Saving Seafood

Massachusetts lobstermen drop lawsuit against California aquarium that told people to stop eating lobster

January 10, 2023 — The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association has ended its fight against a California aquarium that says people shouldn’t buy and eat lobster because of the risks the fishery poses on the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

A federal judge in the Northern District of California on Monday dismissed a class action lawsuit that four Bay State lobstermen filed last March against the Monterey Bay Aquarium after the two sides agreed to end the months-long dispute with prejudice.

Monterey Bay in September 2022 gave the American lobster a “red rating” on its Seafood Watch, recommending consumers to avoid the species caught by trap from the Gulf of Maine, Southern New England and Georges Bank stocks.

The action prompted the four lobstermen to file the suit months later, seeking $75,000 in damages for disparagement of their aquaculture product and interference with their proprietary rights.

“After lengthy discussions among the named individuals in the suit, they agreed to dismiss the Class Action Suit as a win in the California court is highly unlikely and extremely costly,” the MLA said in a statement to the Herald on Tuesday. “The laws in California would ultimately hold these individuals financially responsible for the defendant’s legal fees should they prevail.”

The aquarium had asserted that trapping lobsters had contributed to the depletion of the population of Northern Atlantic right whales, an endangered species at high risk of extinction. There are fewer than 340 such whales today, and the aquarium says entanglement in fishing gear is the leading cause of injury and death.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

Power up: Vineyard Wind sends electricity to the grid

January 7, 2024 — New England’s first large offshore wind farm has delivered electricity to the grid.

In a test Tuesday, shortly before midnight, Vineyard Wind sent about five megawatts of power ashore in Barnstable from a single turbine, according to project officials.

More testing needs to be done before the turbine can be fully operational, according to the project’s two parent companies, Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. They said they expect the first five turbines, which were completed in early December, to be running in the early part of this year.

When fully built, Vineyard Wind 1, located about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, will have 62 turbines of 13 megawatts each and generate enough power for more than 400,000 homes.

Maggie Downey, administrator of renewable energy provider Cape Light Compact, said the powering-up of Vineyard Wind represents a turning point in meeting the state’s climate goals.

“I think it’s a huge moment for everybody that lives in Massachusetts,” she said. “We need the electrons on our grid. We are all seeing the impacts of climate change, and this is a giant step forward to helping us and the Commonwealth achieve their state goals.”

Vineyard Wind hoped to deliver power by the end of 2023, but missed that mark.

Read the full article at GBH

Offshore power flows 14 years after Cape Wind won federal approval

January 4, 2024 — About 7½ years after state policymakers began seriously pursuing the cleaner generation source and following a bumpy road full of delays, the grid that powers Massachusetts received the first electrons generated by offshore wind late Tuesday night.

One turbine of the Vineyard Wind 1 project delivered about 5 megawatts of power at 11:52 p.m. Tuesday, project co-owners Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) announced Wednesday morning. Eventually, the wind farm about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard is expected to have 62 turbines capable of generating just more than 800 MW of power. The project’s energy comes ashore at a grid interconnection point in Barnstable.

The transmission of “first power,” as limited as it was and coming later than had been expected, was roundly celebrated Wednesday by elected officials, clean energy advocates and others. Gov. Maura Healey called Wednesday’s announcement “a historic moment for the American offshore wind industry.”

“Soon, Vineyard Wind will be producing power equivalent of over 400,000 Massachusetts households,” she said. “As we look ahead, Massachusetts is on a path toward energy independence thanks to our nation-leading work to stand up the offshore wind industry.”

Massachusetts now is the second state in the country, following New York, to get electricity from a major offshore wind development.

Read the full article at State House News Service

MASSACHUSETTS: Mass. receives $4.6 million in federal funds to help protect North Atlantic right whales

January 3, 2024 — Massachusetts is receiving more than $4.6 million in federal funds to support an array of conservation efforts for the endangered North Atlantic right whale, state officials said.

In a recent statement, the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs said the money, coupled with a separate $475,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, will help “bolster development” of fishing gear technology that can reduce entanglements, a leading cause of death for large whales.

The funds will also support the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries’ “ongoing research and monitoring” of right whale migratory patterns and the distribution of fishing gear to lobstermen that can mitigate harm to right whales.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

Effort to Support North Atlantic Right Whales Gets $4.6 Million Grant

January 2, 2024 — More than $4.6 million dollars is being awarded to the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Marine Fisheries from a congressional appropriation through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to enhance the conservation program for endangered North Atlantic right whales.

DMF will use the funding and an additional $475,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), to help development of innovative fishing gear technologies, increase ongoing research and monitoring, and provide fishing gear to lobster industry participants to reduce harm to the right whales.

As part of a 5-year program, DMF anticipates receiving more than $23 million from NOAA Fisheries between now and the end of 2028 subject to annual congressional appropriations.

The following was released by CapeCod.com

MASSACHUSETTS: Massachusetts gets more than $4 million for new lobster fishing gear to protect right whales, other measures

December 31, 2023 — The feds are shellin’ out millions of dollars to the Bay State for new lobster fishing gear in the hopes of protecting North Atlantic right whales.

The Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Marine Fisheries on Friday announced that it will receive more than $4.6 million from a congressional appropriation to boost DMF’s conservation program for the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

DMF will use part of this funding from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to provide new lobster fishing gear that’s designed to protect right whales.

