National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Archives - Page 148 of 260

Sen. Cantwell Language to Improve Legislation Getting Fisheries Disaster Aid to Fleets Passes Committee

November 15, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) is determined to improve the process through which the nation’s fishing fleets survive fisheries disasters. Earlier this week, her provisions to reform the process passed the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Cantwell is a ranking member of the committee.

In September, Cantwell highlighted issues with the current process, including small business charter fishermen being excluded from the 2016 Coho fisheries disaster, an event that cost Washington State an estimated $100 million.

Cantwell’s provisions would expand and protect Tribal eligibility for fisheries disaster assistance and require charter fishermen to be included in economic relief.

“This legislation will help improve the federal fisheries disaster management program that impacted fishermen in coastal communities so that they will get financial relief faster,” Cantwell said. “As we all know, fisheries issues impact lots of different aspects of our community. But certainly the commercial and recreational fishermen deserve to be compensated as well, and with communities on our Pacific Coast that are very dependent on charter activities, I want to make sure, in the case of a disaster, that they too can apply and receive funding.

“The Coho disaster impacted Tribes, commercial fisherman, charter and recreational fisherman… but not all groups received adequate funding from NOAA,” Cantwell said at the September hearing. “In a shift from previous policy, the administration determined that the charter fishermen should not be included in the economic determination. Thus, I believe Washington did not receive adequate funding for this disaster.”

Cantwell is no stranger to the issues facing West Coast and Alaska fishing fleets. In 2015, she introduced bipartisan legislation to create a national ocean acidification monitoring strategy to prioritize investments in ocean acidification sensors to areas that need it most. In 2018, she worked with colleagues in the House and Senate to secure $200 million in federal funding to help communities with declared fisheries disasters. She has also fought to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed from harmful mining and opposed drilling off the coasts of Washington and Oregon.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

NOAA Appoints Alexa Cole as Director for International Affairs and Seafood Inspection

November 15, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today, NOAA announced the appointment of Ms. Alexa Cole as the new Director for NOAA Fisheries’ Office of International Affairs and Seafood Inspection. She will officially assume this role in the coming weeks and will work out of agency headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.

As the Director for the Office of International Affairs and Seafood Inspection, Ms. Cole will lead the office’s work to ensure sound management of global marine resources. She will promote international engagement and cooperation to achieve effective, responsible marine stewardship and ensure sustainable fisheries management on a global scale. She will also oversee the office’s seafood inspection services, which support seafood safety.

“We are incredibly pleased to announce Alexa as our new director for the Office of International Affairs and Seafood Inspection,” said Dr. Paul Doremus, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Operations at NOAA Fisheries. “She is a skilled negotiator and has ably represented the agency at high stakes international fisheries science and management meetings and treaty negotiations. Her unique experience as an attorney and a negotiator gives her the perfect skill set to take on this new role and lead this office into the future.”

Ms. Cole has held various positions within NOAA for more than 15 years, winning multiple awards over the years for her leadership and exceptional performance. She has served as Acting Director of the Office since May 2019. Prior to this role, Ms. Cole held leadership positions as Acting Chief and Deputy Chief in the Enforcement Section in the NOAA Office of General Counsel. In these positions, she supervised the Section’s unified and consistent enforcement of NOAA’s marine resource statutes through international, legislative, legal, and regulatory work. She also served as Senior Enforcement Attorney in the agency’s Pacific Islands Region. In this position, she prosecuted civil and criminal cases involving international and domestic fisheries and protected resources.

Read the full release here

Bill to streamline fishery disaster process clears Senate committee

November 15, 2019 — A U.S. Senate committee earlier this week passed a bill that would make changes to how NOAA Fisheries disaster relief program is managed.

On Wednesday, 13 November, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee passed S. 2346, the Fishery Failures: Urgently Needed Disaster Declarations Act. The bill sponsored by U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), the committee’s chairman, calls for the disaster declaration to be streamlined by requiring the U.S. Commerce Secretary to evaluate a disaster request within 120 days.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Makah Tribe whaling hearing begins

November 14, 2019 — A federal agency’s April 4 recommendation to allow the Makah Tribe to resume whaling on grounds that killing the animals would not have a noticeable impact on the species’ population will be put to the test beginning Thursday, Nov. 14, in Seattle.

