Saving Seafood

ASMFC Atlantic Herring Days Out Call Scheduled for November 13, 2018 at 10:30 AM

November 9, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Fisheries Management Council:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Herring Management Board members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts set effort control measures for the Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) fishery via Days Out meetings/calls.

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

• Tuesday, November 13th at 10:30 AM

To join the call, please dial 888.585.9008 and enter conference room number 502-884-672 as prompted.

Please contact Megan Ware, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at mware@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740 for more information.

Fisheries Researchers Map Habitats Ahead of Offshore Wind Development

November 9, 2018 — HYANNIS, Mass. – NOAA Fisheries researchers are helping to inform federal managers and developers on the impacts that construction and operation of offshore wind facilities will have on ocean bottom habitats and fisheries.

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center conducted four years of research to build a database of information, including water temperatures, topography, sediments, currents and marine life in the eight Wind Energy Areas authorized by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management along the East Coast.

The designated WEAs encompass just over 4,000 square nautical miles of seafloor from Massachusetts to North Carolina. About 40 percent of the area has actually been leased to date, including the Vineyard Wind project development south of Martha’s Vineyard.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Declining species’ future tops agenda at whale of a meeting

November 9, 2018 — A group of scientists, conservationists and others is meeting in Massachusetts to brainstorm strategies to save one of the rarest marine mammals on the planet.

It’s the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium’s annual meeting, and it’s wrapping up on Thursday at the Whaling Museum in New Bedford. The right whales number only about 440 and have suffered from high mortality and poor reproduction in recent years.

The meeting began on Wednesday. The agenda includes sessions about everything from the summertime occurrence of the whales in the Bay of Fundy to changes in the abundance of the tiny organisms they need to eat to survive.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Tribune

New estimate lowers number of right whales

November 9, 2018 — A gut feeling among North Atlantic right whale experts that the population of the beleaguered animals has dropped to around 400 has been reinforced with a new statistical estimate of 411 animals as of the end of 2017.

“The public shouldn’t think there are exactly 411 whales,” Center for Coastal Studies right whale researcher Charles “Stormy” Mayo said Thursday at the end of the two-day North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium annual meeting in New Bedford. “We believe that they are in the low 400s, or around 400.”

The consortium’s annual report card for the end of 2016 had set the population number at 451, using a statistical model unveiled last year.

The loss of about 40 right whales, under the statistical model, between the end of 2016 and the end of 2017 would include the 12 documented deaths in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada and the five off the Cape and Islands linked in large part to human causes of entanglement in fishing rope and being struck by ships.

“Everyone in the field – conservationists, the public, scientists – continue to be saddened by the decline,” Mayo said. “There’s no question there’s a decline. There’s no question we need to solve the mortality issue.”

The maximum number of human-caused deaths should be no more than one a year to sustain the critically endangered population along the U.S. and Canadian coast, according to a federal stock assessment in September.

U.S. and Canadian government agencies and nonprofit organizations are working to identify the best ways to respond, with new technology to eliminate vertical ropes in the water, for example.

Read the full story at The Inquirer and Mirror

American Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment Workshop Scheduled for January 28-31, in New Bedford, MA

November 8, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will hold the American Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment Workshop at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, 836 South Rodney French Boulevard, New Bedford, MA. The stock assessment, which is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2020, will evaluate the health of the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank and Southern New England stocks and inform management of this species.  The Commission’s stock assessment process and meetings are open to the public, with the exception of discussions of confidential data*, when the public will be asked to leave the room.  

The Commission welcomes the submission of alternate assessment models. For alternate models to be considered, the model description, model input, final model estimates, and complete source code must be provided to Jeff Kipp, Senior Stock Assessment Scientist, at jkipp@asmfc.org by December 28, 2018. Any models submitted without complete, editable source code and input files will not be considered.

