Saving Seafood

Government policy could leave Maryland crab houses shuttered for the summer

June 20, 2018 — Hoopers Island sits in a remote section of the Chesapeake Bay, but at this time of year, this end of the road community is bustling — crabs are running out and a steady parade of watermen are arriving at Harry Phillip’s dock to unload bushel after bushel of blue crab.

But as of Tuesday afternoon, the watermen and the man who buys their crabs say their livelihood is being threatened by a new government policy on migrant worker visas.

“There’s something wrong with the system,” said Phillips, who owns Russel Hall Seafood.

With record low unemployment in the U.S. and demand for migrant workers way up, the government instituted a lottery system for worker visas.

After going through two rounds of lotteries, Phillips hasn’t been granted a single worker visa.

A few of the crab houses did get their workers and will be in business, but most did not and are facing a lost summer.

Read the full story at WJLA

Healthy fisheries and aquatic grasses fuel Chesapeake Bay recovery

June 19, 2018 — Booming aquatic grasses and bellwether fisheries are driving sustained progress in Chesapeake Bay health, which experts say is finally showing “significant” overall improvement.

The 2017 Chesapeake Bay Report Card issued by Virginia and Maryland rates the estuary a C for the third straight year as recovery holds steady or improves in five of seven indicators, the James River nails a B- for the first time and the fisheries index scores its first-ever A+.

Experts call their assessment “important evidence that the positive trend in ecosystem health is real” and that cleanup efforts across the watershed are working.

“It is the first time that the … scores are significantly trending in the right direction,” said Bill Dennison at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in a statement Friday. “We have seen individual regions improving before, but not the entire Chesapeake Bay.”

The UMCES compiled the report card along with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and other governmental agencies and academic groups both in this state and Maryland. This is the 12th year of its release.

The fisheries index is comprised of the average score for blue crab, striped bass and bay anchovy indicators. These species are considered ecologically, economically and socially important to the bay.

Last year’s fisheries index was 90 percent. This year, it rose to 95 percent, the highest ever recorded for the annual reports — the average of 100 percent for striped bass and blue crab, and 84 percent for bay anchovy.

Read the full story at the Daily Press

 

MARYLAND: Feds give qualified OK to dredge oyster shells from Man O’ War Shoal

June 19, 2018 — After years of scrutiny, federal regulators have given a qualified green light to a controversial Maryland plan to dredge old oyster shells from an ancient reef near Baltimore — a project intended to enhance oyster habitat elsewhere in the Chesapeake Bay, but also to help the sagging commercial fishery.

The Baltimore District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a provisional permit on May 17 to the state Department of Natural Resources to take up to 5 million bushels of shells from Man O’ War Shoal just outside the mouth of the Patapsco River and use the shell to replenish or rebuild oyster reefs at other Bay locations.

The Corps’ conditional approval comes after nearly three years of effort by the DNR to address questions and concerns raised about the project, which is opposed by environmentalists, recreational anglers and even some watermen.

But now, having won the federal go-ahead, state officials appear in no hurry to act on it. They haven’t even informed those in favor of dredging the shoals about the Corps’ decision.

Man O’ War Shoal harbors up to 100 million bushels of shells in its 446-acre footprint, according to a 1988 survey. Though productive long ago, it has relatively few live oysters now, despite repeated efforts to reseed it.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

The Chesapeake Bay hasn’t been this healthy in 33 years, scientists say

June 18, 2018 — For the first time in the 33 years that scientists have assessed the health of the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary showed improvement in every region, a likely sign that a massive federal cleanup plan is working.

The bay’s most important species — blue crabs and striped bass, which support commercial and recreational fisheries, and anchovies, the foundation of its food chain — earned top scores in a report card released Friday. Bright green underwater grasses — which help protect young fish before they venture into the Atlantic Ocean — are now thriving, even in some places where such vegetation had disappeared.

In sharp contrast to the days when the bay was so beleaguered that every meaningful species experienced sharp population declines, officials and scientists from the District, Maryland and Virginia announced Friday that it is in the midst of a full and remarkable recovery. As if to underscore the progress, their backdrop along the District’s southwest waterfront was a brilliantly sunny morning and a picturesque view of the Anacostia River, which feeds into the Chesapeake.

The news comes at a time when hundreds of bottle-nosed dolphins have been seen frolicking in the bay, including a large pod off Maryland’s Ragged Point last month. On Tuesday, two great white sharks were hooked by scientists in Virginia. The number of fish-hunting osprey is also on the rise.

The bay’s overall grade is a C, because some areas, such as the Patuxent, Patapsco and York rivers, are bouncing back from near-failure. The category of water clarity faltered, falling to an F from last year’s D. But the James River area and the lower stem of the bay closer to the Atlantic both earned grades of at least B-, their highest ever, and shored up the overall score.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Bivalve bipartisanship? Environmentalists, watermen have a meeting of the minds

May 31, 2018 — Oysters have been a source of conflict in the Chesapeake Bay for 150 years. While they haven’t provoked any gunfire lately, as they did in the late 1800s, the bivalves still spark heated debates in Maryland over how best to replenish their depleted numbers.

But after two years of meeting behind closed doors, some of the people who’ve been lobbing verbal grenades at each other — watermen and environmentalists — have buried enough of their differences to agree on a wide-ranging set of recommendations for restoring oysters in a pair of Eastern Shore rivers while also aiding the industry that depends on harvesting them.

