Saving Seafood

Right whales still declining despite protections

January 23, 2023 — In its latest five-year review, the National Marine Fisheries Service says existing efforts to protect North Atlantic right whales have proven inadequate and that the population continues to decline.

“The North Atlantic right whale faces continued threat of human caused mortality due to lethal interactions with commercial fisheries and vessel traffic,” concludes the review, released December 27, 2022. “There is also uncertainty regarding the effect of long-term sublethal entanglements, emerging environmental stressors including climate change, and the compounding effects of multiple continuous stressors that may be limiting North Atlantic right whale calving and recovery.”

Right whale protections have had a significant impact on the Maine lobster industry because of the danger that gear entanglement poses for the highly mobile mammals. While the review says that “mortalities and serious injuries of North Atlantic right whales in U.S. gear and first seen in U.S. waters” continue to contribute to the species’ decline and inability to recover, Maine lobstermen have argued that there have been no confirmed entanglements in Maine gear since 2004.

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Press

New monitoring rules for Northeast fishermen aimed at better data

January 23, 2023 — Changes to U.S. rules about the monitoring of Northeast commercial fishing activities are going into effect this month with a goal of providing more accurate information about some of the nation’s oldest fisheries.

The U.S. mandates observers to work onboard fishing boats to collect data and make sure fishermen adhere to rules and quotas. The relationship between fishermen and observers is sometimes difficult, and fishermen have long complained the monitoring program heaps costs on them.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has adopted new monitoring rules for Northeast fishermen of groundfish, like haddock and flounder, to try to improve the accuracy of the data. The fishermen harvest some of the most popular seafood species in the country, and the data are used to craft fishing regulations.

Read the full article at wbur

 

The Supreme Court Should End Chevron Deference

December 14, 2022 — Loper Bright Enterprises is a family ​owned herring fishing company that operates in New England waters. Herring fishing is hard work on a small boat, and every inch of space is valuable for storing supplies, fishermen, and the catch. Nonetheless, a National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) regulation requires that herring fishing boats allow an additional person on board to serve as a monitor, tracking compliance with federal regulations. Not only does this monitor take up limited space, but the fishermen must also pay the monitor’s salary of around $700 per day. Overall, the regulation reduces fishing profits by about 20%. If fishing boats decline to carry a monitor, they are prohibited from fishing for herring.

Loper Bright and other fisheries sued to challenge this rule, arguing that the NMFS lacked statutory authority to force them to pay for these monitors. Although the statute at issue says nothing about industry funding for government monitors, the district court surprisingly held that the statute clearly authorized the rule. Loper Bright appealed, and the D.C. Circuit held that the statute was ambiguous but deferred to the agency’s interpretation under the Chevron doctrine. Loper Bright has now asked the Supreme Court to grant review of its case, and Cato—joined by the Liberty Justice Center—has filed an amicus brief supporting that petition.

Read the full article at the Cato Institute

Northeast Canyons fishing prohibition may be added to councils’ management plans

November 11, 2022 — The National Marine Fisheries Service is developing an amendment to incorporate the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts ban on commercial fishing into regional fishery management plans.

Originally declared during the Obama administration, partially overturned in the Trump years, and reinstated by President Biden, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument covers nearly 5,000 square miles of sea floor east-southeast of Cape Cod.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

U.S. Government Decides Against Adding Great Hammerhead Shark To Endangered Species List

November 10, 2022 — It was a report many were looking forward to – whether or not the United States National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) would decide for or against adding the great hammerhead shark (Sphyrna mokarran) to the Endangered Species List (ESA).

Known for its unmistakeable hammer shaped head and a tall first dorsal fin, these nomadic, generally solitary, and highly migratory species have a circumglobal distribution. The largest species in the Sphyrnidae family, it was listed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List as Critically Endangered due to being caught globally as target and bycatch in coastal and pelagic large- and small-scale longline, purse seine, and gillnet fisheries. Retained by many fishers for its large fins, combined with high bycatch mortality, makes this long-lived predator vulnerable to overfishing pressures. With this evidence, many hoped for good news today. Instead, they received disappointing news.

On June 16, 2022, the NMFS received a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) to list the great hammerhead shark as a threatened or endangered species under the ESA and to designate critical habitat concurrent with the listing. The CBD argued that the 2019 assessment carried out by the IUCN had designated the species as “critically endangered,” which meant “the species satisfies the listing criteria under the ESA.”

Read the full article at Forbes

MLA motion to expedite appeal granted

October 31, 2022 — On October 18, a federal appeals court sided with the Maine Lobstermen’s Association in granting the MLA’s request to expedite consideration of its appeal of the decision in Maine Lobstermen’s Association v. National Marine Fisheries Service. The Court rarely grants motions to expedite, according to a press release.

