Saving Seafood

Secretary of Commerce approves measure to reduce Bering Sea halibut bycatch

January 20, 2016 — The following was released by the NOOA Alaska Regional Office:

The Secretary of Commerce has approved a fishery management plan amendment to reduce halibut bycatch in four sectors of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands groundfish fisheries. NOAA Fisheries anticipates the amendment will reduce the actual amount of halibut bycatch in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands by approximately 361 metric tons compared to 2014. It may also provide additional harvest opportunities in the directed commercial, personal use, sport, and subsistence halibut fisheries.

In recent years, the International Pacific Halibut Commission – the joint U.S.-Canadian body charged with management of Pacific halibut – has determined that the exploitable biomass of halibut has declined, particularly in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. This decline has resulted in reductions to the catch limits for the directed commercial halibut fishery in Area 4, in particular Area 4 CDE in the eastern and northern Bering Sea.

Groundfish fisheries–which seek to catch species like pollock and yellowfin sole–regularly encounter halibut as bycatch during their fishing operations.

In response to declining commercial catch limits for the directed commercial halibut fishery, in June 2015, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council recommended reducing halibut prohibited species catch (PSC) limits for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands groundfish fisheries. The council’s recommendation was Amendment 111 to the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.

Amendment 111 reduces the overall Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area halibut prohibited species catch (PSC) limit by 21% to 3,515 metric tons (mt). The PSC limits are reduced by specific amounts for the following groundfish sectors:

  • Amendment 80 sector by 25% to 1,745 mt;
  • BSAI trawl limited access sector by 15% to 745 mt;
  • BSAI non-trawl sector by 15% to 710 mt; and
  • Community Development Quota (CDQ) Program (CDQ sector) by 20% to 315 mt.

The Secretary approved Amendment 111 after determining that it is consistent with the national standards in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

NOAA Fisheries will publish a final rule for the measure this spring, which will go into effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. For more information, visit NOAA Fisheries Alaska Regional website.

 

 

Study: Gulf of Maine warming faster than thought

January 19, 2016 — The news just keeps getting worse for cold-temperature fish such as cod in the ever-warming waters of the Gulf of Maine.

A new study, conducted by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers and appearing in the Journal of Geophysical Research — Oceans, reached an ominous conclusion: the waters of the Gulf of Maine, which a previous study showed to be warming faster than 99.9 percent of the rest of the planet’s oceans, are continuing to warm at an accelerated rate and are expected to continue doing so for at least the next 80 years.

“The Gulf of Maine is really being subjected to a one-two punch,” said Vincent Saba, a NOAA Fisheries scientist and lead author of the study. “On one hand, the region is dealing with the elements of global warming being experienced in all of the oceans, but there also has been a change in the circulation of the two gulf streams that feed into the Gulf of Maine.”

The result, according to Saba, is that more of the warmer water contained in the shifting Gulf Stream is making its way into the Gulf of Maine from the south, while less of the colder water from the Arctic and Labrador streams are entering the gulf from the north and east.

“The Gulf of Maine really sits at the intersection of those two currents,” Saba said.

Saba said the climatic models used in the study project the warming trend could continue for the next 80 years, potentially rising another 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit and setting the stage for extreme and potentially ruinous changes in the region’s ecosystem.

Read the full story at The Salem News

The Lost Whaling Fleet is finally found

January 18, 2016 — During the summer of 1871, a mini-armada of American whaleships hunting for bowhead whales in the Arctic Ocean gambled against the weather, and lost. As the fleet sailed north, the temperature plummeted, and unrelenting winds pushed massive ice floes toward the coast, which first pinned the whaleships in place, and then began crushing their hulls. In the end, 32 whaleships were destroyed in what became the greatest single disaster in the history of American whaling.

For nearly a century and a half, the remains of those ships were hidden from view, but no longer. This past summer, archaeologists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, using sonar and sensing technology, found the hulls of two whaling ships in the same area where the disaster occurred. These ships, whose discovery NOAA only recently made public, are almost certainly part of that ill-fated fleet.

