Saving Seafood

Trump team nears decision on national monuments

August 21, 2017 — As Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke approaches the 24 August deadline for his recommendations to President Donald Trump on whether to alter dozens of national monuments, conservation proponents say it remains all but impossible to predict which sites the administration could target for reductions or even wholesale elimination.

In recent months, Zinke has traveled from coast to coast as he conducted the review, which included 27 national monuments created since 1996, the majority of which are larger than 100,000 acres.

Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, Atlantic Ocean

Obama created the first Atlantic marine monument in 2016 when he designated nearly 5,000 square miles for preservation off the coast of Massachusetts.

But the decision — which barred oil and gas exploration in the area and restricted commercial fishing — drew a lawsuit from Northeastern fishermen, including the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance and Garden State Seafood Association.

The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but a judge stayed action in the case in May to await the outcome of the Trump administration’s reviews (E&E News PM, May 12).

During his visit to the East Coast in June, Zinke stopped in Boston to meet with both fishermen’s groups and scientists about the monument.

The Boston Globe reported that Zinke appeared sympathetic while meeting with about 20 representatives of New England’s seafood industry.

“When your area of access continues to be reduced and reduced … it just makes us noncompetitive,” Zinke said at the time. “The president’s priority is jobs, and we need to make it clear that we have a long-term approach to make sure that fishing fleets are healthy.”

Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, Hawaii

This site near Hawaii is the world’s largest marine protected area at nearly 600,000 square miles.

Bush first designated the site — originally named the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument — in 2006, then renamed it to Papahānaumokuākea in early 2007 in honor of Hawaiian gods Papahānaumoku and Wākea, whose mythology includes the creation of the Hawaiian archipelago and its people.

In 2016, Obama opted to quadruple the site’s size to protect the 7,000 species that live in the monument’s boundaries, as well as to extend prohibitions on commercial fishing and extractive activities (E&E Daily, Aug. 26, 2016).

The Trump administration could opt to try to roll back those prohibitions as well as the monument’s size.

Read the full story from E&E News at Science Magazine

Fisherman lands ‘Obama fish’ lookalike

August 16, 2017 — Todd Goodell didn’t know what he’d hauled up. Offshore at Hydrographer Canyon aboard the Kingfisher, he opted for some deep drop fishing before pressing his hunt for tuna again. With a dual-hook sea bass rig weighted with sash weights and baited with squid, he’d pulled up familiar fish: cod, pollock, tilefish, redfish, and conger eels from 700 feet down.

But the hot yellow, orange, and pink coloration of a foot-long fish that eventually came aboard wasn’t something the veteran commercial fisherman had seen before in New England. It looked tropical, he said, and he treated it with caution, alert for hidden, potentially venomous spines.

Read the full story at the Martha’s Vineyard Times

BBC: Meet the fishermen beached by Obama

August 14, 2017 — Today, the BBC published a short video by journalist Charlie Northcott in which several fishermen discuss how they have been impacted by the designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. The monument, located off the coast of New England, was created by President Obama in the fall of 2016 using executive authority under the Antiquities Act. NOAA is currently reviewing the monument as part of President Trump’s order to review all national monuments created since 1996.

Tomorrow is the last day to submit comments to inform this review. If you have not already submitted comments, Saving Seafood encourages you to do so here.

Watch the video at BBC News

Read about the monument designation at the Boston Globe

Read about Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s recent meeting with New England fishermen at the Boston Globe

Have the Tides Turned Against Offshore Drilling?

Low oil prices and local resistance have stalled plans to drill off the southeastern coast, for now.

August 11, 2017 — Last month, in one of the North Carolina’s most popular beach towns, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced his opposition to offshore drilling.

“It’s clear that opening North Carolina’s coast to oil and gas exploration and drilling would bring unacceptable risks to our economy, our environment and our coastal communities – and for little potential gain,” Cooper said from Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. “As governor, I’m here to speak out and take action against it. I can sum it up in four words: not off our coast.”

When oil drilling off the southeast coast was proposed by President Barack Obama in 2015, Cooper’s press conference may have stood apart from the bipartisan consensus that supported the idea.

But now, two years later, the Democratic governor’s stance is less noteworthy. More than 125 municipalities along the coast have formally opposed drilling or seismic testing, and just one coastal governor in the Southeast still supports it.

What changed? Not local opinion, says Sierra Weaver, an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.

“The local communities have always been against offshore drilling, it’s really a matter of them getting educated about what’s at stake,” Weaver says. “What has shifted is interest at the state level or the political level.”

Read the full story at U.S. News & World Report

NOAA rejects bid to list tuna as endangered

August 9, 2017 — The Trump administration on Tuesday chose not to list the Pacific bluefin tuna as an endangered species, rejecting a petition by the largest global conservation group that the U.S. is a member of, with France, South Korea, Australia, and several other countries.

The Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service announced the decision after a 12-month review of the request that started under the Obama administration.

In response, environmentalists are organizing an international boycott of sushi restaurants, decrying what they say is the startling reversal of the agency’s original intent to list the tuna under the Obama administration.

The agency said that it looked at all factors affecting the bluefin tuna’s habitat, and based “on the best scientific and commercial data available … and after taking into account efforts being made to protect the species, we have determined that listing of the Pacific bluefin tuna is not warranted,” the agency said in a notice published in the Federal Register.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature had petitioned the U.S. government to list the tuna after assessing “the status of Pacific bluefin tuna and categorized the species as ‘vulnerable’ in 2014, meaning that the species was considered to be facing a high risk of extinction in the wild,” the notice read.

Read the full story at the Washington Examiner

Offshore drilling backers, opponents ready for North Carolina battle

August 8, 2017 — RALEIGH, N.C. — Federal regulators again want to hear what North Carolinians think about allowing oil and gas drilling off the state’s coast.