For more information about the assessment or attending the upcoming workshop (space will be limited), please contact Megan Ware, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at mware@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

* Each state and federal agency is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of its data and deciding who has access to its confidential data.  In the case of our stock assessments and peer reviews, all analysts and, if necessary, reviewers, have been granted permission by the appropriate agency to use and view confidential data. When the assessment team needs to show and discuss these data, observers to our stock assessment process are asked to leave the room to preserve confidentiality.

 

Ocean Shock: Fish Flee for Cooler Waters, Upending Lives in US South

November 7, 2018 — This is part of “Ocean Shock,” a Reuters series exploring climate change’s impact on sea creatures and the people who depend on them.

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” drifts from Karroll Tillett’s workshop, a wooden shed about half a mile from where he was born.

Tillett, known as “Frog” to everyone here, has lived most of his 75 years on the water, much of it chasing summer flounder. But the chasing got harder and harder, and now he spends his time making nets for other fishermen at his workshop, at the end of a dirt path next to his ex-wife’s house.

The house is on CB Daniels Sr. Road, one of several named after two of the fishing clans that have held sway for decades in this small coastal town. Besides CB Daniels Sr. Road, there’s ER Daniels Road and just plain Daniels Road. In Frog’s family, there’s Tink Tillett Road and Rondal Tillett Road.

Once upon a time, these fishing families were pioneers. In the 1970s and 1980s, they built summer flounder into a major catch for the region. The 15 brothers and sisters of the Daniels clan parlayed the business into a multinational fishing company, and three years ago they sold it to a Canadian outfit for tens of millions of dollars.

But for Frog Tillett and almost everyone else in these parts, there’s not much money to be made fishing offshore here anymore.

Forty years ago, Tillett fished for summer flounder in December and January in waters near Wanchese, then followed the fish north as the weather warmed. In recent years, however, fewer summer flounder have traveled as far south in the winter, and the most productive area has shifted north, closer to Martha’s Vineyard and the southern shore of Long Island.

Reuters has spent more than a year scouring decades of maritime temperature readings, fishery records and other little-used data to create a portrait of the planet’s hidden climate disruption — in the rarely explored depths of the seas that cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface. The reporting has come to a disturbing conclusion: Marine life is facing an epic dislocation.

Read the full story from Reuters at Voice of America

Trial date set in case of clam espionage

November 7, 2018 — The federal trial between Gloucester-based National Fish and Seafood and the Florida-based seafood processing competitor it accuses of corporate espionage now is not expected to commence until at least midway through 2019.

U.S. District Court Judge Leo T. Sorokin on Monday set next July 22 as the opening trial date in the lawsuit between National Fish and competitor Tampa Bay Fisheries of Dover, Florida.

In the lawsuit, initially filed last July, National Fish accuses Tampa Bay Fisheries of hiring away Kathleen A. Scanlon, a 23-year employee at National Fish, and using her to help steal recipes, client information and other trade secrets on her way out the door from the Gloucester company.

The order by Sorokin, who sits in the U.S. District Court in Boston, also established the discovery schedule for the trial and set a status conference with attorneys from both sides for the afternoon of April 17.

If Sorokin’s trial date holds, the trial will begin almost exactly one year since the the intellectual property battle between the two seafood processing competitors burst into the public consciousness.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Massachusetts governor urges authorities to reconsider future wind farm locations

November 7, 2018 — Charlie Baker, governor of Massachusetts, US, has urged the federal government to avoid high-priority fishing areas when assigning leases for future wind farms, according to an article originally reported in the New Bedford Standard-Times and sent to Undercurrent News by NGO Saving Seafood.

According to the article, governor Baker wrote to Ryan Zinke, secretary of the interior on Nov. 1, requesting that areas such as the New York Bight, south of Long Island, be exempted from future wind farm leases on the grounds that development could disrupt a multi-million dollar fishery.

“Some of the areas under consideration for leasing represent very productive and high-value grounds for fishermen from Massachusetts and other states,” Baker wrote in the letter.

