Saving Seafood

Struggling New England groundfish sector deactivated

April 1, 2019 — One of Gloucester, Massachusetts’ two groundfish sectors – Northeast Fishery Sector III — has been shutdown for the 2019 fishing season, which begins on May 1, due to a lack of financial support, The Gloucester Times reports.

However many of its 36 groundfish permits that remain active will be merged into Sector II, giving that group as many as 128 combined permits and about 35 boats.

Sector III was one of the original 16 commercial groundfish sectors approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in a 2010 transition to catch shares, according to the newspaper.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

It’s no April Fools’ joke: 2019-2020 US scallop season kicks off in New Bedford

April 1, 2019 — Ed Anthes-Washburn answered his cellphone on his way to work at the Port of New Bedford, Massachusetts — the US’s most valuable commercial port — on Monday morning by telling Undercurrent News that the 2019-2020 Atlantic scallop season is canceled.

“Didn’t you hear?” the port director asked. Then, with a chuckle, he proclaimed, “April Fools’!” and confirmed that he plans to play this prank all day long.

Contrary to Washburn’s joke, the 2019-2020 Atlantic scallop season has begun in New Bedford, and it promises to be another big one. After landing an estimated 56.8 million pounds of scallops between April 1, 2018, and March 31, 2019, harvesters are loosely projected to harvest 62.5m lbs over the next 12 months.

To make room, US scallop distributors spent last week clearing their inventory, while harvesters were using up the last of their quota from the 2018-2019 season. As Washburn put it, because of the constant work being done to boats and the 60 additional days limited access vessels have to work their quota from the end of the previous season, “The old season never really ends and the new season never really begins.”

Prices were high for the final flurry of 2018-2019 landings.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Alaska’s Bering Sea is the Focus of a New NOAA Effort to Accelerate Science Delivery to Fisheries Managers

March 29, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Bering Sea is home to some of the nation’s largest and most profitable commercial fisheries, including Alaskan pollock and Pacific cod. It’s also one of the fastest warming parts of the world, with fish stocks becoming increasingly vulnerable to marine heat waves, the loss of sea ice, low-oxygen waters, harmful algal blooms, and other conditions that stress species, ecosystems, and economies.

Environmental changes in this area are happening so rapidly that researchers are continuously seeking ways to deliver more timely and actionable information on changing ocean conditions to help resource managers, commercial and recreational fishermen, Alaska Native communities, and coastal communities prepare and respond.

For this reason, NOAA scientists selected the Bering Sea as a testbed for what they hope will be a new system that provides decision-makers with robust projections of ocean and fisheries conditions over short-term (daily or annual), medium-range (1–20 years), and long-run (10–50 years) scenarios, and then evaluates how different fishery management strategies might perform under those future conditions.

“Unlike other modeling approaches, we not only look at how climate change affects the marine environment but also the people who rely on it,” said Kirstin Holsman, who along with Anne Hollowed, has co-led a team of more than two dozen researchers from NOAA Fisheries, NOAA Research, the University of Washington, and other partner agencies in this effort. “Fisheries managers and affected communities across the United States. are interested in the impacts and opportunities that are associated with changing oceans. It is our hope that this strategy will help them achieve their immediate needs and long-term sustainability goals.”

Read the full release here

Maine to study sea level rise impact for Penobscot Bay towns

March 29, 2019 — Ten communities surrounding Penobscot Bay will be the subjects of a state study to determine what actions to take to deal with rising sea levels.

The Maine Coastal Program, part of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, received a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to conduct the study in Rockland, Camden, South Thomaston, Lincolnville, Belfast, Searsport, Vinalhaven, North Haven, Castine, and Stonington, said Coastal Program Deputy Director Matthew Nixon.

The goal of the project is project the sea level rise for each community and develop recommendations on protecting public infrastructure such as piers, public landings, and causeways.

“If there is going to be public investment, we want to make sure it’s spent wisely,” he said of public infrastructure projects.

Read the full story at The Courier-Gazette

Dungeness drag: Fleet agrees to shutter early

March 29, 2019 — The California Dungeness crab season will come to an early end this year on April 15 — three months ahead of schedule — leaving millions of dollars of product in the water. The fleet opted for the early closure to settle a lawsuit over whale entanglement rather than risk the possibility of an indefinite closure.

“The settlement is going to be extremely painful and extremely difficult to deal with,” said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “But this was the best possible deal that was acceptable to all parties.”

At issue is a 2017 lawsuit in federal court by the Oakland, Calif.-based Center for Biological Diversity that argued the state of California and fishermen were in violation of the Endangered Species Act after a three-year spike in whale entanglements in Dungeness crab fishing gear from 2014 to 2017.

The lawsuit sought the closure of the state-managed fishery until a federal incidental take permit was established — a process that could take years to implement.

Commercial fishermen, state regulators and biologists had convened a California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group in 2015 to find ways to limit whale entanglements while avoiding the burdensome federal incidental take permits.

A preliminary count for 2018 showed 45 whale entanglements on the West Coast, compared with 31 confirmed entanglements in 2017. Between 2000 and 2014, the West Coast saw an average of 10 entanglements per year, according to NOAA data.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

How Cities Can Protect Themselves from Rising Waters

March 28, 2019 — Across the U.S., policymakers are scrambling to protect their communities from the effects of climate change.

In January, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker proposed real-estate tax increases to fund dam and drainage system upgrades, which would help residents cope with future floods and storms. Meanwhile, a few months earlier, officials from several Florida counties agreed to work together to minimize the damage caused by rising sea levels.

