Saving Seafood

New and rare whale species identified from carcass found in Pribilofs

July 27, 2016 — A stroll on the beach of a remote Bering Sea island two years ago has produced a scientific breakthrough — the discovery of a previously unidentified species of beaked whale that dwells in the deep waters of the North Pacific Ocean.

The conclusion, described in a study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science of the California-based Society for Marine Mammalogy, stems from the 2014 discovery of a beached whale carcass by a local monitoring program called Island Sentinel. Karin Holser, a teacher on St. George Island in the Pribilofs, alerted authorities, and Michelle Ridgway, a Juneau-based biologist involved with a Pribilof science camp, responded quickly.

“She was the one who said, ‘This looks like a Baird’s beaked whale, but it doesn’t,'” said Phillip Morin, a research molecular geneticist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and lead author of the new study.

The whale was about two-thirds the size of a Baird’s beaked whale, which typically grows to 35 or 40 feet, Morin said. It was clearly not a juvenile, as its teeth were worn and yellow, “so they were not baby teeth,” he said. Its skull had a distinct slope and its dorsal fin was different from that of the typical Baird’s beaked whale.

Tissue samples were sent to the Marine Mammal and Turtle Division of NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center in California, where Morin works and where the world’s most extensive collection of cetacean tissues is kept. The whale’s skull was sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington — and students from the Pribilofs visited the lab there to take part in the examination.

DNA analysis showed it was a species different from the 22 previously known species of beaked whales in the world and the two known to swim in the North Pacific.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

NOAA Recommends $9 Million in Funding for Community-based Habitat Restoration

July 25, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA is recommending $9 million in funding for 17 coastal and marine habitat restoration projects for its 2016 Community-based Restoration Program, as part of agency efforts to support healthy ecosystems and resilient coastal communities.

The recommended projects, in 10 states and territories, range from coral reef restoration in Florida to fish passage improvements in California. In the Greater Atlantic region, there are four recommended projects in Massachusetts, one in Maine, and one in Maryland.

This year’s projects will restore habitat for a variety of coastal and marine species, including three of NOAA Fisheries’ highly at-risk “Species in the Spotlight” – Atlantic salmon, Central California Coast coho, and Sacramento River winter-run Chinook. Projects will also concentrate on habitat improvement in two of NOAA’s Habitat Focus Areas – Puerto Rico’s Culebra Island, and West Hawaii – where agency and partner efforts can come together to yield community and environmental benefits.

“These restoration projects are a win-win for the environment and surrounding communities,” said Pat Montanio, director of the NOAA Fisheries Office of Habitat Conservation. “When we make smart investments in habitat restoration, we not only help sustain fisheries and recover protected resources, we also use these projects to provide additional benefits, like protecting coastal communities from flooding and erosion, and boosting local economies through increased recreational opportunities.”

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Community-based Restoration Program, which was established in 1996 and authorized under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006. Since the program’s beginning, NOAA has provided more than $140 million to implement more than 2,000 habitat restoration projects, all through strong partnerships with more than 2,500 organizations. Through the program and the Magnuson-Stevens Act, NOAA and its partners are helping to create healthy habitats and resilient fish populations in the United States.

At this point in the selection process, the application approval and obligation of funds is not final. Each of the 17 applications is being “recommended” and is not a guarantee of funding. Final approval is subject to funding availability as well as final review and approval by both the NOAA Grants Management Division and Department of Commerce Federal Assistance Law Division. Applicants should expect to receive formal notification of award approval by October 1.

Details about the 17 projects recommended for funding are available on the NOAA Fisheries Office of Habitat Conservation website.

Life on the Line: OSU scientists track effects of a changing ocean on tiny sea life

July 22, 2016 — NEWPORT, Ore. — In a cold mist under gray skies, the Pacific Ocean heaved against the boat as two scientists from Oregon State University pulled a net full of life from the deep.

It was a July day, but it felt like a day in December.

In the net life swarmed, much of it too small to be seen with the unaided eye. The net held the keys to help scientists unlock how creatures of the sea are affected by changing ocean conditions and those effects on the aquatic food chain. And more specifically, the effects to salmon, a fish of much importance to humans.

