October 4, 2022 — As tensions remain high between lobstermen and federal regulators, NOAA has scheduled a hearing in Portland Wednesday to take public comment on measures designed to protect right whales from entanglement in fishing gear.
ALASKA: Sustainable Pacific Oyster Farming
October 3, 2022 — The following was released by the NOAA:
Alaska’s aquatic farming industry is relatively new—it only became legal in the state in 1988. Since then, the industry has flourished.
Want a meal that’s good for you and good for the planet? Pacific oysters farmed in the United States are a smart seafood choice because they are sustainably grown and harvested under state and federal regulations. Oysters provide environmental benefits by removing excess nutrients and improving water quality. They are low in saturated fat, and excellent sources of omega-3 fatty acids, iron, zinc, and vitamin B12.
Pacific oysters, also called the Japanese oyster, Miyagi oyster, or Pacific cupped oyster, are sustainably farmed in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. They are the most cultivated species of oyster, originally introduced from Asia to 66 countries. They are the only non-indigenous species allowed to be imported to Alaska for cultivation. Pacific oysters take 18 to 30 months to develop to the market size of 70 to 100 grams (2.5 to 3.5 ounces; shell on) live weight. Pacific oyster growth depends on water temperature and salinity.
New England Fishery Management Council hears proposals to protect right whales
October 3, 2022 — During its four-day meeting at the Beauport Hotel last week, the Newburyport-based New England Fishery Management Council heard from NOAA Fisheries officials about ways to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale with a proposed 10-knot speed limit for vessels 35 to 65 feet long, expanded seasonal speed zones, and ropeless fishing gear to prevent whales getting entangled in lobster trap lines.
Speed rules
Caroline Good, a large whale ecologist with NOAA Fisheries, presented the proposed rules aimed at reducing right whales from being struck by vessels and killed or injured.
However, the council could not come to a consensus to comment on the proposed changes.
Good said the right whale population continues to decline and is approaching extinction due to death and serious injury from entanglement with fishing gear and vessel strikes. Fewer than 350 individuals remain.
Since 2017, scientists have documented 54 right whales killed or seriously injured in U.S. and Canadian waters. Of those, according to Good’s presentation, 11 were killed due to vessel strikes and nine from entanglements.
Right whales are present in U.S. waters year-round, but in greater numbers during the late fall through early summer, Good said. They are highly vulnerable to vessel strikes due to dense vessel traffic along the East Coast.
Atlantic sea scallops at lowest biomass in over 20 years — what that means for New Bedford
September 30, 2022 — A Scallop Survey Report presented at the New England Fishery Management Council meeting Tuesday showed the Atlantic sea scallop fishery is facing its lowest biomass in over 20 years.
From a peak of more than 250,000 metric tons in 2017, to under 100,000 in 2022.
“There has been a decline since 2018 due to a large harvest and natural mortality,” Jonathon Peros, an NEFMC staffer, told the Council. “Biomass in 2022 is the lowest since 1999.”
Throughout NEFMC jurisdiction, the survey estimated a biomass decrease of almost 30%. The Georges Bank region saw the largest drop, around 36%.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Division, scallop catch had been on an upward trajectory following its 1998 nadir of 5,564 metric tons.
NOAA officials get an earful from Maine lobstermen over further efforts to protect right whales
September 29, 2022 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is considering a new round of measures aimed at reducing the risks that commercial fishing poses to the endangered North Atlantic right whale population.
Several hundred people attended a virtual meeting Tuesday evening, which NOAA officials billed as a forum to collect feedback from fishermen about possible trap limits and more seasonal closures and gear changes.
Most of the speakers were Maine lobstermen, who believe the changes will devastate their businesses and the state’s economy.
“If these things are implemented as I see, we’re going to be turned into seasonal communities,” said Jason Joyce, a fisherman from Swan’s Island. We’re not going to be year-round communities. I think it’s a shame, and honestly being a taxpayer I’m ashamed of my government for pushing this on me.”
HAWAII: Hawaiian Fishpond Kicks Off State’s First Sea Cucumber Aquaculture
September 28, 2022 — The following was released NOAA Fisheries
A crowd surrounds David Anderson as he reaches into the large bin’s water. He slowly pulls a fine mesh material out of the bin to reveal … nothing. He pulls out another section of the mesh, and there it is—a brown, pinkie-nail-sized, cylindrical blob. “It’s like a dark maggot,” an onlooker comments.
