National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Archives - Page 239 of 260

In the Mid-Atlantic, nobody fishes more than New Jersey

June 9, 2017 — New Jersey is the leader in the Mid-Atlantic region when it comes to saltwater recreational fishing, according to the findings of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report.

No fishermen take more trips, buy more fishing tackle or work in the industry more than fishermen do in the Garden State.

The Mid-Atlantic States in the report include Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.

The report, titled Fisheries Economics of the U.S., 2015, was released in May.

Based on the report’s 2015 numbers, New Jersey’s saltwater recreational fishing industry generated the most jobs 16,100 jobs, sales at $1.8 million and took the most fishing trips at 4.3 million.

New York was next with 7,800 jobs, $874 million in sales and 3.2 million trips.

Nationally, New Jersey’s saltwater recreational fishing industry ranked 3^rd in jobs created behind Florida and California, 4th in sales behind Florida, California and Texas and 3^rd in trips taken behind Florida and North Carolina.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

NOAA recommends Maine fisheries research projects for $1.5M in funding

June 8, 2017 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has recommended over $1.5 million in Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program funding for six fisheries research projects in Maine.

The goal of the Saltonstall-Kennedy program is to fund projects that address the needs of fishing communities, optimize economic benefits by building and maintaining sustainable fisheries and increase other opportunities to keep working waterfronts viable.

The program has recommended the following projects for funding; final approval is pending:

Downeast Institute for Applied Marine Research and Education, $278,000: Demonstrating aquaculture technologies designed to increase the supply, quality and diversification of domestic seafood: Field experiments with cultured arctic surf clams.
Gulf of Maine Research Institute, $288,888: Addressing the issue of “Choke” species in a changing climate.
Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association Lobster, $141,092: Migration and growth: Continuation and expansion of 2015 tagging effort on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine.
Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, $298,932: A ‘Halo’ for shellfish aquaculture: Discovering the phytoremediation potential of farmed kelp.
University of Maine, $299,623: Evaluating the life history and stock structure of yellowfin tuna in the northwest Atlantic Ocean.
University of Maine, $275,308: Assessing the potential for sustainability of fishing-dependent communities in coastal Maine in the face of environmental and socioeconomic change.

In a news release announcing the NOAA’s recommendations, U.S Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, characterized the projects as “key to the future of the Gulf of Maine and the thousands of Mainers who make their living from it.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Maine senators say Congress should save Sea Grant program

June 8, 2017 — Maine’s U.S. senators are signing on to a request to keep the National Sea Grant College Program funded at least at its current level.

President Trump has proposed to eliminate the program, which funds science that’s beneficial to commercial fisheries, conservation and coastal businesses. It has existed for about a half-century.

Maine Sens. Susan Collins, a Republican, and Angus King, an independent, are joining an effort led by Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy to save the program. The group is sending a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the commerce appropriations subcommittee to stress the importance of Sea Grant.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

More federal red snapper days possible

June 7, 2017 — The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) is considering a plan that could lead to more fishing days for red snapper in federal waters.

The U.S. Department of Commerce is offering to add more fishing days for recreational anglers in exchange for the Gulf states agreeing to shorten their red snapper season in state waters.

“Florida would have to give days to get days,” according to an FWC press release.

Current discussion are aiming to align an expanded federal season with weekend and holidays throughout the summer. In exchange, FWC would give up some fishing days in state waters, according to the release.

These changes would apply only to private anglers. No change is being considered to the for-hire season which is open daily until July 19.

The season for private anglers ended Saturday — a mere three days. Since the announcement was made, there has been intense anger from local fisherman and a steady call for a longer season. Local politicians have sent letters to both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which regulates the fishery, and the Department of Congress asking for more days.

Read the full story at the Panama City News Herald

NOAA Announces $10 Million in Funding for 41 Projects

June 6, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

4 Projects Recommended for Funding in Greater Atlantic Region

NOAA Fisheries announces more than $10 million in recommended grants through the 2017 Saltonstall-Kennedy (SK) Grant competition.

Of the 41 projects selected nationally, 14 projects are in the Greater Atlantic Region, requesting more than $3.6 million in federal support.

The goal of the SK program is to fund projects that address the needs of fishing communities, optimize economic benefits by building and maintaining sustainable fisheries, and increase other opportunities to keep working waterfronts viable.

