Saving Seafood

Misunderstood pollock a key to New England seafood’s future

May 9, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — It might not be time yet to rechristen Cape Cod as Cape Pollock, but the humble fish is staking its claim.

The Atlantic pollock has long played a role in New England’s fishing industry as a cheaper alternative to cod and haddock, but the fish’s place in America’s oldest fishing industry is expanding as stocks like cod fade.

But the fish has an image problem.

While considered a whitefish, its uncooked gray-pinkish color looks drab compared to the snow-white cod fillets consumers are used to seeing on seafood counters. And many confuse it with the very different Alaska pollock, which is the subject of a much larger industrial fishery that provides fish for processed food products such as the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish.

A loose consortium of fishermen, processors, restaurateurs and sustainable seafood advocates wants to change all that. They’re trying to rebrand Atlantic pollock as New England’s fish, and the push is catching on in places like food-crazy Portland, where food trucks offer pollock tacos to eager crowds.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

Regulation Change May Keep Cape Scallop Fishermen in Local Waters

May 9, 2016 — CHATHAM, Mass. — Local small boat scallop fishermen will be able to fish an area of local waters that has been closed since 2014.

The New England Fishery Management Council has changed regulations to allow for scallop fishing in the Nantucket Lightship Access Area which is about 65 miles southeast of Cape Cod.

Council scientists have assured there will not be any conservation concerns from allowing limited amounts of fishing.

“They decided it doesn’t warrant an entire opening for the whole fleet,” said Bob Keese, a scallop fisherman out of Chatham on the F/V Beggar’s Banquet. “But there are plenty of scallops out there right now to warrant an opening for a small-boat fleet.”

The reopening of the Lightship area will also allow for the depleted near shore waters a chance to replenish, Keese said.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Northeast Fisheries Science Center director retiring

May 5, 2016 — The head of NOAA Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole has announced his retirement in September from federal service after just under four years as head of the center.

Bill Karp came to Cape Cod after serving many years in the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, and has 30 years of fisheries research experience.

The science centers conduct most of the fisheries research regulators then use to set policies and quotas, and is often in the middle of sharp disagreements between researchers and the commercial fishing industry.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Vessel owners fined for fishing in protected areas

May 4, 2016 — BOSTON — The owners of two fishing vessels paid civil fines after fishing in protected areas in 2013 and 2014.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration resolved the civil penalty cases after the crews of the vessels were found to have violated the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, according to a press release from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Following up on a referral from NOAA law enforcement officers, on March 21, 2014, a crew from Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod spotted the fishing vessel Warrior, of New Bedford, fishing for scallops in Closed Area II Essential Fish Habitat, according to the release. The area, about 120 miles east of Cape Cod, is one of five closed fishing areas in New England that cover 8,000 square miles of protected waters, according to the release.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

How will lobster regulations affect Massachusetts fishermen?

May 3, 2016 — Southern New England’s fading lobster fishery will be subject to a battery of new regulations, possibly closed fishing areas and stricter size standards, to try to save the crustacean’s population locally.

The number of adult lobsters in New England south of Cape Cod was estimated in 2013 to be about 10 million, which is one-fifth the total from the late 1990s. Scientists issued a report last year that said the historic and economically important species is shifting northward in large part due to the warming of the ocean.

But the catches on SouthCoast have not been as bad as the numbers may indicate, local lobstermen say.

“The past three years have been the best I’ve ever seen,” said Jarrett Drake, a lobsterman in Marion for 26 years. “And that’s the same for everyone around me, the stock assessments are brought down by places off Virginia and Maryland that aren’t doing very well.”

The overall decline, however, is here to stay, said Beth Casoni, associate executive director for the Mass. Lobstermen’s Association.

Read the full story in the New Bedford Standard-Times

NEFSC Science and Research Director Dr. William Karp to Retire in September

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — May 3, 2016 — Dr. William Karp, the Science and Research Director of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, announced today in an email that he will be stepping down from the position at the end of September. Dr. Karp, who was appointed to the Director position in 2012, has over 30 years of fisheries research experience, working at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center before coming to the NEFSC.

The text of Dr. Karp’s email is reproduced below.

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

After a 30-year career with NOAA Fisheries, I have decided to retire from Federal service on September 30th, 2016.

