Saving Seafood

US places further limitations on midwater trawlers catch of herring in New England

December 5, 2019 — As New England lobster harvesters struggle to keep up with the high cost of bait, due in large part to the short supply of Atlantic herring, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has issued further restrictions to protect the forage fish’s dwindling stocks.

As part of an amendment developed by the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) and approved Nov. 19 by NMFS, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, midwater trawling has been prohibited within 12 nautical miles of the coastline that runs from the US state of Maine to Rhode Island 20 miles off Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, reports The Vineyard Gazette, a Massachusetts newspaper.

The change will give the herring a “buffer zone” to migrate without being pressured by commercial vessels but also allowing them to be eaten by other fish, aiding the health of the overall ecosystem, Janice Plante, the NEFMC’s public affairs officer, is quoted as saying.

Local fishermen, boards of selectmen, state legislators and environmental groups have been pushing for stronger management of the midwater trawl herring fishery for more than 20 years, according to the newspaper.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

New regulations to expand protections for seafloor habitats, reopen fishing grounds off US West Coast

December 5, 2019 — New regulations for essential fish habitat off the West Coast of the United States that go into effect in 2020 will extend protections for deep-sea habitats and corals while reopening fishing grounds where fish populations have rebounded.

The new rules were finalized by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (known as NOAA Fisheries) last month, and will go into effect on January 1, 2020. The updated regulations were recommended to NOAA by the Pacific Fishery Management Council and enjoy broad support from the fishing industry and environmentalists alike. The changes will be implemented via an amendment to the Fishery Management Plan for groundfish off the US West Coast.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council is responsible for minimizing impacts of human activities on essential fish habitat (EFH), which are habitats deemed vital to maintaining sustainable fisheries. In 2005, the Council established area closures in groundfish habitat that limited the use of bottom trawling and other types of fishing gear that come into contact with the ocean floor.

According to NOAA Fisheries, groundfish fisheries contribute $569 million to household incomes in West Coast communities, from the state of Washington down to Southern California. About 3,000 square miles that had been closed to bottom trawling for groundfish will be reopened when the changes take effect, including 2,000 square miles of a Rockfish Conservation Area off the coasts of California and Oregon that have been off-limits to bottom trawling since 2002.

Read the full story at Mongabay

NMFS closes herring Area 1A, catch limit nearly harvested

December 4, 2019 — The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced a temporary closure of herring Management Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) due the area reaching its catch threshold.

Starting last week, fishermen in the area can no longer attempt to fish for, possess, transfer, receive, land or sell more than 2,000 pounds of Atlantic herring per trip. In addition, all permitted dealers cannot acquire more than 2,000 pounds of herring that was acquired in a trip from Management Area 1A.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Fishing groups sue federal agencies over latest water plan for California

December 4, 2019 — The fracas over California’s scarce water supplies will tumble into a San Francisco courtroom after a lawsuit was filed this week claiming the federal government’s plan to loosen previous restrictions on water deliveries to farmers is a blueprint for wiping out fish.

Environmental and fishing groups sued the the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Monday for allegedly failing to protect chinook salmon, steelhead trout and delta smelt.

They believe the voluminous government proposal, known as a biological opinion, sacrifices protections for the imperiled fish without adequate justification so that Central Valley farmers and Southern California cities can have more water.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, charges that the government’s plan to boost agricultural deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is an arbitrary and capricious failure to uphold the Endangered Species Act.

Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle

NMFS approves 20-mile herring trawl buffer zone off Cape Cod

December 3, 2019 — NMFS approved the New England Fishery Management Council’s plan for a 12-mile offshore boundary for New England herring trawlers a few days before Thanksgiving, with a bump out to 20 miles off Cape Cod.

The decision culminates a two-decade battle over midwater trawling in the Gulf of Maine, and complaints that it causes localized depletion of herring and other fish that disrupts ecosystems and fishermen’s access to cod, haddock and other species.

“The council recommended the midwater trawl restricted area to mitigate potential negative socioeconomic impacts on other user groups resulting from short duration, high volume herring removals by midwater trawl vessels,” NMFS Northeast regional administrator Michael Pentony wrote in a decision letter approving the New England council’s proposal.

“Because midwater trawl vessels are able to fish offshore, the council recommended prohibiting them from inshore waters to help ensure herring are available inshore for other users groups and predators of herring,” Pentony wrote.

The decision sets a 12-nautical mile exclusion zone for the trawlers from the Maine-Canada border south to territorial waters off Connecticut. The line jogs out 20 miles off Cape Cod.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

New Crab Pot Could Help Reduce Whale Entanglements

December 2, 2019 — Oregon’s Dungeness crab season is coming up, but there’s a problem looming over this fishery.

The ropes and buoys that allow crabbers to collect their crab pots from the seafloor can injure and even kill whales when they swim into them.

Last year, 46 whale entanglements were reported off the West Coast, and crab gear was responsible for about a third of them.

