Saving Seafood

NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office Shares Biennial Report to Congress

April 9, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office’s Biennial Report to Congress (pdf, 9 pages) includes a snapshot of work we accomplished during fiscal years 2019 and 2020. Highlights include:

  • Completing the restoration of 350 acres of oyster reef in the Little Choptank River in Maryland—the largest oyster restoration project in the world to date.
  • Maintaining a system of buoys that allow for near-real-time observations of the Bay’s changing water and weather conditions.
  • Providing $5.2 million in funding to support watershed education for 53,000 students and 1,700 teachers.
  • Funded fish and habitat science with a focus on state and federal fisheries management needs for striped bass, summer flounder, black sea bass, and invasive blue catfish.
  • Supporting the design of three nearshore habitat restoration projects in coastal Virginia, which will enhance coastal resiliency and provide habitat for commercially and recreationally important fish.

For more details and to learn about other aspects of our work in fisheries and habitat science, restoration, climate, education, and more, we invite you to read through the report.

Maryland Rockfish Limits Set, Including July Closure

March 30, 2021 — After proposals and public comment, we now know what rockfish limits will look like in Maryland this season.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) issued striped bass harvest regulations for recreational anglers and charter boat clients for the summer and fall fishery, May 16–Dec. 10, 2021. This year will be a split season, closing Maryland waters to all striper fishing July 16–31. No private anglers or charter boat guests and crews may target striped bass, even catch-and-release, during those two weeks.

DNR designed this seasonal closure to avoid the period when water quality and high temperatures are most stressful and harmful to striped bass in the upper Bay, according to DNR’s own data. Virginia and D.C. also have seasonal closures: Virginia closes its striped bass season for the lower Chesapeake from June 15 to October 4, while the Potomac River is closed to all targeting of striped bass fishing from July 7 through August 20.

Outside of the Maryland summer closure period, private recreational anglers may keep one striped bass per day, with a minimum size of 19 inches. Charter boat clients may keep two stripers per day, with a minimum size of 19 inches, provided the boat’s captain participates in DNR’s daily electronic reporting system. During any chartered fishing trip, neither the captain nor mate may land or possess rockfish for personal consumption.

Read the full story at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine

NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office Announces Fisheries Research Funding Opportunity

March 8, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Up to $250,000 in total fiscal year 2021 grant funds is available to support research into how key Chesapeake Bay fisheries species change their behavior to deal with changing habitat and climate. The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office’s Fisheries Research Program invites applications through April 26, 2021.

Climate change is already affecting the Chesapeake Bay—and the wildlife that lives there. Between 1901 and 2017, the average air temperature in the Chesapeake Bay watershed rose (depending on location in the watershed) between 0.4 and 2.5 degrees F. Increases in water temperature can affect fish spawning areas and migratory patterns. We also expect a shift to more frequent high-precipitation storms, which will affect salinity levels. That in turn will affect fish species distribution and diversity.

We want to better understand how key Chesapeake Bay fisheries species will be affected as conditions change. Resource managers can include that science in their decision-making process. Projects funded through this grant will help us gain that knowledge.

The grants will also provide funding to improve social science around fisheries and habitat. We hope to quantify the role of nearshore habitat for local communities and fisheries in the Middle Peninsula area of Virginia. There are many habitat conservation and shoreline restoration efforts under way there.

We want to help develop the next generation of scientists in NOAA’s mission areas. We are interested in supporting research projects that employ and educate undergraduate or graduate students from groups underrepresented in marine science careers, including minorities.

The deadline for application is April 26, 2021. We invite potential applicants to learn more about the application process by joining us for a webinar on February 26 at 1 p.m. EST.

Read the full release here

Chesapeake Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) Program Funding Opportunity

February 24, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Chesapeake Bay (B-WET) program 2021-2022 funding competition is open through March 1.

Chesapeake B-WET is a competitive grant program that supports existing, high-quality environmental education programs and fosters the growth of new, innovative programs. It encourages capacity building and partnership development for environmental education programs throughout the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed. NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Watershed Education and Training grant program—known as Chesapeake B-WET—supports hands-on watershed education to students and teachers to foster stewardship of the Bay.

Chesapeake B-WET emphasizes the development of programs that reach all students in a given grade level across an entire school district to create systemic change in school districts. Successful projects advance the environmental literacy goal of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement and goals of the NOAA Education Strategic Plan. They provide hands-on environmental education about issues affecting the watershed for students and related professional development for teachers, administrators, and other educators who serve formal K-12 audiences. B-WET supports Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences, which are learner-centered experiences that focus on investigations into local environmental issues that lead to informed action and civic engagement. Learn more about past and current funded projects.

To learn more about this year’s priorities and to apply visit our website.

Read the full release here

REPORT: CLIMATE CHANGE A MAJOR THREAT TO RECREATIONAL FISHING

February 24, 2021 — A new report by fly fishing industry leaders brings to light what scientists have long known: that fishing is suffering from the effects of climate change—and offers solutions.

The American Fly Fishing Trade Association and its nonprofit AFFTA Fisheries Fund released the report last week, which acknowledges, “Climate change is significantly affecting ocean ecosystems, the abundance and distribution of fish, and the nature of saltwater fishing.”

AFFTA sees the effects of climate change and overfishing as principal threats to fisheries that the fly-fishing industry has long fought to address. This blue-ribbon report offers a systematic approach to strengthen marine fisheries conservation and management, support recreational fisheries, and lead to more abundant marine fisheries in all U.S. ocean waters.

