Saving Seafood

Panel: Fishing plan can rebuild long lost cod stock by 2033

January 5, 2022 — Federal ocean regulators say a new fishing plan has a chance to rebuild the New England cod stock, which is a goal even many commercial fishermen have long regarded as far fetched.

Atlantic cod were once a cornerstone of the New England economy, but the catch has plummeted after years of overfishing, environmental changes and restrictive quotas. Most of the cod sold in the U.S. comes from overseas because many American fishermen avoid the fish-and-chips staple altogether.

But the regulatory New England Fishery Management Council has approved a new strategy that it said has a 70% chance of rebuilding the stock by 2033. The proposal, which is awaiting final approval from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, would use 10 years of low catch limits to try to rebuild the cod population in the Gulf of Maine.

The council said in a statement that the new plan will lower the fishing mortality rate for the fish over the next decade to “offer more protection for Gulf of Maine cod and give the stock a better chance of rebuilding.” But some fishermen are unconvinced cod are ever coming back.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

 

New protections for endangered whales off California

January 5, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United Nations agency that governs safety and environmental standards for shipping worldwide, has adopted a U.S. proposal to increase protections for endangered blue, fin and humpback whales off the California coast. The proposal takes effect this summer and expands areas that vessels should avoid to give whales more space, and extends vessel traffic lanes west of, in and around NOAA’s Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.

Photo: The combination of high cargo ship traffic, feeding areas and migratory whale routes result in a marked increased risk of ship strikes to whales that can result in serious injury or death to whales. (Credit: John Calambokidis/Cascadia) 

The Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council’s Marine Shipping Working Group originally recommended the modifications in 2015. NOAA partnered with the U.S. Coast Guard to submit the proposal to the IMO in 2022.

“The IMO’s decision will enhance navigation safety and improve protection of whales,” said John Armor, director of NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. “These adjustments demonstrate a successful collaboration between the United States, the IMO and the global shipping community.”

The U.S.-recommended adjustments will enhance navigation safety and protect whales from ship strikes in an area containing some of the highest densities of commercial maritime traffic in the world. 

Map: The International Maritime Organization recently approved changes to vessel traffic lanes in and around NOAA’s Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. The changes take effect summer 2023. (Credit: NOAA)

A 13-nautical-mile extension of vessel traffic lanes, known as the “traffic separation scheme,” will result in vessels lining up for port entry farther west and away from the continental shelf, in deeper waters where there are lower concentrations of whales. The area to be avoided by vessels is expanding by more than 2,000 square nautical miles, and will cover, in total, approximately 4,476 square nautical miles of important whale feeding habitat off Point Conception and Point Arguello in Santa Barbara County, California. 

Blue, fin and humpback whales are protected by the Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act and National Marine Sanctuaries Act.

Accurately Accounting for the Economic Value of Marine Ecosystems

January 5, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Marine ecosystems provide myriad benefits to humans—from supplying food to tempering our climate to regulating the air we breathe. To use our oceans wisely, we need to understand the economic value of these “ecosystem services.”

A new nationwide NOAA study is the first to assess the validity of published studies that assigned economic values to U.S. marine ecosystem services based on public opinion surveys.

Economists use stated preference methods to derive economic values from how people respond to carefully worded questions in interviews or surveys. These methods are frequently used to estimate the value of ecosystem services that are not bought or sold in markets. The goal of the study was to evaluate the reliability of these estimates in the existing literature for use in fisheries and ecosystem assessments.

“For effective ecosystem-based fisheries management, we need to better understand the role of human activities and their associated economic values. We need to know that these values are valid to weigh the tradeoffs involved in different uses of the ocean. Our research contributes to this understanding,” said study leader Dan Lew, economist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “But our findings have far broader applications. Many decisions by natural resource managers and policy-makers must be made quickly based on economic valuation data in the existing literature. They need to know if that literature is reliable.”

Read the full release at NOAA Fisheries

New federal law phases out large-mesh drift gillnets for California swordfish

January 5, 2022 — For years large-mesh drift gillnets used in the California swordfish fishery have faced scrutiny from government regulators and environmental groups for historically high bycatch rates. Now with the passage of the federal Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act, the gear type is set to be phased out over the next five years.