The areas being evaluated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for a future wind farm are believed to have generated $344 million for the region’s fishing sector from 2012 to 2016, according to statistics from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

According to the article, fishermen and officials from New Bedford, MA, met with BOEM in September, when they expressed their concerns at the new developments. According to one, 40-50% of the scalloping grounds fished by local scallopers would be within the proposed developmental areas.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MASSACHUSETTS: Story of shoreside New Bedford business finally told locally and in Library of Congress

November 7, 2018 — No place on earth understands the fishing industry like New Bedford. So it’s no surprise the Library of Congress is using the voice of the city to share the history of fishing and its importance in the United States.

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center used a fellowship from the Library of Congress to relay specifically the stories of shoreside businesses through the voices and images of those in the industry.

The final product sits on display in the museum. It first opened on Oct. 11. Faces of the fishing industry hang on the walls. An iPad provides a genuine interactive experience where visitors can hear the voices of those whose pictures fill the exhibit. Users can select which individual they want to hear.

The exhibit ends Feb. 4 but will live forever in the Library of Congress as part of its permanent collection.

“They were really excited,” New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center Executive Director Laura Orleans said. “They were really pleased with what we sent to them. I think they’re very excited we already have an exhibit up.”

The exhibit on display consists of 58 interviews conducted over a year and completed last July. Phil Melo, a manager a Bergie’s Seafood, snapped photos for the portraits for the exhibit while also participating as one of the interviewees.

“It’s just not the fishermen. I know people drive through the city. They just see the boats and that’s all they think about,” Melo said. “They don’t realize how many tractor trailers come through the city with fuel for the fishing industry. The groceries that are delivered to the boats, the bookkeeping that’s done. The welding shops. There’s a ton.”

The exhibit features occupations across the waterfront from processors to electric engineers to welders to benefit providers.

In capturing the faces of the interviewees, Melo also tried to capture a portrait that provided a look not only at the industry but the personalities behind it.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Young’s win in Alaska caps long US election night for seafood industry

November 7, 2018 — It wasn’t expected to be so close.

Until roughly a month ago, most pundits expected Alaska Republican Don Young — the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, a colorful, 85-year-old personality who has an office decorated with wild game trophies, has been known to wield a walrus penis bone in order to make a point, and is also one of the commercial seafood industry’s biggest champions — to handily defeat his Democratic opponent and retain his seat, as usual, on Nov. 6.

Then, a few days before the election, it wasn’t such a given, as polls showed Young’s 53-year-old Democratic challenger, Alyse Galvin, winning by a percentage point.

In the end, Young kept his job, apparently winning a 45th term with roughly 54% of the vote, though more votes remain to be counted.

“We got more votes this time than we got before, and everybody had me down,” he reportedly told the Associated Press in the early morning hours, after Galvin gave her concession speech.

“I feel real good about our campaign, and we were able to prove that Alaskans appreciate what I’ve been able to do. I’m going to have a good two years ahead of us,” he added.

Follow the examples set by Frank and Kennedy

Young wasn’t the only congressional race of consequence to the commercial fishing industry in the 2018 election.

Representative Bill Keating, the Massachusetts Democrat whose 9th district includes New Bedford, home of the US’ most valuable commercial fishing port, is the projected winner over GOP challenger Peter Tedeschi, having secured 61.3% of the vote with 43% of the precincts reporting.

Keating, who outraised Tedeschi by about $1.2 million to $800,000 in his campaign, is one of the Democrats that Bob Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, hopes will continue to represent commercial seafood harvesters in the new Congress.

“Many of our coastal communities are represented by Democrats and they have been in the minority,” said Vanasse, whose group represents pro-commercial fishing interests. “We are hopeful that they will follow the examples of such members of Congress as Barney Frank and Ted Kennedy who demonstrated unequivocally that one can be a strong Democrat and a strong liberal and also stand up for the working families in their fishing communities.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News