Saving Seafood

ME, NJ, and VA Atlantic Menhaden Harvester and Dealer Survey Participants Sought for Socioeconomic Study

September 2, 2016 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Arlington, Va. — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission awarded funding to a research team headed by Dr. John Whitehead of Appalachian State University and Dr. Jane Harrison from North Carolina Sea Grant to conduct a socioeconomic study of Atlantic menhaden commercial fisheries. The study is intended to characterize the coastwide commercial fisheries, including bait and reduction sectors and the fishing communities they support.

The principal investigators have sent survey announcements to fishermen and bait dealers in Maine, New Jersey, and Virginia. Virginia fishery participants will receive postcards announcing the surveys while Maine and New Jersey participants will receive an email announcement. Reminders will be sent throughout August and early September. Participation in this survey is highly encouraged, as the data from this study will be used in the development of Draft Amendment 3 to the Atlantic Menhaden Fishery Management Plan in 2017 and subsequent management decisions. The deadline for responding to this survey is September 15.

The full proposal can be found here. For more information, please contact Dr. Jane Harrison, North Carolina Sea Grant, at jane_harrison@ncsu.edu or 919.513.0122.

US seafood distributor off the hook for hepatitis outbreak caused by contaminated scallops

August 30, 2016 — New Jersey-based seafood distributor True World Foods has been cleared of blame in reference to a hepatitis A outbreak that has afflicted more than 200 Hawaiians thus far this summer.

The Hawaii Department of Health withdrew initial reports implicating True World Foods when it discovered that the raw Sea Port Bay Scallops responsible for the outbreak – which were provided to Genki Sushi restaurants on Oahu and Kauai – were supplied by a different distributor. While True World Foods does indeed purchase Sea Port Bay Scallops, the company has not shipped compromised lots of the product from its warehouse.

“The scallops received by True World Foods have not been distributed to any restaurants in the state and were embargoed at their warehouse,” according to the Hawaii Department of Health’s website.

“This incident marks the first time in our 38-year history that seafood distributed by True World Foods has been linked to hepatitis A contamination, despite the fact that we sold 34 million pounds of seafood last year,” added Robert Bleu, president of True World Foods. “Food safety is a top priority at our company, and we are continually monitoring our suppliers, processes and procedures to protect the health of every consumer who eats at any of our customer sites.”

True World is destroying all potentially contaminated scallops from the Philippines at its Hawaii-based facility with the help of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA); none of the scallops at True World Foods’ 22 other warehouses in the U.S. come from the lots implicated in the outbreak, said the company in a press release. However, as a precaution, True World has suspended the sale of any seafood products produced by the Philippines-based scallop supplier in question until an internal food safety investigation is complete.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NEW JERSEY: Are humans causing the fish die offs?

August 30, 2016 — An increasing number of fish kills like the four that occurred in New Jersey this past week are in the state’s future if officials don’t take steps to improve the water quality, environmentalists warned.

The die-off of more than a million peanut bunker since Aug. 22 along the waterways of Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook Bay in Monmouth County and Great Bay in Ocean County were caused by a lack of sufficient levels of oxygen for the fish to survive. But human activities on land have helped contribute to that oxygen deficiency, said L. Stanton Hales, director of the Barnegat Bay Partnership.

Hales, who has studied New Jersey’s waterways for more than two decades, said that while fish kills caused by low dissolved oxygen levels are naturally occurring events, they are now exacerbated by the deteriorating conditions of the state’s waterways.

“These things can happen naturally, but they’re made worse by everything we’re doing (on land),” he said.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has said the fish kills in Monmouth and Ocean counties were caused by too many peanut bunker – a juvenile form of Atlantic menhaden – in water that had too little oxygen because of warm temperatures.

Bob Considine, a spokesman for the DEP, has said the number of Atlantic menhaden has been “extremely high” this year, the highest it has been in a decade off the Atlantic coast.

Data from the past few years shows that spawning of Atlantic menhaden has been high because of favorable conditions, including water temperatures, salinity and food availability for them, said Tina Berger, spokeswoman for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

She said there are about 3 billion pounds of Atlantic menhaden off the Atlantic coast and national fisheries requirements limit the total catch allowed to about 416.5 million pounds a year.

Read the full story at NJ.com

NEW JERSEY: What do you do with 20,000 dead fish? It was all hands on deck in Shore town

August 30, 2016 — Bob Considine, the DEP’s director of communications, said the menhaden population off New Jersey appears to be exceptionally large this year. He said the department had tested samples of the dead fish and “none appear obviously diseased.”

Loesch said that the fish kill was the first in Little Egg Harbor in the 39 years he has lived there. When the scale of it became apparent, the township council authorized the payment of overtime for the public works department.

