Saving Seafood

Legal challenges hanging over federal right whale protections

October 7, 2021 — Later this month, a stretch of federal waters off the coast of Maine will become temporarily off-limits for lobster fishing.

The seasonal closure is part of a new set of regulations aimed at protecting the endangered right whale population.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there are fewer than 370 right whales left in the world.

The marine mammals are native to Maine waters, traveling between coastal Nova Scotia and New England to feed and breed.

Research shows as many as four out of every five right whales show signs of injury from fishing line entanglement.

Along with the seasonal closure of some federal waters, the new regulations also limit the use of fixed-line lobster traps.

Read the full story at WABI

 

NOAA Fisheries Announces Proposed Rule for Amendment 21 to the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan

October 5. 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today, NOAA Fisheries published a proposed rule for Amendment 21 to the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan. The New England Fishery Management Council developed Amendment 21 to adjust the management of the Northern Gulf of Maine (NGOM) as well as the limited access general category (LAGC) individual fishing quota (IFQ) program to support overall economic performance of the fishery while allowing for continued participation in the general category fishery.

Amendment 21 would:

•Account for biomass in the NGOM as part of the Overfishing Limit and the Acceptable Biological Catch to be consistent with other portions of scallop resource management.•Develop landing limits for all permit categories in the NGOM and establish an 800,000 lb NGOM Set-Aside trigger for the NGOM directed fishery.

•Expand the scallop observer program to monitor directed scallop fishing in the NGOM.

•Allocate 25,000 lb of the NGOM allocation to increase the overall Scallop Research Set-Aside (RSA).

•Increase the LAGC IFQ possession limit to 800 lb per trip only for access area trips.

•Prorate the daily observer compensation rate in 12-hour increments for observed LAGC IFQ trips longer than 1 day.

•Allow for temporary transfers of IFQ from limited access vessels with IFQ to LAGC IFQ-only vessels.

For more information, read the proposed rule as filed in the Federal Register. The comment period is open through November 4, 2021. Submit your comments through the e-rulemaking portal.

Questions?

Fishermen: Contact Travis Ford, Sustainable Fisheries, 978-281-9233

Media: Contact Allison Ferreira, Regional Office, 978-281-9103

Risk of oil spills may rise as climate change creates more monster storms

September 30, 2021 — Hurricane Ida left a trail of destruction after slamming into the Gulf Coast, but offshore the Category 4 storm left something else in its wake: oil spills.

Oil spills aren’t uncommon with strong storms, but as climate change pushes up sea levels and creates stronger storms with more moisture, offshore refineries are going to need greater and greater protections.

The Gulf of Mexico is “particularly vulnerable” because of the prevalence of storms, the low-lying geography, sea-level rise, receding shorelines and the presence of oil facilities, Christopher Vaccaro, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told ABC News. Since offshore drilling began in the region in 1942, about 6,000 oil and gas structures have been installed in the Gulf of Mexico.

On Sept. 4, the day before Ida made landfall in Louisiana, the Coast Guard announced that cleanup crews already were responding to a large oil spill at an offshore drilling about 2 miles south of Port Fourchon, Louisiana.

Read the full story at ABC News

 

 

Northern Shrimp Population Collapse Linked to Warming Ocean Temperatures, Squid Predation

September 29, 2021 — An extreme heatwave in the Gulf of Maine in 2012 resulted in the warmest ocean temperatures in the region in decades. By 2013, the Atlantic northern shrimp population in the gulf had experienced a stock “collapse.” That is what fishery scientists call a rapid decrease in numbers that is not a natural fluctuation in stock size. Scientists studying the collapse have found that during this time, warmer temperatures were linked to increases in longfin squid, a major shrimp predator. They arrived in the Gulf of Maine sooner than usual and in more areas where shrimp occur.

”Our results suggest that longfin squid may have been a major player in the collapse of Gulf of Maine northern shrimp during an extreme heat wave event,” said Anne Richards, a biologist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Richards co-authored the study with Margaret Hunter from the Maine Department of Marine Resources Division of Biological Monitoring and Assessment. They recently published their conclusions in the online journal PLOS ONE.

Read the full story from NOAA

Study Shows Climate Change Could Be Altering the Marine Food Web

September 28, 2021 — Climate change is redistributing biodiversity globally, and distributional shifts of organisms often follow the speed and direction of environmental changes. Research by scientists at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) reveals that this phenomenon is affecting where large marine mammals are distributed relative to their prey species, which could have important implications for marine food web dynamics. Their findings are published in Scientific Reports.

Marine mammals (endotherms), such as whales and dolphins, are often assumed to shift their movements and distribution in response to warming waters more slowly than their ectothermic prey, such as fish and squid, whose growth and productivity is directly impacted by water temperature. Since marine mammals are large, highly mobile and occur across wide geographic ranges, distributional shifts in these species are difficult to quantify. In this study, data from fisheries bycatch and stranding events is used to examine changes in the distribution of long-finned pilot whales and their prey relative to climate velocity in a rapidly warming region of the Northwest Atlantic.

Read the full story from Stony Brook University

 

NMFS funding $2.2 million for bycatch reduction projects

September 17, 2021 — NMFS funding $2.2 million for bycatch reduction projects. Federal officials announced $2.2 million in funding is being awarded to partners around the U.S. to support innovative research through the NMFS Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program.

Incidental bycatch of non-target fish, protected marine mammals and sea turtles “can have significant biological, economic, and social impacts,” NMFS said in announcing the awards.

“Preventing and reducing bycatch is a shared goal of fisheries managers, the fishing industry, and the environmental community. Working side-by-side with fishermen on their boats we’ve developed solutions to some of the top bycatch challenges facing our nation’s fisheries.”

At the top of this year’s list are projects to develop so-called ropeless gear for the Northeast lobster and other fixed-gear fisheries, to reduce entanglement incidents with the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale population, recently estimated to number less than 400 animals.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Potential Groundfish Sector Monitoring Providers

September 15, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries: 

If your company is not currently an approved at-sea monitoring (ASM) and/or electronic monitoring (EM) provider and you would like to provide monitoring services to groundfish sectors in fishing year 2022 (May 1, 2022, through April 30, 2023), you must submit an application by October 15, 2021.  Companies already approved to provide ASM or EM services in fishing years 2021 and 2022 do not need to apply again in order to provide those services in 2022.  Companies not already approved to provide either ASM or EM services in fishing years 2021 and 2022 need to apply for approval for the respective service in 2022.

Applications must include a cover letter and the information and statements identified in the regulations at 50 CFR 648.87(b)(4).  In your cover letter, please specify whether you are interested in providing ASM services, EM services, or both.  Companies interested in providing both ASM and EM services must develop separate ASM and EM deployment plans to meet the service provider performance standards (§ 648.87(b)(4)(ii)(A)).

We will review your application in accordance with the third-party monitoring provider standards (§ 648.87(b)(4) and (5)).  Please review the regulations describing ASM and EM provider and operational standards carefully, including the requirements for signed statements.  Approvals will cover fishing year 2022, and final decisions will be published in the Federal Register.  There will be a future opportunity to apply for a two-year approval for fishing years 2023 and 2024.

Please use Kiteworks, a secure file-sharing service, to submit the requested documents by October 15, 2021, to Claire Fitz-Gerald and Kyle Molton.  If you need help creating a Kiteworks account, please contact Claire Fitz-Gerald for assistance. The bulletin announcement can be found here.

 

NOAA Fisheries Will Announce Over $3.7 Million of Grants Awarded Through the FY 2021 Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Grants Program

September 15, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

These Prescott Grants support a core mission of NOAA Fisheries— the conservation and recovery of protected marine species—by helping to improve our national marine mammal stranding response capabilities. Through this program, we have provided $67.5 million over the past two decades, and our stranding network partners have provided, at minimum, an additional $28.3 million in matching funds, to build a strong network of over 100 trained, professional partners. These trained professionals and volunteers provide valuable environmental intelligence as they respond to marine mammals in distress, helping NOAA establish links among the health of marine mammals, coastal ecosystems, and coastal communities.

For FY 2021, NOAA Fisheries awarded 55 grants to 50 recipients in 19 states and one tribe, representing marine mammal stranding network partners from every NOAA Fisheries Region. Additional information about this successful program can be found here.

Regional breakdown of the FY 2021 Prescott Grant awards (detailed table below):

  • Greater Atlantic Region: 11 awards (total $913,262)
  • Southeast Region: 10 awards (total $675,124)
  • West Coast Region: 21 awards (total $1,223,913)
  • Alaska Region: 4 awards (total $243,070)
  • Pacific Islands Region: 2 awards (total $195,000)
  • National: 7 awards (total $465,102) are for projects that meet national research or services needs (diagnostics, tagging, etc.) across regions.

Additionally, NOAA is announcing that the application deadline for FY 2022 Prescott grants is October 13, 2021.

 

$14.7 Million NOAA Marine Debris Grant Includes Mid-Atlantic Projects

September 13, 2021 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is tackling the growing issue of marine debris, funding cleanup and research projects nationwide. A $7.3 million grant is matched to a total of $14.7 million—which will make 25 different projects possible, including some in the Bay region.

Of the funding, about $1.4 million will support five marine debris research projects, including one in Maryland and one in Delaware. The grantees will “investigate and identify the critical input pathways for marine debris introduction into the coastal zone,” NOAA says.

Read the full story at Chesapeake Bay Magazine

 

Red Snapper Season Closes in South Atlantic Federal Waters on September 14

September 13, 2021 — A NOAA bulletin confirmed that the commercial harvest of red snapper in federal waters of the South Atlantic will close at 12:01 a.m., local time, on September 14, 2021.

During the closure, the sale or purchase of red snapper is prohibited. The harvest/possession of red snapper in or from South Atlantic federal waters is now prohibited, as the recreational fishing season is also closed for 2021.

Read the full story at Seafood News