Saving Seafood

Help Endangered Whales: Slow Down in Slow Zones

August 6, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today, NOAA Fisheries announces a new “Right Whale Slow Zones” campaign asking all vessel operators to slow down or avoid areas where right whales have been detected to reduce the risk of vessel strikes to critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. This effort is complementary to other NOAA vessel strike reduction efforts. It brings together sighting and acoustic detection information to inform mariners of right whale presence and encourages vessels of all sizes to slow down in areas where right whales have been detected.

We would like to thank our North Atlantic right whale Northeast U.S. Implementation Team, our partners and advisers on right whale recovery activities from Maine through Virginia, who identified this opportunity to enhance vessel strike reduction efforts using acoustic information.

Working together we can make a difference for right whales. Read more about our new campaign in our web story.

Read the full release here

Application process begins for federal fisheries relief funds

August 6, 2020 — Massachusetts is one of the first four states to have its plan approved for distributing federal fisheries relief funds and has initiated the application process for the $28 million designated for Bay State-based seafood and fishing businesses.

NOAA Fisheries approved the Massachusetts spending plan last week. On Monday, applications went out to prospective beneficiaries among aquaculture permit holders and the for-hire charter boat operators. Completed applications and appeals from aquaculture businesses must be postmarked by Aug. 21. For-hire charter operators have until Aug. 22.

Next up are commercial harvesters and seafood processors, which will receive the lion’s share of the $28 million. The Division of Marine Fisheries said the overall funding designated for processors is $13.8 million, while commercial fishermen will receive $11.8 million.

“Applications are still being finalized for the seafood processor and commercial harvest sectors, with an anticipated mailing date of mid to late August,” the state DMF stated on its website on the fisheries relief package. “DMF is delaying sending applications to seafood processors for another two weeks and commercial fishermen, the largest sector, will see their applications mailed in about three weeks.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Pollution, Hurricanes, and the Pandemic Spell Trouble for Gulf Shrimp and Seafood Industries

August 5, 2020 — Today researchers announced the size of the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, the official measurement NOAA uses to track its size year over year. This comes on the heels of bad news from another NOAA report indicating that the volume of Gulf shrimp landings in June 2020 was the lowest ever recorded.  

Researchers found that the dead zone measured 5,048 square kilometers, slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island. This year’s dead zone is much smaller than predicted, not because nitrogen pollution flowing into the Gulf was lower, but because Hurricane Hanna dispersed it at the time it was measured.

Hurricanes have dispersed the dead zone in previous years, causing its size to be smaller than expected given data on nitrogen pollution flowing into the Gulf in the same year. In fact, earlier this year Louisiana University and NOAA researchers predicted, assuming no hurricane, that nitrogen loading levels in the Gulf would cause a dead zone that was 20,000 square kilometers, which is about the size of New Hampshire.

On its face, this may seem like a silver lining. But these hurricanes will likely make tracking the dead zone size even more challenging in the years ahead. And with climate change expected to increase hurricane size and intensity in the Gulf between now and the end of the century, it’s clear that there are long-term challenges to measuring the Gulf dead zone. To make matters worse hurricanes have a negative impact on Gulf fishing industries, too.

Read the full story at the Union of Concerned Scientists

Smaller-than-expected Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’ measured

August 5, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA-supported scientists have determined this year’s Gulf of Mexico “dead zone”— an area of low to no oxygen that can kill fish and marine life — is approximately 2,116 square miles, or equivalent to 1.4 million acres of habitat potentially unavailable to fish and bottom species.

The measured size of the dead zone is the third smallest in the 34-year record of surveys. The average hypoxic zone over the past five years is 5,408-square miles, which is 2.8 times larger than the 2035 target set by the Hypoxia Task Force.

The annual dead zone survey was led by scientists at Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium during a research cruise from July 25 to August 1 aboard the R/V Pelicano.

