Saving Seafood

Sunken sanctuary: Former Omega Protein WWII-era vessel becomes artificial reef

December 15, 2015 — For much of the last decade, the MV Shearwater caught menhaden by the ton but in its new life, as part of the Del-Jersey-Land reef 26-miles off the coast, it will become a fish habitat and diving destination in the state’s artificial reef program.

The ship didn’t go easy into the deep last week. The stern sank first and the ship started to turn leaving just the bow out of the water. It took about six hours to fully sink after the seacocks opened and the interior compartments flooded.

The 176-foot-long vessel went down in 120 feet of water. It lays about one-half nautical mile from the 568-foot long USS Arthur W. Radford, a former Navy destroyer. The Radford was sunk at the artificial reef site in 2011 and has become a popular destination for divers and anglers.

“About three weeks ago, a state-record bluefish was caught there,” said Jeff Tinsman, the state artificial reef coordinator.

“These old freighters make ideal reefs because of the voids and cavities in them – they’re really the perfect sanctuary for fish,” Tinsman said. “But not long after this ship sinks, the fish will start to come ‘outside’ it to feed. Within a few weeks, blue mussels, sponges, barnacles and soft corals will attach themselves to the structure, and in about a year, the reef will be fully productive, for fish and fishermen alike.”

Read the full story at Delaware Online

Iconic fish species move north as ocean warms

September 6, 2015 — Warming ocean temperatures off the North Atlantic are causing fish to move up the coast to cooler waters — raising concerns among scientists and regulators about the ocean’s ecosystem, and potentially changing the experience Delaware anglers have enjoyed for generations.

In 2013, a Virginia Beach striped bass tournament drew hundreds of boats, but only one striper was caught.

Wachapreague, Virginia, a tiny town south of Chincoteague that called itself the “flounder capital of the world,” lost its identity and economic engine when summer flounder relocated to waters off the coasts of New Jersey and New York.

And the iconic blue crab, a staple of restaurants and dinner tables throughout the Delmarva Peninsula, are expanding their range, scuttling up the coast to Maine.

Striped bass, which gave birth to a charter fishing industry in Delaware, are swimming into deeper water during their fall migration through the mid-Atlantic — well beyond the 3-mile limit off the coast where it is legal to catch and keep them.

Black sea bass — once so common in area waters, they were the go-to-fish when other species weren’t biting — have moved north to New England.

Read the full story at Delaware Online

 

DELAWARE ONLINE: Why are the fish moving north?

September 5, 2015 — Forget gloom-and-doom outlines. Forget too, simple denial. Something is happening and we should 1) take it seriously. and 2) do something about it. Even if the something we do is to start adjusting for enormous changes.

Sea levels are rising. We know that. It will slowly affect those who live near the ocean’s edge. It will affect commerce and travel as well. Consider that a New England scientist who found that blue crab living in the Gulf of Maine. He also found the blue crab are eating the green crabs. How will that affect the environment? What else is going on? And what will be the repercussions in the short- and long-term? We simply do not know.

In addition to the temperatures and the sea rise, we know we have overfished many areas and we have damaged habitat. All of these things could create conditions that we as of yet do not understand.

Rich Wong, a scientist with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said, “It’s really small, incremental rises in temperature that have huge impacts.”

Read the full editorial at Delaware Online

 

Delaware facing possible moratorium on eel fishing

DOVER, Del. — September 4, 2015 — Federal regulators are eyeing a possible moratorium on eel fishing in Delaware waters.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is reviewing a referral from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that found Delaware out of compliance with the interstate management plan for American eel, whose numbers are depleted.

If the national agency determines that Delaware failed to carry out its responsibilities, and that the measures the state failed to implement are necessary for conservation, then it must declare a moratorium on eel fishing in Delaware waters. A determination must be made by Sept. 18.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post

ASMFC Finds Delaware Out of Compliance with Addendum III to the Interstate FMP for American Eel: Noncompliance Finding Forwarded to the Secretaries of Commerce and the Interior

August 19, 2015 — ARLINGTON, VA – The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has found the State of Delaware out of compliance with the mandatory management measures contained in Addendum III to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for American Eel. The Commission has notified the Secretaries of Commerce and the Interior of its finding.  This action was taken pursuant to the provisions of the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act of 1993.

