Saving Seafood

April 4-10, 2020 PFMC Meeting Notice (WEBINAR) and Agenda Now Available

March 18, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC or Council) and its advisory bodies will meet April 4‐10, 2020 by webinar only, to address issues related to groundfish, salmon, Pacific halibut, coastal pelagic species, and administrative matters.

Please see the April 4-10, 2020 Council meeting notice on the Council’s website for further updates and details regarding webinar participation; schedule of advisory body meetings, our E-Portal for submitting public comments, and public comment deadlines.

Key agenda items for the meeting include Council considerations to:

  • Adopt Final Management Measures for 2020 Ocean Salmon Fisheries
  • Consider Process for Southern Oregon Northern California Coastal Coho Endangered Species Act Consultation Recommendations
  • Adopt Final Incidental Pacific Halibut Catch Recommendations for 2020 and Early 2021 Non‐Indian Salmon Troll Fisheries
  • Adopt a Pacific Sardine Assessment, Final Harvest Specifications, and Management Measures for the 2020‐2021 Sardine Fishery
  • Adopt Final Preferred Harvest Specifications and Preliminary Management Measures for 2021‐2022 Groundfish Fisheries

Meetings of advisory bodies will also be conducted by webinar based on the schedules in the agenda. There will be one opportunity for public comment daily in each of the webinars.

Instructions for how to connect to those webinars will be posted on the Council’s April 2020 Meeting webpage prior to the first day of the meeting.

Please note that the evolving public health situation regarding COVID‐19 may further affect the conduct of the April Council and advisory body meetings. Pacific Council staff will monitor COVID‐19 developments and will determine if there is a need for additional measures. If such measures are deemed necessary, Council staff will post notice of them prominently on our website (www.pcouncil.org). Potential meeting participants are encouraged to check the Pacific Council’s website frequently for such information and updates.

For further information:

Endangered coho salmon preservation an upstream battle in California

March 13, 2020 — The endangered coho salmon of Tomales Bay, north of San Francisco, are getting assistance from a stream restoration effort that could help rescue them from near-extinction locally.

Through the project, fish ecologists hope they can restore habitat to rebuild decimated populations of the historic fish, which once was a staple of indigenous diets and later California commercial fishing.

Central California coast coho salmon formerly were plentiful on the West Coast, but the population has shrunk so low that the fish is listed as endangered in California, Oregon and Washington under the federal Endangered Species Act. It is now illegal to catch coho salmon in California. Cohos are not protected in Alaska.

The fishes’ spawning grounds are becoming hard to find. Unlike Chinook salmon, which lay eggs in rushing rivers, coho prefer small streams.

Read the full story at UPI

Feds Agree to Consider Protections for Hawaii’s Cauliflower Coral

March 5, 2020 — The Trump administration agreed Wednesday to determine by this summer whether it will extend federal wildlife protections to Hawaii’s cauliflower coral reef.

The agreement, filed in federal court in Honolulu, comes after the Center for Biological Diversity sued claiming the National Marine Fisheries Service fails to protect the coral under the Endangered Species Act.

In its federal complaint, the conservation group said Hawaii’s cauliflower coral has been devastated by ocean warming.

Warming oceans have caused widespread bleaching of the coral, whose populations declined by 36% between 1999 and 2012, according to the conservation group. A global coral-bleaching between 2014 and 2017 killed millions of coral on hundreds of reefs from Hawaii to the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Supreme Court to Review Endangered Species FOIA Case

March 3, 2020 — The Supreme Court is taking up the Trump administration’s legal quest to keep certain Endangered Species Act records from the public eye.

The justices agreed Monday to review a petition from two U.S. agencies trying to reverse a court order to release draft documents from a controversial species consultation process. The Freedom of Information Act case could have broad ramifications for agency disclosure in other contexts.

Government lawyers warned in their petition that allowing the order to stand would undermine a FOIA exemption that allows for “candid” communication between agencies during decision-making processes. But the Sierra Club, which filed the underlying case, says FOIA doesn’t allow agencies to shield important records simply by labeling them drafts.

“If an agency makes a decision that alters the course of either another agency’s decision-making or affects the public, it doesn’t get to just stamp that document ‘draft’ or ‘secret’ or ‘for our eyes only’ or anything else,” Sierra Club attorney Sanjay Narayan told Bloomberg Law.

Some legal analysts predict that the court’s decision to take the case means the justices will side with the government.

Read the full story at Bloomberg Law

Lawsuit Launched to Save Alaska’s Cook Inlet Beluga Whales From Harmful Oil Exploration

February 3, 2020 — Conservation groups Friday threatened to sue the Trump administration for approving oil exploration in Alaska’s Cook Inlet after new federal data found a dramatic decline in the area’s population of endangered beluga whales.

The formal notice of intent to file an Endangered Species Act lawsuit asks the National Marine Fisheries Service to revoke its authorization of oil and gas activities in the area until a new legally required consultation is completed.

The administration relied on higher beluga whale numbers when, in 2019, it approved rules allowing Hilcorp Alaska LLC to harm belugas and other marine mammals as it expands offshore oil and gas operations in Cook Inlet. But on Tuesday the Fisheries Service announced the population of whales was estimated at 279, a significantly smaller and more quickly declining population than the agency had thought.

“Since we pressed for listing the Cook Inlet Beluga whale as endangered in 2008, the drive for corporate profits and complacent government bureaucrats have conspired to stifle progress for this dwindling stock,” said Bob Shavelson, advocacy director for Cook Inletkeeper. “Hilcorp should do the right thing and abandon its plans for new drilling in Cook Inlet.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Native News

Lawsuit targets Alaska salmon management to protect southern killer whales

January 27, 2020 — A conservation organization based in Washington state is threatening to sue the federal government over the management of Alaska’s chinook salmon fisheries.

