Saving Seafood

Crew member overboard on New Bedford-based fishing vessel Miss Shauna

July 5, 2017 — The search for a man overboard on the New Bedford-based fishing vessel Miss Shauna continued for a second day Tuesday off Long Island, the Coast Guard said through spokesman Petty Officer Steve Strohmeier.

As of 9 p.m. Tuesday four Coast Guard units continued to search the Atlantic, with the help of some nearby fishing boats, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

The unidentified 55-year-old man went overboard Monday afternoon when the boat was about 25 miles south of Montauk, New York. The crew member was last seen at 4 p.m., and according to the Coast Guard he was not wearing a life jacket. He was reported missing a half-hour later, The East Hampton Star reported.

The crew member did not report for watch, could not be found on the Miss Shauna, and was presumed overboard, the star reported.

The search was being coordinated from the sea and air and Coast Guard vessels, private fishing boats and Coast Guard aircraft taking part.

The Miss Shauna is a 51-foot vessel owned by Miss Shauna LLC, with an address on Cape Street in New Bedford’s waterfront, with Paul Weckesser listed as manager.

No one answered the phone at Weckesser’s office or Acushnet home on Tuesday afternoon.

The Coast Guard deployed a number of assets in the search for the crewmember. They include a 470-foot motor lifeboat from station Montauk; a second one from Station Shinnecock; an MH-60 Jayhawk Helicopter from Air Station Cape Cod; an HC-144 Ocean Sentry plan from Air Station Cape Cod; an HC Hercules plane from Air Station Elizabeth City; the Coast Guard Cutter Shrike; and the Coast Guard Cutter Juniper.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

A growing concern over great white sharks in Cape Cod

June 29, 2017 — An influx of great white shark sightings has residents and tourists worried about potential encounters in the water, especially during the heart of summer.

Senior Fisheries Biologist Dr. Greg Skomal told ABC News the increase in the great white shark population off the Massachusetts coastline is correlated to the gray seal population and that numbers are expected to rise even further.

“We’ve been studying sharks off the coast of Massachusetts for 30 years and our work with white sharks off Cape Cod is relatively recent,” Dr. Skomal said on “Good Morning America.” “The numbers we’re seeing on a relative scale are increasing, in 2014 we counted 80 individuals over the course of the summer and just last summer that went up to about 147. So there is a general increasing trend as more and more sharks recruit to the area.”

This season at least six great white shark sightings have already been reported, including a recent sighting off Wellfleet on May 9.

The National Park Service for Cape Cod has issued alerts to heed advisories at beaches to help ensure safety “particularly regarding white sharks.”

Skomal believes the influx of sharks is a direct result of the growing seal population. “We think it’s highly correlated with the growing presence of gray seals in the area. Big white sharks like to feed on gray seals. Over the course of the last 45 years, the gray seal population is a conservation success story. It has rebounded after protection was put in place in 1972 and that rebounding population now has reached levels that could be an excess of 20 to 30,000 animals in the area and white sharks are drawn to those areas to feed on them.”

Read the full story at WJBF

MASSACHUSETTS: Shark Expert Named Guest Conductor for 32nd Annual Citizens Bank Pops by the Sea

June 28, 2017 — Dr. Greg Skomal with the state Division of Marine Fisheries will be the guest conductor of this year’s Citizens Bank Pops by the Seas concert.

The 32nd annual event will be held on August 13 on the Hyannis Village Green.

Skomal will join Keith Lockhart and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a show that celebrates the Cape and the music of film composer John Williams.

Coinciding with Williams’ 85th birthday, the concert will perform scores from “Harry Potter”, “Star Wars” and “Jaws”.

“We started thinking about how we could build upon this awesome music and the history and we were thinking about Cape Cod and then we were thinking about jaws, and sharks and Greg Skomal came to mind,” said Arts Foundation of Cape Cod Executive Director Julie Wake.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

NOAA Establishes Voluntary Speed Restriction Zone South of Nantucket

June 28, 2017 — A voluntary speed restriction zone about 15 miles south of Nantucket has been established by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries division.

It comes after three right whales were spotted in the area recently.

According to researchers, there are only about 400 North Atlantic right whales still in existence.

Those who approach a right whale closer than 500 yards will be in violation of federal and state law and could lead to criminal charges.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Atlantic Herring Area 1A Trimester 2 Effort Controls and Meeting Notice

June 28, 2017 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (Commission) Atlantic Herring Section members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts revised the effort control measures for the 2017 Area 1A Trimester 2 (June 1 – September 30) fishery as follows. The revised measures are underlined. Please note the time and passcode for the next Days Out Meeting on July 12th have changed. The meeting will begin at 1:30 PM and the new passcode is 222918.

Days Out of the Fishery

  • Vessels with a herring Category A permit that have declared into the Trimester 2 Area 1A fishery may land herring four (4) consecutive days a week. One landing per 24 hour period. Vessels are prohibited from landing or possessing herring caught from Area 1A during a day out of the fishery.
    • Landing days in New Hampshire and Massachusetts begin on Monday of each week at 12:01 a.m.
    • Landings days in Maine begin on Sunday of each week at 6:00 p.m.
  • Small mesh bottom trawl vessels with a herring Category C or D permit that have declared into the Trimester 2 fishery may land herring seven (7) consecutive days a week.

