Saving Seafood

Sharing the Tools of Sustainable Fishery Management

August 5, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA:

They say it takes a village. But sometimes it takes a multi-agency, Pacific-wide collaboration.

With help from NOAA Fisheries, the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force, and local partners, the U.S. territories of Guam and American Samoa are on their way to developing their first sustainable coral reef fishery management plans. Once completed, these plans will chart a path forward to ensure the islands’ marine resources are around for future generations to enjoy.

“The territories are taking a proactive approach in leading their efforts for sustainable coral reef fisheries management,” said Fatima Sauafea-Le’au, American Samoa coral reef fisheries liaison with NOAA Fisheries’ Pacific Islands Regional Office.

Importantly, added fisheries liaison Jonathan Brown, NOAA will have no ownership of the plans. “The resources that will be managed are within the local jurisdictions,” he said. “We are just in a support role, providing tools to help them develop the plans and helping them form partnerships with entities like The Nature Conservancy.”

One such tool is called FishPath. FishPath provides a suite of potential management options for a species based on answers to a lengthy questionnaire about the fishery. And it can be used in data-limited fisheries, like the coral reef fisheries in the Pacific Islands.

Brown and agency partners held a workshop for Guam’s management agencies in June 2022 to teach them how to use the tool to develop management options. These measures could then be incorporated into their sustainable fishery management plans.

Read the full release here

Below-average Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’ measured

August 5, 2022 — Today, NOAA-supported scientists announced that this year’s Gulf of Mexico “dead zone”— an area of low to no oxygen that can kill fish and marine life — is approximately 3,275 square miles. That’s more than 2 million acres of habitat potentially unavailable to fish and bottom species — larger than the land area of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

The five-year average dead zone size (also known as the hypoxic zone) is now 4,280 square miles, which is over two times larger than management targets. Since records began in 1985, the largest hypoxic zone measured was 8,776 square miles in 2017.

The measurement was made during an annual survey cruise, led by a team of scientists from Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) aboard the R/V Pelican during the last week of July. The information gathered is a key metric used by the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Hypoxia Task Force to measure progress toward achieving their five-year average target of 1,900 square miles or smaller by 2035. The cruise provides a one-time snapshot of the dead zone; the five-year average captures the dynamic and changing nature of the zone over time.

“Yearly measurements enable us to help decision-makers fine tune strategies to reduce the size of the hypoxic zone in these waters and mitigate harmful impacts to our coastal resources and economy,” said Nicole LeBoeuf, director of NOAA’s National Ocean Service. “While some hypoxia is natural, the size and scale of what we’ve seen here in the last several decades is unusually large and detrimental. Our measurements and analyses can empower communities to take action to protect their coasts and contribute to the region’s economic sustainability.”

In June, NOAA forecasted an average-sized hypoxic zone of 5,364 square miles, based primarily on Mississippi River discharge and nutrient runoff data from the U.S. Geological Survey. The measured size fell within the uncertainty range for the models which factors in some of the inherent environmental variability of the system such as the below average river discharge over the summer. This demonstrates the overall accuracy of the models and their ability to be applied as tools for nutrient reduction strategies.

“This summer was an unusual year for Gulf hypoxia,” said Nancy Rabalais, Ph.D. professor at Louisiana State University and LUMCON, who is the principal investigator. “The Mississippi River discharge was below the summer average. The lower flow is unable to support the normal layering of the water column, allowing dissolved oxygen from the surface waters to diffuse more easily to the seabed. The ecosystem subject to hypoxia was characterized by lower turbidity, lower algal biomass, lower nutrients and higher salinity in the surface waters.”

Read the full release here

Proposed federal speed rule for vessels could further protect endangered right whales

August 5, 2022 — More ships will have to slow down when crossing the ocean to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales if a proposed federal rule change passes.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries division announced last week a proposal to expand current seasonal speed restrictions of about 12 mph or less to all vessels that are at least 35 feet in length.

In addition, the proposal includes a draft “roadmap” outlining possible ways to increase the use of ropeless fishing gear.

The suggested changes are part of a larger strategy to conserve and rebuild the right whale population, said NOAA Assistant Administrator Janet Coit. Collisions with vessels and entanglements in fishing gear are among the leading causes of injury and death for the species.

It is believed that fewer than 350 North Atlantic right whales remain, and under 100 of those are reproductively active females.

Read the full article at The Post and Courier

Annual fisheries meeting tackles lobster lawsuits, whale protections

August 3, 2022 — On Tuesday in Washington D.C., key players from Maine’s lobster fishery tackled what it considers its most pressing issues.

Lawsuits, protections for Atlantic right whales, and new sizing limits for lobsters were some of the issues discussed by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and lobster fishers.