On Sunday, volunteer firefighters and public works crews working in small boats trained fire hoses on the heaps of dead fish, sending them into the lagoons around Osborn island.

There, MUA employees used a vacuum truck to suck the fish up and transport them to a landfill.

“You can get a lot more volunteer firemen out on a Sunday than you can on a Monday,” Loesch said. “We were lucky.”

Read the full story at Philly.com

Failed polygraph may mean $2.3 million more for New Jersey fishermen

August 30, 2016 — Three New Jersey fishermen could soon be $2.3 million richer thanks to some failed polygraph tests.

Earlier this month, Trenton police sergeant Brian Suschke, Trenton firefighter Rich Kosztyu, and boater Damien Romeo took home $767,091 from the  White Marlin Open in Ocean City, Md., for their 236.5-pound bigeye tuna catch. That fish set records for both weight and payout in the tournament’s tuna category.

Now, as NJ.com reports, that amount could increase significantly, with the tournament announcing last week that the winners of its white marlin category may forfeit their $2.8 million winnings over violating tournament rules. That fish was the only qualifying entrant into the competition’s white marlin category.

To settle the situation, the White Marlin Open has filed a court action in Maryland alleging that fishermen on that $2.8 million-winning boat failed polygraph examinations conducted after their catch. The tournament requires anglers receiving prize money in excess of $50,000 to go through a polygraph examination, and has not taken this type of legal action since 2007, as Delaware Online reports.

If the court decides against the other boat’s fishermen, then Kosztyu, Suschke, and Romeo could collect slightly more than $2.3 million more in prize money thanks to special stipulations from the group’s tournament sign-up. The remaining $500,000 would be split among other winning boats, court documents indicate.

Read the full story at Philly.com

NEW JERSEY: Bay water temperatures come back down, a relief to fish

August 29, 2016 — In the Keansburg area a massive fish kill was experienced on Waackaack Creek where an estimated million peanut bunker died, a result of low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water, the state Department of Environmental Protection said.

Low levels of oxygen can be caused by a prolonged increase in water temperature. Officials said the creek water can also get stagnant during certain tides and with so many fish concentrated in a small body of water, there just wasn’t enough oxygen for them to survive.

Some fishermen don’t think oxygen depletion was the only cause.

Rich Isaksen a third-generation Belford commercial fishermen, said it was a result of menhaden mismanagement. New Jersey purse seine fishermen reached their quota of bunker almost two months ago and their nets are sitting dry on the dock.

“There’s so many fish right now and nobody’s catching them. That’s why you had this fish kill. You’ll see more of them,” he said.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

Lobster, from the Jersey coast to your dinner plate

August 26, 2016 — SEA ISLE CITY, N.J. – It had been a long four days at sea aboard the Two Dukes, harvesting thousands of pounds of American lobster and a sideline catch of Jonah crab about 80 miles from the New Jersey coast in an area called the Hudson Canyon.

Out where the water is deeper than a skyscraper is tall, the work days are 14 hours long and start at 5 a.m. There’s really no break aboard the 70-foot steel-hulled lobster boat until a crew member “cooks a nice dinner” – usually not lobster or crab – and then it’s finally time to find a bunk and grab some sleep until the next shift.

The weather is an ever-present, relentless partner in the enterprise and, on any given voyage, can range from sunbaked heat to cold, howling winds and monstrous, stormy swells. No one wastes time talking about good weather.

“I really forgot how grueling it can be,” said Eric Burcaw Sr., 50, who recently came out of semiretirement to take the helm on the Two Dukes, which he operates with his brother Robert Jr.

Their dad, Robert Sr., 82, started the family’s maritime business in the 1960s and still helps out dockside during the summer when the boat comes in. The family owns two other boats they use for fishing other species and for shorter, one-day lobster runs.

On their most recent four-day lobster trip, Eric Sr. found himself in the Two Dukes’ captain’s chair. His son, Eric Jr., who took over running the boat a couple of years ago, had broken his ankle jet skiing the previous week. The injury would preclude Eric Jr. from doing the heavy work required onboard.

Read the full story at Philly.com

Several hundred thousand dead fish wash up in New Jersey creek

August 24, 2016 — KEANSBURG, N.J. — Several hundred thousand dead fish have washed up in a central New Jersey marina’s creek in the past week, wildlife officials said.

The fish in Waackaack Creek, which peaked Saturday, are peanut bunker — the name describing Atlantic Menhaden after hatching, according to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Bluefish or skates probably chased them into the creek, officials believe.

“Although the water is tidal, the creek and other surrounding waters where the fish have washed up can get stagnant during certain tides and we believe at this point that the die-off is due to dissolved oxygen levels in the water,” Bob Considine with the state EPA said.