For 20 years scientists have made bi-monthly trips on what is called the Newport Hydrographic Line, which takes them to the same seven sampling stations along a 25-mile path perpendicular to the coast. The stations are physical points on a map. There are no buoys or other structures that mark their locations. The scientists find them using GPS.

They launch their research vessel, the R/V Elakha, from a dock in Yaquina Bay that sits along a jagged bulge of land on which OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center resides. The trips have amassed an extraordinary amount of data about the sea and the life within it. The data is routinely posted on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center website and is used primarily to help forecast salmon runs. But the data has also told the story of changing ocean conditions and its impact on the food chain.

“We can also look at the changes in the bioenergetics of the food chain across the whole 20-year time series,” says OSU research assistant Jennifer Fisher. “It doesn’t just relate to salmon; it relates to sardines and (other) fish. It gives us an idea of ocean acidification, toxic algae – lots of things.”

Fisher has been going on these trips to sea for five years aboard the 54-foot research vessel owned and operated by OSU.

On this day, Fisher, OSU lab technician Tom Murphy and deckhand Dave Weaver use two different cone-shaped nets to capture organisms that live in the sea and that form the basis of the oceanic food chain.

Fisher’s primary interest in the day’s catch is in a tiny crustacean called a copepod. These creatures feed on the sea’s phytoplankton. Copepods are animals with large antennae and are only a millimeter or two in length. Under a microscope their bodies are an elongated oval protected by an exoskeleton. But they are nearly transparent. And inside their bodies scientists have discovered a lipid sac, or stored fat.

Read the full story at KVAL

Crawling to Recovery: Loggerhead sea turtles reach a nesting milestone

July 18, 2016 — BRUNSWICK, Ga. — It’s been a record nesting season for Georgia’s loggerhead sea turtles, which last week reached a milestone in efforts to help the threatened species recover.

With 2,810 nests on Georgia barrier islands, the turtles edged past a key goal while also setting a record high since comprehensive nesting counts began in 1989.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries plan for goals for the region including Georgia and the Carolinas is a 2 percent annual nesting increase for a 50-year period. Before this season, Georgia’s 3 percent annual increase rate had the state on pace to hit its goal of 2,800 nests in 2020.

“We’ve had a number of increasing nesting years in a row, but this is kind of a big year for us,” Mark Dodd, coordinator for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Sea Turtle Program, said in a phone interview. “It’s been a long history of conservation in Georgia that culminated in this 2,800 nests number, so it’s pretty exciting for us.”

Georgia’s main nesting sea turtle, loggerheads weigh as much as 400 pounds. Female turtles crawl onto beaches from late spring into August to lay eggs in nests dug on the dry-sand beach, DNR officials say. Hatchlings begin emerging this month, crawling to the surf to begin their lives at sea.

Read the full story at the Albany Herald

Surveys off Alaska lead to new types of soft-bodied fish

July 13, 2016 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Federal biologist Jay Orr never knows what’s going to come up in nets lowered to the ocean floor off Alaska’s remote Aleutian Islands, which separate the Bering Sea from the rest of the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes it’s stuff he has to name.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration biologist is part of a group that uses trawl nets to survey commercially important fish species such as cod in waters off Alaska. Sometimes those nets come up with things no one has seen before.

With co-authors, Orr has discovered 14 kinds of new snailfish, a creature that can be found in tide pools but also in the deepest parts of the ocean. A dozen more new snailfish are waiting to be named. Additional species are likely to be found as scientists expand their time investigating areas such as the Bering Sea Slope, in water 800 to 5,200 feet deep, or the 25,663-foot deep Aleutian Trench.

“I suspect we are just scraping the top of the distributions of some of these deep-water groups,” Orr said from his office in Seattle.

Orr and his colleagues measure the abundance of rockfish, flatfish and other “bottom fish” for the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, the research arm of the NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. The center studies marine resources off Alaska and parts of the West Coast.

Five boats with six researchers each surveyed Alaska waters in late June. The teams trawl on the Bering Shelf every summer and in either Aleutian waters or the Gulf of Alaska every other year.

Their findings on fish abundance are fed into models for managing fish populations.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Miami Herald

NOAA Fisheries Announces New Regulations for Blueline Tilefish, Black Sea Bass, and Yellowtail Snapper in Federal Waters of the South Atlantic

July 12, 2016 — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The final rule for Regulatory Amendment 25 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region (Regulatory Amendment 25) will publish on July 13, 2016.

The final rule for Regulatory Amendment 25 will implement the following changes:

Blueline Tilefish

Regulations for blueline tilefish will be effective on July 13, 2016.

  • Increase the annual catch limits for blueline tilefish from 26,766 to 87,521 pounds whole weight (commercial sector) and 26,691 to 87,277 pounds whole weight (recreational sector).
  • Reopen commercial harvest for blueline tilefish on July 13, 2016. Commercial harvest will close in 2016 if the commercial annual catch limit is met.
  • Increase the commercial trip limit from 100 to 300 pounds gutted weight.
  • Increase the recreational bag limit from one fish per vessel to three fish per person per day for the months of May through August within the aggregate bag limit. There will continue to be no recreational retention of blueline tilefish during the months of January through April and September through December, each year.
  • The increases in the commercial trip limit and the recreational bag limit are in response to the increase in the annual catch limit.

Black sea bass

Regulations for black sea bass will be effective on August 12, 2016.

  • Increase the recreational bag limit for black sea bass from five to seven fish per person per day.

Yellowtail Snapper

Regulations for yellowtail snapper will be effective on August 12, 2016.

  • Change the yellowtail snapper fishing year start date for both the commercial and recreational sectors from January 1 to August 1, each year. Changing the start of the fishing year to August 1 will benefit both sectors because it will ensure harvest is open during the winter months when yellowtail snapper obtains a higher price per pound commercially, and during peak tourist season in south Florida where the majority of yellowtail snapper harvest takes place.

More Information

For more information, including electronic copies of Amendment 25 and Frequently Asked Questions may be obtained from the NOAA Fisheries Web site.

West Coast groups unite to fight offshore monuments that prohibit commercial fishing

July 7, 2016 — The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

A collection of more than 40 West Coast commercial and recreational fishing groups, working in conjunction with the National Coalition for Fishing Communities, has written to the White House, the Secretaries of Commerce and Interior, and officials in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, opposing the proposed designation of marine monuments off the coast of California that prohibit commercial fishing.

The letter is in direct response to a recent proposal calling on President Obama to declare virtually all Pacific seamounts, ridges, and banks (SRB’s) off the California coast as National Monuments using his executive authority under the Antiquities Act. If enacted by executive order, the new monuments would permanently close virtually all of California’s offshore SRB’s to commercial fishing.

“[This proposal] was drafted and advanced behind closed doors with no public peer-reviewed scientific analysis, no [National Environmental Policy Act] analysis, and virtually no public engagement,” the letter to the White House states. “The initial justification for this proposed action is filled with sensational, inaccurate statements and omissions. The economic analysis for the proposed closures grossly understates the importance and value of the identified [SRB’s] to fisheries and fishing communities.”

“Fisheries provide healthy food for people, and our fisheries are a well-managed renewable resource,” the letter continues, noting that California already has the most strictly managed fisheries in the world.

Among the areas proposed for monument status are Tanner and Cortes Banks in southern California, which are critically important for many fisheries including tuna, swordfish, rockfish, spiny lobster, sea urchin, white seabass, mackerel, bonito, and market squid.

The proposal also called for the closures of Gorda and Mendocino Ridges in northern California, which are important grounds for the albacore tuna fishery.

As the letter states, closure of these important areas to commercial fishing would cause disastrous economic impacts to fishermen, seafood processors and allied businesses, fishing communities and the West Coast fishing economy.  Even more important than the value of the fisheries is the opportunity cost of losing these productive fishing grounds forever.

Unilateral action under the Antiquities Act would also contradict the fully public and transparent process that currently exists under the federal Magnuson-Stevens Act. Such a designation would also conflict with the President’s own National Ocean Policy Plan, which promises “robust stakeholder engagement and public participation” in decision-making on ocean policy.

“We ask you stop the creation of these California offshore monuments under the Antiquities Act because monument status is irreversible, and the Antiquities Act process involves no science, no public involvement nor outreach to the parties who will be most affected by this unilateral action – no transparency,” the letter concludes.

Read the full letter here

About the NCFC 
The National Coalition for Fishing Communities provides a national voice and a consistent, reliable presence for fisheries in the nation’s capital and in national media. Comprised of fishing organizations, associations, and businesses from around the country, the NCFC helps ensure sound fisheries policies by integrating community needs with conservation values, leading with the best science, and connecting coalition members to issues and events of importance.

