Saving Seafood

New video system may hold promise for cod surveys

February 1, 2017 — Researchers at UMass-Dartmouth continue to refine a new video survey system they believe holds promise for providing more accurate assessments of the beleaguered Gulf of Maine cod stock.

The developers of the system, which employs high-resolution video cameras in an open-ended commercial trawl net to count the number of fish and identify their species as they enter the net, put it through another rigorous test last week and came away pleased with the results.

“This was definitely the best trip yet,” said Travis Lowery, chief scientist and technician on the project along with UMass-Dartmouth professor Kevin Stokesbury and graduate student Nick Calabrese. “We’ve been moving more toward using Go-Pro cameras and the images were crystal clear. It all worked really, really well.”

For six days, the researchers performed 31 survey tows on Stellwagen Bank, about 15 miles southeast of Gloucester, and said they found Atlantic cod aggregating over much of the open fishing grounds.

The test also included a number of closed tows so researchers could collect biological samples to measure the length and weight of the captured fish. In the biggest closed-trawl haul, researchers collected 345 cod in a half-hour, with the largest measuring up to about 33 inches.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

In boon for Gloucester fleet, flounder limits doubled

January 26, 2017 — In a victory for the local inshore dayboat fleet, fishing regulators on Wednesday approved new specifications for witch flounder that will nearly double the annual catch limit for the species in 2017.

Meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the New England Fishery Management Council approved an acceptable biological catch of 878 metric tons of witch flounder, also known as grey sole, for 2017. When adjusted for management uncertainty, the move will result in a 2017 annual catch limit of 839 metric tons — nearly twice the 2016 annual catch limit of 441 metric tons.

“I think the council was compelled by the industry’s own observation that we have a pretty strong witch flounder stock,” said Vito Giacalone, policy director for the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition.

The council action on witch flounder should provide a significant boost to the local dayboat fleet and the fortunes of the fishermen that are immutably tied to the stock.

“It’s huge,” Giacalone said. “Everybody who is left fishes for it. The inshore dayboat fleet is almost entirely dependent on this stock.”

The spike in the 2017 annual catch limit should provide a double-edged benefit, according to Giacalone.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

UMass Dartmouth Scientists Deploy New Video System to Survey Atlantic Cod Population on the Stellwagen Bank Fishing Grounds

January 26, 2017 — The following was released by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth:

Last week scientists from UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science & Technology (SMAST) and fishermen successfully deployed a new video survey system they believe can provide more accurate measurements of the Atlantic cod population, helping regulators manage the fishery.

The system, collaboratively developed by scientists and fishermen over the last four years, was tested on Stellwagen Bank, a fishing ground located in the Gulf of Maine about 15 miles southeast of Gloucester and six miles north of Provincetown. The system involves placing high resolution video cameras in an open-ended commercial trawl net to capture images of groundfish (focusing on Atlantic cod and yellowtail flounder) as they pass through unharmed. Periodically the net is closed to collect biological samples such as length and weight measurements. These cod are kept alive in wells and are returned to the sea alive and in good condition.

SMAST Professor Kevin Stokesbury and his research team – chief scientist and graduate student Travis Lowery and graduate student Nick Calabrese – designed the system so they could identify the species in every image. This allows researchers to approximate the abundance, density, size distribution, and the impacts of commercial fishing. “Our goal is to provide all stakeholders in this issue with trustworthy science that reduces uncertainty for the Gulf of Maine cod fishery,” Dr. Stokesbury said.

“The seven-day cruise was very successful,” Dr. Stokesbury said. “Atlantic cod were observed over much of the bank, and the largest closed tow collection was of 345 cod in a half hour, with individuals measuring up to 83 cm. The idea is to increase the amount of sea floor sampled per sea day without killing more fish.”

A key milestone of the cruise was reached last Friday morning when all project systems came together. Data were collected on the position and speed of the vessel, including how the net was performing (i.e. spread of the doors, spread of the wings, bottom temperature). “We captured video of the footrope as the net passed over the sea floor and of the fish entering the net, as well as extremely clear video of the fish as they pass through the net, and a very large school of cod,” said Stokesbury. “All systems worked for the remainder of the trip; collecting data on cod abundance, distribution, the sea floor over which they school, and the other fish they associate with, including large schools of sand lance a key prey.”

