Saving Seafood

Feds protecting South Carolina waters for endangered whales

January 26, 2016 — A stretch of the southern Atlantic coast needed by endangered right whales to survive will receive more federal oversight under a decision that’s expected to put greater government scrutiny on efforts to locate and drill for oil and gas off the South Carolina seashore.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday declared the entire South Carolina and Georgia coasts as “critical habitat’’ for North Atlantic right whales, rare sea mammals that migrate from New England to southern waters. Parts of north Florida, New England and southern North Carolina also fall under the designation for the first time.

Tuesday’s decision doesn’t necessarily preclude oil and gas drilling in South Carolina or other states and it won’t add new regulations that would impede shipping or commercial fishing, federal officials said.

But it “would definitely make it harder’’ for oil and gas exploration to occur, said David Gouveia, a marine mammal coordinator for NOAA’s fisheries division. The critical habitat designation allows the government to more carefully review the proposals to search or drill for fossil fuels that might be buried in the sea floor, federal officials said. If concerns arise, the government could recommend changes.

Not only will the agency look at the direct impact of oil and gas development on right whales, but it also would examine how that could affect habitat important to the species’ survival, Gouveia said during a conference call with reporters. The government unveiled the proposal about a year ago and finalized the rule Tuesday.

The Amazing Survival of a Diabolical Fish

January 26, 2016—The critically endangered Devils Hole pupfish of Death Valley have long been considered the struggling survivors of the end of the last ice age 13,000 years ago – trapped in a dwindling watering hole in the midst of the most hellish desert on Earth.

But a new genetic analysis confirms that the fish known to science as Cyprinodon diabolis has managed the diabolically impossible: it seems to have arrived at Devil’s Hole more recently and somehow mixed with other pupfish species of other desert springs within the last few centuries.

This apparently miraculous feat, while being very mysterious in itself, could actually demystify another inexplicable fact about the Devil’s Hole minions that has long bedeviled scientists: how such a small population of fish living in a body of water the length and width of a couple of school buses could have survived for thousands of years without succumbing to inbreeding or the occasional mega drought.

“It’s one of the most ridiculous fish habitats in the world,” said Christopher Martin of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the lead author of the new study which appears online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Indeed, at 10 feet wide and 70 feet long (3.5 by 22 meters) the steep-sided Devil’s Hole is the smallest range of any vertebrate in the world.

Read the full story at Discovery News

California temporarily curbing water to spare vanishing fish

January 15, 2016 — SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Saying current water conditions pose particular peril for the state’s tiny, disappearing Delta smelt, federal officials moved Thursday to temporarily reduce water deliveries for farmers and millions of other Californians.

Especially muddy water from winter storms is among the factors that risk sweeping some of the world’s few remaining Delta smelt off course and into giant water pumps that draw water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin river deltas, U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials said.

The pumps are part of federal and state water projects that provide water for up to 25 million Californians. Wildlife experts believe the pumps are one of the main threats to native fish, including the once-plentiful Delta smelt, now nearly extinct, and endangered runs of native salmon.

The federal wildlife service’s determination on Thursday means federal authorities will reduce water flows temporarily starting Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

Real-time fishery management significantly reduces bycatch

January 12, 2016 — DURHAM, N.C. – Using real-time management policies to regulate fisheries can reduce the accidental bycatch of juvenile fish and endangered species with substantially less economic impact on fishermen, a new Duke University-led study finds.

The study compared results from six different types of fishery closures commonly used to reduce bycatch.

It found that “dynamic closures” — which typically involve setting smaller portions of the ocean off-limits for shorter periods, based on fine-scale, real-time assessments of changing conditions — are up to three times more efficient at reducing bycatch with lower costs to fishermen than static measures that close large areas and remain in force longer.

“The ecological patterns that create bycatch don’t occur on monthly or 100-square-kilometer-size scales or larger. They occur at much smaller time-space scales,” said Daniel C. Dunn, lead author of the study and a research scientist in the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “Our study provides empirical evidence that if we’re not managing the ocean at these smaller scales there is an inherent inefficiency in the system that costs both fishermen and species alike.”

The study appeared the week of January 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The success of dynamic fisheries management hinges on recent advances “that extend the real-time technology at our fingertips and take it into the ocean,” said Sara M. Maxwell, assistant professor of biological sciences at Old Dominion University, who co-authored the study.

Read the full story at EurekAlert

 

More stranded turtles wash up on Cape

January 6, 2016 — More sea turtles stunned by the weather have washed ashore on Cape Cod this week, following a cold spell that came with several inches of snow in the area.

About 57 turtles — both loggerheads and Kemp’s ridleys — have been found since the start of the year, said Bob Prescott, director of Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. Approximately 25 of those animals were alive and sent to the New England Aquarium’s Animal Care Center in Quincy for treatment.

The recent rescues bring the total number of turtles recovered since the fall to more than 500, the second-highest number per season in history.

Kemp’s ridley and loggerhead turtles are both endangered species that come to the waters of New England to feed in warm weather. As the water cools, they attempt to migrate south, but many become stranded by the hook of the Cape.

