Saving Seafood

Feds: White hake, winter flounder overfished

July 30, 2020 — Gulf of Maine white hake, Georges Bank winter flounder and Atlantic Coast bluefish have been added to a list of fish stocks considered “overfishered,” according to a federal government report.

The report, released Tuesday, also said that the list of fish stocks subject to overfishing in the U.S. fell to an all-time low in 2019.

The National Marine Fisheries Service tracks the health of species that U.S. fishermen seek for commercial and recreational fishing. The agency places stocks on its overfishing list when the rate of catch is too big.

The agency determined that only 22 of 321 fishing stocks were subject to overfishing last year, the agency said on Tuesday. Fish stocks are sub-populations of fish species that typically live in a geographic area.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

CANCELED: July 31 Atlantic Herring Days Out Call

July 30, 2020 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (Commission) Atlantic Herring Management Board members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts set effort control measures for the Area 1A fishery via Days Out webinars. Current effort controls for Season 1 (June – September) are detailed in Memo 20-50 which is available on the Commission’s website (click here).

The previously scheduled Days Out call on July 31, 2020 at 8:30 AM has been cancelled. Given the current weekly landings limit in the Area 1A fishery has not been fully harvested by all vessels and catch rates have not exceeded projections, the states have decided a Days Out call is not warranted at this time.

The Atlantic Herring Management Board members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts are scheduled to reconvene via conference call to review fishing effort on:

  • Friday, August 7 at 8:30 – 10:00 am
  • You can join the meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone at the following link:https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/924867957. If you are new to GoToMeeting, you can download the app ahead of time (click here) and be ready before the meeting starts. The meeting will be using the computer audio (VoIP), but if you are joining the webinar from your phone only, you can dial in at +1 (646) 749-3122 and enter access code 924-867-957 when prompted. The webinar will start at 8:00 a.m., 30 minutes early, to troubleshoot audio as necessary.

If it is decided that this meeting is also not needed, it may be canceled. Please contact Max Appelman, FMP Coordinator, at mappelman@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740 for more information.

A copy of this announcement, can be found here – http://www.asmfc.org/files/Meetings/AtlHerringDaysOutMeetingCanceled8_30_20.pdf

Great white sharks have returned to New England

July 30, 2020 — Maine saw its first fatal shark attack in the state’s history Monday when a shark killed a 63-year-old New York woman off Bailey Island, Maine, northeast of Portland.

“Based on the information I have from the state of Maine, including photos of tooth fragments, this was definitely caused by a white shark attack,” says Greg Skomal, a leading Atlantic great white shark expert and senior scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Maine officials invited Skomal to consult on the investigation into the attack.

The return of great white sharks to New England over the past two decades is both a conservation success story and an emerging public safety concern. Though it is extremely rare for a shark to attack—much less kill—a human, incidents are on the rise in New England. Since 2012, there have been five attacks in the region, all in Massachusetts. Only two have been fatal: Monday’s, and the death of a boogie boarder off Cape Cod in 2018. Before 2012, the most recent attack occurred in 1936. (Read about how Cape Cod has grappled with becoming a great white shark hotspot.)

It’s not known precisely how many great white sharks are in New England waters, but a tagging program Skomal started in 2009 suggests the number is growing steadily. Data from a five-year population study he launched in 2014 is still being processed, but he tagged a record-breaking 50 white sharks off Cape Cod in 2019.

Read the full story at National Geographic

MASSACHUSETTS: State lawmakers eye new office to look at wind impacts on fisheries

July 29, 2020 — House lawmakers unanimously backed the idea of creating a new office within the Department of Fish and Game to specifically study the impacts of offshore wind infrastructure on marine fisheries and ocean life.

In a consolidated amendment adopted Tuesday as part of its economic development bill, the House proposes an Office of Renewable Energy Fishery Impacts that would “conduct and foster research concerning the impacts of offshore wind energy infrastructure on marine fisheries including effects of such installations and connections on the health and behavior of marine mammals; (ii) accept and review commentary from representatives of impacted fishing fleets and renewable energy operators or providers; and (iii) educate and inform citizens on matters related to offshore wind energy and associated impacts on marine life.”

The office would also function as a liaison to federal agencies and academic institutions.

The text in the consolidated amendment mirrors an amendment originally filed by Rep. William Straus of Mattapoisett.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

SCEMFIS: Federal Offshore Wind Report Paid Lack of Attention to Impacts on Fisheries

July 29, 2020 — Researchers from the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) found that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) latest environmental report on offshore wind “paid insufficient attention” to the impact of the practice beyond the Vineyard Wind project.

