Saving Seafood

Crews bust ‘ghost traps’ that kill lobsters, crabs in Biscayne Bay. They hauled out a ton

July 18, 2023 — Abandoned “ghost traps” scattered in South Florida’s coastal waters keep doing their lethal work, sometimes for years, ensnaring and often killing lobsters, stone crabs and other marine life.

Crews of ghost trap busters hit the waters of Biscayne Bay on Sunday to do something about a problem that haunts the environment and damages valuable fisheries.

Among them was Spencer Crowley, who, one by one, handed off barnacle-laden, corroded lobster traps to his three children on a Matheson Hammock Park dock at an event billed as Miami’s inaugural “Ghost Trap Rodeo.”

The trio — made up of Ava, 14, who proclaims herself the strongest despite being the smallest, and 15-year-old twins Jackson and Ella — scurried away to weigh the first set of rotten traps they’d rounded up that morning with their father.

“102 pounds!” Jackson exclaimed.

Read the full article at the Miami Herald

 

The huge blob of seaweed headed for Florida has shrunk by 75%

July 12, 2023 — Florida vacations are back on, sans stinky seaweed.

The record-breaking mass of stinky seaweed that began appearing on Florida’s iconic beaches this spring, known as the Great Atlantic Sargassum Seaweed Belt, shrunk in the Gulf of Mexico by 75% last month, according to scientists from the University of South Florida’s Optical Oceanography Lab.

The seaweed, which smells like rotten eggs and emits toxic gases when it comes ashore, proved a nuisance for Florida beachgoers in the spring – which is also the start of the Sunshine State’s tourist season. In April, the seaweed set a record, with scientists identifying 3 million tons of sargassum in the Caribbean Sea.

Read the full article at CNN

FLORIDA: Data shows Florida seafood landings rank below historic trends

July 10, 2023 — Since the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes and increased fuel costs have reduced the catch of Florida’s seafood industry.

Florida’s Gulf Coast is the largest fishery for the state and is still dealing with the effects of Hurricane Ian in late 2022. The storm made landfall at Fort Myers and devastated Florida’s shrimping industry, sinking boats and destroying infrastructure crucial to the industry.

According to preliminary data compiled by The Southern Shrimp Alliance from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fishery Monitoring Branch, Florida’s March 2023 landings off the West Coast were 72.7% below the historical average. In total, 2023 landings for the West Coast are 42.1% below historical trends.

Read the full article at The Center Square

FLORIDA: Groups urge federal government to cancel a permit for proposed fish farm off the Sarasota coast

June 14, 2023 — What could become the nation’s first deep water aquaculture facility in federal offshore waters was first proposed in 2019 and would be located about 45 miles off Sarasota in the Gulf of Mexico.

When the Environmental Protection Agency first issued Ocean Era a permit in 2020, the Hawaii based company said it would construct a certain type of pen to cultivate almaco jack, a longfin yellowtail fish.

But in May, the company amended the plan, which includes a change in the design of the fish pen. They also said they would now grow red drum, which is one of the fastest-growing species of fish.

Cris Costello, of the Sierra Club of Florida, says the changes are an almost literal bait and switch.

Read the full article at WUSF

FLORDIA: Post-Hurricane Ian: Funding Rejected for Florida Fishermen

May 26, 2023 — Florida fishermen all around the state are on the edge of their seats, hoping to gain some good news about the fishing industry’s future. Those in Lee County are furious that the federal agency NOAA Fisheries has rejected DeSantis’ fishery disaster request.

In late September 2022, Hurricane Ian destroyed nearly all of Lee County, which led to mass destruction of the fishing industry within and around Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Sanibel Island, and Pine Island Sound. The western side of Florida has been devastated by the damage that Ian had caused. On October 15, 2022, Governor DeSantis was joined by fishing captains from southwest Florida to show his support for the fishing industry’s road to recovery.