But this “dark maggot” is actually a baby loli (Hawaiian sea cucumber) whose potential belies its tiny size and appearance. Kauaʻi Sea Farms, in partnership with the Pacific American Foundation, is rearing sea cucumbers in a solar-powered hatchery at its Nomilo Loko Iʻa (Hawaiian fishpond). The goal of this NOAA grant–supported project: to cultivate loli as a high-value export product, primarily for Chinese and Japanese markets.
Vessel Speed Restrictions Proposed for New England Waters to Protect Endangered Right Whales
September 22, 2022 — Ferries and charter boats could move a lot slower in Rhode Island during the off-season if federal regulators accept new nautical speed limits to protect an endangered species of whale.
Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have proposed restricting existing nautical speed limits to 10 knots per hour for all vessels greater than 35 feet in length. If approved, the new rule would go into effect between Nov. 1 and May 30 and apply to all vessels sailing along the Atlantic seaboard from Massachusetts to North Carolina – including all of Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound.
The rule is intended to curb the amount of vessel strikes on the Atlantic’s already limited right whale population, which is close to extinction. NOAA estimates at least four right whales have died from colliding with marine vessels since 2017.
“The biggest impact to charter boats is the loss of fishing time for our clients,” said Capt. Rick Bellavance, president of the Rhode Island Party and Charter Boat Association. “If we’re driving 10 miles an hour instead of 15, that’s 5 miles of travel every hour. It could be a half hour or an hour each day of less fishing and more driving.”
The off season isn’t quite as off it used to be. Bellavance says more and more customers charter boats to fish for tautog, also known as blackfish, which has had a resurgence thanks to careful conservation by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), and is almost an attraction for the state in November and December.
NOAA Enlists Hawaiʻi Fishermen for Mahimahi Diet Study
September 21, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA:
To fishermen in Hawaiʻi, Pacific mahimahi stomachs hold no particular value and are typically discarded. To NOAA scientists researching mahimahi diet, however, each stomach tells a unique story about where and what an individual fish ate.
Mahimahi is a federally managed fish popular among recreational and commercial fishermen in Hawaiʻi. And it’s a fish we still have much to learn about—especially when it comes to their diet and role in marine ecosystems. That’s where local fishermen come in!
NOAA Fisheries scientists and fishery managers are enlisting the help of local fishermen to collect mahimahi stomachs for research.
The stomach contents will help NOAA scientists better understand what these predatory fish are eating. They’ll also reveal how much of the fish’s diet comes from pelagic (open-ocean) life stages of coral reef animals.
“Collaborating with the fishing community is an important component of this work,” said Keith Kamikawa, fishery management specialist, NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Regional Office. “We’re conducting science while getting Hawaiʻi fishermen and anglers involved.”
Essential Habitat for Mahimahi
Under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, NOAA Fisheries must prevent overfishing of federally managed fish and rebuild overfished stocks. Part of this work involves protecting their essential fish habitat—the habitat fish require to thrive throughout every life stage.
With this in mind, one has to wonder: why does it matter what mahimahi are eating? And how do inshore coral reef habitats impact the open-ocean-dwelling mahimahi?
“While coral reef fish live their adult lives near shore, when they mature and spawn, their larvae drift out to sea and develop in the open ocean,” Kamikawa explained. “There they grow from tiny plankton to pelagic juveniles just a couple of inches long.”
These juvenile reef fish may become prey of mahimahi (and other pelagic predators) while on their way back to the reef to grow into adults.
If these reef-associated species are an important part of mahimahi diet, protecting coral reef habitats where they mature and spawn could play a significant role in maintaining populations of mahimahi around the islands. As mahimahi supports many local, small commercial, and recreational fishermen in Hawaiʻi, it is important to understand their life history—by diving into their stomachs.
Benefits for Fishermen and Science
NOAA scientists studying mahimahi diet rely on stomach samples donated from recreational, subsistence, and charter fishermen. The number of stomachs obtained by collaborating local fishermen is significantly larger than what NOAA researchers could collect alone.
Fishermen are going to mahimahi areas within the main Hawaiian Islands more consistently than a fleet of NOAA small boats could. They can provide scientists with stomach samples year-round.
To encourage participation, NOAA is piloting a “punch card” program to obtain stomachs from recently caught mahimahi. Along with the fish stomachs, fishermen must share the catch location, type of bait used, and size of the fish, among other catch-related information.
Fishermen will receive one point for every stomach donated with a full set of data. For every 10 points, they will get a $50 gift card to a local fishing supply store. So far, fishermen have donated more than 300 stomachs, with more to come!
“We’re really getting a great look into mahimahi diets in Hawaiʻi,” said Nan Himmelsbach, a research associate for the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, who works at the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. “Preliminary results using DNA barcoding techniques have revealed that the majority of prey items found in mahimahi stomachs are juvenile stages of reef-associated animals, such as goatfish and surgeonfish.”
