Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford revives push to seize Northeast Fisheries Center

September 13, 2018 — Appealing to the new management team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, elected officials from New Bedford are newly appealing to relocate the Northeast Fisheries Science Center from Woods Hole to New Bedford, arguing the change will help the federal government to more effectively engage with members of an active fishing community.

In a letter Tuesday to Acting Administrator Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, officials cited media reports suggesting that NOAA had ruled out every possible location for the center except Woods Hole in Falmouth.

In asking for reconsideration, they also demanded the federal government release its “business case analysis” of potential locations in the Northeast.

“We believe that that by siting the facility in the undisputed center of the commercial fishing industry on the East Coast, the Administration could at last begin to break down barriers to communication, and repair the distrust that has plagued the relationship between the National Marine Fisheries Service and the fishing industry in the Northeast for decades,” fishing industry and South Coast lawmakers wrote in the letter.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford makes new push for fisheries center

September 12, 2018 — The nation’s top fishing port is renewing its efforts to get the government to move its fisheries center from Woods Hole to New Bedford.

“The fishing industry wants the regulators for the first time ever to be in New Bedford because they see the benefits of good science and cooperative research,” said Ed Anthes-Washburn, the director of the New Bedford Port Authority.

On Tuesday, elected officials, the Port Authority and members of the fishing industry sent a letter to NOAA seeking a new feasibility study, maintaining the city is the best location for the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, currently in Woods Hole.

The letter, addressed to Timothy Gallaudet, Ph.D., assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere for the Department of Commerce in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was also signed by representatives of fishing vessels from home ports in New Bedford and Fairhaven and parts of Maine, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Virginia and North Carolina.

This push isn’t entirely new. In March 2016, a letter addressed to NOAA said the agency had a rare opportunity to further the center’s mission and restore its credibility in fishing communities by moving to New Bedford.

NOAA spokeswoman Teri Frady confirmed Tuesday that in the latest study New Bedford was considered as a new location, but Woods Hole is the “preferred alternative” location recommended in the Business Case Analysis.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Fishing Communities, Massachusetts Officials Call for New Science Center Home in New Bedford

September 11, 2018 (Saving Seafood) — Today, 18 Massachusetts elected officials joined hundreds of Northeast fishermen and businesses to urge NOAA to relocate its Northeast Fisheries Science Center from Woods Hole to New Bedford, Massachusetts.

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, six Massachusetts state legislators, 11 members of the New Bedford City Council, the New Bedford Port Authority, and hundreds of fishermen, businesses, and vessels joined together in signing the letter. Signatories hail from across the East Coast, including from Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Virginia, and North Carolina.

According to the letter, addressed to Acting Administrator Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, moving the science center to New Bedford would place NOAA closer to the commercial fishing industry. A move would present NOAA with a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to improve relations and build trust with commercial fishermen.

“We believe that by siting the facility in the undisputed center of the commercial fishing industry on the East Coast, the Administration could at least begin to break down barriers to communication, and repair the distrust that has plagued the relationship between the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the fishing industry in the Northeast for decades,” the letter states.

The letter notes that the current science center in Woods Hole is located far away from the region’s major commercial fishing ports. The letter argues that this physical distance hinders engagement between NOAA and the industry.

In contrast, the Port of New Bedford has, for the last 17 years, been the highest grossing commercial fishing port in the United States, and is one of the hubs of Northeast commercial fishing.

“If the science center were located in New Bedford, the Administration could be assured that its personnel would have considerably greater opportunity for formal and informal interaction with industry stakeholders, and each side would get to know one another in ways and to a degree that have long eluded both,” the letter states.

The letter, from major fishing industry stakeholders inviting fisheries scientists and regulators to the nation’s top fishing port, marks a significant shift, and illustrates a desire among the fishing industry to engage with fisheries scientists. The letter concludes on a positive note, hoping that co-location would have the ability “to create conditions for a new era of respect, trust and cooperation.”

Read the letter here

Bountiful Bunker? Advocates Clash with Big Fish Oil in New York Harbor

September 10, 2018 — Advocacy groups are sounding the alarm on Virginia-based fishing fleets coming into the New York bight to harvest menhaden — a bait fish better known as “bunker” — but NOAA Fisheries says the species is not at risk of overfishing.

The boats work for Omega Protein, a company based in Reedville, Virginia, that runs the largest menhaden fishing operation on the east coast.

Menhaden are abundant now, but they’d been severely overfished in the past and advocacy groups like Menhaden Defenders and Gotham Whale are concerned about that happening again — especially since whales have returned to New York City waters. The cetaceans feed on menhaden, and fewer fish could mean fewer whale sightings, they say.

Advocates also worry about by-catch. The boats use huge purse seines that round up millions of fish at a time, and there’s concern that dolphins and other marine life could get caught up.

In a press release, Omega Protein charged that advocates are making “false statements” about their fleet, noting that there’s currently no concern about bunker overfishing and that their operations are completely legal. The company turns menhaden into commodities for fish oil supplements, dog food, fish meal, and other products.

