Saving Seafood

NOAA Fisheries Announces Revised 2021 and Projected 2022 Spiny Dogfish Specifications

April 29, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Effective May 1

NOAA Fisheries is implementing revised catch specifications for the 2021 and 2022 spiny dogfish fishery, as recommended by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and the Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery Management Councils. These catch limits are revised from what was originally projected for fishing year 2021 to reflect the Mid-Atlantic Council’s updated risk policy to prevent overfishing, and the same specifications are projected for fishing year 2022. Because the new risk policy accepts a higher level of risk for stocks at or above biomass targets, the proposed revisions increase all catch limits nearly 10 percent, as shown in the table below.

All other spiny dogfish management measures and requirements, including the 6,000-lb federal trip limit, remain unchanged.

For more details, please read the rule as filed in the Federal Register, and/or the bulletin posted on our website.

Read the full release here

South Atlantic Bite – Newsworthy Notes – April 28, 2021

April 28, 2021 — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

SAFMC Seminar Series
Dolphin Wahoo Participatory Workshops – Profile of the fishery
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
1 PM until 2:30 PM via webinar

The Council’s Seminar Series continues in May with a presentation on recent participatory workshops held in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida to get input from fishermen to better describe the Dolphin Wahoo fishery. Staff from NOAA Fisheries Southeast Fisheries Science Center will provide an overview of the project. The Seminar Series features presentations on scientific studies relevant to fisheries in federal waters of the South Atlantic. Register now for the May 11th seminar and receive reminders as the date approaches!

Public Hearings Scheduled for Shrimp Fishery Access Area Along Northern Extension of the Oculina Bank
Coral Amendment 10
May 12 and 13, 2021 at 5 PM via webinar

The Council will hold public hearings for a proposed action to establish a Rock Shrimp Fishery Access Area along the eastern edge of the northern extension of the Oculina Coral Habitat Area of Particular Concern. The Coral HAPC is located off the east coast of Florida. Fishermen requested the eastern edge of the northern extension of the Oculina Bank be reviewed to determine if historic trawling areas could be reopened to rock shrimp fishing.

Learn more about what is being proposed and register now to attend a public hearing. Webinar registration: Wednesday, May 12 and Thursday, May 13

Reminder! Apply Now for Open Seats on the Council’s Advisory Panels
Applications due by Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Applications are currently being accepted for open seats on the Council’s Habitat Protection and Ecosystem-Based Management Advisory Panel as well as the Mackerel Cobia Advisory Panel, Snapper Grouper Advisory Panel and Law Enforcement Advisory Panel. The Council will consider applications during its June 14-18, 2021 meeting via webinar. Learn more about the important roll of the advisory panels and how to apply for open seats. Don’t delay! Apply before the May 5, 2021 deadline.

NOAA Fisheries Publishes 2020 Marine Recreational Catch Estimates

Each year, NOAA Fisheries provides marine recreational catch estimates for the Atlantic Coast, Gulf Coast and Hawaii. While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the survey that collects catch data from anglers, its overall impact on recreational fishing data collection was lower than first expected, and NOAA Fisheries was able to fill gaps in the 2020 catch data with data collected in 2018 and 2019.

The use of proxy, or replacement, catch data had minimal impact on the agency’s effort estimates, as the mail and telephone surveys that collect effort data continued largely uninterrupted. The estimates are available via the MRIP Query Tool. Estimates can also be found on the agency’s Recreational Fishing Data Downloads webpage.

Additional Snippets:

Mid-Atlantic Ocean Forum – Addressing ocean planning issues
The Mid-Atlantic Committee on the Ocean (MACO) will convene its Third Annual Mid-Atlantic Region Ocean Forum from May 3-6, 2021. This year’s all-virtual event will feature expert panel discussions on ocean planning issues including offshore wind energy in the Mid-Atlantic, climate-induced ocean changes, ocean justice, and emerging technologies for monitoring the ocean. The event will also feature opportunities for public participation, a virtual networking luncheon and a first-ever poster session highlighting the work of students and early career professionals.