The applications recommended for funding fall into the seven priorities identified in the FY17 solicitation:

Marine Aquaculture
Fishery Data Collection
Techniques for Reducing Bycatch and other Adverse Impacts
Adapting to Climate Change and other Long Term Ecosystem Change
Promotion, Development, and Marketing
Socio-Economic Research
Territorial Science

Note: At this point in the selection process, application approval and obligation is not final. An application being recommended is not an authorization to begin performance of the project, and is not a guarantee of funding. Final approval is subject to funding availability as well as final review and approval by both NOAA Grants Management Division and DOC Financial Assistance Law Division. No application is “awarded” until it has been signed by the official Grants Officer. The Grants Officer will notify successful applicants in writing when their application has been approved.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel at 978-281-9175 or jennifer.goebel@noaa.gov

Sen. King tells researchers that data is the key to protecting lobster industry

June 6, 2017 — Calling proposed cuts in federal science funding “unacceptable,” U.S. Sen. Angus King told lobster researchers Monday that data is the key to protecting Maine’s most valuable fishery.

Maine’s independent senator asked the 250 biologists, oceanographers and fishery managers at a global conference on lobster biology in Portland this week to give him data on the impact of the changing sea environment on lobster, including temperature, salinity and acidification, and whether that is prompting a migration of Maine’s $533.1 million a year fishery to Canada.

“If lobsters are moving toward Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, that’s a serious practical issue that will get the attention of politicians,” he said. “It’s when you start seeing jobs go away that politicians start saying ‘Gee, we’d better do something about this.’ Are they moving, if they are why, and if they are, what’s the timing? Is it five years? Twenty years? A hundred years?”

But federal funding for scientific research is under fire. President Trump’s budget calls for a 17 percent cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the national fisheries programs and funded almost a fifth of Maine Department of Marine Resources’ annual budget. It would eliminate the Sea Grant program, which funds research by the University of Maine’s Rick Wahle, conference co-chairman, among others.

“The lobster industry in New England is valued at close to $500 million and yet we know very little about how ocean acidification may affect this species,” Libby Jewett, NOAA’s ocean acidification director, said last fall when awarding Wahle’s team a $200,000 grant for lobster research. “These projects should help move the needle forward in our understanding and, as a result, enable broader resilience in the region.”

King said it is unlikely that Trump’s budget, containing what he considers drastic cuts in scientific funding, will pass Congress.

“The last thing we should be doing on a federal level is cutting research funding,” King said. “That is one of the most important functions of the federal government, whether it is climate change or cancer. It’s how we solve problems. To cut research, and particularly to cut research when you get the feeling that the motivation is that we don’t want to know, is unacceptable. … Congress understands this.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Hawaii coral recovery efforts progress as Trump pulls support from Paris accord

June 5, 2017 — President Donald Trump’s decision Thursday to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord will hamper efforts to stem global warming throughout the world — the primary cause of rising ocean temperatures that pose the single greatest threat to Hawaii’s marine ecosystems.

Responsible for more CO2 emissions than any country save for China, the United States’ exit from the Paris agreement was met with dissension not only from some within Trump’s own administration but also from environmental activists, business leaders across the country and political leaders across globe.

Scientists in Hawaii also balked at Trump’s move, saying the state will not escape the subsequent ripple effect as it works to mitigate environmental impact to coral reefs on the heels of back-to-back years of coral bleaching in 2014 and 2015, the latter of which was part of the third global bleaching event in history.

“If we don’t solve the global emissions (problem) … everything that we do on reefs is substantially harder,” said Thomas Oliver, ocean acidification program manager with the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. “The Paris accord so far represents the best international response we’ve ever had to deal with the problem.”

Dr. Bill Walsh, West Hawaii aquatic biologist for the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources, said concerns extend beyond a departure from the Paris agreement to the administration’s general attitude toward climate change and the federal agencies tasked with combating it.

“Even apart from the Paris accord, if the withdrawal or rather the attack of the administration on scientific organizations (like) NOAA or the Environmental Protection Agency — we work hand in hand with them,” he said. “A lot of our ability to effectively monitor the reefs over these years has been due to money the state gets directly from NOAA. We’re all sort of intertwined here.”

Walsh and Oliver each helped develop the Coral Bleaching Recovery Plan, a detailed report synthesizing input from international and local experts along with relevant scientific literature on the problem.

Released in March after roughly a year of work, the strategies the report recommends revolve around establishing networks of no-take Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and Herbivore Fishery Management Areas (HFMAs).

