Saving Seafood

Sea Grant Announces Funding Opportunity for Highly Migratory Species Research

April 26, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Sea Grant:

Atlantic highly migratory species (HMS), which include tunas, billfish, and sharks, are important to both the ecological health of ocean ecosystems and to commercial and recreational fisheries. However, knowledge gaps in the life history, biology, and population status of many of these species limit understanding and the ability to sustainably manage these species. Populations of HMS and the coastal communities that rely on the health of these important fish stocks could greatly benefit from improved, science-based management and conservation.

As part of the FY 2019 Appropriations Bill for NOAA, Congress directed the National Sea Grant College Program to spend up to $2 million to initiate a HMS research initiative focused on HMS species in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, including the interactions between yellow-fin tuna and oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. This direction, and priorities identified in the 2014 Atlantic HMS Management-Based Research Needs and Priorities document developed by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service in concert with industry and management stakeholders, was used to develop this initiative, which will support research to address critical gaps in knowledge about HMS in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean regions.

Letters of Intent are due May 15, 2019 (see formal announcement for details).

Full proposals are due June 19, 2019 (see formal announcement for details).

Read the full release here

Groundfish quota changes up for debate

April 26, 2019 — NOAA Fisheries is seeking public comment on its proposed rule revising catch limits for seven of the 20 groundfish stocks for the 2019 fishing season, but the real battle over commercial groundfish quotas probably will wait until after the next operational stock assessment in the fall.

The proposed rule, called Framework 58, calls for increasing the commercial quota for Georges Bank cod by 15 percent, Georges Bank haddock by 19 percent and Georges Bank winter flounder by 6 percent for the new fishing season that is set to begin Wednesday.

It also includes a 1 percent increase for witch flounder.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the proposed rule, published in the Federal Register, calls for a whopping 50 percent cut to the annual catch limit for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder, a 1 percent reduction in the quota Gulf of Maine winter flounder and a 3 percent cut to the catch limit for Atlantic halibut.

“We’re still digesting the proposed rule and expect to submit our comments next week,” said Jackie O’Dell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition.

The deadline for public comment on Framework 58 is May 6.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Feds seek to get S.C. claims tossed in seismic testing suit

April 25, 2019 — As cross-arguments continue between the many parties in a federal lawsuit seeking to block seismic testing off coastal waters of East Coast states, three more municipalities in the Carolinas will get their voices heard, while the federal government tries to get some of South Carolina’s specific claims tossed.

Conservation groups, including Georgia’s One Hundred Miles, filed the suit in December in order to stop the seismic testing that is the precursor to offshore oil and gas drilling. The federal government already awarded five companies permits for incidental harassment of marine mammals that would occur during seismic testing.

The federal defendants — the National Marine Fisheries Services, NMFS Assistant Administrator Chris Oliver and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross — argue in a Monday filing that South Carolina “states four novel and legally baseless theories raised by no other party in this suit.”

Those claims, according to the federal attorneys, are that 2017 orders by the president and the Commerce secretary were invalid because “they retract putative policies” from the Obama administration, that they seismic testing is a public nuisance, that any survey activities would constitute trespassing and that the survey activities violate admiralty law.

Read the full story at The Brunswick News

WASHINGTON: Skagit River has lost half of important habitat for salmon that orcas depend on

April 23, 2019 — The Skagit River is one of Puget Sound’s most important rivers for Chinook salmon and the killer whales who depend on them.

Last week, KING 5 visited a fish trap that looks like a floating hut. Each morning, state wildlife technicians check to see what’s been caught.

“We operate from January through mid-July to catch juvenile salmon as they are migrating towards Puget sound,” said Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Clayton Kinsel.

Kinsel’s team is mostly counting chum salmon right now, some 3,000-4,000 each night. Southern Resident killer whales do eat chum, but scientists believe their diet depends on Chinook salmon.

Those salmon are dwindling like the whales who depend on them, and the fish trap is helping scientists figure out how to stop that.

“It tells us how many fish are coming down stream to Puget Sound. It’s a tool that we use to set fisheries, to manage fisheries to inform habitat restoration,” Kinsel said.