SECOORA Funding Opportunity – K-12 online marine science curricula
The Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA) is soliciting proposals to develop online or online accessible K-12 marine science curricula and/or activities that can be implemented by parents, teachers and other educators. Proposals must demonstrate how they will increase participation of underrepresented communities in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics educational activities. The award value is $8,500. Proposals are due by 5 PM ET on May 21, 2021. Learn more and share the word!

Call for Presentations: Does your research rely on collaboration with anglers?
The 151st Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society is scheduled for November 5-10, 2021 in Baltimore, Maryland. A symposium “Growing fisheries research and management through angler engagement” is being organized as part of this year’s meeting. The unique symposium will bring anglers and researchers together to learn how research in collaboration with anglers is coordinated, what science emerges, and what is needed to make them thrive. If you are interested in participating or want to learn more, contact Sean Simmons at sean@anglersatlas.com or Julia Byrd at julia.byrd@safmc.net.

Mark Your Calendar
There are several meetings being scheduled via webinar as the spring approaches. Keep track of meetings scheduled by the Council from the website and register for meeting webinars as information becomes available.

April 27-29 and May 3, 2021
SAFMC Scientific and Statistical Committee Meeting
Webinar Registration

May 11, 2021
1 PM – 2:30 PM
SAFMC Webinar Series: Dolphin Wahoo Participatory Workshop Presentation
Webinar Registration

May 12 and 13, 2021
5 PM each day
Public Hearings: Coral Amendment 10
Shrimp Fishery Access Area along Northern Extension of Oculina Bank CHAPC
Webinar Registration – Wednesday, May 12
Webinar Registration – Thursday, May 13

May 19, 2021
SAFMC Citizen Science Operations Committee Meeting

Quinn Fisheries, Blue Harvest sue Rafael trustee for blocking vessel sale, lawsuit says

April 28, 2021 — Quinn Fisheries and Blue Harvest Fisheries filed a lawsuit last week against Carlos Rafael’s trustee and three arbitrators, alleging they are blocking a multimillion-dollar transaction of vessels and permits that was scheduled to happen April 16.

The permits are for scallops and multi-species fish. The fishing seasons have already started or will soon start and because the transaction cannot be finalized, Quinn Fisheries and Blue Harvest state they will experience serious and irreparable financial harm.

According to the 19-page complaint, Quinn Fisheries planned to transfer certain vessels and permits to Blue Harvest, and then purchase vessels and permits from Blue Harvest.

The companies state the transaction will not “significantly dilute or otherwise jeopardize” the Rafael trust. The trust was established in 2019 to hold certain assets that, if not for a settlement agreement, would be held by Rafael, according to a document.

Rafael was convicted in 2017 for conspiracy and falsifying federal records, but was recently released from prison. As part of his settlement with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), he was required to leave the fishing industry and sell his commercial fleet and permits.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Feds start review of endangered Southern Resident orcas

April 27, 2021 — NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service says it’s starting a five-year status review of the Southern Resident orcas.

NOAA Fisheries published a notice in the Federal Register about the status review last week, The Skagit Valley Herald reported. The whales were listed as endangered in 2005 under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Since the 1990s, the number of orcas in the three family groups — called J, K and L pods — that make up the population has dropped from the high 90s into the 70s.

The orcas, also called killer whales, live along the West Coast and frequent the Salish Sea.

Since 2005, the orca population has decreased from 88 orcas to a recent low of 72, according to the Center for Whale Research and NOAA Fisheries. As of February, the population was estimated at 75 with some recently identified calves.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

NOAA Keeps Deploying Fishery Observers But With Limits Amid Pandemic

April 27, 2021 — Considered essential workers, federal fishery observers have continued monitoring Pacific commercial operations during the pandemic, but COVID-19 restrictions have forced them to reduce — or even cease — operations in some areas.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration dispatches observers to travel aboard fishing vessels to monitor the crew’s practices and what they catch – including any bycatch of endangered species. The goal is to preserve fish stocks and protect maritime ecosystems.

