Saving Seafood

McMurdo/Orolia OmniCom Vessel Monitoring System Approved for Use

September 21, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

On September 15, 2020, McMurdo/Orolia’s “OmniCom” vessel monitoring system (VMS) was approved for use by commercial fishing vessels with federal permits requiring the use of VMS in the Greater Atlantic Region (GAR).

The Omnicom VMS unit meets all NOAA VMS and GAR position and software reporting requirements and is available for installation from Orolia and their registered dealers. The unit operates on the Iridium satellite network. For more information, refer to the OmniCom datasheet or contact Orolia client care at 800-262-8722.

A complete list of approved VMS units in the Greater Atlantic Region is available online.

Questions?

Contact: the Northeast VMS Team at 978-281-9213

New Conservation Plan Benefits California Steelhead—And Irrigators, Too

September 18, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Improvements in fish passage and assurances of water in California’s Calaveras River will help promote recovery of threatened steelhead. These changes will be implemented under the first plan of its kind in the Central Valley of California.

The Calaveras River Habitat Conservation Plan finalized this week includes commitments by the Stockton East Water District to improve conditions in the Calaveras River for steelhead. In turn, the Water District gets assurances that it can continue distributing water to irrigators and others without violating the Endangered Species Act.

It is the first Habitat Conservation Plan that NOAA Fisheries has completed in the Central Valley. It reflects a partnership with the Water District to help recover a core population of threatened steelhead while also maintaining water supplies for agricultural and municipal use.

The Plan includes a commitment from the Water District to conserve threatened steelhead in ways that will benefit the population in the long-term. In turn, the District can carry out its usual operations and serve customers even if it might have limited incidental impacts on fish. The Plan also includes a forum for public discussion and input into river management.

Read the full release here

Maine lobstermen to harvest $50 million windfall

September 18, 2020 — A wave of government money is heading toward local fishermen hurt by trade wars and COVID-19, and officials say it will arrive sometime in November.

The Trump administration announced on September 9 that Maine lobstermen will receive $50 million because they’ve been hurt by the 25 percent tariffs China slapped on lobster in July 2018. The program pays 50 cents for every pound of lobster landed in 2019, up to $250,000 per person.

“I’m happy the boats got their relief, but the timing is suspect,” said Travis Fifield, Stonington lobster dealer, in an interview. Only fishermen, and no one else in the supply chain, will get part of that $50 million, Fifield said.

The announcement follows the European Union’s decision in late August to drop its tariff on U.S. lobsters for five years. Local seafood dealers have said that will help the lobster industry.

Another $20 million in federal money will be distributed to a broad swath of Maine’s fishing industry, including lobstermen, processors, aquaculturists and dealers. Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner Patrick Kelliher said in a memo he hopes the checks are mailed in November. That money, which comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was authorized by Congress under the CARES Act in the spring. To get the money, people have to show they’ve suffered a 35 percent drop in income because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full story at the Penobscot Bay Press

Cooperative Research Key to Successful Start of Annual Bottomfish Survey in Hawaiʻi

September 18, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The coronavirus pandemic is affecting many aspects of our lives and has increased pressure on the local Hawaiian fishing community. During these challenging times, we are relying on our ten-year cooperative research partnership with the local fishing community to continue survey operations critical to fishery management. The annual Bottomfish Fishery-Independent Survey in Hawaiʻi (#BFISH) became operational in 2016. It has provided important local abundance estimates used in the Main Hawaiian Islands Deep 7 Bottomfish Stock Assessment.

One difference between BFISH and many of our other research missions is its foundational partnership with the local fishing community. In addition to work done from the NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette, local bottomfishers typically conduct two-thirds of the overall sampling effort. They use up to six commercial fishing vessels distributed among the main eight Hawaiian islands. These cooperative research fishers are contracted through Lynker Technologies and the Pacific Islands Fisheries Group. They conduct hook-and-line sampling using a design developed in partnership with PIFSC scientists. This year, they have stepped up to the plate and are conducting 100 percent of the sampling.

These small, open-deck fishing vessels are crewed by only a few people. They are a safer alternative to larger platforms, such as NOAA ships. All parties are following Center for Disease Control-recommended precautions to make sampling as safe as possible. Most of the vessels will be operating to and from neighbor islands, where COVID cases remain lower than in more populated regions. All crew members conduct self-evaluations with temperature checks each morning and wear masks at all times.

While our partnership with the local community has always been important, this year it has been critical to the continued success of the survey. Research fishing operations began in mid-August 2020 and will run through the end of November. Research fishers are conducting hook-and-line sampling at 453 locations across the main Hawaiian islands. They will be deploying the MOUSS stereo-video camera system at 47 locations around Oʻahu and Penguin Bank.

Read the full release here

Fishing Year 2021-22 Sector At-Sea and Electronic Monitoring Provider Applications

September 18, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is currently accepting at-sea and electronic monitoring applications from providers interested in providing monitoring services to groundfish sectors for fishing years 2021 and 2022.  The deadline to submit an application is October 19, 2020.

If you would like to provide either at-sea monitoring (ASM) or electronic monitoring (EM) services to groundfish sectors in fishing years 2021 and 2022 (May 1, 2021, through April 30, 2023), you must submit an application by October 19, 2020.  Applications must include a cover letter and the information and statements identified in the regulations at 50 CFR 648.87(b)(4) and (5).  In your cover letter, please specify whether you are interested in providing ASM services, EM services, or both.  Service providers 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)].  For currently operating at-sea monitoring providers, our review will also include an evaluation of your past performance in comparison to the at-sea and electronic monitoring operational standards [§ 648.87(b)(5)], to determine whether to approve your company for fishing years 2021 and 2022.  Please review the regulations for at-sea and electronic monitoring provider and operational standards carefully, including the requirements for signed statements.

