Saving Seafood

Will new gray whale migration season prove as deadly as the last one?

October 18, 2019 — Gray whales had a rough go last season as they made their annual migration — skinny, emaciated, even dead whales showing up along the West Coast prompting concern over the health of the species.

With the new season’s first gray whales being spotted in recent weeks off the South Bay, Long Beach and Orange County, whale researchers and enthusiasts are hopeful for a healthier season, one that would indicate the whales found enough food to forage in Alaska as they make their trek to the warm waters of Baja, Mexico.

A young gray whale was spotted last week by Harbor Breeze Cruises, which followed it from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Long Beach. Another was seen off the PV Peninsula earlier in the month, and another around Torrance Beach.

Orange County’s first gray whale sighting was reported Tuesday, Oct. 15, first by a diver near the Newport Pier and then by a Dana Wharf boat captain.

Read the full story at The Mercury News

10 Things You Should Know About North Atlantic Right Whales

October 18, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

1. The North Atlantic right whale is one of the world’s most endangered large whale species.

Sadly, North Atlantic right whales got their name from being the “right” whales to hunt because they floated when they were killed. Their population has never recovered to pre-whaling numbers. These whales have been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act since 1970 and have been experiencing a steady population decline for nearly a decade.

2. Survival of this species depends on no more than one whale death per year. In the past 3 years, at least 30 right whales have died.

The birth rate for right whales has been very low the past few years. Only 12 births have been observed in the three calving seasons since 2017. This is less than one-third the previous average annual birth rate for right whales. And deaths have been exceeding births, resulting in a further decline in the population.

3. Entanglement in fishing gear is still is a big issue for right whales.

More than 85 percent of right whales have been entangled in fishing gear at least once, and the majority (60 percent) have been entangled multiple times. Right whales mostly get caught in the lines that attach fishing gear, like lobster and crab pots or gillnets, to buoys on the surface. These lines can cut into a whale’s body, cause serious injuries, and result in infections and mortality. Even if gear is shed or disentangled, the time spent entangled can severely stress a whale, which weakens it, prevents it from feeding, and saps the energy it needs to swim and feed. Right now, we are focused on addressing the risk of entanglement in vertical lines that connect traps and pots to the surface. This is among the leading threats to right whale survival.

Read the full release here

Crabbing industry up to challenge of reducing whale entanglements

October 18, 2019 — Oregon’s commercial crabbing industry prides itself on sustainability. Though Dungeness crab has been harvested commercially since the late 1800s, this population is considered to be stable to increasing along the West Coast — thanks to commercial and recreational regulations that protect the breeding population and ensure the state’s official crustacean will be conserved for future generations.

Now, the fishing industry is facing a new environmental challenge — whale entanglements in crabbing gear. Before 2014, such entanglements were rare, numbering about 10 annually off the entire West Coast. Since then, entanglements have become more common, peaking at 55 in 2015 and numbering 46 off the West Coast last year, according to NOAA.

Forensics of each entanglement tell us that about half of them can be attributed to fishing gear, a third to Dungeness crab gear. Most of the crabbing gear entanglements are attributed to California fisheries, but Oregon gear has been confirmed in several entanglements over the past few years. Whales can be disentangled in some cases, and fishermen and other ocean users know to immediately report incidents to a hotline or hail the U.S. Coast Guard to initiate a response from NOAA’s disentanglement team.

Read the full story at The Newport News Times

Report to Congress 2017-2018: Recovering Threatened and Endangered Species

October 18, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today, NOAA Fisheries announced the availability of the latest comprehensive report on Recovering Threatened and Endangered Species FY 2017-2018. The Endangered Species Act provides a critical safety net. We are beginning to see the success of our efforts, with a number of species recently found to be recovered, but more work needs to be done.

All of our species listed under the ESA are valuable and vulnerable. We are seeing results from the Species in the Spotlight initiative, which was initiated by the agency in 2015.

In this year’s report, we added the North Atlantic Right Whale to the Species in the Spotlight. The species is extremely endangered and fisheries gear entanglements and vessel strikes are among the leading causes of mortalities in both the U.S. and Canada. We are recognizing our Species in the Spotlight Partners for their incredible conservation efforts.

Find out the 10 Things You Should Know About North Atlantic Right Whales.

A fish mystery solved using genetic testing

October 17, 2019 — The population of cod in the Northern Bering Sea has increased immensely since 2010, and scientists are using fish DNA to find out why.

Think of it like a genetic ancestry test, but for fish.

Until recently, pacific cod were rarely found in the Northern Bering Sea. A 2010 survey showed cod made up only three percent of the entire fish population. That’s been changing, fast.

A survey in the summer of 2017 showed that number shot up 900 percent.

Ingrid Spies is a research fisheries biologist who led the way on this research to determine whether the population spike is evidence of a growing population or of an existing population migrating from elsewhere?

One thought was that cod could have migrated from Russia or the Gulf of Alaska, where they observed cod numbers decline significantly in 2017. Scientists were able to come to a conclusive answer to the question using genetic testing.

