Saving Seafood

Scallop & Fishing Industry, Municipalities, Sue Feds to Ensure Seafood Interests Are Considered in NY Bight Wind Energy Project

December 8, 2016 — The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

WASHINGTON — December 8, 2016 – The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), which represents the majority of the limited access Atlantic scallop fleet, is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction to delay an anticipated lease sale for the development of a 26-mile long wind farm project approximately 11 miles off the coast of Long Island, scheduled for December 15, 2016. The story was broken today by the Associated Press.

The filing alleges that the leasing process for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) did not adequately consider the impact the proposed New York Wind Energy Area would have on the region’s fishermen. The site chosen for the 127 square mile wind farm is in the waters of the New York Bight on vital, documented scallop and squid fishing grounds, which serves as essential fish habitat and grounds for other commercially important species, including black sea bass and summer flounder. It is also an important foraging area for threatened loggerhead sea turtles and critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The lawsuit argues that fishermen’s concerns regarding the location of the lease area received “virtually no attention or analysis” from government officials ahead of the planned December 15 lease sale, despite fishing stakeholders repeatedly making their concerns known. It further states that BOEM failed to identify the proposed wind farm’s environmental, economic, social, and cultural impacts, and failed to “consider alternative sites in an open, collaborative, public forum.”

Several other members of the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC)—including commercial fishing organizations, businesses, and communities that depend on the sustainable use of Atlantic Ocean resources—have joined the lawsuit. The suit was filed against Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, BOEM, and BOEM Director Abigail Hopper.

Organizations joining the lawsuit include: the Garden State Seafood Association and the Fishermen’s Dock Co-Operative in New Jersey; the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in New York; and the Narragansett Chamber of Commerce and Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance in Rhode Island.

The City of New Bedford, Massachusetts, the nation’s top-grossing fishing port; the Borough of Barnegat Light, New Jersey; and the Town of Narragansett, Rhode Island have joined as plaintiffs. Also joining are three fishing businesses: SeaFreeze Shoreside, Sea Fresh USA, and The Town Dock.

The New York Bight consists of the waters from Cape May Inlet in New Jersey to Montauk Point on the eastern tip of Long Island, and offshore to the outer edge of the Continental Shelf, where the coasts of New York and New Jersey form an upside-down L around shallow waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

The plaintiffs are represented by the law firm of Kelly, Drye & Warren.  The case will be heard by Judge Tanya Chutkan in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Case No. 1:16-cv-02409.

Press inquiries should be directed to Bob Vanasse at Stove Boat Communications, 202-333-2628.

Read the full legal filing and declarations from the plaintiffs at atlanticscallops.org

Jersey Shore Fishing: Menhaden Public Hearing on Thursday

December 8th, 2016 — Anglers concerned about an increase in quota for menhaden reduction boats should be sure to attend Thursday’s 6:30 p.m. ASMFC public hearing at the DEP Nacote Creek Law Enforcement Office, 360 North New York Road.

Yesterday’s northeast wind created a rough sea, and the surf was basically unfishable. Strong northwest winds could solve that problem the next couple of days.

Capt. Rob Semkewyc has decided to conclude his season on the Sea Hunter from Atlantic Highlands. He posted the following:

Looking at the long range forecast I decided to just pack it in for the winter. I want to thank everyone who fished with us. I hope you enjoyed the season. The spring striper run was disappointing this year. The summer fluke season was pretty normal. We caught many and threw lots back. I was happy with the fall Striper fishing. We caught lots of fish! Have a great Holiday Season and a safe winter. We will start up again in the spring for the stripers, either late March or early April. If you would like to buy a gift Certificate for someone you can give me a call 732-291-4468 and I can get one out to you. Thanks again from Capt Rob and the crew of the Sea Hunter.

Read the full story from NewJersey.com 

Whale visit good sign for healthier Hudson

December 5th, 2016 — When a humpback whale swam all the way to the George Washington Bridge last month, it became a brief media spectacle, with the creature’s massive tail breaching the Hudson River while skyscrapers loomed in the background.

But for some,  the whale’s presence also signaled that the Hudson is slowly coming back from decades of pollution. The waterway is indeed healthier than it has  been since scientists began recording its demise a century ago from sewage, street runoff and industrial pollution, all of which have been curbed substantially in recent decades.

“People need to change their perception of these waters,” said Debbie Mans, executive director of the NY/NJ Baykeeper, a clean water advocacy group. “It has taken a lot of time, but it has slowly improved.”

Most experts think the whale, nicknamed Gotham, was  probably drawn up the Hudson in late November by schools of small bait fish called menhaden, or bunker, whose numbers along the Eastern Seaboard have soared in recent years.

Cleaner waters allows plankton to flourish closer to shore. That, in turn, provides a food source for fish like menhaden. And whales like nothing more than to munch on menhaden.

The fish have been so abundant this summer and autumn in the Hudson that Tom Lake, a consulting naturalist for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, said he saw schools of the fish 128 miles north of Bayonne.

Read the full story at The Record 

Symposium to Explore America’s Ocean Future: Recommendations for the Trump Administration and Congress

November 30, 2016 — The following was released by the Urban Coast Institute:

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. — The Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) invites the public to join us for a symposium and policy discussion which never took place during the election — coastal and ocean priorities for the next administration and Congress.

The 12th Annual Future of the Ocean Symposium will be held on Dec. 7 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Wilson Hall Auditorium. Admission is free and open to the public.

The panelists, former New Jersey Gov. and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science President Dr. Donald Boesch, will offer their views and recommendations on critical actions that the administration and Congress should take to ensure that our coasts and oceans are healthy, productive and support sustainable economic development.

Among their many other accomplishments and qualifications, Whitman and Boesch serve on the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative (JOCI) Leadership Council, a national organization dedicated to marine policy reform. JOCI soon plans to release a nine-point action plan for the Trump administration and the new Congress. UCI Ocean Policy Fellow and Monmouth University President Emeritus Paul G. Gaffney II also serves as a member of the JOCI Leadership Council.

“The oceans are going through unprecedented changes, including sea level rise, shifting currents and weather patterns, ocean acidification, and ecosystem destruction,” Whitman said. “These changes are a mounting threat not only to marine ecosystems, but to coastal communities and economies. We must confront these issues with a bipartisan approach from policymakers in Washington and at all levels of government.”

“Robust federal investments in science and research can spur innovation, address important national and global challenges, create new economic sectors, and ultimately save lives,” Boesch said. “If our ecosystems and livelihoods are to be sustained for the future, we’ll need to pair such financial commitments to research with concerted action on policies based in science.”

“The Future of the Ocean Symposium provides a unique forum for students, faculty and the public to engage nationally recognized experts in discussions on the pressing ocean issues of our time,” said UCI Director Tony MacDonald, who will moderate the panel. “As a coastal university, we are also pleased to honor a group of Ocean Champions whose work has so directly impacted lives here on the Jersey Shore and beyond.”

Immediately following the symposium, the UCI will hold its Champion of the Ocean Awards Luncheon from noon to 1:30 p.m. Tickets are required for the luncheon. The cost is $150, with proceeds to benefit student research and UCI programs.

Whitman will be honored as a National Champion of the Ocean for her work as a leading voice for the oceans as governor and with the EPA, JOCI and Pew Oceans Commission. Boesch will be recognized as a Regional Champion of the Ocean for his work advancing knowledge about marine environments, including his work as a member of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

In addition, two New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) officials will receive State, Coastal and Ocean Leadership Awards for their roles in restoring New Jersey’s beaches, supporting innovative major Rebuild by Design projects, and improving coastal planning and communities’ resilience to coastal storms after Superstorm Sandy. The honorees are NJDEP Assistant Commission of Engineering and Construction David Rosenblatt and NJDEP Assistant Director of Coastal and Land Use Planning Elizabeth Semple.

The real reason why you’re suddenly seeing whales in N.J. and N.Y. waters

November 28, 2016 — If you’ve spent any time walking the beaches or boating the ocean waters of New Jersey or New York in recent weeks, you’ve likely been treated to spectacle that has been a rarity in these parts for most of the past century or so: whales.

They’ve been seemingly everywhere.

Breaching just past the sandbars in Asbury Park.

Swimming past groups of surfers in Rockaway Beach.

Bumping into boats off Belmar.

And this week’s ultimate cetacean sensation: a humpback whale swam up the Hudson River for a photo op in front of the George Washington Bridge.

Besides inspiring a chorus of oohs and aahs, the increase in sightings is adding a blubbery new wrinkle to a raging debate over a far smaller fish: the Atlantic menhaden. It’s the menhaden, also known as “bunker” — clumsy, multidinous, slow swimming virtual floating hamburgers — that those whales are chasing.

Even as the whales were gulping down bunker along the coast of New Jersey, the ASMFC has been pushing the commercial quotas back up closer to pre 2012 catch levels. Last year, the catch limit was raised 10 percent, with the ASMFC citing data that showed bunker were not being overfished.

And, then, three weeks ago, the council voted to raise the commercial catch limits another 6.5 percent.

That move has been cheered by commercial fishing operations who argue the limits were never necessary and simply jeopardized an industry that employs hundreds of people from New Jersey to Virginia, where the largest menhaden processing operation, Omega Protein Corp, is located.

“The fact that there’s a lot of fish around has nothing do with reducing these quotas,” said Jeff Kaelin, spokesman for Lund’s Fisheries, a Cape May commercial fishing company that sells bunker as lobster bait. The increased number of whale sightings is simply the result of smaller fish growing to a larger size due to “environmental conditions.”

“The stock was not overfished,” he said. “It’s never been.”

Kaelin said the 20 percent coast-wide reduction translated into a roughly 50 percent cut for New Jersey companies that harvest bunker, because it shut down the fishery early in the year and put the state’s crucial fall harvest off limits.

“If the science says we need to cut back we will, but in this case we feel very strongly that we’re underfishing the stock,” he said.

Read the full story at NJ.com

Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund Data Proves Anglers’ Concerns

November 28, 2016 — The results of a recent collaborative study between researchers at Rutgers University and Stockton University of New Jersey, the University of Rhode Island, and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County, NY and Cornell University may hold the key to bold new management changes in the summer flounder fishery.

The research project, Sex and Length of Summer Flounder Discards in the Recreational Fishery, NJ to RI, spanned the 2016 summer flounder recreational season beginning May 23 and continuing through September 16. Samples were collected aboard for-hire recreational fishing vessels from selected ports in New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island, and were supplemented by a series of back bay, shallow water trips.

Samples were collected from stations ranging in depth from 5 to 95 feet and spanning a latitudinal range from just off the coast of Delaware to coastal Rhode Island. According to the survey results, sex-at-length data was collected for a total of 2,243 discard-sized fish and 842 legal-sized fish.

Researchers say lab analysis findings confirm prior observations that female summer flounder dominate the recreational catch, although it was also demonstrated that this does not hold below the legal size limit where fish smaller than the legal limit were predominately male. On average, across all ports, dates and depths, the sex ratio approximates 50:50 at 15.35 inches in length, with males dominant in the size classes less than that mark and females dominant above the 15.35-inch (39 cm) mark.

Read the full story at The Fisherman

Recreational fishermen push for pots off reefs

November 18, 2016 — A couple lobster men spoke their opposition to any plan that would deny them use of the ocean floor.

Greg DiDomenico, the head of the commercial fishing trade group Garden State Seafood Association, said he didn’t doubt the existence of gear conflicts on the reefs but would like to see a compromise made instead.

“All we really want is some resolution to this problem other than a complete prohibition,” he said.

The group suggested before that the reefs should be divided among users groups: three reefs for divers, six for recreational fishermen, and three for commercial fishermen. One reef would remain as a scientific no take zone.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press 

New Jersey anglers throw back three times more fish than they keep

November 4, 2016 — According to a fisheries report, in 2015 New Jersey anglers kept 4 ½ million fish, but they threw back 14.8 million, or roughly three times the amount they brought home.

The three to one catch and release rate is the about the same rate as in 2014. But, the same report found there was a substantial drop off in the number of fish anglers caught.

In 2014 anglers put 6.2 million fish in their coolers while releasing 19.9 million.

The numbers were provided in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual Fisheries of the United States report, released last week.

The report didn’t provide analysis, but the reason for the dip could be related to the fact that fewer fishermen fished in 2015. Nearly 625,000 anglers fished in 2014, compared to almost 540,000 last year. The result was about 600,000 less fishing trips.

In total 23 marine coastal states, plus Puerto Rico were in the survey and combined to keep 151 million fish last year while releasing 200 million.

Of all the coastal states only Maine and Massachusetts anglers kept more fish than they threw back.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press 

Oysters, Clams, and More: Future of Green Farming in a Garden State?

November 1, 2016 — Streamlining regulations and getting rid of excessive paperwork could spark an upsurge in “green aquaculture” in New Jersey

In an effort to promote the eco-friendly aquaculture industry, the Senate and Assembly have unanimously passed a bill to reduce the paperwork involved in setting up this type of business. The lawmakers, who hope the governor will sign their bill to encourage “green aquaculture,” believe that fish-farming in New Jersey waters holds the potential to create jobs for the long term.

“We’ve made it virtually impossible for them to succeed. Only the most persistent people have been able to move forward,” said Jeff Van Drew (D-Cape May Court House), who sponsored the legislation (S-317) to drastically streamline regulations so applicants could essentially submit one packet to be distributed interdepartmentally instead of encountering the many conflicting demands they currently face.

Rutgers University estimates that the 160 aquaculture businesses already operating in the state contribute $36 million directly and indirectly to the economy. But considering that surrounding states have grown their aquaculture industries to 30 times the size of New Jersey’s, those aren’t nearly enough dollar signs for the Garden State’s legislators and would-be aquaculturalists; they think the legislation will help to cut out some of the 11 different state, local, and federal agencies with which those aspiring to be part of the industry currently must file paperwork.

The New Jersey Department of Agriculture defines aquaculture as “the raising of marine and freshwater organisms under controlled conditions” and includes “food fish and shellfish, cultured pearls, ornamental and aquarium fish, and plants for food, fuel, garden ponds and aquariums.”

Read the full story at the NJ Spotlight

Mid-Atlantic Council to Hold Hearings on New Jersey Special Management Zones

October 31, 2016 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council will hold three public hearings in November 2016 to gather public comments on a request by the State of New Jersey to designate 13 of its artificial reef sites located in federal waters as Special Management Zones (SMZ). The hearings will be held November 15-17, 2016. Written comments will be accepted until Friday, November 25, 2016, 11:59 p.m. EST.

Background

In November 2015, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) petitioned the Mid-Atlantic Council to designate 13 artificial reef sites as SMZs under provisions of Amendment 9 to the Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan. The petition was based on the need to reduce gear conflicts between hook and line fishermen and fixed pot/trap gear at those sites. The SMZ designation could prohibit the use of any gear except hook and line and spear fishing (including the taking of fish by hand) within the 13 potential SMZ sites. The Council’s SMZ Monitoring Team (MT) evaluated the NJDEP request and recommended that the Council designate all 13 artificial reef sites as SMZs. The MT analysis indicated that commercial fishing vessels deploying pot/trap gear off the coast of New Jersey would likely face minimal to no losses in ex-vessel revenue if the artificial reefs are designated as SMZs. The Council is scheduled to review public comments and make a decision relative to NJ SMZ designation at its December 2016 meeting in Annapolis, MD.

Public Hearing Schedule

The dates and locations of the public hearings are as follows:

  • Tuesday November 15, 2016, 7:00-9:30 p.m., Kingsborough Community College, 2001 Oriental Blvd., Brooklyn NY 11235, Room M239 of the Marina and Academic Center (The Lighthouse).
  • Wednesday November 16, 2016, 7:00-10:00 p.m., Clarion Hotel & Conference Center, 815 Route 37 West, Toms River, NJ 08755.
  • Thursday November 17, 2016, 7:00-10:00 p.m., Congress Hall, 200 Congress Place, Cape May, NJ 08204.

These meetings are physically accessible to people with disabilities. Requests for sign language interpretation or other auxiliary aid should be directed to M. Jan Saunders, 302-526-5251, at least 5 days prior to the meeting date.

Written Comments

Written comments will be accepted until Friday, November 25, 2016, 11:59 p.m. and may be sent by any of the following methods:

  • Mail to Dr. Chris Moore, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, 800 North State Street, Suite 201, Dover, DE, 19901 (include “NJ SMZ Request” on envelope);
  • Fax to Dr. Chris Moore, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council at fax number 302-674-5399 (include “NJ SMZ Request” in the subject line); or
  • Email to Rich Seagraves at rseagraves@mafmc.org (include “NJ SMZ Request” in the subject line).

Contact

For more information, contact Rich Seagraves, Senior Scientist, at rseagraves@mafmc.org.