The act was passed as part of $1.7 trillion federal omnibus spending bill signed into law by President Joe Biden in the final days of 2022.

A federal ban was first passed by both chambers of Congress as a standalone bill in 2020 but was subject to the final veto of Donald Trump’s presidency. The bill was reintroduced by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) in 2021 and was included in the 4,155-page spending bill that will finance the federal government through September.

The legislation also includes grants to the remaining large-drift gillnet permit holders to cover the cost of permits, the forfeiture of existing fishing gear, and the acquisition of alternative fishing gear, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The large-mesh drift gillnets have been on the decline for decades, peaking in 1988 and 1989 with 10,000 sets made each year with more than 200 active permits, according to NOAA Fisheries. But in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 season just seven large-mesh drift gillnet permits—out of a total of 25 federal permits—were active. Large-mesh drift gillnets are only allowed off the coast of California and Oregon and are prohibited everywhere else in United States waters over environmental concerns.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

 

NOAA announces major SIMP expansion proposal

January 4, 2022 — Officials with NOAA Fisheries have announced a plan to expand the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), with a proposal that would more than double the number of species it targets.

SIMP was created six years ago to block the import of select seafood products that had been mislabeled or harvested through illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. It requires importers to show detailed information to inspectors upon entry at a U.S. port for 13 species or species groups that include about 1,100 individual species, according to a release from the agency.

Read the full article at the SeafoodSource

Baffling find made on seafloor 100 miles off Maine, NOAA says. ‘What are the odds?’

January 3, 2022 — Scientists often find oddities on the seafloor, but NOAA researchers were baffled when a camera dropped off Maine landed on top of a large propeller 100 miles from shore.

No shipwreck, mind you. Just the propeller “lying among the rocks, sea stars, and sea anemones.”

The mystifying discovery was made in the Gulf of Maine, as the fishing vessel Mary Elizabeth was participating in a NOAA Fisheries seafloor survey.

Read the full article at Miami Herald

Farming Sea Scallops in Maine

December 30, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Fishermen are facing numerous threats, including climate change. Aquaculture offers a solution. Maine’s wild fisheries have become very focused on the lobster industry. Farming sea scallops in Maine offers an opportunity to diversify the seafood harvesting business and increase resiliency for coastal communities built around seafood production.

The sea scallop aquaculture community is unique to Maine and composed of a variety of people and organizations, including fishermen farmers, marine extension programs, community development financial institutions, and research and outreach foundations.

NOAA Fisheries and Coastal Enterprises, Inc. recently visited with Marsden and Bob Brewer, operators of PenBay Farmed Scallops, and Andrew Peters, co-owner of Vertical Bay Scallops. CEI is a community development financial institution in Maine that has a long history of supporting fishing and aquaculture. Both of these aquaculture farms are examples of opportunities for marine livelihoods that shellfish farming is providing in Maine.

Read the full release at NOAA Fisheries

US Ignored Own Scientists’ Warning in Backing Atlantic Wind Farm

December 30, 2022 — US government scientists warned federal regulators the South Fork offshore wind farm near the Rhode Island coast threatened the Southern New England Cod, a species so ingrained in regional lore that a wooden carving of it hangs in the Massachusetts state house.

The Interior Department approved the project anyway.

The warnings were delivered in unpublished correspondence weeks before Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management authorized the 12-turbine South Fork plan in November 2021. And they serve to underscore the potential ecological consequences and environmental tradeoff of a coming offshore wind boom along the US East Coast. President Joe Biden wants the US to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by the end of the decade.

Concerns about South Fork, the 132-megawatt project being developed by Orsted AS and Eversource Energy, focused on its overlap with Cox Ledge, a major spawning ground for cod and “sensitive ecological area that provides valuable habitat for a number of federally managed fish species,” a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration assistant regional administrator said in an October 2021 letter to Interior Department officials. Based on in-house expertise and peer-reviewed science, the agency said “this project has a high risk of population-level impacts on Southern New England Atlantic cod.”

