Saving Seafood

Whales Hitting Boats – Conservation and Conflict

August 11, 2022 — We live in a time of high human activity and urbanization, particularly along our coasts. Human and wildlife conflict is a complex issue that has intensified within the last century. Humans are learning to coexist with wildlife species, especially those whose populations are starting to increase or recover due to aggressive and successful conservation measures. The intersection of humans and wildlife manifest in day-to-day activities that sometimes require an “all hands-on deck” approach to address and manage. Recent interactions between boats and whales have demonstrated the need for immediate and coordinated action.

Spatial Overlaps

A recent interaction between a humpback whale and a boat occurred off Plymouth, Massachusetts in late July 2022. In a viral video, a humpback whale breached and landed on the bow of a small recreational fishing vessel.  This video is a stark reminder of how interactions between humans and animals in the wild can go wrong. This incident resulted from a rather unique situation. Large schools of menhaden were aggregating close to shore where commercial and recreational fishermen were targeting striped bass, which feed on these schooling fish. Three juvenile humpback whales discovered this dense patch of menhaden and began feeding in the area, very close to shore and the recreational fishing vessels. Overlap of the recreational vessels and whales raised concern for public safety and safety of the whales.

Read the full release here

Fishing-gear entanglements of whales increased in Alaska, NOAA report says

June 30, 2022 — Alaska was the only U.S. coastal region to have an increase in the confirmed cases of large whales entangled in fishing gear in 2020, a contrast to a national trend of declining cases over the past six to eight years, according to a report issued Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Of the 53 cases of large whales entangled in fishing gear nationally in 2020, 11 occurred in Alaska, according to the report, from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. The previous year, there were 75 confirmed cases of whale entanglements nationwide, with nine of them occurring in Alaska, according to a separate report for 2019 also released Tuesday by the fisheries service.

The vast majority of confirmed Alaska whale entanglements — and the vast majority of entanglements nationally — involved humpback whales. In 2020, 10 of the Alaska cases involved live whales, and eight of those involved humpback whales. All but one of the confirmed Alaska entanglements of live large whales in 2020 occurred in waters of Southeast Alaska, according to the report.

Humpback whales are relatively plentiful among the large whale species, the report for 2020 notes. “Humpback whales are found in all the world’s oceans and several populations have rebounded in recent years, so the frequency of entanglements seen in this species could be due to many factors, such as the increasing number of whales, a high degree of overlap in distribution of whales, growing coastal communities, and fishing effort, or a combination of these or additional factors,” it said.

Read the full story at KTOO

Dungeness crab fishery along California coast closed due to whale entanglements

April 8, 2022 — All commercial Dungeness crab fishery along California’s coast will be closed this month after humpback whales were found entangled in fishing gear, wildlife authorities said.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Wednesday that fishery zones from the Sonoma-Mendocino county life north to the Oregon state line will close at noon on April 20. The closure comes after the department had already announced that commercial crab traps would have to be removed from fishery zones from the Sonoma-Mendocino county line down south to the U.S.-Mexico border by Friday.

“We received reports of additional humpback whale entanglements and moved quickly to close the fishery to protect migrating humpback whales that are just starting to return to California waters,” said Director Bonham.

Read the full story at KRON4

 

California orders an April 8 end to Dungeness crab season in Bay Area, Central Coast

March 28, 2022 — The commercial Dungeness crab-fishing season started late for the Bay Area and Central Coast regions. And it’s ending early.

On Friday afternoon, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife ruled that the season must close April 8 to protect migrating humpback whales. Two whales have recently become entangled in crab-fishing gear, one off the San Mateo County coast and one in Monterey Bay.

Until then, the state is asking all fishermen and mariners to keep an eye out for entangled whales and report them to the U.S. Coast Guard so that a “disentanglement response team” can be sent out to remove the gear.

“The past few seasons have been difficult for fishing families, communities and businesses, but it is imperative that we strike the right balance between protecting humpback whales and providing fishing opportunity,” Charlton H. Bonham, CDFW director, said in a statement about his decision.

Read the full story at the Mercury News

CALIFORNIA: Crab fishing closures recommended after whale entanglements

March 23, 2022 — Two humpback whales were tangled in fishing gear off central California in recent days and state wildlife officials are recommending commercial Dungeness crab fishing be suspended to reduce the risk of more entanglements as the whales migrate north.

One humpback was caught in commercial crab nets off Moss Beach, just north of Half Moon Bay, on March 17. Two days later, a second whale was spotted trailing a set of crabbing lines in Monterey Bay, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement.

Wildlife officials on Monday recommended commercial Dungeness crab fishing from Monterey Bay, south of San Francisco, to the Mexican border stop on April 8. The closures wouldn’t affect recreational Dungeness crab fishing.

Read the full story at the Sacramento Bee

CALIFORNIA: Monterey Bay to open for commercial and recreational Dungeness crab fishing

December 10, 2021 — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced Thursday that commercial and recreational Dungeness crab fishing in Monterey Bay will open Friday.

