Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: A million acres of ocean for offshore wind: ‘Wow, that’s awfully close to Cape Cod.’

July 1, 2024 — As a July 1 deadline approached for comments to be submitted to the federal government regarding a proposal to auction offshore wind leases in the Gulf of Maine — including off the outermost Cape towns — the region’s leaders wanted more time to weigh in.

The Cape & Islands Municipal Leaders Association, an organization of 105 elected officials representing all 22 towns on the Cape, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, has sent a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management requesting to extend the deadline to July 22.

BOEM opened the public comment period on the proposed sale notice for leases on May 1, a day after announcing its plan for first-time ever offering of nearly a million ocean acres in the Gulf of Maine for offshore wind production.

“This comment period extension will allow for additional public meetings to address comments and concerns and provide for a more streamlined permitting, construction and operation of what is likely the most significant investment in energy facilities ever to be made,” the association’s June 25 letter reads.

Read the full article at Yahoo News!

 

MASSACHUSETTS: As new wind lease areas are eyed off Cape Cod, leaders seek ‘a seat at the table’

June 28, 2028 —  Three ocean areas east of Cape Cod may be some of the next marine real estate to be auctioned for offshore wind energy production, with some turbines possibly distantly visible, in very clear conditions, from the Atlantic Ocean bluffs in Truro.

Located due east of Wellfleet and Truro, the areas total 363,305 acres starting about 24 miles offshore and stretching eastward. They are among eight potential lease areas — adding up to nearly a million acres — that the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has delineated for offshore wind projects off the coasts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

In anticipation of the sale, local legislators are working to ensure the outermost Cape towns are part of the discussion and residents are kept well-informed. The federal government is also gathering public comments.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

Biden releases management plan for Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument

June 5, 2024 — The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has released its final management plan for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

“I applaud the release of the final management plan, a critical and giant stride by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [USFWS] and NOAA to realizing the potential for stewarding our interactions with, teaching about, and studying the inner workings of this ocean wilderness,” Mystic Aquarium Senior Research Scientist Peter Auster said in a statement.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

U.S. Proposes 8 Wind Energy Areas in Gulf of Maine

May 10, 2024 — Offshore wind is key to Massachusetts meeting its decarbonization goals, particularly the state’s Clean Energy and Climate plan, which commits to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The Mass. Clean Energy Center, a state agency established to boost the clean energy sector, anticipates that nearly 60 percent of all electricity in the state will be generated by wind by that year.

Cape Cod fishermen are watching the developments closely, according to Aubrey Ellertson Church, policy manager at the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance. In an email to the Independent, she said that local fishermen’s primary concern is whether the location of the wind farms would push them out of their traditional fishing areas and into other already-fished areas, increasing competition among boats.

Read the full article at The Provincetown Independent

Feds reveal Outer Cape locations for offshore wind

May 6, 2024 — Locations for offshore wind development have been selected off the Outer Cape.

The Biden administration this week published the location of eight areas proposed for lease in the Gulf of Maine, a body of water that runs from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia.

Wind energy developers will have the opportunity to bid on the leases in a future auction.

Six of the areas lie off the coast of Massachusetts and two off New Hampshire and Maine.

The closest to Cape Cod starts 25 miles off the Outer Cape. For comparison, that distance is about the same as the distance from Hyannis to Nantucket Harbor.

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

 

He’s the One Who Got Away: New Documentary Tells the Ultimate Fish Story

February 28, 2024 — As a commercial fisherman based in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Michael Packard is accustomed to bringing home the bounty of Cape Cod’s waters. One of the few remaining (if not the very last) of the area’s diving lobstermen, instead of setting traps, Packard dons a wet suit, mask, fins and oxygen tanks to pursue his quarry by hand where it lives on the ocean floor.

But in June 2021, there was a dramatic reversal of fortune when Packard, the predator, became Packard, the prey, as he was hunting for lobsters. That’s when a humpback whale came upon the fisherman and scooped him up in its massive jaws. Packard’s world suddenly turned pitch black as the whale closed its mouth around him. From the deck of Packard’s boat, the Ja’n J, Josiah Mayo, his first mate and friend, had no idea what had happened — until the moment he saw Packard get spat out by the whale and launched through the air. Though he had been inside the whale for roughly 30 seconds, for Packard, it must have felt like an eternity.

Packard’s trip inside the whale made international news. To many, it sounded like an unbelievable fish story, and the modern day Jonah had serious doubters and detractors. But Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and filmmaker David Abel was not one of them. He believed Packard, and in his story, which he wrote for The Boston Globe, he also saw the makings of a documentary film.

