Saving Seafood

Conservation efforts show results as status of eight green sea turtle species changes

April 6, 2016 — The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has changed the status of some green sea turtle species from endangered to threatened in its latest report. Credit should be given to conservation efforts carried out by different wildlife preservation organizations across the world. Work of law enforcers and agencies has also been praised by the latest report.

On Tuesday, the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA) have changed the status for few species which have seen recovery in their population. Experts said that there are many types of green sea turtles and the legislation is applicable on the ones found in the United States and Mexico.

During the conservation efforts and project, the conservators divided the species in 11 segments. Out of them, three remain as endangered and the other eight have been changed to threatened species. With the division, specialists will be able to keep a track on the turtles’ development and to come up with better conservation strategies.

Though threatened is not the best scenario, it is the first step in the right direction. Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries, said, “Successful conservation and management efforts developed in Florida and along the Pacific coast of Mexico are a roadmap for further recovery strategies of green turtle populations around the world”.

Read the full story at Mainer News Online

Asian economic slump hurt lobster prices

April 1, 2016 — A slump in the Asian economy dented last season’s record-high prices for Florida Keys spiny lobster, but a solid harvest satisfied commercial fishermen.

The 2015-16 lobster season closes Friday, with state fishery researchers expecting a commercial harvest of nearly 6 million pounds when the last crustacean is counted.

“Production was up, a lot better than last year,” Key West commercial fisherman Jason Yarbrough said Tuesday.

“But when you’re getting $3 a pound less than last season, that does make a substantial difference,” Yarbrough said.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

FLORIDA: Southern Cross Sea Farms, Shining Star of Gulf Farm-Raised Clams

CEDAR KEY, Fla. (March 28, 2016) —  Traveling the two-lane highway leading onto Cedar Key, Southern Cross Sea Farms stands as a shining star for lovers of great seafood. Their alter piled high with some of the best tasting clams raised and harvested in the Gulf of Mexico.

A vertically integrated clam business, Southern Cross Sea Farms is one of the largest clam growers in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2009, Jonathan Gill and his brother-in-law Shawn Stephenson purchased the business from Captain Bill Leeming who came up with the name while travelling the Caribbean. On a clear, starry night, Leeming looked up and saw the Southern Cross constellation.

Gill and Stephenson jumped into the clam industry after gillnet fishing was outlawed in the state of Florida more than 20 years ago.

“My dad owned a fish house and I fished for him as a gill netter until 1994 when they banned the nets in state waters,” said Gill, whose father Bob Gill is a Florida Board member of the Gulf Seafood Institute. “I took advantage of a state program designed to retrain gillnet fishermen as clam famers.”

Read the full story at the Gulf Seafood Institute

MISSISSIPPI: Jackson County supervisors vote to keep menhaden boats one mile out

March 7, 2016 — Jackson County’s Board of Supervisors decided Monday to have its meetings videotaped and posted for the public to see online.

Also on Monday, the board, in a split vote, decided to ask the state to restrict menhaden fishing to one mile off the Jackson County mainland.

A spokesman for Omega Protein, a commercial menhaden fishing operation out of Moss Point, tried to convince the board that it would hurt their $46 million-a-year industry, but county Supervisor Troy Ross said he sees it as a protection measure for fish in the Mississippi Sound.

Company spokesman Rick Schillaci told the board the Omega Protein already self-imposes a half-mile restriction in Jackson County and asked county leaders not to impose one mile.

“There is no real justification of you pushing us off,” Schillaci said, “And you’re going to send a message to businesses in Jackson County that this Board of Supervisors is not supportive of industry.”

He accused the board of bowing to recreational fishermen.

Read the full story from the Sun Herald

BRAD KENYON: Don’t mess with success in Gulf States fisheries management

March 1, 2016 — Under federal fisheries management, red snapper populations in the Gulf of Mexico are recovering and the boating and fishing industries have grown. But on Thursday, a U.S. Senate committee will hear a proposal that could gut a decade of recovery and growth for both. The idea floated by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., would create a piecemeal system by extending the state waters of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi from 3 miles to 9. In addition, his plan would loosen some of the stronger tenets of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act — like science-based rebuilding timelines and annual catch limits.

The other gulf states’ gains would be Florida’s loss, particularly for anglers in the Tampa Bay area who must travel at least 30 miles offshore to find 60-foot waters where the red snapper population flourishes. In effect, those other three states’ extensions would create enough extra state-water fishing pressure that the stock’s rebound would be imperiled. To keep the fish populations from plunging, the government would have to severely limit the number of days for fishing in federal waters. As a practical matter, Florida fishermen would have far fewer days to catch snapper.

On Thursday, Vitter will argue before the Senate Small Business Administration Committee that the 3-mile limits hurt small coastal businesses across the gulf that rely on healthy fish populations and liberal access to them. He is wrong. And as a small boat dealership and marina owner, I know something about this.

Read the full opinion piece at Tampa Bay Times

Coral Reef Die-Off Reaches Record Duration, Says New Research

February 26, 2016 — Rising global temperatures combined with an especially powerful El Niño are causing one of the biggest coral reef die-off events ever recorded.

The researchers, who are monitoring and forecasting offsite link the loss of corals from disease and heat stress due to record ocean temperatures, report that the global coral bleaching event that started in 2014 could extend well into 2017.

Approximately 500 million people worldwide depend upon reefs for food and to protect coastlines from storms and erosion. Coral reefs provide habitat, spawning and nursery grounds for economically important fish species; provide fishing, recreation, and tourism jobs and income to local economies; are a source of new medicines, and are hotspots of marine biodiversity. Reefs contribute approximately $29.8 billion to world economies each year. In the United States, NOAA Fisheries estimates the commercial value of U.S. fisheries from coral reefs is more than $100 million.

