Saving Seafood

For decades, scientists thought sturgeon had vanished from Maryland waters. They’re delighted to be wrong

January 3, 2019 — When David Secor started his career at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory almost three decades ago, one of his first projects concluded that the Atlantic sturgeon had all but disappeared from polluted Maryland waters.

The population of the massive fish — often 14 feet long — that once swam with dinosaurs plummeted in the 1900s amid rising demand for their eggs, better known as caviar. Overfishing devastated the species for the same reason caviar is such an expensive delicacy: Sturgeon roe is scarce because females don’t produce it until they’re at least 9 or 10 years old. Even then, the fish don’t spawn every year.

So Secor and other biologists were shocked and then intrigued when, over the past decade, watermen and recreational fishermen started spotting what looked unmistakably like sturgeon flopping and splashing around the Nanticoke River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. One even landed on the deck of a fisherman’s boat.

Read the full story at the Carroll County Times

URI and VIMS Researchers Show Aquaculture Oysters Can Limit Spread of Dermo in Wild Oysters

December 19, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Recent research carried out at the University of Rhode Island and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science has found that growing farmed oysters can reduce disease loads in wild oysters.

This counter-intuitive finding is based on the fact that the primary killer of wild oysters is Dermo, a parasite that occurs naturally in the environment, and lives in the tissue of oysters.  The single celled parasite is harmless to humans, and has nothing to do with bacteria such as vibrio.

“The very act of aquaculture has positive effects on wild populations of oysters,” said Tal Ben-Horin, a postdoctoral fellow at the URI Department of Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences. “The established way of thinking is that disease spreads from aquaculture, but in fact aquaculture may limit disease in nearby wild populations.”

Working with colleagues at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Rutgers University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Ben-Horin integrated data from previous studies into mathematical models to examine the interactions between farmed oysters, wild oysters and the common oyster disease Dermo.

Basically, Dermo is spread through an oyster reef when infected oysters die, and their tissues decay.  But aquaculture, particularly caged or bagged oysters off the seabed, act as filters, and take in the Dermo parasite, but they are harvested and sold before the parasite has any lethal effects.

The net result is that near oyster farms, the incidence of wild Dermo goes down.

According to Ben-Horin, diseases are among the primary limiting factors in wild oyster populations. There are few wild populations of oysters in New England because of Dermo and other diseases, and in the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay, wild oysters are managed with the understanding that most will die from disease.

“As long as aquaculture farmers harvest their product before the disease peaks, then they have a positive effect on wild populations,” Ben-Horin said. “But if they’re left in the water too long, the positive effect turns negative.”

The study’s findings have several implications for the management of wild and farmed oysters. Ben-Horin recommends establishing best management practices for the amount of time oysters remain on farms before harvest. He also suggests that aquaculture managers consider the type of gear – whether farmers hold oysters in cages and bags or directly on the seabed – when siting new oyster aquaculture operations near wild oyster populations.

This story was originally published by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

‘Just short of a crisis’: Tensions flare as Virginia halts oyster seed harvest in James

December 17, 2018 — Virginia fishery managers are taking the rare step of halting oyster seed harvests in the lower James River as they seek to protect the baby bivalves from overfishing.

Oyster seeds are wild-grown juvenile oysters, or “spat.” Many oyster farmers working in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries depend on regular shipments of fresh seed to replenish their lease areas.

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission expects to temporarily stop the catch before the season’s scheduled closure at the end of the year. Without the action, watermen almost certainly would surpass the fall quota of 40,000 oyster seed bushels taken from the river, officials said.

The commission also agreed to block out-of-state seed transfer permits, effective Oct. 31. Between half and two-thirds of the seeds collected from the James are typically sold to Maryland buyers, according to the commission, which will decide whether purchases can resume in the spring based on fall surveys of the river bottom.

The moves come after the commission cut off last year’s spring harvest — when as many as 80,000 bushels were up for grabs — with about a month left to go. That marked the first time since the cap was enacted in 2011 that the commission called on watermen to hang up their hand tongs.

“Basically, the quota did what it was supposed to do,” said Andrew Button, head of the commission’s oyster conservation and replenishment department. “It’s not really to limit anybody but a way to protect the resource.”

Read the full story at The Bay Journal

Virginia conservationists blast approval of seismic testing for oil, gas in Atlantic

December 4, 2018 — Virginia conservationists are blasting the Trump administration’s decision to reverse course and approve seismic air gun surveys along the Atlantic coast to search for buried oil and gas reserves.

The groups cite widespread public opposition to seismic blasting and offshore drilling, as well as the harm posed to marine life and coastal economies that rely on healthy waters and wetlands.

