Saving Seafood

Climate Change Projections Can Be Used To List A Species As Threatened, US Court Rules

October 25th, 2016 — In a landmark ruling Monday, a U.S. appeals court said that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) — a federal agency — had acted reasonably when it proposed to list certain populations of bearded seals in Alaska as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The decision, which reverses a 2014 ruling by a lower court, could pave the way for other species being accorded protections based on their vulnerability to projected changes in climate.

“This is a huge victory for bearded seals and shows the vital importance of the Endangered Species Act in protecting species threatened by climate change,” Kristen Monsell, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity — which had, in 2008, filed a petition to list the species as threatened, said in a statement. “This decision will give bearded seals a fighting chance while we work to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions melting their sea-ice habitat and keep dirty fossil fuels in the ground.”

The Pacific bearded seal is one of the two subspecies of bearded seals. Although it is currently listed as “Least Concern” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Center for Biological Diversity and the NMFS estimate — based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — that the seals’ winter sea-ice habitat in the Bering and Okhotsk seas off Alaska and Russia would decline by at least 40 percent by 2050, and that the subspecies would be endangered by 2095.

Read the full story at the IBT Times 

Herring fishing shut down along New England coast

October 19, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Herring fishermen are nearing their quota along New England’s coast and the fishery will be shut down until further notice.

The National Marine Fisheries Service says fishermen in the inshore Gulf of Maine have caught about 90 percent of their quota and the fishery was shut down early Tuesday morning. The inshore fishing zone ranges from Cape Cod to the eastern edge of the Maine coast.

Herring are an important bait fish, especially in the lobster fishery. A shortage of the fish in offshore waters caused a bait shortage in New England during the summer.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Daily Progress

Herring Fishing Shut Down Along New England Coast

October 18, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine – Herring fishermen are nearing their quota along New England’s coast and the fishery will be shut down until further notice.

The National Marine Fisheries Service says fishermen in the inshore Gulf of Maine have caught about 90 percent of their quota and the fishery was shut down early Tuesday morning. The inshore fishing zone ranges from Cape Cod to the eastern edge of the Maine coast.

Herring are an important bait fish, especially in the lobster fishery. A shortage of the fish in offshore waters caused a bait shortage in New England during the summer.

Read the full story at Maine Public Radio

Retention Limit of Aggregated Large Coastal Shark and Hammerhead Shark Management Groups Reduced to 25 Sharks per Trip

October 17, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA:

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has reduced the retention limit for the commercial aggregated large coastal shark and hammerhead shark management groups (Appendix 1) for directed shark limited access permit holders in the Atlantic region from 45 to 25 sharks per vessel per trip effective 11:30 p.m. October 19, 2016. As agreed upon by the Commission’s Coastal Sharks Management Board (in December 2015), the Commission will follow NMFS for in-season changes to the commercial retention limit, therefore, no more than 25 sharks per vessel per trip may be retained from the aggregated large coastal and hammerhead management groups by a state licensed fishermen effective 11:30 p.m. October 19, 2016. This adjustment is intended to promote equitable fishing opportunities in the Atlantic region.

The retention limit for the large coastal shark and hammerhead shark management groups will remain at 25 sharks per vessel per trip in the Atlantic region (federal and state waters) through the remainder of the 2016 fishing season or until NMFS announces another adjustment to the retention limit or a fishery closure is warranted.

Scientists, fishermen fight to save leatherback sea turtles

October 11, 2016 — Despite strict protections off the West Coast, leatherback turtles are in danger in other parts of the Pacific, scientists and fishermen said at a conference called to celebrate California’s official marine reptile.

The meeting, held in La Jolla last week, offered a status update on the ancient marine species, in advance of California’s Pacific Leatherback Conservation Day on Oct. 15. With populations down by more than 90 percent since the 1980s, the animals are ranked as one of eight marine species at greatest risk of extinction, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service.

Fishermen and researchers say that U.S. fishing limits designed to keep leatherbacks from getting caught in nets may unintentionally lead to more ensnarement in countries where rules are looser. For the globally roaming species, it will take more than one country’s efforts to stave off extinction.

Leatherbacks are ocean-going leviathans that can weigh up to a ton, and swim nearly 7,000 miles across the Pacific, devouring jellyfish.

Read the full story at the San Diego Union-Tribune

New England Fishery Managment Council Welcomes News: Barndoor Skates Declared “Rebuilt”

October 7, 2016 — The following was released by the NEFMC: 

In a management success story that came after years of highly restrictive measures, the New England Fishery Management Council is welcoming the recent declaration that “barndoor skate is now considered rebuilt based on the best available scientific information.” Barndoor skate has been a prohibited species for commercial and recreational fishermen since 2003 when the Council’s Northeast Skate Complex Fishery Management Plan (FMP) was implemented and the stock was considered to be overfished.

The Council was informed of this change in status through a Sept. 30 letter from Regional Administrator John Bullard of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office.

Council Chairman Dr. John Quinn noted that in 1999, NMFS received two petitions to list barndoor skate as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“We’ve come a long way since then,” Quinn said.