Last year, former President Barack Obama’s administration adopted a five-year energy plan that excluded drilling off the East Coast. But President Donald Trump has said he wants to see more offshore energy development, so his administration has tossed aside the 2016 plan and is starting over.

As part of that process, a public hearing was held Monday night in Wilmington, and others are set for Morehead City on Wednesday and Manteo on Thursday.

Gov. Roy Cooper said last month that he’s opposed to opening the coast to offshore exploration and drilling, saying he doesn’t think the risk to the state’s coastal tourism and commercial fishing industries of a major oil spill are worth the limited revenue North Carolina would receive from the move.

Read the full story at WRAL

Review renews debate over first Atlantic marine national monument

August 7, 2017 — BOSTON — During his eight years in office, former President Obama protected more than 550 million acres of public land and water as national monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act. Unlike creating a national park, which requires an act of Congress, a president can declare a national monument to protect “objects of historic or scientific interest” with a proclamation.

Critics of the monument say President Obama overstepped the powers set forth by the Antiquities Act and did not provide enough opportunity for public comment. In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order asking his Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, to conduct a review of 27 monuments created since 1996. The purpose of the review is to determine if these monument areas qualify under the terms of the act and to address concerns from the community.

Two days later, Trump signed another executive order outlining his “America-First Offshore Energy Strategy.” The plan demonstrates Trump’s vision for the exploration and production of energy on federal lands and waters to decrease America’s dependence on foreign energy.

Fishing industry’s concerns

Captain Fred Penney, a lobsterman out of Boston Harbor, believes that the monument will hurt the future of fishing in New England because the new restrictions were implemented without much input from the fishermen themselves.

“To have no regulations and have it be a free-for-all, that’s completely unacceptable, I understand that,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to see that. But what they’re doing now doesn’t seem to be it.”

Many in the industry felt fishing in the area should have been regulated under the Magnuson- Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act, which created eight regional fishery management councils to maintain sustainable fisheries and habitats in the U.S.

The councils are divided up by region, including the New England, Mid-Atlantic and South- Atlantic councils on the East Coast. Each council sets regulations for certain fisheries such as limiting catch size, issuing permits and monitoring fishing equipment.

Fishermen argue the council’s lengthy public process is more transparent than a proclamation from the president and allows for more input from the community.

Jon Williams of the Atlantic Red Crab Company said the fishermen were not given much notice about meetings and the scope of the monument. He argued the area was thriving under the council’s management before the monument designation.

“We’d been in there for 40 years and if it’s… pristine now, after our presence for 40 years, why is there an emergency for the president to use an act to protect this thing?” Williams said. “Why not give it to the council and let the council do its job?”

Before the Obama administration announced the monument, the New England Fishery Management Council was working on a coral amendment that would protect deep sea corals, one of the goals of the monument. The South and Mid Atlantic Councils passed similar regulations years earlier.

 

Read the full story at The Groundtruth Project

Under Trump, recreational anglers feel tide turning in their favor on red snapper

August 7, 2017 — WASHINGTON — It’s getting easier to snap up red snapper.

The sought-after game fish has been at the center of a years-long debate between environmentalists who want to protect the iconic species while it continues to rebuild from overfishing and recreational anglers who contend years of economically crippling restrictions have paid off and it’s time to go fishing again.

After eight years of policies under President Obama that emphasized protection, there’s now a rising tide of momentum under the Trump administration to loosen restrictions in the federal waters off the Southeastern United States. Already:

• Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in June expanded the recreational fishing season for red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico from three to 42 days.

• Legislation has been reintroduced in the House and Senate to give more say over red snapper management to Gulf Coast states, which are seen as more sympathetic to recreational anglers’ interests. Such bills are likely to get a friendly reception if they reach the president’s desk.

• And next month, the agency overseeing fishing restrictions in the South Atlantic is expected to lift a years-long ban on red snapper in 2018.

All of that delights anglers who feel the Obama administration ignored their arguments that red snapper had rebounded so well they were literally “tripping over” fish.

“I feel a whole lot better today than I did a year ago,” said Jeff Angers, president of the Louisiana-based Center for Sportfishing Policy, which advocates for the recreational fishing industry.

Read the full story at USA Today

Feds extend comment period on seismic testing in the Atlantic

July 5, 2017 — The public is being given 15 more days to comment on applications by five companies to do seismic airgun surveys for oil and natural gas deposits in the Atlantic Ocean.

The National Marine Fisheries Service on Wednesday announced the extension of the comment period to July 21.

Five Houston-based survey companies are seeking “incidental harassment authorizations” that allow them to disturb or harm marine mammals during the course of their airgun surveys.

The applications had been denied by President Barack Obama’s administration, but were revived under President Donald Trump, who has said he favors oil and gas exploration along the Atlantic Coast.

Last week, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced that federal officials have begun the process of developing a new five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program. Initial public comments on the 2019-2024 plan also are being taken.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

Group votes to protect some Atlantic corals, balk on others

June 22, 2017 — A federal panel voted on Thursday to offer new protections to some deep-sea corals in the Atlantic Ocean but held off on protecting others so it can get more information first.

The New England Fishery Management Council proposals focus on corals in two key fishing areas — the Gulf of Maine and south of Georges Bank off the Massachusetts coast — and have been the subject of debate among environmentalists and fishing groups for months.

“The goal is to protect as much coral as you can while minimizing impact on various industries that are fishing near the corals,” said John Bullard, a regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service and a member of the fishery council.

The proposals to protect the corals would need to be approved by the federal Department of Commerce.

New England’s corals grow in areas such as along underwater canyons and seamounts and provide habitat for marine life including sea turtles and fish. President Barack Obama protected one area last year as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the San Francisco Chronicle