Massachusetts near-shore waters host up to 80% of the total population of North Atlantic right whales in late winter and early spring — as the whales migrate north and feed in the nutrient-rich waters of Cape Cod Bay and Massachusetts Bay. The two greatest threats for the endangered species are entanglements in fishing gear and vessel strikes, according to advocates.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

Filmmaker Helgeland drew on his New Bedford fishing past for ‘Finestkind’

December 26, 2023 — In a final scene of the film “Finestkind,” as the New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge slowly pivots open, a father and son cross paths for what might be the last time. One is handcuffed in the back of a police van. The other is outward bound on a fishing trip.

Most in New Bedford know the bridge as little more than a morning traffic jam. But for Brian Helgeland, the 62-year-old New Bedford-raised screenwriter who returned to his hometown to shoot his newest film, the bridge is a symbol of his childhood and his development as a writer.

As a boy, Helgeland rode his bicycle over the bridge. As a young man working on scallop boats, he passed through the bridge as the first leg of a long voyage out to sea. And now, three decades later, the same bridge is also a set in his own film.

“That bridge is a memory, a movie location and a metaphor,” Helgeland told a local audience at an unofficial premiere of the film at the New Bedford Whaling Museum earlier this month.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

SENA Panel: Artificial Intelligence for Smarter Fisheries Management: The What, How, Who, and When

December 19, 2023 — The 2023 Seafood Expo North America, which took place 12 to 14 March in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., and the 2023 Seafood Expo Global, from 25 to 27 April, 2023, in Barcelona, Spain, featured a comprehensive conference program of live panel events focusing on topics chosen to be of vital interest to the seafood industry.

The 28 individual presentations from SENA and the 21 sessions from SEG featured exclusive information and insight from seafood industry experts, including economic forecasts and analysis on the trends and topics impacting the global seafood industry as it navigates issues of trade, food safety, traceability, aquaculture, sustainability, and consumption trends. Now, a video recording of each of these sessions is available for on-demand replay.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MA lobstermen want to invent a better lobster trap

December 7, 2023 — Patrick Flanary: For years, right whale advocates and engineers have been trying to develop new lobster fishing gear designed to prevent whales from entanglements. But most local lobstermen say they’re against this so-called “on demand” fishing gear that’s been created. Now, as CAI’s Eve Zuckoff reports, lobstermen have decided to come up with their own technology. Eve, you were the first to report this, thanks for being here this morning.

Eve Zuckoff: Thanks for having me.

Patrick Flanary: So the Massachusetts lobstermen’s association has just been awarded a $1.2 million grant to develop new fishing gear. What’s their proposal?

Eve Zuckoff: Over the next year they’ll be working with an engineer to develop a “pinger” inside a lobster trap that sends satellite signals to show where traps are on the seafloor. So whenever a lobsterman is ready to collect his catch, he or she will go wherever the pinger says, throw a grapple — these metal hooks — down into the water, and haul up the traps.

All of this eliminates the need for a traditional buoy marking where their gear is, and an extra rope called an “end line” that’s known to entangle whales.

But to be clear: lobstermen don’t want to use this gear year round — just during closures — specifically an upcoming 3-month-long period where they have to be out of local waters to protect the whales.

Patrick Flanary: What would this pinger/grappling system replace exactly?

Eve Zuckoff: In recent years, engineers have developed “on demand gear,” sometimes called “ropeless gear.” Here’s how that works: when lobstermen set their traps, there is an inflatable bag and compressed air tank — or something similar — inside one of them. And when a lobsterman is ready to haul up their gear, they hit a button on an app, which triggers the bag to inflate, and the bag floats up to the surface where the lobsterman can haul it all in. But Beth Casoni, head of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s association said her group is not a fan.

“The current systems are cost prohibitive,” she said. “Even if the government was to buy them, which would be ludicrous, the price tag would be insane for the entire lobster fishery.”

So the on-demand technology is similar to the pinger and grappling hook in that there’s no more buoy and stagnant rope just waiting in the water, ready entangle a passing whale, but the pinger eliminates the need for a costly inflatable bag, air tank, and other tech.

Patrick Flanary: So cost is obviously a factor. Are the pingers cheaper?

Eve Zuckoff: Ding, ding, ding! For now, as Casoni said, on demand gear is being subsidized by the federal government, but at some point, the cost could fall in fishermen to the tune of $3,000-7,500 for one line of traps. And lobstermen typically fish many lines of traps. The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association hopes pingers will cost just $300-$400 per line of traps.

Read the full story at NHPR

 

New Bedford Pols Call for More Transparency with Test Turbine

December 6, 2023 — Local legislators are not pleased with the way they and residents found out about a research project in New Bedford’s Clark Cove that features the installation of a temporary scale model of a floating offshore wind turbine.

“The energy bubbles up from the constituency, especially when they’re pissed off, and this one bubbled up with us organically on our own, but exactly what I would have predicted (is what) happened,” Sen. Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford) said in an appearance on WBSM’s SouthCoast Now Tuesday morning.

“There is no excuse for it,” he said.

Montigny is referring to the rumors that began Monday morning regarding what was being installed in Clark’s Cove. Some believed it was going to be a 300-foot-plus full-sized wind turbine, and potentially the first of many that were being erected without any public hearing.

Read the full story at WBSM