Read the full release here

Massachusetts Begins Distribution Process of CARES Act Funds to Fishing, Seafood Industries

August 5, 2020 — The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries announced on Tuesday that they have begun the process of distributing federal disaster relief aid related to the coronavirus pandemic.

The CARES Act was passed in March with $300 million earmarked for the  fisheries assistance fund. However, at the time of the announcement, there had been no agency named to oversee the disbursement of the fund. Frustrated with the situation, fishermen wrote to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross asking that the Department of Commerce and NOAA “clearly articulate their distribution process for the $300 million in fisheries assistance funds to ensure it is public and transparent.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

Federal court ruling complicates US offshore aquaculture efforts

August 5, 2020 –A federal appeals court has struck down plans to open the Gulf of Mexico’s federal waters to fish farming, creating mixed messages to the industry on exactly who will be managing the future of offshore aquaculture in the U.S.

On Monday, 3 August, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans blocked recent federal rules that would have allowed large-scale industrial aquaculture operations in offshore waters for the first time, upholding a 2018 federal ruling that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is not permitted the authority to regulate offshore aquaculture under existing national fisheries laws.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Court: Trump aquaculture ‘regime’ overstepped authority

August 5, 2020 — NOAA Fisheries lacks the legal authority to regulate aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico, a federal appellate court in Louisiana ruled yesterday, delivering a major blow to the Trump administration’s long push to allow industrial fish farms in federal waters.

In a 2-1 ruling, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejected NOAA’s argument that it could issue aquaculture permits because of the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to regulate the “catching, taking or harvesting of fish.”

“‘Harvesting,’ we are told, implies gathering crops, and in aquaculture the fish are the crop,” the judges said in their decision. “That is a slippery basis for empowering an agency to create an entire industry the statute does not even mention. We will not bite.”

The appellate court affirmed a 2018 decision by U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo, who ruled that NOAA only had authority to regulate the “traditional fishing of wild fish” and that if Congress meant for the agency to oversee fish farming, lawmakers would have made that explicit in the nation’s primary fisheries law (Greenwire, Oct. 4, 2018).

“The act neither says nor suggests that the agency may regulate aquaculture,” the appellate judges wrote. “The agency interprets this silence as an invitation, but our precedent says the opposite: Congress does not delegate authority merely by not withholding it.”

Read the full story at E&E News

SEAN HORGAN: Watching the watchers

August 4, 2020 — Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: NOAA Fisheries, persisting in an increasingly bad optic and potentially dangerous policy, last week said it will begin redeploying at-sea monitors aboard Northeast groundfish vessels on Aug. 14 despite the continuing national surge of the COVID-19 pandemic. It extends the previous waiver period by two weeks.

“NOAA Fisheries has been working with the regional observer and monitor providers to enact safety protocols that match those that are in effect for vessel operators and crew during this continually evolving situation,” NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Chris Oliver said in a statement announcing the extension.

Oliver said the agency has developed national criteria for vessels to be released from monitor and observer coverage on a trip-by-trip basis. Waivers may be granted if observers or at-sea monitors are not available for the trip or the observer providers “cannot meet the safety protocols imposed by a state on commercial fishing crew or by the vessel or vessel company on the crew.”

And now the lawyers weigh in: “Within our limited authority, our efforts are intended to ensure observers and monitors are following the same safety protocols that fishermen are following,” Oliver stated.

We’re sure that makes everybody feels way safer.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA Fisheries Closes Office in U.S. Embassy Tokyo After 33 years

August 4, 2020 — NOAA Fisheries closed the representative office in the U.S. Embassy Tokyo on July 31 after 33 years due to a sharp budget cut of Silver Spring, according to the leaving official’s announcement in Tokyo.

