Saving Seafood

Strategic Plan Public Input Webinars November 12 & 13

November 12, 2019 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council will hold two webinars to gather public comments on the Draft 2020-2024 Strategic Plan. The webinars will be held on the following dates:

  • Tuesday, November 12, 2019 at 6:00 p.m.
  • Wednesday, November 13, 2019 at 10:00 a.m.

To join the webinars, go to: http://mafmc.adobeconnect.com/mafmc-strategic-plan/. Audio connection instructions will pop up automatically when the webinar opens. Telephone-only access is available by dialing 1-800-832-0736 and entering room number 2122298#.

The Draft Strategic Plan is available on the Council’s website here. The plan includes updated vision and mission statements and proposes five major goals, with associated objectives and strategies, to guide the Council’s activities and management priorities for the next five years. Development of the plan was informed by public input provided through a survey and outreach meetings in early 2019.

Submit Written Comments

Written comments may also be submitted by any of the following methods:

Please include “Strategic Plan Comments” in the subject line if using email or fax or on the outside of the envelope if submitting comments by mail.

Comments must be submitted by Friday, November 15, 11:59 EST. The Council will review public comments and approve the final plan at its December meeting in Annapolis, MD.

For additional information and background documents, please visit www.mafmc.org/strategic-plan or contact Michelle Duval at michelleduval22@gmail.com or 919-601-3798.

Huffman Announces Next Stop on Fisheries Listening Tour

November 8, 2019 — The following was released by The Office of Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA):

Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) Chair of the House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife, announced today that he will be hosting the next stop on his listening tour on Friday, November 15, at 1:30 p.m. in Baltimore, Maryland. This is the third stop on a nationwide listening tour on federal fisheries management designed to engage diverse perspectives, interests, and needs of individuals who have a stake in the management of federal ocean and fisheries resources. The event is free and open to the public and press.

Members of the press interested in attending should submit their RSVP to Mary Hurrell at mary.hurrell@mail.house.gov.

WHO:            Congressman Jared Huffman, fisheries and oceans experts

WHAT:          Discussion on federal fisheries management

WHEN:          Friday, November 15, 2019 @ 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. EST

WHERE:       National Aquarium Animal Care and Rescue Center

901 E Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD

Lou and Nancy Grasmick Classroom

Please click here for a map of the location.

Representative Huffman’s panel discussion with experts and stakeholders will include a detailed, technical examination of current and future challenges in federal fisheries management and will explore potential solutions. Guests will be able to submit written questions during the roundtable and provide public comments at its conclusion. Members of the public can register for the event and submit questions ahead of time:

The ideas Huffman receives from this listening tour, and from other stakeholder outreach that is already underway, will inform his introduction of a reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary law governing fisheries management in U.S. federal waters.

More detail on Huffman’s listening tour, which was first announced in July, can be found here.

Striped bass decline spurs new look at mycobacteria

November 6, 2019 — When Wolfgang Vogelbein peered at striped bass sores through a microscope 22 years ago, he knew he was looking at something very different than what was grabbing headlines at the time.

Pfiesteria piscicida — the so-called “cell from hell” — was being blamed for fish kills in Maryland and making people sick.

But what Vogelbein saw through his lens wasn’t the result of a harmful algae toxin. It was a nasty bacterial infection, creating ugly sores on the outside of fish and lesions on the inside.

The infections were caused by mycobacteria, a type of bacteria that are widespread in the environment, but not typically associated with problems in wild fish. Suddenly, though, it was turning up in large numbers of the Chesapeake Bay’s most prized finfish.

“I thought I would be spending the rest of my career working on myco,” recalled Vogelbein, a fish pathologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

East Coast fishery managers order 18% cut in striped bass harvest

November 4, 2019 — Acting to stem serious declines in the striped bass population, East Coast fishery managers have ordered an 18% harvest reduction for the coming year. How that will be done in the Chesapeake Bay remains to be seen.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s striped bass management board on Wednesday agreed to the reduction after an extended debate over how to respond to a scientific assessment earlier this year that found the commercially and recreationally valuable species has been overfished for some time.

The board ordered an 18% cut in commercial harvest quotas in all East Coast states. It also called for comparable recreational catch restrictions. In coastal waters, anglers would be limited to just one fish per day between 28 and 35 inches in length, while in the Bay it would be just one fish per day at least 18 inches long. Anglers are allowed to keep two fish a day now in Maryland; Virginia has already reduced its limit from two to one.

Because the assessment found that many fish were dying after being caught and released, the board also ordered states to require that recreational anglers use circle hooks, which are less likely to injure the fish, beginning in 2021.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

Regional panel advances menhaden finding against Virginia, Omega Protein

October 31, 2019 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission ruled Thursday to advance to Wilbur Ross, the US secretary of Commerce, its finding of noncompliance against the state of Virginia in relation to it allowing the harvest of more Atlantic menhaden inside the Chesapeake Bay than the 51,000 metric tons ASMFC guidelines allow, Undercurrent News has learned.

The commission voted unanimously (15-0) at its week-long meeting in New Castle, New Hampshire, with abstentions by representatives for both the National Marine Fisheries Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, mirroring earlier votes on Monday by the ASMFC’s menhaden management board and Thursday morning by the commission’s policy panel.

The ruling, which was expected as all three ASMFC panels share many of the same members, is bad news for Omega Protein. The Houston, Texas-based division of Canadian seafood giant Cooke catches nearly all of the menhaden in the Chesapeake, a large body of water shared by the states of Maryland and Virginia, and it has freely acknowledged recently surpassing the ASMFC limit by about 14,000t.

Omega previously suggested it made the decision to keep fishing in the Chesapeake beyond the ASMFC guidelines out of concern for the safety of its harvesters and was bound only by Virginia’s stated limit of 87,216t.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MAFMC Releases Draft Strategic Plan for Public Comment

October 15, 2019 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council has released a Draft 2020-2024 Strategic Plan for public review and comment. The plan includes updated vision and mission statements and proposes five major goals to guide the Council’s activities and management priorities for the next five years. Development of the plan was informed by public input provided through a survey and outreach meetings in early 2019.

The Draft Strategic Plan is available on the Council’s website here. All interested stakeholders and members of the public are invited to provide comments on the draft plan.

Strategic Plan Webinars

The Council will hold two public input webinars during which participants will have an opportunity to ask questions and offer public comments on the draft strategic plan. The webinars will be held on the following dates:

  • Tuesday, November 12, 2019 at 6:00 p.m.
  • Wednesday, November 13, 2019 at 10:00 a.m.

To join the webinars, go to: http://mafmc.adobeconnect.com/mafmc-strategic-plan/. Meeting audio can also be accessed via telephone by dialing 1-800-832-0736 and entering room number 2122298.

Submit Written Comments

Written comments may also be submitted by any of the following methods:

Please include “Strategic Plan Comments” in the subject line if using email or fax or on the outside of the envelope if submitting comments by mail.

Comments must be submitted by Friday, November 15, 11:59 EST. The Council will review public comments and approve the final plan at its December meeting in Annapolis, MD.

For additional information and background documents, please visit www.mafmc.org/strategic-plan or contact Michelle Duval at michelleduval22@gmail.com or 919-601-3798.

The Baltimore Sun is wrong about Maryland’s oyster rules

September 30, 2019 — Recently, the Editorial Board of The Baltimore Sun weighed in on the issue of oyster management in the Chesapeake Bay, simultaneously insulting the hard-working men and women of the seafood industry and suggesting that the Maryland Department of Natural Resources is unwilling to protect the oyster (“Dwindling supply of Maryland oysters requires stronger response,” Sept. 17). As chairman of the Delmarva Fisheries Association, I take issue with both of these positions and several others blithely laid out for the members of Maryland’s General Assembly to devour with their oyster shooters and clam strips.

It does nothing to represent our side, the side that’s busy trying to make a living ensuring city folks have fresh, local seafood for their fundraising fêtes. For the record, DNR did not “cave” to watermen and seafood processors. They worked with stakeholders from the legislative, scientific, academic, seafood, business and nonprofit community to arrive at a plan to act now to use a multi-pronged strategy to increase the biomass of our iconic bivalve. We proposed several ways to reduce harvest pressure, one of many stressors to the oyster population, as did others. Ultimately, DNR came up with a plan for the coming season that left no one 100% satisfied. It’s called compromise. They are using an adaptive management strategy that will allow them to monitor scientifically what is working and what’s not and then modify their approach until they’ve arrived at a suite of actions that increase the oyster population.

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

MARYLAND: DNR secretary defends Oyster management plan and more from readers

September 30, 2019 — While increasing the oyster population and ensuring that “all Marylanders can enjoy the bivalves’ environmental benefits while improving the long-term outlook for the fishery,” is a goal we share, the guest column by Chesapeake Bay Foundation Executive Director Alison Proust tells only half of the story at best, and is deliberately misleading at worst (The Capital, Sept. 22).

CBF cherry-picked a portion of our analysis presented to the Oyster Advisory Commission in April and asserted that removing one day from the workweek would have “little conservation benefit.” Here is what the analysis actually states: “If implemented alone, given current behavior, one day reduction would have little conservation impact.” This is why we are imposing other measures, including a reduction in bushel limits as well as closing harvest areas. These measures together put us on a path toward a sustainable fishery in 8 to 10 years. CBF knows what DNR’s plan is.

The problem is that our plan doesn’t meet their political agenda. CBF pushed for legislation that mandated a stock assessment be conducted and an oyster management plan be developed, but unfortunately for them, the best available science doesn’t support their agenda.

Read the full story at the Capital Gazette

U.S. senators propose grant program to help restore Chesapeake Bay habitats

September 30, 2019 — Maryland’s U.S. senators and colleagues from across the Chesapeake Bay watershed introduced a bill Friday to create a federal grant program for projects focused on restoring the bay’s fish and wildlife habitats.

The Chesapeake WILD Act aims to replicate a similar program that provides $5 million annually for such projects in the Delaware River basin. The legislation would create a funding stream for work to restore wetlands, improve stream water quality, and plant trees and other vegetation.

If the grant program is approved, Congress would have to allocate money for it in the appropriations process for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is part of the Department of the Interior.

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

Senate Appropriations Committee Approves Oyster Restoration Funding In Chesapeake Bay

September 17, 2019 — The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved legislation for the Chesapeake Bay’s oyster restoration funding.

“A thriving oyster population is crucial to the health of the Chesapeake Bay, and in turn, to the health of Maryland’s Bay economy,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Appropriations and Budget Committees. “These funds will ultimately support critical efforts to sustain our oyster population and preserve the Bay. I will keep working in Congress to fight for the investments necessary to protect the Bay, its wildlife, and the businesses Marylanders have built around it.”

Officials said the funding will aim toward rebuilding a healthy oyster population in Maryland.

Included within the legislation were provisions to provide $20 million to the Army Corps of Engineers for multistate ecosystem restoration programs for projects involving oysters in the Bay, provide an additional $70 million to the Army Corps Work Plan for project construction.

Read the full story at WJZ