August 10, 2016 — Most people flee from sharks, but biologist Jon Forrest Dohlin wants to play tag with them off Long Island.
He will be observing as other researchers attach satellite and acoustic transmitters to as many sharks as they can find this month in a two-week expedition led by the New York Aquarium and Ocearch, the nonprofit behind the global shark tracker.
August 9, 2016 — The American Lobster Management Board has released a draft plan responding to declining stocks of lobsters in Southern New England waters that will be considered by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission at its annual meeting in late October.
The proposal presents a suite of management measures to increase egg production and lower harvesting mortality through a combination of management tools that include season closures, trap limits and reductions and changes in escape vent and lobster size regulations. The goal is to increase egg production for lobsters in Southern New England waters from zero to 60%.
The draft responds to the 2015 American lobster benchmark stock assessment that found the Southern New England “stock severely depleted and undergoing recruitment failure with poor prospects of recovery,” according to Friday’s statement from ASMFC.
“Declines in population abundance were most pronounced in the inshore portion of the stock where environmental conditions have remained unfavorable to lobsters since the late 1990s,” according to ASMFC. “Despite fleet attrition, stock declines have continued. These declines are largely in response to adverse environmental conditions including increasing water temperatures over the last 15 years combined with continued fishing mortality.”
ASMFC reported that declines in in the offshore portion of the fishery were evident as well though not as severe. But it also noted the offshore portion of the Southern New England stock depends on a viable population of young lobsters in waters closer to the shore.
The lobster stock in Southern New England increased from the early 1980s, peaked during the late 1990s and then started declining steeply to a record low in 2013, according to ASFMC’s 2015 benchmark study. The study attributes the decline as being largely due to “increasing water temperatures over the last 15 years combined with sustained fishing mortality.”
August 5, 2016 — The Long Island bluefish fishery will not be closed mid-season as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last month, which prompted an outcry from federal and state elected officials and commercial fishermen.
A new federal rule will now allow transfers of bluefish quotas from the coast-wide recreational quota to the commercial quota, ensuring that the fishery can continue to harvest bluefish for the remainder of the season, the governor and members of the New York congressional delegation announced yesterday. As a result, 1.58 million pounds from the recreational fishing sector will be transferred to the commercial quota.
“With this common sense, flexible decision by the NOAA, we have reeled in a major win for Long Island’s commercial fishing boats,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer. “With the quota transfer, our Long Island fishing boats – who were facing a harsh and premature closing of the fishery — can keep earning, employing others and harvesting their catch. The feds did the right thing by heeding the call and supporting an industry that has deep history on Long Island.”
August 3, 2016 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Commission’s Tautog Management Board approved regional stock assessments for Long Island Sound (LIS) and New Jersey-New York Bight (NJ-NYB) for management use. Stock status for both regions was found to be overfished and experiencing overfishing. The assessments were initiated in response to the findings of the 2015 benchmark stock assessment which explored a number of regional breakdowns for management purposes, including the option of: (1) Massachusetts and Rhode Island; (2) Connecticut, New York and New Jersey; and (3) Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. The Board had concerns about the biological implications of grouping LIS with New Jersey ocean waters. The Board requested a new assessment that would explore the population dynamics of the Connecticut, New York and New Jersey region in more detail. The regional assessments propose two additional stock unit boundaries for consideration at a finer regional scale: LIS, which consists of Connecticut and New York waters north of Long Island, and NJ-NYB, which consists of New Jersey and New York waters south of Long Island.
Given approval of the regional assessments by the peer review panel and Management Board, the Tautog Technical Committee will move forward with updating the benchmark stock assessment, including data through 2015 for all four regions for Board review and approval in October. Upon its completion, work on developing a new amendment to the Tautog Fishery Management Plan can begin. The draft amendment will propose a four region management approach: Massachusetts and Rhode Island; Long Island Sound; New Jersey/New York Bight; and Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. It is anticipated a draft for public comment will be presented to the Board for its review and approval in February 2017, with final amendment approval later in the year.
The stock assessments and peer review report, which are combined into one document, will be available on the Commission website on the Tautog page by the end of August.
August 1, 2016 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is asking boaters to be on the lookout for humpback whales in the Long Island Sound, according to a press release.
There have been recent sightings of humpback whales feeding on small fish, possibly menhaden, in the western portion of Long Island Sound, NOAA officials said.
Humpback whales are about 60 feet and weigh nearly 40 tons.
The federal agency is asking boaters to follow safety viewing guidelines, which includes staying 100 feet away from whales.
“Humpbacks create bubble clouds to corral their prey and then lunge through the center to swallow the small fish,” according to the NOAA press release. “Fishermen or boaters in these bubble patches run the risk of colliding with a massive whale as it rapidly approaches the surface.”
August 1, 2016 — I recently watched a man fishing in the Arkansas River at Little Rock who caught an American eel. When he set the hook, the angler was pleased with the reaction. The fish surged away, stripping line against the drag. The man grunted and cranked, smiling all the while.
When the 2 1/2-foot fish was finally beached, the man’s demeanor abruptly changed. I doubt he could have been more horror-stricken had he landed a 20-foot anaconda. He dropped his rod, ran to his pickup, extracted a .357 revolver and proceeded to plug the “beast.”
When the gun was empty, he smiled again, turned to me and said matter of factly, “I hate @#$+&eels.”
I decided not to share my penchant for a delicately herbed anguille au verte.
The eel’s long, snakelike body gives folks reason for pause. Beady eyes punctuate a small pointed cranium. The eel’s underlip protrudes in a perpetual pout, and the slug-colored hide is ensconced with thick, snotty mucous. Hold a bass in one hand and an eel in the other, and it’s hard to believe they’re both fish.
Despite their repugnant appearance, however, eels are delectable and worthy opponents on rod and reel. Catch-and-release (or catch-and-run-away) may have been invented by anglers who caught eels by mistake, but among families of Old World origin, no Christmas is complete without eels for the table. This winter specialty keeps thousands of commercial fishermen at work netting tons of live eels to sell in Boston, Chicago and New York.
Eels can be caught in Arkansas waters, too, but they are sporadic in occurrence and not commercially important. The species is most common in larger rivers like the Arkansas, Mississippi, White, Ouachita and Red.
For 23 centuries, man speculated on the origin of the eel. Aristotle was convinced that eels rose spontaneously from mud. Roman scholar Pliny the Elder believed young eels came from bits of skin adults rubbed off on rocks. Scandinavians postulated that another fish, the Aalmutter, was the “eel mother,” while Italian fishermen espoused the idea that eels copulated with water snakes. In early America, it was generally assumed that eels arose spontaneously from horse hairs that fell in the water. These whimsical notions had support until 1924, when scientists discovered facts as astounding as the age-old beliefs were fantastic.
July 29, 2016 — What makes any species on Earth seek greener horizons? A disaster. Lack of food or water. An unsuitable change in habitat. With people, it’s sometimes the drive to merely explore. With wildlife, though, it usually boils down to survival.
Every day, there is a change occurring somewhere on this planet. It might be imperceptible to the naked eye or it might be as obvious as an earthquake or a volcano. When a change does takes place, there isn’t just one occurrence, but rather, an accompanying domino effect. The effects might be felt instantly or they may take centuries to get noticed.
We’ve seen Long Island Sound and its tributaries fall from a rich, prolific waterway to the compromised body of water left in the wake of the early industrial era. From that, we’ve learned a valuable lesson and today we see the results of a Herculean restoration effort. Many of our fisheries that had been reduced by cataclysmic proportions have rebounded or are in the process of rebounding. Some, like our river herring, are still struggling.
Very often, some sort of over-fishing is the culprit. In some cases, a die-off can be attributed to reducing a stock. For the most part, what we are seeing along the Atlantic coast and in the Sound is a change in water temperature. As a result, the Sound is attracting more food, such as schools of menhaden, squid, butterfish, spearing, and shrimp. That increase in forage, coupled with higher water temperatures, brings in more southern and mid-Atlantic species of fish, as well as northern migrants that now take a detour into the Big Pond as they perhaps once did in the past.
July 26, 2016 — ALBANY, N.Y. — New York state will require fishermen use circle hooks for catching sharks for two more years in an effort to protect them.
A new law continues the ban on shark fishing with the traditional J-hooks that sharks are considered likelier to swallow, potentially gutting them.
The ban continues through 2018. Circle hooks are bent farther toward the hook’s shaft than J-shaped hooks, nearly forming a circle.
In his sponsor’s memo, Assemblyman Fred Thiele, a Long Island independent, said several shark species are endangered and others are threatened with worldwide populations dwindling.
“Scientific studies predict higher survival rates for released fish when circle hooks and catch-and-release techniques are used, as circle hooks are more likely to hook a fish in the mouth rather than the gut,” Thiele wrote. They’re also easier to remove than J-hooks, can reduce potential harm to the fish and have been well received by the fishing industry, he wrote.
Read the full story from the Associated Press in the Connecticut Post
July 26, 2016 — NORWALK, Conn. — For the second year in a row, whales have been spotted in the Long Island Sound, with sightings all the way in near Fairfield County. But why?
According to Joe Schnierlein, with the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, “They’re here for food. This is a smorgasbord for them.”
He’s referring to a fish called menhaden, also known as buffers.
“Right now, the entire western end of the Sound is loaded with them,” Schnierlein explained.
July 25, 2016 — New York State’s decision to postpone LIPA’s consideration of an offshore wind farm that is popular with environmentalists prompted confusion and rancor in its aftermath, as the Cuomo administration works on a wind-energy blueprint that could include other areas directly off Long Island.
A presentation prepared by the Long Island Power Authority this month – before the state stepped in recently and nixed a LIPA trustee vote – included a map of up to six “potential” New York wind-energy areas, including a long, straight swath 12 miles off the coast of the entire South Fork.
Another site comprises more than 100,000 acres in an area beyond an existing wind-energy area that LIPA and Con Edison previously had identified about 12 miles from Long Beach. Fishing groups oppose use of the location for a wind farm.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which has taken over that LIPA-Con Ed project, has been working for months on a comprehensive plan for wind energy for the state. A draft “blueprint” of that plan is due out in coming weeks.
A map similar to LIPA’s that lists the same six potential wind energy areas for New York appears in the state’s April cost analysis for Clean Energy Standard. In it, NYSERDA identified the South Fork coastal area off the Hamptons as having the potential to produce 3,081 megawatts of wind power from about 385 turbines rated 8 megawatts each.
The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which leases ocean sites, has yet to receive any formal request for the Hamptons-area site or other proposals beyond NYSERDA’s, said spokesman Stephen Boutwell.
If it were to, he said, the agency would work with the New York Renewable Energy Task Force, which includes federal and state agencies, local governments and tribes, to “identify other users of the areas and environmental concerns to assess the suitability of areas for leasing.”
Should the state move forward with any of the additional wind-energy areas listed in the LIPA and NYSERDA maps, they can expect opposition from fishing groups.
“Those [potential] wind-energy areas would destroy multiple fisheries,” said Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for Seafreeze Ltd., a Rhode Island commercial fishing group. Added Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney for the Fisheries Survival Fund, representing commercial scallopers, “All of them [wind-energy areas] are right smack dab in the middle of scallop grounds.”