Saving Seafood

Proposed wind farm off the New Jersey coast concerns local fisherman

June 21, 2016 — LONG BRANCH, N.J. — A proposal to build a wind farm off the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey is concerning some local fisheries, which say that the farm could hurt their livelihood.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held its first of four public meeting in Long Branch Monday night to education the public on what environmental impacts a wind farm in the ocean could have.

Local fisherman Arthur Osche says that the proposed building site for the farm is right where he usually fishes for scallops. Scallops make up about 40 percent of his fishery business.

“My boat typically does about $3 million a year, so it would be like $1.2 million,” he says.

Osche says that although he does support renewable energy sources, he does not want to see them build where he and other fisheries fish.

Read and watch the full story at News 12 The Bronx

Could Seismic Tests Harm Fish?

June 16, 2016 — Fish might not have fancy communication equipment like whales and dolphins, but they do have their specialized ways of navigating through an ocean filled with predators and mobile food sources. And these honed adaptive responses could potentially be harmed by seismic air guns.

But as the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management continues to review the effects of proposed seismic surveys on marine mammals in the Atlantic, an environmental advocacy group is putting out alarms that the tests’ potentially ill effect on fish will be glossed over in the review process that is close to completion.

“There are fisheries impacts that are not very well understood, and now is the time to do these reviews,” said Zachary Lees, ocean and coastal policy attorney for Clean Ocean Action, a New Jersey-based nonprofit group.

Eight companies are currently seeking to conduct seismic surveys in areas off the southern Atlantic coast between Delaware and Florida to look for oil and natural gas resources. Although oil leases in the Atlantic have been canceled until at least 2023, the federal government is moving forward with mapping the sea floor for hydrocarbon deposits.

After approving a final programmatic environmental impact statement, or PEIS, on seismic surveys in 2014, BOEM was made aware earlier this year of new information on protected marine mammals that triggered additional review.

Read the full story at CoastalReview.com

Monkfish Money to Allow Study of the New England Fishery

June 13, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — The federal government says two projects designed to improve the future of the monkfish fishery will receive more than $3.7 million in grants.

The grants are going to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology and Cornell University Cooperative Extension.

The monkfish fishery was worth more than $18 million in 2014. It is based in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Fishermen also land monkfish in other states including New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Maine.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Maine Public Broadcasting Network

Fishermen’s Energy Wind Farm Has Hope with DOE and Senators’ Backing

June 2, 2016 — The U.S. Department of Energy has announced a no-cost extension until the end of the year for Fishermen’s Energy Atlantic City Wind Farm to secure an agreement to sell its power and continue to receive funding as one of the department’s offshore wind advanced technology demonstration projects.

Fishermen’s Energy is currently in the second of five DOE funding stages, and has met all of the criteria to advance to the next stage once an “offtake” agreement – a plan to sell the energy – is reached. As the project advances, it will be eligible for nearly $50 million in federal funding. The DOE estimates that the offshore wind farm will become operational in 2018, which would make it one of the first commercial offshore wind projects in the U.S.

On Tuesday, Fishermen’s Energy Chief Operating Officer Paul Gallagher said the DOE always intended to have the demonstration project completed by 2018. “It’s within their right to want an offtake agreement,” said Gallagher.

But so far the state’s preferred method of selling energy has been through the powerful Board of Public Utilities and obtaining an offshore renewable energy certificate (OREC) that can be sold to power companies.

Read the full story at The Sand Paper

How safe is the fishing industry in South Jersey?

May 25, 2016 — CAPE MAY, N.J. — The dangers of commercial fishing were illustrated dramatically 6 miles off Cape May on April 28 when the scallop boat Last Stand collided with a 400-foot barge pushed by the tug Dean Reinauer.

Three fishermen aboard the Last Stand donned survival suits, climbed into a life raft and paddled away from the rigging as the fishing boat rolled and sank beneath the waves in just minutes.

Nobody was hurt, and the U.S. Coast Guard based in Cape May rescued the fishermen safely. The Coast Guard is investigating the accident.

“The industry is as cautious as they can be. They are prepared. They’re not careless. They’re not reckless,” said Gregory DiDomenico, president of the trade group Garden State Seafood Association.

