Saving Seafood

A Fish’s-Eye View Of The New England Drought

October 11, 2016 — Just as they do every fall, Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife workers are stocking dozens of rivers and ponds with rainbow trout, raised in hatcheries, for anglers to catch.

But this year, because of the drought, a few places won’t get fish. And  some anglers are choosing not to go after wild fish—to give them a break.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, most of western Massachusetts is in a severe or even extreme drought.  Stream flows are “much below normal” in most of the state, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That’s tough on fish.

Brian Keleher, a fisheries manager with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, took me to the eastern bank of Dufresne Pond in Granby, where lily pads are splayed out over mud flats.

“I really don’t think there would be anything of any size at least over here,” Keleher said.

There are small pools, but they’re not a great place for fish trying to hide from predators, like birds.

“Fish can be trapped and exposed,” explained Keleher. “They have no where to go, no where to escape. They can’t escape to the depths.”

Read and listen to the full story at New England Public Radio

Fishermen Test Weaker Ropes So Whales Can Break Through Them

October 11th, 2016 — Last year, 61 whales were tangled up in fishing gear off the West Coast of the United States, according to data from the NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.

2015 was the worst year since tracking began in the early 1980s.

Fishing ropes can cut off circulation to the whale’s fins and can eventually lead to its death. It’s a growing problem across the globe. Warmer waters are forcing whales into different feeding grounds and successful conservation efforts are increasing the number of whales in the ocean, according to experts that track the issue.

In June, an 80-foot blue whale was found off the coast of Dana Point, California, listing in the water. The crew of Captain Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari filmed the animal dragging 200 feet of rope and buoys from what appeared to be a crab pot.

But what if the problem could be solved with simple modifications to the gear that fishermen use?

Massachusetts lobsterman John Haviland got a grant from the state to test fishing ropes that break more easily under the weight of the animals.

Read the full story at WBUR

Researchers feud over shark studies off Cape Cod

October 5th, 2016 — A battle is brewing on the high seas off Cape Cod between two groups of researchers trying to tag and track the growing population of great white sharks.

In September, OCEARCH, a non-profit that travels the globe studying marine animals, launched a short-term project called Expedition Nantucket in federal waters, between Cape Cod and the island of Nantucket.

But biologists from the state Division of Marine Fisheries, who are in the third year of a five-year study of the oceangoing predators, say OCEARCH’s vessel has come close to state waters, where they are conducting their own research. The state experts fear that OCEARCH’s methods of attracting and capturing sharks could alter the animals’ natural behavior, jeopardizing their work.

“We’re scared to death of introducing any bias into [our own research], so we are being very cautious,” said state biologist Greg Skomal, lead researcher of the shark population study, which is being funded by the non-profit Atlantic White Shark Conservancy.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

How Many Fish Are in the Sea?

October 5, 2016 — A few miles off the coast of Massachusetts, aboard the fishing boat the Miss Emily, chains groaned as they lifted the sodden net out of the water. The multi-hued strands opened, spilling their meager contents onto the deck. “This is definitely a small catch,” said William Hoffman, senior marine biologist with the Massachusetts Department of Fisheries. The scientists and fishermen aboard the boat splashed through the flopping fish, shoveling them onto a conveyor belt and then quickly sorted the catch by species: flounder, hake, sea herring, haddock, lobster.

After sorting the fish, the team tossed them back onto the conveyor belt by species. Hoffman caught each fish as it came off the belt and slid it down the table to his colleague Nick Buchan. Hands protected by thick blue gloves, Buchan grabbed hold of a slippery flounder. He lined its nose up at the end of the electronic measuring board and stamped a small magnet onto the board just where the fish’s tail fin forked. The computer wired to the board blared as it recorded where the magnet landed, locking in the length of the flounder. Buchan seized the fish around its mid-section and tossed it into a nearby orange bucket to be weighed. The whole process took only a few seconds, and Hoffman and Buchan were on to the next fish. 32cm, BEEP. 28cm, BEEP.

The team worked quickly and efficiently, identifying, sexing, sizing, and weighing hundreds upon hundreds of fish. They would repeat this day’s activity multiple times over eight months, in a carefully plotted program to count the diversity of fish in Massachusetts state waters.

Read the full story at The Atlantic

MASSACHUSETTS: Season Opens for Dwindling Scallops in Buzzards Bay

October 5th, 2016 — The calendar has turned to October and that marks the opening of the recreational bay scallop harvest season in Buzzards Bay.