Read the full story at KTUU

Deep water sites off the US northeast coast are suitable for offshore blue mussel farms

October 17, 2019 — Offshore mussel farm sites need to have the right temperature, food availability, and the right currents. According to a study by researchers at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, several suitable locations can be found off the Northeastern U.S.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, suggest that the most promising locations for mussel aquaculture among the six oceanic sites studied are off New York’s Long Island, north of Cape Ann in Massachusetts, and off New Hampshire.

A number of research projects have been conducted in the past few decades at pilot mussel farms in Rhode Island Sound near Martha’s Vineyard, off the Isle of Shoals in New Hampshire, and north of Cape Ann in Massachusetts. Results were encouraging, but no commercial ventures have gone forward.

The authors acknowledge that these waters are busy and already subject to numerous competing and overlapping uses. They argue that finding the optimum locations for farms, where the conditions can support the kind of production that will be profitable, is an essential first step in development. If farms are going to compete with other uses, then managers and entrepreneurs alike need to know as much as possible about the requirements and benefits of offshore shellfish farms — especially when some uses must be excluded so that others may thrive.

Read the full story at Science Daily

US bill would mandate report on NOAA, council efforts to address climate change

October 17, 2019 — A bill introduced Tuesday by US representative Joe Cunningham, a Democrat from South Carolina, would make sure climate change’s impact on fish stocks is a focal point for the Donald Trump administration and the regional fishery management councils.

HR 4679, The Climate-Ready Fisheries Act of 2019, would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to submit a report to Congress examining efforts by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service, the councils and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to “prepare and adapt US fishery management for the impacts of climate change”.

The bill, introduced in the House Committee on Natural Resources, already has three cosponsors, including Florida Republicans Francis Rooney and Brian Mast. Representative Jared Huffman, chair of the Subcommittee on Water, Oceans & Wildlife, also is a cosponsor.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Anchorage talk will dive into ocean acidification’s impact on Alaska marine life

October 16, 2019 — Hundreds of fishery stakeholders and scientists will gather in Anchorage next week as the state Board of Fisheries begins its annual meeting cycle with a two-day work session.

The seven-member board sets the rules for the state’s subsistence, commercial, sport and personal use fisheries. It meets four to six times each year in various communities on a three-year rotation; this year the focus is on Kodiak and Cook Inlet.

The fish board and the public also will learn the latest on how a changing climate and off-kilter ocean chemistry are affecting some of Alaska’s most popular seafood items at an Oct. 23 talk and Q&A on ocean acidification in Alaska.

They may also be surprised to learn that only two studies have looked at salmon response to ocean acidification, and both were conducted outside Alaska.

Most of the research to date has focused specifically on crab and fish stocks, said Bob Foy, director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center at the NOAA Auke Bay lab in Juneau who will lead the Anchorage presentation.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

East Coast project to boost oyster breeding

October 16, 2019 — A dozen East Coast universities and federal science groups have been awarded a five-year, $4.4 million contract by NOAA to advance selective breeding of oysters for aquaculture.

The Eastern Oyster Breeding Consortium is led by longtime colleagues and collaborators Stan Allen of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences and Ximing Guo of Rutgers University, who in 1994 made a first breakthrough with breeding tetraploid oysters, a building block for today’s aquaculture industry.

Research at the Rutgers Haskins Shellfish Laboratory and the VIMS Aquaculture Breeding and Technology Center used traditional breeding techniques to develop strains of  Eastern oysters that are now quite resistant to MSX, a parasitic disease that for decades depressed oysters harvests.

In pockets where old oyster beds survived, MSX tended to weaken and kill new shellfish within a couple of years. The development of resistant strains enabled a modest revival that today has grown to a $90 million aquaculture industry, with a growing economic impact from the Carolinas to Maine.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Maine lobstermen to NOAA: Whale rules need more work

October 16, 2019 — The Maine Lobstermen’s Association has volleyed back at NOAA Fisheries, saying it will continue pursuing “critical points” from its analysis of data used by the federal fishery regulator to determine causes of injuries or deaths to North Atlantic right whales.

The MLA’s statement also makes clear the lobster stakeholder remains committed to the take reduction team process, as well as developing a management response within the Maine fishery. This, despite withdrawing its support on Aug. 30 of the risk allocation agreement approved in April by the Large Whale Take Reduction Team.

“MLA’s goal has been and will continue to be a right whale recovery plan built on the best available science that effectively addresses all known risks to right whales from U.S. commercial fisheries and all other human causes,” the MLA stated. “Going forward, MLA will continue to insist on a science-based process informed by best available data to ensure rigorous accountability for risk to endangered whales from across the spectrum of human interactions with them.”

The statement, which follows NOAA Fisheries’ response to the initial MLA data analysis, said the lobster group will continue to push for NOAA Fisheries and other elements of the take reduction team process to address “the outsized role of Canadian fisheries in recent right whales’ serious injury and mortality.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times