DiDomenico said the sinking shows how preparation and training made a difference in a crisis. By comparison, he said, many times more recreational boaters die in accidents each year.

“When you consider all the regulatory measures and Coast Guard inspections and the amount of technology and electronics on board today … they want to come home at the end of every trip,” he said.

Read the full story at Press of Atlantic City

Fishermen free humpback whale from tangled net off New Jersey

May 24, 2016 — BRICK, N.J., — A group of fishermen rescued a humpback whale tangled in fishing gear off the coast of northern Ocean County in New Jersey.

Fisherman Sal Gatto posted a video to Facebook showing the whale slowly swimming off Saturday after the boat’s crew cut through ropes and nets to rescue the 40-foot sea creature from some abandoned fishing equipment.

“I was out looking for some bass during the early morning and spotted a 40 foot humpback whale tangled in a large fish net with rope near the Manasquan Inlet,” Gatto told JSHN.com.

Read the full story at UPI

Woods Hole Researchers ‘Listen’ to the Ocean Floor

May 23, 2016 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — Listening to the noise of the deep sea.

That’s the intent as researchers with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, based at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, recently placed a handful of recording devices along the ocean floor from George’s Bank to New Jersey to listen to the sounds of whales, dolphins and other marine life.

It’s part of a national effort to establish a network to monitor long term changes in ocean noise.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Why you should be eating New Jersey bluefish, the state’s most underrated fish

May 18, 2016 — I was standing in my driveway one recent morning when my neighbor approached me with a dazed look of shock on his face, that reminded of something from the movie “Tremors.”

“There’s some crazy stuff going on in the river,” he said, referring to the Navesink, which runs near our homes. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”

He proceeded to tell me of the incredible amount of giant bluefish he and a group of locals had caught the previous night. Menhaden, the baitfish the blues were chasing, were beaching themselves to avoid their jaws, he said.

He showed me metal wire leader that a chopper blue had bitten clear off someone’s line. Evidence of the sheer viciousness of these yellow-eyed choppers.

Read the full story at NJ.com

Changing Migration Patterns Upend East Coast Fishing Industry

May 11, 2016 — Summer flounder that once amassed in North Carolina have gradually shifted about 140 miles to New Jersey—one facet of the northward migration of fish species that is upending traditional fishing patterns.

The move north has sparked debate among regulators over how to respond to changing natural resources that could affect commercial fisheries across the eastern seaboard.

For the first time, a group of researchers backed by the federal government is trying to ascertain what the northward movement means for fishermen’s income and way of life.

“Some fisherman will end up losing out and some will win big,” said Malin Pinsky, an assistant professor of ecology and evolution at Rutgers University, who is part of a team of scientists from Rutgers, Princeton University and Yale University studying the phenomenon.

Funded through a piece of a $1.4 million National Science Foundation grant, the team of scientists is examining how shifting patterns of where fish congregate is affecting commercial anglers and how they are changing their practices. They are also studying what kind of regulations may be needed to adapt to these changing realities.

For Lund’s Fisheries, for example, the northward creep has forced the company’s boats to catch the flounder in New Jersey and then spend time traveling to North Carolina, where regulations allow them to bring them on shore in more abundant quantities. When the boats travel south, the fishery can’t catch sea bass, scup and other species they may have reeled in at the same time in waters off New Jersey.

“It does cause us to drive fish around the ocean longer than we have historically. That gets factored into the cost of doing business,” said Jeff Kaelin, an executive at the company, which has facilities in Cape May, N.J., and North Carolina.

Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal

NEW JERSEY: Gloucester County Calls Out Fish To Fend Off Zika Virus

May 11, 2016 — WEST DEPTFORD, NJ —  A batch of 5,000 little fish have a big battle ahead of them in West Deptford Township and hopefully they are hungry. As warm and muggy summer months approach, so  does a heightened risk for the spread of dangerous mosquito transmitted viruses.

South Jersey is starting its annual war against mosquitoes with a little extra urgency.

“It’s even more important with the increase of the Zika virus coming this way and the effects that is having on human life and unborn lives,” said Gloucester County Freeholder Director, Robert M. Damminger.

The Zika virus is carried by mosquitos from a person who is infected to others. Images of the effects it has had globally are as well-known  as they are heartbreaking.

Read the full story at CBS Philly