December 11, 2019 — A rule change long sought by the southern New England dragger fleet will allow crew to offload their summer flounder catch in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut all in one trip.
Provided boats hold flounder permits in all three states, the reciprocal can let them land three 1,000-pound increments – one in each state – on a single trip. Industry advocates say it will lead to less waste and better safety, particularly during the winter months.
November 14, 2019 — The profile of the humble Jonah crab, once considered mere bycatch in the lobster fishery, continues to rise.
On Dec. 19, NOAA Fisheries will implement new regulations that will sharpen the scope and definition of the Jonah crab fishery in federal waters by establishing permitting requirements and setting size and possession limits.
The new federal measures closely replicate Jonah crab fishery management plans already enacted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates Jonah crabs on an interstate level, and many East Coast states — including Massachusetts.
“The federal regulations that are being issued mirror those set in place by ASMFC when they released the Jonah Crab Fishery Management Plan in 2015,” said Derek Perry, a crab biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. “More than 99% of Jonah crabs are caught in federal waters, so this is mostly a federal waters fishery.”
So, beginning on Dec. 12, only vessels with a federal American lobster trap or non-trap permit may retain Jonah crab in federal waters. The minimum size will be the same as set by Massachusetts for state waters — 4.75 inches across the carapace.
November 13, 2019 — Fishermen in Cape Cod Bay recently discovered a large number of dead animals in their traps, including lobsters, flounders, and eels.
After an investigation conducted by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, it was determined they died due to low levels of oxygen at the ocean’s floor, otherwise known as hypoxia.
Beth Casoni, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, said that the warm water temperatures over the summer as well as the current state of Cape Cod Bay lead to the deaths.
“This area in the Cape Cod Bay has very low current flow, so it was the perfect storm for something like this to happen,” she said.
Cold water in the bay gets trapped at the bottom of the ocean underneath layers of warmer water, causing oxygen to wane.
October 24, 2019 — Last month, lobstermen in Cape Cod Bay hauled up something disturbing. In one section of the bay, all of their traps were full of dead lobsters. Research biologists went to work trying to solve the mystery, and what they found suggests we may see more of this as the climate changes.
When the fishermen first started pulling up traps full of dead lobsters, their first call was to Beth Casoni of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association.
“As you can imagine, they were concerned — greatly concerned — because they didn’t know how they died or why they died,” Casoni said.
Over the next five days or so, she got more calls about dead animals in the traps.
“And it wasn’t just lobsters,” she said. “It was skate and flounder and ling, which is an eel.”
Casoni called the state Division of Marine Fisheries, which sent divers out to take a look at the seafloor in the area.
“The fishermen were fearful that there would have been a mass die-off and the bottom would be littered with carnage,” Casoni said. “And the division was happy to report that they did not see any mass die-off in the area.”
October 24, 2019 — NOAA Fisheries has awarded $1.1 million in funding for seven New England and Mid-Atlantic projects through the Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program.
The awards support key partners in research and development of innovative approaches and strategies for reducing bycatch, bycatch mortality and post-release mortality.
The New England Aquarium was awarded $125,000 for a project to study whale release ropes as a large whale bycatch mitigation option for the lobster fishing industry.
The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries received $176,572 for a bycatch reduction of red hake project in the Southern New England silver hake trawl fishery.
There were also a few projects related to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, which only number around 400.
Maine Department of Marine Resources was awarded $198,018 for a project to assess the feasibility of Time Tension Line Cutter use in fixed gear fisheries to reduce entanglement risk for right whales.
October 11, 2019 — The federal government on Wednesday released data showing that cod stocks in the area remain overfished and are not on target to be rebuilt by 2024. NOAA Fisheries also reported that “overfishing is occurring” among an already-depleted Gulf of Maine Atlantic cod population.
“Abundance is very low, not the way it used to be, so that’s obviously of great concern to us,” Division of Marine Fisheries Director David Pierce told the News Service after participating in “seafood day” activities Thursday to recognize the contributions of the fishing sector and the 90,000 jobs in the seafood industry.
Pierce said he had not yet reviewed the latest federal assessment, but said an industry-based survey and one in the works at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth will also influence cod quotas for 2021 and 2022.
“It’s a very important assessment. A lot hinges on it,” Pierce said. “The health of the Gulf of Maine groundfish fishery is very dependent on the health of that Gulf of Maine cod stock.”
Calling the report “concerning,” Sen. Bruce Tarr, who represents the fishing port city of Gloucester, told the News Service, “I’m still reading through the details but I think it points to the fact that we should be doing things differently than we are today.”
October 4, 2019 — Two weeks ago, lobstermen working off Scorton Creek started seeing something they had never experienced. Lobsters, in fact everything in their traps, were coming up dead.
Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries senior biologist Robert Glenn started fielding phone calls from puzzled fishermen Sept. 23. The fishermen were worried there might be something in the water that was killing the lobsters, fish, shellfish, even sea worms.
It turns out, it was something missing from the water: oxygen.
For the past two weeks, division researchers and scientists from the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown have boarded vessels and taken water samples, gathered temperature data at various depths and measured the amount of oxygen dissolved in the water. Preliminary results from testing on dozens of dead lobsters found nothing toxic in the water that could have killed them, and the focus was on a phenomenon that occurs every year — low oxygen in the layer of water along the ocean bottom, Glenn said.
September 30, 2019 — Cheryl Souza is ending her lobster sales after October.
But third-generation lobsterman Billy Souza, as it turns out, is considering quitting as well.
“It’s all the whale issues,” Souza said. Unlike the lobstering in the days of Souza’s grandfather, Frank Souza, and his father, William Souza, the current generation fishing off Cape Cod is under an intense and unique scrutiny. That scrutiny is directly linked to the increasing focus by federal and state regulators on imperiled North Atlantic right whales, which are dying or suffering debilitating injuries due to entanglement in fishing rope.
“We have the whale watch boats here, and we have the Division of Marine Fisheries that does flyovers all the time,” said Souza, 66. “The whales could get entangled anywhere in the world, but there’s so many eyes on them here it looks like we’re the bad guys and we’re not.” On any given early spring day, at least two to three right whale research vessels can be found in Cape Cod Bay, where the whales feed through May and then migrate northward to Canadian waters.
August 9th, 2019 — The following was published by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Board) approved Draft Addendum VI for public comment. The Addendum was initiated in response to the 2018 Benchmark Stock Assessment which indicates the resource is overfished and experiencing overfishing. The Draft Addendum explores a range of management alternatives designed to end overfishing and reduce fishing mortality to the target level in 2020.
“The Draft Addendum is a critical first step to stem overfishing as quickly as possible and begin efforts to rebuild the biomass,” said Board Chair Dr. Michael Armstrong with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. “Following approval of the Addendum, the Board will likely initiate a new amendment to consider a longer-term strategy to fully rebuild the resource.”
The Draft Addendum proposes management options for both commercial and recreational sectors in the ocean and in the Chesapeake Bay in order to reduce total fishery removals by 18% relative to 2017 levels. The proposed measures include reduced quotas for commercial fisheries, and changes in bag limits, minimum sizes, and slot size limits for the recreational sector. Since catch and release practices represent a significant component of overall fishing mortality, the Draft Addendum also explores the mandatory use of circle hooks when fishing with bait to reduce release mortality in recreational striped bass fisheries.
It is anticipated the majority of Atlantic coastal states will conduct public hearings on the Draft Addendum; a subsequent press release will announce the details of those hearings once they become finalized. Fishermen and other interested groups are encouraged to provide input on the Draft Addendum either by attending state public hearings or providing written comment. The Draft Addendum will be available on the Commission website (www.asmfc.org) under Public Input by August 19th. Public comment will be accepted until 5:00 PM (EST) on September 27, 2019 and should be forwarded to Max Appelman, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, 1050 N. Highland St, Suite A-N, Arlington, VA 22201; 703.842.0741 (FAX) or at comments@asmfc.org (Subject line: Draft Addendum VI). Organizations planning to release an action alert in response to Draft Addendum VI should contact Max Appelman at mappelman@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.
Read the press release here
August 1, 2019 — Scientists have begun a new research program around Cape Cod in Massachusetts, focusing on movements and behavior of a growing great white shark population, to reduce the increasing potential for interactions with humans.
Atlantic white sharks are the center of attention in the frenetic Cape Cod summer tourism season, as the combined resurgence of their primary food source, gray seals, and the shark population plays out.
The shark season has been early and active, with numerous sightings and several temporary beach closings ordered as a result in July. It’s been just one year since two shark attacks off cape beaches resulted in the first recorded fatal shark attack in Massachusetts since 1936 when a body board rider was killed.
Instead the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, the nonprofit Atlantic White Shark Conservancy based at Chatham, Mass. and other partners are in a new push to expand their study of white shark movements and behavior, with an emphasis on improving public safety in nearshore waters and channels where the animals hunt seals.