Last month, BOEM released its supplement to the draft environmental impact statement (SEIS) for the Vineyard Wind project off the Massachusetts coast. The SEIS aimed to analyze the impact of every reasonable offshore wind development on the East Coast in the following years.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Massachusetts Lawmakers Call for Observer Waiver to Continue Past July 31

July 28, 2020 — With just days left before the redeployment of observers will begin in the Greater Atlantic Region, Massachusetts lawmakers called on NOAA Fisheries to extend the waiver of fishery observers as long as is necessary.

In a letter to NOAA leadership, the delegation asked for a delay of the at-sea monitoring requirement for the Northeast groundfish fishery citing rising cases in coastal areas in the region including Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Virginia communities.

Read the full story at Seafood News

URI researcher to map commercial fishing activity to help reduce conflict between fishing, wind industries

July 27, 2020 — The following was released by The University of Rhode Island:

A University of Rhode Island natural resource economist has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to create a new way of documenting where commercial fishing is conducted in southern New England waters. The project is aimed at reducing conflict between the fishing industry and offshore wind farm developers.

“I’m exploring a new way of improving spatial planning for offshore wind,” said URI Associate Professor Thomas Sproul. “One of the biggest sources of delay in the regulatory process for offshore wind has been because of the conflicts with commercial fishing.”

He said that while the National Marine Fisheries Service collects a variety of data about the fishing industry, limited information is available about where commercial fishing occurs.

“There isn’t a consensus map of the ocean that says, for instance, if you put a wind turbine here, it affects 30 percent of the squid fishery,” Sproul said.

He will be taking a novel approach to the problem by combining existing data from numerous sources, including the Automatic Identification System, which identifies the location of every fishing vessel over 65-feet long every minute of every day it is at sea. It will be combined with the government’s vessel monitoring system and vessel trip reports, along with seafood dealer reports, Coast Guard registry records, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s ship-board observer program.

Read the full release here

NOAA: Lobsters will look for cooler water

July 24, 2020 — Cape Cod is known for its lobsters as much as for its oysters and quahogs. But it’s getting too warm in these waters for the tasty crustacean.

Researchers have projected significant changes in the habitat of commercially important American lobster and sea scallops on the Northeast U.S. continental shelf. They used a suite of models to estimate how species will react as waters warm, and it suggests that American lobster will move further offshore and sea scallops will shift to the north in the coming decades, a recent statement from NOAA Fisheries warned.

Findings from the study were published recently in Diversity and Distributions. They pose fishery management challenges as the changes can move stocks into and out of fixed management areas. Habitats within current management areas will also experience changes — some will show species increases, others decreases, and still others no change.

“Changes in stock distribution affect where fish and shellfish can be caught and who has access to them over time,” said Vincent Saba, a fishery biologist in the Ecosystems Dynamics and Assessment Branch at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and a co-author of the study.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Massachusetts Lawmakers Pen Letter to NOAA Over Observer Waivers

July 24, 2020 — The following is an excerpt from a letter addressed to NOAA Administrators from Massachusetts Legislators. Lawmakers in Massachusetts have requested the extending of At-Sea Monitoring Waivers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dear Under Secretary Jacobs, Mr. Oliver, Mr. Pentony, and Dr. Hare:

Thank you for extending the waiver for the requirement of At-Sea Monitoring (ASM) in the Northeast groundfishery through July 31, 2020. This action was critical to protecting the health and safety of the men and women in the Massachusetts commercial fishing industry,

While COVID-19 trends in the Northeast have been generally positive, many coastal areas continue to see cases rising, including Suffolk, Bristol, and Barnstable counties here in Massachusetts, all of Rhode Island, and Virginia Beach County, Virginia. As Senator Tarr’s June 30, 2020 letter to you, the commercial fishing industry remains among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 due to the inherent conditions of their working environment at sea. Furthermore, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have warned that this fall and winter will likely see a secondary outbreak of COVID-19.

Read the full letter here

MASSACHUSETTS: Two Cape Lawmakers Call For Vineyard Wind Proposal Approval

July 23, 2020 — State legislators teamed up earlier this month to advocate for the Vineyard Wind project and the broader implementation of offshore wind technology.

In a letter, the lawmakers called upon the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to approve the Vineyard Wind 1 proposal and move forward in the permitting process.

Falmouth State Representative Dylan Fernandes and Cape and Islands State Senator Julian Cyr led the efforts.

“Massachusetts has no fossil fuels and survivors of our winters know that the sun is not our strongest resource,” said Fernandes.

“We do have wind, and a lot of it, and to transition to a clean energy future and energy independence we must move forward with deep-water offshore wind, the future of our planet is at stake and it’s beyond time to move this project forward.”

“Offshore wind projects present a cutting-edge opportunity for both economic growth in our region and long-term sustainability in our energy production,” said Cyr.

“Representative Fernandes and I would like to thank the large, bipartisan coalition of legislators who lent us their support in urging the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to approve the first utility-scale wind farm in our nation with the urgency that it deserves.”

Read the full story at CapeCod.com