Saving Seafood

Sound barrier to chase seals, prevent shark attacks debated

May 29, 2019 — A Cape Cod company has proposed building a sonic barrier around the region’s beaches to chase away seals and prevent shark attacks.

Deep Blue LLC presented its idea Wednesday at a public meeting in Barnstable. It sparked a broader debate about addressing the region’s massive seal population.

The company envisions a system of underwater audio devices that will emit a sound unpleasant to seals.

Owners Willy Planinshek and Kevin McCarthy say that if the seals leave the area, the great white sharks that eat them will follow.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Link To Stress, Health Of Whales Might Be In Giant Mouths

May 29, 2019 — Whale researchers in New England believe they’ve found a new way to measure the amount of stress felt by whales when they experience traumas such as entanglements in fishing gear, and they say the technique could help protect the massive sea creatures from extinction.

The scientists, with the New England Aquarium in Boston, said the method involves measuring stress hormones by studying baleen, the bristly filter-feeding system in the mouths of the biggest whales on the planet. The baleen serves as a record that shows a spike in stress hormones when whales encounter threats such as a changing climate, ship strikes and entanglements, lead author Rosalind Rolland said.

Scientists can use the data to read the stress levels a whale experiences over the course of many years, somewhat similar to reading the rings on a tree. The data is important because whales experiencing more chronic stress are less likely to reproduce, and they can become more susceptible to disease — a bad combination for populations that are perilously low.

“A whale responding to any type of stressor could be interacting with a ship. It could be fishing gear. It could be environmental changes that stress the whale out,” Rolland said in a telephone interview. “This shows the stress hormones are related to what was going on with the whale.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WBUR

Film Details Impact Of The Loss Of The ‘Sacred Cod’

May 29, 2019 — In the early 17th century, English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold gave Cape Cod its name due to the abundant cod fish he saw in its waters.

Throughout history, the cod has played a crucial role in feeding various peoples, from explorers on ships such as the Vikings, to Basques, to Europeans, to early settlers of the Cape. They all lived on cod, whether it was fresh, salted or frozen. Author Mark Kurlansky, in his 1998 book “Cod,” dubs the cod “the fish that changed the world.”

Yet now this essential fish is endangered, as detailed in the film “Sacred Cod: The Fight for the Future of America’s Oldest Fishery.” The culprits? Climate change, government policies and overfishing.

“Overfishing was just part of the problem with cod,” David Abel, a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter for the Boston Globe, said in an email interview. Abel reported, wrote, directed and co-produced the film, which will be screened at the Chatham Orpheum Theater on Saturday, June 1 at 10 a.m. as part of its Sustainability Series. “Climate change also has played a significant role in making it much harder for a species that had been overfished for generations to bounce back. Cod can only thrive in a narrow band of temperatures.”

As well as Abel, the 2016 independent film is the work of Steve Liss, for 25 years a photographer for Time magazine, and Andy Laub, founder of As It Happens Creative. The 65-minute film has won five awards and was broadcast around the world in 2017.

In a nutshell, the story is this. The cod fishery has collapsed in New England, specifically in the Gulf of Maine, which is warming at an alarming rate due to climate change. In November 2014, when the government learned that the population of cod was only 3 or 4 percent of what is needed to sustain a healthy population, cod fishing was banned in the region. This led to an outcry from fishermen whose livelihoods were threatened.

Read the full story at The Cape Cod Chronicle

MASSACHUSETTS: Seals on a comeback, attracting sharks

May 28, 2019 — Seals have rebounded to healthy numbers along Massachusetts’ shores after being nearly decimated by early settlers and a bounty that later wiped out tens of thousands of them, according to experts — and that is what is attracting sharks.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates there are at least 27,000 gray seals and 75,000 harbor seals in U.S. waters during their breeding seasons.

“What we’re witnessing is a comeback to a really healthy marine environment,” said Kimberly Murray, seal program lead at NOAA Fisheries in Woods Hole.

The numbers are a stark contrast to the 1700s, when gray seals had been nearly wiped out during the first 100 years of New England settlement, said Tony LaCasse, a spokesman for the New England Aquarium in Boston.

By the late 1800s, the seals had rebounded, but conflicts with commercial fisheries and a desire for the seals’ meat and pelts led to a bounty on both gray and harbor seals from 1888 to 1962 in Massachusetts and Maine. During those years, as many as 135,000 seals were killed, Murray said.

“Seals were perceived as competitors to fisherman,” LaCasse said. “Fishermen would carry shotguns in their boats and shoot them on sight.”

Read the full story at the Boston Herald

Electric companies seek proposals for round of wind energy

May 28, 2019 — The three electric distribution companies in Massachusetts have together issued a request for a second round of offshore wind energy, as the winner of the first round — Vineyard Wind — looks to start its project later this year.

Eversource, National Grid and Unitil issued the request for proposals May 23. Initial, confidential responses from offshore wind developers are expected by Aug. 9. The utility companies are seeking contracts running from 15 to 20 years for at least 400 megawatts of offshore wind energy. Proposals from 200 megawatts up to 800 megawatts may be submitted.