Fishing Zone 4 from Pigeon Point to Lopez Point will open for recreational Dungeness crab trap fishing under a Fleet Advisory beginning at 9 a.m. on Dec. 10.

The commercial fishery will open in Zone 4 under a Fleet Advisory and Depth Constraint at 12;01 a.m. on Dec. 16, 2021, with a pre-soak period to begin at 8:01 a.m. on Dec. 13.

Read the full story at KRON4

 

Slinky pots and ropeless gear: next angles for whale avoidance

November 22, 2021 — With new regulations turning whale avoidance into a top priority in the Gulf of Maine and off California, front-line fishermen sat Friday for a panel discussion at Pacific Marine Expo on what the future may hold for trap fisheries.

NMFS and the state of California are looking to ropeless gear for lobster and crab fisheries as the long-term solution, but such systems are still in development.

California’s Dungeness crab fishermen are yet again cooling their heels in port, awaiting an updated assessment of humpback whale movements and an all-clear from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to set gear, once the agency judges the danger of entanglements is lowered.

In recent years the usual November crab season opening has been delayed as whales congregate to feed before heading south for their breeding season, said Mike Conroy, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

The 2020 season opener was delayed into December — and then complicated when fishermen protested what they considered unfairly low prices for crabs. A price settlement and agreed-on opener didn’t happen until January.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

CALIFORNIA: Monterey Bay fishermen work to reduce chances of whale entanglements

July 13, 2021 — On a cool Thursday morning this week, Calder Deyerle powered up his Boston Whaler and headed out of Moss Landing Harbor in search of the catch of the day. But this catch had no fins or tails or claws. Deyerle was hunting crab gear.

Five or six years ago, more than 70 whales — mostly fin, blue and humpbacks — became caught in the lines that connect a surface buoy to the crab trap resting on the ocean floor. Because of a crash in the krill population, the whales came in closer to shore to feed on alternative food sources and right into the crab lines.

Lines and traps meant for Dungeness crabs can be deadly to whales that become ensnared in the equipment, often causing dehydration, infected wounds, breathing or reproduction problems and even starvation.

But efforts by Dungeness crab fishermen have dramatically reduced the number of whale entanglements. There have been none this year. The far greater threat to whales today is not from crab gear, rather from ship strikes.

Deyerle is one of nine Monterey Bay commercial fishermen who are contributing to a project called the Lost Gear Recovery Project that is coordinated by the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust, which in turn is permitted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Read the full story at the Monterey Herald

Track Whale Detections With This Interactive Map

June 25, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Scientists at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center have created a new data mapping tool to help people understand when and where large whales occur off the East Coast.

The underlying data include detections made by underwater listening devices — called hydrophones — operated from stationary platforms, such as bottom-mounted moorings and surface buoys. They were also made by mobile platforms like Slocum gliders and towed hydrophone arrays. The map includes sounds made by sei, fin, blue, humpback and North Atlantic right whales from 2004 to the present.

“Our goal was to provide all the archived data we have, plus data from collaborators, in one place and make it easy for managers, stakeholders and scientists to access it themselves and explore the data in a format that would be helpful,” said Sofie Van Parijs, one of the creators and lead of the center’s passive acoustics research group. “We hope to add in data collected by the wind industry, and invite other researchers and sources of this type of data to share what they have with us to make this dataset as comprehensive as possible.”

Those interested in contributing to the data can contact the developers at nmfs.pacmdata@noaa.gov.

Recent additions to the dataset include all beaked whales, sperm whales, and dwarf and pygmy sperm whales (Kogia species) detected from 2013 to the present. Current recording locations range from the waters of the western North Atlantic, off Greenland, to the Caribbean Sea.

Data about each detection is incorporated into the mapping tool, including:

  • Location
  • Season
  • Number of deployments of that recording gear
  • Number of recorded days and detections
  • Type of detection: definite, possible, no detection, or data collected but not yet analyzed.

Read the full release here

Massachusetts Lobster Diver Survives After ‘a Humpback Whale Tried to Eat Me’

June 14, 2021 — A commercial lobster diver was injured when he said he was swallowed by a humpback whale off the coast of Cape Cod Friday.

Michael Packard was in the whale’s closed mouth for 30-40 seconds, he said in a Facebook post to a Provincetown, Massachusetts, community page.

“I was lobster diving and A humpback whale tried to eat me.I was in his closed mouth for about 30 to 40 seconds before he rose to the surface and spit me out.I am very bruised up but have no broken bones,” Packard wrote, thankful for the help he received from rescuers in Provincetown and seeking to clarify what had happened to him as it generated headlines worldwide.

His sister, Cynthia Packard had told the Cape Cod Times that Packard was taken to Cape Cod Hospital with at least one broken leg after the encounter Friday morning.

Read the full story at NBC 4