Saving Seafood

NOAA extends protective zone to try to help right whales

November 29, 2018 — The federal government is extending a protective zone off Massachusetts to try to keep a large group of endangered whales safe from collisions with boats.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s applying the voluntary vessel speed restriction zone in an area 21 nautical miles south of Nantucket. A group of 17 right whales was seen in the area on Monday.

NOAA says the speed restriction zone will be in effect until Dec. 11. Mariners are asked to avoid the area or go through it at 10 knots or less.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Nantucket Bay Scalloping Struggling To Say Afloat

November 29, 2018 — The commercial bay scallop season opened on Nantucket at the beginning of November and will run through the end of March, but for bay scallopers, this year’s harvest is already looking to be pretty lean.

Out in Madaket Harbor on the western-most edge of Nantucket, scalloper Blair Perkins is throwing out a test dredge and scanning his catch for the iconic bivalve that seems to be getting scarcer and scarcer in a net full of shells, crabs and Spanish moss.

“It’s been a terrible season. I’ve been scalloping for 30-odd years, since the 80s off and on, and this is the worst year I’ve seen it, ever,” Perkins said.

Bay scalloping has never been an easy job. To do it right requires a fisherman to be out on the water during the coldest time of the year, and it’s a lot of physical work for, sometimes, not much reward. Perkins drags a mesh bag attached to a string into the water and will pull it up periodically to dump out the catch. Usually, he’ll pull up about 20 scallops in each dredge, but since the season opened this month, he’s pulling up closer to 10 to 15 in a catch. While at its peak in the 1980s, bay scallopers would bring in about one hundred thousand bushels of scallops a season. By comparison, this season’s catch is predicted to be around five thousand.

These scallops are particularly sensitive to water quality changes, and most importantly, they rely on the harbor’s eel grass for their spawn to grow. Scientists credit water pollution, which has stifled eel grass, as a primary reason for the decline in bay scallops.

“So the pressures are additional nutrients in the water, septic systems overloading, increased ferry traffic. All these things come down to water quality,” said Nantucket town biologist Tara Riley.

The town has been working to restore eel grass habitats around the island, but Riley is still worried that the tradition of bay scalloping, something Nantucketers have done over the winter since the 1800s, is drawing less fishermen today.

“There aren’t a lot of young people that are getting involved,” Riley said. “It’s not a dependable way to make your income in the winter, so you have to have options. You can’t just put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to the bay scallop fishery.”

Read the full story at WGBH

Coast Guard airlifts sick fisherman from New Bedford vessel

November 14, 2018 — A Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod helicopter crew medevaced a sick 54-year-old man from the 87-foot fishing boat Generation Sunday night 42 miles off Nantucket. The captain of the Generation contacted the Coast Guard at approximately 5:20 p.m. and requested assistance for his sick crew member.

In a press release from the United States Coast Guard, an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew arrived on scene and hoisted the patient to the helicopter. The aircrew flew the man to Massachusetts General Hospital for further care.

The patient was reported to be in stable condition at the time of the transfer.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Fishermen divided on plans for more offshore wind

November 13, 2018 — Commercial fishermen and sport fishermen are split over the benefits of offshore wind facilities.

Commercial fishermen say the wind-energy projects planned for southern New England, such as the South Fork Wind Farm, are the latest threats to their income after decades of quotas and regulations.

“I don’t like the idea of the ocean being taken away from me after I’ve thrown so many big-dollar fish back in the water for the last 30 years, praying I’d get it back in the end,” said Dave Aripotch, owner of a 75-foot trawl-fishing boat based in Montauk, N.Y.

In the summer, Aripotch patrols for squid and weakfish in the area where the 15 South Fork wind turbines and others wind projects are planned. He expects the wind facilities and undersea cables will shrink fishing grounds along the Eastern Seaboard.

“If you put 2,000 wind turbines from the Nantucket Shoals to New York City, I’m losing 50 to 60 percent of my fishing grounds,” Aripotch said during a Nov. 8 public hearing at the Narragansett Community Center.

Dave Monti of the Rhode Island Saltwater Anglers Association said the submerged turbine foundations at the Block Island Wind Farm created artificial reefs, boosting fish populations and attracting charter boats like his.

“It’s a very positive thing for recreational fishing,” Monti said. “The Block Island Wind Farm has acted like a fish magnet.”

Offshore wind development also has the support of environmental groups such as the National Wildlife Federation and the Conservation Law Foundation, which view renewable energy as an answer to climate change.

“Offshore wind power really is the kind of game-changing large-scale solution that we need to see move forward, particularly along along the East Coast,” said Amber Hewett, manager of the Atlantic offshore wind energy campaign for the National Wildlife Federation.

Read the full story at National Wind Watch

Third right whale death confirmed by NOAA

October 18, 2018 — According to the federal government, the North Atlantic right whale is one of the world’s most endangered large whale species, with only an estimated 450 remaining. As of this year, there are at least three fewer.