The story of the so-called Lost Whaling Fleet is one of the most dramatic in America’s long and turbulent history of whaling. Since the mid-1800s, American whalers had been pursuing bowhead whales in the Arctic. These massive creatures, which can grow more than 60 feet long and weigh up to 100 tons, yielded as much as 300 barrels of oil, widely used for lighting.

But by the time the whaling fleet headed north in 1871, the whale oil market had been virtually eliminated. After the discovery of petroleum in 1859, an ever-increasing amount of that “black gold” was pumped from the ground and refined into a flood of cheap kerosene that ultimately displaced whale oil and other illuminants.

What the whalers of 1871 wanted from the bowheads was not oil, but the hundreds of strips of baleen that were hanging down from the roof of their mouths. Whales use this keratinous material, which when viewed from the side resembles a comb with hairy fringes on the inner edge, for feeding. Baleen was valuable because it was made into hoops for hooped skirts, and stays for stomach-tightening and chest-crushing corsets, which were fashionable at the time. Bowhead whales were especially prized, because they had the longest baleen of any whale, reaching lengths of nearly 14 feet.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

 

Questions schooling around at-sea fishing monitors

January 16, 2016 — The battle over the cost and scope of at-sea monitoring of Northeast groundfish vessels, now being played out on various regulatory and legal platforms, promises a hectic end to the current fishing season and a complex start to the next.

There are no shortage of questions.

  • When will the federal government run out of money and shift the responsibility for paying for observers to the permit holders?
  • How will NOAA Fisheries respond to the recommendations from the New England Fishery Management Council that would significantly alter the at-sea monitoring program in the 2016 fishing season, which begins May 1?
  • How do the fishing sectors, once they are handed the responsibility of paying for observer coverage, negotiate new contracts with monitoring contractors when they don’t know what rules will be in place for the remainder of this fishing season and the beginning of the next?
  • Finally, what affect will the federal lawsuit, filed by New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel seeking the elimination of the monitoring program, have on the process in the short and long terms?
  • “Knowing what the numbers are going to be and what the process is going to be is really important,” Northeast Seafood Coalition Executive Director Jackie Odell told the Gloucester Fishing Commission on Thursday night. “That kind of certainty is really essential.”

Presently, that certainty is nowhere to be found.

Proposed rule changes

Odell was before the board seeking its commitment to support the proposed rule changes for at-sea monitoring approved by the council in December. Those measures are designed to alter the methodology and cost of providing observer coverage to make the program more efficient and ease the ultimate burden of assuming the responsibility for paying for the coverage.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

Gloucester Daily Times: Finding common ground on monitors

January 13, 2016 — It takes a lot to bring Democrats and Republicans together on any issue in these days of heightened, highly partisan politics. It seems, however, that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has done the trick.

Sixth District U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton and 16 of his fellow New England congressmen — 12 Democrats, four Republicans and an independent — united last week to call on the agency to delay or call off its plans to force fishing vessel permit holders to pay to have someone looking over their shoulder as they work.

The so-called onboard monitoring program, where a federal observer rides along on fishing trips, is estimated to cost about $710 per day, per vessel. And NOAA expects fishermen to foot the bill. It’s an additional expense — the very definition of an unfunded mandate — that could put permit holders out of business for good. 

As Hampton, N.H., fisherman David Goethel asked John Kasich during the presidential candidate’s visit to Seabrook last week, “Can anyone in this room afford to spend $710 a day to drive to work, to have your own personal state trooper by your side to make sure you don’t go 66 on Interstate 95? (NOAA’s) own economists tell them that fishermen can’t afford it, and their answer is, basically, ‘tough.’ We shouldn’t have to sue our own government, but we have to because they’re not being held accountable.”

Goethel is suing the federal government over the monitoring plans. Kasich called the idea of forcing fishermen to pay for monitors “ridiculous” and “absurd.”