According to Derek Orner, a bycatch reduction program coordinator with the National Marine Fisheries Service, this a growing problem in the spiny lobster and Dungeness crab fisheries.

“Were seeing increases in whale entanglements with a number of species that are listed under the National Marine Mammal Protection Act, in particular with humpback whales, gray whales, and blue whales,” he said.

His agency recently announced grants for several ropeless fishing gear projects, including a new kind of crab pot developed by Coastal Monitoring Associates of California.

Bart Chadwick, the company’s president, said when crabbers drop their pots in the ocean, the ropes and buoys can remain in the water column for days.

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

Most Recent Amendment to the Groundfish Fishery Management Plan a Rare Source of Agreement

November 27, 2019 — On November 19, 2019, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued Amendment 28 to the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (Amendment 28). The Pacific Groundfish fishery is one of the most diverse fisheries that NMFS regulates and also one of the most litigated. The fishery includes over 90 bottom-dwelling fish such as rockfish, cod, and flounder. This amendment closes a large amount of new areas to bottom trawling, and re-opens certain other more limited areas. These changes will also protect sensitive deep-water habitat and deep-sea corals from bottom fishing.

Amendment 28, which was developed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council over a five-year period, contains three major provisions:

  1. Defines new areas as Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) conservation areas for both groundfish and non-groundfish species, such as California habitat, in which bottom trawling is restricted.
  2. Opens certain areas previously closed to bottom trawling.
  3. Defines a new deep-water area closed to all bottom-contacting fishing to protect deepwater habitats.

In making changes to Groundfish EFH, NMFS closes over 12,000 square miles of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and opens over 200 square miles to bottom trawling. These closures are intended to protect certain ocean floor types, such as submarine canyons and deep sea corals. While the rule closes EFH areas up and down the Pacific Coast, the largest area to be closed is off the coast of Southern California, surrounding the Channel Islands. In the final rule, NMFS claims that the areas that are reopened have lower sensitivity than those that are being closed and will recover faster. Most of these lower sensitivity areas are off the coast of Central California. NMFS also claims that the closures will have a “minimal” impact on fishing communities because very little groundfish landings actually occurred in the closed areas.

Read the full story at The National Law Review

US fisheries sees first IP-based broadband terminal and vessel monitoring

November 26, 2019 — An estimated 4,000 legally licensed commercial fishing vessels are permitted to fish in US Fisheries Management regions. These are required to report their GPS positions via a type-approved secure satellite link.

As explained, iFleetONE VMS is the first mobile satellite terminal to provide secure VMS services for NMFS with full-featured voice and IP-based communications capabilities.

In addition, it is expected, for the first time, to enable every stakeholder in the VMS ecosystem, including NMFS Law Enforcement, fisheries management officials and other end users to have a platform to develop new and previously limited applications.

As such, this terminal and VMS combination is expected to transform regulatory compliance, fisheries governance in US waters to sustain fish numbers and protect ocean habitats, explained Inmarsat’s Eric Griffin, VP for Offshore & Fishing.

Read the full story at Safety4Sea

Federal managers extend comment period for humpback whale critical habitat decision

November 25, 2019 — A comment period over designating critical habitat for some of the humpback whales that swim off Alaska’s coastline is being extended by the federal government.

Coastal waters from southern California to the Aleutian Islands could be listed as habitat critical to sustaining three distinct populations of humpback whales. The move by the National Marine Fisheries Service could require future consultation for activities that are permitted, funded or carried out by a federal agency.

“Critical habitat really affects federal actions,” NMFS endangered species act national listing coordinator Lisa Manning explained.  “It’s not something that affects everything that takes place within those areas that everyone’s seeing on the map. The regulatory effect of critical habitat is it requires federal action agencies to make sure their actions don’t adversely affect or destroy the critical habitat.”

Those activities could include vessel traffic, aquaculture, clean water permitting, in-water construction, alternative energy development and work permitted by the U.S. Forest Service on the Tongass National Forest. Manning says there are also indirect impacts possible that the agency has analyzed in documents available on the agency’s website. For instance, the agency’s analysis states the designation may impact how the state of Alaska manages commercial fisheries for herring, a food for the whales.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Senate right whale protection bill advances

November 22, 2019 — The U.S. Senate last week moved a step closer to providing substantial financial assistance to efforts aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Scientists warn that, with a population of only about 400 animals, the giant mammals face a real threat of extinction. The whales have experienced a high rate of mortality in the past few years resulting mostly from ship strikes and entanglement with fishing gear. The population also has had a low rate of reproduction.

Last Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation passed the “SAVE Right Whales Act” (the Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales Act of 2019) and referred it to the full Senate for action.

The bill is identical to legislation now awaiting action in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The legislative activity comes at a time when right whale conservation is front and center with federal and Maine fisheries regulators and in the federal courts.

The NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has proposed a set of rules that would, among other things, require Maine lobstermen to reduce the number of vertical buoy lines they use by 50 percent.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is in the process of developing its own proposal to submit to NMFS this month.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American