Approvals will cover both fishing year 2021 and fishing year 2022, and final decisions will be published in the Federal Register.  There will be a subsequent opportunity to apply to be approved as an ASM and/or EM provider only for fishing year 2022.

Please use Kiteworks, a secure file-sharing service, to submit the requested document.

Visit our web site for more information on groundfish sectors and provider applications.

Senator Collins Urges Administration to Work to Find Agreement with Canada on Fishing Gray Zone

September 17, 2020 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Susan Collins (R-ME):

U.S. Senator Susan Collins sent a letter to President Trump urging the Administration to work with Maine and Canadian fisheries to find a solution to conservation issues that unfairly harm Maine’s seafood industry.

Lobstermen and fishermen who work in the Gray Zone—an area located approximately ten miles off the coast of Maine between the U.S. and Canada—are growing increasingly frustrated that their Canadian counterparts who fish in the same areas are not required to follow the same regulations, and thus are undermining American protections and threatening the sustainability of the stock.  This disparity undermines American protections, threatens the sustainability of the stocks, and causes dangerous interactions at sea.

“Maine lobstermen and fishermen have been waiting far too long for a resolution to the Gray Zone dispute, and the toll it is taking on their businesses, their safety, and the resources on which their livelihoods depend continues to mount,” wrote Senator Collins.  “I look forward to working with your Administration to address the inequities presented by the Gray Zone in order to protect our seafood harvesters and invaluable natural resources.”

Generations of Maine lobstermen have marked the tails of egg-bearing females they catch with a v-notch and returned them to the water, allowing them to lay eggs, grow larger, and reproduce in future years.  Maine lobstermen also abide by a maximum size limit, tossing back oversized lobsters in order to keep the stock strong.  Because Canada does not impose such conservation measures on its fisheries, a v-notched or oversized lobster tossed back by a Maine lobsterman can be caught by a Canadian lobsterman merely yards away and brought to market.

Read the full release here

HAWAII: Paintballs to deter monk seals? NOAA seeks feedback on marine mammal deterring methods

September 17, 2020 — Should people be able to use rubber bullets and even paintballs to deter Hawaiian monk seals from coming too close to fishing gear and property?

Those are some of the tactics NOAA wants to hear your feedback on.

The National Marine Fisheries service is proposing a rule in the federal registry on “Guidelines for Safely Deterring Marine Mammals.”

The Hawaii Marine Animal Response has already expressed their concerns with the proposals, saying in a social media post, “These proposed deterrence methods could make the existing desired Hawaiian monk seal interaction guidelines confusing for people who live and fish in Hawaii.”

Read the full story at Hawaii News Now

Extended: Slow Speed Zone South of Nantucket to Protect Right Whales

September 17, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries announces an extension to the previously triggered voluntary vessel speed restriction zone (Dynamic Management Area  or DMA) south of Nantucket.

This DMA was triggered based on an August 31, 2020, sighting of an aggregation of right whales. On September 14,  2020, our aerial survey team observed an aggregation of right whales, South of Nantucket, MA so the DMA is extended through September 29, 2020.

Mariners, please go around this areas or go slow (10 knots or less) inside this area where groups of right whales have been sighted.

South of Nantucket DMA is in effect through September 29.

41 16 N
40 32 N
069 37 W
070 28 W

Read the full release here

Citizen Scientists Help Count Deep-7 Bottomfish in Hawaiʻi

September 16, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center is launching a new citizen science project called OceanEYEs. We are seeking volunteers to help find Deep 7 bottomfish in underwater videos.

A student in the Young Scientist Opportunity program and our scientists have partnered with Zooniverse.org to develop a user-friendly web page called OceanEYEs. There, citizen scientists can help review images from our annual bottomfish survey, tagging and identifying all the fish that they see. Scientists can then use those data to train advanced artificial intelligence (AI) tools, to look at different ways of counting fish in video. The data can also be used as information for stock assessments.

The images are collected every year during the Bottomfish Fishery-Independent Survey in Hawaii (#BFISH) using state of the art stereo-camera systems. The survey provides an estimate of the number of “Deep 7” bottomfish. That’s a group of seven species of fish that have both economic and cultural value to the islands. The data from this survey are used in the Deep 7 stock assessment to provide managers with the best information to make management decisions. That includes annual commercial fishery catch limits.

The camera systems, which rest on the seafloor for 15 minutes at a time, record hundreds of thousands of images over the course of the survey. NOAA scientists currently analyze these images but, as you can imagine, the number of images collected during survey operations can quickly overwhelm them.

NOAA has been investing heavily in the development of AI solutions, allowing scientists to use machine learning and computer vision to analyze images. However, for the machine to learn, it requires large numbers of training images. Those are images of fish that a human has already tagged and identified.

Read the full release here

ASMFC Awards Grants to Four Aquaculture Pilot Projects

September 16, 2020 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, with the support of $575,000 from NOAA Fisheries, has selected four aquaculture pilot projects along the Atlantic coast to receive funding. NOAA Fisheries provided the funds as part of its efforts to foster responsible aquaculture and seafood security in the U.S. After rigorous reviews, which included an evaluation of the technical aspects of the proposals as well as their compliance with environmental laws, the following projects were selected.  All four projects explore promising, but less commercially-developed, technologies for finfish and shellfish aquaculture, with projects ranging from flounder to seaweed aquaculture. The projects started in July and are scheduled for completion in 2021.

For more information, please contact Dr. Louis Daniel, at ldaniel@asmfc.org or 252.342.1478.

Read the full release here