Saving Seafood

Wicker, Cantwell Reintroduce Fishery Disasters Bill

March 18, 2021 — The following was released by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation:

U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., ranking member and chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, today reintroduced legislation to reform the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA)’s Fishery Resource Disaster Relief program of the National Marine Fisheries Service. This legislation, the Fishery Resource Disasters Improvement Act, will make improvements to provide fishermen with disaster relief more quickly.

“I have met with local officials and seen firsthand how extensive flooding in Mississippi has created an economic and environmental emergency for my state and its coastal fisheries,” said Wicker. “Freshwater has devastated our seafood industry and spurred the growth of Harmful Algal Blooms, further hurting our coastal economy. This legislation would expedite the process by which fishermen receive disaster relief. I hope my colleagues will move quickly to pass this bill and help our fishermen.”

“In Washington, fisheries are a cornerstone of our maritime economy. Its related businesses and seafood processors, ship builders, gear manufacturers, support 60 percent of our maritime economy, which is about 146,000 jobs and 30 billion in economic activity,” said Cantwell. “Washington has experienced 17 fishery disasters since 1992, including crab, groundfish, and salmon. There are several pending fishery disaster determinations for my state, and our bipartisan bill includes deadlines to ensure that those fishery disasters are elevated and declared in a reasonable timeframe. Fishermen are tired of waiting.”

The Fishery Resource Disasters Improvement Act would:

  • Maintain the authority of the Secretary of Commerce to determine the existence of a fishery disaster, after which the Secretary would make funds available to be used by state or regional groups to assess the impacts of the disaster and conduct other activities that support fishing activity;
  • Assign a 120-day timeline for the Secretary to evaluate a request, either upon receipt or immediately after the close of the fishery season; and
  • List the eligible uses of fishery disaster relief funds, including direct payments to affected members of the fishing community, habitat restoration and conservation, management improvements, job training, public information campaigns, and preventative measures for future disasters. It would prioritize hiring fishermen displaced by the fishery disaster for these tasks.

To read the full bill, click here.

Alaska Files to Defend Salmon Fisheries in Southeast Alaska

March 17, 2021 — The State of Alaska has moved to intervene in a federal case that threatens state management of Alaska’s salmon fisheries.

The Wild Fish Conservancy, a conservation organization based in Washington state, claims that Alaska’s management of fisheries under the Pacific Salmon Treaty threatens the survival of several salmon stocks in Washington and Oregon, and the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales that depend on them.

The lawsuit seeks to shut down all salmon fisheries in the federal waters off the coast of Southeast Alaska.

Read the full story at KINY

Feds May Look at Spring-Run Chinook Salmon as Genetically Distinct

March 16, 2021 — The National Marine Fisheries Service is considering whether the spring-run and fall-run Chinook salmon that occupy the rivers of Northern California and southern Oregon are genetically distinct.

The decision has huge implications for fish populations as the number of spring-run Chinook salmon has plunged to such depths it would almost certainly result in a listing under the Endangered Species Act if seen as a separate species.

“The science is in on that,” said Rich Nawa, an ecologist who petitioned the agency a year ago to consider the spring-run Chinook salmon as genetically distinct. “There are several papers so no one disputes the science, it’s just how to incorporate it into policy at this point.”

The fisheries service said Monday it will consider the new science as it analyses whether an update to its listing policy is warranted.

“We find that the petition presents substantial scientific and commercial information indicating the petitioned action may be warranted,” the agency said in a document.

The key word in the phrase is “may,” as a significant dispute exists in the scientific community whether the spring-run Chinook is what is referred to as an “evolutionarily significant unit.”

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

NMFS selects 13 Northeast scallop research projects worth $12.5 million

March 16, 2021 — Sea scallop surveys, bycatch reduction and sea turtle interactions are on a list for the 2021-22 Northeast research set-aside program for scallop science.

Set up by the New England Fishery Management Council in 1999, the cooperative science effort between researchers and fishermen was one  outcome of the scallop fishery crisis when abundance declined in the mid-1990s. Two decades later, scallops are the richest East Coast fishery, with a system of rotating area management and close collaboration between NMFS, academic researchers and the industry.

The set-aside program is a wish list of research needs from the council and carves out a small part of the fishery’s landings – valued around $570 million in 2019 – allocating it to boats carrying out the projects. For the 2021-2022 program that will be about $12.5 million in scallops brought to the docks, with $3 million from those paying for the science work and $9.5 million for the fishermen, according to a summary from NMFS.

“The RSA program improves our scientific understanding of sea scallops and monkfish, which directly contributes to their sustainable management,” Jon Hare, director of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, said in a statement outlining the plan.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Yearbook: Fishing fleets flex

March 8, 2021 — With revenues up 3 percent in January and February of 2020, the industry was looking ahead to another strong year in the global marketplace.

In March, when restaurants across the country shuttered quickly under covid-19 outbreak restrictions, seafood supply chains ground to a halt in the early days of the pandemic. Fishermen who had been out harvesting to supply the once-solid market were stuck with their catch left unsold and their boats tied up.

In early March, New Jersey fisherman Gus Lovgren was headed to port after a Virginia summer flounder trip when his wife called him, “saying they’re shutting the country down, basically,” he recalled.