“Habitat restoration” is the buzz phrase when it comes to Chinook salmon recovery, especially on the Skagit River, where dikes and levees have cut off side streams that are important for young salmon trying to grow bigger and stronger for their journey to the ocean.

“These are places where the river used to flow many years ago. They are now cut off. In particular, the levee right along the Skagit River, it’s cutting water access off to all those side channels,” said NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Science Center research biologist Correigh Greene. “As a result, those places are inaccessible to juvenile salmon moving down the river.”

Read the full story at K5 News

SeaWorld Publishes Decades of Orca Data to Help Wild Whales

April 23, 2019 — The endangered killer whales of the Pacific Northwest live very different lives from orcas in captivity.

They swim up to 100 miles (161 kilometers) a day in pursuit of salmon, instead of being fed a steady diet of baitfish and multivitamins. Their playful splashing awes and entertains kayakers and passengers on Washington state ferries instead of paying theme park customers.

But the captive whales are nevertheless providing a boon to researchers urgently trying to save wild whales in the Northwest.

SeaWorld, which displays orcas at its parks in California, Texas and Florida, has recently published data from thousands of routine blood tests of its killer whales over two decades, revealing the most comprehensive picture yet of what a healthy whale looks like. The information could guide how and whether scientists intervene to help sick or stranded whales in the wild.

Read the full story at NBC Washington

Trump administration opts not to pursue appeal of driftnet ruling

April 23, 2019 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has decided against appealing a federal judge’s ruling that NOAA Fisheries illegally withdrew a proposal that would have placed hard caps on the bycatch of protected species caught in California’s swordfish drift gillnet fishery.

On Monday, 15 April, when its brief was due to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the administration instead filed a notice to dismiss its appeal voluntarily. As a result, NOAA Fisheries will begin talks with the Pacific Fishery Management Council to determine the limits that should be placed on such species as humpback whales, loggerhead turtles, and leatherback turtles.

The PFMC initially worked with key stakeholders to establish caps on nine species, and NOAA Fisheries published the draft review for implementation in October 2016. However, eight months later, after Trump was elected president, the agency reversed its course.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

UPDATE: New fishing rules on agenda to protect rare whale

April 23, 2019 — This week is shaping up to be the week of the North Atlantic right whale, as regulators, conservationists and fishing stakeholders convene in New England to hammer out new measures to protect the imperiled cetaceans from potentially deadly entanglements in fishing gear.

The Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team is set to meet Tuesday through Friday in Providence, Rhode Island. The proceedings will be closely watched by segments of the Northeast commercial fishing industry — particularly Massachusetts and Maine lobstermen — to gauge the impact on future fishing.

“Tackling entanglements is critical to the recovery of the North Atlantic right whale population, and we can’t do it without the assistance and cooperation of those who know best how the fishing industry interacts with large whales,” Mike Pentony, the Gloucester-based regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries, said in a statement. “The continued participation and dedication of our industry, science, (non-governmental organizations) and agency partners is absolutely necessary to future success.”

The population of the North Atlantic right whales peaked at about 480 in 2010 before another downward trajectory emerged, fueled in part by an unprecedented 17 mortalities in U.S. and Canadian waters in 2017, particularly in the Gulf of St. Lawrence snow crab fishery.

Today, whale researchers estimate the North Atlantic right whale population hovers around 411.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

New England herring quota alternatives bear more bad news for lobster fishery

April 22, 2019 — A range of alternatives recently approved by the New England Fishery Management Council for Framework Adjustment 6 to the Atlantic herring fishery has little positive news for the New England lobster industry, which relies on the fish for bait.

Framework Adjustment 6 will determine the overfishing definition for the Atlantic herring fishery, and three alternatives are currently on the table. Regardless of the alternative chosen by NEFMC, the herring quota won’t be increasing in 2020, and could decrease once again.

Alternative 1, which represents no change from the current 2019 fishing season, would set the overfishing limit at 30,668 metric tons (MT) and the acceptable biological catch at 21,266 MT, almost identical to 2019’s quotas.

