Saving Seafood

Female North Atlantic right whale found dead off coast of Virginia

April 2, 2024 — Another North Atlantic right whale has been found dead in U.S. waters.

The whale was found 30 March 2024 by representatives of HDR Inc. who were conducting Mid-Atlantic whale surveys for the U.S. Navy. The whale was floating approximately 50 miles offshore east of Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge in the U.S. state of Virginia, according to NOAA. It was identified as adult female #1950, a six-time mother with a feeding calf born over the winter. Her calf was not seen in the vicinity of the carcass.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MASSACHUSETTS: The complicated truths about offshore wind and right whales

April 1, 2024 — By the time researchers found the dead whale on a Martha’s Vineyard beach, her jet-black skin was pockmarked by hungry seagulls, her baleen had been dislodged from her mouth, and thin rope was wrapped tightly—as it had been for 17 months—around the most narrow part of her tail.

Researchers quickly learned this was a 12-ton, 3-year-old female known as 5120, and that she was a North Atlantic right whale, a species with just about 360 members left.

A few weeks later, NOAA Fisheries announced that the entangling rope came from lobster fishing gear set in Maine state waters. The pain and discomfort of the entanglement likely affected 5120’s ability to swim and eat until finally, experts say, exhaustion or starvation probably killed her. A final cause of death is still pending.

The death of 5120 was devastating to right whale advocates, who know that losing a female doesn’t just mean losing one whale, but dozens of others that could have come from her future calves. For them, a death is often followed by a period of grief, and a renewed commitment to their work. And that might have been the end of 5120’s story.

But then came the online comments. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, across social media blamed offshore wind farms—the noise, electricity generated, and the mere presence of turbines. Along the way, the truth about 5120 became a non-concern.

In many cases, the rumors about offshore wind hurting and killing right whales are quite possibly spread from a place of concern, mistrust, or fear by well-meaning people who want to know our oceans are safe for marine mammals. But few people want that more than right whale scientists, who have dedicated their careers to saving a species that appears to be just a few decades from extinction. For many of them, talking about offshore wind has its own challenges, both because of the unknowns that come with a nascent industry and the knee-jerk reactions from people on all sides of the issue. So they say that yes, they’re uneasy about the potential threats of wind farms. But they agonize over the prospect of climate change destroying right whales’ shot at survival via their food web and ecosystem.

Read the full article at CAI

MASSACHUSETTS: Fast ferries to Cape and Islands could be in jeopardy if speed limits cut to protect right whales

March 26, 2024 — The familiar “beep” of a ferry boat off the coast of Hyannis often signals a summer vacation, but for most of the year – it’s actually a lifeline for industry on the island.

“I work on the island and live over here,” on the mainland, Amos Campbell told WBZ-TV as he waited for a ferry Monday to go to work on Nantucket. He takes the fast passenger ferry twice a week.

That commute, and those of others who rely on ferry service in the off-season, is under threat due to proposed environmental regulation.

Read the full article at CBS News

MASSACHUSETTES: Massachusetts fishermen say feds are hypocritical in Gulf of Maine wind energy designation

March 25, 2024 — A move to designate two million acres in the Gulf of Maine as a hub for wind energy is snagging a sharp hook from Massachusetts fishermen who say the development overlooks risks to the North Atlantic right whale.

A handful of Bay State fishermen advocacy groups are teaming with counterparts from across New England in criticizing the Biden administration’s plans to industrialize the area off the coasts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management finalized the designation earlier this month, an action it says looks to support President Biden’s clean energy goals.

The area, which ranges from 23 to 92 miles off the coasts of the three states, has the potential to support generation of 32 gigawatts of clean energy, the bureau said. That amount of energy surpasses “current state goals for offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Maine: 10 GW for Massachusetts and 3 GW for Maine,” BOEM said.

Specifically, industrialization could lead to the deployment of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030 and 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind energy capacity by 2035, according to the feds.

Local, state and federal officials over the years have mandated fishermen to follow a growing number of protocols to preserve the endangered right whales — in some cases, barring them from taking to certain waters.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

NOAA proposes tighter rules for East Coast vessels to protect right whales

March 23, 2024 — We’re taking a closer look into the amendments proposed by the NOAA that would increase the number of boats required to slow down offshore in an effort to protect the endangered Right Whale from strikes.

On Monday, we spoke to charter businesses that would be affected by the changes to the North Atlantic Right Whale Vessel Strike Reduction Rule. But changing the length requirements from 65 ft boats to 35 ft or longer isn’t the only change being proposed- there are three other major amendments as well.