The colder it gets, the more hazardous conditions become for the animals.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Sea turtle strandings surpass 500, second-highest on record

January 3, 2016 — For the first time since the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary started rescuing endangered cold-stunned sea turtles in 1982, the sanctuary recovered living cold-stunned turtles in January, according to a statement from the sanctuary.

Usually, the season ends by Christmas.

Since November, rescuers with the sanctuary have recovered 520 turtles from Cape Cod Bay beaches, making it the second-highest stranding year on record.

Last year, 1,200 turtles were stranded, according to the release. The vast majority of turtles that strand here are Kemp’s ridleys, which are born on beaches in Mexico and Texas.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times

 

Fishing for a solution for endangered right whales

December 29, 2015 — Sometimes technology solves a problem, sometimes it makes it worse.

When researchers at the New England Aquarium and the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown examined ropes recovered from whales entangled in fishing gear from 1994 to 2010, they found that entanglements for North Atlantic right whales, the world’s most endangered great whale species, accelerated dramatically from 1993 to 2010, in both frequency and in the severity of the entrapment.

The culprit, scientists believe, is a new type of rope known as Polysteel, that rope manufacturers began making and marketing to fishermen and others in the marine trades as being 40 percent stronger and more durable than other synthetic ropes. Plus, the lobster industry also shifted from wood to wire traps that allowed them to use heavier gear and for the pots to stay in the water through the winter, increasing the likelihood of interaction with whales.

Even though fishermen already employ weak links designed to break and separate the line from the buoy when a whale pulls on it, researchers found the lines themselves were still doing a lot of damage.

“It was a huge change,” said Amy Knowlton, the lead author of the study and a research scientist with the New England Aquarium working to reduce the risk of whale entanglement and death from fishing gear and lines. Scientists put the number of North Atlantic right whales that can be lost due to human causes at less than one per year, if the population is going to increase and avoid extinction. The National Marine Fisheries Service has calculated that 3.25 right whales per year either died or were severely injured between 2007 and 2011 by being caught up in fishing gear and lines. The agency estimates that 83 percent of the right whale population shows scarring from fishing gear.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

DAVID GOETHEL: Fishermen on the Hook to Pay for Their Own Regulators

December 27, 2015 — Few professions are as significant to New England’s economy and history as fishing. Yet the ranks of groundfish fishermen have dwindled so much that we’re now an endangered species. The causes are many—but the one now threatening us with extinction is the federal government. Along with one other plaintiff, I’m suing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to stop it from sinking New England’s groundfish industry for good.

Groundfish include cod, haddock and 11 other common bottom-dwelling species. After years of dwindling stocks, in 2012 the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a disaster declaration for groundfish territory off the coast of New England. Over the past four years my cod quota—my bread and butter—plummeted from 60,000 pounds to 3,700 this year. I caught my limit in four days in June.

Shifting ocean patterns have certainly contributed to our struggles, but regulators are a separate anchor altogether. Groundfish fishermen are organized into a patchwork of 15 sectors, i.e., government-designed cooperative organizations. We operate under at least seven overlapping federal and state entities and programs, all of which have their own regulatory nets.

Read the full opinion piece at the Wall Street Journal

 

WestPac Opposes ‘Uplisting’ Green Sea Turtle As Endangered

October 21, 2015 — PAGO PAGO, American Samoa – Exiting approach imposing “Western perspective” to protect green sea turtles, which are an integral part of history and culture of the Pacific people, has been ineffective, says Kitty M. Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council [WestPac] in Honolulu.

Simonds’ concerns were outlined in her 13-page letter providing comments and information to the US National Marine Fishery Service’s (NMFS) proposed listing of eleven Distinct Population Segments (DPS) of green sea turtles as endangered or threatened.

“The future of green turtle management is an important issue for the Council given that the species holds cultural and traditional significance throughout the Pacific Islands, including Hawai’i, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Guam, and American Samoa,” Simonds pointed out.

She explained that fisheries managed under the Council’s Fishery Ecosystem Plan (FEP), such as the Hawai’i longline fishery and the American Samoa longline fishery, are known to interact with several populations of green turtles, and the Council recently developed management measures for the American Samoa longline fishery to prevent interactions with green turtles.

According to the executive director, the Council during its June meeting in Honolulu this year reviewed the proposed rule and considered recommendations from its Scientific and Statistical Committee, Protected Species Advisory Committee and Advisory Panel.

From that meeting, the Council recommended, among other things, to provide exemptions to the take prohibitions under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), similar to the management mechanism implemented for ESA-listed salmon species. According to the Council, activities for take exemption should include limited directed take and active population management.

Read the full story at The Samoa News

In Puerto Rico, US Officials Seize Endangered Fish Bladders

July 15, 2015 — SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — U.S. officials in Puerto Rico have seized a load of fish bladders taken from an endangered species and stuffed inside packages that were shipped from Venezuela and destined for Hong Kong.

Officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection have seized 1,328 pounds (over 600 kilograms) of Totoaba fish bladders. The swim bladders from the fish indigenous to Mexico’s Gulf of California are prized by chefs in China.

The fish bladders were found during an inspection of packages at Rafael Hernandez International Airport in the western town of Aguadilla.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times