Saving Seafood

Agency critics slam federal oversight of bycatch

July 18, 2024 — The agency that oversees the performances of federal agencies gave a sobering assessment of those tasked with monitoring bycatch in US fisheries.

That oversight falls to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), also called NOAA Fisheries, which agreed with the troubling performance outlined in a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

In a June report to the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee titled “Efforts to Reduce and Monitor Unintentional Catch and Harm Need Better Tracking,” the GAO addressed four issues: measures used to reduce bycatch, coverage, and funding of fisheries observers, how bycatch estimates are developed and reported and how NMFS tracks its performance towards reducing and monitoring bycatch.

It added: “NMFS’ efforts to track its performance in reducing and monitoring bycatch do not align with key elements of evidence-based policymaking related to performance management.”

The GAO outlined numerous ways in which NMFS has failed to adequately tackle bycatch issues and blamed a lack of observer coverage overall. NMFS replied that it needs more funding to recruit and retain observers, but it hasn’t communicated that need to Congress.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

US Government Accountability Office report finds NFMS bycatch monitoring doesn’t meet standards

July 15, 2024 — A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is not measuring up to bycatch-monitoring standards.

In its 60-page report, GAO outlined a number of ways in which NFMS has failed to adequately tackle bycatch issues and harm to marine mammals and other species. According to the report, a central failing from the NMFS was a lack of observer coverage of fisheries.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Environmentalists threaten to sue NJ, NY and Delaware over Atlantic sturgeon bycatch

July 12, 2024 — Atlantic sturgeon have been around for 70 million years — predating the dinosaurs. These monumental fish with shark-like fins even survived the Chicxulub asteroid, which caused the great extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

But the species that once thrived in the Philadelphia region’s waterways has become endangered, threatened by habitat loss, dams, poor water quality and vessel strikes. In the Delaware River, only about 250 estimated sturgeon remain, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Sturgeon are also caught in fishing nets and injured by boats during the commercial fishing of other types of fish such as striped bass and summer flounder.

Read the full article at the NJ Spotlight News

More Alaska groups join salmon bycatch lawsuit

December 8, 2023 — Alaska Native and fisheries conservation organizations have gone to federal court in support of a lawsuit challenging how the National Marine Fisheries Service manages North Pacific trawl fisheries.

The amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief is a response to the lawsuit brought by the Association of Village Council Presidents, Tanana Chiefs Conference, and city officials of Bethel, Alaska, against federal fisheries managers. The lawsuit alleges that NMFS has “violated the National Environmental Policy Act by authorizing large-scale industrial fishing companies to catch billions of pounds of fish without appropriately considering the impacts in light of rapid environmental changes, ongoing species collapses, and closures on in-river salmon fisheries,” according to the supporters.

The new brief was filed by the groups Native Peoples Action, Ocean Conservancy, Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, SalmonState and Alaska Marine Conservation Council in United States District Court in Alaska.

It’s the latest legal maneuver in the ongoing fight between the trawler fleet and other advocacy groups over salmon bycatch and environmental effects.

“If successful, the litigation could lead to better consideration of the impacts of industrial fishing and precautionary measures designed to minimize bycatch and killing of species like salmon, herring, crab and halibut,” according to a joint statement by SalmonState and the allied groups.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Conservation groups call on US to ban foreign seafood over whale and dolphin bycatch

December 8, 2023 — Conservation groups want NOAA Fisheries to ban imports from foreign fisheries that are not adequately working to prevent marine mammal bycatch.

“By continuing to allow imports that do not meet U.S. standards, [NOAA Fisheries] NMFS chooses business as usual over the survival of some of the most amazing species on the planet,” Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Senior Attorney and Global Biodiversity Conservation Director Zak Smith said. “Because NMFS has failed to safeguard ocean biodiversity, future generations may never have the chance to protect invaluable marine life.”