“Providing seafood to the country is an essential function, and adequate monitoring of our fisheries is important to the process,” NOAA spokeswoman Celeste Hanley said. “NOAA Fisheries has processes in place to maintain fishery operations and the monitoring necessary for sustainable management.”

However, fears of coronavirus spread prompted the agency to announce in June that it would give its regional administrators, office directors and science center directors the ability to temporarily waive observer requirements for vessels on a case-by-case basis based on local conditions.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Ken Sherman: Plankton Biologist With A Global Perspective

April 26, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Ken Sherman’s long career began with a fascination with fish at an early age. He was born in 1932 and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, where he spent time as a boy with his father at the Boston Fish Pier, watching the fishermen bringing in their catch. Although he intended to get a law degree while at Suffolk University, a mentor steered him  toward his earlier interest in marine biology. He graduated in 1954 with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences.

Not long after, he visited Woods Hole and applied for a job at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. While waiting for an opening, he taught science in elementary schools in western Massachusetts for the Audubon Society, taking live animals from school to school. In 1956 he was offered an entry-level biological position at the federal fisheries laboratory in Woods Hole. Turns out his application had been forwarded from the oceanographic institution down the street. His job: interviewing fishermen at the dock and collecting data on fish.

While working at the fish pier he took classes in marine ecology at Boston University, and later applied for an Office of Naval Research fellowship at the University of Rhode Island. He was accepted into the master’s degree program in biological oceanography at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography. He worked under mentors Charles and Marie Poland Fish as one of five Navy-supported fellows.

After graduating in 1959 and waiting for a fishery research position to open, Sherman took a position as a biology teacher at Randolph High School. At the end of his first year of teaching, a biological research position with the federal Bureau of Commercial Fisheries opened in Hawaii. He jumped at the chance, and with his wife Roberta, also a teacher, moved to Honolulu for three years.

Read the full release here

Biden Taps A Former Top Scientist At NOAA To Lead The Weather And Climate Agency

April 26, 2021 — President Biden is nominating Rick Spinrad to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the government’s premier agency on climate science which oversees the National Weather Service.

Prior to his current role as a professor of oceanography at Oregon State University, Spinrad served as NOAA’s top scientist under President Obama and the U.S. representative to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.

The nomination comes at a difficult moment in NOAA’s history. The agency has been without an official, Senate-confirmed leader since former President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, after his two nominees to lead the agency failed to garner enough support to win a full vote before the Senate.

If Spinrad manages to win over the Senate, he will have to contend with a challenge beyond the agency’s already-rigorous scientific mandate: restoring public confidence in a traditionally apolitical agency marred by political scandal.

Read the full story at NPR

Citizen Scientists Help Reveal Undetected Hawaiian Monk Seal Reproduction

April 26, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

A group of NOAA scientists has published a new paper in Marine Mammal Science that improves their estimations of reproductive rates in Hawaiian monk seals. Sighting patterns reveal unobserved pupping events, which revises reproductive rate estimates for Hawaiian monk seals in the main Hawaiian Islands. They couldn’t have done it without the help of citizen scientists reporting monk seal sightings. NOAA relies on public reports to collect data on seals in the main Hawaiian Islands. It would be impossible to consistently survey all of the beaches along 750 miles of inhabited shoreline.

Hawaiian monk seals are among the world’s most endangered marine mammals, with only around 1,400 remaining. Most of the population (about 1,100 seals) inhabit the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The remainder (about 300 seals) live in the heavily populated main Hawaiian Islands. The monk seal has recently shown positive population trends in these islands. At the core of these encouraging data is the number of pups born each year.

