Saving Seafood

MAINE: Lobstermen say whale rules threaten way of life

August 15, 2019 — Maine has more than 6,000 licensed lobstermen. If the 100 or so who gathered at Ellsworth High School Tuesday evening to discuss proposed whale protection rules are a representative sample, most of those lobstermen are angry.

The fishermen gathered for a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) scoping session on proposed measures to protected endangered right whales. The rules would require a 50 percent cut in the number of vertical buoy lines in the water.

“You’re dealing not just with our livelihoods but with the life blood of our communities,” Stonington lobsterman Julie Eaton told the National Marine Fisheries Service representatives. With earlier whale protection efforts, Eaton said, “We’ve done everything you’ve asked us to do, but this ask is way too big. People will die.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Meetings About New Whale Protections Come to Maine This Week

August 14, 2019 — Representatives of the federal government are in Maine this week to gather feedback about the possibility of new protections for endangered whales.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is conducting meetings with the public this month about potential new protections for the whales. The effort is focused on North Atlantic right whales, which number only about 400.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

Maine lobstermen insist they are not the ones killing right whales

August 13, 2019 — Lobsterman Charlie Smith has already paid a steep price to protect the right whale, an endangered species that he has never even seen in a long career spent at sea, much less found entangled in his fishing rope.

When the Jonesport lobsterman raises his left hand, it is clear that he has lost the ends of several fingers, ripped off several years ago by a tangle of weighted rope that fishermen were ordered to use in 2009 to protect right whales.

“That’s what happened here to these fingers,” said Smith, holding up his hand, at a National Marine Fisheries Service hearing Monday night. “The rope got all chafed up. There’s all kind of stories from sinking ground line. What comes next?”

About 70 fishermen came to the first fisheries service public meeting in Maine on the latest round of lobster rule changes being considered to protect the endangered whales. They expressed safety fears and their mounting frustration.

The state’s $485 million-a-year lobster industry is facing a federal mandate to lower the number of buoy lines in the Gulf of Maine by 50 percent to protect right whales. Fishermen worry the rules will make their jobs less profitable and more dangerous.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Federal Managers Finalize Turtle Interaction Measures with Hawai’i Swordfish Fishery

August 12, 2019 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council met on Thursday, August 8 to amend the Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan with revisions to the loggerhead and leatherback turtle mitigation measures for the Hawai‘i shallow-set longline fishery. The amendment sets an annual fleet-wide hard cap limit on the number of leatherback turtle interactions at 16. An interaction occurs whenever a sea turtle becomes hooked or entangled in longline gear.  Few interactions lead to serious injury or mortality of the animal, which is normally released unharmed.  The Council did not recommend setting an annual fleet-wide hard-cap for loggerheads in light of that species’ improving population trends and other mitigation measures, but the Council retains the authority to set a hard cap limit in the future if necessary.

To limit the impact of interactions on sea turtles and to promote year-round fishing opportunities, the Council further recommended the establishment of individual trip interaction limits of five loggerheads and two leatherback turtles. Once a vessel reaches either of these trip limits, the vessel is required to return to port, and will be prohibited from engaging in shallow-set longline fishing for five days after returning.  This action is expected to allow sea turtle “hot spots” to disperse, while encouraging fishermen to take action to avoid sea turtle interactions before the trip limits are reached.

Additional restrictions set trip limits on each vessel – any vessel that reaches the trip limit twice for either leatherback or loggerhead sea turtles in a calendar year will be prohibited from shallow-set longline fishing for the remainder of that year. The following calendar year, these vessels will have an annual vessel limit equivalent to a single trip limit – either 5 loggerheads or 2 leatherbacks. These additional vessel restrictions are measures required under a new biological opinion (BiOp) prepared by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Read the full release here

American Tunaboat Association loses lawsuit in fight against NMFS

August 7, 2019 — The American Tunaboat Association, a trade group representing owners and operators of the U.S. tuna fleet, has lost a lawsuit that it filed after being denied “applicant” status by the National Marine Fisheries Service in Endangered Species Act consultations.