On October 11, the MLA announced that it has retained former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement and had filed for expedited consideration of MLA’s appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in its lawsuit to reverse a scientifically-flawed federal whale plan that will cripple Maine’s lobster industry.

In granting the motion for expedited appeal, the court laid out a timeline that requires all briefs to be submitted by January 10, 2023.

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Press

MAINE: Portland public meeting on NMFS whale plan set for Oct. 5

September 30, 2022 — An in-person public scoping meeting on proposed changes to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan is scheduled for Portland, Maine, on Oct. 5 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The event will “collect public input on modifications to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan to reduce the risk of death and serious injury caused by U.S. commercial fishing gear to endangered North Atlantic right whales in compliance with the mandates of the Marine Mammal Protection Act,” the agency said in an announcement Thursday morning.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Chinook salmon lawsuit still looms over Alaska trollers

September 22, 2022 — A lawsuit filed against the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2020 reared its head in a U.S. district court in Washington state on 8 August, 2022, and it could spell changes in fisheries management for Southeast Alaska trollers.

The case stems from a suit brought by the Wild Fish Conservancy that challenges the biological rationale in setting allocations of Pacific Salmon Treaty chinooks that local trollers catch.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Northeast fishermen, scientists test ‘restrictor rope’ for bottom trawl surveys

September 20, 2022 — Scientists and fishermen have worked together over many years to develop  bottom trawl survey gear that performs consistently, ensuring accurate and reliable data for U.S. fisheries management.

This summer they have been evaluating a potential way to better standardize survey gear – a ‘restrictor rope’ that helps keep the distance between trawl doors consistent while trawling in different conditions, depths, warp lengths, and gear configurations.

A summary of the project from the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center describes experiments in spring and summer 2022 at sea with scientists and fishermen with long experience in cooperative survey work.

Their main platform was the F/V Darana R, with Captain Jimmy Ruhle, his son Bobby Ruhle and their crew. Homeported at Wanchese, N.C., the Darana R has for years supported the bi-annual Northeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program bottom trawl survey, led by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at Gloucester Point, Va.

The NEAMAP program facilitates the collection of fishery-independent information in the Northeast, and standardizes survey procedures to improve data quality and accessibility.

Expanding offshore wind energy development off southern New England will force changes on bottom trawl surveys in just the next few years. The Vineyard Wind, South Fork Wind and Revolution Wind turbine arrays will be built between Martha’s Vineyard and Long Island’s East End.

“Existing surveys will need to adapt to operate in and around offshore wind farm areas,” according to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. “Researchers will also need to develop new surveys to fill data gaps created when pre-existing survey locations can’t be accessed. A standardized gear configuration will need to be used so data collected during existing and new surveys can be used, and compared.”

For help with that redesign, the science center went to the Northeast Trawl Advisory Panel, a joint advisory panel composed of Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery Management Council members, as well as fishing industry, academic,  government and non-government fisheries experts. It identified the use of a restrictor rope as a possible way to standardize all Northeast bottom trawl surveys in the region. None have used restrictor ropes yet.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Court ruling on endangered killer whales could force a rewrite of federal fisheries policy

August 19, 2022 — A federal judge in Seattle has ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated a key provision of the Endangered Species Act in 2019 when it published research on the harvest of king salmon in Southeast Alaska that failed to address its impact on a small population of killer whales in Puget Sound.

In a summary judgment granted to the Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy, U.S. District Court Judge Richard A. Jones on Aug. 8 ordered that an “appropriate remedy” be found, that — while it could limit commercial trolling for chinook in Southeast — will more likely result in a rewrite of the biological opinion that led to the problem.

“I think we’ve won the recognition that this fishery was actually causing harm to threatened and endangered species, and for all intents and purposes was illegal,” said Kurt Beardslee, director of special projects for the conservancy.

The Wild Fish Conservancy filed suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service in March of 2020, arguing that the government failed to adequately address the impact of Alaskan king salmon harvests on southern resident killer whales, whose population has dropped to critically low levels.

The Wild Fish Conservancy says 97% of king salmon harvested by Southeast Alaska trollers don’t originate in Alaska, depriving southern resident killer whales of their primary food source.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game puts the share of out-of-state chinook in the Alaska harvest much lower — 30-80%, depending on the year.

Matt Donohoe, president of the Alaska Trollers Association, says few if any of those are from Puget Sound, where southern resident killer whales spend several months each year.

Read the full article KTOO