NOAA scientists use genetics to identify digested prey that would typically be unidentifiable. The top prey species discovered so far are: malu (sidespot goatfish), moano (manybar goatfish), nūnū (flat needlefish), snake mackerel, and gilded triggerfish.
Getting a clearer picture of mahimahi diet across seasons and years is critical to understanding their feeding habits and how those habits may shift in a changing climate. Contributions from and collaborations with fishermen make this happen. So far, scientists have identified more than 500 prey items from the stomachs they’ve processed. The results will be shared with the fishing community, especially those who provided samples for the project. Fishermen can verify patterns found in the lab with what they see out on the water, and adjust the bait or lure color they are using.
“It’s a win-win—NOAA fulfills its mandates, and the fishing community can participate and learn more about this magnificent fish they catch and eat,” Kamikawa said. “The project is a great example of the scientific, management, and fishing communities working together on quality research that supports our collective understanding and sound management of this awesome fish.”
U.S. charts course for adopting ropeless fishing to reduce whale deaths
September 21, 2022 — A spate of North Atlantic right whale deaths that began in 2017 shook the scientists who study the critically endangered species. That year, 17 whales died, and the losses prompted the U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to declare an “unusual mortality event” for them, which remains ongoing. In the years since, at least 54 have perished or sustained injuries so severe that they weren’t expected to live.
The culprits in most of these deaths, when possible to discern, have been ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear, in roughly equal measure. Together, these hazards have helped spark a decade-long decline in the population of North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis), from a post-whaling peak of nearly 500 animals in 2011 to just 336 today.
Guidelines already require large boats to slow down through right whale hangouts to minimize collisions, and the U.S. government is moving to broaden those restrictions. And government regulators, fishers, scientists and engineers in the U.S. and Canada are also trying to address the entanglement part of the equation. Especially since the whale deaths of 2017, key groups have increasingly thrown their support behind novel “ropeless” — more recently called “on-demand” — fishing gear that reduces the need for vertical ropes that attach lobster and fish traps on the ocean floor to buoys at the surface.
On July 29, NOAA released a draft Ropeless Roadmap, laying out the technological and regulatory hurdles facing the adoption of this new fishing gear. Scientists and fishers alike say the use of on-demand gear could give the North Atlantic right whale the reprieve from entanglement it needs to survive. The gear would also allow U.S. trap and pot fisheries, primarily for lobster but also for bottom-dwelling fish, to return to right whale hotspots they’ve been excluded from. These fisheries are the long-standing economic anchors of many communities along the eastern coasts of the U.S. and Canada.
The road map outlines a targeted approach to expanding the use of on-demand gear specifically aimed at allowing ropeless fishing in areas that are closed due to the risk the lines involved in traditional fishing pose to right whales. That would first happen under special permits allowing “limited access” for fishers to try out experimental gear, tentatively scheduled to launch in 2023, according to NOAA’s plans.
The end result might involve highly adaptive and real-time recommendations from scientists indicating places where only on-demand fishing should be allowed because the use of traditional gear with persistent vertical lines would be too dangerous for the few remaining right whales.
“The ropeless roadmap that we’ve written does not envision on-demand fishing for everyone everywhere,” Michael Asaro, a social scientist with NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, said during a presentation to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team in August. The take reduction team works on plans to reduce the danger to whales from fishing gear and includes representatives from academia, conservation groups, federal regulatory bodies and the fishing industry.
“In short, we’re trying to provide tools for fishermen to fish in closed areas,” Henry Milliken, a research fishery biologist at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, said at the presentation.
But this strategy also relies on figuring out where and when right whales will gather to feed and socialize — questions that continue to vex scientists. With right whale numbers perilously low and continuing to plunge, the stakes are clear, said Asaro, the report’s lead author.
Now Soliciting Proposals for 2023-2024 Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside Program
September 19, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
NOAA Fisheries, in coordination with the New England Fishery Management Council, is soliciting proposals for the 2023-2024 Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside Program.
Successful applicants are awarded pounds of scallops that have been “set aside” to pay for research expenses; no federal funds are provided. Researchers and fishermen partner to harvest awarded scallops, and the proceeds are used to fund the research and compensate fishing industry partners.
The New England Fishery Management Council develops the research priorities, and NOAA Fisheries administers the competition, oversees awarded projects, and oversees set-aside harvest activities.
The research set-aside programs are designed to inform resource management decisions and improve stock assessments. Proposals are evaluated for scientific merit and for relevance to scallop fishery management.
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