Saving Seafood

2 years ago, lobsters started dying in their traps. Now scientists think they know why

November 10, 2021 — In September of 2019, Tracy Pugh started getting phone calls about dead lobsters.

Pugh is a biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and a handful of fishermen in Cape Cod Bay were reporting traps full of dead lobsters — “anywhere from several dozen to hundreds,” she recalled. “So way, way more than normal.”

Some reported dead fish and crabs in their traps, as well. One trawler came up with a bunch of dead scallops.

Pugh, working with scientists at the Center for Coastal Studies, found the reason soon enough: a roughly six-mile stretch of water in Cape Cod Bay almost completely depleted of oxygen. “It was pretty bad,” said Pugh.

The hypoxic zone — or “blob,” as it became known — ambled around the sea floor for at least a week. Any animals that could swim or crawl away from the blob did, said Pugh. But those stuck in traps or unable to move, died.

The hypoxic zone dissipated in October of that year, but a new one appeared in 2020, around the same time and place. The blobs left behind a mystery: what caused them? And were they going to come back every year?

Read the full story at WBUR

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford is a shining sea of possibilities

November 10, 2021 — Stand here on Leonard’s Wharf, near where the Acushnet River empties into Buzzards Bay, and you’re surrounded by boats with colorful hulls and elaborate rigs. They help power the nation’s most lucrative fishing port, hauling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of scallops, fish, and lobsters from the Atlantic Ocean to be sold worldwide.

Next door, behind a rusty chain-link fence, sits a huge old power plant, long unused. The 29-acre site is one of two on New Bedford’s waterfront that is poised to host the assembly of massive wind turbines that would be shipped out and mounted in the Atlantic Ocean, promising much-needed clean energy for the Northeast.

Whether these two industries — one ages old, the other being birthed on the fly — can coexist in New Bedford harbor and out in the ocean will say a lot about the future of one of the most distinctive places in Eastern Massachusetts, a city that has for most of its 234 years drawn a living from the sea.

“The waterfront has always provided an opportunity for people,” said Laura Orleans, executive director of the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center, who has spent a quarter-century telling the stories of New Bedford’s maritime history. “There have been a lot of people from many different cultures who have been very successful making a living on our waterfront.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

MASSACHUSETTS: How New Bedford became the scallop capital of the world

November 10, 2021 — Every weekday morning at 9, Cassie Canastra sits in a little conference room in a big warehouse on the edge of New Bedford’s harbor.

On the wall above her is a large video screen full of numbers, prices, and weights for batches of scallops. In front of her sit boat captains eager to sell their catch. And in the refrigerated warehouse out back are huge containers of scallops — as much as 1,500 pounds in a batch — that have been shucked at sea and loaded straight off the boats overnight, examined by buyers in the morning, and delivered to nearby processing plants by afternoon.

The numbers on the screen tick up and down, 5 cents at a time, as bids come in from fish buyers all over town. The captains grumble, or do quick math on their cellphone calculators, subtracting the costs of fuel and other expenses to see how much they’ll earn for their days at sea. The final price — $22.05 per pound on Friday morning for one 1,357-pound batch of large scallops fished off the coast of southern New Jersey — eventually translates into what you pay for scallops at a supermarket or restaurant.

“We basically set the price for scallops all over the world right here,” said Canastra, whose father and uncle founded the auction house in 1994. “That’s pretty cool.”

Indeed, this nondescript warehouse is a key point in a global scallop trade that courses through New Bedford, powering the city’s fishing industry and its economy in general. More than $350 million worth of the meaty shellfish land here in a typical year, making scallops, as New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell puts it, the “cash crop” of the most lucrative fishing port in the United States.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

Directed Atlantic Herring Fishery Closure for Management Area 1A

November 8, 2021 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Please note there has been a slight change to the notice below:

In order to prevent the waste of Atlantic herring, the closure time has changed from 6 PM to 9 PM today. Several vessels sent messages they had fish on-board when the closure notification was released and they would not make it back to port by 6 PM, thus, requiring them to dump fish without an extension.

NOAA Fisheries and the states of Maine and New Hampshire, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts project the Atlantic herring fishery will catch 92% of the Area 1A sub-ACL by November 8, 2021. The Area 1A directed fishery will close effective 6:00 p.m. on November 8, 2021 and remain closed until further notice. Vessels that have entered port before 6:00 p.m. on November 8, 2021 may land and sell, from that trip, greater than 2,000 pounds of herring from Area 1A.

During a closure, vessels participating in other fisheries may retain and land an incidental catch of herring that does not exceed 2,000 pounds per trip or calendar day. In addition, directed herring vessels traveling through Area 1A must have all fishing gear stowed.

In accordance with the Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Herring, the fixed gear set-aside of 30 metric tons will continue to be available to fixed gear fishermen operating in Area 1A west of Cutler, Maine through December 31, 2021. 

Please contact Emilie Franke, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at 703.842.0716 or efranke@asmfc.org for more information.

The closure announcement can also be found at http://www.asmfc.org/files/AtlHerring/AtlHerring1A_Closure_Nov2021.pdf

Salem News: Finding common ground on fisheries data

November 5, 2021 — Building consensus between commercial fishermen, conservationists and marine regulators is no easy task. But a long, patient effort led by Congressman Seth Moulton’s office seems to be making progress, and a substantial influx of federal cash may finally help the often-warring factions find common ground.

There can be little argument that there are dramatically fewer fish in the North Atlantic today, in large part because of overfishing in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, fueled by massive outside investment and lax oversight from regulators.

But how many fish are left now? What kind? Where are they and how do they move?