Read the full story at UPI

Moore Foundation Grants $1.2 Million to Monmouth U. to Support Progress on Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal

August 17, 2016 — The following was released by Monmouth University:

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. — The Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) has received a $1.2 million Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant to continue the development of the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal (portal.midatlanticocean.org), a free, state-of-the-art mapping and information site focused on ocean areas from New York through Virginia. The funding will support the work of a project team consisting of researchers from Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and the Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis (CRSSA), The Nature Conservancy and the UCI.

The grant will enable the UCI and its project partners to add valuable new content to the publicly accessible site in 2016 and 2017, including interactive maps depicting fishing areas, oceanography, tribal ocean uses and a trove of data that will illustrate marine life distributions and trends throughout the East Coast in greater detail than ever before. The Portal was initiated under the guidance of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Oceans (MARCO) with previous funding provided by the Moore Foundation in 2015 and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2012 and 2013.

“We are deeply grateful for the vital contributions the Moore Foundation has made not just to the Portal project, but in improving the state of ocean planning in the Mid-Atlantic and other regions,” said UCI Director Tony MacDonald. “This technology will help policymakers and regulatory agencies make science-based decisions that promote healthy marine ecosystems and sustainable ocean use, as well as provide the public and stakeholders with readily accessible spatial data and the best information available about ocean environments and economies.”

Just as Google Maps and MapQuest contain data layers that depict the locations of businesses, transit stops and public places, the Portal offers a selection of over 200 layers depicting human activities and natural processes taking place at sea. The Portal has grown in importance as an ocean planning tool, particularly for its ability to illustrate where there are possible conflicts – for example, between a potential offshore wind site and shipping traffic – and compatible uses at sea.

The Portal has served as a key information source for a historic first-ever Draft Mid-Atlantic Regional Ocean Action Plan produced by a Regional Planning Body composed of representatives from six states, tribal entities, federal agencies and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. In addition, it supports the work of MARCO, a partnership of the governors of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.

Under the current project funding from the UCI and the Moore Foundation, Rutgers has a leading role in the operational management of the Portal and in developing a plan to support the implementation of the Draft Ocean Action Plan and continued work by MARCO.

“The portal project has been a great demonstration of collaboration between Monmouth and Rutgers universities,” said Jeanne Herb, associate director of the Environmental Analysis and Communications (EAC) Group at Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. “Our work together is a model for how institutions that house unique skills and expertise can complement each other, and we look forward to building on this partnership for projects, programming and academic opportunities in the future.”

According to Richard G. Lathrop Jr., director of CRSSA, a major goal has been to make the Portal a central information hub accessible to all of the Mid-Atlantic’s stakeholders.

“This has entailed working with stakeholders to better understand their decision-making needs and policy concerns, as well as designing the user interface to be simple and user friendly, but still allow ready access to the incredibly rich data set,” Lathrop said.“Working with MARCO on developing the Portal has challenged the team here at Rutgers to expand our expertise in land use planning, policy and geographic information systems into the coastal and marine realm

The Draft Ocean Action Plan calls for the Portal to play an increased role in informing ocean management decisions such as siting offshore wind turbines, permitting aquaculture operations, and determining which fishing communities should be consulted when an area is being considered for sand extraction. An emphasis of the Portal team’s upcoming work will be to support the work and goals of the Draft Ocean Action Plan, which is open for public comment through Sept. 6 at boem.gov/ocean-action-plan.

The Portal team frequently offers tutorial webinars and is available to schedule training sessions for interested groups and individuals. To learn more, contact Karl Vilacoba at kvilacob@monmouth.edu.

Fishing crew rescued from sinking boat off NJ coast

August 16, 2016 — POINT PLEASANT BEACH, N.J. — Early Monday, before the sun was up, the Lady Gertrude was about 35 to 40 miles southeast of Sandy Hook in a fishing ground called the Chicken Canyon when she started to take on water.

The canyon is a deep depression on the ocean floor and a ground known for scallops — what the Lady Gertrude, a 78-foot commercial fishing vessel from Point Pleasant Beach, was after when she left Manasquan Inlet on Sunday night.

By 2 a.m. though, something had gone wrong as the boat’s hull started filling with water.

Capt. Jim Lovgren was far away on the boat Shadowfax, towing his nets for fluke two miles off the beach when he heard the Gertrude’s first emergency call over the VHF radio. His heart dropped into his stomach. His 34-year old son Keith Lovgren was on the boat.

“I’m worried, but I do know my son’s been through this before and he knows what to do,” said Lovgren, whose boat Viking sunk in 2012 with both him and his two sons on board.

They all made it home safe that day. Keith, who was back at his Brick home by Monday afternoon, made it home safe this time, too.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press