Saving Seafood

Surveys find mixed spawning success for striped bass this year in Chesapeake

October 26, 2020 — Striped bass can’t get a break, it seems. With their East Coast population in decline from overfishing, the migratory species had mixed success reproducing in the Chesapeake Bay this year, surveys show.

The state Department of Natural Resources reported last week that its annual trawl survey of newly spawned striped bass in Maryland waters yielded just 2.5 little fish per net haul — far below the long-term average of 11.5 per sample.

“We just didn’t have good recruitment [of young fish] this year,” said Mike Luisi, the DNR’s director of fisheries monitoring and assessment. “It kind of just goes along with everything else in 2020 that’s just been tough.”

This is the second straight year and the 10th in the last 15 years that the DNR survey found evidence of below-average striped bass reproduction.

A separate study done by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science found an above-average number of juvenile striped bass in that state’s tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. It was the eighth straight year in which the survey tallied an average or above-average abundance for the species.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

VIRGINIA: Glimmer of hope for striped bass: Numbers of young fish show stability

October 23, 2020 — The Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s annual count of young striped bass once again yielded a number higher than the historic average.

But the significant increase — 13.89 fish per sample, compared to last year’s 9.54 and the historical average of 7.77 from 1980 to 2009 — may be a fluke of bad weather and the pandemic, VIMS cautioned.

The survey has yielded results above that historic average for eight years running. It counts juveniles — typically 1-1/2 to 4 inches long — that will grow to the size fishermen want to catch in three to four years.

The survey is based on what nets haul from 18 sites in the James, York and Rappahannock river watersheds. Its biologists usually draw samples from July to early September, but this year, Tropical Storm Isaias and COVID-19 precautions mean 19% of samples weren’t completed. Other indices suggest juvenile striped bass populations are fairly stable, VIMS said. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources, for instance, reported a below-average count in its 2020 survey, but the pattern of below average Maryland and above average Virginia counts has been seen in 2013, 2016 and 2019.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

Maryland Rockfish Spawn Sinks to Lowest in Four Years

October 21, 2020 — The results of Maryland’s most recent rockfish spawning survey are in, and they aren’t good. Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced that the 2020 juvenile striped bass index is 2.5, well below the average of 11.5, and even worse than last year’s 3.4.

The “young-of-year” survey tracks the reproductive success of rockfish in a given year. These juvenile fish are an important indicator because they are the fish that will grow to fishable sizes in three to four years. The surveys provide a glimpse of long-term trends in the striped bass population.

DNR, who has been collecting young of year data since 1954, collect fish with 100-foot beach seine net in 22 sites along major spawning areas in the Choptank, Nanticoke, and Potomac rivers and the Upper Chesapeake Bay.

Read the full story at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine

ASMFC Horseshoe Crab Board Sets 2021 Specifications for Horseshoe Crabs of Delaware Bay Origin

October 21, 2020 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Horseshoe Crab Management Board approved the harvest specifications for horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay origin. Under the Adaptive Resource Management (ARM) Framework, the Board set a harvest limit of 500,000 Delaware Bay male horseshoe crabs and zero female horseshoe crabs for the 2020 season. Based on the allocation mechanism established in Addendum VII, the following quotas were set for the States of New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland and the Commonwealth of Virginia, which harvest horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay origin:

The Board chose a harvest package based on the Delaware Bay Ecosystem Technical Committee’s and ARM Subcommittee’s recommendation. The ARM Framework, established through Addendum VII, incorporates both shorebird and horseshoe crab abundance levels to set optimized harvest levels for horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay origin. The horseshoe crab abundance estimate was based on data from the Benthic Trawl Survey conducted by Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech). This survey, which is the primary data source for assessing Delaware Bay horseshoe crab abundance, does not have a consistent funding source. Members of the Delaware and New Jersey U.S. Congressional Delegations, with the support of NOAA Fisheries, have provided annual funding for the survey since 2016.

For more information, please contact Caitlin Starks, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at 703.842.0740 orcstarks@asmfc.org.

CARES Act Funding Available for Maryland Fishing Industry

October 20, 2020 — The Maryland Department of Natural Resources announces applications will be available Nov. 4 for economic relief funds for the commercial seafood industry through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), for those who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The application will be available to eligible members of the seafood industry on the Maryland OneStop website. The deadline to apply is Feb. 28, 2021.

In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that Maryland would be receiving about $4 million. Maryland has dedicated $3 million of that for direct payments to commercial, for hire, aquaculture, and seafood processing operations whose 2020 revenue has suffered a loss of greater than 35% due to COVID-19. The remaining $1 million will fund seafood marketing and business support for individuals in the seafood industry. Maryland worked with NOAA to develop this spending plan based on the provisions of the CARES Act and federal guidance. Funds will be distributed through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Read the full story at The Bay Net

Menhaden board lowers allowable catch by 10% for Atlantic coast states, Chesapeake Bay’s cap stays the same

October 20, 2020 — The Atlantic Menhaden Management Board voted to lower the total allowable catch for Atlantic menhaden coast-wide by 10% in response to a change in management that considers the role the tiny oily fish plays as food for others.

After a few hours of discussion Tuesday morning, the board voted at its online meeting to lower the allowable catch to 194,400 metric tons for 2021 and 2022. No change was made to the allocation of menhaden that can be caught in the Chesapeake Bay, which is capped at 51,000 metrics tons. Maryland was among the states voting in favor of the change.

The total allowable catch was last changed in 2017, when the board increased it from 200,000 metric tons to 216,000 metric tons.

Earlier this year, the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, a subset of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, approved the use of a new ecological reference point model to inform management that considers menhaden’s role as food for other species such as rockfish and bluefish. Instead of focusing on menhaden abundance as a single species, the model examines the interactions between the tiny silver fish and other key species in the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean, where it plays a vital role in the food chain, eating up plankton and being eaten in turn by larger fish and whales.

Using those new reference points, which assume striped bass are also fished sustainably, managers calculated different catch scenarios for the next two years.

Read the full story at the Capital Gazette

As Maryland’s wild oyster season starts, experts worry coronavirus fears may reduce demand

October 19, 2020 — Sitting outside Mama’s on the Half Shell restaurant in Canton, Alisha Gladfelter painted the newly christened “Shuck Shack,” an outdoor oyster bar complete with a grill fashioned from a keg. The swirl of a mermaid’s tail — part of the restaurant’s logo — flowed from the tip of her paintbrush.

Mama’s Shuck Shack is a sign of the times, as much as homemade face masks and ubiquitous bottles of hand sanitizer, an effort to encourage passersby to try one of the succulent bivalves or a dozen, either roasted or raw.

Maryland’s wild oyster season starts in October, but restaurants, watermen and others worry the coronavirus pandemic will stifle demand for the bay’s briny bounty. With few people dining out at restaurants and colder weather limiting outdoor dining, some in the seafood industry worry customers won’t venture out for oysters on the half shell and po’boys.

Throughout Maryland’s summer crab season, demand for the crustaceans remained fairly steady, even with crab houses and seafood restaurants closed or otherwise limited by the pandemic. True to form, Marylanders stuck by their crabs, picking up carryout bushels for smaller home-based feasts.

But carryout oysters? Remains to be seen.

“Most people don’t know how to shuck oysters without cutting themselves up real bad,” said Robert T. Brown, president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association.

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

Mid-Atlantic Seismic Blasts Halted

October 14, 2020 — Oil and gas drilling companies are standing down from seismic testing in the Atlantic Ocean this year, to the relief of environmental groups and wildlife advocates in the Chesapeake Bay region.

The industry said in a status conference before the U.S. District Court in South Carolina that it will not move ahead with testing for oil and gas reserves this year. The current seismic blasting authorizations expire November 30, and renewing them would require another round of environmental review and public comment.

Bay Bulletin first reported two years ago the federal approval for five companies to do seismic surveys in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maryland and Virginia, as a first step to gas and oil offshore drilling.

Read the full story at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine

Congress extends Bay Program, related conservation efforts

October 5, 2020 — The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a sweeping conservation measure that provides continued support for several key Chesapeake Bay initiatives and creates a new program to support fish and wildlife habitat restoration efforts in the watershed.

The America’s Conservation Enhancement Act provides support for two dozen conservation initiatives around the nation that were rolled into a single piece of legislation and overwhelmingly approved by the House on Oct. 1.

The Senate had already approved the bill without controversy, and it is expected to be signed by President Trump.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

Shad recovery efforts not paying off, study shows

September 21, 2020 — The American shad’s Atlantic population remains at a historic low, despite longstanding commercial fishing bans in several states and millions of dollars invested in restoring the fish’s habitat.

That sober news comes from the most comprehensive survey yet of the species’ status on the East Coast and the first of any kind in 13 years. The sprawling assessment by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission designates the shad population as “depleted” from Maine to Florida.

“There should be a lot more shad than there are out there,” said Michael Bailey, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientist and one of the assessment’s authors.

In the Chesapeake Bay region, the study suggests that the rate of death among adult shad — a key measure of a population’s health — is “unsustainable” in the Potomac River but “sustainable” in the Rappahannock and York.

Once one of the largest commercial fisheries along the coast and around the Bay, shad catches have bottomed out at about 1% of their late-1800s levels. Although the shad fishery has all but disappeared in the Chesapeake, scientists contend that the species serves a critical ecological role in the estuary as a vital link in its food chain.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal