Saving Seafood

NOAA’s proposed clam protections spark concerns among CNMI residents

September 24, 2024 — AT a NOAA Fisheries public meeting at the Crowne Plaza Resort on Thursday, Sept. 19, local residents shared their concerns regarding a proposed rule change for giant clams that could list five species as endangered and one species as threatened.

NOAA Fisheries is also seeking to regulate the import and export of four separate clam species because they have “similarity of appearance” to the at-risk clam species.

According to John Rippe of NOAA Fisheries, the process to list 10 clam species as endangered or threatened began with a petition in 2016.

The following year, NOAA conducted a status review of some of the clams to determine the species’ “current and future extinction risk.”

Read the full article at Marianas Variety 

Long-Running Sea Scallop Survey Diversifies for the Future

September 24, 2024 — Our sea scallop survey has been providing data on population status since 1979. Over that time, the stock has recovered from very low levels to a population large enough to support one of the nation’s most valuable single-species fisheries. The status of the population isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Increasingly sophisticated ways to track sea scallop populations have come along. We have adapted and diversified our survey methods to take advantage of them.

Adding Survey Capacity

While we started with one vessel surveying the entire area with a dredge, the area is now divided among our science center and several partners, including the sea scallop industry, who use both dredges and optical (photographic) instruments deployed from research and commercial scallop vessels. All these data are used for stock assessments and for quota setting.

This year, for the first time, our science center’s survey covered Georges Bank and adjacent waters using a dredge, a towed camera–and–sensor system called HabCam, and our newest sampling device—a long-range autonomous underwater vehicle nicknamed “Stella.” These were deployed off three different vessels: a university-owned research ship, a commercial sea scallop vessel, and a NOAA research vessel.

Stella, the Long-Range Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

The most recent addition to our survey capacity is Stella, our long-range autonomous underwater vehicle. It carries the same imaging package as our towed sampling system, the HabCam, but can be programmed to operate without human supervision. Stella is being developed with partners at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

“Stella was developed for surveying inside the new wind energy development areas,” said Peter Chase, who is in charge of our center’s resource surveys. “It’s one way to capture data to replace towed HabCam sampling in those areas.”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

2024 Sea Scallop Survey Results

September 24, 2024 — Among the highlights of our 2024 Integrated Sea Scallop and HabCam Research Survey are strong numbers of two-year-old scallops observed in both dredge samples and HabCam images. These were found in the southern part of the Great South Channel, the eastern portion of the Nantucket Lightship Area, the northern portion of Closed Area I, and in the Elephant Trunk and Hudson Canyon South areas in the Mid-Atlantic. Sea scallops typically reach harvestable size at about age 4 and older.

This is also the first survey that included three cruises, exclusively used a commercial vessel for dredging, and deployed a long-range autonomous underwater vehicle (LRAUV).

This year, we deployed the HabCam V4 and a new LRAUV, nicknamed “Stella,” from the R/V Hugh R. Sharp, owned and operated by the University of Delaware. Then, we completed a dredge survey aboard a chartered commercial scalloper, F/V Selje. Finally, we deployed both the HabCam V4 and Stella from the NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow.

The HabCam IV and Stella vehicles continuously photograph the ocean bottom while they collect other data about conditions in the waters in which they operate. The dredge is a standardized 8-foot-wide New Bedford sea scallop dredge that collects sea scallops and associated bycatch for biological analyses along with some environmental variables.

The Atlantic sea scallop population is surveyed every summer by NOAA Fisheries and partnering research groups, supported through the Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside program. This year those partners are:

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

NOAA sends $277M to Alaska fisheries after years of delays

September 23, 2024 — The Biden administration has released $277 million in fishery disaster aid to Alaska that was held up for years by a problem-plagued software update at NOAA.

The release of long-awaited disaster assistance dollars will help communities affected by 10 disasters that contributed to the collapse of critical commercial species, including cod, crab and salmon that drive the state’s multibillion-dollar fisheries economy.

Half of those disasters — including sharp declines in Copper River and Prince William Sound salmon dating to 2018 — preceded the Biden administration and were to be paid with funds already appropriated by Congress.

Read the full article at E&E News

Mysterious Pacific Ocean sounds identified as a type of whale—a new AI app helps track them

September 23, 2024 — A team of oceanographers and marine biologists from the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center and Oregon State University has identified a mysterious noise heard in the Pacific Ocean for two decades as the sounds of Bryde’s whales.

