Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Cause of death sought for fin whale that washed ashore

August 21, 2018 — A 55-foot-long fin whale that was spotted floating in Cape Cod Bay on Sunday has washed ashore on Duxbury Beach, according to a New England Aquarium spokeswoman.

The whale was seen floating about 8 miles off Marshfield in the middle of the bay, said Diana Brown McCloy, a member of the aquarium’s media relations team. It appears to have been dead for about two or three days, she said.

The whale washed ashore Monday morning.

The aquarium’s marine mammal team conducted a necropsy on the whale, and the Yarmouth Port-based International Fund for Animal Welfare sent one person to assist, according to IFAW spokesman Rodger Correa.

There are no apparent traumatic injuries or fishing gear on the whale, which appears to be a less than full-length adult, said Tony LaCasse, the aquarium’s media relations director. After the necropsy, the whale will be buried on a barrier island.

A surrounding section of Duxbury Beach was closed Monday and police asked people to stay away from the area while town officials and marine biologists worked at the scene, according to a post on the Duxbury Police Department’s Facebook page.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Can dogfish save Cape Cod fisheries?

August 21, 2018 –Low clouds hang over the pier as fishing boats line up to drop off their catch for the day. Fishermen in orange suspendered waders and rugged boots perch on the edges of their boats. The fishermen, with weathered faces and hands toughened by their work, ignore the tourists gawking and snapping photos from a viewing platform overhead.

Then, the fog descends, giving the scene a sense of timelessness. But this scene has changed from decades past. For 400 years, fishermen across Cape Cod caught boatloads of, well, cod. The fish was so plentiful and valuable that fishermen bought houses and new boats off cod profits alone. But today, there’s a different fish filling the piers: spiny dogfish.

Cape Cod has nearly lost its namesake fish, due to overfishing and climate change. So fishermen have switched to dogfish, skates, and other more plentiful options. This move could help revive the Massachusetts fishing industry, and might even help the cod rebound, researchers say. But getting Americans to bite may not be as easy.

“This is the fish we could feed the United States with,” says Chatham fisherman Doug Feeney. “We have people that are hungry. We have prison systems. We have vets. We have homeless people. There’s just so much that can be done with this product.”

For a long time, fishermen saw dogfish as an annoyance. They were a “trash fish” with little value that often ended up clogging their nets. The large spines on their fins especially made them a pain to throw back, and they eat pretty much everything smaller than them – including juvenile codfish.

Read the full story at The Christian-Science Monitor

Coast Guard medevacs sick fisherman 6 miles off Nantucket

July 19, 2018 — A Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod aircrew medevaced a 40-year-old man experiencing abdominal pain from a fishing vessel Tuesday six miles southwest of Nantucket.

The aircrew hoisted the fisherman to the helicopter and flew him back to Air Station Cape Cod where he was transferred to awaiting emergency medical services personnel, the Coast Guard said.

The captain of the fishing vessel Provider notified Coast Guard watchstanders shortly after 2 p.m. of the sick crew member, the Coast Guard said.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Sens. Markey, Warren support right whale legislation

July 11, 2018 — Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren will co-sponsor the SAVE Right Whales Act, filed June 7 by four other Atlantic Coast senators.

“Senator Markey wanted to ensure that all of the stakeholders in Massachusetts that would be impacted by the legislation were briefed on the bill, understood its provisions, and had the opportunity to share their perspectives before he committed to co-sponsorship,” a spokesman for the senator said.

On Monday, Markey and Warren both became co-sponsors of the bill joining Democrats from New Jersey, Delaware, New Jersey, Florida and New York.

U.S. Rep. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., introduced a similar bill in the House on June 7 with three other representatives.

The legislation would allocate $5 million annually in grants through 2028 for conservation programs, and the development of new technology or other methods to reduce harm to right whales from fishing gear entanglements and ship collisions. Grants could promote cooperation with foreign governments, affected local communities, small businesses, others in the private sector or nongovernment groups. The National Marine Fisheries Service has funded North Atlantic right whale protections at more than $8 million annually since fiscal year 2009, with another $128,000 released last year with announcement of an unusual mortality event after 17 right whales were observed dead in Canadian and U.S. waters.

The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association gave its nod of approval on June 20 to the SAVE Act. The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance has endorsed the bill as well.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Officials: No right whale deaths in Canada

July 10, 2018 — Canadian fisheries and ocean transportation officials said Friday that so far this year no North Atlantic right whale deaths have been reported in theirwaters, but the critically endangered animals are expected to remain in the Gulf of St. Lawrence for a least another two months.

Last year 12 right whale deaths were documented, largely attributed to gear entanglement and ship strikes, along with five documented live whales entangled in rope. In total, 17 right whales in both Canadian and U.S. waters were documented as having died last year, representing about 4 percent of the total North Atlantic right whale population of about 450.

Canadian officials have been under pressure to prevent deaths this year. Many of the migratory whales tend to head toward Canadian waters after leaving Cape Cod Bay in the middle of May.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Great whites help scientists understand ocean’s ‘twilight zone’

July 6, 2018 — Four years ago, Lydia, a 14 ½-foot, 1-ton great white shark almost made history when she swam over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in March of 2014, a submerged mountain chain that runs from the Arctic Ocean to the southern tip of Africa, and entered the eastern Atlantic.

