Saving Seafood

Plastic measures: Report lays out dangers plastics pose to marine life

November 19, 2020 — When Dr. Charles Innis, the lead veterinarian at the New England Aquarium, cut into a 400-pound leatherback sea turtle that had washed up dead on Sandy Neck in November of 2015, he was looking for cause of its demise, signs of disease or parasites.

What the necropsy team encountered was a 3-foot-square sheet of plastic lodged in its stomach.

By any measure, this turtle had experienced the worst that mankind could dish out. Shell deformities and X-rays revealed extensive fractures of the shell and vertebrae from a collision with a vessel. Heavy abrasions and lacerations around the front flippers indicated it had been entangled in fishing gear and that was believed to be the likely cause of death.

But the plastic, which when floating in the water resembles the jellyfish that are the leatherback’s favorite food, would have killed it eventually by blocking its intestine, Innis concluded.

From plastic netting and lines, down to the tiniest nanoplastics that can be eaten by zooplankton and enter the food chain, our seemingly endless seas are choking on plastic, and so are the animals who live there, according to a report released Thursday by the international ocean advocacy nonprofit Oceana.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

CALIFORNIA: CDFW Works with Commercial Dungeness Crab Industry and Environmental Community to Implement New Regulations to Protect Whales from Entanglement

November 5, 2020 — The following was released by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife:

The commercial Dungeness crab season in the central management area, which was scheduled to open Sunday, Nov. 15, will be delayed due to the presence of whales within fishing grounds and the potential for entanglement. In mid-November, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Director will re-assess entanglement risk in the central management area and evaluate risk in the northern management area, which is scheduled to open Tuesday, Dec. 1.

Following increased numbers of large whale entanglements in 2015 and 2016, CDFW worked with the Dungeness crab fleet and partner organizations to develop the Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program (RAMP). After substantial review and input from industry and the environmental community, the RAMP regulations became effective on Nov. 1, 2020. The risk assessment conducted by CDFW this week, in consultation with the Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group, is the first assessment conducted under the new RAMP regulations.

“While no one wants to delay the season, CDFW and the Working Group feel a delay is necessary to reduce the risk of entanglement,” said CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham. “The fleet has gone to great lengths to be more nimble in order to protect whales and turtles, and the results are promising. This year for the first time in a long time it looks like we don’t have to worry about domoic acid, which is good news.”

In collaboration with Working Group advisors, agencies and other partners, CDFW is committed to collecting real time data regarding presence of Humpback and Blue whales, and Pacific leatherback sea turtles in Dungeness crab fishing grounds. Combined with an improved and consistent process for information sharing and decision making with the Working Group, CDFW is able to provide more certainty to the fleet as to the timing of potential delays and openings. When the whales migrate out of the fishing grounds in coming weeks, CDFW stands ready to open the commercial season.

Read the full release here

Federal court stops longline fishing to protect turtles

January 8, 2020 — Longline fishing won’t be allowed off the California coast, after a federal district court suspended permits for the fishing method.

In December, the court struck down longline fishing permits that the National Marine Fisheries Service issued last spring, ruling that the service didn’t properly analyze threats to critically endangered leatherback sea turtles.

“The permits were vacated by the court, so the permits are no longer in effect,” said Catherine Kilduff, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit with Turtle Island Restoration Network, challenging the permits.

The National Marine Fisheries Service declined to comment on the case while it analyzes the decision, spokesman Jim Milbury said.

Read the full story at The San Diego Union-Tribune

Hawai’i Longline Fishery for Swordfish Poses No Jeopardy to Sea Turtles, Federal Managers to Finalize Turtle Interaction Measures This Summer

June 28, 2019 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

A long-awaited final biological opinion (BiOp) on the Hawai’i shallow-set longline fishery was released today by the National Marine Fisheries Service. It shows the fishery does not jeopardize loggerhead or leatherback sea turtles.

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council has deferred making final recommendations on the management of loggerhead and leatherback sea turtle interactions in the fishery three times since October 2018 as it awaited the final document. Today it again deferred action as the 500-page document was provided to them only 30 minutes before it took up this item on its agenda.

Council Member Michael Goto noted the gravity of the BiOp. The fishery, which accounts for half of the US swordfish production, is currently closed due to a settlement made in the 9th Circuit Court, which found inconsistencies in the previous 2012 BiOp. Goto argued against making “a snap decision on a process that took almost a year to complete. … In my opinion, the review can’t be done within the course of day,” he said.

To ensure Council members have time to read the 500-page document, the Council will take up final action during a special meeting to be held by teleconference in late July or early August 2019. In advance of this meeting, the Council will convene its Scientific and Statistical Committee and the Hawai’i Advisory Panel to review and make recommendations for Council consideration.

The Council’s initial recommendation was to manage the fishery under annual fleet-wide limits of 16 leatherbacks and 36 loggerheads. It also recommended trip limits of two leatherback and five loggerheads per vessel. Once either limit is reached, the vessel would be required to immediately return to port after which they may resume shallow-set fishing. The fishery has 100 percent observer coverage to monitor every turtle interaction encountered by a shallow-set vessel.

The final BiOp released today authorizes the accidental hooking and subsequent release of 21 leatherbacks and 36 loggerheads. However, if the fleetwide leatherback interaction reaches 16, the BiOp requires that the fishery be closed for the remainder of the calendar year. The final BiOp also includes the Council’s recommended trip limit of two leatherbacks or five loggerheads per vessel per trip. However, one a vessel reaches this trip limit twice in a year it can no longer shallow-set fish for the remainder of the year. Furthermore, the following year that vessel would be allowed to reach the trip limit only once before it is prohibited from shallow-setting for the remainder of the year. There is no hard cap required in the new BiOp for loggerhead turtles, which has a stable and increasing population.