“We had been getting $1.75 to $2 (per pound). In the end we got, I think, 60 cents,” said Lovgren. “The market was flooded, and there was nothing we could do.”

Right out of the gates in April 2020, the Hawaii Longline Association worked with others in Hawaii’s fishing industry to donate 2,000 pounds of fresh seafood to Hawaii Foodbank, and planning larger deliveries.

The initial donation, coordinated with the with United Fishing Agency’s Honolulu auction, the Hawaii Seafood Council, Nico’s Pier 38, and Pacific Ocean Producers, “is the beginning of a new pilot program with the Hawaii Foodbank,” the association said.

“Through the partnership, Hawaii Foodbank plans to purchase $50,000 worth of seafood landed by Hawaii longline vessels,” according to a statement from the association. “The purchase will ensure that Hawaii Foodbank will be able to meet the needs of Hawaii residents facing hardship as a result of covid-19. It will also support Hawaii’s longline fishermen.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

WASHINGTON: Seattle Harbor Expansion Would Push Out Endangered Whales, Conservation Group Says

March 5, 2021 — The Trump administration rushed through a project to expand Seattle Harbor for ultra-large container ships that would further threaten endangered Southern Resident killer whales, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.

Only 75 Southern Resident killer whales swim the Salish Sea — a number that has increased since three baby whales were born in the relatively quiet waters of the pandemic. Noise from whale watching boats and ships headed to and from ports across the Pacific will increase when pandemic restrictions are lifted.

Added to that is a new worry: the underwater cacophony of ultra-large container ships that would visit Seattle Harbor, in the heart of the whales’ home waters, and the release of hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of toxic material dredged during the harbor project.

The three pods, or family lines, of Southern Residents took a major hit in the late 1960s when aquariums stole 45 Southern Residents from their families, and killed another 14 in the process. Only one of the whales taken during that time survives today: a 53-year-old whale who lives at the Miami Seaquarium. The Seaquarium calls her Lolita, while supporters who want her returned to a protected cove of the Salish Sea call her Tokitae.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

In Amy Coney Barrett’s first signed majority opinion, Supreme Court sides with government over environmentalists

March 5, 2021 — Justice Amy Coney Barrett issued her first signed majority opinion for the Supreme Court on Thursday, siding with the government over an environmental group seeking draft agenda reports about potential harm to endangered species.

In a second decision, the court made it more difficult for those who have been in the country illegally for more than a decade to avoid deportation when they have committed a crime.

Barrett’s 7-to-2 opinion said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not have to provide the Sierra Club the guidance it gave the Environmental Protection Agency about a proposed rule regarding power plants that use water to cool their equipment.

The rest of the court’s conservatives joined Barrett’s opinion, as did liberal Justice Elena Kagan. Liberal Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor issued a mild dissent.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Better data needed to guide regulatory decisions aimed at protecting right whales

March 3, 2021 — Federal regulators, in response to a court order, are again proposing stringent new rules on lobster fishing in an effort to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The decline in whale numbers in recent years is troubling. However, it is also problematic that more precise data on the causes of whale deaths remains lacking.

We, along with fishermen, conservationists, our governor and congressional delegation, want the right whale population to grow and thrive. But without evidence that lobster fishing gear is a significant threat to the whales, it is hard to accept potentially expensive, burdensome and dangerous changes in lobster fishing gear that may have little impact on the whales.

In the new draft biological opinion, the document that will be the basis for National Marine Fisheries Service regulations for the management of numerous ocean fisheries to limit harm to right whales, the agency clearly acknowledges the gaps in data.

Regarding collisions with ships, the agency says it is currently undergoing a separate review of measures, including mandated speed reductions and closed areas, to reduce what are called “vessel strikes.” Twice in the document it says: “This review is expected to be released soon.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

After years of inaction, federal regulators are on the cusp of imposing new rules to protect right whales

March 1, 2021 — Nearly two years ago, federal regulators declared that North Atlantic right whales were facing an existential crisis. They convened a wide-ranging team of experts — state officials, scientists, fishermen, and conservation groups — in what they said was an effort to save the species from extinction.

Since then, 14 whales have been found dead and another 14 have been so seriously injured — either from entanglements in fishing gear or vessel strikes — that they’re considered “swimming while dead.” As the estimated right whale population plunged by a quarter, a federal judge ruled last spring that the US government was violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to adequately protect them.

Now, after the Trump administration slow-walked regulations to protect right whales that could harm the powerful lobster industry, the National Marine Fisheries Service is finally on the cusp of issuing the controversial new protections, which are drawing opposition from both the fishing industry and environmentalists.

“Developing these proposed modifications was challenging for everyone involved,” wrote Chris Oliver, the agency’s assistant administrator for fisheries, in a letter that accompanied the release of the draft regulations in late December.

The proposed rules — likely to take effect this summer — are estimated to cost the lobster industry as much as $61 million over six years, or about 10 percent of its annual revenues in recent years.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Feds Taking Final Comments About Plan to Save Right Whales

March 1, 2021 — The federal government is taking the last of the comments about a proposal to try to save an endangered species of whale.

The North Atlantic right whale numbers only about 360. The National Marine Fisheries Service is taking comments about its proposal to reduce risk to right whales until March 1.

The government’s proposal to help the whales includes changes to the U.S. lobster fishing industry, which is one of the most lucrative marine industries in the Northeast. The whales are vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear.

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