Saving Seafood

Proposals Aim To Restore Lobsters To Long Island Sound

March 20, 2017 — A new interstate plan is being considered to try and halt the dramatic decline in lobster populations in Long Island Sound and southern New England waters, but experts warn none of these proposals may work in the face of global warming.

The draft plan by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission includes possible changes in the size of lobsters allowed to be kept, reductions in the number of lobster traps allowed in the region, and additional lobster season closures.

But a former president of the Connecticut Commercial Lobstermen’s Association, Nick Crismale of Branford, doubts the once-thriving lobster population in the Sound will ever recover. “It will never come back,” Crismale said. “The industry is basically gone; the resource is basically gone.”

Mark Alexander, head of Connecticut’s marine fisheries unit, acknowledges that bringing the lobsters back to the Sound won’t be easy in the face of ongoing climate change. “But we have to give it a shot,” he said this week.

Connecticut public hearings on the commission’s draft proposal are scheduled for March 21 in Old Lyme and March 27 in Derby.

Read the full story at the Hartford Courant

CONNECTICUT: Hearings Planned to Discuss Saving Southern New England Lobsters

February 17, 2017 — Interstate fishing managers have scheduled two of seven hearings on a plan to try to save southern New England lobsters in Connecticut.

Lobster fishing in places like Connecticut and Rhode Island dates back centuries, but the stock has dwindled as water temperature has warmed. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is working on a plan to slow decline.

The commission’s plan includes strategies such as changing the legal harvesting size limit for lobsters, reducing the number of traps allowed in the water and enforcing new seasonal closures.

Read the full story at NBC Connecticut 

CONNECTICUT: State’s fishing fleet facing potentially ‘disastrous’ quota cuts for fluke

January 19, 2017 — Reductions that took effect Jan. 1 in federal quotas for the commercial fluke catch could have a “disastrous” effect on the Connecticut’s small remaining fishing fleet, unless action being advocated to undo the cut is taken, the state’s congressional delegation wrote in a letter to the U.S. secretary of commerce.

“It’s going to put us out of business,” Stonington fisherman Robert Guzzo, vice president of the Southern New England Fishermen and Lobstermen’s Association, said Wednesday. “I’ve never seen so many fish in the ocean. The fish are out there, but the science and the regulators haven’t caught up with what’s actually out there.”

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., pressed commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross to use his authority to change how quotas for fish species including fluke — also called summer flounder — are allocated among states from the mid-Atlantic to New England.

Species such as fluke have been migrating into New England waters in greater numbers in recent years, Blumenthal and fishermen contend. But the regulatory system used by the National Marine Fisheries Service uses an outdated system that favors the mid-Atlantic states at New England’s expense, they say.

“The system is broken … from an environmental and economic standpoint, and it’s costing jobs, and it is preventing the United States from using its fish stocks and instead has resulted in importing, which destroys livelihoods and economic well-being in the New England states,” Blumenthal told Ross during the confirmation hearing. He urged Ross to use his emergency powers to reform the system.

In response, Ross said he is interested in helping the fisheries and ensuring quotas are allocated properly. The Department of Commerce includes the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full story at The Day

New rules for New England shrimp fishing might go to public

January 17, 2017 — The public might soon have a chance to comment on potential new fishing rules that could help bring New England’s shrimp back into markets.

Northern shrimp were once a popular seafood, but the commercial fishing industry for them has been shut down since the stock collapsed in 2013.

Interstate regulators are working on new rules about how to manage the fishery if it does eventually reopen.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission says options include state-by-state allocations and the mandatory use of certain kinds of gear to prevent harvest of young shrimp.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

REVISED: States Seek Input on 2017 Recreational Summer Flounder Fishery Management

December 27, 2016 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Arlington, VA – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Management Board announces the availability of Draft Addendum XXVIII for public comment. The document, which was approved by the Board in early December, presents a suite of management approaches, including regional options, to achieve the 2017 recreational harvest limit (RHL). The Atlantic coastal states of Massachusetts through North Carolina have scheduled public hearings to gather public comment.  The details of those scheduled hearings follow:

Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries

January 11, 2017 at 6 PM

Bourne Community Center, Room # 1

239 Main Street

Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts

Contact: Nichola Meserve at 617.626.1531

Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife

January 12, 2017; 6:00 PM
University of Rhode Island Bay Campus

Corliss Auditorium South Ferry Road

Narragansett, Rhode Island
Contact: Robert Ballou at 401.222.4700 ext. 4420

Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection

January 10, 2017 at 7 PM

CT DEEP Boating Education Center

333 Ferry Road

Old Lyme, Connecticut

Contact: David Simpson at 860.434.6043

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

January 9, 2017 at 6:30 PM

Bureau of Marine Resources

205 North Belle Mead Road, Suite 1

East Setauket, New York

Contact: Steve Heins at 631.444.0435

New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife

January 5, 2017 at 6:30 PM

Galloway Township Branch Library

306 East Jimmie Leeds Rd

Galloway, New Jersey

Contact: Tom Baum at 609.748.2020

Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control

January 17, 2017 at 6 PM

DNREC Auditorium

89 Kings Highway

Dover, Delaware

Contact: John Clark at 302.739.9914

Maryland Department of Natural Resources

January 3, 2017 at 6 PM

Ocean Pines Library

11107 Cathell Road

Berlin, Maryland

Contact: Steve Doctor at 410.213.1531

Virginia Marine Resources Commission

January 12, 2017 at 6 PM
2600 Washington Avenue, 4th Floor

Newport News, Virginia
Contact:  Robert O’Reilly at 757.247.2247

North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries

January, 9, 2017 at 6 PM
NC Marine Fisheries, Central District Office

5285 US Highway 70 West

Morehead City, North Carolina
Contact: Chris Batsavage at 252 808-8009

 

Draft Addendum XXVIII was initiated to consider alternative management approaches for the 2017 recreational summer flounder fisheries, while also seeking to address needed reductions due to a decrease in the coastwide RHL in 2017. In August, the Board and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council approved a 30% reduction in the 2017 coastwide RHL relative to 2016. This action was taken in response to the 2016 Stock Assessment Update which found fishing mortality was higher in recent years and population estimates were lower than previously projected.

Changes in summer flounder distribution, abundance and availability have created problems under the static state-by-state allocations, with overages often occurring. In response, states would implement regulations to reduce harvest, resulting in differing regulations between neighboring states. In 2014, the Board shifted away from traditional state-by-state allocations to a regional approach for managing summer flounder recreational fisheries.  A benefit of the regional approach is it provides the states the flexibility to share allocations. The intent is to set regulations that account for shifting distribution, abundance and availability while providing stability and greater regulatory consistency among neighboring states, and enabling the states to meet but not exceed the coastwide RHL.

Anglers and interested stakeholders are encouraged to provide input on Draft Addendum XXVIII either by attending state public hearings or providing written comment. The Draft Addendum can be obtained here or via the Commission’s website, www.asmfc.org, under Public Input. Public comment will be accepted until 5 PM (EST) on January 19, 2017 and should be forwarded to Kirby Rootes-Murdy, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, 1050 N. Highland St, Suite A-N, Arlington, VA 22201; 703.842.0741 (FAX) or at krootes-murdy@asmfc.org (Subject line: Summer Flounder Draft Addendum XXVIII).

The Board will review submitted public comment and consider final action on the Draft Addendum at the Commission’s Winter Meeting in February 2017.  For more information, please contact Kirby Rootes-Murdy at krootes-murdy@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

See the full Draft Addendum at the ASMFC 

Atlantic Ocean Area The Size Of Virginia Protected From Deep-Water Fishing

December 19, 2016 — Coral in an area in the Atlantic Ocean stretching from Connecticut to Virginia has been protected from deep-sea commercial fishing gear, by a new rule issued this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The protected area covers some 38,000 square miles of federal waters, NOAA says, which is about the size of Virginia. It’s the “largest area in the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico protected from a range of destructive fishing gear,” according to the NRDC, an environmental advocacy group.

The new regulations prohibit the use of bottom-tending fishing gear at depths below 1,470 feet. Boats are allowed to cross the protected area as long as they bring the banned heavy gear on board while they do so, according to the text of the rule. It is set to go into effect on Jan. 13.

It’s named the Frank R. Lautenberg Deep Sea Coral Protection Area, in honor the former New Jersey senator who was an advocate for marine conservation.

Coral grows extremely slowly and is vulnerable to damage from this kind of heavy equipment that drags along the sea floor. As the NRDC put it: “One pass of a weighted fishing trawl net can destroy coral colonies as old as the California redwoods in seconds.”

“They’ve lived a long time but they live in an environment that is cold, with huge pressure, without light,” Joseph Gordon, Pew Charitable Trust’s manager of U.S. northeast oceans, told Delaware Public Media. “And so fishing technology could damage them in a way that could take centuries to recover from.”

The area is also home to many other animals, the NRDC adds, “including the endangered sperm whale, as well as sea birds, sea turtles, tunas, sharks, billfish, and countless other species.”

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council began to look into setting up a protected area here in 2013, and NOAA issued a proposed federal rule in September 2016. It was finalized on Wednesday.

John Bullard, Regional Administrator for the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, hailed this rule as a “great story of regional collaboration among the fishing industry, the Mid-Atlantic Council, the research community, and environmental organizations to protect what we all agree is a valuable ecological resource.”