To get the fishing industry back on its feet, DeSantis requested the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to issue a federal fisheries disaster. The request would have provided federal funding to allow offshore, nearshore, and inshore fisheries to rebuild. “Florida’s fisheries are vitally important to the State’s economy through their impact on commercial and recreational fishing and tourism,” DeSantis stated in his official request.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

FLORIDA: ‘On the verge of being gone’: Commercial fishermen furious feds rejected DeSantis’ fishery disaster request

May 26, 2023 — Hurricane Ian destroyed nearly all of Lee County’s commercial fishing industry, but the feds denied Gov. DeSantis’ fishery disaster request.

Shocked, bewildered, frustrated, and abandoned are all adjectives ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska heard from commercial fishermen to describe a recent decision by NOAA to deny Gov. Ron DeSantis’ request to declare a federal fisheries disaster.

Are bad policies and poorly written federal statutes to blame? Or does it boil down to politics? That depends on who you ask. But, commercial fishermen across the state are sounding the alarm about the future of the commercial fishing industry and whether seafood that comes fresh from Florida can survive.

“This industry is really on the verge of being gone,” Casey Streeter said.

Streeter’s fish house on Matlacha was destroyed during Hurricane Ian, and his home in St. James City.

Read the full article at ABC News

Redfish, bluefish, no fish: Climate change threatens traditional fishing waters

May 17, 2023 — The chances of climate change causing significant disruption to saltwater fisheries are pretty high, according to a NOAA Fisheries climate vulnerability assessment that’s on its way to finalization.

All of the species examined, with the exception of the Atlantic sturgeon, are at a very high level of exposure to elements of climate change and many have a high sensitivity to those changes, like the gag grouper, goliath grouper, horseshoe crab, and each of the brown, pink and white shrimp species.

Red snapper, notably, has a moderate sensitivity.

“This is the most significant thing — these are the potential for species distributions to change by low, moderate, high and very high (probabilities),” said Roger Pugliese, a habitat and ecosystem scientist with the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC).

He presented at the SAFMC Habitat Protection and Ecosystem-Based Management Advisory Panel (AP) meetings this week.

Read the full article at Florida Politics

DeSantis announces record 70-day Gulf red snapper season

May 7, 2023 — Thursday, Governor Ron DeSantis announced a record 70-day-long Gulf red snapper recreational season.

This will be the longest combined season since the state assumed control of red snapper. It includes both a 46-day summer season and a 24-day fall season.

Gulf red snapper season is a favorite among Florida fishers, and often brings fishers from across the country.

Read the full article at Fox 4

 

Giant belt of smelly seaweed will soon invade Gulf Coast shores

March 27, 2023 — A huge belt of sargassum, a seaweed that originates in the Sargasso Sea, is anticipated to wash up on shores in Florida, states bordering the Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean islands this summer.

A report by the University of South Florida’s Optical Oceanography Lab determined that more than 24 million metric tons of sargassum has collected in the Atlantic as of June 2022, one of the largest amounts in history. USA today reports visitors to Florida, Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico might encounter the sargassum as massive amounts of smelly, brown seaweed washed ashore.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Federal red snapper rules advance toward approval despite criticism

March 9, 2023 — New federal regulations on red snapper are on their way to final approval, and neither the people voting for the plans nor federal officials have much faith in them.

The Snapper-Grouper Committee of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) shepherded along Amendment 35, which is part of the SAFMC’s efforts to reduce overfishing of red snapper. Final approval is expected later in the week, despite its unpopularity among some Council members and from NOAA Fisheries.

“Bottom line for me is I don’t think (Amendment) 35 does anything for us,” NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator Andy Strelcheck said at the SAFMC’s quarterly meetings on Jekyll Island, Georgia.

“I don’t think it’s a solution, I think it’s just going to create more anger with anglers, I think it’s ultimately not addressing the crux of the problem, which is, obviously, reducing discards and trying to shift discards to landed catch.”

The committee’s options at this point in the process were either to approve a proposal that significantly reduced catch limits, or approve one that shut down the fishery altogether, with the exception of those with exempted fishing permits.

Read the full article at Florida Politics