Saving Seafood

Collaborating with Industry on Greater Atlantic Electronic Reporting

March 18, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

For more than 35 years, Captain Sonny Gwin has fished commercially out of Ocean City, Maryland. He targets lobster and sea bass on the F/V Skilligalee alongside two crew members. Like all captains, he must submit reports on his fishing activity to different reporting entities.

For most of his career, this meant filling out a federal paper logbook, with copies for the state and dealers. He had to submit it by mail, generally on a monthly basis. This also meant stacks and stacks of paper in his shop, some dating back decades. A member of the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council, Gwin faced the decision in 2018 on whether to support mandatory electronic reporting in the Greater Atlantic region. He voted in favor of the new technologies that would allow data submission from smartphones and tablets.

“You’ve always got your phone and it basically has your information at your fingertips,” says Gwin. While implementing electronic vessel trip reports (eVTRs) has had its challenges, the efforts have led to more timely, higher quality data that better support science and management. They also streamline reporting requirements by enabling submissions to multiple entities through a single app, and give the industry a better sense of where they stand on species quotas.

Right whales vs. commercial fishing: No ‘easy solution’ for NOAA, says Raimondo

March 18, 2023 — Once hunted to near-extinction, the greatest threats to the endangered North Atlantic right whale now are accidental encounters with humans.

Federal efforts to protect the whale species, which spends most of the year off the coast of New England, from collisions with ships and entanglements in fishing gear — incidents that represent the two leading causes of death for right whales, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — remain stymied.

That’s because some policies meant to preserve the right whale are also seen as an existential threat to another treasured icon of New England: commercial fishing.

Read the full article at WABE

East Coast congressmen seek NOAA response on scientists’ offshore wind advice

March 16, 2023 — Four East Coast congressmen asked top Biden administration officials how their agencies responded to a May 2022 scientific recommendation for wider buffer areas around offshore wind projects to protect endangered whales.

In a joint letter Tuesday Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith, both R-NJ, Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Andy Harris, R-Md., sought answers from leadership of the Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The request announced by Van Drew is a scene-setter for the southern New Jersey congressman’s March 16 public hearing in Wildwood, N.J., billed by Van Drew’s office as “an examination into offshore wind industrialization.”

It could be the first of Congressional hearings by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives into how the Biden administration is permitting offshore wind developments.

“There have been more than twenty whale deaths in just the past three months, an unprecedented number, yet this administration does not bat an eye,” Van Drew said Tuesday. “Despite calls for investigations as to why endangered whales keep washing up on our shores, this administration instead has decided to expand offshore wind development, allocating $60 million for projects in President Biden’s budget proposal.”

Offshore wind critics in Van Drew’s New Jersey coastal district have pointed to this winter’s strandings of humpback whales – a resurgent species along the Atlantic coast, unlike the highly endangered right whales – in demanding a moratorium on surveys to plan offshore wind projects off New Jersey.

They contend noise from geotechnical survey vessels may have disoriented the whales before their deaths, several determined by necropsy to have been caused by vessel strikes. NOAA officials reject those claims, saying the humpback strandings are part of a larger “unusual mortality event” that has been tracked since 2016.

So far this winter’s toll has included one right whale, a 20-year-old male washed up in Virginia, the apparent victim of a vessel strike.

The congressmen’s letter focuses on a May 2022 letter to BOEM from Sean Hayes, chief of protected species for NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

Read the full release at the National Fisherman

NOAA Fisheries Announces Preliminary 2023 At-Sea Monitoring Coverage Target for Groundfish Sector Fishery

March 16, 2023 — Today, NOAA Fisheries is announcing that we have set a preliminary human at-sea monitoring coverage target of 90 percent of all sector groundfish trips for the 2023 fishing year (May 1, 2023, through April 30, 2024). The preliminary coverage target is being announced now to facilitate preparations by industry members and monitoring companies ahead of the start of the 2023 fishing year. NOAA Fisheries has prepared a spending plan for funds appropriated by Congress. The final ASM coverage target will be announced when the spending plan is complete. We expect the final coverage target is likely to remain 90 percent, but, if revised, we expect the target to be between 80 percent and 100 percent.

We will separately announce the video review rates for electronic monitoring video footage.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

For NOAA, climate-resilient fishery regulations can’t ignore the human impact

March 13, 2023 — NOAA Fisheries continues to grapple with shifting fish populations due to warming waters, administration leaders are committed to making sure the regulatory solutions don’t leave coastal communities out to dry.

NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center Science and Research Director Jon Hare speaking during a panel at Seafood Expo North America – running from 12 to 14 March in Boston, Massachusetts – said the ocean has clearly changed in the last several decades as certain species begin to expand their range.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Speeding boats, fishing gear the leading causes of North Atlantic right whale deaths, conservation experts say

March 13, 2023 — A top ocean conservation group in the country is calling on the feds to enforce boat speed limits along the Atlantic coast and issue stronger protections to prevent more deaths of North Atlantic right whales.