“This action flies in the face of massive opposition to offshore drilling and exploration from over 90 percent of coastal municipalities in the proposed blast zone,” said Diane Hoskins, campaign director at the D.C.-based advocacy group Oceana. “President (Donald) Trump is essentially giving these companies permission to harass, harm and possibly even kill marine life.”

“Offshore drilling in our region would pose far too many risks to the health of coastal waters and the Chesapeake Bay, fishing, aquaculture, tourism and all jobs that depend on clean water,” said Lisa Feldt, vice president for environmental protection and restoration at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “We need to run away from offshore drilling, not move towards it.”

Read the full story at the Daily Press

NOAA Approves Seismic Blasts off Coast of Md., Va.

December 4, 2018 — The federal government has cleared the way for five companies to do seismic surveys in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maryland and Virginia, as a first step to possible offshore drilling for gas and oil.

National Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, gave final authorization, under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, to “incidentally, but not intentionally, harass marine mammals to companies proposing to conduct geophysical surveys in support of hydrocarbon exploration in the Atlantic Ocean.”

That means NOAA Fisheries will allow seismic blasts even though they may unintentionally disturb marine mammals. The companies will be required to monitor acoustics, and take action to reduce the impact on animals. The required actions include vessels listening and watching for marine life, especially protected species. Companies must increase the seismic activity gradually “to alert animals in the area and reduce potential for exposure to intense noise.” And when certain sensitive species are nearby, they must stop blasting.

The geophysical surveys use airgun arrays to explore for hydrocarbons. A 2017 Presidential Executive Order encourages energy exploration like this. The NOAA Fisheries decision to allow blasting on the Atlantic Coast was met with outrage from conservation groups like the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says there is no evidence that seismic surveys harm marine life, but a study it conducted in 2014 shows that nearly three million dolphins and half a million whales could be harassed, or worse, by survey activity.

Read the full story at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine

Maryland oyster restoration project remains stalled by lack of federal funds

November 29, 2018 — Oyster restoration work in Maryland’s Tred Avon River appears likely to remain on hold for at least another year, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers still has no funding allotted through next September for reef construction in the Chesapeake Bay.

Restoration work in the Eastern Shore river began in 2015 and has so far relied overwhelmingly on federal funds. The Trump administration did not request funding for the project in its budget proposal for fiscal year 2019, but the Corps’ Baltimore District did ask for support through discretionary funds authorized by Congress.

While the Corps decided to provide $13 million in additional funding for various projects in the Bay region, including the use of dredged material to restore two vanishing Bay islands, it did not give the Baltimore District money to continue work in the Tred Avon.

“The District is certainly committed to continuing the program,” said Sarah Lazo, spokeswoman for the Baltimore District. But until funding becomes available, she said, it can’t go forward.

It’s not clear whether the oyster restoration funding request was denied by Corps headquarters or by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which has final say on the Corps’ workplan for spending its discretionary funds. Corps headquarters provided no explanation for why District funding requests were not included in its workplans.

Since 2015, the Corps and its state, federal and nonprofit partners have completed the initial restoration of nearly 81 acres of river bottom in the Tred Avon, at a combined cost of $4.6 million. They have planted a total of 380 million hatchery-spawned seed oysters on reefs that are protected from harvest.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

New study: Chesapeake oyster decline not due to overfishing

November 14, 2018 — Warmer winters, rather than overharvesting, caused the steep decline of oysters and other commercially valuable shellfish in the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere along the Atlantic coast, according to a controversial new study that’s getting pushback from some scientists.

The study, which appeared in Marine Fisheries Review, a quarterly journal of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says that multi-year stretches of mild temperatures in normally weather months altered the food web in coastal waters. That impaired the growth and reproduction of oysters, quahogs, soft-shell clams and scallops, scientists said. It also led to increased predation on shellfish larvae and outbreaks of diseases.

“The temperatures got warm and that changed the whole environment, so [the oyster diseases] MSX and Dermo could flourish,” said Clyde MacKenzie, Jr., the study’s lead author and a longtime researcher at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center at Sandy Hook, NJ. Mitchell Tarnowski, who runs the annual fall oyster survey for Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources, is the co-author.

The paper’s conclusions, especially its dismissal of overfishing as a factor in Chesapeake oyster declines, came under fire from scientists with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Its publication comes as the DNR prepares to release a first-ever stock assessment of the oyster population in the Upper Chesapeake, including an evaluation of whether current harvest levels are sustainable.

