of ropeless lobster gear was released yesterday by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF). If the gear had been deployed fleet-wide last year, the loss of annual revenue was estimated to be $40 million and the foregone harvest was pegged at 3.5 million pounds less. An overall recommendation was to explore further using more variables.

Alternative or ropeless lobster gear consists of submerged buoyancy devices that are activated using time-release mechanisms or acoustic signals transmitted from the surface. This innovative design would replace traditional vertical buoy lines, which can result in entanglements with marine mammals including North Atlantic right whales.

Estimating the Cost of Using On-Demand Gear in Massachusetts Lobster Fisheries  authors Noah Oppenheim of Homarus Strategies LLC, Dr. Robert Griffin of SMAST, and Dr. Andrew Goode of the University of Maine, took a deep dive into the financial impacts of using the gear onboard lobster fishing vessels. They present a new model that can be used to estimate these operational costs, providing important information that will assist in the consideration of fishery management scenarios involving entanglement risk-reducing fishing gear.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Biden administration blasted for ‘hypocrisy’ on offshore wind as it scrambles to probe whale deaths

August 2, 2023 — The Biden administration appears to be scrambling for research on the conflict between wind turbines and a highly endangered whale species on the East Coast following reports of “unprecedented” whale deaths.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), a regulatory body from the Department of Interior that leases offshore areas for energy development, posted a grant notice in May targeted at “addressing key information gaps in acoustic ecology of the North Atlantic Right Whales,” one of the most endangered whale species in the world.

The problem is the government has already approved offshore wind projects, and some experts are saying the attention to the whales is too little too late.

Fisherman in the region are calling the government “hypocritical” after the same federal agencies almost “regulated [them] completely out of business” in an effort to protect the endangered species without any data showing fishermem bring any harm to the right whale.

Read the full article at Fox News

Federal fisheries service agrees to deal aimed at curbing whale entanglements in fishing gear

July 19, 2023 — A legal agreement finalized Tuesday over the protection of humpback whales is expected to help the threatened animals thrive while maintaining the ocean’s health.

The deal stricken between the National Marine Fisheries Service and Center for Biological Diversity will create a team to reduce the number of whales that get tangled in a West Coast federal fishery. The service will form the team by Oct. 31, 2025, a press release stated.

“There is no reason these animals should have to suffer or die in this way,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the center. “This agreement is incredibly important.”

A federal court in March sided with the center after it filed suit last year against the fisheries service. The center argued the service failed to protect Pacific humpback whales from getting entangled in sablefish pot gear off the California, Oregon and Washington coasts.

According to Monsell, the fishery operates in an area with two humpback whale populations: a Central American population and a Mexican one. The Central American population is considered endangered and only hundreds of the whales remain. The Mexican population is threatened and some 3,000 remain.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

Vanishing whale’s decline worse than previously thought, feds say

July 18, 2023 — A review of the status of a vanishing species of whale found that the animal’s population is in worse shape than previously thought, federal ocean regulators said Monday.

The North Atlantic right whale numbers less than 350, and it has been declining in population for several years. The federal government declared the whale’s decline an “unusual mortality event,” which means an unexpected and significant die-off, in 2017.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released new data that 114 of the whales have been documented as dead, seriously injured or sub-lethally injured or sick since the start of the mortality event. That is an increase of 16 whales since the previous estimate released earlier this year.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

NOAA’s plan to slow boats ignites whale of a fight

July 9, 2023 — Capt. Fred Gamboa has led fishing trips off the New Jersey coast for the last 17 years, but he fears he will soon lose many customers if required to slow down his boats to meet new federal requirements to protect one of the most endangered whales in the ocean.

Gamboa, a charter boat operator from Point Pleasant, N.J., charges $4,800 to take people on an 18-hour tuna fishing trip 100 miles from shore. Under a new rule proposed by NOAA Fisheries, he’d have to travel at a top speed of roughly 11 ½ mph for part of the year, as opposed to his normal cruising speed of 30 to 40 mph.

“It would take nine to 10 hours to get out there — no customer would ever pay for that trip,” he said.