Alternative 2, which was recommended by the Scientific and Statistical Committee in October 2018, is based on the proposed “Amendment 8 Control Rule.” It would set the overfishing limit at 41,839 MT, and the allowable biological catch at 16,131 MT. Alternative 3, which is also consistent with Amendment 8, would use more accurate catch data from 2018 and sets the overfishing limit at 40,574 MT and the allowable biological catch at 14,265 MT.

As recently as 2018, the herring acceptable biological catch was 110,000 MT, but a June 2018 Northeast Regional Stock Assessment Workshop found that poor recruitment was likely going to result in a substantial decline in herring biomass. In response to that, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) moved forward with an in-season adjustment that set the allowable biological catch at 21,266 MT.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Voluntary Vessel Speed Restriction Zone East of Boston to Protect Right Whales

April 22, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

A voluntary vessel speed restriction zone (Dynamic Management Area – DMA) has been established east of Boston to protect an aggregation of 11 right whales sighted in this area on April 19.

This DMA is in effect through May 5, 2019.

Mariners are requested to route around this area or transit through it at 10 knots or less. Whales were spotted in or near shipping lanes so please be especially vigilant when traveling in these areas.

DMA coordinates:

  • 42 40 N
  • 42 02 N
  • 070 20 W
  • 071 15 W

ACTIVE SEASONAL MANAGEMENT AREAS (SMAs)

Mandatory speed restrictions of 10 knots or less (50 CFR 224.105) are in effect in the following areas:

Cape Cod Bay SMA — in effect through May 15

Off Race Point SMA– in effect through April 3

Mid-Atlantic U.S. SMAs (includes Block Island) — in effect through April 30

Great South Channel SMA — in effect through July 31

More info on Seasonal Management Areas

Right Whales Are Migrating

North Atlantic right whales are on the move along the Atlantic coast of the U.S. With an unprecedented 20 right whale deaths documented in 2017 and 2018, NOAA is cautioning boaters to give these endangered whales plenty of room. We are also asking commercial fishermen to be vigilant when maneuvering to avoid accidental collisions with whales, remove unused gear from the ocean to help avoid entanglements, and use vertical lines with required markings, weak links, and breaking strengths.

Right Whales in Trouble

North Atlantic right whales are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Scientists estimate there are slightly more than 400 remaining, making them one of the rarest marine mammals in the world.

In August 2017, NOAA Fisheries declared the increase in right whale mortalities an “Unusual Mortality Event,” which helps the agency direct additional scientific and financial resources to investigating, understanding, and reducing the mortalities in partnership with the Marine Mammal Stranding Network, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and outside experts from the scientific research community.

Read the full release here

NOAA scientist: Offshore wind projects will likely affect viability of fishery surveys

April 19, 2019 — Upcoming offshore wind projects proposed for areas on the East Coast of the United States will have an impact on NOAA Fisheries surveys, presenting new challenges to scientists by potentially resulting in less-effective fisheries data.

At a special session of the New England Fisheries Management Council covering offshore wind, Wendy Gabriel, of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, outlined a wide number of concerns for the organization regarding the development of wind power along the coast. Chief among the concerns was the organization’s ability to continue conducting viable fishery surveys – which provide much of the data that the council uses to establish fishing quotas.

“The bottom-line here is, nearly all of the long-term fishery independent surveys that have coverage will be affected,” she said during the session.

There’s already a wide number of potential offshore wind projects planned for the east coast, with multiple leased areas totaling thousands of acres of land dotting the coast. Almost all of those planned areas overlap some of the survey “strata” which NOAA Fisheries uses to plan its surveys.

Typically, according to Gabriel, the center will randomly select areas of each survey “stratum” to determine where trawls will be preformed to get data on certain fisheries – from Atlantic sea scallops to surf clams. However, currently, leased areas overlap in every single strata area; at the lowest end, 30 percent of each strata is occupied by an offshore wind lease.

“Right now, we use a random stratified survey design, and that involves picking locations at random in a stratum, and now we’re not going to be able to do that, because there will be turbines in the neighborhood,” Gabriel said.

That could pose a problem, depending on how spaced out the wind turbines are, and what sort of uses are allowed in the wind energy areas.

Read the full story at Seafood Source