Saving Seafood

Small-Boat Fishing Groups Make Pleas to New Congress

March 7, 2017 — Local fishermen were in Washington, D.C. earlier this month to present their issues and concerns to the new Congress.

Cape Codders and other fishermen from across the nation with the Fishing Communities Coalition make the trip whenever a large number new representatives or senators are elected.

Cape Cod Fisherman’s Alliance CEO John Pappalardo was among those who visited over 30 Congressional offices.

He said that securing funding for fisheries management, managing a sustainable industry, and providing a clearer financial path for new fishermen to join the career path were among the top talking points.

“Fisheries have been a bi-partisan issue, and I would expect that when we and other industry groups make the case for how important the jobs and the protein these fishermen provide are, it’ll be a pretty easy sell,” Pappalardo said.

He also said that there was some discussion over converting many of the species caught for export into a domestic product.

The importance of building on the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act was also touched on, he said.

Pappalardo said he advocated for the National Young Fishermen’s Development Program, an initiative which would tackle the increasingly high cost of entry and limited growth opportunities young men and women face in the career path.

The trip took place before the announcement of a potential federal budget cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Pappalardo said he and his colleagues will keep an eye on that.

Read the full story at Capecod.com

Study specifies benefits of shellfish in Cape water quality plans

February 7, 2017 — Why spend millions of dollars if you don’t have to?

Mashpee is turning to one of the oldest wastewater cleanup technologies on earth – the nitrogen removal systems in oysters and clams – to reduce the cost of federally mandated wastewater cleanup. Orleans, Falmouth, Barnstable, Dennis, Yarmouth, Wellfleet and Edgartown are also either using or considering shellfish for water quality improvement.

But, until recently, towns had to use estimates of how much nitrogen the bivalves actually removed from the water. Now, a study released last month in the online journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, is providing more specific information on the effectiveness of the shellfish-based strategy. As part of the study, Barnstable County, Woods Hole Sea Grant, and University of Massachusetts School of Marine Science and Technology researchers gathered both farmed and wild shellfish from around the Cape and analyzed shells and meats to determine how much nitrogen each contained.

“The study was really done to help local municipalities who are approaching this idea that shellfish might be used for remediation,” said Woods Hole Sea Grant agent Joshua Reitsma, the study’s lead author. “It provides values for that where people were using data from elsewhere, like the Chesapeake.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Fishermen to Discuss Herring Buffer Zone in Plymouth

February 6, 2017 — A New England Fishery Management Council committee will meet Tuesday in Plymouth to discuss the progress being made to move midwater herring trawlers further offshore.

The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance and local fishermen are looking for regulations which would move the herring trawlers at least 50 miles from the Cape and Islands to protect the ecosystem and small-boat fishing fleet.

“It’s something that we’ve done up in the Gulf of Maine, prohibited these vessels from fishing at certain times of the year so that other fisheries can have a shot or a crack at fishing,” said John Pappalardo, the CEO of the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance. “And we are trying to do something similar down here.”

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

MASSACHUSETTS: Right whales return to Cape Cod Bay

January 24, 2017 — Two rare and critically endangered North Atlantic right whales were spotted in Cape Cod Bay, the first of the year seen in the area, according to the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown.

The center’s research vessel Shearwater spotted the two whales in the bay five miles south of Provincetown Harbor on Jan. 17. On Thursday, center officials say they saw five right whales in the same area.

There are only an estimated 524 right whales in the world, according to the center. They come to the bay every winter due to the high concentrations of microscopic zooplankton there, which is a food source for the whales.

The whales’ presence in the bay warrants caution, according to the center.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Fisherman goes in water off Provincetown pier

January 9, 2017 — PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — A fisherman was taken to Cape Cod Hospital on Saturday night after he went overboard at MacMillan Pier, according to Provincetown police and the Coast Guard.

At around 9:30 p.m., a 47-foot Coast Guard lifeboat crew along with the Provincetown harbormaster and officers from the Provincetown police and fire departments responded after the fishing vessel Resolute sent out a mayday call about a crew member who had fallen overboard near the pier, according to the Coast Guard.

The Resolute’s crew threw the man a life ring with a strobe attached to it, according to the Coast Guard, but they were unable to bring him out of the water.

The harbormaster located the fisherman thanks to the strobe, and the Coast Guard was able to use the harbormaster’s boat to navigate closer to the man and pull him from the water, which was about 39 degrees at the time, according to the Coast Guard. The man was treated for possible hypothermia, police said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Lobstermen brace for third year of fishing ban

January 9, 2017 — It’s a classic New England scene, colorful lobster traps stacked up along a dock.

But for fishermen in South Shore lobster ports, those grounded traps are a symbol of hard times ahead.

A ban that keeps most of their gear out of the water for the winter is entering its third year, despite arguments that it causes them unfair economic hardship.

“If it made sense, that would be one thing,” Irvine Nash, a lobsterman for 48 years, said as he stood on a dock in Green Harbor. “But it don’t,” he said.

Behind him, fishermen were pulling traps out of the water and loading them on trucks. They will sit empty in yards and garages until May, when the government lifts the ban.

Under a recent rule from the National Marine Fisheries Service, all traps from outer Cape Cod to Cape Cod Bay and parts of Massachusetts Bay must be out of the water by Feb. 1. That’s an area just under 3,000 square nautical miles.

The federal agency first imposed the ban in 2015, to decrease the likelihood of endangered North Atlantic right whales, which come to Cape Cod Bay every winter, from entangling themselves in lobster lines.

There are now only about 520 right whales left, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, up from about 300 in the 1990s.

Read the full story at the Marshfield Mariner

Would You Eat This Fish? A Shark Called Dogfish Makes A Tasty Taco

January 9, 2017 — If you’ve never laid eyes on a dogfish — or tasted one — you’re not alone.