Among the restrictions, the offshore wind developer must provide electricity from an offshore wind energy project located on the outer continental shelf and where no turbine is located within 10 miles of a inhabited area. Additionally, the wind farm must operate in a designated wind energy area where the developer received an initial federal lease on a competitive basis after Jan. 1, 2012.

All four offshore wind development companies that have leases for federal land south of the Islands — Vineyard Wind, Bay State Wind, Mayflower Wind Energy,and Equinor Wind US — had weighed in on preparations for the second round of bidding.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Fishermen face another quota cut, could hit lobster prices

May 28, 2019 — Fishermen already dealing with a dramatic reduction in the amount of a key bait fish they are allowed to harvest will likely face an additional cut next year that could drive up the price of lobster for consumers.

Regulators on the East Coast are contending with a drop in the population of herring, a key forage fish species that has been used as lobster bait for generations. Cuts in catch quota this year will mean the total haul for 2019 will be less than a fifth of the 2014 harvest, which was more than 200 million pounds (90 million kilograms).

A fishery management board is due to make a decision about the 2020 catch limits in early June. The options include maintaining this year’s levels or reducing them further, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said in public documents.

The agency wants to avoid overfishing at a time when a scientific assessment has shown a below-average number of young herring are joining the population. Scientists have said it’s not clear why that’s the case, but two possibilities they’ve cited are climate change and an abundance of predators.

The lobster industry has enjoyed large hauls in recent years, but it’s dependent on bait to load traps. A spike in the price of bait could ultimately be felt by consumers in restaurants and fish markets.

For lobster fishermen, another cut to the quota will mean finding new sources of bait, said Beth Casoni, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association. It’s possible there won’t be enough to go around, and prices are sure to be high.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the San Francisco Chronicle

National Fish & Seafood revived under new ownership, new name

May 24, 2019 — The assets of Gloucester, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based National Fish & Seafood (NFS) have been purchased by NSD Seafood, which said in a 22 May announcement it planned to restart production of NFS’ Matlaw’s stuffed clam line and other products.

NFS abruptly closed its doors on 10 May. SeafoodSource first broke the story on 20 May that an unnamed buyer wanted to acquire NFS and resume the company’s operations. On 22 May, NSD Seafood agreed to purchase all of National Fish’s assets and rename the company Atlantic Fish & Seafood, according to the Gloucester Daily Times. The operations team is hoping to begin production within a week at NFS’s former 60,000-square-feet facility in Gloucester.

Nicholas M. Osgood, a principal in NSD Seafood, along with two other partners from the NSDJ Real Estate company that owns NFS’s 159 E. Main St. facility, acquired NFS’s assets, according to the Gloucester Daily Times.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Vineyard Wind seeks help in protecting right whales

May 23, 2019 — The company preparing to build an 84-turbine wind farm off Martha’s Vineyard has put out a call  to universities, technology companies and other innovators that could help implement a system to detect the presence of endangered North Atlantic right whales during construction.

Vineyard Wind said it is seeking a firm or institution that can “provide and operationalize enhanced acoustic monitoring systems that will detect the presence of Right Whales, and transmit information in real-time to project staff so that enhanced protections can be effectively implemented.”

Protection would include vessel speed restrictions, Vineyard Wind said.

Utility companies and the state tapped Vineyard Wind to construct an 800-megawatt wind farm 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and 34 miles from the mainland to fulfill the first half of a 1,600-megawatt procurement called for in a 2016 clean energy law.

The company has already entered an agreement with a number of organizations to protect the whales.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘Lobster War’ hitting Whaling Museum theater

May 22, 2019 — The New Bedford Whaling Museum, in partnership with the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center, is screening a documentary with claws.

“Lobster War” is an award-winning feature-length documentary film about a conflict between the United States and Canada over waters that both countries have claimed since the end of the Revolutionary War.

The disputed 277 square miles of sea known as the Gray Zone were traditionally fished by U.S. lobstermen.

But as the Gulf of Maine has warmed faster than nearly any other body of water on the planet, the area’s previously modest lobster population has surged. As a result, Canadians have begun to assert their sovereignty, warring with the Americans to claim the bounty.

“Lobster War – The Fight Over the World’s Richest Fishing Grounds” is directed by David Abel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at The Boston Globe, and Andy Laub, an award-winning documentarian, producers of the acclaimed Discovery channel documentary “Sacred Cod.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Few herring, no eels coming to spawn

May 21, 2019 — It appears, at least for the time being, that Cape Ann largely has fallen off the list of favorite places to visit for river herring and American eels.

And no one really seems to know the reason why the river herring have been so sparse at the West Gloucester alewife fishway and American eels have been absent from the eel trap set up at Millbrook Pond in Rockport.

“Officially, I’d say we’ve spotted fewer than 10 in our fish counts of river herring making their way up to the Lily Pond,” said Eric W. Hutchins, a fisheries biologist for NOAA Fisheries and the Gulf of Maine restoration coordinator. “Without a doubt, it’s significantly down this year and there isn’t much time left.”

The city, in cooperation with NOAA Fisheries, organizes volunteer fish counters at the alewife fishway to document the number of river herring making their way out of the Little River, up the fishway and into the Lily Pond to spawn. Three to six weeks later, they head back to the ocean.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times