In their study published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, the group identified the sound and worked with a team at Google to develop an AI application that could be used to track the ‘ movements.

The mysterious sound was first recorded in 2014, when its metallic ping was designated a “biotwang.” Since then, the sound has been recorded multiple times in multiple locations. In 2016, a team at Oregon State University found evidence that it was most likely some type of baleen whale.

Read the full article at Phys.org

US denies port privileges to foreign vessels accused of IUU fishing

September 21, 2024 — Foreign commercial fishing vessels accused of illegal, unreported, or unregulated (IUU) fishing by the U.S. government will be denied access to American ports beginning 10 October.

NOAA Fisheries has revoked port privileges to vessels from 17 nations under the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act, a law that requires NOAA to identify nations whose fishing vessels are engaged in IUU operations or activities that result in bycatch of protected living marine resources or sharks. Once NOAA Fisheries identifies a nation as engaging in IUU fishing, it enters a two-year consultation to fix the problem. If the issue is not resolved in that period, NOAA Fisheries can issue a negative certification and a denial of port access.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Scientists unearth key clues to cuisine of resident killer whale populations

September 21, 2024 — A team led by researchers at the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has uncovered key information about what resident killer whale populations are eating. Researchers had long known that resident killer whales—also known as resident orcas—prefer to hunt fish, particularly salmon. But some populations thrive, while others have struggled. Scientists have long sought to understand the role that diet plays in these divergent fates.

“Killer whales are incredibly intelligent, and learn foraging strategies from their matriarchs, who know where to find the richest prey resources in their regions,” said Amy Van Cise, UW assistant professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, who began this study as a postdoctoral researcher with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center. “So we wanted to know: Does all of that social learning affect  preferences in different populations of resident killer whales, or in pods within populations?”

In a paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Van Cise and her colleagues report the cuisine preferences of two resident killer whale populations: the Alaska residents and the southern residents, which reside primarily in the Salish Sea and off the coast of Washington, Oregon and northern California.

Read the full article at PHYS.org

Comparing Killer Whale Cuisine

September 20, 2024 — Scientists studied two populations of fish-eating killer whales: the Southern Residents and the southern Alaska residents. They wanted to know if these two populations of fish-eating killer whales eat different things and how their diets change throughout the year. This information will improve our conservation efforts.

The Alaska resident killer whale population appears healthy and has been growing. But Southern Resident killer whales are endangered and are one of NOAA Fisheries’ Species in the Spotlight. Decades of research have identified four major threats to their survival:

  • Vessel traffic noise and disturbance
  • Health issues linked to contaminants
  • Issues related to inbreeding
  • Limited prey availability.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

James Binniker Named New Director of NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement

September 20, 2024 — Mr. James Binniker has been selected as the new director of the NOAA Office of Law Enforcement. In this new role, Mr. Binniker will lead the agency’s work to enforce laws that conserve and protect our nation’s protected marine resources, places, and habitats, as well as to advance actions to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and promote sustainable fisheries management. Mr. Binniker will assume his new role on September 23.

As the newly appointed head of the Office of Law Enforcement, Mr. Binniker brings a strong combination of skills and experience. The office is responsible for enforcing more than 40 federal statutes over more than 3 million nautical miles of open ocean, 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline, 16 National Marine Sanctuaries, and Marine National Monuments.

“The breadth of ocean and coast NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement must cover and the number of laws they must enforce are immense; so it’s crucial that leadership continue to set priorities and pursue those enthusiastically as we strive to fulfill our sustainability and stewardship missions,” said Janet Coit, NOAA’s Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries. “With James’ extensive enforcement background and incredible level of experience with marine issues nationally and internationally, he will hit the ground running—especially in our ongoing fight against illegal unregulated and unreported fishing globally.”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

DOJ argues federal law allows NOAA to charge fishermen for monitors

September 19, 2024 — Out-of-pocket payments made by fishermen to federal monitors who accompany them at sea is comparable to the costs fishermen incur when they purchase new gear or equipment to comply with any other other regulations, government lawyers argue in a legal brief filed Wednesday in federal appeals court.

The brief in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Gina Raimondo, is the government’s latest volley in what has become a landmark case pitting NOAA Fisheries against a group of New Jersey herring fishermen after the Supreme Court in June rolled back a long-standing legal doctrine that gave deference to agencies like NOAA in disputes over a regulation’s interpretation.

The filing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit argues that all NOAA Fisheries regulations require industry compliance and that sometimes compliance “imposes economic costs on vessels.”

Read the full article at E&E News