Saving Seafood

Decision due next week on seasonal lobstering ban

January 25, 2021 — In China, 2021 is down as the Year of the Ox. In the cold waters off the coast of New England, it is shaping up as the Year of the Whale. The North Atlantic right whale.

Federal regulators, through the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction team, and the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries have proposed a series of overlapping new protections for the imperiled species that will have a significant impact on the region’s lobster industry.

In Massachusetts, lobstermen will find out next week whether the state will implement DMF’s recommendations for state waters that include a new seasonal closure on all lobstering from February to May — the time period of the annual migration and feeding along the Massachusetts coast by the whales whose numbers are estimated to have dropped below 400.

The Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission is set to meet Thursday morning via zoom. DMF Director Dan McKiernan will present the agency’s recommendations — which also include the utilization of weaker, break-away vertical buoy lines to help mitigate gear entanglements — and the commission will vote.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Massachusetts launches ropeless gear study

January 22, 2021 — A year-long feasibility study to assess using ropeless trap gear in the New England lobster fishery has been launched by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

Funded in part by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in partnership with NOAA, the “accelerated timeline” project “will interview dozens of fishermen, technologists, policy experts, and scientists to fully evaluate the challenges and opportunities of the new gear type,” the state agency said in a Jan. 21 statement.

Ropeless gear – sometimes known as pop-up gear, or as Massachusetts officials call it, on-call gear – are designs that seek to replace the traditional floating buoy line gear used in lobster, crab and fish trap fisheries.

There’s high interest in these alternatives as a potential solution to prevent marine mammal entanglements in gear – especially the highly endangered northern right whale, with an East Coast population now estimated to be less than 400 animals.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Massachusetts postponing lobster closures to protect right whales

January 12, 2021 — We here at FishOn have been absent from these pages for the past couple Mondays. Slight case of mistaken identity. Fear not, we’ve escaped. Here’s hoping you didn’t pay the ransom.

First column of the new year, so we’re still finding our footing, staying within ourselves and letting the game come to us. It’s early and it’s a long year.

There, that pretty much encapsulates the product of virtually every Opening Day interview we ever did.

One thing we know we’ll be writing about in 2021 is the plight of the North Atlantic right whales, so let’s start with them.

The end of 2020 brought a flurry of proposed protective actions from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and NOAA Fisheries that will be batted around until final rules can be enacted.

In the Bay State, DMF, among other recommendations, has proposed closing all state waters to lobstering from February to May to coincide with the right whales’ annual migration and feeding along the Massachusetts coast.

It is set to present those recommendations to the Massachusetts Fisheries Advisory Commission on Jan. 28. That meeting initially was set for Jan. 7, but DMF was swamped with public comment to review, as seemingly every conservation group in the world except the Cross Street Irregulars weighed in.

Last Friday, DMF said the altered timeline means it won’t be able to “promulgate final regulations for Feb. 1, 2021.”

It now expects the new rules — including the closure — to go into effect between mid-February and early March.

“As a result only those waters within the Massachusetts restricted area will be closed to trap gear fishing on Feb. 1,” DMF said. “All other waters within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth will not be subject to a trap gear closure until a final rule is promulgated.”

Promulgate. Good word.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Seasonal Ban on Lobstering Aims to Protect Right Whales

December 21, 2020 — With the North Atlantic right whale population at a dangerously low ebb, the state Division of Marine Fisheries is proposing a statewide seasonal ban on lobstering in a last-chance effort to save the critically endangered species from extinction.

Floated by the DMF during public hearings on Dec. 8 and 9, the proposed regulations come in the wake of a report that estimated right whale populations at only 366 marine mammals — down from the 481 estimated in 2011 — and a continued “unusual mortality event” that has seen more than 30 right whale deaths in the past three years.

The dramatic rule changes propose extending the state’s existing Feb. 1 through April 30 lobster trap closure in Cape Cod Bay to all waters under the jurisdiction of the commonwealth, including the Vineyard and Nantucket Sound. Buoyed recreational lobster and crab trap fishing would also be closed. The recreational closure would run from the Tuesday after Columbus Day through the Friday preceding Memorial Day.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

Massachusetts has new plan to curb North Atlantic right whale entanglements

December 18, 2020 — New federal rules to reduce the chances of endangered right whales becoming entangled in lobster pot and gillnet gear are expected soon, but so are the whales, with as much as 2/3 of the remaining population arriving in state waters in the coming months.