In December 2018, the ATA received a notification of rejection from the NMFS in its attempt to be given applicant status under the agency’s rules for participating with full rights and status in consultations on the NMFS’ decisions regarding how to apply the Endangered Species Act in the U.S. purse-seine tuna fishery in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. The ATA’s appeal of the decision was rejected in January 2019 by senior officials in the NMFS and U.S. Department of Commerce. In response, the ATA sued in April 2019.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Federal Managers to Make Final Recommendations on Leatherback and Loggerhead Sea Turtle Interactions with Hawai’i Swordfish Fishery (6 August 2019)

August 7, 2019 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council will meet on Aug. 8, 2019, to consider final recommendations on the management of the Hawai’i swordfish fishery’s interactions with leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) provided a final biological opinion (BiOp) during the 178th Council meeting in June 2019 (originally due October 2018), but the Council deferred action at the time to allow adequate time to review the final BiOp.

The final BiOp determined that the swordfish fishery is not jeopardizing the continued existence of these sea turtles and authorizes the accidental hooking and subsequent release of 21 leatherbacks and 36 loggerheads. Based on observer data since 1994, 100 percent of leatherback turtles and over 99 percent of loggerhead turtles observed in this fishery have been released alive with a high chance of survival. Despite finding that the impacts of the fishery are not expected to appreciably reduce these two populations’ likelihood of surviving and recovering in the wild, the final BiOp requires additional measures to further reduce incidental captures and mortalities. Specifically, if the fleetwide leatherback interaction reaches the “hard cap” of 16, the BiOp requires that the fishery be closed for the remainder of the calendar year.

The final BiOp also requires implementing individual trip limits of two leatherback or five loggerhead interactions per vessel per trip. However, once a vessel reaches a trip limit twice in a year, it will be prohibited from shallow-set fishing for the remainder of the year, and the vessel will be subject to an annual vessel limit of 2 leatherbacks or 5 loggerheads for the following year. There is no hard cap required in the new BiOp for loggerhead turtles, which has a stable and increasing population.

Over the last five years in the North Pacific Ocean, approximately 99 million hooks were deployed overall in shallow-set longline fisheries annually (reported by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission). Of those, on average 1.2 million hooks (about 1 percent) are deployed annually by the Hawai’i-based shallow-set longline fishery.

“We know what the US shallow-set longline fishing impacts are on loggerheads and leatherbacks in the Pacific due to our 100 percent observer coverage,” remarked Council Chairman Archie Soliai. “When other countries are struggling to meet the internationally-required 5 percent observer coverage, how much confidence do we have about the loggerhead and leatherback impacts for the remaining 98 million hooks set?”

The Council’s recommendation from its 177th meeting in April 2019 was to manage the fishery under annual fleetwide hard cap limits of 16 leatherbacks and 36 loggerheads. The Council initially put the hard caps in place in 2004 as a backup measure when new bait and gear changes were implemented, which, along with other measures, reduced interactions by about 90 percent. The Council also recommended individual trip interaction limits of two leatherbacks and five loggerheads. Once either limit is reached, the vessel would be required to immediately return to port, after which they may resume shallow-set fishing. The original Council recommendations were much simpler and did not include additional vessel restrictions.

The Council will take all information into account, including the measures required under the final BiOp, when it considers final action this week.

The Council’s Hawai‘i Archipelago Fishery Ecosystem Plan Advisory Panel (AP) and Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) will meet on Aug. 7, 2019, in advance of the Council meeting to discuss recommendations to the Council for the final action on managing loggerhead and leatherback sea turtle interactions in the Hawai’i-based shallow-set longline fishery.

The AP, SSC and Council meetings can be attended remotely by web conference at: https://wprfmc.webex.com/join/info.wpcouncilnoaa.gov. The Council office will also serve as a meeting host site: 1164 Bishop Street, Suite 1400, Honolulu, Hawai’i. Council meeting documents available on our website (www.wpcouncil.org) include the Federal Register notice, Council meeting agenda, a summary of the action item, a draft amendment to the Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan, and the full Endangered Species Act BiOp from NMFS.