A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration vessel on Sunday reported a sighting of a whale carcass floating about 100 miles east of Nantucket. NOAA reviewed photos provided by experts and determined it was a North Atlantic right whale.

“The carcass is severely decomposed, but photographs show multiple wounds indicative of human interaction,” according to NOAA. “The initial examination revealed marks consistent with entanglement. However, at this stage it is too early to speculate on the cause of the death.”

With the help of the U.S. Coast Guard, the whale carcass was found early Monday afternoon.

The crew of NOAA’s fisheries research ship Henry B. Bigelow took additional photos and samples that will be used to more precisely identify and learn more about the whale, according to NOAA.

Northern right whales have been listed as endangered since 1970. About 4 percent of the animal’s population died in 2017. No new calves were spotted this year.

According to NOAA, commercial whalers by the 1890s had “hunted right whales in the Atlantic to the brink of extinction.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

With right whales at risk of extinction, regulators consider drastic action that could affect lobstermen

October 16, 2018 — With North Atlantic right whales increasingly at risk of extinction, federal regulators are considering drastic protection measures that could have sweeping consequences for the region’s lucrative lobster industry.

The species is in dangerous decline, with a record 17 right whale deaths and no recorded births last year, and entanglements in fishing gear are believed to be the leading cause of premature deaths. Three have died in US waters this year, including one 35-foot-long whale found Sunday about 100 miles east of Nantucket, federal officials said.

In an effort to protect the dwindling species, regulators last week hosted a series of often emotional meetings with fishermen, environmental advocates, and other federal and state officials about what to do.

The goal is to find a way to protect the whales while limiting the impact on lobstermen, who have hundreds of thousands of fishing lines that extend from their traps on the seafloor to their buoys on the surface of the Gulf of Maine.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Fishing crew member charged with murder in attack at sea

September 26, 2018 — BOSTON — A member of a fishing boat crew attacked his fellow crew members at sea with a knife and a hammer, killing one of them, federal prosecutors said.

Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez, 27, was charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with the attack Sunday on the Virginia-based fishing vessel Captain Billy Haver about 55 miles off Nantucket, Massachusetts, the U.S. attorney’s office for Boston said in a statement.

Vazquez will appear in federal court in Boston at a time to be determined. The Associated Press could not locate a lawyer for him Tuesday.

He assaulted three crew members with a knife in one hand and a hammer in the other, authorities said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times

 

One mariner killed, another injured in attack aboard a fishing vessel

September 25, 2018 — One fisherman is dead and another was injured when another person aboard the Captain Billy Haver trawler allegedly attacked crew members.

“We just responded to a report of an attack on the 82-foot fishing vessel,” said Andrew Barresi, a petty officer with the U.S. Coast Guard.

The attack occurred Sunday and radio calls from the fishing vessel said the suspect allegedly used a knife or a hammer, according to the Martha’s Vineyard Times. The Coast Guard did not confirm this detail with the newspaper, and Barresi also couldn’t give a timeline for when things happened.

The Mein Schiff 6, a German cruise ship, responded to the fishing vessel, according to the Times. It took the two injured mariners aboard; a doctor pronounced one of them dead.

Coast Guard officials met the trawler, which was about 60 miles east of Nantucket, according to the Times, with the Legare, a 270-foot Coast Guard cutter. The suspect was taken into custody.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

1 Person Killed, 1 Injured in Attack Aboard Fishing Vessel Off Nantucket

September 24, 2018 — One person was killed and another injured when a crew member on board a fishing vessel off Nantucket attacked two of his shipmates on Sunday afternoon.

The Coast Guard said they received an emergency call on Sunday afternoon from the Captain Billy Haver, an 82-foot fishing vessel out of Virginia, saying that a member of its crew had attacked several other fishermen.

The Coast Guard would not confirm what weapons were used in the attack.

The fishing trawler was 60 miles east of Nantucket at the time of the incident.

Read the full story at NECN

Previously closed areas dominate as big US scallop sources in 2018

July 20, 2018 — There’s a good chance scallop boat captains in the US are going to be belting out an old Connie Francis tune when they head out to sea over the next few months, but changing a few words in the chorus. They’ll be singing instead, “Where the big scallops are”.

The answer is the previously shut down Nantucket Lightship Closed Area South (NLCA-S) and Closed Area 1, where it’s believed that many U-10s and U-12s still wait.

That’s what Undercurrent News learned when it reviewed New Bedford, Massachusetts, seafood auction data provided and organized by the global scallop titan Eastern Fisheries.

NLCA-S and Closed Area 1 were responsible for 1.3 million — roughly 54% — of the combined 2.4m pounds of U-10 and U-12 scallops harvested and sold at the Buyers and Sellers Exchange (BASE), another name for the auction, over the first three months of the season, April 1 to June 30, based on Undercurrent‘s review.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News