Saving Seafood

Researchers push back against Hawaii shark protection bill

May 13, 2019 — Legislation meant to protect Hawaii’s shark population was altered at the 11th hour to remove the apex predators from the bill amid concerns from the scientific community.

The bill was intended to extend protections already in place for manta rays to include all rays and sharks, West Hawaii Today reported Tuesday.

It would have made it illegal to “capture, take, possess, abuse, or entangle any shark, whether alive or dead, or kill any shark, within state marine waters,” the measure said. There were exceptions for academic research, but the scientific community found them inadequate.

University of Hawaii shark researcher Kim Holland said researchers would be forced to apply for permits from Department of Land and Natural Resources personnel without scientific expertise.

“It will be virtually impossible to prove that someone is ‘knowingly’ fishing for sharks,” wrote Holland, adding state enforcement resources are already insufficient for current polices.

Holland also said the bill was too ambiguous in defining terms such as “take” and “harassment.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Star Advertiser

Tuna Experts Mark 10 Years of Collaboration, Come Together for Workshop on Mitigation of Environmental Impacts of Tropical Tuna Purse Seine Fisheries

May 9, 2019 — The following was released by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation & Common Oceans ABNJ Tuna Project: 

The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) and the Common Oceans ABNJ Tuna Project co-sponsored the Mitigating Environmental Impacts of Tropical Tuna Purse Seine Fisheries workshop, held at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) Headquarters in Rome, on 12-13 March 2019. The workshop reviewed the progress cross-sector research and advocacy efforts have made in reducing bycatch and other environmental impacts and also identified main focus areas for future activities.

Workshop sessions focused on: (1) bycatch of the tuna purse seine fishery; (2) sharks and rays; (3) small bigeye and yellowfin tuna; (4) fish aggregating device (FAD) structure impacts; (5) FAD management; and (6) looking ahead: the next 10 years. Each session comprised an expert presentation followed by a discussion panel including representatives from across the multi-sector workshop participants. The newly released report detailing the six sessions is now available for download. The report also offers data-rich presentations for each session.

Read the full release here

Trump administration opts not to pursue appeal of driftnet ruling

April 23, 2019 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has decided against appealing a federal judge’s ruling that NOAA Fisheries illegally withdrew a proposal that would have placed hard caps on the bycatch of protected species caught in California’s swordfish drift gillnet fishery.

On Monday, 15 April, when its brief was due to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the administration instead filed a notice to dismiss its appeal voluntarily. As a result, NOAA Fisheries will begin talks with the Pacific Fishery Management Council to determine the limits that should be placed on such species as humpback whales, loggerhead turtles, and leatherback turtles.

The PFMC initially worked with key stakeholders to establish caps on nine species, and NOAA Fisheries published the draft review for implementation in October 2016. However, eight months later, after Trump was elected president, the agency reversed its course.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Federal appellate court upholds NOAA Fisheries’ definition of bycatch

April 18, 2019 — A panel of federal appellate judges has upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled on NOAA Fisheries’ method for assessing bycatch in New England fisheries.

The ruling, which was announced on Friday, 12 April, in the District of Columbia chambers of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, allows NOAA Fisheries to use statistical sampling to determine the amount of bycatch. It stems from a 2011 court case where judges ruled the agency did not establish methodology standards to assess the number of other species caught and discarded when harvesting selected fish.

In both instances, environmental group Oceana pursued the lawsuit.

After that decision, NOAA Fisheries decided to utilize human observers on vessels. In most cases, the observers were trained biologists who reported on a vessel’s harvest. However, since it was too expensive to place an observer on every vessel, the agency created a statistical formula that allocated the observers in a fashion that reduced bias. This enabled NOAA Fisheries officials to build fishery-wide assessments based the observers’ findings.

Oceana filed the subsequent suit in July 2015 and argued that the sampling method implemented violated the Magnuson-Stevens Act. In addition, it claimed that observers were only counting the bycatch of species under management plans within the agency.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

How Scientists Are Using Real-Time Data to Help Fishermen Avoid Bycatch

April 15, 2019 — From 1990 to 2000, fishermen seeking swordfish off the coast of California accidentally caught and killed over 100 leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles, and injured many more.

In 2001, the federal government established the Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area, a 250,000-square-mile region off the coast of California that is off-limits to fishing boats from August through November.

Since then, the number of turtles killed as bycatch has plummeted, but a handful of animals still die from being entangled in fishing nets each year—too many, environmental advocates say. And at the same time, the closure of the giant oceanic region means the once-$15 million swordfish industry has become a $2 million industry, and the number of boats plying the waters has decreased significantly.

Scientists and ocean advocates are hoping to find a way to both protect sea turtles and other threatened species and help fishermen make a living. To this end, many are looking at dynamic ocean management, a strategy that uses advances in real-time data collection to help fishing vessels meet fish where they are—and avoid all other bycatch.

Read the full story at Smithsonian.com

DC Circuit Sinks Challenge to Fishing Bycatch Rule

April 15, 2019 — The D.C. Circuit on Friday upheld the government’s method of counting fish and other sea life that are unintentionally swept up in commercial fishing nets.