Those are questions Moulton’s Groundfish Trawl Task Force has been working to answer since its formation in 2015. The panel’s efforts got a boost last month with a $500,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. At the heart of the effort is providing wider, more timely and more accurate data to decision makers. That in turn should go a long way toward rebuilding trust between fishermen and fisheries scientists.

Read the full editorial at the Salem News

 

Atlantic Herring Area 1A Fishery Moves to Four Landing Days Per Week Starting November 8

November 4, 2021 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Herring Management Board members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts met November 4 via webinar to consider changes to days out measures for the 2021 Area 1A fishery for Season 2 (October through December) following the reallocation of 1,000 metric tons (mt) from the management uncertainty buffer to the Area 1A sub-annual catch limit (sub-ACL) based on catch information from the New Brunswick weir fishery.

The Area 1A fishery will move to four (4) consecutive landing days per week starting November 8 at 12:01 a.m. Fishing for and possessing herring onboard prior to November 8 is allowed in accordance with published state regulations.

Estimates indicate approximately 1,083 mt of the Area 1A sub-ACL remains available to harvest, which accounts for the increase of 1,000 mt based on catch information from the New Brunswick weir fishery, the overage from Season 1 (June through September), the 30 mt fixed gear set-aside, and the 8% buffer (Area 1A closes at 92% of the sub-ACL).

Please contact Emilie Franke, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at efranke@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740 for more information.

The announcement can also be found at http://www.asmfc.org/files/AtlHerring/ChangestoAtlHerringDaysOutSeason2_11_4.pdf

 

David Goethel: A grievous assault on the lobster resource

November 4, 2021 — In recent years, the federal government in the form of the National Marine Fisheries Service has been expanding restrictions on fin fishermen throughout the U.S.  In the Northeast every aspect of a fishing vessel is controlled by regulation, from the size of the mesh in a net, to where and when and what you can fish for, to who is on your vessel and when you can leave the dock.

This has caused the fishing industry to shrink and the fin fishermen in New Hampshire have dwindled down to a handful.  During my lifetime, the fishermen in New Hampshire have had one commercial fishing organization.  We all meet together and work out our differences.  Compliance in all the New Hampshire fisheries is high and conflicts are few. After all, we are a community out on the ocean and need to work together.

Read the full opinion piece at the Portsmouth Herald

 

ASMFC Atlantic Herring Area 1A Days Out Meeting Scheduled for November 4

November 1, 2021 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Herring Management Board members from the States of Maine, New Hampshire and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will meet via webinar on November 4, 2021 from 9 to 11 a.m., to consider adjusting the landing days for Season 2 (October 1 – December 31) for the 2021 Area 1A fishery (inshore Gulf of Maine). At the September 2021 days out meeting, the landing days were set at zero (0) for Season 2. The webinar and call information is included below:

Atlantic Herring Days Out Meeting

November 4, 2021

9:00 – 11:00 a.m.

You can join the meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone at the following link:https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/881890621. If you are new to GoToMeeting, you can download the app ahead of time (click here) and be ready before the meeting starts. For audio, the meeting will be using the computer voice over internet (VoIP), but if you are joining the webinar from your phone only, you can dial in at +1 (224) 501-3412 and enter access code   881-890-621 when prompted. The webinar will start at 8:30 a.m., 30 minutes early, to troubleshoot audio as necessary.

The 2021 Area 1A sub-annual catch limit (sub-ACL) is 2,373 metric tons (mt) after adjusting for the increase of 1,000 mt based on catch information from the New Brunswick weir fishery, the carryover from 2019, the 30 mt fixed gear set-aside, and the 8% buffer (Area 1A closes at 92% of the sub-ACL). There is no research-set-aside (RSA) for 2021 because the participants in the program will not continue their RSA project in 2021.

The Board established the following seasonal allocations for the 2021 Area 1A sub-ACL: 72.8% available from June 1 – September 30 and 27.2% available from October 1 – December 31.

Please contact Emilie Franke, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at 703.842.0716 or efranke@asmfc.org for more information.

The announcement can also be found at http://www.asmfc.org/uploads/file/617bf260AtlHerringNov2021DaysOutMeetingNotice.pdf

 

Wind project beginning lengthy environmental review

October 29, 2021 — The federal environmental review process for Mayflower Wind will officially get underway next week, kicking off a two-year period in which regulators and others will scrutinize the plan for up to 147 turbines in a lease area capable of supporting multiple projects.

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said Thursday that it will publish a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) in the Federal Register on Nov. 1, and will hold public comment meetings on Nov. 10, 15 and 18 to accept input on what BOEM should focus on when reviewing Mayflower’s construction and operations plan.

That comment period will end Dec. 1. Mayflower Wind, the Shell and Ocean Winds North America joint venture, was selected unanimously by Massachusetts utility executives in 2019 to build and operate an 804-megawatt wind farm about 20 nautical miles south of the western end of Nantucket.

Read the full story at WHDH 7 News Boston

 

Coalition intends to sue feds over offshore Massachusetts wind project

October 29, 2021 — Massachusetts fishermen worried for their livelihoods and the ocean’s ecology are suing the federal government over an offshore wind project called Vineyard Wind.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), a coalition of fishing industry associations and fishing companies, recently filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the federal government, according to a news release. This follows a petition for review filed in the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals last month, which is pending.

The notice gives the government 60 days to address statutory and regulatory violations RODA asserts the wind project will cause, including violating the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act, the press release said.

RODA Executive Director Annie Hawkins said the government has not done enough investigation into the effects of offshore wind projects.

Read the full story at The Center Square