When I started work at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in 1986, I was excited by the opportunity to work as a scientist in support of our mission while, at the same time, serving the public.  My understanding of the breadth and depth of our mission has increased greatly during my 30 years of service, and my commitment to science-based management of living marine resources has remained strong.  The work I have done during these 30 years has always been challenging and rewarding, and I have been honored to work with many skilled scientists and administrators.  At the start of my career with NOAA, I joined the midwater assessment team at the Alaska Center, working on acoustic technologies and survey assessment of pollock in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea.  During my years at AFSC, I changed jobs, and direction, several times, working with different staff at the Center and, increasingly, with partners in academia, the fishing industry, and the international community.  My time as Deputy Science and Research Director at AFSC was especially rewarding as I came to understand the incredible depth and breadth of the Center’s work, and the remarkable impact this has had on the science, management, and conservation of living marine resources throughout Alaska.  Four years ago, I moved to Cape Cod to take on a new assignment as Director of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.  I was honored to be selected for the position and, as at the Alaska Center, have greatly enjoyed the opportunity to work with a highly dedicated and accomplished staff.  The science and management challenges in New England and the Mid Atlantic differ markedly from those in Alaska, and, while this job has been very demanding, I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with staff, stakeholders, and academic and management partners to improve our science and better inform the management process.

My career with NOAA has been exciting, challenging, rewarding, and fulfilling.  It has been my privilege and my pleasure to work with all of you.

Bill

MASSACHUSETTS: Provincetown fishermen see grounds for hope

April 27, 2016 — PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — When commercial fisherman Beau Gribbin walked in and handed members of the Provincetown Fishermen’s Memorial Foundation a check for $6,500 at their meeting on Wednesday, April 13 he was signaling not only support for the fund but the return of a formal alliance between local fishermen.

Gribbin, captain of the fishing vessel Glutton, along with Chris King, owner of Cape Tip Seafood and captain of the scallop vessel Donna Marie, are both members and former chairs of the Provincetown Fishermen’s Association, known as ProFish. The organization is making a comeback, Gribbin and King said in recent interviews, and its current members, along with some of the original founders who are no longer members, agreed that donating to the Fishermen’s Memorial Foundation would be a good use of a portion of ProFish’s remaining funds.

Made on behalf of the fishermen of Provincetown, the donation’s purpose is twofold: to encourage recognition in the community that there is still a viable fishing industry in Provincetown, and to kickstart a scholarship fund to benefit the children of families of working commercial fishermen.

“I’m hoping that with regenerating the Fishermen’s Association and working in collaboration with the Fishermen’s Memorial, it will put a very positive spin back on fishing and connect us directly to the community again,” Gribbin said.

Read the full story at Wicked Local Cape Cod

Right Whale, Wrong Place

April 20, 2016 — Whale watchers spent the day yesterday in Nahant looking for Mr. Right.

A wayward North Atlantic right whale made a splash just off the shore for most of the afternoon.

The endangered species is known to hang out near Cape Cod Bay this time of year, according to Charles “Stormy” Mayo, senior scientist at the Center for Coastal Studies in Cape Cod and director of the right whale ecology program.

“Anytime a few whales go up the shore it’s really a special thing and a rare occasion,” he said. 
“Every time, in the case of the right whales, their travel depends on the concentration of food; they’re grazers.”

Mayo added he thinks the whale frolicking off Nahant is likely to return to the Cape, where there is the highest concentration of North Atlantic right whales. Fewer than 500 are thought to exist.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald

MASSACHUSETTS: Video shows a horde of seals off Chatham

April 13, 2016 — A Norwell man has taken stunning video of the horde of seals that has taken up residence on Monomoy Island, the seal haven off Chatham at the outer elbow of Cape Cod.

Aaron Knight filmed his flight off the Massachusetts coast Sunday. He said he’s been watching the seals there in the past few years, and he’s never seen so many.

“They used to be in harems and small chunks dotted down the beach, but this year … it’s just astonishing,” he said. “It’s an infinite forever stretch of seals.”

The video has gotten nearly 200,000 views and more than 2,700 shares on Facebook, Knight said.

See the video and the rest of the story at the Boston Globe

BOB KEESE: Small-boat fishermen seek to protect fishery

April 9, 2016 — Ron Smolowitz accuses small-boat scallopers of “gaming the system” to access the Nantucket Lightship fishing area (“Working the system makes the system unworkable,” My View, April 2).

As Smolowitz knows, in December New England Fishery Management Council scientists sent a memo saying there weren’t any conservation concerns with limited fishing there. The proposed access was so small it wouldn’t make sense for Smolowitz’s big-boat fishermen, catching 17,000 pounds per trip, to fish there. But small-boat fishermen can catch only 600 pounds a day, so the proposed access gives us 500 trips — which makes a huge difference for our families and community.

Read the full opinion piece at Cape Cod Times