Read the full release here

MASSACHUSETTS: Provincetown rescue team frees entangled right whale off Cape Cod coast

August 7, 2019 — On Friday, Aug. 2 the Marine Animal Entanglement Response team (MAER) from the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS), in collaboration with the Northeastern Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) partially disentangled a North Atlantic right whale, one of only about 400 individuals left, east of Cape Cod.

The entangled whale was initially discovered in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, on July 4, 2019 by Transport Canada. Despite a horrific entanglement, the whale was highly mobile. On July 19 it was spotted again by an aerial survey team from NEFSC and the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. A response team from New England Aquarium (NEAQ) was in the area and succeeded in attaching a telemetry buoy to the whale to track its movements for disentanglement.

Over the next two weeks the whale traveled east, out of the Gulf, then south, past Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. During that time Canadian disentanglement teams made several attempts to free the animal and were able to make some cuts to its entanglement.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

NOAA marks Northwest salmon runs, Atlantic mackerel, bigeye overfished

August 5, 2019 — Pacific Northwest king (chinook) and silver (coho) salmon runs plagued by drought and warmer ocean waters are new additions to the overfished species list in the federal 2018 Status of U.S. Fisheries released Friday.

In the Atlantic, bigeye tuna joined the overfished list — reflecting the continuing inability of international regulators to rein in other nations’ fleets in the eastern Atlantic. For the first time, Atlantic mackerel between North Carolina and Maine are declared overfished, based on a first comprehensive assessment.

The good news, according to NOAA, is that rebuilding sustainable fisheries is still on its slow upward track since 2000, with 45 stocks now declared rebuilt. The latest is the Gulf of Maine smooth skate, after a 9-year rebuilding effort that included a prohibition on landings.

That success follows the 2016 rebuilding of barndoor skate in New England waters. “The renewed fishing opportunity and market for barndoor skate wings, following its rebuilt status, may lay the market foundation for a smooth skate fishery in the future,” the annual NMFS report noted.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Federal agencies, Vineyard Wind at odds over wind farm setup

August 2, 2019 — All three federal agencies that weighed in on Vineyard Wind’s construction and operations plan have coalesced around the east-to-west orientation of the 84 wind turbines.

The three agencies are supporting a distance of at least 1 mile between the turbines, which is a marked contrast to the company’s diagonal layout plan with less space between, according to the Times review of 349 public comments on the draft environmental impact statement.

National Marine Fisheries Service Regional Administrator Michael Pentony faults the draft statement with failing to fully analyze current data showing “clear patterns of east-west orientation of fishing activity throughout much of the lease area.”

While an east-to-west turbine layout “would not fully eliminate impacts to fishing operations, available information suggests impacts would be minimized for some fishing vessels, allowing them to continue to fish the area and thus reducing the negative economic impacts they incur,” Pentony said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Below Average Season Predicted for 2019 Gulf of Mexico Brown Shrimp Harvest

July 29, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Scientists at the NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Center’s Galveston Laboratory have prepared the following information on prospects for the 2019 brown shrimp season (July 2019–June 2020) in the western Gulf of Mexico.

According to NOAA fisheries, although local environmental factors (temperature, rainfall amounts, and tidal heights) should have contributed to favorable conditions for brown shrimp recruitment and growth in Texas, freshwater inflow into Galveston Bay (on which the forecast model is based) from the Trinity River watershed resulted in salinities near zero in much of the bay. Subsequently, the availability of suitable nursery habitat was limited to West and Lower Galveston Bay. Likewise, growth may have been affected by the lower salinities.

They add, similarly, early spring temperatures in Louisiana would have suggested favorable conditions for an average production. However, Louisiana was inundated with freshwater runoff due to unprecedented Mississippi River flows this spring. These freshwater events have offset the early spring favorable conditions to a much less favorable environment for brown shrimp production.

Overall, the western Gulf of Mexico could expect an annual brown shrimp production of approximately 40.6 million pounds during the 2019–2020 season.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.