Saving Seafood

Police seize 3,000 pounds of illegal haddock in New Bedford

June 26, 2024 — Massachusetts Environmental Police (MEP) seized more than 3,000 pounds of illegally harvested haddock from a New Bedford processing plant on Thursday in the first commercial-scale bust of the groundfish season, MEP officials said.

Acting Col. Patrick Moran said he was carrying out a routine foot patrol inspecting processing plants on the New Bedford waterfront when he discovered what appeared to be undersized fish in an assembly line ready to be filleted. He ordered the processing plant to temporarily cease operations as he measured the fish, determining about 3,000 of the 11,000 total pounds of haddock were under the legal limit of 16 inches.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford State Pier proposal makes fishing a destination attraction. What to know.

June 25, 2024 — One of the seven proposals for New Bedford’s State Pier is really a two-fer.

It’s a joint proposal from Buyers and Sellers Exchange seafood and New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center.

They say their $15 million proposal will promote economic growth and education, wrapped up in a destination-style attraction.

BASE, the seafood auction house founded in New Bedford in 1994, would off-load the incoming catch at the Pier, and then hold its daily seafood auctions before the scallops and fish are sent on their way to myriad outlets.

All in view of the visiting public.

Read the full article at the Standard-Times

Massachusetts Cold-stunned Sea Turtles: A Sign of Climate Change?

June 19, 2024 — Four species of sea turtles—Kemp’s ridley, loggerhead, green, and leatherback—are seasonal residents of New England. They arrive in May and June, feeding in our coastal waters through the summer and early fall. When temperatures drop in mid-fall, these reptiles need to migrate south into warmer waters for the winter. However, sometimes their migration is affected by geographic barriers: The hook shape of Cape Cod can trap them within Cape Cod Bay for weeks to months. This puts turtles at risk of being exposed to waters that are too cold for them.

Cold-stunned Turtles Need Rescue

Since they are cold-blooded, sea turtles’ body temperatures mirror those of surrounding waters. When turtles have a low body temperature, they stop feeding; their body systems slow down; their immune systems become suppressed. This is all part of a condition called cold stunning. When cold-stunned turtles wash up on local beaches, they need immediate rescue or they will not survive. Luckily,the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network collects sick, injured, and cold-stunned turtles from beaches and brings them to rehabilitation facilities for medical care.

In Massachusetts, Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary rescues cold-stunned sea turtles off Cape Cod beaches. They bring live turtles to two Massachusetts rehabilitation facilities: the New England Aquarium and the National Marine Life Center. There, turtles are slowly warmed up, given medical care, reintroduced to swimming and feeding, and stabilized. It can take weeks to months for these debilitated turtles to be healthy enough to be released again into the ocean.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

MASSACHUSETTS: Large concentration of sei spotted near the Vineyard

June 18, 2024 — Over 160 whales were spotted just south of the Vineyard and Nantucket and 7 different whale species were identified during a single survey as reported by marine observers last week.

3Of these species spotted was the sei whale, with 93 found, one of the highest concentrations of that particular species that the survey team had ever seen during a single survey flight.

A Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s North Atlantic Right Whale team spotted the whales on May 25.

“It’s not uncommon to see a lot of whales in the area, just because there’s a lot of food this time of year,” said Teri Frady, Chief of Communications at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. “But it’s unusual to see this many on one particular day.”

Read the full article at MV Times

Vineyard Wind extends application time for fishermen compensation

June 14, 2024 — Northeast fishermen have until June 17 to apply for compensation from developers of the Vineyard Wind 1 project.

Originally opened March 4 to June 3, the compensation application process remains available

Online at: vw1fisheriescomp.com

Applications opened earlier this year with a series of open-house events outlining how fishermen may get some compensation for losses from development of the 804-megawatt offshore wind turbine array off southern New England.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Over 160 “dazzling” whale and orca sightings reported off Massachusetts in single day

June 13, 2024 — A recent survey flight of whales off the coast of Massachusetts reported more than 160 “dazzling” sightings of seven different species, including orcas.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries division said researchers reported 161 whale sightings in total on the May 25 flight south of Martha’s Vineyard and southeast of Nantucket, including a rare killer whale sighting. They shared photos from the survey on Monday.

“I was in the front left bubble window of our plane, so I had a pretty good view of what was going on,” said NOAA Marine Mammal Observer Alison Ogilvie. “We were pretty excited the whole time. There was a lot of shouting and gasps from both sides of the plane. There was so much action.”

Number of whales “not unusual” this time of year

“It is not unusual that there are a lot of whales in the area this time of year,” NOAA spokesperson Teri Friady said. “But since we do not survey every day, or in the same areas every time we fly, catching such a large aggregation with such a variety of species on one of our flights is the exception rather than the rule.”

There were 93 sightings of endangered sei whales – one of the highest ever seen during a single survey flight. Also spotted were about three dozen humpback whales, fin whales, sperm whales and the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Two of the right whales were breeding females. Ogilvie says there are currently only 70 breeding females in the population.

Read the full article at CBS News

MASSACHUSETTS: More than 160 whales spotted in waters off Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, NOAA reports

June 12, 2024 — More than 160 whales were spotted in the waters off Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in what researchers called a “dazzling array of sightings” during a recent aerial survey.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shared pictures of the whales in a social media post on Monday. The agency said members of its North Atlantic Right Whale team reported sightings of 161 whales that comprised seven species, including 93 sei whales, “one of the highest concentrations of sei whales they’d ever seen during a single survey flight.”

The research team also reported seeing two killer whales, “which they don’t often see during this survey,” the NOAA post said. One of the killer whales was seen swimming with its dinner as a tuna dangled from its mouth.

Read the full article at The Boston Globe

Biden releases management plan for Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument

June 5, 2024 — The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has released its final management plan for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

“I applaud the release of the final management plan, a critical and giant stride by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [USFWS] and NOAA to realizing the potential for stewarding our interactions with, teaching about, and studying the inner workings of this ocean wilderness,” Mystic Aquarium Senior Research Scientist Peter Auster said in a statement.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MASSACHUSETTS: Safe to reproduce: horseshoe crabs enjoy new protections on local beaches

June 3, 2024 — At Stage Harbor in Chatham, Derek Perry, the state’s horseshoe crab biologist, walks the shoreline, counting how many horseshoe crabs fall within a 25-square-meter area.

It’s not an easy task, especially when the males in the group are clamoring to reach the limpet-and-seaweed encrusted females. But after a few moments, he’s satisfied with the count.

“That’s 67 crabs in a five-by-five-square-meter quadrat,” Perry said. “So it’s a fair number.”

Of them, 61 are male, and each is trying to latch onto one of the six females in the area. According to Perry, it’s pretty easy to identify the sex of a horseshoe crab at a distance, because the females are 30% bigger, and the males form a “conga line” behind them.

Read the full article at CAI

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobstermen and Scientists See a Fishery in Flux

May 30, 2024 — This year, May 15 marked the beginning of the lobster fishing season on the Outer Cape. The fishery is not an insignificant one here. There are 42 fishermen on the Outer Cape who collectively land about 830,000 pounds of lobster every year, according to data on the Mass. Lobstermen’s Association website. This represents about 5 percent of the Massachusetts fishery.

While overall the fishery seems stable, some lobstermen are seeing changes that have them worried about its future. Scientists are looking into what role the changing climate may be playing in those changes, but they don’t have definitive answers.

“It’s horrible,” said Mike Rego, a lobsterman and owner of the F/V Miss Lilly who operates out of Provincetown. “Last year was the worst year I ever had.”

Dana Pazolt, another Provincetown lobsterman who owns the F/V Black Sheep, said that the last four years have been slim for lobsters around the Outer Cape. “You’ve got to hunt for them,” he said. “I can’t tell you why that is.”

The surface waters of the Gulf of Maine are warming at a rate of about one degree per decade, faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans, according to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

Meanwhile, in other areas, warming has already had an effect — it played a major role in causing the collapse of the lobster fishery in Long Island Sound in 1999.

Lobsters do appear to be shifting their range north. From 1985 to 2016, Maine experienced a 650-percent increase in its lobster population, according to data from the Maine Dept. of Marine Resources. This may be due in part to the decline in Atlantic cod, a lobster predator, but it is also likely due to warming temperatures making lobster conditions more favorable farther north.

Read the full article at The Provincetown Independent