That’s the outcome of OysterFutures, a $2 million research project aimed at forging consensus on how to achieve both a thriving oyster fishery and ecosystem in the Choptank and Little Choptank rivers.

Working with professional facilitators and a sophisticated computer model to evaluate the effects of various potential policies, a group of 16 stakeholders mapped out a vision that includes hot-button proposals for all sides. And reportedly no fists were shaken, no voices even raised.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

 

Virginia at odds with fisheries commission over cap for menhaden caught in Bay

May 31, 2018 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission warned Virginia in May that the state could soon face action for failing to adopt new menhaden harvest limits established late last year — a process that could lead to a complete closing of its menhaden fishery.

Specifically, Virginia has not established a 51,000 metric ton harvest cap for menhaden caught within the Chesapeake Bay by the Omega Protein reduction fishery based in Reedville, VA.

Last fall, the ASMFC increased the allowable coastwide catch of menhaden by 8 percent, but changed how it was distributed among the coast, which slightly decreased the limit for Virginia. The state is able to make up for the reduced catch through a system that allows it to acquire unused allocations from other states. But as part of its action, the commission also lowered the cap on how much of the state’s total harvest could come out of the Bay.

The Bay cap only affects Omega’s reduction fishery, which catches large amounts of menhaden and “reduces” the fish into other products, such as fish oil supplements and animal feed. The Bay cap does not affect operations that catch menhaden for bait in other fisheries.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

 

Virginia: State Sen. Monty Mason named to ASMFC

May 8, 2018 — Gov. Ralph Northam has named state Sen. Monty Mason, D-Williamsburg, to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a regional body that coordinates the conservation and management of 27 species of fish.

The commission’s efforts with one species — menhaden — sparked controversy in the General Assembly this year, when Del. Barry Knight, R-Virginia Beach, proposed bills to write its sharp cut in Chesapeake Bay landings of the fish into state law. Northam supported the measures, but they did not make it out of the House of Delegates.

Menhaden is the one species directly regulated by the General Assembly; other fisheries are managed by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Last year, the commission approved a 41.5 percent cut — more than 36,000 metric tons — in the bay quota for menhaden caught by drawing huge seine nets around schools of the fish and then hauling them up onto so-called “purse seine” fishing vessels.

Read the full story at the Daily Press

 

Omega Protein critical of ASMFC actions on Chesapeake menhaden

May 7, 2018 — A spokesman for Omega Protein said his company took exception to the statement released last week by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that put Virginia on notice for not implementing a reduced catch limit for menhaden in Chesapeake Bay.

Ben Landry, Omega Protein’s director of public affairs, told SeafoodSource that the commission’s decision last November to reduce the Chesapeake Bay cap by more than 36,000 metric tons was “devoid of science.” The company processes menhaden at its Reedville, Virginia facility, which sits on the western shore of the bay.

“We feel that it’s targeting one company, which is what this provision applies to Omega,” said Landry, noting that there are no caps for the bait fishery. “It’s not in accordance with the best available science. It’s not necessary for the conservation of the species because it’s not overfished.”

Across the ASMFC’s jurisdiction, the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board raised the total allowable catch to 216,000 metric tons for the 2018 and 2019 seasons, representing an eight percent increase. However, the limit for Chesapeake Bay was set for just 51,000 metric tons.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

ASMFC South Atlantic State/Federal Fisheries Management Board Approves Addendum I to the Black Drum Fishery Management Plan

May 7, 2018 — ARLINGTON, Va. — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Commission’s South Atlantic State/Federal Fisheries Management Board approved Addendum I to the Black Drum Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP). The Addendum allows Maryland to reopen its black drum commercial fishery in the Chesapeake Bay with a daily vessel limit of up to 10 fish and a 28-inch minimum size.

In the late 1990s, Maryland closed its Bay commercial black drum fishery in order to conduct a tagging and migration study. The fishery was not reopened after the study. In 2013, the Black Drum FMP extended this closure by requiring states to maintain management measures in place at the time of the FMP’s approval.

In approving Addendum I, the Board considered the status of the resource, which is not overfished nor experiencing overfishing, and the estimated relatively small size of the reopened commercial fishery. When the fishery was open in the 1970s under more liberal management than that in Addendum I, it was a small scale fishery with an average annual harvest of 11,475 pounds. Over the next year, Maryland will develop a management program for the commercial fishery with implementation by April 1, 2019.

The Addendum will be available on the Commission’s website, www.asmfc.org (under Black Drum). For more information, please contact Dr. Mike Schmidtke, FMP Coordinator, at mschmidtke@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.   

View the release in its entirety here.

 

ASMFC puts Virginia on notice regarding menhaden limits in Chesapeake Bay

May 4, 2018 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has put the state of Virginia on notice regarding the menhaden fishery in the mid-Atlantic state.

However, rather than proceeding with the next steps, the ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board chose to postpone any hearing on the matter until August. That still gives Virginia lawmakers time to approve a bill that would cap the state’s harvest at 51,000 metric tons in Chesapeake Bay for this year.

“The reduction fishery is just beginning for the year and is highly unlikely to exceed the Bay cap prior to August given the performance of the fishery for the past five years,” the ASMFC said in a statement.

States were supposed to submit plans to the commission by 1 January and implement them by 15 April.

Menhaden typically is caught because of the rich omega-3 fat content. It’s often used to create nutritional supplements, but it’s also a key component in the development of fertilizers and cosmetics.

Read the full story at Seafood Source