“We are currently experiencing the longest global coral bleaching event ever observed,” said Mark Eakin, NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch coordinator. “We may be looking at a 2- to 2½-year-long event. Some areas have already seen bleaching two years in a row.”

According to Eakin, the length of the event means corals in some parts of the world have no time to recover before they are hit by more bleaching. The current global bleaching event is hammering some reefs repeatedly.

Scientists first observed the current global coral bleaching event beginning in mid-2014, when bleaching began in the western Pacific Ocean. In October 2015, as the current El Niño was still strengthening, NOAA scientists declared the third global bleaching event on record was underway.

The NOAA coral scientists point out that reefs that bleached in 2015 in the Caribbean and Florida Keys have just started to recover, but may start bleaching all over again as early as July. Eakin also notes that in the Pacific, corals in Fiji’s nearshore waters are bleaching with lots of dead coral for the second consecutive year, and could be worse than last year.

Read the full story at Canada Journal

10,000+ Sharks Invade Palm Beach

February 16, 2016 — In an aerial video of the coast, tens of thousands of blacktip sharks are spotted yards off the beach at Palm Beach Florida. In an annual migration period, blacktip sharks always seem to congregate at Palm Beach.

“It seems the sharks really like Palm Beach,” Stephen Kajiura, a professor of biological sciences at Florida Atlantic University, told the Orlando Sentinel. “This is a particularly compelling migration, because it happens so close to shore in such clear waters, and because it happens in such a popular winter destination for people.”

There isn’t a clear answer on why the sharks always come to Palm Beach, some speculate temperature and currents, while others argue its the abundance of mullet and menhaden.

Read the full story at 100.3FM

Electronic Reporting and Red Snapper Top Gulf Council Agenda

February 4, 2016 — The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council recently met in Orange Beach, AL, home to miles and miles of sugar-white sand beaches, as well the largest charter-for-hire recreational fishing fleet in the U.S. equipped with electronic data collection, to discuss numerous fishery issues, including electronic reporting for for-hire vessels, regional management for recreational red snapper, and the shrimp permit moratorium.

Regional Management of Recreational Red Snapper, or Reef Fish Amendment 39, was at the top of the agenda for the 17 voting members of the Council which is comprised of the directors of the five Gulf state marine resource management agencies, or their designees, and 11 members nominated by the state governors and appointed by the Secretary of Commerce. Amendment 39 would affect recreational fishing for red snapper in federal and state waters.

Amendment 39 was developed to divide the recreational red snapper quota among regions to allow region-specific management measures. After reviewing the Amendment and public hearing summaries, the Gulf states’ marine resource directors rejected the amendment leading the Council to postpone further discussion while they explore other options for recreational red snapper management.

Both charter-for-hire and commercial representatives sitting on the Council fought for the private recreational sector to establish a management plans to no avail.

“It is sad to see the five Gulf State directors fail to reach an agreement with each other and foster a real solution for private recreational anglers,” said Gulf Seafood Institute (GSI) member Captain Troy Frady of Distraction Charters in Orange Beach. “If this amendment had not been abandoned, it would have created a path to provide much needed relief for private recreational angler’s short federal fishing season. Now, there is nothing meaningful in the works that is being done for recreational fishermen.”

Commercial fisherman and GSI Florida Board member David Krebs, president of Ariel Seafood, said that he also was disappointed in the Council and that the recreational representatives did not pursue working on the amendment to protect the recreational interests.

“We are once again seeing an assault on the commercial IFQ’s (Individual Fishing Quotas) filled with lies and mistruths,” he said. We are hoping the Council will appoint a recreational advisory panel to work through the details to give recreational fishermen some relief in flexibility and sustainability.”

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood Institute

 

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.

NOAA Expands Critical Habitat for Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales

January 26, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Using new information not previously available, NOAA Fisheries is expanding critical habitat for endangered North Atlantic right whales to cover its northeast feeding areas in the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank region and southeast calving grounds from North Carolina to Florida.

This final rule, which was initially proposed in February 2015 and received 261 general comments over a 60-day comment period, does not include any new restrictions or management measures for commercial fishing operations.

North Atlantic right whale mother and calf. Credit: Christin Khan/NOAA

“With two decades of new information and improved understanding since we first designated critical habitat for the species, we believe the expansion will further protect essential foraging and calving areas to further improve recovery of this animal,” said Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for NOAA Fisheries. “We’re making significant progress in reversing the population decline of the species, and are seeing signs of recovery – up to about 500 animals from the estimated 300 in 1994. But we still have a long way to get to complete recovery. “This rule is based on 35 years of aircraft and ship borne surveys of right whale distribution, research into foraging and prey availability to better understand right whale movements and life history. Together, these data provide a far more robust understanding of the factors critical to species recovery. Based on this information and public comments, NOAA scientists and managers determined a critical habitat expansion associated with feeding in the North and calving in the South is necessary for species recovery.

Under the Endangered Species Act, critical habitat within the range of the species consists of areas that contain physical or biological features essential to conservation of the species. The new designation does not create preserves or refuges or any other restrictions that directly affect the public. However, federal agencies conducting, funding or permitting activities in these areas, and project proponents that need federal permits or funding for such activities, are required to work with NOAA Fisheries to avoid or reduce impacts on critical habitat.

Figure 1: Comparison of 1994 and 2016 Right Whale Critical Habitat Designations

Read the final rule, along with comments and responses, as filed in the Federal Register this morning.

Read the whole press release on our website.

Read more about right whales.