Fishing boats often throw back this unwanted haul, known as bycatch, but the creatures often do not survive the ordeal. Concerned about the impact to the undersea habitat, Congress has required the National Marine Fisheries Service to develop a way of counting bycatch.

The NMFS changed its method for counting bycatch in 2015, after a court struck down an earlier change because it included a provision that allowed the government to go around the normal method if it had a budget shortfall. Because the agency controlled the amount of money that went towards counting bycatch, the D.C. Circuit held the policy was not the standardized method Congress had called for.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service

Jonah Crab Moves Mainstream In Gulf Of Maine After Decades As Lobster Bycatch

April 2, 2019 — Regulators are taking comments on plans to expand a lucrative new crab fishery that’s stirring interest in the Gulf of Maine.

Jonah crabs are a native species that, until recently, was mainly caught as bycatch – by accident – in lobster pots.

Now, as warming waters push the lobster fishery north, more fishermen – especially in southern New England – are targeting Jonah crabs on purpose to supplement their income.

New Hampshire Fish and Game biologist Josh Carloni says in Northern New England and the Gulf of Maine, lobster is still king – but that could change.

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

WHOI Releases Report on Right Whale Threats, Solutions

April 1, 2019 — A new report has been released by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution which details the major threats facing critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The population for the species is estimated to be just over 400 and has suffered in recent years from high mortality rates with very few births.

The report indicates the whales are most threatened by fishing gear entanglements, vessel strikes and noise pollution.

WHOI Marine Biologist Michael Moore, who was a co-author of the report, says there has been a dramatic shift in the number of deaths caused by entanglements over the last decade.

Before 2010, 45 percent of right whale deaths were due to vessel strikes with 35 percent attributed to entanglements. Since 2010, entanglements have resulted in about 85 percent of right whale deaths.

“The entanglement rate has gone up and become more severe,” Moore said. “It used to be the animals would get entangled and scarred up and then be able to wiggle out of it or get disentangled, but now the entanglement mortality rate has also increased.”

Whale researchers are also concerned with the non-lethal effects of getting caught in fishing gear.

“Eighty-plus percent of the species show entanglement scars and 25 percent of them get new scars every year,” Moore said. “So the majority don’t die but they do have sub-lethal impact and really it comes down to stress of being entangled and pulling the rope through the water and traps too if they are involved.”

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

NEW YORK: New measures to protect striped bass being eyed for the fall

March 28, 2019 — A steady drop in the population of spawning-aged striped bass is leading fisheries regulators to consider new measures to limit fishing impacts on that vital East Coast species as soon as this fall, state regulators said at a meeting this week.

Fishermen were given the floor at a meeting of the civilian Marine Resources Advisory Council in Setauket to suggest and opine on measures to limit so-called discard mortality — essentially the unintended killing of fish that are too small or over the limit of the one fish at 28 inches that anglers are allowed to keep in a season that starts April 15 through December 15. Any new measures would apply to recreational, not commercial, striped bass fishing.

Suggestions included everything from banning surfcasting and commercial fishing nets to requiring hooks that limit damage to fish. The measures were alternately greeted by heckles or applause from the standing-room-only crowd of chiefly fishing boat captains and anglers from across Long Island.

Read the full story at Newsday

Dead Seabirds Do Tell Tales: How Fishery Observers Help Provide Data for Seabird Management

March 26, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Sometimes during regular fishing operations, seabirds accidentally get caught in fishing gear, resulting in injury or death. While this occurrence (also known as bycatch) is unfortunate, it does provide an opportunity to monitor seabird population characteristics and trends over time.

Observers deployed by the North Pacific, Pacific Islands and At-Sea Hake Observer Programs collect seabird bycatch. NOAA’s National Seabird Program works with the nonprofit organization Oikonos to conduct seabird necropsies. Collection of albatross, shearwater, and fulmar carcasses would be impossible without the cooperation of fishermen, observers, and observer program staff members.

What Information Do We Retrieve from Seabird Bycatch Carcasses?

From September 2017 to August 2018, Oikonos sampled a total of 206 seabird carcasses. Scientists and volunteers worked together to:

  • Identify bird species, age, sex, and health status.
  • Complete a variety of important measurements.
  • Support seabird diet studies through the analysis of seabird stomach contents.

Analysts also carefully measure the quantity of plastic ingested by seabirds in order to investigate trends related to the harmful impacts of plastic pollution in the North Pacific Ocean.

How Do Managers Use This Information?

Scientists and managers use age, sex, and health data from multiple years of deceased birds to identify trends indicative of population status. Necropsies also allow scientists to see how bird populations are responding to stressors such as oil spills, disease, and environmental changes. Regional and species differences in age and sex distributions can be documented and used to understand which groups of seabirds are most vulnerable to fisheries bycatch.

For example, from September 2017 to August 2018, adult black-footed albatrosses caught in Hawaii were mostly females, while more adult males were caught in Alaska. Most seabirds that were captured in both the Alaska and Hawaii fisheries were adults. Adult mortalities can slow population growth more than mortality of juveniles that are not yet able to reproduce.

Read the full release here