Jennifer Goebel, a spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries, confirmed that there’s no current threat of overfishing for menhaden.

“There has been concern over the years from certain environmental groups regarding localized depletion in Chesapeake Bay, but studies have not found any evidence that localized depletion is occurring,” she said in an email. “The coastwide assessment shows the Atlantic menhaden stock is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring.”

She added that Omega Protein “follow[s] the schools and right now, if those schools are off New York, that’s where an industry vessel could be fishing.”

Read the full story at New York Media Boat

 

Permit holders, processing workers included in pink salmon disaster money draft plan

September 10, 2018 — Under a draft plan released this summer, commercial fishermen in Southeast Alaska would get only a small portion of the $56.3 million appropriated by Congress to address a pink salmon disaster in 2016.

However, those who worked at seafood processing plants that year could be in line for some of the money as well.

A year and a half ago, the U.S. Commerce Secretary declared the 2016 pink season across the Gulf of Alaska a fishery failure due to unusual ocean and climate conditions. The state of Alaska and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have come up with a draft spending plan for how to allocate the money to fishermen, processors, municipalities and researchers.

The money will be paid out by an agency called the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Sebastian O’Kelly is a lobbyist in the nation’s capital. His clients include the Petersburg borough and that commission. O’Kelly briefed the Petersburg borough assembly on the spending plan Monday.

“I wanna talk a little bit about the allocation and the break out and the criteria that will be used in distributing the relief because you will have fishermen, processors and the borough itself as active participants and recipients of this funding,” O’Kelly said.

Read the full story at KTOO

Impossible Choices: The Complicated Task of Saving Both Orca and Salmon

September 10, 2018 — Decades of politics and foot-dragging have stymied the recovery of threatened and endangered Chinook salmon, while an iconic population of killer whales that depends on them veered toward extinction. Now, a last-ditch effort to save the whales may also be what thwarts the recovery of Chinook.

The Southern Resident killer whales are dying. An extended family of 75 orcas living year-round in the sea surrounding the San Juan Islands near Seattle, their numbers never fully rebounded since aquariums that later became SeaWorld captured a third of them in the late 1960s.

And there are other culprits.

Cargo ships and whale-watching boats zip through the Salish Sea, adding noise that interferes with the whales’ ability to locate each other and their prey. The water they live in is toxic. The Puget Sound outside Seattle is tainted with flame retardant, and PCBs and pollutants gush from nearby rivers into the sea.

The Chinook salmon they eat to live are contaminated with mercury, lead and organic compounds like PCBs. The Washington state Department of Health advises humans to limit their consumption of Chinook salmon to eight ounces per week. But Southern Residents eat dozens of the fish per day.

Not only is their food toxic, there’s also less of it than ever before. Five populations of Chinook the whales depend on are listed as threatened; a sixth is endangered. And they’re smaller, declining in size by 10 percent since the late 1970s, according to research published February in the scientific journal Fish & Fisheries.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Scientists get break finding elusive beaked whales

September 10, 2018 — Scientists have found a reliable gathering place east of Cape Cod for the elusive and little-known True’s beaked whales, following a month’s effort this summer.

“It was huge for us,” Danielle Cholewiak, research ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, said. Cholewiak was chief scientist for the trip east of Georges Bank, on the edge of the continental shelf.

Only a dozen sightings of True’s beaked whale had occurred since 1913 when Smithsonian Institution curator Frederick True first identified and named the species from an animal stranded on a North Carolina beach. But the dedicated study in July 200 miles east of Cape Cod yielded dozens of sightings, acoustic recordings, genetic samples and photographs, Cholewiak said.

The repeated sightings of whales during the trip allowed scientists to begin a tracking database. The whales now named Elvis and Trident are the “founding members” of the North Atlantic True’s beaked whale photo identification catalog. With over 300 acoustic detections from a hydrophone towed 24 hours a day across the research area the scientists were able to map out where the animals were living, Cholewiak said. The first-time use on a True’s beaked whale of a suction-cup digital recording tag, for 12 hours, is expected to reveal new information about their movements and acoustic behavior.

“This is a 5- or 6-meter whale that we didn’t know anything about until now,” said Dee Allen, research program officer for the Marine Mammal Commission, who was on the trip. In its oversight role of other federal agencies, the commission wants to make sure that the best available science is used for decision-making. There is great value in new or more information on a species that is little-known, Allen said.

“It shows that it can be done,” Allen said. “We can continue to learn more about beaked whales.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Collaborative effort produces a new marine debris action plan for Washington

September 7, 2018 — Trash on our shorelines and in the ocean, also known as marine debris, is a persistent and growing global environmental issue. A lot is at stake particularly in Washington State, where outdoor recreation, shellfish harvests and aquaculture, and commercial, tribal and recreational fisheries are all economically and culturally significant. Marine debris interferes with the health of these important marine resources. Today September 5, 2018, local organizations and agencies released a marine debris action plan for the state, the result of a year-long collaborative process facilitated by NOAA’s Marine Debris Program.