Hoping to have additional protections in place, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries held public hearings last week on a plan they believe will make the state compliant with the federal plan and satisfy a judge’s order.

Friday is the last day to submit public comment on the plan which, among other things, would close down all state waters to fishing with lobster pots for three months beginning Feb. 1 and close an additional area off Scituate to gillnet fishing. All recreational lobster and crab pot gear would also have to be out of the water from the day after Columbus Day through the Friday before Memorial Day.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Weekend farmers market aims to help local shellfishermen

December 10, 2020 — A first-of-its-kind shellfish farmers market promises to get oysters from Wellfleet Bay to the dinner plate in record time.

Shellfishermen will be able to sell their oysters to customers on Saturdays from noon to 2 p.m. beginning this weekend at the Wellfleet Marina. The market will run through May 1.

The initiative came after a monthlong effort led by the town’s shellfish constable, Nancy Civetta, with assistance from the Wellfleet Shellfishermen’s Association and Holbrook Oyster. Civetta was able to get approvals from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Division of Marine Fisheries to hold the event.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

International consortium created to study the white shark

December 7, 2020 — Shark research groups and government agencies in the United States and Canada announced Tuesday the establishment of an organization that will unite over a dozen agencies to collaboratively study the white shark.

The New England White Shark Research Consortium joins organizations and universities in Massachusetts—such as the New England Aquarium and University of Massachusetts Dartmouth—with researchers in Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Arizona and Canada.

The group has two primary goals: advance researchers’ current understanding of the white shark, and enhance public education and safety within the region.

Gregory Skomal, the senior fisheries scientist for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (which is a consortium member), said the fatal shark attack of a 63-year-old woman off the coast of Maine this summer prompted the creation of the consortium.

“It really pointed to a need for us to coordinate research here in New England,” Skomal said, noting many people were surprised by the location of the attack even though researchers knew white sharks are historically found in Maine waters.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

New regional shark research consortium established

December 2, 2020 — The fatal great white shark attack on swimmer Julie Dimperio Holowach in July in Harpswell, Maine, caught many in the shark research community by surprise.

While it was known that some great whites do travel north into Canadian waters in the summer, there was little in the way of sightings, and just a smattering of attacks on seals.

Holowach was the only confirmed fatality from a shark attack in Maine history, according to Patrick Keliher, state Division of Marine Resources director. Cape Cod, with hundreds of great whites patrolling beaches and daily sightings in the summer months, has had two major attacks on swimmers and a fatal attack on a bodyboarder.

“The incident really did rattle the state of Maine, and justifiably,” said Gregory Skomal, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries shark expert. “A lot of us doing work on white sharks reached out to assist.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘It’s just depressing’: As the pandemic worsens, oystermen struggle to remain afloat

November 23, 2020 — After raking up the last of the overgrown oysters and heaving them onto his small barge, Bruce Silverbrand puttered a mile or so to a shallow bend in Buttermilk Bay, where his daughter dumped the shellfish onto a growing reef of brackish discards.

Forsaking such a valuable delicacy would be unthinkable in normal times, but with environmental advocacy groups buying nearly a quarter of his annual crop to help reconstruct vital coastal reefs, the burly oysterman was happy to unload them, even at a reduced price.

The pandemic has hurt many businesses since March, but it has been particularly painful for the oyster industry. Unlike other seafood harvesters that have managed to sustain their businesses through the pandemic by selling to supermarkets, large institutions, and in some cases directly to consumers, nearly all oysters are sold at restaurants.

“Everybody is suffering through this,” said Silverbrand, who grows 450,000 oysters a year. “We’re trying our best to limp through this and come out on the other side. Some of us will make it; some of us won’t.”

Between March and October, sales from the state’s oyster growers plummeted by 50 percent compared with the same period last year, according to the state Division of Marine Fisheries. Compared with the previous five years, oyster sales have declined 43 percent.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishermen can apply for COVID-19 relief

September 14, 2020 — Massachusetts commercial fishermen should soon be receiving their applications for the $11.8 million in federal fishery assistance funds to help offset economic damage to the industry from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state Division of Marine Fisheries said it began sending out the applications on Wednesday to commercial fishermen at the addresses listed on their DMF-issued permits. Completed applications and appeals must be postmarked no later than Oct. 10.

The $11.8 million set aside for commercial harvesters is part of the $28 million Congress allocated to the Massachusetts seafood industry in March in the $300 million CARES Act to mitigate the financial woes caused by the unrelenting pandemic.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times