Though the report looks at these issues on a national scale, it offers many recommendations that apply to the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, from warming of upland coldwater brook trout streams to effects on oyster shells and loss of shoreline habitats. One particularly applicable example is the report’s commitment to work with coastal states to increase the size and distribution of seagrass beds, by improving water quality and planting grasses. It notes that coastal ecosystems like marshes and grassbeds are capable of absorbing carbon at rates up to four times those of forests on land.

Read the full story at Chesapeake Bay Magazine

Rock-bottom rockfish numbers drag down Chesapeake Bay health score: Report

January 5, 2021 — Despite progress on pollution and habitats, the Chesapeake Bay has received another low health grade from the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation, this time due to issues with fisheries.

Results of the bi-annual State of the Bay report released Tuesday say the bay’s health scored a D+ in 2020.

Though most water quality measurements are showing improvement, the bay’s overall score was sunk by abysmal ratings on critical fisheries, including rockfish, oysters and shad.

Rockfish scored a 49 out of 100 on CBF’s scale, which on its own qualifies as a C+ grade. But that score represents a decrease of 17 points since 2018, the largest decline in any single indicator CBF has recorded in over a decade, said Chris Moore, senior regional ecosystem scientist with CBF.

Read the full story at Delmarva Now

KRISTEN MINOGUE: Shark tags reveal an endangered species returning to natural refuge

December 28, 2020 — In the coastal waters of the mid-Atlantic, an endangered shark is making a comeback. Led by former Smithsonian postdoc Chuck Bangley, scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) tagged and tracked nearly two dozen dusky sharks over the course of a year as part of the Smithsonian’s Movement of Life Initiative. They discovered that a protected zone put in place 15 years ago is paying off — but with climate change, it may need some tweaking.

Dusky sharks are what Bangley calls “the archetypal big, gray shark.” Born 3 feet long, as babies, they’re already big enough to prey on some other shark species. But they’re slow-growing. It can take 16 to 29 years for them to mature. If their populations take a hit, recovery can take decades.

An endangered species, duskies aren’t very common in Delaware waters. When they do surface, they’re easily mistaken for sandbar sharks. But in this new study, the Smithsonian tracked dusky sharks swimming past the southern tip of Delaware on their migrations up and down the Atlantic. For conservationists, it’s a sign that protections put in place are slowly starting to pay off.

The sharks’ numbers plummeted in the 1980s and 1990s, when well-intentioned managers offered sharks as an “alternative fishery,” while other stocks, like cod, were collapsing. The overfishing that followed wiped out anywhere from 65% to 90% of the Chesapeake’s duskies, said Bangley, now a postdoc at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Managers banned all intentional dusky shark fishing in 2000. Five years later, they created the Mid-Atlantic Shark Closed Area along the North Carolina coast. The zone prohibits bottom longline fishing, which can ensnare dusky sharks, for seven months of the year.

Read the full story at Delaware State News

Virginia Adopts 10% Menhaden Harvest Cut

December 16, 2020 — Virginia’s menhaden harvest, now under the control of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC), has officially been reduced by 10 percent to comply with the Atlantic coast-wide fishery quota.

It’s the first state reduction since VMRC took over management of the fishery from the General Assembly. In recent years, Virginia legislators had failed to adopt limits set by coastal fishery managers, and ultimately the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) found Virginia out of compliance. That lack of compliance put Virginia at risk of a menhaden fishing moratorium, but VMRC’s taking over management of the fishery in April 2020 avoided the looming moratorium.

In August, ASMFC committed to using Ecological Reference Points in its fishery decision-making, which take into account menhaden’s role in the food chain, not just its abundance. As Bay Bulletin reported, ASMFC voted in October to reduce the entire Atlantic catch by 10 percent.

Read the full story at Chesapeake Bay Magazine

Debate swirls around proposed regulation that could set aside more parts of the Chesapeake Bay for commercial oyster harvest

December 14, 2020 — Tal Petty calls the water in his corner of the Patuxent River “magic.”

The oysters living in its depths draw a special mineral taste from clay on the river floor, and fossils along the shore, he said. And those oysters wouldn’t even be there if it weren’t for Petty, who grows them in underwater cages before selling them nationwide.

His business is quite a bit different from that of traditional watermen, who tong the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries for wild oysters. And environmentalists argue it’s an improvement, since adding oysters to the bay means adding thousands of natural filters capable of removing harmful nitrogen and sediment as they feed.

Lately, however, oyster farmers and watermen have been at odds over a regulation that could make it more difficult for oyster farming operations like Petty’s Hollywood Oyster Company to get started.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources is considering a rule that would make any area of the Chesapeake Bay or its tributaries with five or more wild oysters per square meter eligible to become a “public shellfish fishery area.” These zones are exclusively for commercial harvesters.

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

Virginia Marine Resources Commission approves menhaden harvest limit

December 9, 2020 — On Tuesday, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) reduced Virginia’s menhaden harvest by 10 percent to comply with the newly adopted menhaden fishery quota from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC).

Virginia’s harvest was cut from 168,213 metric tons to 151,392 metric tons. The Chesapeake Bay harvest cap remains unchanged.

In August, the ASMFC committed to using Ecological Reference Points, which consider menhaden’s important role in the food chain when setting menhaden harvest limits.

Read the full story at WAVY