The National Marine Fisheries Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been leading the change to the vessel strike reduction rule and propose four major changes to the rule that was first implemented in 2008. This is a map of the current Seasonal Management areas where the 10-knot limit, that’s about 11 miles an hour, is in place during the right whale’s migratory season- but take a look at the proposed change. Now called Seasonal Speed Zones, it stretches along the entire east coast up to 90 miles offshore. These will be mandatory for all boats 35ft or longer during the specified periods.

Read the full article at WCTI

Lawsuit to stop Virginia Beach offshore wind farm claims project is a danger to whales

March 21, 2024 — Several groups filed a lawsuit against federal entities to overturn the approval of a massive wind turbine project off the shore of Virginia Beach, claiming it is a hazard for endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The lawsuit filed by The Heartland Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the National Legal and Policy Center names the United States Department of Interior, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the National Marine Fisheries Services, among others. It claims the federal government is on an “aggressive” campaign of developing offshore wind off the Atlantic coast, and the locations of the projects being in right whale habitat poses a major risk for injury or death of the animals.

The coalition said in a statement that the lawsuit is to stop Dominion Energy’s plans to start construction May 1 to protect the North Atlantic right whales. North Atlantic right whale populations have dwindled due to an “unusual mortality event,” according to scientists. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other groups attribute many of the deaths to vessel strikes and entanglement.

“In issuing its ‘biological opinion’ in September, (National Marine Fisheries Services) only examined the impact that each of these projects, individually and in isolation, would have on the North Atlantic right whale,” the coalition said in a statement. “The agency did not, as it should have, issue a comprehensive and cumulative analysis examining the combined harm that all of the projects, together, would inflict on the whales during their annual migration path.”

Read the full article at The Daily Press

Boating and Fishing Groups Disappointed in NOAA Right Whale Regulations

March 20, 2024 — Some boating and fishing advocates are voicing concerns in response to regulations meant to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales moving closer to potential implementation.

If approved, NOAA’s Vessel Strike Reduction rule would require speed restrictions of 10 knots for smaller vessels under 65 feet in length in certain parts of the ocean where endangered whales are spotted. Larger vessels are already subject to restrictions.

For Cape Cod Bay currently, Massachusetts state law requires most vessels less than 65 feet to travel at 10 knots or less in the Cape Cod Bay Vessel Speed Restriction Area from March 1 to April 30. Speed restrictions may be extended by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) if right whales are spotted outside that window.

Read the full article at CapeCod.com

Wind-farm opponents encouraged after hearing

March 9, 2024 — The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals appears unlikely to overturn the approval of the Vineyard Wind offshore energy project sought by the advocacy group ACK for Whales (formerly Nantucket Residents Against Turbines), according to reporting from courthouse news services that covered a pretrial hearing Tuesday, citing questions the judges asked both sides.

But Amy DiSibio, a member of ACK for Whales who attended the hearing in Boston, had a much different take.

“I did not get that impression at all,” she said. “We left the courtroom feeling as confident as we could be, From what I understand the majority of these appeal cases get settled without a hearing. So, we felt really good that they were taking this seriously enough that they wanted (to hold a hearing).”

Read the full article at The Inquirer and Mirror

Catch dips as lobster fishers grapple with climate change, whale rules

March 7, 2024 — America’s lobster fishing business dipped in catch while grappling with challenges including a changing ocean environment and new rules designed to protect rare whales.

The lobster industry, based mostly in Maine, has had an unprecedented decade in terms of the volume and value of the lobsters brought to the docks. But members of the industry have also said they face existential threats from proposed rules intended to protect the North Atlantic right whale and climate change that is influencing where lobsters can be trapped.

Fishermen from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and other Northeast states also harvest lobsters with traps from the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean, but about 80% comes to the docks in Maine in a typical years.

Maine fishermen’s catch in 2023 fell more than 5% from the year that preceded it, and the total of 93.7 million pounds of lobsters caught was the lowest figure since 2009, according to data released Friday by the Maine Department of Marine

Read the full article at The Daily News

First baby right whale of season dies from injuries caused by ship collision

March 5, 2024 —  The first confirmed baby right whale of the year has been found dead from a collision with a ship, a devastating blow for the vanishing species.

North Atlantic right whales number less than 360 and they are vulnerable to ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. Federal authorities were notified of a dead right whale stranded off Georgia on Sunday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

Federal and state officials identified the whale as the injured calf of a right whale known as Juno by marine scientists. The calf had first been seen on Jan. 3 with injuries to its head from a vessel strike, NOAA said in a statement.

Right whales, which are in decline, are slow to reproduce and every baby is vitally important to the future of the species, marine scientists have said. Twenty newborns would be considered a relatively productive season, but the giant whales have been having babies at an even slower rate than normal in recent years, and they have not reached that figure since 2021, NOAA data state.

NOAA said it was able to identify the dead calf based on its injuries and markings that were documented when it was alive.

Read the full article at News Center Maine