The group Oceana released an analysis Thursday that found hundreds of boats had sped through mandatory and voluntary slow zones designed to protect the critically endangered species in the Virginia Beach area in the weeks leading up to a North Atlantic right whale death.

There are just 340 right whales left in the world today, a number that has declined by 25% over the past decade, according to conservation scientists.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration determined blunt force traumatic injuries as the cause of death of the 20-year-old male right whale. The injuries mirrored those of a boat strike, a leading threat to such whales.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

Unsettled Pacific Ocean Offers Surprises as Climate Change Alters Ecosystem

March 8, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Ecological relationships across the Pacific Coast that once guided annual expectations such as salmon returns are evolving as climate change disrupts long-standing connections. NOAA Fisheries researchers report these findings in their latest Ecosystem Status Report for the California Current Ecosystem.

Robust climate indices like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Oceanic Niño Index predicted cold and productive ocean conditions for salmon and other species throughout 2022. However, weakened upwelling and local intrusions of warmer water resulted in poor productivity and warmer-than-normal coastal conditions in the latter half of the year.

For example, the warm waters fueled an outbreak of toxic algae that poisoned California sea lions near Santa Barbara in August. It kept some beaches closed to clamming as far north as Washington. The disconnect between the oceanographic predictions and observed conditions have raised further concerns about the region’s preparedness in the face of climate change.

“We have seen profound changes underway in the last decade that have altered these relationships unlike anything we have seen in the historical record,” said Nate Mantua, landscape and seascape ecology leader at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in Santa Cruz.

Changes in Ecological Relationships Due to Climate Change

The new findings come from a research partnership between NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest and Northwest Fisheries Science Centers called an Integrated Ecosystem Assessment. It tracks ecological and other indicators of the California Current Ecosystem off Washington, Oregon, and California. The science centers issue an annual ecosystem status report describing indicators of physical, biological, and socioeconomic indicators. When all these results are considered together, scientists can track connectivity and changes within the entire ecosystem, including humans and coastal communities. They can then use science to inform management in a movement towards Ecosystem Based Fishery Management.

Researchers saw shifts in ecological relationships, such as the weakened connection between the Pacific Decadal Oscillation index in predicting annual upwelling strength. These changes may reflect a “decoupling” of broad-scale processes from more local processes, scientists said. Decoupling occurs when the relationship between two environmental conditions is weakened such that the status of one condition is no longer as reliable as it once was in predicting the condition of the other. Climate change has caused unequal shifts in environmental conditions, causing some relationships to unravel.

One effect of the unsettled ocean is that some models scientists use to estimate fishing impacts may no longer work well in this new ocean environment. For example, the commercial salmon catch in California overshot expectations by about 2.5 times because the fleet caught more salmon per day than first estimated. That left fewer salmon returning to rivers to spawn. And those salmon that returned to their home rivers in summer and fall 2022 were greeted by extremely warm—potentially lethal—stream temperatures.

While the unraveling of familiarly strong connections is not ideal for forecasters, it can produce surprisingly positive outcomes. For example, anchovy continued to boom in the California Current Ecosystem in 2022, decoupling past patterns that linked anchovy numbers to cold ocean conditions rather than warm. These abundant schools of forage fish provided ample food for salmon, California sea lions, whales, birds, and other predators. However, with a rise in anchovy providing ample prey for salmon, we have seen the adverse effects of a uniform diet because anchovies carry an enzyme that breaks down vitamin B1 (thiamine) in anchovy predators and puts their offspring at risk.

Tracking Ecological and Social Indicators

The Integrated Ecosystem Assessment covers ecological and social developments on the West Coast. It recognizes the value of commercial fisheries and marine mammals that also generate economic activity through recreation and tourism. In 2022, fishery landings were close to the long-term average as they increased following the pandemic years. Crab and squid landings especially increased, as commercial fishing revenue rose 10 percent from 2021 to 2022 in an increase following the pandemic. Biological surveys also found very high numbers of sablefish in the 2021 year class, which could be good news for the future of the West Coast groundfish fleet.

The report includes a section examining the overlap between commercial fisheries and likely development areas for offshore wind energy. The team also continued efforts to identify ecological indicators of climate change that could help track impacts on the ecosystem.

“We expected better conditions, but at least the system showed resilience in the face of heatwaves and other negative conditions via periods of decent productivity and an ample food web base in some locations,” said Chris Harvey, research scientist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, who helped develop the new report. “At the end of the day, we were left with a system that still performed on average.”

