Saving Seafood

REP. DANIEL WEBSTER: Red snapper deal a step forward

July 12, 2017 — It’s summer and with its arrival comes Florida’s fishing season. Fishing in the Gulf is an age-old pastime enjoyed by Floridians and tourists alike. Our miles of coastline and myriad of fish call both the seasoned and brand new angler, but with these miles comes also the responsibility to conserve our fish for generations.

Florida has worked diligently on maintaining a healthy stock of red snapper in our Gulf waters for years. And the great news is this year, we have an expanded season for red snapper in particular — a prized staple in our Gulf.

Last week, Florida joined the other four Gulf States in a compromise with the federal government that aligns both federal and state recreational red snapper fishing seasons for this summer. The result: 39 weekend days and holidays.

This is a step forward in maximizing private angler access to red snapper. With this agreement, President Donald Trump’s Department of Commerce demonstrates that through compromise and sound science, recreational anglers can participate in extended red snapper fishing without harm to the environment. The ruling permits fishing of red snapper on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from June 16 until Labor Day, Sept. 4, as well as July 3 and 4. Floridians and adjoining Gulf neighbors now have the longest federal-waters fishing season since 2013.

This agreement respects Florida’s much-need voice in the maintenance of our red snapper stock. Red snapper is a particularly important cultural element of our district and of our state. Red snapper fishing boosts tourism and recreational anglers alike, which are both critical to the Florida economy.

Read the full letter at The Suncoast News

How Trump administration ended great New Jersey fish fight

July 11, 2017 — President Donald Trump’s administration sided with New Jersey Tuesday in a dispute over catch limits for summer flounder that threatened to shut down the entire fishing season.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross approved the state’s Marine Fisheries Council proposal for 24 fewer fishing days but a smaller minimum size for fish, rather than the limits imposed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th Dist.) called Ross’s decision “great news for the state of New Jersey, our fishing community, our economy and all who visit the shore.”

Members of the state’s congressional delegation had opposed the more stringent limits of a 19-inch minimum, with a three fish limit per trip over a 128-day season.

At one point, the fisheries commission threatened to impose a moratorium on all fishing.

“The decision to not institute a fishing moratorium, and instead accept New Jersey’s more balanced and reasonable summer catch standards, will sustain New Jersey’s summer flounder industries while upholding conservation standards,” Smith said.

Read the full story at NJ.com

U.S.-Cuba scientific collaborations continue despite change in policy

July 7, 2017 — Scientists from both Cuba and the U.S. have continued to work together despite President Donald Trump’s regression on U.S. relations with the Communist island.

Cuban coral reefs are the nursery grounds for some of the grouper, snapper and other marine species that the U.S. commercial fishing industry relies on.

Daniel Whittle runs the Cuba program for the Environmental Defense Fund, an American nonprofit conservation organization that has been working in Cuba for 17 years.

“We share migratory resources. We share sharks, sea turtles and fish,” Whittle said.

When it comes to biodiversity, Cuba is the ecological crown jewel of the Caribbean. Economic underdevelopment and the communist-run country’s restrictive laws have benefited the environment.

There are more than 4,000 tiny islands surrounding the main island that offer refuge. And there are plenty of endemic exotic species in the 211 protected areas that cover about 20 percent of the island.

There are more than 6,000 species of plants and around 1,400 species of mollusks. More than 80 percent of its reptiles are unique to the island. The Cuban trogon, the Cuban pygmy owl and the Cuban tody are birds that are not found anywhere else in the world.

The U.S.-Cuba scientific research teams that followed restoration of diplomatic relations continue to study the healthy ecosystems.

Among the new partnerships is a deal between the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Cuban Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment.

Read the full story at WPLG

Feds extend comment period on seismic testing in the Atlantic

July 5, 2017 — The public is being given 15 more days to comment on applications by five companies to do seismic airgun surveys for oil and natural gas deposits in the Atlantic Ocean.

The National Marine Fisheries Service on Wednesday announced the extension of the comment period to July 21.

Five Houston-based survey companies are seeking “incidental harassment authorizations” that allow them to disturb or harm marine mammals during the course of their airgun surveys.

The applications had been denied by President Barack Obama’s administration, but were revived under President Donald Trump, who has said he favors oil and gas exploration along the Atlantic Coast.

Last week, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced that federal officials have begun the process of developing a new five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program. Initial public comments on the 2019-2024 plan also are being taken.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

US House panel votes to keep funding marine research program

July 3, 2017 — In a vote Thursday by a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, lawmakers pushed back on President Donald Trump’s proposal to de-fund the national Sea Grant program.

The program, which is overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, provides approximately $1.2 million each year to roughly a dozen full-time researchers affiliated with the University of Maine.

Paul Anderson, who heads the Sea Grant program in Maine, said Thursday that a subcommittee of Appropriations that oversees funding for commerce, justice and science had voted earlier in the day to support funding the national Sea Grant program at $63 million.

If the subcommittee’s funding proposal makes it through to the final version of the 2017-2018 annual federal budget — which Congress is expected to approve by the end of September — it would keep alive a program that proponents say is vital to sustaining Maine’s $1.5 billion-plus commercial fishing industry.

“It’s way better than zero [dollars],” Anderson said of the subcommittee vote. “It’s very promising. We feel our advocacy [in support of the Sea Grant program] around the country has been effective.”

Regardless of the subcommittee’s support for the program, the chances of Trump’s proposed budget being approved without significant changes by Congress is unlikely, as several national media outlets have reported.

Congress has ultimate say over federal spending, not the president, and typically drafts its own budget proposals that then are revised through congressional committee negotiations before being approved and enacted.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

NE Florida Republican Congressman Helping Lead Bipartisan Effort Against Atlantic Seismic Testing

June 29, 2017 — Northeast Florida Republican Congressman John Rutherford is helping lead a bipartisan effort against seismic airgun testing in the Atlantic Ocean, which could lead to drilling for oil and gas.