The bay scallop population in Buzzards Bay has suffered in part to nitrogen pollution – falling from 70,000 bushels harvested in the 1970s and 80s to just 1,500 bushels today, According to the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

Bay scallops live along eelgrass beds which grow underwater in shallow harbors, coves and tidal rivers. The scallops depend on the eelgrass during reproduction as small juvenile bay scallops attach to the blades before dropping off when they grow large enough.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com 

WHFF Brings ‘Sustaining Sea Scallops’ To Coonamessett Farm

October 3, 2016 — The Woods Hole Film Festival will launch its 2016-2017 “Dinner & A Movie” series on Sunday, October 9, with a sea-themed dinner at Coonamessett Farm featuring the film “Sustaining Sea Scallops,” a short documentary by Woods Hole filmmakers Elise Hugus and Daniel Cojanu. The dinner will begin at 6 PM.

“Sustaining Sea Scallops” is a 35-minute film featuring the history and resurgence of the Atlantic sea scallop as told through the lens of local fisherman and researchers invested in keeping the scallop industry alive through sustainable fishing. In 1999, facing fisheries closures and bankruptcy, the scallop industry began funding a research program to minimize impacts on the marine environment. Fifteen years later, the Atlantic sea scallop is hailed as one of the most sustainable and lucrative fisheries in the world. From New Bedford to Seaford, Virginia, the film also highlights how cooperative research can serve as a new way to unite not only the fisheries, but also entire communities.

Made with support from the Coonamessett Farm Foundation, “Sustaining Sea Scallops” will screen outdoors at Coonamessett Farm with a question-&-answer session to follow with the film’s directors and Coonamessett Farm owner Ron Smolowitz, who is featured in the film.

Read the full story at The Enterprise

NOAA: Fishing gear killed endangered right whale

October 3, 2016 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Entanglement in a morass of fishing gear killed an endangered right whale spotted off Boothbay Harbor last week and brought ashore in Portland last weekend for a necropsy, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Speaking on Monday, Jennifer Goebel, a spokeswoman for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Region in Gloucester, Mass., said scientists from the fisheries service had determined that “chronic entanglement was the cause of death” of the 45-ton, 43-foot-long animal.

Goebel also said that the New England Aquarium had identified the whale as No. 3694 in its North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog. According to Goebel, the whale was a female, believed to be about 11 years old, with no known calves.

The whale was first sited by researchers in 2006. Since then, the whale has been sited along the Atlantic Coast 26 times, most recently off Florida in February of this year.

According to Goebel, passengers on a Boothbay Harbor-based whale watching boat spotted the dead whale on Friday floating about 12 to 13 miles off Portland wrapped in fishing gear. Rope was reportedly wrapped around the whale’s head, in its mouth and around its flippers and its tail.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Despite parent company’s woes, National Seafood turns a profit

October 3, 2016 — The bankruptcy proceedings involving international seafood processing giant Pacific Andes International Holdings has pulled back the curtain on the performance of its Gloucester-based subsidiary, National Fish & Seafood.

Quoting filings in Pacific Andes’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in New York, the Undercurrent News website reported that National Fish, normally mute on all matters related to its financial performance, turned a $1.28 million profit on revenues of $115 million for the six-month period that ended March 31.

That appears to be a marked improvement over the seafood processing subsidiary’s performance in the year that ended Sept. 28, 2015, when National Fish reported a similar profit of $1.27 million on revenues of $252.7 million for the entire 12-month period.

To date, National Fish, which processes and markets more than 40,000 tons of frozen seafood annually at its East Main Street facility under the National Fish, Matlaw’s and Schooner brands, has remained above the bankruptcy fray even as Pacific Andes has explored selling off other subsidiaries to pay creditors.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Changes could come to East Coast monkfish business

September 30, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Interstate fishing regulators are working on a new plan to manage the monkfish fishery on the East Coast.

Monkfish are bottom-dwelling fish that are fished commercially and are a popular menu item in seafood restaurants. The New England Fishery Management Council has initiated a plan to create new fishing specifications for the fish for the next three years.

A spokeswoman says the council’s monkfish committee will work this fall on specifications for the fishery. Rules will be approved in November. The rules could also remain status quo.

Fishermen catch monkfish from Maine to North Carolina, though most are brought ashore in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Journal

Part of New England’s herring fishery to be closed

September 29th, 2016 — Herring fishing off part of the New England coast will be shut down for most of October.

The closure begins Sunday and lasts until Oct. 29. It is the product of a spawning forecasting method that interstate regulators approved earlier this year.

Regulators say an analysis of samples necessitates a closure of the Massachusetts/New Hampshire spawning area for most of October. The area stretches from the north side of Cape Cod to southern Maine.

Vessels will not be allowed to possess Atlantic herring caught in the area during the closure.

The herring fishery is a key source of bait fish as well as food. The New England fishery struggled with low supply this summer, which resulted in a shortage of bait for some lobster fishermen.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Portland Press Herald