In 2002, NMFS determined that an ESA listing was not warranted because of several “positive trends” in the population, which included: “recent increases in abundance of barndoor skate observed during trawl surveys; the expansion of known areas where barndoor skate have been encountered; increases in size range; and the increase in the number of small barndoor skate that have been collected.”

The stock has continued to improve over the years and many fishermen have reported encountering higher numbers of barndoor skate in many areas. In light of the stock’s rebuilt status, some now are asking whether the Council will allow future landings. The answer is: It’s too soon to tell.

Other skate stock status findings by the science center include:

  • Overfishing was not occurring on any of the seven species in the Northeast Skate Complex, which are: winter
    skate (Leucoraja ocellata); barndoor skate (Dipturis laevis); thorny skate (Amblyraja radiata); smooth skate (Malacoraja senta); little skate (Leucoraja erinacea); clearnose skate (Raja eglanteria); and rosette skate (Leucoraja germane).
  • Thorny skate is the only species in the complex that remains in an overfished condition. Like barndoor skate, possession of thorny skate is prohibited.

See the full release from the NEFMC

BP oil disaster might have hurt Bluefin tuna rebuilding, study says

October 3, 2016 — The release of 4 million barrels of oil in the 87 days following the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion in April 2010 occurred just as Atlantic bluefin tuna had returned to the Gulf of Mexico to spawn, and a small but significant percentage of the adult fish and their eggs and larvae were likely exposed to the toxic oil, according to a new study announced Friday (Sept. 30).

The study led by scientists with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service and Stanford University concludes that the oil cumulatively covered 3.1 million square miles where fish, eggs and larvae were present in the weeks immediately after the accident.

When combined with other stressors affecting this species of tuna — including overfishing and warming seas caused by climate change — the addition of the oil’s impact “may result in significant effects for a population that shows little evidence of rebuilding,” the study published in Nature: Scientific Reports concluded.

The study, funded by the Natural Resource Damage Assessment for the BP spill required under the federal Oil Pollution Act, made use of computer modeling based on information gathered from 16 years of electronic tagging of 66 tuna that kept track of individual fish locations, temperatures and oscillating diving patterns. The information was compared with satellite observations of the breadth of oil from the spill on the surface of the Gulf to estimate the potential impacts.

Barbara Block, a Stanford professor of marine scientists and expert on Atlantic bluefin tuna, said in a Friday interview that the tagging program took advantage of earlier tagging information that indicated many of the Gulf-spawning tuna migrate back and forth from the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. Researchers captured adult tuna in Canada and installed the tags. When the fish returned to Canada a year later, the tags dropped off and were collected, and their data was added to a long-term database on fish movements.

The information collected from the tags helped the scientists confirm their theories about the spawning habits of the huge fish, which can weigh as much as 1,000 pounds at maturity, and begin reproducing about 10 years after birth.

Read the full story at the New Orleans Times-Picayune

OPINION: Humpback whales a welcome sight off NJ coast

October 3, 2016 — Beachgoers in the Monmouth County town of Manasquan were thrilled in late August when a humpback whale appeared offshore. For two hours, it breached, spouted, slapped its fins on the water and waved them in the air.

Of course, the humpback wasn’t there for entertainment. It was simply having a long lunch, feeding on abundant small fish in the water.

Humpback whales are making a comeback. Fishermen in the New York Bight — the triangular corner of ocean between Montauk Point, Long Island, and Cape May — are seeing them regularly.

On September 6, a few days after the Manasquan sighting, the National Marine Fisheries Service announced its decision to remove most humpback whale populations from its endangered species list. Once depleted by commercial whaling, humpbacks had been on the list since 1970.

Humpback whales are divided into 14 distinct global populations. The population along the East Coast of the United States, which breeds in the Caribbean and migrates north for feeding, is considered stable and not at risk. Four endangered populations remain, including one that breeds off of Central America and migrates up the coasts of California and Oregon.

Read the full opinion piece at the Courier News

Bay State lobstermen press pols to ease access to restricted areas

September 22, 2016 — BOSTON — Bay State lobstermen want federal fishing regulators to work with them to ease restrictions on lobstering in Massachusetts Bay and two areas east of the South Shore, proposing new safety measures that would allow boats to continue to operate while also protecting endangered whales.

Local lobstermen and leaders of the South Shore Lobster Fisherman’s Association met Wednesday at the State House with legislators and representatives for members of the state’s Congressional delegation to discuss their pitch for preventing whale entanglements without having to remove all traps from February through April.

“The point is not to repeal the closure. It’s to reach a compromise,” said Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester.

John Haviland, president of the association who lobsters out of Green Harbor, said lobstermen are proposing to open three sections — representing a fraction of the larger 2,965 square nautical mile restricted area — for parts of the three-month ban as long as traps are retrofitted with sleeves for their vertical lines that would break every 40 feet under 1,575 pounds of pressure.

Haviland said the line-safety improvement proposal is based on research done by the New England Aquarium and Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institute showing that right whales would be as much as 85 percent less likely to become entangled in lines engineered to break at those specifications.

Beginning in 2015, the National Marine Fisheries Service implemented a rule designed to protect right and humpback whales that prohibits lobster traps in an area stretching from Cape Cod Bay to Boston between Feb. 1 and April 30.

Read the full story from State House News Service at the Gloucester Times