The State of Delaware has failed to effectively implement and enforce the provisions of Addendum III to the FMP for American Eel. Specifically, Delaware has not implemented the following regulations required by Addendum III:

•     9” minimum size for yellow eel recreational and commercial fisheries

•     ½” x ½” min mesh size for yellow eel pots

•     Allowance of 4”x4” escape panel in pots of ½” x ½” mesh for 3 years (beginning on January 1, 2014)

•     Recreational 25 fish bag limit per day per angler

•     Crew and Captain involved in for-hire are exempt and allowed 50 fish bag limit per day

The implementation of these measures is necessary to achieve the conservation goals and objectives of the FMP to rebuild the depleted American eel stock. In order to come back into compliance the State of Delaware must implement all of the above measures.  Upon notification by the Commission, the Secretaries of Commerce and the Interior have 30 days to review the recommendation and determine appropriate action, which may include a federal moratorium on fishing for American eel in Delaware’s state waters.

For more information, please contact Toni Kerns, Director, Interstate Fisheries Management Program, at tkerns@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

DELAWARE: Crab yield projected to be double last year’s catch

July 8, 2015 — LEIPSIC, Del. — As summer heats up, so does crab season.

Local crabbers are bringing in more blue crabs now than they have all season to this point.

“Overall, this year has been better than last year, but these past few weeks have been way better and I think the rest of the summer looks promising,” said Lingo Voss, a local crabber for more than 40 years.

Lingo and his brother, Larry, crab with a few employees in the Leipsic River starting at daylight during the season, which runs from March to November.

The Vosses usually are done with the day around noon.

“It’s easier to get more done in the morning and it’s also the coolest time of day,” Lingo said. “If you come out in the afternoon, it’s going to be too hot for the crabs and they’re not going to last very long.”

The brothers keep a daily log of how many crabs they bring in. After flipping through a few pages they saw that during the week of July 4th, 2014, the largest catch amounted to only three bushels.

The Vosses said on any given day over the past month or so their boats bring in five to 10 bushels a day.

According to the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s projections, about 3 million to 3.5 million pounds of crabs (weight includes the shell) are expected to be harvested in 2015. If the yield meets the projections, it will be almost twice as many crabs as last year, the best year since 2010.

To make projections for each year, DNREC monitors the size and quantity of young crabs between April and October at 26 Delaware locations, a process they’ve followed since 1978.

Read the full story at Delaware State News

 

 

 

New GIS Shapefiles of Delaware Reef Special Management Zones Available on NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region Website

July 9, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries announces the publication of new GIS shapefiles for the Delaware Reef Special Management Zones that go into effect today.

More information on these Special Management Zones is available in the Federal Register notice, supporting documents on our website, and in our web story.

We will continue to add new shapefiles and geospatial data to our GIS website as they become available.

Questions about GIS? Please contact Dean Szumylo via email at dean.szumylo@noaa.gov.

 

Fishery managers weigh options as blueline tilefish boom in mid-Atlantic

June 29, 2015 — LEWES, Del. — An angler in Lewes set a new state record with a blueline tilefish caught earlier this month — even as regulators scramble to get control of the region’s booming tilefish harvest.

The record-setting fish was caught 65 miles off Delaware’s coast in Baltimore Canyon. It tipped the scales at 19.7 pounds — and it’s not the only one that local anglers have hauled in recently. Once most common in the Southern Atlantic, blueline tilefish have begun to make a splash further north.

Stewart Michels is a marine fisheries program manager with Delaware’s Division of Fish & Wildlife. He says the species is a whitefish sold domestically.

“It’s a sedentary fish for the most part — bottom-dwelling, slow-growing, so that makes it susceptible to over-harvest,” he says. “We don’t have a lot of data for the species; it’s a data-poor species, and particularly north of North Carolina, there’s not a lot of data available.”

That kind of data helps fishery managers set catch limits. But in the past, blueline tilefish were caught so infrequently in the mid-Atlantic that the harvest wasn’t controlled by regulators at all.

Read the full story and listen to the audio at Delaware Public Media