Saving Seafood

Panel of scientists to study impact of wind turbines on endangered right whales

April 27, 2023 — A committee of scientists and experts convened this week to begin a monthslong process of independently evaluating potential impacts of offshore wind development on the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale and its primary food source.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the lead regulator on offshore wind, called for an independent review by a committee under the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

The committee has a technical name, “Evaluation of Hydrodynamic Modeling and Implications for Offshore Wind Development: Nantucket Shoals,” but in simpler terms, it will evaluate the scientific models BOEM uses to inform assessments of wind turbine impacts.

According to an agency spokesperson, BOEM recognized the need for an independent evaluation of existing science on potential impacts of wind development as it relates to right whales and availability of the tiny crustaceans they feed on, also called zooplankton.

The Light first reported an inter-agency letter from a NOAA Fisheries scientist to BOEM last year that expressed concern on impacts of wind development on right whales. The scientist recommended restricting turbines in some parts of the Massachusetts-Rhode Island wind energy area, particularly those abutting the Nantucket shoals — a region that has become a critical area of foraging, breeding and calf rearing for right whales during much of the year.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Light

Sustainable Fisheries, Sustainable Seafood

April 19, 2022 — Every year on Earth Day, NOAA Fisheries joins citizens and organizations around the world in celebrating our planet and recognizing the need to care for our natural resources. After all, stewardship of our nation’s marine natural resources is the crux of NOAA Fisheries’ mission. It drives the work we do on Earth Day and every other day, too.

Thanks to world-class science, adaptive and accountable management, and dedicated enforcement, the United States is a global leader in responsible fisheries management. Regular assessments reveal that 80 percent of the stocks we monitor are at healthy sizes, and 92 percent are not subject to overfishing.

It’s taken decades of effort and investment, and the cooperation and sacrifice of U.S. fishermen, to get here. While our work continues, for Earth Day we can share some Earth optimism as we look back on our progress toward sustainable U.S. fisheries.

The Story of Sea Scallops

The first stock officially declared “rebuilt” following this new process was the Atlantic sea scallop. Decades of intense dredging in the scallop beds of Georges Bank and, later, the mid-Atlantic Bight had pushed sea scallop populations to the brink. In the early 1990s, managers shifted gears, implementing gear regulations, fishing effort restrictions, and limits on the number of participants.

In 1994, three large areas in Georges Bank and Nantucket Shoals were closed to fishing to protect similarly stressed groundfish species. Since dredges can catch groundfish by accident, those areas were closed to scallop harvest, too. Soon after, additional areas in the mid-Atlantic were closed specifically to protect scallops. Scallops were formally placed in a 10-year rebuilding plan in 1997.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

 

New England clammers seek to reverse council decision to close parts of Nantucket Shoals

January 14, 2019 — Clammers in New England are taking action in an attempt to reverse a fishery management council decision to close parts of Nantucket Shoals they say is crucial to their business.

When their boats go out to harvest clams, they’re also taking high resolution video and images of the surface below to show their fishing areas are not key habitats. They’re hopeful the pictures will help them in their effort to continue fishing in an area that accounts for between 50 to 80 percent of their business, according to Scott Lang, an attorney representing them.

“We intend to work very closely with the government over the next several months to provide as much data as possible so they can review the decision that they made,” Lang told SeafoodSource. “Because they made a decision in the dark. Now, we’re going to shine some light on it to see if we can get it resolved.”

Last April, the New England Fishery Management Council implemented new boundaries within the Nantucket Shoals that would allow surfclam fishermen to continue fishing within specific areas of the region. In addition, the use of bottom-tending gear was banned within boundaries, but clammers received a year extension.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

DON CUDDY: New England surf clam fishery is headed for disaster

January 7, 2019 — When it comes to fishery management controversy never seems to be too far away. Last month you may have read about the dubious nature of a decision by the New England Fishery Management Council to close a large area of Nantucket Shoals to fishermen who harvest surf clams there, ostensibly to protect fish habitat. Questionable actions such as these undermine industry confidence in fishery regulators and serve only to alienate, and embitter, fishermen and the many others on the waterfront whose livelihoods are threatened by such draconian measures. With respect to protecting fish habitat allow me to quote from NOAA Fisheries’ own web site (fishwatch.gov) which bills itself as ‘U.S. Seafood Facts.’ The salient quote, with respect to the Atlantic surfclam, spissula solidissima, is this: “Fishing gear used to harvest surfclams has minimal impacts on habitat.” In spite of this fact these traditional grounds have now been designated as essential fish habitat and clamming is banned there indefinitely. NOAA also tells us that surfclams support a valuable fishery. Well, come April 9 it will not be nearly as valuable for those who participate in the harvest and that includes fishermen and shore workers in New Bedford, Gloucester and Bristol, Rhode Island where Galilean Seafood employs around 120 people in this fishery.

“There were five areas out there where we harvested our clams and the two areas with the most historical tows are the ones they closed,” Alan Rencurrel told me. Alan knows surf calms. He owns Nantucket Sound Seafood in New Bedford where the clams he catches are hand shucked. “If you steam ’em open they get chewy,” he said. He’s been fishing on the Shoals since 1992. “And there were boats out there before me.”

He also played me some high-resolution video, taken from a dredge-mounted camera, showing the sea bed in the area known as the Rose and Crown, the largest of the areas to be closed. There were no fish, rocks or cobble to be seen, just a solitary skate, on a sandy bottom littered with old mussel shells. “We can’t tow over rocky bottom like a scallop dredge,” he told me. It’s too hard on the gear and anyway clams prefer sand bottom, he said. Conversely, groundfish such as cod and haddock are found on hard bottom.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

New England fishery council under fire for clam, wind decisions

December 10, 2018 — A decision this week by the New England Fishery Management Council to vote down a resolution that would’ve allowed clam harvesting in a 280 square mile area off Nantucket Shoals is drawing fire from the clam industry and others, South Coast Today, a New Bedford, Massachusetts-based newspaper, is reporting.

In particular, critics are pointing to the council’s decision to allow offshore wind development to continue in a 1,400 square mile area in a similar region, according to the newspaper.

“It’s amazing to me that they’ve turned this complete blind eye on really the most intrusive project that’s ever come on the East Coast, which is wind,” Scott Lang, a former New Bedford mayor and attorney for the clam industry, is quoted as saying. ”… They’re acting like that’s something we’re just going to have to live with, but a fishery that’s been around for a couple hundred years is a threat to the habitat.”

Read the full article at Undercurrent News