Weekly Landing Limit

  • Vessels with a herring Category A permit may harvest up to 600,000 lbs (15 trucks) per harvester vessel, per week.
  • 80,000 lbs out of the 600,000 lb weekly limit can be transferred to a carrier vessel (see below).

At-Sea Transfer and Carrier Restrictions (no changes were made)

The following applies to harvester vessels with a herring Category A permit and carrier vessels landing herring caught in Area 1A to a Maine, New Hampshire or Massachusetts port.

  • A harvester vessel cannot transfer herring at-sea to another catcher vessel.
  • A harvester vessel is limited to making at-sea transfers to only one carrier vessel per week.
  • Carrier vessels are limited to receiving at-sea transfers from one catcher vessel per week and can land once per 24 hour period. A carrier vessel may land up to 80,000 lbs
  • (2 trucks) per week.  The carrier limit of 2 trucks is not in addition to the harvester weekly landing limit. Carrier vessel: a vessel with no gear on board capable of catching or processing fish. Harvester vessel: a vessel that is required to report the catch it has aboard as the harvesting vessel on the Federal Vessel Trip Report.

The initial Area 1A sub-annual catch limit (ACL) is 31,115 metric tons (mt) after adjusting for a carryover from 2015 and the research set-aside. The Section allocated 72.8% of the sub-ACL to Trimester 2 and 27.2% to Trimester 3. After incorporating the 295 mt fixed gear set-aside and the 8% buffer (Area 1A closes at 92% of the sub-ACL) the seasonal quotas are 20,625 mt for Trimester 2 and 7,706 mt for Trimester 3.

These effort controls are projected to extend the Trimester 2 fishery through mid-September. Landings will be monitored closely and the fishery will be adjusted to zero landing days when the trimester’s quota is projected to be reached.

The Atlantic Herring Section members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts are scheduled to reconvene via conference call to review fishing effort the following days:

  • Wednesday, July 12 at 1:30 PM
  • Wednesday, July 26 at 10:00 AM
  • Wednesday, August 9 at 10:00 AM

To join the calls, please dial 888.394.8197 and enter passcode 222918 as prompted.

Fishermen are prohibited from landing more than 2,000 pounds of Atlantic herring per trip from Area 1A until June 4 or 5, 2017, depending on the state.  Please contact Ashton Harp, Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at aharp@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740 for more information.

NOAA study: Locally caught fish lands on plates locally

June 28, 2017 — It’s like Las Vegas, only colder: Groundfish landed in the Northeast generally stay in the Northeast.

NOAA Fisheries this week released a study tracing the ultimate destination of seafood landed in the Northeast that concluded that most of the groundfish landed in this region is consumed as food by consumers in the region.

According to the study, other species, such as scallops, are processed for wider domestic and international distribution, while some — such as monkfish — are sold in parts or whole in more limited markets.

The study said only a small percentage of the scallops landed in the region remain here. Most are sold to large industrial food companies and transported throughout the country or flash-frozen and transported to Europe or elsewhere.

Groundfish, it said, is one of the few fisheries that is primarily consumed regionally.

Using data from the New England Fishery Management Council and other stakeholders, the study traced the region’s boat-to-consumer supply chain, of which Gloucester plays a pivotal role along with New Bedford, Boston and Portland, Maine.

“This study is a first step in characterizing New England fisheries, including where fish are caught, what they are used for, and where they go once they are landed,” Patricia Pinto da Silva, a social policy specialist at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center and one of the study’s author, said in a statement accompanying the release. “We did not include aquaculture or the regional recreational harvest, which is something we would like to do in the future.”

The study showed the seafood species landed in the Northeast “vary widely in where they are sold and how they are used.”

Much of the groundfish landed within the region — including cod, haddock, pollock and several flounders — ends up sold as food fish to local restaurants, fishmongers and domestic supermarkets, the study stated.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Marine scientists use drifters to explore regional currents

June 27, 2017 — We know Clint Eastwood was the High Plains Drifter. And we’ve heard Bob Dylan’s tale of the Drifter’s Escape. But now the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole is employing drifters not on the plains but on the waves around Cape Cod and the Gulf of Maine.

“I’m excited about our latest drifter project,” proclaimed NMFS Oceanographer Jim Manning. “It’s one of many we’ve had and it seems like a real application for drifters. We’ve used them for a lot of fun educational purposes but our recent project in the Bay of Fundy has real purpose.”

They’ve been used with purpose in Cape Cod Bay as well. But, you might ask, what exactly is a drifter? It’s not a shiftless character begging at the kitchen door for scraps.

“It looks like an underwater kite, like a box kite,” Manning explained. “It’s a meter by a meter of cloth sails and they only thing that sticks out is a satellite transmitter. It provides us an estimate of the surface current.”

Its function is similar to that of a glass bottle with a note in it. You toss it in the ocean, it drifts somewhere, and you find out where it went.