U.S. Coast Guard Administrative Law Judge George J. Jordan will begin reviewing arguments at 1 p.m. on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s decision to grant the tribe a waiver of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The hearing room is at the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building.

Jordan must make a recommendation “promptly” to Chris Oliver, assistant administrator of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, according to federal regulations, said Michael Milstein, NOAA spokesperson. The hearing is expected to last through Nov. 22.

An overflow room at the Jackson Building will be provided where onlookers can view today’s proceeding on a monitor, Milstein said.

A 2015 draft environmental impact statement on Makah whaling by the National Marine Fisheries Service generated 57,000 comments, most of which were form letters.

Read the full story at The Peninsula Daily News

NOAA to implement new regs on Jonah crab fishery

November 14, 2019 — The profile of the humble Jonah crab, once considered mere bycatch in the lobster fishery, continues to rise.

On Dec. 19, NOAA Fisheries will implement new regulations that will sharpen the scope and definition of the Jonah crab fishery in federal waters by establishing permitting requirements and setting size and possession limits.

The new federal measures closely replicate Jonah crab fishery management plans already enacted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates Jonah crabs on an interstate level, and many East Coast states — including Massachusetts.

“The federal regulations that are being issued mirror those set in place by ASMFC when they released the Jonah Crab Fishery Management Plan in 2015,” said Derek Perry, a crab biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. “More than 99% of Jonah crabs are caught in federal waters, so this is mostly a federal waters fishery.”

So, beginning on Dec. 12, only vessels with a federal American lobster trap or non-trap permit may retain Jonah crab in federal waters. The minimum size will be the same as set by Massachusetts for state waters — 4.75 inches across the carapace.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Sen. Cantwell Language to Expand Tribal Eligibility, Include Charter Fishermen in Fisheries Disaster Process Passes Committee

November 13, 2019 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA):

Provisions introduced by U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, to reform the federal fisheries disaster process passed the committee today. Cantwell’s provisions would expand and protect Tribal eligibility for fisheries disaster assistance and require charter fishermen to be included in economic relief.

In a September hearing, Cantwell highlighted the failures of the current disaster process by discussing the 2016 Coho salmon fishery disaster, which impacted fisheries throughout Washington state.

Throughout her time in the Senate, Cantwell has prioritized working on issues that impact the fishing industry. In 2015, she introduced bipartisan legislation to create a national ocean acidification monitoring strategy to prioritize investments in ocean acidification sensors to areas that need it most. In 2018, she worked with colleagues in the House and Senate to secure $200 million in federal funding to help communities with declared fisheries disasters. She has also fought to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed from harmful mining and opposed drilling off the coasts of Washington and Oregon.

Video of Senator Cantwell’s remarks at today’s hearing is available HERE and audio is HERE.

Video of Senator Cantwell’s opening statement at a September Commerce Committee hearing is available HERE, audio is HERE, and a transcript is HERE.

Video of Senator Cantwell’s Q&A with witnesses at the September hearing is available HERE, audio is HERE, and a transcript is HERE.

Hawaii researchers study Kona crab release mortality

November 13, 2019 — A rare Hawaiian delicacy and tightly regulated, Kona crab is a small artisanal fishery that lands but a few thousand pounds every year.

Also called spanner crab, all females must be released by fishermen, along with males of less than 4 inches carapace length. But freeing crabs from the traditional baited hoop nets can come at the cost of some crabs’ limbs.

A team of Honolulu-based researchers, funded with a Saltonsall-Kennedy grant from the NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands regional office, is conducting a study to see how those liberated crabs fare in the wild.