The most recent assessment for Gulf of Maine cod estimated that the spawning stock biomass is a small proportion of its historic size. In response to the low abundance, the total allowable catch has been drastically reduced, constraining the fishermen’s ability to harvest healthy stocks, such as haddock and pollock. “Increasing the amount of sea floor scientifically sampled and increasing the amount of the information collected during a day at sea should reduce the uncertainty in the stock estimate, and reduced uncertainty is ultimately in everyone’s best interest,” Dr. Stokesbury said.  “In the end I think it is a good proof of concept and should give a good estimate of the cod aggregated on Stellwagen Bank.”

The Baker-Polito Administration provided $96,720 in capital money through the state Division of Marine Fisheries to fund the research tows conducted on Stellwagen Bank. Dr. Stokesbury’s research has also received support in state funding the past two years, receiving more than $800,000 through legislation supported by State Senator Mark Montigny, State Representative Antonio F.D. Cabral and the entire SouthCoast legislative delegation.

Read the full release at UMass Dartmouth

MASSACHUSETTS: Fish councilor hopes for reappointment

January 25, 2017 — Elizabeth “Libby” Etrie had a pretty well-formed idea of what awaited her when she was appointed in 2014 to her first term on the New England Fishery Management Council.

Etrie had built a solid professional foundation while working with groundfishermen as the program director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Sector Service Network, and through her work with 13 of 17 New England groundfish sectors as the southern sector coordinator for the Gulf of Maine Research Institute sector extension program.

Still, her elevation onto the council as one of Massachusetts’ at-large members provided her with a glimpse of the fishing world beyond groundfish.

“I had spent a lot of time working on groundfish issues, so I was already comfortable there,” Etrie said. “But the council deals with so much more than groundfish and the challenge was getting up to speed on the other fisheries. It’s required more work, but it’s been really rewarding.”

Etrie, who lives in Gloucester, is in the final year of her first three-year term on the council. Gov. Charlie Baker must decide by March 15 if he will submit Etrie’s name to the council and the U.S. Commerce Department — which has final approval on fishery management council member appointments — for re-appointment to another three-year term.

For now, Baker’s office remains non-committal on its plans for filling the two Massachusetts at-large seats on the council whose terms expire this year. The terms of Etrie and John Pappalardo of Chatham both expire on Aug. 10.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester receives $20K to help city sell seafood

January 23, 2017 — The city has received a $20,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and plans to use the funds to bolster its Gloucester Fresh marketing campaign for locally landed seafood.

“These funds will enable us to continue our outreach efforts on behalf of the Gloucester Fresh campaign,” said Sal Di Stefano, economic development director for the city. “It really came as an extension of the “Local Foods, Local Places” initiative we’ve already engaged in with the USDA.”

Bolstering the Gloucester Fresh campaign may be the short-term goal, but Di Stefano said the city hopes the $20,000 can be used to leverage larger sums that would enable it to launch a product development test kitchen.

The kitchen, at a site to be determined, would be operated by a partnership of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association and SnapChef.

“It would be a seafood testing and demonstration kitchen that could be utilized by companies for developing new products that could ultimately be marketed under the Gloucester Fresh brand,” Di Stefano said. “It also will be used for workforce training for the culinary industry.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Scientists, fishermen can set the stage for a new way to protect the Gulf of Maine

January 23, 2017 — There’s long been an undercurrent of mistrust between fishermen who make their livelihoods from the Gulf of Maine and the scientists whose surveys and calculations determine the amount of fish they can catch.

That, in part, is because it can seem as if fishermen and scientists are talking about two different Gulfs of Maine when they discuss the size of the cod population.

Scientists document a groundfish stock in perpetual decline with an outlook that doesn’t seem to have changed much in response to increasingly restrictive limits on the amount fishermen can catch. They note a species that has struggled to recover after more than a century of overfishing and now faces the added challenge of rebuilding in an area of the ocean that’s warming faster than 99 percent of the rest of the world’s oceans. Indeed, researchers from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the University of Maine and elsewhere have found that warming waters reduce the number of new cod produced by spawning females and reduce the likelihood that young fish will survive to adulthood.

Fishermen, meanwhile, report something different.

“This is uncalled for,” Joseph Orlando, a cod fisherman who fishes off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts, told NPR in 2014 after regulators cut the Gulf of Maine cod fishing season short that year. “There’s more codfish out there. There’s always been.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MASSACHUSETTS: Seafood company’s future in question

January 16, 2017 — Illinois-based Mazzetta Co. remains mute on the fate of its Gloucester Seafood Processing subsidiary, but a state agency on Friday confirmed it has spent about five months helping place workers laid off from the Blackburn Industrial Park facility.

Ken Messina, business service manager of the state’s Executive Office of Workforce Development, said staffers from his agency’s Rapid Response Team first began working with GSP management in August and were at the seafood processing plant as recently as last week.

“We were able to help them with their layoff situation,” Messina said. “Last week was the last meeting that we had up there. For us, it was the end of the closure.”

Officials from Mazzetta, based in Highland Park, Illinois, have not responded to multiple requests for comment, so it is unclear whether the layoffs — which Messina pegged at about 175 — will lead to the international seafood company completely shuttering the Gloucester business it opened in 2015.

Silence from the top

Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken on Friday said she hasn’t heard a word from Mazzetta or local GSP officials since she met with GSP executive Dave Fitzgerald about three months ago at City Hall.

“They didn’t say anything about layoffs then and they didn’t say anything about closing,” Romeo Theken said. “They don’t call the city when they’re laying people off. They call the city when they’re closing and I have not received a phone call from them saying they’re shutting the doors.”

Romeo Theken conceded she also heard reports from constituents about large layoffs at GSP, but was unaware the state’s Executive Office of Workforce Development had been working with the company for five months.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Fish column debuts

January 16, 2017 — There’s a whole, wide world of fishing and maritime stories taking place outside the realm of Cape Ann and New England, stuff that doesn’t necessarily merit full stories here in the Gloucester Daily Times, but still is worth knowing.

And that brings us to FishOn, a new weekly roundup column that will feature fishing-related briefs and items from around the globe, as well as serving as a forum for advancing important public meetings and events related to commercial and recreational fishing.

The column is scheduled to run in print and online on Mondays and public submissions are welcome. The column is strictly for the purposes of entertainment and information. So, no wagering.

Slow down, enjoy the spawning

You think it’s easy being a salmon? Think it’s all just swimming around, searching for a little nosh and nookie? Well, think again.

In a study produced at Sweden’s Umea University, researchers claim that human anti-depressants that make their way into salmon habitats are having a debilitating effect on young Atlantic salmon.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester fisherman represents state in shrimp study

January 11, 2017 — Joe Jurek is no stranger to the Gulf of Maine northern shrimp fishery, having incorporated shrimping into his annual fishing calendar even after moving to Gloucester about a decade ago to groundfish.

“When sectors started in 2009, we would catch our groundfish quota as quickly as we could and then go fish the other fisheries, including the northern shrimp fishery,” Jurek said Tuesday. “I shrimped long before that, though. You could say it’s kind of my background.”

Jurek, owner and skipper of the 42-foot F/V Mystique Lady, will be the lone Massachusetts representative in the upcoming Gulf of Maine winter shrimp sampling program that will produce the only legal shrimping in 2017 in the Gulf of Maine.

The Mystique Lady is one of 10 trawlers participating in the sampling program, along with eight from Maine and one from New Hampshire captained by Mike Anderson of Rye. Jurek hopes to begin shrimping as soon as this weekend.

“I’m trying to get rolling so I can start Sunday,” Jurek said. “I’m really excited about catching some shrimp and about this program.”

He already has reached out to local lobstermen, providing a map of the area he intends to trawl and asking lobstermen to alert him to the presence of any gear that might be set or soaking in the area.

“If you have gear in the highlighted areas please touch base with me so we can work together,” Jurek wrote on his Facebook page. “And I will make sure I don’t tow thru any gear.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Fish group seeks community organizer

December 30, 2016 — Gloucester-based Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance is looking to add an experienced community organizer to help bolster its goals of changing the current food system to build healthy fisheries and fishing communities.

The new organizer, according to NAMA Coordinating Director Niaz Dorry, will be a point person to sustain and expand the organization’s decade-long efforts at “achieving food justice and seafood market transformation.”

“What we’re really looking for is a person who can really help us do a better job of connecting all the dots,” Dorry said. “We had a community organizer that was working for us for a couple years who has gone off to do other things, so we saw this as an opportunity to evaluate what our needs are at this moment and tweak the position for what is happening now.”

The person will also work to expand NAMA’s reach into the public market by maximizing the buying power of a coalition of consumers — including health care and educational organizations — within the fishing communities.

Dorry said the position probably will be based in Gloucester, though NAMA is open to other arrangements for the right candidate. The organization has set Jan. 15 as the deadline for receiving cover letters and resumes, though that could change depending on the response.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times