New Pacific Fishery Management Council Members Appointed

July 1, 2016 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

PORTLAND, Ore. — U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced the appointment of Marc Gorelnik of California and the reappointment of Herb Pollard, of Idaho, to the Pacific Fishery Management Council on Monday. Nominations were submitted by the governors of the two states and approved by the Secretary. The appointments go into effect on August 11.

Mr. Gorelnik, a trademark and copyright attorney, will fill the California at-large seat on the Council, replacing Mr. Dan Wolford. Mr. Gorelnik received a J.D. from the King Hall School of Law at UC Davis in 1993. Prior to entering the field of law, he was a project engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company’s Santa Barbara Research Center, and earned degrees in physics and scientific instrumentation from UC Santa Barbara. He currently lives in northern California and has worked on fishery issues on behalf of California recreational anglers for several years. Mr. Gorelnik currently serves on the Council’s Salmon Advisory Subpanel, which advises the Council on decisions that affect commercial and recreational salmon fisheries. He is Chairman of the Coastside Fishing Club and is a member of the Coastal Conservation Association and the Golden Gate Salmon Association.

Mr. Pollard currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the Council and will begin serving as Chair in August. He is currently serving his second term representing the Idaho Obligatory seat. Mr. Pollard was born in Lakeview, Oregon, and spent his early life in Lakeview and Klamath Falls, graduating from Lakeview High School in 1962. He attended University of Oregon for two years, before transferring to Oregon State University where he graduated with a BS Degree in Fisheries Science in 1967. Herb earned an MS in Fisheries Management from University of Idaho in 1969, and immediately started work for Idaho Department of Fish and Game as a Fishery Research Biologist. After a 28 year career with IDFG, including stints as Regional and State Fishery Manager, Anadromous Fishery Coordinator, and Regional Supervisor, he spent 10 years with NOAA Fisheries, dealing with Endangered Species Act consultations and regulations regarding fishery management, fish hatcheries, and harvest issues that impact listed salmon and steelhead in the Snake and Columbia River basins. Currently Mr. Pollard is working as an independent contractor consulting on fishery management issues. In addition to a professional career as a Fishery Biologist, he is an avid and expert recreational angler and has written and spoken extensively about recreational fishing.

Federal lawsuit over at-sea monitoring still a go

June 29, 2016 — Fishermen opposing the cost-shift of at-sea monitoring say they are moving forward with a federal lawsuit despite the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concession that it will help pay for the cost of the monitors for New England fishermen.

The at-sea monitoring program analyzes the fishing area, as well as the catch and gear type, in order to monitor sector quotas. The Northeast Fisheries Science Center, the research arm of NOAA Fisheries, is required to collect scientific, management, regulatory compliance and economic data for fisheries.

Read the full story at Mainebiz

U.S. Commerce Department announces 2016 regional fishery council appointments

June 28, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA:

The U.S. Commerce Department today announced the appointment of 19 new and returning members to the eight regional fishery management councils that partner with NOAA Fisheries to manage ocean fish stocks. One at-large seat on the Mid-Atlantic Council will be announced by the Secretary at a later date. The new and reappointed council members begin their three-year terms on August 11.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act established the councils to prepare fishery management plans for their regions. NOAA Fisheries works closely with the councils through this process and then reviews, approves and implements the plans. Council members represent diverse groups, including commercial and recreational fishing industries, environmental organizations and academia. They are vital to fulfilling the act’s requirements to end overfishing, rebuild fish stocks and manage them sustainably.

“U.S. fisheries are among the most sustainable in the world, and NOAA Fisheries is grateful for the efforts these individuals devote to our nation’s fisheries management and to the resiliency of our oceans. We look forward to working with both new and returning council members,” said Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries. “Each council faces unique challenges, and their partnership with NOAA Fisheries is integral to the sustainability of the fisheries in their respective regions, as well as to the communities that rely on those fisheries.”

Each year, the Secretary of Commerce appoints approximately one-third of the total 72 appointed members to the eight regional councils. The Secretary selects members from nominations submitted by the governors of fishing states, territories and tribal governments.

Read the full release and list of council appointments