Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Whales recorded in large numbers off New Jersey coast

July 30, 2024 — Whales are gathering in large numbers off New Jersey in a portion of the Atlantic Ocean called the New York Bight, according to several sources.

Viking Yacht Company of New Gretna, Burlington County, posted to Facebook that a large group of North Atlantic right whales, an endangered species with only about 360 individuals left, was congregating in the New York Bight between the Hudson Canyon off Sandy Hook and Block Canyon off Montauk, New York.

The New York Bight is a triangular area of ocean that stretches between the Jersey Shore and Long Island.

“NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has used planes to identify the whales — present due to large amounts of food,” Viking Yacht staff wrote on Facebook. “We’re advising boaters to be vigilant. If whale(s) are seen, provide a wide berth.”

Read the full article at Asbury Park Press

NJ is facing a potential lawsuit over alleged failure to protect endangered fish

July 26, 2024 — The state of New Jersey is facing a lawsuit for allegedly failing to protect the endangered Atlantic sturgeon, according to the Delaware and Hudson Riverkeeper Network.

New Jersey, as well as New York and Delaware, are being accused of failing to obtain incidental take permits when operating within the habitat of the Atlantic sturgeon species, according to the lawsuit, that has yet to be officially filed. These permits will ensure commercial fisheries operate within Endangered Species Act and federal law, said Maya van Rossum, the leader of the Delaware River Network.

The suit claims the three states have allowed fisheries to kill the Atlantic sturgeon through bycatch, the act of catching and discarding of species that fishers may catch, but do not want, cannot sell or are not allowed to keep.

The lawsuit claims the states are violating the Endangered Species Act by not requiring and approving the permits.

The Riverkeeper Networks say a permit would avoid the illegal taking of the fish and would establish the tracking of the number of the fish killed in an area.

Read the full article at NorthJersey.com

NEW JERSEY: Jersey Shore is seeing a rapid rise in ocean temps.

July 23, 2024 — The legendary Fish Alley in Sea Isle is humming on a sticky afternoon as Eric Burcaw Sr. navigates Townsends Inlet and drifts the “Heather Nicole” slowly into port. The 35-foot vessel is laden with a colossal catch of black sea bass not seen a generation ago.

As soon as Burcaw’s ship hits the dock, the crew gets to work — stapling together cardboard boxes, pouring caches of ice, plopping fish onto scales. The smell of steamed mussels wafts over from the Oar House Pub as a noisy, floating tiki bar glides past. But Burcaw, who has owned his own boat since he was a teen, is all business.

After today’s trip, he will process 3,700 pounds of black sea bass. The fish will be shipped off for tabletops from Baltimore to Manhattan.

“This time of the year the black sea bass are running very heavily,” says Burcaw, closing out a grueling day that began at 4 a.m. Burcaw is one of many New Jersey fishermen reaping a bounty precipitated by a rapid rise in sea temperatures. The Atlantic Ocean in the northeast has warmed by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 15 years — much faster than the global average, said Malin Pinsky, a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University.

Read the full article at NJ.com

Riverkeepers take legal action to save sturgeons

July 22, 2024 — Individuals and group riverkeepers from New Jersey, New York, and Delaware announced that they plan to sue on behalf of the endangered Atlantic sturgeon. They claim that the taking and discarding of sturgeons due to bycatch has drastically caused the species’ decline.

Riverkeepers are privately funded non-governmental advocates who work to protect the public’s right to clean water. According to sources, the groups hope to prevent commercial fisheries from taking or discarding sturgeon as bycatch while out trawling the ocean for striped bass, flounder, and other fish. They claim that bycatch has impeded the recovery of the species specifically in the Hudson River.

The Hudson currently supports the largest population of Atlantic sturgeon along the Atlantic coast, estimated to be between 1000 and 1500 fish. In 2012, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared five distinct population segments of the Atlantic sturgeon endangered and protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Blade collapse, New York launch and New Jersey research show uneven progress of offshore wind

July 18, 2024 — Three events Wednesday highlighted the uneven progress of the offshore wind industry in the Northeast, including the start of a major project in New York, research aimed at preventing environmental damage in New Jersey, and a temporary shutdown of a wind farm in Massachusetts after a broken turbine blade washed ashore on a famous beach.

The federal government ordered a wind farm operator off the coast of Nantucket in Massachusetts to suspend operations while cleanup continues after a wind turbine blade fell into the water, broke apart, and washed up on beaches at the popular vacation spot.

Vineyard Wind said Wednesday that it has removed 17 cubic yards of debris, enough to fill more than six truckloads, along with several larger pieces that washed ashore. The debris was mostly non-toxic fiberglass fragments ranging in size from small pieces to larger sections, typically green or white.