Strategies also include spatial management of coral reef areas with inherent resiliency to bleaching or a high potential for recovery from bleaching. The final recommendation involves increased enforcement.

Read the full story at West Hawaii Today

Trump calls out US seafood trade imbalance

June 5, 2017 — U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration that June is National Ocean Month – and his stated desire to grow the country’s seafood exports – was praised by seafood industry groups.

“The fisheries resources of the United States are among the most valuable in the world. Growing global demand for seafood presents tremendous opportunities for expansion of our seafood exports, which can reduce our more than US 13 billion (EIR 11.6 billion) seafood trade deficit,” he said.

The American Shrimp Processors Association welcomed President Trump’s call-out of the domestic seafood industry, the organization’s executive director, C. David Veal, told SeafoodSource.

“The American Shrimp Processors Association welcomes any recognition from the Trump administration of the significant problems caused by the trade imbalances of imported seafood. The USD 4.5 billion (EUR 4 billion) trade deficit from shrimp alone has had devastating impacts on communities in the Gulf and South Atlantic regions for the last two decades,” he said. “Any effort to reduce the trade deficit is appreciated by those who make their livelihoods in the domestic shrimp industry and their associated communities.”

In his remarks commemorating the declaration, Trump also said that the country’s offshore areas are underutilized and often unexplored.

“We have yet to fully leverage new technologies and unleash the forces of economic innovation to more fully develop and explore our ocean economy,” he said.

Gavin Gibbons, vice president of communications for the National Fisheries Institute, said it was “good to see the White House taking notice of the seafood community and focusing on the importance of resource utilization.”

“Safe, sustainable expansion of underutilized areas may present an opportunity for expansion of things like aquaculture. We look forward to seeing any administration plan for such an effort,” Gibbons said.

The key to successful expansion of U.S. seafood production will be maintaining the rigorous sustainability oversight of NOAA, according to Gibbons.

“Initiatives that seek long-term growth solutions should continue to observe the tested, science-based system based on total allowable catch,” he said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Trump administration pledges to do more with less for U.S. aquaculture

June 5, 2017 — “Aquaculture is not the future of oyster harvests. It’s the present,” said Mark Luckenbach – Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Luckenbach, based at the VIMS lab at Wachapreague, told me those words 11 years ago, when I wrote my first story about oyster aquaculture. Since then, I’ve written more than 100 stories on the topic, and someday, I hope, I’ll write a book. One thing is sure: the present has taken a long time to arrive – not just in the Chesapeake Bay, but all over the country.

Eighty to 90 percent of the seafood eaten in the United States is imported, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In Baltimore, where I live, the crabmeat at my local grocery store is not from the Chesapeake Bay. The salmon is not from this country. And striped bass? Never seen it there, though I live just an hour from where one could catch some of the nicest rockfish you could find anywhere.

NOAA officials want to change what they’re calling a $14 billion seafood trade deficit. At a webinar last week, agency officials said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees NOAA, is committed to “eliminating barriers” to growing aquaculture here in the United States.

In Maryland, we know well some of these barriers as they relate to growing oysters. Would-be growers have spent years awaiting permission to put oysters in the water, even though the bivalves filter the water, increase biodiversity, and even spur recruitment for the Bay’s long-troubled wild oyster population, which is less than 1 percent of historic levels.

On a conference call during the webinar, federal officials touted Maryland’s permit innovations as a success. (They didn’t mention that oyster farmers have blamed NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service for some of those delays, relating to the possible impact of oyster farming on endangered marine turtles.) Maryland worked with the Baltimore District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to streamline the permit process. State and federal officials, as well as oyster farmers, report it is working more smoothly now. (NOAA officials said they had an “ombudsman” role in the process.)

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

NOAA Seeks Participants on Herring and Scallop Stock Assessment Working Groups

June 5, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center is seeking Stock Assessment Workshop (SAW) Working Group applicants for upcoming Atlantic herring and Sea scallop stock assessments, scheduled for peer review in 2018. Our goal is to create the most capable and balanced working groups possible to carry out these stock assessments and produce high quality science products.

Application Instructions

The application process and selection criteria are available online. Applicants should complete the questionnaire, specifying their preferred stock, and email the document to Sheena Steiner at sheena.steiner@noaa.gov by June 30, 2017. You may also mail the completed document to Sheena Steiner c/o NEFSC, 166 Water Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543.

If you have any questions about the process, please contact Sheena by email or at (508) 495-2177. All applicants will receive an email confirmation upon receipt of a completed questionnaire.