During public comments on this item, Eric Kingma, Hawaii Longline Association executive director, said that, since 2004, the fishery has been operating under the most restrictive regime possible for the fishery, including hard caps for sea turtle interactions, 100 percent observer coverage, gear and bait requirements, release and handling requirements, set limits and set certificates. Those measures reduced the fishery’s interactions with sea turtle by more than 90 percent and are now the standards internationally for shallow-set fisheries for swordfish.

“This fishery is not jeopardizing the continued existence of these sea turtle populations, or any other ESA-listed population,” Kingma said. He described the measures as “overly punitive” and “not consistent with the impact. … [We] have a highly regulated fishery, one of the most regulated fisheries in the world, the most highly monitored regime, 100 percent observer coverage. You can’t get any more certain than that. … And we know the impact. The impact on these species is non-jeopardy.”

Kingma said that HLA supports the trip limits but not the hard caps because they are “a blunt measure that is not the appropriate match to the impact.” He said that HLA supported the Council deferring because “no one should be put in that position where they have to make a decision upon receiving a 500-page document.”

In related matters, the Council today alsorequested that NMFS complete ESA Section 7 consultations for the Hawai’i deep-set and American Samoa longline fisheries by Sept. 1, 2019, and for the US tropical purse-seine fishery by Oct. 1, 2019. The Council further requested that NMFS provide the Council with any draft Reasonable and Prudent Measures or Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives prior to the release of the entire draft BiOp, as well as the full draft BiOp.

Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, the Council has authority over fisheries seaward of state waters in Hawaiʻi and other US Pacific Islands. For more information, go to www.wpcouncil.org; email info@wpcouncil.org or phone (808) 522-8220.

How Scientists Are Using Real-Time Data to Help Fishermen Avoid Bycatch

April 15, 2019 — From 1990 to 2000, fishermen seeking swordfish off the coast of California accidentally caught and killed over 100 leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles, and injured many more.

In 2001, the federal government established the Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area, a 250,000-square-mile region off the coast of California that is off-limits to fishing boats from August through November.

Since then, the number of turtles killed as bycatch has plummeted, but a handful of animals still die from being entangled in fishing nets each year—too many, environmental advocates say. And at the same time, the closure of the giant oceanic region means the once-$15 million swordfish industry has become a $2 million industry, and the number of boats plying the waters has decreased significantly.

Scientists and ocean advocates are hoping to find a way to both protect sea turtles and other threatened species and help fishermen make a living. To this end, many are looking at dynamic ocean management, a strategy that uses advances in real-time data collection to help fishing vessels meet fish where they are—and avoid all other bycatch.

Read the full story at Smithsonian.com

An Alarming Number of California Whales Are Getting Caught In Fishing Lines

California has seen a record-breaking number of whale entanglements over the last three years. Now, the Center for Biological Diversity is suing the state for failing to protect its endangered species.

August 30, 2017 — Justin Viezbicke once saw a whale struggling to swim up the coast of California without a tail. Though it was a disturbing sight, Viezbicke wasn’t exactly shocked; he’d encountered similar circumstances before. Viezbicke, the California stranding network coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, surmised that this particular whale’s flukes had been severed off by fishing gear. He knew the animal wouldn’t make it far.

In the past, Viezbicke has come across whales that lost blood-flow to their tails due to rope lines tangled tightly around their bodies. Less severe entanglements than the one Viezbicke witnessed can still lead to deadly infections or otherwise interfere with the animal’s ability to feed or forage.

“These entanglements are long, drawn-out processes,” Viezbicke says. “They can last months, sometimes even longer depending on the nature of the entanglement, and the will of the animal.”

The number of whales entangled in fishing lines off the West Coast of the United States has been sharply rising in recent years. In 2016, 71 whales became entangled in fishing gear off the West Coast, breaking the entanglement record for the third consecutive year. “We’re lucky if we get some or all of the gear off of a half dozen to a dozen of the whales every year,” Viezbicke says.

Entanglements are not always fatal, but for some threatened species, even a small number of deaths could be enough to collapse an entire population. (One subpopulation of humpback whales that feeds off the coast of California, for example, now numbers a mere 400.) Twenty-one endangered or threatened whales and one leatherback sea turtle were entangled in Dungeness crab gear in the Pacific Ocean in 2016; typically, Dungeness crab traps consist of a pot used to collect crabs on the seafloor, attached to a line of rope that extends to a buoy on the ocean surface.

Read the full story at Pacific Standard

CALIFORNIA: Marin group’s bill to phase out gill nets moves forward in Legislature

April 28, 2016 — A West Marin environmental group is sponsoring legislation to end the use of drift gill nets off the state’s coast, saying they inadvertently scoop up and kill other species, including federally-endangered leatherback sea turtles.

Marin’s Turtle Island Restoration Network has sponsored Senate Bill 1114, which would phase out the use of gill nets in favor of another method that better targets what the gill nets seek: swordfish. The change would prevent turtles, whales, dolphins, sharks and pinnipeds from being taken, the group says. The bill was approved by the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water earlier this month, the first stop during its journey in the Legislature. An appropriations committee is expected to take it up next month before more votes.

“Despite the fact that Pacific leatherback sea turtles are the largest sea turtles on the planet, they are no match for the driftnet fishery,” said Peter Fugazzotto, Turtle Island’s program manager. “This deadly fishery has been operating at too high of a cost to marine wildlife.”

Read the full story at the Marin Independent Journal