Goethel would seem to have allies — in spirit, at least — in the region’s congressmen. Their letter to NOAA Administrator Kathleen D. Sullivan urged the agency to delay shifting costs for the program to fishermen until a more efficient, less expensive plan is devised.

Read the full editorial at Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishing Commission to talk monitoring, seafood show

January 13, 2016 — The city’s Fisheries Commission is set to discuss a variety of issues dealing with at-sea monitoring at its meeting Thursday night at City Hall, as well as details of Gloucester’s participation in the upcoming international seafood show in Boston.

The commission is scheduled to meet at 7 in the conference room on the first floor.

The groundfish at-sea monitoring items involve a request from the Northeast Seafood Coalition for the commission to support the recent votes by the New England Fishery Management Council to reduce the level — and ultimately the cost — of at-sea monitoring coverage mandated for groundfish vessels.

NOAA Fisheries has said it has enough money to continue paying for the monitoring — at an estimated cost of $710 per day per vessel — into some point early in 2016 and then plans to shift those costs to the permit holders.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

Benefits of fish farms in Gulf of Mexico debated

January 12, 2016 — NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Fish farming is contentious, with fishermen and environmentalists warning that new rules supporting it could harm the marine environment and put fishermen out of work.

Federal regulations were issued this week, allowing the farming of fish in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Kathryn Sullivan, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the Gulf rules could spur similar rules in other U.S. waters and help the U.S. meet its seafood demands.

Typically, offshore farming is done by breeding fish in large semi-submersible pens moored to the seafloor. The practice is common in many parts of the world, and Sullivan said the United States has fallen behind. About 90 percent of the seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported and more than half of that is farmed, she noted.

She said expanding fish farming has numerous benefits.

“It’s good for the balance of trade. It’s good for the food security of the country,” she said. It could create jobs, she added.

The new rules allow up to 20 fish farms to open in the Gulf and produce 64 million pounds of fish a year. The farms can start applying for 10-year permits starting in February, she said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Houston Chronicle

 

Two Virginia Whale Watch Companies Join Whale SENSE Atlantic

January 12, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Two Virginia Beach ocean tour operators, Rudee Tours and  Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, joined the voluntary responsible whale watching program, Whale SENSE, sponsored by NOAA Fisheries and Whale and Dolphin Conservation. 

Virginia’s whale watch season runs from January to March, when the humpback whales migrate through the mid-Atlantic from their northeast summer feeding grounds to their calving and nursery grounds located in the eastern Caribbean. By choosing a company with Whale SENSE, whale watchers can be assured that their exhilarating experiences with the whales are not interfering with the whales’ natural behaviors.

Rudee Tours offers winter wildlife cruises. Credit Kristin Rayfield, Rudee Tours.

The Whale SENSE program, which started seven years ago in the Atlantic region, now spans two coasts and boasts a total of 15 whale watch companies from Virginia to Maine, as well as 7 in Juneau, Alaska.”With the largest fleet of head boats in Virginia, and tens of thousands of people taking one of our tours each year, we feel it is important to serve as a role model for responsible and educational whale and dolphin watching,” says Kristen Rayfield, naturalist of Rudee Tours.

“Whale SENSE provides an opportunity for us to continue to showcase our dedication to the highest level of ethics and practices and provide an experience for our guests while keeping these incredible marine mammals safe in their habitat,” says Alexis Rabon, Boat Program Coordinator and Naturalist for Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center.

Humpback whale breaching off Virginia Beach. Credit: Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center

Whale SENSE participants follow viewing guidelines by reducing speeds, keeping a safe distance, and communicating with other vessels. They also pledge to advertise responsibly by captioning pictures to inform their passengers of how whales are protected.

“Seeing these majestic animals up close is an exhilarating experience, but we don’t want our enthusiasm to unintentionally cause them harm,” says John Bullard, NOAA Fisheries regional administrator for the Greater Atlantic Region. “Whale SENSE helps us ensure that companies know the laws and best methods for minimizing impacts to the whales, helping to protect and conserve these species for generations to come.”