Read the full article at the Associated Press 

NEW JERSEY: Previous bidder tries again with new offshore wind proposal in New Jersey

July 12, 2024 — A partnership that proposed an offshore wind farm in New Jersey last year but was not selected by state utility regulators to move forward with it is trying again.

Community Offshore Wind said Thursday it had submitted a bid a day earlier to build a wind farm off the state’s southern coast. It would generate 1.3 gigawatts of electricity, or enough to power 500,000 homes.

Its project would be located 37 miles off Barnegat Light on Long Beach Island. The companies involved did not say how many wind turbines would be included.

The project is a partnership between Essen, Germany-based RWE and New York-based National Grid. They previously applied to build a project in roughly the same area, but were not chosen by the state Board of Public Utilities to proceed with it.

Read the full article at WHYY

NEW JERSEY: Up to two new offshore wind projects are proposed for New Jersey. A third seeks to re-bid its terms

July 11, 2024 — Up to two additional offshore wind projects were proposed for the New Jersey coast Wednesday, and the developers of a third project that already has preliminary approval sought to re-bid its terms.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities received three bids by Wednesday’s deadline in the state’s fourth round of solicitations for offshore wind farms.

At least one would be a new project, and one was a request by Atlantic Shores to rebid half of its previously announced two-phase project, which has already received preliminary state and federal approvals. No information was available regarding the third bid.

Attentive Energy, which also has preliminary approval for a wind farm 42 miles (67 kilometers) off Seaside Heights, said Wednesday it is proposing a second project in New Jersey, but did not immediately give details.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Mid-Atlantic fishermen fight unconstitutional regulation

July 10, 2024 — Raymond Lofstad and Gus Lovgren are both fourth-generation commercial fishermen running small-scale operations in the Mid-Atlantic. Raymond has fished in Long Island for over 45 years. Gus, who recently took over his father’s fishing boat, has operated out of New Jersey for over 20 years. Both possess the necessary permits to fish for flounder, scup, and black sea bass in the federal waters off the coast of the Mid-Atlantic. But a regulation adopted by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council will reduce the amount of these fish that commercial fishermen may catch every year, reallocating the harvest in favor of recreational fishermen.

Over their long fishing careers, Raymond and Gus have fed countless American families. All the while, they have shared the ocean’s bounty with their fellow commercial fishermen and those who fish recreationally. Now, due to this regulatory change, they face tens of thousands of dollars in lost annual revenue. For Gus, the loss in revenue will also force him to spend more time at sea, losing precious time with his family, including his two young daughters.

Whether for food or for fun, ocean fisheries are under the watchful eye of government regulators. States handle the shoreline while the feds, under the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act, govern waters from three to 200 nautical miles offshore.

Regional councils established under Magnuson-Stevens are charged with regulating federal waters to maximize fisheries’ long-term benefits. Raymond and Gus are two of the many fishermen regulated by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which covers all federal waters off the coast of the Mid-Atlantic, from the tip of Long Island to the middle of North Carolina.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NEW JERSEY: New Jersey’s first offshore wind project approved by federal government

July 9, 2024 — The Biden administration has approved New Jersey’s first offshore wind project, but the plan faces pushback — and the likelihood of legal challenges — from critics who say it will ruin the state’s storied coastline.

The Atlantic Shores South project, given a green light by the U.S. Department of the Interior last week, calls for installing 200 towering wind turbines less than nine miles off the coast — providing enough electricity to power more than 1 million homes. It’s the ninth offshore wind project approved by President Joe Biden as part of his efforts to aggressively expand the green power industry.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and environmental groups praised the project’s approval, saying it will help reduce the state and nation’s reliance on fossil fuel energy sources.

Read the full article at The Center Square

Environmentalists threaten to sue New Jersey and Delaware if they don’t take action to protect Atlantic sturgeon from bycatch

July 9, 2024 — Atlantic sturgeon have been around for 70 million years — predating the dinosaurs. These monumental fish with shark-like fins even survived the Chicxulub asteroid, which caused the great extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

But the species that once thrived in the Philadelphia region’s waterways has become endangered, threatened by habitat loss, dams, poor water quality and vessel strikes. In the Delaware River, only about 250 estimated sturgeon remain, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Sturgeon are also caught in fishing nets and injured by boats during the commercial fishing of other types of fish such as striped bass and summer flounder.

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network argues the region isn’t doing enough to protect the Atlantic sturgeon. The nonprofit is threatening to sue Delaware, New Jersey and New York under the Endangered Species Act for allegedly allowing the commercial fishing industry to kill the Atlantic sturgeon as bycatch.

Read the full article at WHYY