The plan will facilitate and track actions that prevent and reduce marine debris throughout Washington, including Puget Sound, the Northwest Straits, Washington’s Pacific Coast, the Columbia River estuary and inland sources. To create the plan, 66 representatives from more than 40 entities participated in two workshops to compile and review current efforts, identify strategic gaps and recommend future actions. NOAA’s Marine Debris Program supported the effort by convening the planning committee, organizing and hosting the workshops and engaging the planning committee.

Read the full story at the San Juan Islander

New U.S. and Canadian IPHC Commissioners Named During Sensitive Negotiations

September 6, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Both the U.S. and Canada have changed their delegation to the International Pacific Halibut Commission, naming relative newcomers to each country’s team during extremely sensitive negotiations on policy issues. For the first time, a member of the recreational sector has been appointed to the U.S. delegation.

The changes to the panel, made up of three Canadians and three U.S. residents, comes after a rare impasse in determining catch limits for the 2018 season at the IPHC’s January meeting. In the end, all six commissioners agreed to lower limits below last year’s levels, but not as a commission. It was the second time in the IPHC’s 94-year history that an impasse could not be overcome.

The commissioners also agreed to negotiate a resolution to their disagreements, which center on distribution of halibut and bycatch accountability, before the next annual meeting. They have met twice so far and will meet again in mid-September.

Six weeks ago the Canadian government “temporarily” replaced commissioners Jake Vanderheide and Ted Assu, both halibut fishermen. Robert Day and Neil Davis of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans were picked as replacements until later in the year, when both are expected to step down for permanent commissioners. Day is director of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ International Fisheries Management Headquarters in Ottawa. Davis is a resource management director for the DFO based in Vancouver.

Yesterday NOAA Fisheries announced the reappointment of Bob Alverson, director of the Fishing Vessel Owners Association and the first-time appointment of Richard Yamada, the president of the Alaska Charter Association. Yamada replaced Linda Behnken, director of Sitka-based Alaska Longline Fisherman’s Association and a commissioner for two years. Both men were appointed for five months, from September 1 to January 31, 2019.

The two men were told their terms as Alternate Commissioners ended January 31 or “whenever another Alternate or Presidentially-appointed Commissioner is appointed to fulfill the relevant duties, whichever comes first,” according to the letter each received from the State Department.

It’s unusual for appointments to be for less than 18 months — terms are for two years — but in this case, it could be that the President’s final action will define a longer term. The current timing for termination is problematic, though, as the next annual meeting of the IPHC is January 27-February 1, 2019.

A January 31 termination date cuts the five days meeting short by its last, important day. That’s when the week’s industry discussion and recommendations, scientific reporting, and U.S./Canada negotiations culminate in final catch limits and changes to Pacific halibut regulations.

Yesterday’s announcement preceded the President’s appointment, “To ensure the United States has representation on the IPHC at all times, the Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1982 provides for the Secretary of State to make alternate appointments,” the announcement read.

Dr. Jim Balsiger, the NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator who has represented the government for nearly two decades, was reappointed through September, but may be replaced after that, according to several people familiar with the process. Both Chris Oliver, current head of NOAA Fisheries, and Doug Mecum, deputy regional administrator at NMFS’s Juneau office, have been mentioned as possible replacements.

Neither, however, are members of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, a requirement for Commissioner according to the Halibut Act.

The process, starting from the nominations from last year and months-long vetting to a last minute back and forth that has included questioning nominees on social media use and campaign finance contributions, has been fraught with delays and unexpected outcomes (few expected Dr. Balsiger to be replaced). Behnken and Alverson were appointed only months before the last nomination-and-vetting cycle began. Their terms were extended last spring to August 31, 2018.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

After year in DC, Oliver reflects on fisheries progress

September 6, 2018 — Chris Oliver has had a busy year since he made the leap from Anchorage to Washington, D.C. to take the lead job at the National Marine Fisheries Service.

As soon as he arrived, there was an annual priorities document to review, he said at a recent roundtable discussion event hosted by the Kenai River Sportfishing Association in Soldotna. The document is both internally-facing and public to help guide NMFS’ decisions.

There were three goals listed in that document, the first of which was to ensure the sustainability of fisheries and fishing communities. He changed it to read “maximize fishing opportunities while ensuring the sustainability of fisheries and fishing communities.”

“There are a number of fisheries around the country where we’re not fully utilizing the available harvest whether it’s choke species or bycatch constraints or outdated regulations,” he said. “We’ve been approaching that pretty aggressively in that form. There’s not a huge amount of headroom in our wild stock harvest fisheries, but there’s some.”

The second was to manage protected species, including those under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. Under that, he added language to manage those species while supporting responsible fishing and resource development.

Read the full at the Alaska Journal of Commerce