The first issue was an update regarding Judge James Boasberg’s July ruling in the U.S. District Court case involving the Center for Biological Diversity versus Secretary Raimondo and the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

This case made the news in early July after Boasberg ruled regulators aren’t doing enough to protect the right whale.

Just days after, he sided with environmental groups in another lawsuit to allow Area 1 to close again to fishermen this coming fall and winter.

Read the full article at News Center Maine

NOAA Fisheries’ new proposal: a ‘roadmap’ for use of ropeless gear

August 2, 2022 — NOAA Fisheries released its draft Ropeless Roadmap: A Strategy to Develop On-Demand Fishing, as it also announced proposed changes to vessel speed regulations to protect North Atlantic right whales.

The Roadmap now released is an important step in a series of actions NOAA Fisheries is taking to protect and conserve North Atlantic right whales. NOAA Fisheries and its partners are dedicated to conserving and rebuilding the North Atlantic right whale population and those efforts can be followed through the North Atlantic Right Whale Road to Recovery plan, which describes NOAA Fisheries’ actions to halt the current population decline and recover the species.

NOAA is now seeking input on the draft on ropeless roadmap to help protect the North Atlantic right whales.

According to NOAA Fisheries, “endangered North Atlantic right whales are approaching extinction. The latest preliminary estimate indicates there are fewer than 350 individuals remaining and less than 100 breeding females. Primary threats to the species are entanglement in fishing gear and vessel strikes.

“Climate change is also affecting every aspect of their survival—changing their ocean habitat, their migratory patterns, the location and availability of their prey, and even their risk of becoming entangled in fishing gear or struck by vessels.”

The proposed changes announced by NOAA Fisheries will introduce, as National Fisherman reported, new vessel speed regulations to further protect North Atlantic right whales from death and serious injuries resulting from collisions — part of a multifaceted approach to stabilize and recover this endangered population. The changes would expand the current mandatory seasonal speed restrictions of 10 knots or less and broaden the spatial boundaries and timing of the seasonal speed restriction areas along the East Coast of the United States, incorporating most vessels measuring 35 to 65 feet in length.

Read the full article at The National Fisherman

NOAA wants stricter vessel speed limits to protect right whales

August 1, 2022 — Existing vessel speed limits are inadequate to protect endangered north Atlantic right whales from lethal collisions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is proposing to expand 10-knot speed limit zones.

NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service on Friday announced the new rule proposal, which would also extend speed restrictions, now on vessels over 65 feet, down to 35 feet. That would make many more fishing and recreational vessels subject to mandatory speed restrictions.

The move on smaller boats comes after a 2021 incident when a young right whale calf died after it was struck by a 54-foot sportfishing yacht inbound to a Florida inlet.

Proposing stricter speed limits comes as NMFS is under pressure to do more for the whales. In January 2021 an analysis by the agency found speed restrictions are often ignored, according to automatic identification system (AIS) ship tracking.

A similar July 2021 study by the environmental group Oceana found most vessel traffic by far has been exceeding speed limits declared by NMFS, by as much as 90 percent in some areas.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

The trouble with tuna

July 29, 2022 — Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? That certainly seems to be the case with so many bluefin tuna being landed that buyers are telling fishermen to tie up their boats for a week until the market recovers. It’s become an annual event and each time it happens, people point fingers, make accusations and voice their complaints. Few offer logical solutions and it likely won’t change unless we make the effort to evaluate the situation, put things into perspective and address the affliction rather than the symptoms.

Too many fish

For the last several seasons, usually around mid-July, there’s a point where the bluefin market gets flooded because so many fish are caught and landed in a short period. But isn’t that a good thing? It means tuna are abundant. Yes, there are more boats in the water, but the reason more fish are being landed is due more to availability than effort. The downside is that prices plummet and the limited quota gets filled too quickly, meaning a hasty end to fishing season at its peak.

Preliminary steps were taken to address this in 2020, after results of the stock assessment seemed to conflict with what fishermen observed. The assessment said the stock was healthy but possibly in need of increased protection through quota reductions because of poor recruitment. The U.S. fishing community, special interest groups and fisheries managers joined forces to dispute that assessment.

First they gathered evidence to contradict the claims, while at the same time pointing out flaws in the procedures used to assess stocks. The models failed to take into account mixing between eastern and western stocks. Pretty much everyone admitted MRIP data are flawed. Additional spawning areas are not taken into account, and dramatically increasing release rates of sub-legal fish by commercial fishermen are not being recorded. Meanwhile, both commercial and recreational anglers were seeing increasingly more young, small fish while the models said they didn’t exist.

The effort was worthy enough to warrant a second assessment, and then an acknowledgment that revision was needed as stocks indeed appeared stronger than initially thought. In the short term, that resulted in a small quota increase for the western Atlantic bluefin fishery. So far, so good, but we can’t wait five years for another assessment.

