National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Archives - Page 200 of 259

NOAA research zeroes in on saving right whales

November 23, 2018 — Why is the endangered western North Atlantic right whale population growing far more slowly than those of southern right whales, a sister species also recovering from near extinction by commercial whaling?

NOAA Fisheries researchers and colleagues looked more closely at the question and have concluded that preserving the lives of adult females in the population is by far the most effective way to promote population growth and recovery.

North Atlantic right whales are frequently seen in the waters off the Cape, and most deaths are attributed to entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with ships, says NOAA.

Eighty-three percent of all individual North Atlantic right whales have been entangled in fishing gear at least once in their lives, and 59 percent have been entangled two or more times, the research found.

The energy demands from the drag associated with entanglement can reduce the likelihood that a female can successfully reproduce.

Years between births also increases for females, given the recovery period needed from the physical costs of entanglements, which can last from months to years.

Read the full story at Wicked Local Harwich

Vineyard Wind loses backing of a fishing board, decision may have serious consequences for proposed offshore wind farm

November 21, 2018 — Vineyard Wind is facing an uphill battle to secure a key approval from Rhode Island coastal regulators for its 800-megawatt offshore wind farm after a state fishing board refused to back the $2-billion project.

The Fishermen’s Advisory Board, which advises the Coastal Resources Management Council on fishing issues related to offshore wind, voted unanimously Monday to deny its support out of fear that the layout of the project’s 84 towering wind turbines in Rhode Island Sound would close off fishing grounds that are considered some of the most productive for the state’s commercial fleet.

The proposal is now set to go before the coastal council on Nov. 27, with what’s known as a “consistency certification” on the line. Vineyard Wind has asked for a stay in proceedings, but CRMC executive director Grover Fugate made it clear at the meeting on Monday that the current layout doesn’t fit within the Rhode Island policy that guides offshore development.

“Because of the [Ocean Special Area Management Plan], we’re there to protect the [fishing] industry,” he said. “We’re there to ensure that it continues into the future.”

Even though the Vineyard Wind project would supply power to Massachusetts and be located in federal waters far from the Rhode Island coast, the state has jurisdiction through the consistency process. Under federal law, if a project would impact Rhode Island coastal resources or activities, such as fishing, it must be carried out in a way that is consistent with state policies.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

Ropeless fishing options floated

November 15, 2018 — Whales and fishing gear increasingly occupy the same areas of ocean in the Gulf of Maine, and whales being injured or killed by entanglement with gear continues to be a top concern of scientists and regulators.

While most Maine lobstermen say they have never even seen a right whale close to the Maine coast, statistics collected by NOAA explain why right whales are exposed to a high risk of entanglement off the Maine coast.

Based on data collected by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, there are some 2.9 million lobster traps in the water within 50 miles of the Maine coast. Even with an average of fewer than five whales per month passing through Maine waters, the density of gear makes the risk of entanglement very high.

Last week, scientists and other interested parties met for a day-long meeting on one idea they hope will reduce entanglements: ropeless fishing. The Ropeless Consortium meeting was held Nov. 6, the day before the annual meeting of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium (NARWC) at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The meeting was closed to the press, but an agenda and overview of the meeting was available online.

“It was very cool to see how advanced the technology is and the many companies and groups working on development around the world,” said Zack Klyver, lead naturalist for Bar Harbor Whale Watch, who attended the meeting. “The conservation community were excited about the idea that this could be a long-term 100 percent fix to all whale entanglement.”

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Only $720 of $10K fine paid for illegal lobsters

November 15, 2018 — When James A. Santapaola Jr. got nabbed landing 183 illegal lobsters at a local lobster wholesaler two years ago, the Gloucester lobsterman eventually cut a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to 20 of the counts and pay two fines totaling $10,050.

Later, the state Division of Marine Fisheries suspended his state lobstering license for three months.

Now, nearly two years after the plea deal, Santapaola Jr. — who was arrested again last week on charges of possessing 47 illegal lobsters — has paid only $720 of the $10,050 in fines, according to the clerk’s office at the Gloucester District Court.

Melissa Teixeira Prince, chief court clerk, on Wednesday said Santapaola Jr. is scheduled for a status review with court officials on Monday, Nov. 19, to discuss the outstanding balance on the fines from the previous offenses.

Last Friday afternoon, the Massachusetts Environmental Police, operating with Gloucester police and officers from NOAA Law Enforcement, arrested the 42-year-old Santapaola Jr. for possessing five crates and one tote of illegal live lobsters which law enforcement officers estimated collectively to weigh between 500 and 600 pounds.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Fisherman Risks His Life to Save a Humpback Whale

November 14, 2018 — As they headed back toward the central California coast after fishing for slime eel in the Pacific Ocean, Sam Synstelien and Nicholas Taron made a troubling discovery: a humpback whale was entangled in a buoy’s rope, frantically trying to free itself.