And Bob Vanasse, the executive director of Saving Seafood, which represents the commercial fishing industry, told Virginia’s Daily Press that he thinks this is “the right way to protect these resources.”

Read the full story at NPR

NEW YORK: Commercial Fishing Boat Runs Aground in Montauk

November 28th, 2016 — A 55-foot commercial a commercial fishing dragger, the Miss Scarlett, based in New London, Conn., ran aground on the beach along Navy Road in Montauk at about 6 a.m. Sunday near high tide.

There were no injuries reported. The crew of the Miss Scarlett remained onboard the stranded vessel until they were picked up by a skiff from another boat around noon.

The stranded vessel, which was located just west of the Port Royal, became a destination for families who flocked to the beach to take pictures of it throughout the morning.

According to the Coast Guard, the boat will be pulled off the beach by salvage vessels if found sound enough once the turbulent waters subside.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star

Commercial fishing ends at marine monument

November 14th, 2016 — As of Monday, virtually all commercial fishing will be banned from the newly created Marine National Monument that includes the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts off the coast of southern New England.

The closure includes more than 4,900 square miles of ocean, or about the same area as the state of Connecticut, about 130 miles east-southeast of Cape Cod.

The Northeast Canyons represent 941 square miles of that total, while the protection afforded the Seamounts stretches over 3,972 square miles.

 Currently, only lobster and red crab fishing are exempted from the closure. Those fisheries are grandfathered in for seven years before they also will be excluded and the area wholly shut off to commercial fishing.

The closure, widely criticized by fishing stakeholders as an end-run around the established national fishery management system, is a product of President Obama’s use of the Antiquities Act on Sept. 15 to create the new Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

The process, as it has in coastal communities around the country, pitted commercial fishing interests and other fishing stakeholders against environmentalists and conservationists in a contentious struggle over wide swaths of the nation’s oceans.

Some history:

In August, in a victory for environmentalists and conservationists, Obama ended a roiling debate by more than quadrupling the size of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument to 582,578 square miles in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, establishing the largest protected area on the planet.

Read the full story at The Gloucester Times 

MAINE: Regional Ocean Plan Likely to Be Approved by Thanksgiving

November 4, 2016 — The Northeast Ocean Plan will be the first coordinated ocean strategy of its kind in the country when it is adopted by the National Ocean Council. That is likely to happen before Thanksgiving.

The Ocean Plan will not create new laws, regulations or penalties, but it will increase oversight of the area between the high-tide zone to 200 miles out to sea while coordinating 140 federal laws that regulate ocean activities in the Northeast.

That sounds overwhelming. It isn’t. The heart of the new plan is an easy-to-use data mapping tool that shows which laws apply to an activity or location and which agencies oversee them. Different uses, habitats, shipping lanes, infrastructure and more can be layered on one map to identify jurisdiction and potential conflicts.

The regional plan was developed in response to the 2010 Executive Order on Ocean Policy which requires better coastal and ocean management. Members from six Northeastern states, ten federal agencies, ten tribes and the New England Fisheries Management Council formed the Northeast Regional Planning Body (RPB) to help craft it.

The goal is to coordinate planning based on regional information, even as the ocean environment and marine uses change. Improving and understanding marine life and habitats and ecosystem-based management are important guiding principles.

The Northeast states, which already have a history of working together on fisheries issues, started work on the ocean plan in 2012. The final draft was released for review October 19, making the Northeast Region the first in the country to complete a regional plan.

The Northeast RPB sought public and scientific input through hundreds of informal gatherings and public meetings over the past four years while drafting the plan. Part of their research included going to fishing wharves and small towns to get input. Planners incorporated the public comments and their responses into the final plan.

If the Northeast Ocean Plan is approved later this month as expected, implementation will soon follow. The Northeast Ocean Data Portal, which allows instant mapping of different ocean values and uses based on peer-reviewed data, makes it easy to identify where interests overlap and which agency has jurisdiction.

Read the full story at The Free Press Online 

Obama creates the first US marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean

September 16, 2016 — WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama created the Atlantic Ocean’s first marine monument Thursday, protecting an expanse of underwater volcanoes and canyons, along with the creatures that live among them, off the coast of New England.

“If we’re going to leave our children with oceans like the ones that were left to us then we’re going to have to act. And we’re going to have to act boldly,” Obama said during the Our Ocean conservation conference in Washington, D.C.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is an area roughly the size of Connecticut and falls 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass.

There, the steep slopes of the canyons and seamounts meet currents that push nutrient filled water from the depths of the ocean to the surface. Those nutrients mix with sunlight to spur the growth of phytoplankton and zooplankton. The microscopic life forms the basis of the food chain, drawing in schools of fish and the animals that feed on them — whales, sharks, tunas, porpoises, dolphins, sea turtles and seabirds.

Read the full story at Talk Media News