Read the full article at The National Fisherman

Ships must slow down more often to save whales, feds say

July 29, 2022 — Vessels off the East Coast must slow down more often to help save a vanishing species of whale from extinction, the federal government said Friday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration made the announcement via new proposed rules designed to prevent ships colliding with North Atlantic right whales. Vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are the two biggest threats to the giant animals, which number less than 340 and are falling in population.

Efforts to save the whales have long focused on fishing gear, especially that used by East Coast lobster fishermen. The proposed vessel speed rules signal that the government wants the shipping industry to take more responsibility.

The new rules would expand seasonal slow zones off the East Coast that require mariners to slow down to 10 knots (19 kilometers per hour). They would also require more vessels to comply with the rules by expanding the size classes that must slow down. The rules also state that NOAA would create a framework to implement mandatory speed restrictions when whales are known to be present outside the seasonal slow zones.

The whales were once numerous off the East Coast, but their populations plummeted due to commercial whaling generations ago. Although they’ve been protected under the Endangered Species Act for decades, they’ve been slow to recover.

More than 50 of the whales were struck by ships between spring 1999 and spring 2018, NOAA records state. Scientists have said in recent years that warming ocean temperatures are causing the whales to stray out of protected areas and into shipping lanes in search of food.

Members of New England’s lobster fishing industry have made the case that too many rules designed to save the whales focus on fishing and not on vessel strikes. Some characterized the new vessel speed rules as overdue.

Fishermen are unfairly being held accountable for whale deaths that occur due to vessel strikes, said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, which is the largest fishing industry association on the East Coast.

Read the full article at ABC

Unexploded bomb discovery flags growing challenge for offshore wind

July 27, 2022 — The first large offshore wind farms in the United States are unearthing unexploded munitions from World War II, representing a potentially growing challenge for both developers and U.S. policymakers as the emerging industry anchors off America’s coasts.

While surveying the seafloor in the waters of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay in recent weeks, the Danish firm Ørsted found 11 unexploded weapons, prompting a warning to mariners by the Coast Guard.

“They range from 6-inch artillery shells to a 250-pound bomb,” said Ryan Ferguson, a spokesperson for Ørsted.

Reported to federal agencies like the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and NOAA, as well as the U.S. military branches that operate offshore, the discoveries will add to an existing map of unexploded munitions up and down the Atlantic seaboard.

Known sites range from nearby hotbeds like Massachusetts’ Nomans Land island — once used by the Navy for target practice — to dumping grounds where the United States disposed of its post-war mountains of munitions after World War II. But other uncharted sites may exist, where sea and sand have moved historic hazards or unethical shippers dumped them outside established locations.

The Department of Defense in general has advised a leave-in-place policy, noting that objects have often become part of the marine ecosystem and that removal can cause harm.

Read the full article at E&E News

NEW JERSEY: Fishermen fear Hudson Canyon sanctuary will mean more restrictions: ‘Why do we need this?’

July 25, 2022 — Of great concern to the fishermen that showed up to a public scoping meeting is a guarantee that no extra regulations would be placed on their industry if the Hudson Canyon was designated a National Marine Sanctuary.

They didn’t walk away with one after the meeting with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s sanctuary’s staff at Monmouth University’s Urban Coast Institute on Thursday. NOAA, however, was not there to make promises or make any management decisions. At this point it’s just looking for public comments, the first part of a multi-year designation process.

NOAA’s sanctuary staff will use the public comments then to put together a management plan for the Hudson Canyon, such as the boundaries for the sanctuary, its permitted uses and protections. If it gets to the point of a sanctuary, an advisory committee would be created where fishermen would have a seat at the table, the staff said.

The canyon is a prolific fishing ground that starts about 90 miles offshore from Manasquan Inlet and is in the crosshairs of a public debate over the sanctuary designation, which would give NOAA more leverage managing the resources of the largest submarine canyon off the Atlantic Coast.

The canyon, which draws warm-water eddies that spin off from the Gulf Stream, is an ecological wonder, supporting large schools of tuna and squids; it’s a foraging ground for whales and porpoises and home to many bottom fish and curious sea creatures such as anemones, crabs, octopi, deep water corals and is dotted with shipwrecks, some dating to the 19th century.

Several federal and international regulatory bodies and acts already manage the fish species that traverse the canyon or reside there, including the Magnuson-Stevens Act, Atlantic Highly Migratory Species, the National Marine Fisheries Service, Mid-Atlantic Marine Fisheries Council and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or ICCAT.

Officials from Jenkinson’s Aquarium in Point Pleasant Beach attended the meeting and put their support for the sanctuary designation on the public record.