The Interior Department took some steps to blunt impacts on Atlantic cod, including by carving out some areas of Cox Ledge from leasing. Developers, who are required to monitor cod activity at the site from November through the end of March, plan to adjust work plans to avoid any spotted spawning areas. And the final South Fork plan was scaled down from 15 turbines to 12 after warnings from NOAA.

Still, the oceanic agency faulted the Interior Department for shrugging off other recommendations to protect cod, saying the bureau had based some decisions on flawed assumptions not supported by science. That includes a decision to not block pile driving at the very start of the spawning season in November, even though NOAA said the noise could deter the activity and force some cod to abandon the area.

Read the full story at Yahoo Finance

Meet Diana Kramer, Regional Marine Wildlife Response Coordinator

December 29, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

What do you do at NOAA Fisheries?

I am the Regional Marine Wildlife Response Coordinator for the NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Regional Office.

My role is to coordinate response to stranded marine mammals in the Pacific Islands region, including in the territories. How we have it structured here in Hawaiʻi is that we have island-specific coordinators on Maui, Hawaiʻi Island, and Oʻahu. I work as a coordinator not just for marine mammals, but also for my colleagues. I help make sure that they have what they need to do their jobs and that our response in the Hawaiian Islands as well as the U.S. territories is coordinated and supported.

A response to a marine mammal might range from working with our great teams and partners to setting up perimeters around resting monk seals. And doing outreach and education for the public so they understand what’s going on and what they’re seeing on the beach. Or, we might work collaboratively with the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center and our partners to engage in a hands-on response if a marine mammal is in need of assistance.

In the territories, we are working to continue and expand partnerships in these areas to do similar things. We have fewer strandings in the territories, but we want to make sure that we can respond as best as possible to any dolphin or whale that might strand.

One of the amazing aspects of my job is the great team I work with. I love how we are working together to support each other and it is a great feeling to work with those colleagues, both here and with our external partners. We are lucky to have such a dedicated team of people here in the Pacific Islands region who share the same goals of conservation and recovery of protected species.

How did you get interested in marine mammals?

I’ve loved marine mammals and the ocean from before I can even remember. My mom had me learning to swim before I could walk, and as soon as I was old enough, I was volunteering at aquariums. For example, when I was younger, I lived for a period of time in the Chicago area. I spent a lot of time volunteering at the Shedd Aquarium, where they have all kinds of great marine wildlife care, conservation, and education programs. I did everything from preparing fish for the marine mammals there to helping with summer education programs for young people. When I lived in California, I spent every chance I had viewing marine mammals in the wild, swimming in the ocean, and doing beach cleanups!

From there, I studied marine biology at the University of Miami in Florida. I had the opportunity to gain exposure to the research side of marine science, both through regular coursework, which included snorkeling trips in the Florida Keys, and extra work volunteering in the lab of one of the University’s top shark researchers. It’s been a lifelong passion and I just feel so lucky that I have been able to pursue a career in something I have loved my whole life.

Read the full release here

Bering Sea crabbers welcome disaster relief, seek temporary area closure

December 28, 2022 — The first steps in declaring and funding a fisheries disaster declaration for Bering Sea crab “happened in a record time of only two months,” a hopeful sign for what could be a $500 million setback for the industry, according to the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers association.

“The $300 million  included in the omnibus appropriation package for fishery disasters is a great start for much-needed money to help fishermen and communities pay their bills,” said Jamie Goen, executive director for the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. “We commend the Secretary of Commerce, NOAA Fisheries, and members of Congress, particularly the Alaska and Washington delegations, for their swift action and attention to this issue affecting so many hard-working Americans and family fishing businesses.”

In mid-December U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo issued disaster declarations for several fisheries in Alaska and Washington state, a first step toward delivering both federal relief and science research into the collapses. In a surge of year-end legislation before Christmas,  Congress authorized the funding as part of the annual federal omnibus appropriations law.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman