David Gouveia Archives - Saving Seafood

Spate of whale entanglements could inform regulations

September 28, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — A recent spate of entanglements of rare whales off of New England could help shape future regulations to preserve the endangered animals, federal authorities said Tuesday.

A North Atlantic right whale was found dead about 12 miles off the Maine coast over the weekend, entangled in fishing gear. Two other right whales were also found entangled recently. One of them was reported alive, and researchers plan to reassess its condition.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the 45-ton animal’s death near Maine was still being investigated, including whether the gear can be traced back to its owner.

“We’re on par for the course with the averages for the year for entanglements,” he said. “Overall, if you look at entanglements of all large whale species, we’re a little bit above our average.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Boston Globe

Scientists bemoan spate of whale entanglements

September 28, 2016 — It has not been a good week for right whales off the coast of New England, nor for the marine scientists who study them.

In the wake of the three separate right whale incidents since last Thursday, including two involving dead right whales, NOAA Fisheries organized a teleconference Tuesday in which a number of scientists said the recent spate of incidents reflect the continuing crisis of trying to return the right whale population — now estimated at about 500 — to health.

“In recent years, we’re not seeing the strides we had once seen,” said David Gouveia, the marine mammal and sea turtle program coordinator in NOAA’s greater Atlantic region. “When you have something like this, that within a three-day period you’ve lost two valuable members or contributors to the population, that’s something we wanted to share with our partners and wanted to share with the public and wanted to really stress the continued importance of us being mindful of our conservation efforts.”

Michael Moore, a senior research specialist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was even more emphatic in his reaction to the trio of right whale incidents.

“The fishermen and the fisheries, the stakeholders, have been put through an enormous amount of gear change and stress to make a more whale-friendly fishery and we’re not out of the woods by any means,” Moore said. “There needs to be a revisiting of strategy and public expectations. Something needs to change.”

The first incident occurred Thursday, when recreational boaters off Cape Cod reported seeing an entangled right whale — later identified as an 8-year-old female — towing hundreds of feet of line and buoys from its jaws.

A disentanglement team cut away some of the line and made other cuts scientists believe helped the whale, which scientists believe to be alive somewhere in the Gulf of Maine, to shed even more of the gear.

The gear was recovered and Gouveia said it provides clues to who owned the gear, where it was fished and whether that fisherman was in compliance with safety and gear regulations related to fishing in areas populated by right whales.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Habitat Designation Key to Right Whale Recovery

February 2,2016— There is reason to be optimistic that the recent move by the federal government to expand the protected habitat of the North Atlantic right whale will protect the endangered species without harming its equally at-risk ocean neighbor, the commercial fishing industry.

The mammals and fishermen have historically been at cross purposes. The whales were given their name because they were the “right” whale to kill, thanks to their proximity to shore and the fact that they floated when dead, allowing them to be easily towed behind a whaler. The modern fishing industry no longer targets the whales, of course, but the mammals can get tangled in lost or discarded fishing line and gear, which often leads to their death.

Commercial whaling decimated the once-thriving right whale species in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Just a few decades ago, only 300 or so remained. Over the last three decades, however, conservation efforts have brought the number to around 500.

“We have made progress,” David Gouveia, the marine mammal and sea turtle conservation coordinator for the Greater Atlantic Region of the National Marine Fisheries Service, told the Associated Press. “We are on a positive trajectory but there is still plenty of work to be done.”

Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced it was expanding its list of right whale habitat, adding calving grounds off the coast of the Carolinas and feeding grounds off New England. The move designates more than 30,000 square nautical miles as critical.

The designation, set to go into effect at the end of the month, means projects that require federal permits — such as dredging or building oil rigs or wind farms — will now be measured at least in part on how they affect the whales’ habitat.

“It’s a very important move,” Charles “Stormy” Mayo, director of right whale habitat studies at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, told the Boston Globe. “It’s pretty tough to put a small box around a wild animal, especially a whale that travels many thousands of miles each year of its life. … What we have here is an adjustment that recognizes the wide use of the environment that supports these whales.”

The measure is not expected to affect fishing or lobstering operations. Both industries have scrapped with the federal government in the past over how best to help the whales rebound while keeping hundreds of small businesses afloat. Those negotiations have often been complicated by lawsuits from environmental groups looking to force a solution, generally at the expense of fishermen.

“It’s a very real fear among the fishing industry,” Patrice McCarron of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association told the Bangor Daily News. “The right whale issue has been a very litigious issue — period.”

Read the full editorial at Gloucester Daily Times