Saving Seafood

Matching grants open for sustainable groundfish projects

April 17, 2018 — The New England groundish fishery is one of the priority targets of a new grants program by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation to promote innovation in sustainable fisheries. through “effective participation by fishermen and fishing communities.”

The Fisheries Innovation Fund program, funded by NOAA and three private foundations, is set to award up to $950,000 nationally. Most of the grants are anticipated to fall within the range of $50,000 to $100,000.

The program, however, noted that priority for funding will be given to projects in one of four local fisheries — New England groundfish, West Coast groundfish, Gulf of Mexico reef fish and Gulf of Alaska halibut and groundfish.

The grants will require 100 percent matching funds from recipients. The NFWF said in its announcement that eligible recipients include non-profits, state government agencies, municipal governments, educational institutions and individual businesses.

To date, according to NFWF spokesman Rob Blumenthal, the Fisheries Innovation Fund “has awarded grants totaling over $20.3 million to 127 projects across 26 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

Those awards generated more than $22.5 million in matching funds from recipients “for a total conservation impact of $42.8 million.”

The three foundations joining NOAA in providing the overall funding include two with strong ties to environmental and conservation groups — the Kingfisher Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation — as well as the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation of Palo Alto, California, started by the founder of Intel.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Right whale researchers attempt to disentangle ‘Kleenex’

April 17, 2018 — PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — A prolific North Atlantic right whale mother named Kleenex may eventually be freed from fishing line wrapped around her jaw for the past several years after a rescue effort Thursday on Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

“This is exactly the individual we are desperate to help,” said Scott Landry, who leads the center’s efforts to free marine animals from fishing gear.

The adult female, well-known to researchers, had been carrying rope wrapped around her upper jaw for at least three years, according to documented sightings. Because there was no trailing line on the rope, the usual technique of slowing the whale and keeping it at the surface by attaching buoys to the entanglement couldn’t be used, Landry said. Instead, the rescuers used a cutting arrow fired from the deck of the rescue boat to damage the rope on the animal, he said. The weakened rope should deteriorate and be shed by the whale over time, Landry said.

The entanglement of female right whales in fishing gear has been linked to energy depletion and inability of the females to sustain a pregnancy and a year of nursing a calf.

The critically endangered right whales need robust calving to help stop a decline in population that has has been detected since 2010, according to researchers.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Fishing council to hear sectors’ post-Rafael plans

April 16, 2018 — The New England Fishery Management Council will be updated on the groundfish crisis involving several New Bedford-based fishing sectors when it convenes for three days of meetings next week in Mystic, Connecticut.

The groundfish presentation by staff from the Gloucester-based Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office will be the centerpiece of the groundfish report on Wednesday and is designed to provide “an overview of (Northeast Fishing) Sector IX’s steps to address its shortcomings, as well as a summary of Sector IX’s operations plan,” according to the agenda for the meetings.

“The New Bedford sector has submitted its operations plan to GARFO and this will be an overview of what they’ve done to address the problems and what they need to do to have a new plan approved,” said council spokeswoman Janice Plante.

Plante said the presentation will not include comment from officials with the New Bedford fishing sectors.

NOAA Fisheries shut down Sector IX last November, withdrawing its operation plan for the remainder of the 2017 fishing season and into the 2018 season set to begin May 1.

The extraordinary move came in the wake of the conviction and sentencing of New Bedford fishing kingpin Carlos Rafael on charges of tax evasion, money laundering and bulk smuggling.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

New York: How fishermen could thwart Cuomo’s offshore wind master plan

April 16, 2018 — Earlier this month, hundreds of developers, many from the well-developed wind energy industry in Europe, attended the United States’ largest technical wind power conference, which was held in Princeton, New Jersey. Dozens of public officials, including Zinke, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and NYSERDA President and CEO Alicia Barton, expounded on how to best seize the offshore opportunities.

Under Cuomo, New York has played a leading role in selecting the offshore areas for wind development, overseeing 20 research studies, working closely with BOEM and conducting “unprecedented outreach” to stakeholders, Doreen Harris, NYSERDA’s director of large-scale renewables, told City & State. “Obviously, this becomes a federal process at this point,” Harris said. “But we believe New York’s work provides the solid foundation for areas that are the most favorable.”

Indeed, after NYSERDA requested that BOEM open vast tracts of seafloor for leasing, Zinke told attendees at the April wind power conference that BOEM was opening an additional 2,711 square miles for potential wind farm development, more than 20 times larger than the Empire Wind lease area in the New York Bight, a broad expanse of ocean south of Long Island and east of New Jersey. It seemed to be everything NYSERDA asked for and more. The decision opens the possibility of rows and rows of wind turbines the height of skyscrapers plotted out in an area twice the size of Long Island.

There’s just one scallop-sized problem standing in the way.

The combined 2,836 square miles where BOEM is either leasing or seeking information and nominations for commercial wind leases is worth hundreds of millions – if not billions – of dollars in revenue to the scallop industry over the life of a 25-year wind lease, the scallopers’ lawyers say. The impact on the scallop fisheries would be far worse than they first feared, if those areas are developed.

“It puts an exclamation mark on all our concerns,” said David Frulla, the lead lawyer on the scallopers’ lawsuit. “We’re not trying to stop offshore wind. It is just that this is right at the heart of where the fishing is.”

The Fisheries Survival Fund, an advocacy group that represents the scallopers’ interests in their lawsuit against BOEM, is arguing that the federal offshore wind leasing procedure gave away some of the most productive scallop beds in the world and failed to evaluate alternative options appropriately.

In particular, they are rebelling against the Empire Wind project. The envisioned 194 towers whirling above the waves would make it impossible to safely fish there, they say.

Read the full story at City & State New York   

 

Woods Hole group granted $35M to explore ocean’s twilight zone

April 13, 2018 — One of Earth’s “hidden frontiers,” where the only light comes from flashes of bioluminescence and the creatures that call it home are largely unknown. It is … the ocean’s twilight zone.

That vast unexplored realm is the focus of a multi-year project announced Wednesday by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, which has been awarded $35 million to plumb the depths in hopes of learning more about the organisms that live there and how the region affects the planet’s climate.

The ocean’s twilight zone extends around the world from about 200 to 1,000 meters below the ocean’s surface, WHOI said, and is also known as the “mid-water region” of the ocean.

With the $35 million gift from the Audacious Project, WHOI plans to use “next-generation robotic vehicles and sensors” to study what lives in the twilight zone, how the organisms interact with each other and the surface waters, how to design tools to further explore the depths and how the zone controls the rate at which the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Fishing industry proposes ‘reset’ for offshore wind energy

April 13, 2018 — With Massachusetts moving faster toward offshore wind energy, a national coalition of commercial fishing groups this week urged state officials to limit a first project to no more than 400 megawatts, and set up a new system for the seafood and offshore wind industries to jointly plan a way forward.

“We are pragmatic and we understand that we do not ‘own’ the ocean where these wind farms are being sited,” the National Coalition for Fishing Communities wrote in an April 9 letter to Massachusetts Gov. Charles D. Baker Jr.

“But we do not believe that a renewable resource like wind energy should be allowed to displace another renewable resource like wild fisheries. To guard against that outcome, a measured, restrained approach to the initial project size is best,” the letter stated. “It is irresponsible to allow construction of sizable wind farms without a deep understanding of their impacts.”

This month Massachusetts officials are looking to select an offshore wind development proposal to fit their plans for adding more renewable energy sources to the state’s power mix. The ill-fated Cape Wind plan to build turbines in Nantucket Sound was defeated by strenuous local opposition to siting in nearshore waters, and now proposals are over the horizon on federal offshore leases.

Read the full story at the National Fisherman

 

Jon Mitchell: Wind Developers Must Take Fishermen Seriously

April 12, 2018 — Earlier this week, fishing industry officials sent a letter to Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker asking for a larger role in the decision making when it comes to granting the state’s first offshore wind contract.

The letter particularly asked for the New Bedford Port Authority to act as the mediator between commercial fishing and wind energy, and in his weekly appearance on WBSM, Mayor Jon Mitchell said that request makes “all the sense in the world.”

“The place where these two industries intersect more than anywhere else will be New Bedford,” he said, noting he agrees that the fishermen haven’t been given enough of a voice. “That’s why we’re prepared to do something about it.”

Mitchell, who as mayor is also chair of the Port Authority, says the fishermen have valid concerns that he feels may have fallen on deaf ears.

“It has to do with safe navigation through wind farms, and with the siting of new wind farms that might intrude on traditional fishing grounds,” he said. “Wind developers have to do a better job of taking fishermen seriously, and we’re going to work on that. We’re going to make sure that they are taken more seriously.”

Read the full story at WBSM

Can anyone save the North Atlantic right whale?

April 12, 2018 — By the time Mike Lane shoves off the Cohasset docks, it’s past 8 a.m. — practically lunch time for a lobsterman. But it’s early spring, and the South Shore fisheries are mostly closed, so Lane is keeping a somewhat relaxed schedule. Lobsters tend to hole up for the season several miles farther offshore, and Lane would like to be there, fishing his 800 traps. That area also happens to be a feeding area for North Atlantic right whales — one of our planet’s most endangered species. And so, four years ago, the federal government closed these grounds for much of the winter and spring. That means all Lane can do right now is set a few traps in a small area just outside Cohasset Harbor.

Lane knows he won’t catch much there. But he has two small kids and says he can’t afford not to go. He bundles up a couple of times a week and makes the trip, often returning with just a handful of lobsters.

As he motors out on this raw morning, Lane maintains a casual grip on the boat’s wheel, his hands chapped and bare. Standing next to him is Amy Knowlton, a senior scientist at the New England Aquarium. Together, the scientist and lobsterman have been working to study the impact of fishing gear on endangered whales. Their talk is sparse and familiar — about Lane’s mom, who has Alzheimer’s, and whether his dad, a lobsterman who taught his son the ropes, will be able to get out and fish his own traps this year. Their conversation soon turns to whales. “Virginia,” says Lane. He shakes his head. “Another one.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

Feds allowing fishermen to catch more skates

April 12, 2018 — Federal fishing regulators are allowing fishermen to harvest more skates, which are caught on both coasts for use as food and bait.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it’s increasing the per-trip possession limit for skate wing from 500 pounds to 4,100 pounds until April 30. The change went into effect on April 9.

 Skate wing is sold in fish markets and restaurants, where it is sometimes a more affordable alternative to other types of seafood. Fishermen catch tens of thousands of pounds of skates per year, with the biggest number coming to land in states such as Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Alaska.

Some states, including barndoor, thorny and smooth skates, are prohibited from commercial harvesting because of concerns about population status.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times