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

ALASKA: Alaska Gov. Dunleavy again vetoes research project on salmon bycatch

June 26, 2023 — Among the projects Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed from the state budget on Monday was salmon research to help determine the causes of the chinook and chum crisis in Western Alaska.

Dunleavy vetoed $513,000 for research on the origins of salmon caught by accident in the Bering Sea pollock fishery, as well as the origin of salmon intercepted by fishermen off the Alaska Peninsula in what’s known as “Area M.” Dunleavy vetoed the project last year, too.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Dunleavy again vetoes research project on salmon bycatch

June 23, 2023 — Among the projects Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed from the state budget on Monday was salmon research to help determine the causes of the chinook and chum crisis in western Alaska.

Dunleavy vetoed $513,000 for research on the origins of salmon caught by accident in the Bering Sea pollock fishery, as well as the origin of salmon intercepted by fishermen off the Alaska Peninsula in what’s known as “Area M.” Dunleavy vetoed the project last year, too.

“You never know what’s going to come of these budgets. But this is quite a disappointment, again,” said Karen Gillis, program director of the Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association. The association was to receive the money and pass it on to a partnership of federal and university scientists.

Read the full article at KYUK

Tech companies work to make fishing, aquaculture more sustainable

December 15, 2022 — For people who fish for a living, removing bycatch from nets is a tedious task. It’s expensive, labor-intensive and causes wear to the fishing vessel and gear. For marine animals unintentionally captured, the results are more debilitating — mostly fatal. From an ecological point of view, killing too many animals unintentionally can disrupt entire marine ecosystems and the food chains that keep them balanced. And yet, bycatch comprises as much as 40% of the global fishing catch.

U.K.-based startup SafetyNet Technologies is attempting to find a technological solution. The company deploys LED lights of varying colors and intensities that fishers can attach to their gear to attract certain species. They can change the lights depending on the fish species they want to target.

“Different species can see different lights and are attracted to that,” Tom Rossiter, head of precision fishing and sales lead at SafetyNet Technologies, told Mongabay in a video interview. “It’s those triggers we use to get particular species to move towards the net.”

Surveys with fishers in the U.K. and U.S. who have trialed the lighting technology indicate that it does reduce bycatch, according to Rossiter, but larger trials are needed to show the technology’s effectiveness conclusively. “We need to increase the size of the trial further to build statistical confidence,” he said.

Read the full story at Mongabay

 

Alaska: Bycatch task force considers new rules, more research to protect Alaska fish intercepted at sea

October 17, 2022 — In the search for a solution to the problem of bycatch, the unintended at-sea harvest of non-target species, the stakes in Alaska are high.

Now a special task force is nearing the end of a year-long process to find solutions that satisfy competing interests to the problem of bycatch, which refers to fish that are caught incidentally by commercial fishers who are targeting other fish.

Many of the mostly Indigenous residents of western Alaska who depend on now-faltering salmon runs in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers have said strict rules to reduce at-sea bycatch are needed to help alleviate a crisis. Disasters have been declared for these fisheries.

Serena Fitka, the executive director of the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association who grew up in the Yup’ik village of St. Mary’s near the Bering Sea coast, said she has not been able to harvest river salmon for three years.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Management council declines action on Bering Sea bycatch to address Yukon-Kuskokwim salmon subsistence worries

June 22, 2022 — Despite hours of testimony from residents of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers who called for urgent action to curb the salmon bycatch by Bering Sea trawlers, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council decided to approach the problem more methodically.

In a unanimous vote near the end of its five-day meeting in Sitka, the Council recommended further study of salmon declines in the Bering Sea, and a closer look at their connection to climate change.

Salmon abundance in the Yukon River, the third-largest river in North America, has dropped sharply in the past two years.

The forecast is no better this season.

Many Yukon and Kuskokwim River residents voiced concern during last Monday’s call.

“At this point, there should be alarm bells going off all over not only in our communities, but all over the state and federal government agencies,” said Vivian Korthuis, the chief executive officer for the Association of Village Council Presidents, a consortium of 56 federally-recognized tribes on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media