Gamboa, 56, and thousands of other boaters along the Atlantic coast are lobbying Congress to block NOAA’s plan. But NOAA officials say that forcing boats to slow down during certain times of the year is a matter of survival for the North Atlantic right whale, which are particularly vulnerable to collisions.

Boaters and the recreational fishing industry have flexed their political muscle by winning key allies from a growing chorus of NOAA critics on Capitol Hill, but they’re opposed by a united front of green groups that want the agency to act quickly before any more whales — there are only an estimated 340 whales now remaining — are killed by vessel strikes.

“We need seasonal slowdowns to protect right whales in danger zones, just like we have lower speed limits to protect children near schools,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney with Defenders of Wildlife.

Read the full article at E&E News

The Case for Ropeless

June 27, 2023 — Allow me to touch a “third rail” of fisheries politics: Lobstermen, crabbers, and other fishermen currently in the crosshairs of environmental groups over whale entanglements need to get behind ropeless fishing technology. On-demand gear can keep you on the water when the presence of whales would otherwise trigger a closure, it’s not about admitting defeat but find opportunities to keep fishing.

Coming is the time when trap fisheries will face two options: start using ropeless gear, or lose significant chunks – if not all ­– of the fishing season. Resistance now will likely put many in a world of pain later.

Over the years I have participated in numerous fixed gear fisheries in the North Pacific. I have also written extensively on whale entanglements in West Coast Dungeness crab and in other fisheries here for National Fisherman and in other outlets. I often find myself as not only a bridge builder but also an antagonist.

I’m willing to call out the bad actors and misdeeds within the commercial fishing industry while also critical of the bad faith engagement and the reckless hyperbole some of the environmental organizations using both the courts and media to attack working-class fishermen. In this position I found myself resistant to ropeless fishing gear, seeing it as an unfounded and expensive proposition.

But over the past few years I have changed my mind. I now see ropeless as the best forward to save fisheries, whales, and the reputation of an industry currently facing a public relations crisis.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Court hands lobstermen a win

June 27, 2023 — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a ruling on June 16 overturning a lower court’s ruling that would have required the lobster fishery to eliminate virtually any risk—no matter how minute—that North Atlantic right whales could become entangled in lobstering gear.

“Maine’s lobstermen and women have long demonstrated their commitment to maintaining and protecting a sustainable fishery in the Gulf of Maine,” said Gov. Janet Mills in a joint statement with the state’s federal delegation. “Today’s decision vindicates what the Maine lobster fishery, and the countless communities that rely on it, knew all along—that their practices support the conservation of the gulf ecosystem for generations to come.”

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Press

Federal judges: Data does not prove Maine lobstering endangers whales

June 22, 2023 — Maine lobstermen have secured a huge win in federal appeals court, thanks to a ruling over the long-debated belief that lobster fishing puts whales at risk.

Friday, a panel of judges ruled that data on entanglements in lobster fishing gear does not support the need for the new strict limits on where and how lobstermen could fish.

Those regulations, set by the National Marine Fisheries Service, were put in place under the authority of the Endangered Species Act to protect the 340 North Atlantic Right Whales whales left.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association says there is no evidence of Maine lobster gear ever killing a whale. There has been no documented entanglement of a North Atlantic Right Whale since 2004.

Read the full article at WTMW

Feds Commit $82 Million to Protect North Atlantic Right Whale

June 14, 2023 — Six months after an unprecedented number of humpback whale deaths occurred along the New Jersey coast, the federal government announced billions in funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that includes an $82 million commitment to the conservation and protection of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

The funds are part of the total $3.3 billion earmarked for NOAA under the Inflation Reduction Act to address climate change.

“We will provide direct support for the application of newer technologies, such as passive acoustic monitoring. We will invest in the development and, ultimately, implementation of new technologies to enable vessels to detect and avoid right whales and other large whales,” according to NOAA’s webpage on how it will prioritize the federal dollars. “This will reduce one of the primary threats to this species. We will continue developing and evaluating new technologies, such as satellite observations, to transform North Atlantic right whale monitoring and to improve understanding of the whales’ distribution and habitat use.”

Read the full article at The Sand Paper