Synstelien immediately called the U.S. Coast Guard but was told it might take a few hours for someone to get there. The two commercial fishermen thought that could be too long for the whale to survive its predicament.

“(The whale) was just swimming in counter-clockwise circles,” Taron told NBC Bay Area. “You could tell he was stressed and being held to the bottom.”

Instead of waiting for the Coast Guard or leaving the whale behind, Synstelien and Taron decided to try to save its life. They cranked up the volume on the radio of their 27-foot-long boat (aptly named “Persistence”) and shouted into the microphone to get the frantic, 40-foot-long humpback’s attention.

“We were screaming at the whale, ‘You’re either going to help us out and quit swimming away or else, like, good luck,’” Taron said.

The two were able to cut through the rope wound around the whale’s tail, but the rope still entangled its midsection. Synstelien decided to try to free it himself. As Taron recorded a video on his cell phone, Synstelien jumped onto the whale and shimmied up its back.

Read the full story at Care2

Scientists acknowledge key errors in study of how fast the oceans are warming

November 14, 2018 — Scientists behind a major study that claimed the Earth’s oceans are warming faster than previously thought now say their work contained inadvertent errors that made their conclusions seem more certain than they actually are.

Two weeks after the high-profile study was published in the journal Nature, its authors have submitted corrections to the publication. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography, home to several of the researchers involved, also noted the problems in the scientists’ work and corrected a news release on its website, which previously had asserted that the study detailed how the Earth’s oceans “have absorbed 60 percent more heat than previously thought.”

“Unfortunately, we made mistakes here,” said Ralph Keeling, a climate scientist at Scripps, who was a co-author of the study. “I think the main lesson is that you work as fast as you can to fix mistakes when you find them.”

The central problem, according to Keeling, came in how the researchers dealt with the uncertainty in their measurements. As a result, the findings suffer from too much doubt to definitively support the paper’s conclusion about how much heat the oceans have absorbed over time.

The central conclusion of the study — that oceans are retaining ever more energy as more heat is being trapped within Earth’s climate system each year — is in line with other studies that have drawn similar conclusions. And it hasn’t changed much despite the errors. But Keeling said the authors’ miscalculations mean there is a much larger margin of error in the findings, which means researchers can weigh in with less certainty than they thought.

“I accept responsibility for what happened because it’s my role to make sure that those kind of details got conveyed,” Keeling said.

The study’s lead author was Laure Resplandy of Princeton University. Other researchers were with institutions in China, Paris, Germany and the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Less whale tours, dams: Washington task force returns with guidance on Tuesday

November 13, 2018 — Gov. Jay Inslee first assembled the group in March, inviting representatives from tribal, federal, local and other state governments, as well the private and non-profit sectors, to come together and develop longer-term action recommendations for orca recovery and future sustainability.

The task force’s main goals were to reduce the harm of the three main challenges facing orcas: pollution; lack of access to their primary prey, the chinook salmon; and boat traffic noise.

And though it’s only been about six months since Gov. Jay Inslee created a task force to draw up some guidelines about how to help the local Southern Resident orca population, it feels like a different world for the whales.

The pods had a rocky summer, starting with the latest census data showing that their population had dipped to a 30-year low, having lost 25 percent of the local orcas since the 1990s. Shortly after that, Tahlequah made headlines around the world when she swam with the body of dead calf for a week, covering 1,000 miles.

Later in the summer, the youngest member of the J-pod fell ill. Despite many researchers attempting to help get her back up to fighting weight, her disappearance and assumed death marked another disheartening chapter to the summer of the Southern Residents.

It’s especially discouraging considering that the outlook is a lot sunnier up north — the Northern Resident orca population has doubled since 1974, to a total of 309.

But the end of the summer brings a few bright spots: Multiple Southern Residents appear to be pregnant, and the task force’s guidelines are finally being filed.

“I look at 2018, and I hope this is the low point,” Barry Thom, regional administrator for NOAA fisheries West Coast Region, said a hearing regarding the orcas in Friday Harbor earlier this year. “The clock is running out on killer whale recovery, and it is heart wrenching to see.”

Draft recommendations released for public comment include significantly increasing investment in restoration and acquisition of habitat in areas where chinook salmon stocks most benefit Southern Resident orcas, immediately funding acquisition and restoration of nearshore habitat to increase the abundance of forage fish for salmon, and determine whether the removal of some dams would provide benefits to the Southern Resident orca population.

Read the full story at SeattlePI

Divers haul in large amount of debris from marine monument

November 13, 2018 — A team of divers hauled in nearly 165,000 pounds (75,000 kilograms) of abandoned fishing nets and plastic waste during a cleanup expedition at Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, federal officials said.

The 18 divers left Sept. 19 and returned Oct. 29 from a trek to the chain of isles and atolls located 1,200 miles (1,931 kilometers) northwest of the main Hawaiian islands, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which runs the expeditions.