The Wild Fish Conservancy claims that management strategies in Alaska approved by the government pose a threat to the survival of several salmon runs in Washington, and the killer whales who depend on them.

The Wild Fish Conservancy filed notice on January 9, stating its intentions to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service for violating the Endangered Species Act, and jeopardizing the existence of southern resident killer whales.

The Conservancy argues that an important food supply of the whales — endangered stocks of chinook salmon originating in Puget Sound, the lower Columbia River, the Willamette River, and Snake River — is being depleted by the commercial troll and sport harvest in Southeast Alaska.

Kurt Beardslee is the director of the Wild Fish Conservancy. Chinook — or king salmon — are managed under treaty between the United States and Canada, overseen by the Pacific Salmon Commission.

Read the full story at KNBA

Judge sides with Olema environmental group on sea turtle protections

January 3, 2020 — A federal judge has sided with an Olema-based conservation group in finding the federal government violated environmental laws including the Endangered Species Act by allowing longline fishing in West Coast waters without assessing threats to endangered sea turtles.

Judge Kandis A. Westmore of the U.S. District Court of Northern California wrote in her ruling late last month that the National Marine Fisheries Service’s issuance of two longline fishing permits earlier this year would “reverse protections in place for leatherback sea turtles despite continuing population declines and the agency’s admission that the extinction of Pacific leatherbacks ‘is almost certain in the immediate future.’”

As part of her Dec. 20 order, Westmore set aside the two fishing permits that were issued in May as well as the agency’s finding that the fishing would have no significant environmental impacts.

Todd Steiner, executive director of the Olema-based Turtle Island Restoration Network, which co-led the lawsuit with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the fishing permits were essentially a back-door attempt by the Trump administration to reopen longline fishing despite a 2004 federal ban. The lawsuit was filed in June.

“We have closed the back door and leatherback sea turtles are safe from drowning on the ends of longline fishing hooks,” Steiner said.

Read the full story at The Marin Independent Journal

New Puget Sound Steelhead Plan Charts Course for Recovery

December 31, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Some 8,000 aging culverts under roads and driveways around Puget Sound block threatened Puget Sound steelhead from reaching high headwaters streams where they historically spawned, forming a major obstacle to the species’ recovery.

A new recovery plan developed under the Endangered Species Act for Puget Sound steelhead addresses these impassable culverts and other threats. It provides a roadmap to help the native fish recover into self-sustaining populations and resume their prominence in Puget Sound. NOAA Fisheries developed the plan with help and support from many partners.

Nearly 1 million wild adult steelhead historically returned to Puget Sound rivers but fewer than 5 to 10 percent of that return today. Puget Sound steelhead were designated as threatened in 2007, bringing them under the protection of the Endangered Species Act.

“Puget Sound steelhead are remarkably resilient, but they have been pushed to the limit by decades of habitat loss, and adverse marine conditions,” said Elizabeth Babcock, North Puget Sound Branch Chief in NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region. “Based on the best available science, this plan is a solid and comprehensive blueprint for recovery.”

Recovering the steelhead that are highly valued by Northwest tribes, prized by fishermen, and preyed upon by endangered killer whales would provide ecological, cultural, and economic benefits.

Read the full release here

Putting Endangered Species on the Map

December 19, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

In November, we launched Version 2.0 of the Section 7 Mapper, a new mapping tool that shows where threatened and endangered species are in New England and Mid-Atlantic waters. This tool helps people planning activities in our waters to understand where endangered marine species are and at what times of year.

Why did we build this tool?

Busy Oceans and Coasts

Coastal areas are humming with action. Ports, docks, piers, moorings, and marinas dot our shores and bays. Bridges span our rivers, barges sail up rivers to inland ports, and undersea cables criss-cross the ocean bottom. Vessels—ranging from enormous container ships and cruise ships to small recreational fishing boats and jet-skis—traverse our coastal and offshore waters daily.

People are constantly building structures, dredging shallow areas, restoring rivers and coastal habitats, replenishing beaches, and researching new sources of energy.

Underneath, around, and in between all these activities swim threatened and endangered fish, sea turtles, and marine mammals that live, feed, and grow there.

Projects Change Habitat

Human activities add noise, sediment, pollutants, and pressure to ocean habitats. They also displace these animals from spaces they use for breeding, egg-laying, nurseries, feeding, and other activities.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) requires federal agencies, like the Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Highway Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, the Navy, and even other parts of NOAA, to consult with NOAA Fisheries on projects or activities they are planning, funding, or permitting that may affect a threatened or endangered marine species or its critical habitat. This is called a “Section 7 Consultation.”

Read the full release here

Gillnet Fishing: Closed Area I and Nantucket Lightship Closure Areas

November 4, 2019 — On October 28, 2019, Federal District Court Judge James E. Boasberg issued an Order and Opinion on a lawsuit challenging a portion of the New England Fishery Management Council’s Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment 2.

The Order prohibits NOAA Fisheries from allowing gillnet fishing in the former Nantucket Lightship Groundfish and the Closed Area I Groundfish Closure Areas, until such time as NOAA Fisheries has fully complied with requirements of the Endangered Species Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, consistent with the Opinion.

NOAA Fisheries is studying the Opinion and will put regulations in place as soon as possible to comply with the Order to close the areas to gillnet fishing until further notice.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries