Saving Seafood

FishOn: Virus impacts fish-related events

March 16, 2020 — The event closures, postponements and cancellations flooded into the news at the end of last week and the reality of life in the time of novel coronavirus was driven home with extreme prejudice. The far-flung FishOn staff seems to be holding up well in these early days of the burgeoning public health crisis and we hope the same for you and yours. By now, surely you know the drill. Go wash something.

There were a few fishing-related events — some of which we’d already advanced in the pages of the Gloucester Daily Times and on our online platform, gloucestertimes.com — that have been impacted and may have escaped your notice:

* NOAA Fisheries canceled the scoping meetings for revisions to the management plan for the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary that were scheduled last week at the New England Aquarium and Maritime Gloucester on Harbor Loop, and this Wednesday, March 18, at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. NOAA said it is organizing an online meeting via webinar for later in March. More details to come.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Investigating the Effects of Ocean Acidification on Atlantic Sea Scallops

January 16, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

On a gray December day, students, faculty, and NOAA scientists packed Massachusetts Maritime Academy’s aquaculture lab. They worked shoulder to shoulder to answer high-stakes questions. The eight-week experiment, led by NOAA research chemist Shannon Meseck, was the first to directly measure the response of juvenile Atlantic sea scallops to ocean acidification.

Modeling studies have projected the effects of ocean acidification on the sea scallop fishery, but these analyses depended on data collected from other shellfish species. “Research is beginning to show that shellfish have species-dependent responses to ocean acidification. This experiment will give more definitive results that can be used to determine the effects on the fishery,” explained research chemist Matt Poach.

Partnering with the Massachusetts Maritime Academy

The project required coordination between NOAA’s Milford Lab and the Academy, including many trips shuttling people, samples, and algal cultures between Cape Cod and Connecticut. Students at the Academy—called cadets—cared for the animals, grew algae to supplement their diet, and took frequent water samples.

While the research team conducted similar experiments on surfclams and oysters at the Milford Lab, raising sea scallops requires cooler temperatures and oceanic, rather than estuarine, conditions.

“The location of the Academy on Buzzards Bay was ideal for sea scallop experiments because of the availability of pumped, unfiltered seawater in the right temperature and salinity range,” noted Milford Lab Director Gary Wikfors.

Research chemist George Sennefelder and technician Dylan Redman built two ocean acidification exposure systems at the Milford Lab. They also designed and built a smaller system to fit the Academy’s aquaculture lab.

The lab sits by the dock, in the shadow of the training vessel TS Kennedy. “The Aquaculture and Marine Sciences Laboratory is a surprisingly adaptable space for hard science,” observed Professor William Hubbard, who headed up the partnership for the Academy. “Seawater, electricity, aging pipes, and New England weather challenge the lab, but NOAA easily installed their customized system and it runs well.”

Read the full release here

Ocean Acidification Could Mean Smaller Scallops, Threatened Industry

December 19, 2019 — In a new experiment, scientists working at the Mass Maritime Academy in Bourne are finding that ocean acidification may have a profound effect on juvenile sea scallops.

Scientists at the Academy, in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are exposing sea scallops to three different levels of acidity, to see how they adapt to changing ocean chemistry.

Over the last 25 years, oceans have become increasingly acidic and that trend is expected to continue, as the water absorbs greenhouse gases produced by human activity.

“Research has shown that other bivalves [like oysters, clams, and quahogs] are affected by ocean acidification,” said Shannon Meseck, a research scientist at the NOAA Fisheries Millford Laboratory. “But to date, there’s no published research on the sea scallop, which is surprising because it is the second most important fishery in the Northeast. Second, to lobster.”

When Meseck started working toward her PhD more than two decades ago, she said, she learned the pH of the ocean—which measures its acidity—was 8.15. Today, the pH has dropped to 8.1, and in the next 100 years it could be as low as 7.8.

Read the full story at WCAI

Massachusetts Maritime Academy Receives $69,600 in Grant Money

October 11, 2018 — As part of a $450,000 state grant program that promotes the blue economy, the Massachusetts Maritime Academy is receiving $69,600 to pursue a project on hydrokinetic energy.

The Academy will develop a marine hydrokinetic oceanographic data portal that will be hosted live and available online to anyone, building on the Academy’s expertise as an academic test center for marine hydrokinetic energy (e.g. tidal flow) generators and instrumentation. The new data portal will have uses for commercial users in renewable energy, aquaculture, recreational mariners, educators, and the general public. MMA has several marine research and aquaculture programs generating live oceanographic data, in addition to separate video cameras which cover Cape Cod Canal marine traffic and provide high-definition video from 20 feet under water.

The project will modify these independent systems into one visual portal and will give the internet a real time view of science, technology, engineering and mathematics at work. The project will also work cooperatively with a 60kW hydrokinetic (tidal) turbine that can be used for environmental testing, workforce development training and power production, infrastructure funded through a $150,000 investment by the Commonwealth. The turbine, housed on a mobile barge, will act as a test site which will tie into the data portal, allowing viewers of the portal to view the output of the barge throughout the varying tidal cycles and in real-time.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

MASSACHUSETTS: Project to Clean Buzzards Bay Watershed Receives $420K in Grant Funding

October 4, 2018 — The Buzzards Bay Coalition has received nearly $420,000 in grant funding for its effort to expand wastewater treatment to more upper Buzzards Bay watershed communities.

The Southeast New England Program awarded the funding for the Coalition’s partnership that would reduce tens of thousands of pounds of nitrogen each year to help clean several waterways in the watershed that are on the state’s dirty waters list.

The project would expand wasterwater treatment to more upper Bay communities in Wareham, Bourne, Plymouth and Marion.

Wastewater, particularly from traditional home septic systems, is the largest source of nitrogen pollution to the bay.

Nitrogen pollution turns the water cloudy and murky and harms habitat for underwater species like fish, crabs, quahogs, and bay scallops.

The waterways of the upper portion of Buzzards Bay – the Agawam River and Wareham River,Buttermilk Bay and Little Buttermilk Bay, Sippican Harbor,Aucoot Cove, and the Weweantic River– make up one-third of the entire Buzzards Bay watershed. Every single one of these waterways is on the state’s “dirty waters” list.

The first phase of this project, funded with a SNEP grant in 2015, studied whether it would be feasible to move the discharge pipe from the narrow, upstream waters of the Agawam River to the site of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy’s existing wastewater treatment plant discharge pipe at the Cape Cod Canal. Through sound science, the project showed that relocating the Wareham discharge pipe would not harm the upper Bay’s health – in fact, it could reduce approximately 80,000 pounds of nitrogen to the Bay per year.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

MASSACHUSETTS: The oldest surviving Grand Banks fishing schooner is rising once again

June 5, 2017 — Forty-eight pairs of wooden ribs curve upward in a small shipyard on this pine-fringed harbor. Bearded men work with saws, trim oak pieces smooth, and run their fingers along the oiled frame taking shape before them.

The Ernestina-Morrissey, the oldest surviving Grand Banks fishing schooner, is rising once again.

The restoration of the 19th-century vessel, the flagship of Massachusetts since 1983, resurrects a seaworthy ambassador for the state and a floating classroom that can teach students ranging from kindergartners to cadets at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

The $6.3 million project also represents a victory for historical preservation, one that could keep the schooner sailing well past 150 years since its launching in 1894 at the James and Tarr Shipyard in Essex, Mass.

“Something like this doesn’t come around too often in one’s lifetime,” said Eric Graves, president of the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard, a waterfront workplace even older than the two-masted schooner being rebuilt from the keel up.

The schooner is undergoing a carefully crafted, labor-intensive overhaul that began in 2015 and might not be completed until early 2019, said David Short, the lead shipwright on the project.

Old frames and planks are being removed and new ones installed, including Danish white oak from a royal forest that long served Denmark’s navy. When Short and his crew are finished, nothing will remain of the original 114-foot schooner except “her name and her history,” he said.

But the ship that returns to the sea will be an exacting replica of the sleek and sturdy schooner that fished the Grand Banks out of Gloucester and Newfoundland, later explored the Arctic, and finally was used to bring Cape Verde immigrants to the United States as late as 1965.

That trans-Atlantic legacy is one that Licy Do Canto, a Roxbury native whose grandmother emigrated aboard the schooner in the early 1950s, wants preserved as a testament to the dreams and struggles of all generations who have traveled to the United States in search of a better life.

The homes of many Cape Verdean immigrants in Massachusetts contained two photographs, Do Canto said: one of President John F. Kennedy and one of this schooner. Do Canto envisions a future where the schooner is able to cross the Atlantic once again and revisit Cape Verde.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Hearing Set for Southern New England Lobster Plan

March 24, 2017 — Interstate fishing managers will hold a public hearing Thursday night in Buzzards Bay on a plan to try and save Southern New England Lobsters. The stock has dwindled as water temperatures have warmed, leading the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to develop a number of proposals to improve the fishery’s health.

The plan includes changing the legal harvesting size limit, reducing the number of traps allowed in the water and implementing new seasonal closures. A public hearing on the matter begins at 6 p.m. at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CapeCod.com 

MASSACHUSETTS: Regulators: Loophole in striped bass fishery needs closing

February 9, 2017 — Massachusetts fisheries officials want to to close a loophole in state regulations that resulted in what they believe were illegal landings of striped bass last year.

At a public hearing at Massachusetts Maritime Academy Wednesday night, Division of Marine Fisheries Deputy Director Dan McKiernan said the state is looking to reduce the number of striped bass that commercial fishermen could land from 15 down to two, if they’re fishing from shore.

“What happened last year was disgusting,” said Patrick Paquette of the Massachusetts Striped Bass Association, which is composed of both commercial and recreational fishermen. “There was a rampant black market at the (Cape Cod) canal. Plenty of guys were taking fish from friends, putting them in coolers, and selling them under their boat permit.”

Under state striped bass fishing regulations, a commercial fisherman can buy a boat permit that allows him or her to catch and sell up to 15 fish a day. There is also a less expensive individual permit under which he or she can land two fish a day from shore. The state limited commercial fishing to two days a week. In bad weather, some fishermen with boat permits fished from shore, and could technically land their 15 fish.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center Speaker Series Continues A Day in the Life of Scallop Captain Chris Wright

January 5, 2016 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

New Bedford, MA – The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center’s A Day in the Life speaker series continues on Wednesday, January 11, 2017 at 7:00 p.m. with Captain Chris Wright.

Chris Wright was born in New Bedford and raised in Fairhaven. His family has been connected to the fishing industry for 4 generations. Both his father and grandfather worked in the industry.  Now he, his two brothers, and his two sons are all fishermen.  Chris made his first fishing trip at the age of 12 during summer vacation.  He had to tell his Little League coach he was going to have to miss all the games that week!

Chris is a graduate of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. After graduation, he started as an engineer then worked his way up to mate and eventually to captain. He has been a captain for over 25 years and is currently Captain of two scallop vessels –  F/V Huntress and F/V Harvester.

Chris will discuss the fishery, the gear, and his daily life at sea, providing a firsthand account of the work and life of a scallop captain.

Admission to A Day in the Life is free to members and volunteers; $5 for non-members.  The Center is handicap accessible through the parking lot entrance. Free off-street parking available  The Center is located at 38 Bethel Street in New Bedford’s historic downtown.