The divers hauled in about 82 tons (74 metric tons), which is comparable to the weight of 45 mid-sized cars or one space shuttle, NOAA said.

The team of divers from NOAA Fisheries and University of Hawaii’s Joint Institute of Marine and Atmospheric Research sorted out the debris Friday.

The group split the debris into categories such as plastic laundry baskets, fishing nets, tires, buoys and smaller personal-care items such as plastic toothbrushes and combs.

Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument is uninhabited by humans. But due to its central location in the system of circulating currents called the North Pacific Gyre, the debris has been carried by currents to its shores for decades.

NOAA’s marine debris team has been going on expeditions to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands almost yearly to survey and remove litter since 1996. Cumulatively, including the last mission, teams have collected about 2 million pounds (0.91 million kilograms) of debris.

The litter does ecological damage at Papahanaumokuakea, said NOAA’s Kevin O’Brien, who served as chief scientist for the mission this year.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Hawaii Tribune-Herald

Veterans get foothold in marine science through NWFSC internship

November 13, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA:

Two veterans will mark this Veterans’ Day as part of research teams at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC), one focused on the ecological response to dam removal and the other on the effects of ocean acidification on Dungeness crab and krill.

Katherine Rovinski, who served seven years in the Navy as a surface warfare officer, and Shawna Worley, an Army intelligence analyst for six years, just began NWFSC’s internship program for veterans, known as the Washington Veterans Corps Fisheries Program. The program offers veterans a foothold towards a career in marine science, while also supplementing the Science Center’s research staff.

“This is the perfect opportunity for me to learn more about the science, and what it’s like to work at NOAA,” said Worley, 33, who is working with NWFSC researcher Sarah Morley’s team tracking changes in the Elwha River system following the removal of two large dams that once blocked it. “This is exactly what I’m interested in studying and learning more about.”

NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region and the NOAA Restoration Center created the internship program in 2016 in partnership with NWFSC, Washington’s Department of Veterans Affairs and Veterans Conservation Corps. This is its third year. Barney Boyer, the first veteran to complete the program, started graduate school in fisheries last year on a full scholarship.

Rovinski, 29, said she is impressed at how widely NOAA Fisheries staff share information in all directions, avoiding silos that otherwise can form. She noted regular webinars and cross-division meetings that help employees learn more about science and the surrounding issues. “There is a lot of cross-pollination going on,” she said.

After earning a bachelor’s degree from Maine Maritime Academy and a master’s from the University of Washington, Rovinski spent last summer aboard Sound Experience’s Adventuress, a tall ship that sails the Salish Sea on educational trips for schools and other youth groups. She heard about the NWFSC’s internship program, and immediately thought, “That’s what I’m looking for.”

“I’ve known about NOAA since the first time I looked at charts,” so it didn’t need much explaining, she said.

Rovinski is working out of the Mukilteo Research Station, just across the water from Whidbey Island, where she lives. She is assisting with research looking at the effect of ocean acidification on Dungeness crab, a staple of coastal life in the Northwest, and krill, the tiny, plankton-like organisms that support much of the marine food chain including salmon, steelhead, and other key species.

One of the first challenges is keeping the krill alive in the laboratory environment. “We’re trying to recreate the conditions in the environment so they will eat,” she said.

Worley has spent the first few weeks of her internship cataloging samples collected from the Elwha River, where NWFSC scientists are documenting ecological changes following dam removal. She is particularly interested in how marine nutrients move from fish into the environment, fertilizing its productivity.

She is also reading everything she can on the Elwha.

“I cannot say how great it is to have someone so engaged, so dedicated, and so sharp to help support our work,” said Morley, who leads the lab at NWFSC’s Montlake campus where Worley is based. “It’s been a great fit.”

Read the full release here

Warm temps hurt shellfish, aid predators

November 13, 2018 — Valuable species of shellfish have become harder to find on the East Coast because of degraded habitat caused by a warming environment, according to a pair of scientists that sought to find out whether environmental factors or overfishing was the source of the decline.

The scientists reached the conclusion in studying the decline in the harvest of four commercially important species of shellfish in coastal areas from Maine to North Carolina – eastern oysters, northern quahogs, softshell clams and northern bay scallops. They reported that their findings came down squarely on the side of a warming ocean environment and a changing climate, and not excessive harvest by fishermen.

One of the ways warming has negatively impacted shellfish is by making them more susceptible to predators, said the lead author of the study, Clyde MacKenzie, a shellfish researcher for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who is based in Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

“Their predation rate is faster in the warmer waters. They begin to prey earlier, and they prey longer into the fall,” MacKenzie said. “These stocks have gone down.”

MacKenzie’s findings, the product of a collaboration with Mitchell Tarnowski, a shellfish biologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, appeared recently in the journal Marine Fisheries Review. The findings have implications for consumers of shellfish, because a declining domestic harvest means the prices of shellfish such as oysters and clams could rise, or the U.S. could become more dependent on foreign sources.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Express