The scientific consensus has long been that overharvesting, disease and habitat loss over the decades devastated the Bay’s oyster population, with some estimates putting it in recent years at 1 percent or less of historic levels of abundance. From an annual commercial harvest of nearly 17 million bushels in 1880, landings have trended downward, hitting historic lows in 2003-04 of just 50,000 bushels. The harvest has rebounded some since then, though much of the gain has come via private oyster farming, especially in Virginia.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

 

The Eel Deal: This D.C. Restaurant Serves Up Eel From The Chesapeake

September 14, 2018 — Eels are misunderstood. They’re slimy, and look like snakes—which makes it hard for some people to stomach the thought of eating one. But eel season is ramping up at one D.C. restaurant, where the chef serves eels caught in the Chesapeake Bay.

Despite appearances, eels are fish. They breathe through gills and move using two long fins—one down their back, another along their bellies. The two fins meet to form a tail.

At seafood restaurant The Salt Line, chef Kyle Bailey is happy to offer eel to his customers.

“They’re available and I want that because I don’t see them anywhere else in town, and I would love to be the restaurant that has something that nobody else has,” Bailey says.

Bailey’s eels are provided by Dock-to-Dish, a restaurant-supported fishery program in the Washington region. It allows chefs to trace the fish they get back to the dock they came from.

From Kent Island To The Salt Line

The source of Bailey’s eels is Troy Wilkins, one of a couple dozen Maryland watermen who fish for the elusive, yet abundant creatures on a regular basis.

On a recent day, Wilkins sails near Kent Island in the Chesapeake. From the deck of his fishing boat, the Misty Tango, he reels in two-foot-long, cylindrical eel pots one by one.

Several pots come up nearly full. Roughly a dozen greenish-brown eels writhe around inside the pots before he dumps them into a holding tank. Some eels are big, about four or five pounds. Others are much smaller.

Read the full story at DCist

 

Virginia gets a year to comply with menhaden limits or face moratorium

September 10, 2018 — East Coast fishery managers have decided to give Virginia until next year to adopt regulations that limit catches of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay rather than seek an immediate moratorium on harvests.

Conservation groups and the fishing industry have been engaged in a long-running battle over how many menhaden can be caught without ecological consequences.

Humans don’t eat menhaden, but the small, oily fish are a critical food for a host of marine life from whales to striped bass. While the overall stock is considered healthy, conservationists have argued that such evaluations do not account for its role as forage for fish, birds and marine mammals.

Last fall, forage fish advocates persuaded the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to slash the maximum allowable harvest in the Bay — where much of the East Coast harvest takes place — from 87,216 metric tons to 51,000 metric tons a year, even as it increased the total allowable coastwide catch.

But the action angered Omega Protein, which operates a facility in Reedville, VA, that “reduces” large amounts of menhaden caught by its fishing fleet into other products, such as fish oil supplements and animal feed. Omega is by far the largest harvester of menhaden in the Chesapeake and the entire East Coast. The company has not exceeded the new limit for Bay waters in years because it has drawn more of its catch from the Atlantic, but officials said the lower number restricts their future options and has no scientific basis.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

 

Bountiful Bunker? Advocates Clash with Big Fish Oil in New York Harbor

September 10, 2018 — Advocacy groups are sounding the alarm on Virginia-based fishing fleets coming into the New York bight to harvest menhaden — a bait fish better known as “bunker” — but NOAA Fisheries says the species is not at risk of overfishing.

The boats work for Omega Protein, a company based in Reedville, Virginia, that runs the largest menhaden fishing operation on the east coast.

Menhaden are abundant now, but they’d been severely overfished in the past and advocacy groups like Menhaden Defenders and Gotham Whale are concerned about that happening again — especially since whales have returned to New York City waters. The cetaceans feed on menhaden, and fewer fish could mean fewer whale sightings, they say.

Advocates also worry about by-catch. The boats use huge purse seines that round up millions of fish at a time, and there’s concern that dolphins and other marine life could get caught up.

In a press release, Omega Protein charged that advocates are making “false statements” about their fleet, noting that there’s currently no concern about bunker overfishing and that their operations are completely legal. The company turns menhaden into commodities for fish oil supplements, dog food, fish meal, and other products.

Jennifer Goebel, a spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries, confirmed that there’s no current threat of overfishing for menhaden.

“There has been concern over the years from certain environmental groups regarding localized depletion in Chesapeake Bay, but studies have not found any evidence that localized depletion is occurring,” she said in an email. “The coastwide assessment shows the Atlantic menhaden stock is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring.”

She added that Omega Protein “follow[s] the schools and right now, if those schools are off New York, that’s where an industry vessel could be fishing.”

Read the full story at New York Media Boat