NOAA Fisheries opened its office in 1987 in the Commercial Service of the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo after establishing the U.S. EEZ and phasing out of international fleets. The mission of NOAA Tokyo was to develop the Japanese market for U.S. fishery products, such as Alaskan salmon and bottom fish. At that time Japan was the largest market for U.S. seafood, and the NOAA Tokyo office assisted many American small exporters of American lobster and sea urchin, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s triumphant entry into the market. It supported the Tokyo offices of American Seafood Company, Ocean Beauty Seafoods, and Trident Seafoods. It assisted seafood trade missions to Japan from U.S. states and native Americans. It negotiated with the Japanese government to permit the import of live oysters from Washington, Oregon, New York, and Connecticut.

Read the full story at Seafood News

NOAA Fisheries Cancels Four Fisheries and Ecosystem Surveys for 2020

August 4, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Summer Ecosystem Monitoring, Northern Shrimp, Autumn Bottom-Trawl, and Summer/Fall Plankton surveys cancelled for 2020

Due to the uncertainties created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the unique challenges those are creating for NOAA Fisheries, we are cancelling four research surveys off the East and Gulf Coast of the United States. The cancelled surveys include:

  • Autumn Bottom Trawl Survey (NEFSC)
  • Summer Ecosystem Monitoring Survey (NEFSC)
  • Northern Shrimp Survey (NEFSC)
  • Summer and Fall Plankton Survey (SEFSC)

These are difficult decisions for the agency as we strive to balance our need to maintain core mission responsibilities with the realities and impacts of the current health crisis. Since March, we have been rigorously analyzing various options for conducting surveys this year and are taking a survey-by-survey, risk-based approach. After much deliberation, we determined that we will not be able to move forward with these surveys while effectively minimizing risk and meeting core survey objectives.

The Cancelled Surveys

The Summer Ecosystem Monitoring Survey run out of the NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center captures seasonal changes in the ocean environment, information used for multiple scientific inquiries. Over its 33-year history, some seasons have been missed and the number of annual surveys has varied, and methods have been developed to bridge these data gaps.

The Northern Shrimp Survey is conducted aboard the R/V Gloria Michelle, a 72-foot ship maintained by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. A major use of survey data is setting shrimp fishery quotas. The shrimp fishery is closed through 2021.

The Autumn Bottom Trawl Survey, also run out of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, has been conducted since 1963.  It provides crucial resource and ecosystem data, especially for fishery stock assessments. A future bottom longline survey and new work on industry-based sources of data may help mitigate data gaps.

The Summer/Fall Plankton Survey, run out of NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center covers the entire continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico region from Brownsville, Texas, to Key West, Florida. It is the only fishery independent survey available to measure the spawning capacity of the adult population of Gulf of Mexico King Mackerel and an important supplemental survey for red snapper and several other reef fish.

The Summer Ecosystem Monitoring Survey run out of the NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center captures seasonal changes in the ocean environment, information used for multiple scientific inquiries. Over its 33-year history, some seasons have been missed and the number of annual surveys has varied, and methods have been developed to bridge these data gaps.

The Northern Shrimp Survey is conducted aboard the R/V Gloria Michelle, a 72-foot ship maintained by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. A major use of survey data is setting shrimp fishery quotas. The shrimp fishery is closed through 2021.

The Autumn Bottom Trawl Survey, also run out of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, has been conducted since 1963.  It provides crucial resource and ecosystem data, especially for fishery stock assessments. A future bottom longline survey and new work on industry-based sources of data may help mitigate data gaps.

The Summer/Fall Plankton Survey, run out of NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center covers the entire continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico region from Brownsville, Texas, to Key West, Florida. It is the only fishery independent survey available to measure the spawning capacity of the adult population of Gulf of Mexico King Mackerel and an important supplemental survey for red snapper and several other reef fish.

Next Steps

These cancellations follow similar difficult cancellation decisions of the ship-based work we had planned from April to July. NOAA Fisheries is continuing to assess the status of other surveys in all our regions. We are working through numerous survey scenarios relative to community pandemic safeguards and safe work practices so that we maximize the science available for fisheries management in this challenging year.