July 27, 2020 — Shrimp landings in the Gulf of Mexico are abysmal so far in 2020, according to the Southern Shrimp Alliance.
The Fishery Monitoring Branch of the NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Center recently released shrimp landings data from the Gulf of Mexico for the month of June — and it wasn’t pretty.
July 27, 2020 — The following was released by The University of Rhode Island:
A University of Rhode Island natural resource economist has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to create a new way of documenting where commercial fishing is conducted in southern New England waters. The project is aimed at reducing conflict between the fishing industry and offshore wind farm developers.
“I’m exploring a new way of improving spatial planning for offshore wind,” said URI Associate Professor Thomas Sproul. “One of the biggest sources of delay in the regulatory process for offshore wind has been because of the conflicts with commercial fishing.”
He said that while the National Marine Fisheries Service collects a variety of data about the fishing industry, limited information is available about where commercial fishing occurs.
“There isn’t a consensus map of the ocean that says, for instance, if you put a wind turbine here, it affects 30 percent of the squid fishery,” Sproul said.
He will be taking a novel approach to the problem by combining existing data from numerous sources, including the Automatic Identification System, which identifies the location of every fishing vessel over 65-feet long every minute of every day it is at sea. It will be combined with the government’s vessel monitoring system and vessel trip reports, along with seafood dealer reports, Coast Guard registry records, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s ship-board observer program.
July 21, 2020 — Recent guidance from the federal government is, for the first time, promoting the importance of beavers in the recovery of endangered salmon and steelhead in Oregon rivers.
A recently released biological opinion is encouraging landowners to use non-lethal means of dealing with beavers on private property.
“We know that they can provide important benefits that help support recovery of these fish that a lot of people are working toward,” says Michael Milstein, a spokesperson with the National Marine Fisheries Service. “But at the same time, it’s clear that they can cause conflict.”
The study advocates for private landowners to prioritize management tools like fencing when beavers dam culverts. It also asks that beavers be relocated rather than killed, and it sets an average limit of 13 removals of beaver sites per year across the state.
The biological opinion was prompted by a 2017 legal threat from environmental groups including the Center for Biological Diversity and Western Environmental Law Center over the killing of beavers and their role in creating fish habitat.
July 20, 2020 — A California Congressman and National Marine Fisheries Service leaders released statements about pandemic-related issues and COVID-19’s effects on fisheries Thursday, but from opposite perspectives.
Following industry criticism about maintaining at-sea observers and shoreside catch monitors during a pandemic, the agency has allowed observer waivers in some areas but remained steadfast in keeping observer coverage in others. The risk of contagion is too great, fishermen and processors say, but NMFS has disagreed — at least, in some areas.
July 16, 2020 — After a slightly better year in 2017, the number of whales getting entangled in fishing gear has gone back up, according to a new report from the National Marine Fisheries Service. Researchers confirmed 105 whale entanglements nationwide in 2018, the latest year for which data is available, noting the number is “much higher” than average.
These findings come as a possible solution emerges out of a collaboration being led by Monterey Bay conservationists, fishermen and fishing gear designers.
On the Pacific coast, whales pass through stretches of ocean that are important for Dungeness crab fishing and they sometimes get caught in lines connecting traps on the ocean floor to buoys at the surface. Technology that is under development would all but eliminate vertical lines and buoys. Using ropeless or pop-up innovations, these new crab traps would sit idly on the ocean floor until receiving an acoustic signal from the fisherman. Only then would the trap release a rope and buoy to the surface.
“We are working with fishermen to see what works and what doesn’t and what allows the fisherman to survive economically,” says Geoff Shester, a Monterey-based scientist with nonprofit Oceana. “The Monterey Bay is the epicenter of the whale entanglement issue.”
July 13, 2020 — On the heels of again delaying Northeast fisheries observer coverage, NMFS cancelled three planned research surveys as the covid-19 pandemic continues.
The cancelled surveys would help assess sea scallops, the Atlantic surf clam and ocean quahog stocks – and use advanced technology to investigate the deep ocean’s mesopelagic layer, the so-called “twilight zone” between 660 feet and 3,300 feet where the influence of sunlight drops off.
“These are difficult decisions for the agency as we strive to balance our need to maintain core mission responsibilities with the realities and impacts of the current health crisis,” officials at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center said in a statement issued Friday afternoon.
“Since March, we have been rigorously analyzing various options for conducting cruises this year and are taking a survey-by-survey, risk-based approach. After much deliberation, we determined that there was no way to move forward with these surveys while effectively minimizing risk and meeting core survey objectives.”
July 1, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:
The Pacific Fishery Management Council, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and the NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center have initiated a review of essential fish habitat (EFH) provisions in the Pacific Coast Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Fishery Management Plan (FMP). This call for data and information is intended to support the review.
The HMS FMP, its EFH provisions, and maps can be found on the Council’s HMS webpage, under “Key Documents”. The HMS FMP includes the following species:
Fishery management plans are required to identify and describe EFH for each life stage and species, identify and minimize impacts from fishing and non-fishing activities, and identify research needs, among other requirements. A complete description of EFH provisions to be included in FMPs can be found in the EFH regulatory guidance at 50 CFR§600.815(a). Information and data should be relevant to:
Information and data sources can include published scientific literature, unpublished scientific reports, information from interested parties, and previously unavailable or inaccessible data.
Information relevant to the HMS EFH review should be submitted to Nicole Nasby-Lucas (nicole.nasby-lucas@noaa.gov) no later than Monday July 13th, 2020. For further information, please contact Kerry Griffin (kerry.griffin@noaa.gov).
June 30, 2020 — Faced with dismay from fishermen and East Coast fishery management councils, NMFS announced it will delay its plan to resume at-sea observer deployments through July 31.
The agency backed away from its plan to restart the observer program July 1, after the Mid-Atlantic and New England fishery management councils sent NMFS Northeast regional administrator Michael Pentony and other officials letters expressing alarm that the decision was made too soon.
The Northeast Fisheries Science Center had been planning since May 28 to work toward a July resumption. But in recent weeks the covid-19 pandemic started a new upward arc across the nation.
“Although we had announced plans to resume observer deployments on July 1, we recognize the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve and as such, has required us to re-evaluate and adapt to changing circumstances,” the agency said in a public statement issued Tuesday afternoon. “In response, NOAA Fisheries is extending the waiver granted to vessels with Greater Atlantic Region fishing permits to carry human observers or at-sea monitors through July 31, 2020.”
June 29, 2020 — More than a decade after being established, two marine monuments in the Pacific Islands region may get detailed management plans soon. Maybe.
The plans were supposed to be developed within two years of the 2009 establishment of the monuments.
June 26, 2020 — A federal fisheries management agency has barred some of its employees from making formal references to the COVID-19 pandemic without preapproval from leadership, according to an internal agency document.
The National Marine Fisheries Service, part of the Commerce Department, manages federal fish stocks in partnership with appointed regional councils. Fishing crews and seafood businesses have been asking the agency to relax regulations as the COVID-19 pandemic has complicated their operations. There have also been outbreaks among industry workers.
The National Marine Fisheries Service’s guidance document, dated June 22, says it applies to the agency’s formal rules and management announcements.
The four-page memo says the agency’s “preferred approach” is making “no reference to anything COVID related,” and it offers preapproved replacement phrases such as “in these extraordinary times.”