Study Sharpens Atlantic Cod Stock Delineation

March 7, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Over nearly 5 years, an international group of researchers inventoried, summarized, and analyzed all relevant peer-reviewed information about Atlantic cod stock structure off New England. Their initial results were reported in 2021. The fully documented study is now available.

The researchers determined that cod found off New England occur in five distinct populations. They have further identified these as an offshore Georges Bank population and four inshore populations. They include a mixed stock composed of spring and winter spawners in the southern Gulf of Maine.

Since 2021, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and the New England Fishery Management Council have considered both the management and stock assessment of these newly proposed biological cod stocks.

Variety of Experts Needed to Unwind Stock Components

Since 1972, the Atlantic cod in U.S. waters have been managed in two management areas: Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank. These areas were drawn around an underlying “grid” of smaller areas with roots in fishing grounds identified by U.S. and Canadian fleets through most of the fishery’s history. The framework was further formalized as fishery management and fishery science advanced and was used to structure groundfish studies and regulations.

However, both fishermen and fish biologists could see and document differences among cod throughout U.S. and Canadian waters, including:

  • Genetic composition
  • Spawning behavior
  • Migration patterns
  • Physical characteristics like shape, size, and color

The challenge was first to collect and aggregate enough reliable information for a large-scale study. Then,we brought together an interdisciplinary group of experts to analyze the information and further define more discrete populations within the larger management areas. The Atlantic Cod Stock Structure Working Group was formed in 2018 to do just that.

The group includes specialists across various fields in fisheries biology, Rich McBride, a co-chair of the working group, found that each discipline offered insight into how a species lives in the vast, open ocean. Species in the open ocean are often divided into discrete or overlapping populations. “The differences evident with each discipline are often a matter of resolution or spatial or temporal scale, but that is important,” he said. “I found the different disciplines offered complementary and not competing perspectives.”

The working group also included commercial fishermen and sought out their perspectives and input throughout this study. McBride noted the importance of this component of the study, saying “the industry was included in every step of the process.” A former commercial fisherman was a working group member. Recreational and commercial captains and their representatives also attended:

  • 2018 and 2019 working group meetings
  • 2020 peer review of findings
  • 2021 outreach meetings
  • 2022–2023 Atlantic Cod Research Track Assessment

Better Stock Structure Understanding Key to Improving Chances for Cod Recovery

The Atlantic cod stocks have declined significantly since the 1990s. Despite efforts to reduce fishery catch and support the species’ ability to thrive, these stocks have not had much success in rebuilding. There are many pieces to the puzzle of understanding and improving the condition of cod stocks. Experts hope that improved recognition of population structure may help.

These findings are currently being taken into account in the U.S. Atlantic cod research track stock assessment, scheduled for July 31 to August 3, 2023.

“The assessment is currently moving from the old two-stock structure to a new stock structure that will better match our new understanding of the biological stocks,” said Charles Perretti, a NOAA Fisheries stock assessment scientist and one of the leads for this assessment. “This work is ongoing and is scheduled for peer review this year. After that, fishery managers will decide how to incorporate the new stock structure into management.”

The work is ongoing, but with persistence, stock assessment scientists and fishery managers hope this work will help:

  • Prevent further loss of Atlantic cod spawning components
  • Better guide adjustments of allowable catch to balance fishing mortality across populations
  • Facilitate recovery of currently declined stocks
  • Strengthen the resiliency of the populations that exist within fishing areas.

McBride continues to look ahead for additional ways to apply these studies, remarking, “New methods and funding are needed to sort out the data for two separate stocks in the mixed area, as well as to improve the data quantity in the data poor areas, but these issues have been clearly identified for the future.”

NOAA data shows 2022 Gulf of Mexico shrimp catch at highest level since 2014

March 7, 2023 — Preliminary shrimp landings data from the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic for November 2022 have been released by NOAA, showing Louisiana made a comeback for the year while Texas numbers dropped.

Data shows more than 9 million pounds of shrimp landed in the Gulf and South Atlantic in November 2022. NOAA’s reporting indicated landings in Louisiana jumped significantly in November 2022, compared to 2021, with the state catching 4.22 million pounds in the month – a significant jump from the 2.375 million pounds caught in the same month in 2021.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MAINE: Maine Fishermen’s Forum returns amid offshore wind debate

March 3, 2o23 — The 48th Maine Fishermen’s Forum kicked off as a celebration of the industry and informed discussion on developing challenges.

“The greatest things that the Maine Fisherman’s Forum does it negates or lessens a lot of the animosity between the groups involved in the fishery,” said Stephen Train, lobsterman.

“We have a trade show, we have a dance, we have an auction, we give out scholarships to children and fishermen. And we have some really nice meals and the seafood reception is amazing,” said Train.

The highlight of the day was a series of seminars on how offshore wind development may impact local fisheries. Leaders at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shared data-driven presentations but noted several gaps remain in the process.

Read the full article at WABI