“In the Whale,” Abel’s new documentary, recounts the fantastical events surrounding Michael Packard on that June day in 2021. But the documentary also delves into the humble seafaring life of the lobsterman and his family, detailing what they had been through, both before and since that fateful day. “In the Whale” will have its Long Island premiere at 7 p.m. this Saturday at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Abel, a New York native, will be on hand to take part in a Q&A and discussion following the screening.

Abel has been a reporter for 25 years at The Boston Globe, where he covers climate change and environmental issues. Stories on New England’s fisheries, like the one about Michael Packard, are also firmly part of his beat. But in recent years, Abel has also become an accomplished filmmaker, and he explained in a recent interview how that part of his career came into focus.

Read the full article at 27 East

 

Cape residents air objections to current plans for offshore wind

January 30, 2024 — Cape Cod residents who object to the offshore wind plans for Massachusetts — in whole or in part — met for a four-hour conference Saturday in Hyannis.

More than 200 people turned out for the event, organized by Barnstable residents’ group Save Greater Dowses Beach and others.

Susanne Conley, chair of the Dowses Beach group, said the conference aimed to give voice to people who have been derided for their concerns about offshore wind turbines and the infrastructure they require.

“We have pitched a large tent here,” she said. “We do not think alike about ocean wind farms, but we share this: We have been dismissed, ridiculed, gaslighted by ocean wind developers and the federal and state regulatory agencies and officials that, in my opinion, are giving them a much, much too easy pass.”

Speakers pointed to potential harm to wildlife and fisheries, and to the difficulty of rescuing mariners from a storm if turbines are nearby.

Read the full article at nhpr

MASSACHUSETTS: Representative Dylan Fernandes Grants Cape Fishermen $500,000 to Boost Local Fishing Industry

December 2, 2023 — Massachusetts state Rep. Dylan Fernandes presented $500,000 in funding to the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance (CCCFA) at the Chatham Fish Pier yesterday.

The funding was earmarked for the Alliance in the state’s 2024 budget for their efforts in modernizing and maintaining sustainable fishing and was part of $1.2 million in funding Fernandes secured for the Cape and Islands during the FY2024 budget process. Of that, $940,000 in funding was devoted to protecting oceans and combating climate change.

“Fishing is not just an industry on the Cape and Islands; it’s woven into the very culture and fabric of our communities,” said Fernandes. “These funds are a pathway toward adaptive fishing practices, healthier oceans, and a sustainable industry that can be passed down to future generations of fishing families.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MASSACHUSETTS: Can a shellfishing license go to a company? Proposals spark controversy on Cape Cod

November 2, 2023 — On a sandbar just off the coast of Barnstable one recent windy morning, Corey Hendricks picked up a metal mesh bag. It’s one of 125 large bags laid out, all full of young oysters.

“Once they get big enough like this, they’re going to go pretty much straight in the cage,” he said.

Hendricks poured the oysters from the bag into one of 100 cages lined up on the sandbar, then evenly spread out the shellfish to line the bottom.

This setup doesn’t look like the typical image of a farm, but that’s what it is: instead of agriculture, it’s aquaculture. Hendricks said the changing tides jostle the oysters and help them grow.

His company is called Duck Island Oysters, and his farm is 2 acres of offshore public land controlled by the town of Barnstable.

“I have roughly a half a million oysters,” Hendricks said. “And last year we planted 200,000 quahogs. This year another 200,000.”

Shellfishermen in Massachusetts farmed nearly $37 million worth of oysters and quahogs in 2022. Unlike other fisheries, shellfishing is regulated locally by individual cities and towns. But in some Cape communities, there’s been a hot debate over changing those regulations and what it would mean for the future of the industry.

Read the full article at CAI

Cape Cod is one of the world’s largest white shark hotspots, study finds

July 30, 2023 — A first-of-its-kind study found that Cape Cod is one of the world’s largest hotspots for great white sharks.

The new research from the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, UMass Dartmouth and the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries determined about 800 white sharks paid a visit to Cape waters between 2015 to 2018. It’s the first time scientists have estimated “white shark abundance” in the North Atlantic Ocean, according to the study.

The numbers from Cape Cod are “comparable to but larger than” previous estimates of white shark populations around South Africa, central California, south Australia and Guadalupe Island in Mexico.

The researchers collected nearly 3,000 videos of shark sightings from 137 trips to Cape beaches.

The shark population peaks on Cape Cod around late summer and into early fall when ocean temperatures are the warmest, findings show.

Read the full article at CBS News