No other great white had made a documented Atlantic crossing and, while she ultimately turned back 800 miles short of the Cornish coastline, scientists puzzled over why she made the trip at all.

Great whites are driven by the search for food, but a foray into the open ocean beyond the continental shelf, often portrayed as a desert relieved only by an occasional oasis, was baffling. Finding a possible answer took detective work, piecing together data from some of the most sophisticated technology strapped to two great whites, as well as a network of satellites and ocean-going robots. It’s a technique scientists hope will be a model for future research into the unknown worlds of the deep sea and for conservation efforts to protect that ecosystem.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

NOAA Creates Protected Zone for Endangered Whales

July 6, 2018 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will implement a protected zone off the coast of Massachusetts until the middle of the month to try to help endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The protected area is located south of Nantucket and is designed to protect right whales. The whales are among the most endangered marine mammals, and they have suffered from high mortality and low reproduction in recent years.

There are as few as 360 right whales remaining.

Their critical habitat is around Cape Cod and in the Gulf of Maine, and just off of New Hampshire’s coastline, according to NOAA Fisheries. They can be found from Nova Scotia to the Southeast Atlantic coast, where pregnant females travel to give birth and nurse their young.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at NHPR

Right whales: The fight for survival

June 28, 2018 — Will $5 million in research funds every year for 10 years save the right whale from extinction? A group of lawmakers hopes so.

Companion bills in the U.S. Senate and House, filed by five senators and four representatives, including the Cape’s Bill Keating, have put forward The SAVE Right Whales Act of 2018 (aka Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales, Act of 2018).

It would establish a grant program to fund collaborative projects between states, nongovernmental organization, and members of the fishing and shipping industries to reduce the impacts of human activities on North Atlantic right whales.

“There are fewer than 450 North Atlantic right whales remaining in the world, and their population is rapidly declining,” said Scott Kraus, vice president and chief scientist of Marine Mammal Conservation at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.

“The biggest threat to their survival is entanglement in fishing gear. Eighty-five percent of right whales have been entangled once, and 60 percent have been entangled twice. This proposed bill is a great start toward finding solutions that protect both whales and the fishing industry. It calls for science-led conservation efforts with all stakeholders working cooperatively. Researchers, fishermen and government officials coming together is the only way that sustainable change will happen,” he said.

The northern reaches of Cape Cod Bay are familiar territory for right whales; they typically are the first whales seen returning to the area after the new year. In 2018 the first group, of about 15, was spotted in mid-January by Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Hearing on Cape Cod for rules to limit herring trawlers

June 19, 2018 — For over 15 years, Cape and other small-boat fishermen in the Northeast have lobbied against the large vessels of the herring fleet, saying they are too efficient at catching fish. They claim these vessels remove such large amounts of herring from an area that there is nothing left to attract cod, striped bass, bluefish, tuna and other species that eat herring close enough to shore for local fishermen to catch them.

These concerns resulted in a proposed regulation from the New England Fishery Management Council, known as Amendment 8 to the herring fishery management plan, which bans these vessels from inshore waters. A public hearing on the amendment is scheduled Tuesday in Chatham.

Right now, these vessels of around 120-150 feet in length, frequently towing huge nets between two ships, can come within 3 miles of the Cape coastline. Fishermen and the public will have a number of options to comment on, including herring trawler bans that extend from 6 to 50 miles from shore. A few months ago, local fishermen and environmental groups were unsure how far offshore they wanted to push large herring trawlers, but recent preliminary reports indicating the herring stock may be in trouble have united many in the fishing and environmental community to press for the maximum: a 50-mile buffer zone. They say this measure not only helps them catch fish in their traditional fishing grounds, but also helps the herring stock recover.

“If you had a bigger zone of 50 miles, you would encompass spawning sites that herring use,” said Peter Baker, director of U.S. Oceans, Northeast, for The Pew Charitable Trusts. “The benefit to the herring fishery is a place, a pretty huge one, where they could live without being chased down by industrial fishing trawlers, the most efficient fishing vessel around.”

A second component of the hearing, hosted by the New England Fishery Management Council, would allow for changes in the annual allowed catch dependent on how the stocks are doing.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Alliance watchful on cable-laying proposal

June 18, 2018 — Both supporters and opponents of Vineyard Wind’s plan to bring its offshore wind farm cable to land on Cape Cod have emerged in two state decision-making arenas. But at least one well-known advocacy group is remaining noncommittal but watchful.

“We’re not taking a position against the project,” Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound President Audra Parker said. “We’re preserving our right to participate.”

The alliance, which worked to defeat the never-built Cape Wind project in the Sound, is one of five groups that have been granted intervenor status before the state Energy Facilities Siting Board, along with seven individuals who have limited participation status. The intervenor and limited participation statuses allow groups or individuals to participate in the siting board proceedings beyond simply submitting public comments.

Despite participating in and supporting the designation of federal offshore wind energy areas south of the Islands, where Vineyard Wind plans 50 or more turbines, the alliance remains concerned that some other project could connect to that company’s new cable, leading to new development in the Sound, Parker said.

“We are watching closely,” she said.

The towns of Barnstable and Yarmouth, a resident of Rhode Island and Eversource Energy Service Company are the other intervenors. Among the limited participants are four West Yarmouth residents, a Yarmouth Port resident, one from Barnstable, and Vineyard Wind competitor Bay State Wind.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times