Counting Pups

Hawaiian monk seals have pups throughout the year. NOAA sends teams of biologists to the Papahānaumokuākeakea Marine National Monument every year to count the monk seal population. And while the main Hawaiian Islands are densely populated with humans, monk seals often select secluded beaches for pupping. This makes it hard to know when and where to look, so it’s easy to miss some. And since we don’t always witness their birth, we don’t see or identify many of those seals until they are adults. That makes it difficult to estimate their age when they have pups of their own.

If we can improve how we measure maternal age and pup production, we can improve our estimate of the population’s reproductive rates. That enhances our ability to track population trends.

Citizen Scientists Make it Possible 

Unlike our work conducted from remote camps in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, it is not possible to routinely survey all beaches along more than 700 miles of coastline in the inhabited (main) Hawaiian Islands.  NOAA relies on public reports and volunteer citizen scientists to collect data on seals in the main Hawaiian Islands. Public reports and the contribution of volunteer citizen scientists allow our researchers to record many more pupping events on the main Hawaiian Islands. Our researchers were able to use these data in their study.

Public participation in monk seal monitoring vastly extends the coverage that agency biologists can accomplish alone. It also engages the community in stewardship of natural resources in Hawaiʻi. For example, with so many things shut down in 2020, NOAA biologists weren’t able to survey monk seals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. However, our information flow in the main Hawaiian Islands remained strong thanks to citizen scientists.

You can add to our data set by reporting your own monk seals sightings to the state-wide hotline at (888) 256-9840! Keep in mind, there is no need to approach a monk seal to make a report—always keep a safe distance from wildlife.

Thanks to these efforts, the newly published research describes the reproductive cycle and estimates reproductive rates of female Hawaiian monk seals in the main Hawaiian Islands.

Read the full release here

Biden taps ocean scientist Rick Spinrad to run NOAA

April 23, 2021 — President Biden has picked Rick Spinrad, an oceanographer with decades of science and policy experience, to run National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the government’s leading agency for weather, climate and ocean science.

The White House announced Spinrad’s selection along with several additional climate and environmental nominees, including Tracy Stone-Manning, a senior adviser for the National Wildlife Federation tapped to lead the Interior Department’s Bureau for Land Management.

Spinrad, a professor of oceanography at Oregon State University, served as chief scientist at NOAA under President Barack Obama and before that led the agency’s research arm and ocean service. He also held ocean leadership positions in the Navy.

Named to lead the agency on Earth Day, Spinrad has been a champion of funding research to advance the understanding of climate change, a top priority of the Biden White House.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Expedition hauls tons of plastic out of remote Hawaii atolls

April 23, 2021 — A crew returned from the northernmost islands in the Hawaiian archipelago this week with a boatload of marine plastic and abandoned fishing nets that threaten to entangle endangered Hawaiian monk seals and other animals on the uninhabited beaches stretching more than 1,300 miles north of Honolulu.

The cleanup effort in Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument lasted three weeks and the crew picked up more than 47 tons (43 metric tons) of “ghost nets” and other marine plastics such as buoys, crates, bottle caps and cigarette lighters from the shores of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The monument, the largest protected marine reserve in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world, is in the northern Pacific Ocean and surrounded by what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — a huge gyre of floating plastic and other debris that circulates in ocean currents. The islands act like a comb that gather debris on its otherwise pristine beaches.

The ecosystem in the monument is diverse, unique and one of the most intact marine habitats on Earth. But the beaches are littered with plastic and nets that ensnare endangered Hawaiian monk seals — of which there are only about 1,400 left in the world — and green turtles, among other wildlife.

The crew removed line from a monk seal on the expedition’s first day.

With virtually no predators, the islands are a haven for many species of seabirds, and Midway Atoll is home to the largest colony of albatross in the world. There, the land is littered with carcasses of birds that have ingested plastics and died.

The cleanup was organized by the nonprofit Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project, which partners with the state of Hawaii and federal agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post