With the old bottle you had to wait months or years until someone wrote back but a transmitter can tell you where it is today. It reveals where the surface currents are headed and can tell you where anything drifting along, like a cold-stunned sea turtle in Cape Cod Bay, or a swath of toxic algae in Maine, might wind up.

The current project Manning is excited about focuses on Alexandrium fundyense, the plankton that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning in anyone that eats a shellfish, usually a clam, that has filter fed on it. It’s the same algae that lives in the Nauset Marsh between Orleans and Eastham, and causes annual shutdowns of shellfishing harvests.

The plankton has a resting stage where it sits as cysts in the mud. When conditions are right and the water warms the cysts germinate, it swims up towards the surface and the currents carry it away. In Nauset Marsh it doesn’t go far and stays in the marsh but in the Bay of Fundy it’s carried down the coast.

“The main objective is to help numerical modelers try to simulate the ocean,” Manning said. “A couple of universities have big computer models. These models are used for a variety of things. We’ve deployed the drifters north of Grand Manan Island up in the Bay of Fundy to demonstrate how complicated the currents are. Every time we put one out it goes in a different direction.”

Read the full story at Wicked Local

MASSACHUSETTS: Omar the shark back in Chatham

June 27, 2017 — An 11-foot great white shark known to researchers as Omar has returned to Cape Cod just in time for the summer season, according to local shark watchers.

Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries scientist Gregory Skomal and his team of researchers tracked the tagged shark from their boat off the coast of Chatham early yesterday morning.

“It’s exciting,” Skomal said. “It’s like seeing somewhat of an old friend.”

As the Herald reported yesterday, 147 great white sharks were confirmed in Cape Cod waters last summer, and Skomal predicts at least that many will return this season. The sharks are largely drawn to the abundant grey seal population that lives off the Cape’s eastern seaboard.

Omar has a history in Cape waters. According to the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, biologist John Chisholm first identified the great white in 2015. Skomal tagged the animal when he returned last summer, allowing his team to detect when Omar swims near one of their research receivers.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald

MASSACHUSETTS: Chefs, city promote local catch

June 26, 2017 — The city is expanding its Gloucester Fresh seafood campaign with a membership program for local and regional restaurants that will supplement the direct pipeline of fresh, locally harvested species with ideas on how to prepare and promote them.

The Gloucester Fresh Restaurant Membership program will offer its members seasonal seafood promotions, as well as guidelines for seasonal seafood availability, a listing of under-utilized species for “creative and cost-effective recipes” and other benefits.

“By utilizing fresh and local seafood, you are not only providing delicious and healthy food to consumers, but also supporting your community,” said Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken. “We’re excited to launch this first-of-its-kind restaurant membership program to showcase our heritage while providing the freshest seafood products.”

The campaign already has attracted some of the most prominent restaurants in Gloucester, including The Gloucester House, the Azorean Restaurant and Bar, The Causeway Restaurant, Tonno Restaurant and Passports.

Organizers said most of the member restaurants already served seafood harvested locally and landed in Gloucester and they became members because they believe in the course the city has plotted to promote the area’s fresh seafood, its restaurants and its seafood processors and suppliers.

“Right now, the market favors places that use local ingredients and products,” said Lenny Linquata, owner of The Gloucester House. “The key is to provide people with a means for enjoying the local experience. And there is no better way to do that than by sampling local foods and local cuisine.”

Linquata said his restaurant buys its lobsters, fish and scallops directly off boats landing their catch in Gloucester, as well as purchasing its clams locally.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

U.S. Conference of Mayors Pass Resolution to Fight Ocean Acidification

June 26, 2017 — Today the United States Conference of Mayors approved a resolution on ocean acidification, citing the need for more research and coordination in addressing an ever-increasing threat to coastal communities. The resolution was introduced by Mayor Jon Mitchell of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

“I’m pleased to support the resolution approved today by the Conference’s Energy Committee and the Ocean Conservancy’s many efforts to highlight the threat posed by ocean acidification,” said New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Energy Committee. “As Mayor of New Bedford, Massachusetts, the top fishing port in the nation for the past 17 years, I understand well the threat to our fisheries and to those who rely on those fisheries to earn a living.  And I’m proud to join the many other mayors across the nation who are leading on this issue.”

The resolution states that “cities are at the forefront of preparing for, mitigating against, and responding to the consequences of changes in ocean chemistry like ocean acidification.” It encourages efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the root cause of ocean acidification, and calls on Congress to fund research assessing the vulnerability of coastal communities to its impacts.

Ocean acidification hurts the fish, shellfish, and corals that anchor the fishing and tourism industries in states as varied as Massachusetts and Florida, threatening the economy of coastal communities and businesses.  The ocean absorbs about 25 percent of carbon dioxide pollution – as a result the chemistry of the ocean is changing rapidly.

About 40 percent of the U.S. population now lives in coastal counties, and that number is growing fast. The mayor’s resolution states that leaders need better information on the threat of ocean acidification to plan for and minimize the potential harm to vulnerable communities, local businesses, and economies.

Read the full story at Ocean Conservancy