Rutherford said the blasting could hurt coastal businesses relying on healthy oceans.

Seismic testing is a way of finding oil and natural gas beneath the ocean floor with loud blasts of air. If the oil is there, drilling to retrieve it is the next step.

The Trump administration is reviewing applications by five energy companies who want to explore oil in the Atlantic. But Rutherford and more than 100 other members of Congress signed a letter sent to the secretary of interior against the blasting.

Rutherford said in an email, airgun testing poses a threat to coastal economies, like North Florida fisheries.

“While future offshore drilling activities in the Atlantic would put our communities at risk down the road, seismic testing threatens our fragile coastal economies today,” he said. “Our coastal economy should not be put at undue risk at a time when our booming oil and gas production is more than enough to meet our current energy needs.”

Environmental group Oceana, which opposes the testing, is applauding the letter. The group argues seismic testing could displace fish stocks, decrease catch rates, and disturb whale breeding.

Read the full story at WJCT

Fishing Report: NOAA seeks input on sanctuaries and monuments

June 29, 2017 — In a media advisory last week, NOAA said it’s soliciting public comment on National Marine Sanctuaries and Monuments designated or expanded since 2007 to determine if they should exist.

President Donald Trump’s Offshore Energy Strategy, outlined in his May executive order, has ordered the Secretary of Commerce through NOAA to review whether national monuments and sanctuaries present “lost opportunity” with regard to potential energy and mineral exploration and production.

Many in the fishing community are split about National Monuments. Some believe, as the president does, that profits and jobs should come first. However, a large part of the fishing and conservation communities believe it should be the environment and fish that should be first. Many believe that National Marine Sanctuaries and Marine Monuments serve as a sanctuary and spawning grounds for a variety of sea life and fish and should be left untouched.

For information on National Marine Monuments and Sanctuaries visit NOAA Fisheries website at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

Papahanaumokuakea Review Spurs Tension With Conservation Groups, Fisheries

June 28, 2017 — President Donald Trump’s targeting of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the northwest Hawaiian Islands for national review has revived a lopsided debate between Native Hawaiians, senators, scientists and conservation groups in favor of the monument’s designation, and an activist fishery council mainly concerned with “maximizing longline yields.”

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council vocally opposed the monument’s expansion in 2016 during a public comment process, communicating that to the White House under the leadership of Executive Director Kitty Simonds. Simonds’ PowerPoint presentation at a recent Council Coordination Committee meeting detailed other monument areas in the Pacific under review, including the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll, explicitly criticizing the designations as an abuse of the Antiquities Act. The PowerPoint concludes, “Make America great again. Return U.S. fishermen to U.S. waters.”

Established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Acts of 1976 and 1996, WESPAC is charged with reporting its recommendations for preventing overfishing and protecting fish stocks and habitat to the Commerce Department.

While WESPAC International Fisheries Enforcement and National Environmental Policy Act coordinator Eric Kingma believe that WESPAC’s communications with the president fall within the agency’s purview of advising the executive branch, others, including Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff, consider the comments an illegal “lobby to expand WESPAC turf” and shape public policy.

WESPAC argues that monument expansion hampers longline fishermen from feeding Hawaii, which imports roughly 60 percent of the fish it eats. Pro-expansion groups such as Expand Papahanaumokuakea point out that only 5 percent of longliner take came from the monument; that longliners have recently reached their quota by summer, then resorted to buying unused blocks from other fleets; and that much of the longliners’ take, including sashimi-grade bigeye tuna, is sold at auction to the mainland U.S., as well as to Japanese and other foreign buyers. The bigeye tuna catch, moreover, has been trending upward every year since the first year of logbook monitoring in 1991. In 2014, the Hawaii longline fleet caught a record 216,897 bigeye tuna, up 12 percent from 2013.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service

Fishery Group Comes Out Against Seismic Surveys

June 23, 2017 — The New England Fishery Management Council is asking the Trump Administration to slow its push for offshore oil and gas developments on the East Coast.

An Executive Order signed in April urges oil exploration in the mid and south Atlantic. Currently, five companies are seeking permits to conduct what are called seismic surveys in these areas.

Those surveys fire powerful sound waves into the ocean floor. Then, surveyors listen to the echoes to detect oil reserves.

Scientists increasingly worry those sound waves disturb whales and fish. A study published this Wednesday in the journal Nature says the surveys kill off zooplankton, a cornerstone of the ocean food chain.

Thomas Nies is Executive Director of the New England Fishery Management Council. His organization has spoken out about the surveys, because of concerns they’ll affect fisheries here. “We’re concerned about seismic surveys. The council isn’t convinced that we have enough information on what their impacts are across a wide range of species.”

Read the full story at NHPR

Group votes to protect some Atlantic corals, balk on others

June 22, 2017 — A federal panel voted on Thursday to offer new protections to some deep-sea corals in the Atlantic Ocean but held off on protecting others so it can get more information first.

The New England Fishery Management Council proposals focus on corals in two key fishing areas — the Gulf of Maine and south of Georges Bank off the Massachusetts coast — and have been the subject of debate among environmentalists and fishing groups for months.

“The goal is to protect as much coral as you can while minimizing impact on various industries that are fishing near the corals,” said John Bullard, a regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service and a member of the fishery council.

The proposals to protect the corals would need to be approved by the federal Department of Commerce.

New England’s corals grow in areas such as along underwater canyons and seamounts and provide habitat for marine life including sea turtles and fish. President Barack Obama protected one area last year as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the San Francisco Chronicle