In addition, Whale SENSE participants receive annual training on whale protection laws, and participate in environmental conservation projects, such as beach clean-ups or sponsoring internship programs. In the event that they see a marine animal in distress, they call it in to authorized responders, and when possible, stand by the animal until rescuers arrive.

“We are thrilled to have Rudee Tours and Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center join Whale SENSE this year,” says Monica Pepe of Whale and Dolphin Conservation. “These companies will act as stewards on the water, setting an example of how to watch whales responsibly in an area where whale sightings have been increasing in recent years.”

All whales in U.S. waters are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which makes it illegal to injure, kill or harass whales.

Having served more than 1 million passengers, Whale SENSE companies continue to be the SENSE-ible whale watching choice. To find out if a whale watch company participates in the program, check for the new Whale SENSE logo on participating vessels.

Visit Whale SENSE for participants in your area or like us on Facebook!

Read this press release online. High-res images available. 

How Probiotics Can Save the East Coast Shellfish Industry

January 12, 2016 — Bob Rheault was having an open house at his young shellfish hatchery, so he arrived early in the morning with bottles of wine and plates of cheese. That’s when he noticed he had a problem.

“There was an odd substance floating on the surface of the tanks,” Rheault says. He looked through a microscope, “and there were no bodies to be seen … just empty shells with bacteria climbing all over them.”

In oyster and clam hatcheries, a bacterial infection can cause the population to drop from 10 million to 1,000 larvae overnight. That’s what happened to Rheault, who had no larvae to show his open house guests. Antibiotics aren’t approved for use in U.S. shellfish hatcheries (though they are worldwide)—and, by the time an infection sets in, all the larvae are dead anyway—so the only thing for a hatchery owner to do when confronted with an infection is dump everything out, clean the tanks, and start over.

Or that used to be the only approach. Now, researchers at two labs seem to have found a solution.

The problem of bacterial infections in hatcheries has been worsening over the past decade as the waters of the Northeast warm. Rheault, who is now the president of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, says that thanks to climate change, bacterial infections now kill off 10 to 20 percent of the Northeast’s shellfish larvae each year. And because the bacteria, Vibrio, gets into the tanks via seawater, it affects not only shellfish but also lobsters, by turning their shells black and making them impossible to sell. (Some lobstermen eat the animals themselves or send them to be cooked and processed, since the meat is still good.)

Researchers have now found a tool to fight the Vibrio bacteria: probiotics. Teams at both NOAA’s Milford Laboratory in Connecticut and the University of Rhode Island (URI) have harvested beneficial bacteria from healthy adult oysters that can help oyster larvae fight off bacterial infections. And the URI researchers are exploring the possibility that a similar concoction could help treat lobster shell disease as well.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

 

First-Ever Federal Rules for Offshore Fish Farming Issued

January 11, 2016 — The first-ever federal regulations for large-scale fish farming in the ocean were issued Monday, opening a new frontier in the harvesting of popular seafood species such as red drum, tuna and red snapper.

The new rules allow the farming of fish in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The rules — in the making for years — were announced in New Orleans by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan said the Gulf rules could spur similar rules in other U.S. waters. She said it was time for the United States to open up this new market, which she said could help the U.S. meet its seafood demands.

Fish farming is contentious, with fishermen and environmentalists warning it could harm the marine environment and put fishermen out of work.

Typically, offshore farming is done by breeding fish in large semi-submersible pens moored to the seafloor. The practice is common in many parts of the world, and Sullivan said the United States has fallen behind. About 90 percent of the seafood consumed in the United States is imported and more than half of that is farmed, she noted.

She said expanding fish farming has numerous benefits.

“It’s good for the balance of trade, it’s good for the food security of the country,” she said. She said it could create jobs, too.

The new rules allow up to 20 fish farms to open in the Gulf and produce 64 million pounds of fish a year. The farms can start applying for 10-year permits starting in February, she said.

Read the full story at ABC News