Previous research suggests up to 80 percent of the crabs caught are released, according to NOAA. The consultants of Poseidon Fisheries Research are conducting the new study to follow up on 2017-2018 aquarium experiments to determine how often crabs are injured – typically losing one of more dactyls, the last segment of their limbs – and how often they survive.

That study indicated nearly 90 percent of the injured crabs survive. The new phase is a catch-and-release study that will use tags, and the help of Hawaii fishermen, to see how they really do in the ocean.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Newly Identified Fish Nurseries Are Choked With Plastic

November 13, 2019 — Plenty of heartbreaking stories about turtles, seabirds and whales found dead with dozens of plastic bits in their stomachs have surfaced in recent years. But a new study reveals that it’s not just adult sea animals that are getting a gullet full of plastic. Larval fish are inundated with plastic fragments in their nursery habitats and they’re eating those pieces along with their natural food sources, according to the paper published in the journal PNAS.

The finding comes from a recent study looking at where baby fish spend their time. An international team of scientists joined up with NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center to study an ocean habitat called surface slicks, or long lines of smooth water found paralleling coastlines that are created when internal ocean waves converge.

To do that, the team used remote sensing data to identify slicks along the coast of Hawaii then used tow surveys to scoop up plankton and larval fish in them. They found that larval fish prefer to congregate in slicks, which have lots of tasty zooplankton.

The team found the slicks have more eight times as many larval fish as surrounding waters and act as de facto fish nurseries for the first few months of a fish’s life cycle.

“We found that surface slicks contained larval fish from a wide range of ocean habitats, from shallow-water coral reefs to the open ocean and down into the deep sea—at no other point during their lives do these fish share an ocean habitat in this way,” says study co-author Jonathan Whitney, a NOAA marine ecologist, says in a press release. “Slick nurseries also concentrate lots of planktonic prey, and thereby provide an oasis of food that is critical for larval fish development and survival.”

Read the full story at Smithsonian.com

New Officer Takes the Helm of the Research Vessel Gloria Michelle

November 13, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Benjamin VanDine’s route to a career in the NOAA Corps ran through his love of diving, and doing research on corals in Bonaire during a college semester abroad. Today he is the officer-in-charge of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s research vessel Gloria Michelle.

No Salt Water in His Veins

Working on the ocean was not on the radar early in Ben VanDine’s life. Born and raised in the small town of Eagle in southeastern Wisconsin, freshwater was his playground. He enjoyed the lakes and river systems of Wisconsin and “up North” in Canada. The only family connection to the ocean was his grandfather, who served in the U.S. Navy shortly after the Korean War.

Ben was homeschooled through high school. In 2012, he graduated from Cedarville University in Ohio with a bachelor of science in biology.

While in college VanDine tutored students in biology and organic chemistry, and served as a volunteer firefighter for the local fire department.

Then, he spent a semester on the Dutch island of Bonaire in the Caribbean. He is an American Academy of Underwater Sciences diver and a professional rescue diver. He used these skills to conduct independent ecological research and gather coral cover data for Bonaire National Marine Park. He was hooked.

Read the full release here

Maine lobstermen group pans state whale plan

November 13, 2019 — The state of Maine has opted to go it alone against NOAA Fisheries and the plan drafted by the federal Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction team to impose new right whale protections. But that decision seems to have hit a sizable snag.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association, the state’s largest and most influential lobster trade group, has said it will not support the state’s autonomous draft plan, not even over the more rigorous and restrictive plan developed by the take reduction team.

According to the MLA, both plans place too much onus and blame on the state’s $500 million lobster industry for entanglements that may lead to critical injuries or deaths for the imperiled North Atlantic right whales. Estimates are there are only about 400 of the whales.

“The Maine Lobstermen’s Association voted not to support the Maine Department of Marine Resources whale plan because it seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery as demonstrated in MLA’s analysis of (NOAA Fisheries) data,” the MLA said in a statement. “The MLA conducted a thorough analysis of fishing gear removed from entangled right whales which revealed that lobster is the least prevalent gear. The MLA is also concerned the state’s plan creates unsolved safety and operational challenges for some sectors in the lobster industry.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times