Saving Seafood

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

PFMC: Notice of availability: Salmon Preseason Report I

March 1, 2021 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

This is the second report in an annual series of four reports prepared by the Salmon Technical Team of the Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) to document and help guide ocean fishery salmon management off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. The report focuses on Chinook, coho, and pink salmon stocks that have been important in determining Council fisheries in recent years, and on stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) with established National Marine Fisheries Service ESA consultation standards. This report will be formally reviewed at the Council’s March 2021 meeting.

Please visit the Council’s website to download Preseason Report I:  Stock Abundance Analysis and Environmental Assessment Part 1 for 2021 Ocean Salmon Fishery Regulations (Published March 2021).

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff officer Robin Ehlke at 503-820-2410; toll-free 1-866-806-7204.

Little time left to save the North Atlantic right whale

February 26, 2021 — After years of petitioning the National Marine Fisheries Service to protect North Atlantic right whales, conservation groups recently filed an emergency lawsuit asking the US government to expand protections for the highly endangered species.

Right whales were once hunted to near extinction, but when hunting was banned in 1935, the population of right whales began to slowly bounce back. Today, the population is again in free fall. Ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are killing more right whales each year than are being born. Less than 400 of these giant marine mammals remain, making them a critically endangered species.

The National Marine Fisheries Service currently has a rule in place that requires vessels over 65 feet long to slow down in certain areas at certain times of the year to prevent right whales from getting run over and killed by ships. In 2012, the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service to expand the scope of that rule so that it applies in more areas and to smaller vessels.

“The agency has never responded to our petition, despite a host of evidence indicating that the rule, while it’s effective in the places and times that it applies, is not effective enough,” says Kristen Monsell, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.

Read the full story at The World