Adaptation efforts like these are crucial. Four in 10 Americans live in coastal areas. and this population will surge in the coming years. Sustained flooding can cripple homes and infrastructure like roads, bridges, subways and wastewater treatment plants.

Policymakers have limited time and resources, so they should rely on the latest computer modeling and other technologies to identify and implement the most efficient adaptation strategies.

Rising water levels have already wrought havoc across the country. From 2000 to 2015, coastal “sunny day flooding,” or flooding caused by high tides rather than storms, more than doubled on the Southeast’s Atlantic coast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. And it increased 75 percent on the Northeast’s coast.

Climate change is also making storms more destructive and frequent by heating up ocean waters, increasing flooding. The United States experienced its most expensive hurricane season in history in 2017; storms caused more than $300 billion in damages. Flooding and other damage from Hurricane Harvey alone forced 37,000 Texans into shelters in September 2017. Last year, Hurricane Michael caused at least 45 deaths and more than $12 billion in losses.

Read the full story at Scientific American

Research expedition reports surprising findings on coho, sockeye salmon in Pacific Ocean

March 28, 2019 — After five weeks at sea, a team of 21 scientists from five countries returned Monday with some surprising findings about the mysterious lives of salmon in the Pacific Ocean, according to Laurie Weitkamp, a salmon biologist with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Newport, Oregon.

“It was quite an experience,” said Weitkamp, one of three chief scientists aboard the Russian research vessel Professor Kaganovsky.

The expedition was part of activities associated with the International Year of the Salmon and was meant to look at how salmon fare in the open ocean. Among the surprises that emerged from the cruise was the relatively small number of pink salmon. Pinks, the most abundant salmon in the Pacific Ocean, normally make up about half of all the salmon in the region. Yet during the expedition — which covered some 345,000 square miles — pink salmon made up only about 10 percent of the salmon caught in the researchers’ nets.

“We kept asking, ‘Where are the pinks? Why aren’t you here?’” Weitkamp recalled.

Read the full story at the Statesman Journal

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester groundfish sectors consolidate

March 28, 2019 — The decline of the region’s commercial groundfish industry has claimed another casualty — Gloucester-based Northeast Fishery Sector III.

The sector, one of two Gloucester-based groundfish sectors within the original 16 commercial groundfish sectors approved by NOAA Fisheries in the 2010 transition to catch shares, will be deactivated for the upcoming 2019 fishing season. The reason: its exhausted roster of vessels and permits won’t financially support an active sector.

Most of the remaining active vessels — estimated to be less than a half-dozen entering the new fishing season — and their permits will be rolled into Gloucester-based Northeast Fishing Sector II for the new fishing season set to open on May 1.

“Because of lack of activity in the sector, it just couldn’t support itself financially,” said David Leveille, manager of Northeast Fishing Sector II. “It just wasn’t generating enough income to justify remaining an independent sector. If we ever get Gulf of Maine cod back, maybe the sector can become active again.”

Leveille estimated Sector III vessels possessed a total of about 36 groundfish permits.

“But at this point, I don’t know how many of those will be active,” he said, adding that the addition of the Sector III vessels will bring Sector II’s active roster to 35 boats and about 128 permits.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

US harvesters hope agreement with BOEM, NMFS amplifies voice on windfarms

March 28, 2019 — Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), a group that represents commercial seafood harvesters concerned about wind farms, says the 10-year memorandum of understanding her group signed this week with the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is a “really big deal.”

“It makes a platform and a mechanism for the fishing industry to give better and more impactful input to the offshore leasing industry,” she told Undercurrent News.

“There’s a lot of frustration in the commercial fishing industry. There are so many meetings and so many working groups and different parties involved, and there is an overall feeling that their input isn’t really being well considered. This provides a clear channel for us to be able to amplify the messages and concerns of the commercial fishing industry and those are being given full consideration in the regulatory process.”

Commercial harvesters are generally supportive of efforts to come up with renewable energy but they’ve been growing concerned and more outspoken about the recent proliferation of wind farms on the Atlantic Coast and how they might be disrupting fishing operations.

There are already 15 active wind farm leases on the outer continental shelf (OCS) between the states of North Carolina and Massachusetts, covering nearly 1.7 million acres, according to a press release. They generate more than 19 gigawatts of energy, enough to power more than 6.5m homes.

But the region is also vital for many endangered and threatened marine species, including the North Atlantic right whale.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

ALASKA: State seeks delisting of ringed seals under Endangered Species Act

March 28, 2019 — Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration is seeking to remove a seal species from the federal Endangered Species Act, a request which may have ramifications for the future of offshore oil drilling in Alaska.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Tuesday that it was petitioning the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service to delist the ringed seal. The move has support from the North Slope Borough, Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope.

While acknowledging the decline of the seals’ sea ice habitat, documented last year by NOAA’s Arctic Report Card, the Fish and Game statement noted that the ringed seal “continues to occupy the entire circumpolar Arctic, with an abundant population numbering in the millions.” It also questioned the availability of scientific data for the foreseeable future extending to the year 2100, as mentioned in the ringed-seal declaration.

“The best available scientific information now available indicates ringed seals are resilient and adaptable to varying conditions across their enormous range and are likely to adapt to habitat conditions that change over time,” state officials wrote.

NOAA spokeswoman Julie Speegle confirmed Tuesday afternoon that the state’s petition had been received. Its arrival triggers a 90-day deadline for NOAA to “publish a finding in the Federal Register as to whether the petition presents substantial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted.”

Read the full story at KTVA