Yep, it’s in the shark family. (See those telltale fins?) And fisherman Jamie Eldredge is now making a living catching dogfish off the shores of Cape Cod, Mass.

When populations of cod — the Cape’s namesake fish — became too scarce, Eldredge wanted to keep fishing. That’s when he turned to dogfish — and it’s turned out to be a good option. The day I went out with him, Eldredge caught close to 6,000 lbs. (Check out the video above.)

“It’s one of the most plentiful fish we have on the East Coast right now,” Brian Marder, owner of Marder Trawling Inc., told us. Fishermen in Chatham, Mass., caught about 6 million pounds of dogfish last year.

So, who’s eating all this dogfish? Not Americans. “99 percent of it” is shipped out, Marder says.

The British use dogfish to make fish and chips. The French use it in stews and soups. Italians import it, too. The Europeans are eating it up. But Americans haven’t developed a taste for it. At least, not yet.

The story of the dogfish is typical of the seafood swap. “The majority of the seafood we catch in our U.S. fisheries doesn’t stay here,” explains Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly, who leads the Seafood Watch program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

And while we export most of what is caught off U.S. shores, what do Americans eat? Imported fish. About “90 percent of the seafood we consume in the U.S. is actually caught or farm-raised overseas,” Kemmerly says.

To sustainable seafood advocates, this swap doesn’t make much sense. “We’re kind of missing out on the bounty we actually have here,” Kemmerly says.

And, it’s not just dogfish.

The Environmental Defense Fund has launched a campaign called Eat These Fish to tell the story of a whole slew of plentiful fish caught off our shores. The group is trumpeting the conservation success of U.S. fisheries. Some species have been brought back from the brink of extinction through a system of quotas and collaboration between fishermen, conservationists and regulators. They point to fish such as Acadian Redfish and Pacific Ocean Perch.

Read the full story at the University of Houston

Fisheries officials seek count of booming seal population

December 19, 2016 — NANTUCKET, Mass. — Fisheries officials in Massachusetts are seeking a head count of the booming seal population that’s drawn great white sharks to Cape Cod waters in greater numbers.

The Cape Cod Times reported earlier this month that state Division of Marine Fisheries Director David Pierce said determining the size of the gray seal population size is “extremely important” for ecosystem management in New England at the recent Nantucket Seal Symposium.

But National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials warned the count could cost as much as $500,000.

New England fishermen have been calling for a seal population count for years to gauge its impact on cod, haddock, flounder, striped bass and other important species.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times

Will Trump Be Able To Undo Papahanaumokuakea?

November 28, 2016 — In the months leading up to the Nov. 8 election, President Barack Obama signed a series of proclamations to dramatically increase the amount of land and water that is federally protected from commercial fishing, mining, drilling and development.

On Aug. 24, he established a nearly 90,000-acre national monument in the Katahdin Woods of Maine. 

Two days later, Obama expanded Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands by 283 million acres, making it the world’s largest protected area at the time.

And on Sept. 15, he created the first national monument in the Atlantic Ocean, protecting more than 3 million acres of marine ecosystems, seamounts and underwater canyons southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Obama has used a century-old law called the Antiquities Act to federally protect more land — 550 million acres and counting — than any other president. He’s established 24 new national monuments in at least 14 states since taking office eight years ago, with the bulk of the acreage in Papahanaumokuakea and the Pacific Remote Islands.

But with Republican Donald Trump’s surprise upset of Democrat Hillary Clinton, attention is turning to what Trump plans to do when he takes office in January and whether he will seek to undo or at least modify the national monuments that Obama created.

Advocates for commercial fishing interests on the East Coast have started nudging policymakers to consider what changes the next administration could make. But West Coast and Hawaii industry groups are still gathering information and developing plans.

Saving Seafood, a nonprofit that represents commercial fishing interests, has already started pushing policymakers to consider what changes the next administration could make to the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. 

Saving Seafood Executive Director Robert Vanasse told the Associated Press earlier this month that he thinks it would be “rational” to allow some sustainable fishing in the monuments.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

MASSACHUSETTS: Bird’s eye view: Scientist visits students, talks researching oceans with drones

November 28, 2016 — “Using Drones and Robotic Boats to Study Coastlines.” What kid wouldn’t be interested in this? Newburyport public school students were enthralled when Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution research scientist Dr. Peter Traykovski visited their classrooms.

A pioneer in using drones for mapping and data collection in order to increase understanding of how coastal processes work, Traykovski showed students how hobby grade robotics have the potential to revolutionize studying and monitoring coastal processes with examples and pictures from aerial imaging drones and robotic boats.

Traykovski has used off the shelf drones and software to produce 3-D profiles of eroding beaches on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard.

“The exciting part for us was the drone work he has been doing,” said Elizabeth Kinzly, PreK-8 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) coordinator for the Newburyport Public Schools. “Even our youngest kid is totally motivated when you talk about drones.”

Traykovski was invited to Newburyport by Storm Surge, a group of citizens from Amesbury, Newburyport, Ipswich, Rowley, Merrimac, Salisbury, Newbury, and West Newbury concerned with the impacts of sea level rise, extreme weather events and other effects of long-term climate change in the Greater Newburyport area. He made a presentation at City Hall on Nov. 2 and visited the schools the following day.

“Our purpose is to provide awareness and foster preparedness,” said Sheila Taintor, one of the founders of Storm Surge in 2013. “Our purpose is not action, but education. We have had a speaker series since 2013, and Peter Traykovski was our most recent speaker. We sponsored his visit, but he received no stipend. I’m always amazed how generous scientists are with their time.”

Read the full story at Wicked Local Newburyport