Saving Seafood

Feds reviewing status of New England’s endangered salmon

July 2, 2017 — The federal government is starting a five-year review of the Gulf of Maine’s population of Atlantic salmon, which are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Atlantic salmon were once plentiful off New England, but dams, loss of habitat, pollution and overfishing dramatically reduced the population. The National Marine Fisheries Service says it is reviewing the health of the stock to get more updated information on its current status.

The fisheries service says the review will be based on scientific and commercial data. One group, the New Brunswick, Canada-based Atlantic Salmon Federation, says recent data are troubling. The group says total estimated returns of the fish to North America in 2016 showed a 27 percent decrease from the previous year.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Daily Progress

US House panel votes to keep funding marine research program

July 3, 2017 — In a vote Thursday by a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, lawmakers pushed back on President Donald Trump’s proposal to de-fund the national Sea Grant program.

The program, which is overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, provides approximately $1.2 million each year to roughly a dozen full-time researchers affiliated with the University of Maine.

Paul Anderson, who heads the Sea Grant program in Maine, said Thursday that a subcommittee of Appropriations that oversees funding for commerce, justice and science had voted earlier in the day to support funding the national Sea Grant program at $63 million.

If the subcommittee’s funding proposal makes it through to the final version of the 2017-2018 annual federal budget — which Congress is expected to approve by the end of September — it would keep alive a program that proponents say is vital to sustaining Maine’s $1.5 billion-plus commercial fishing industry.

“It’s way better than zero [dollars],” Anderson said of the subcommittee vote. “It’s very promising. We feel our advocacy [in support of the Sea Grant program] around the country has been effective.”

Regardless of the subcommittee’s support for the program, the chances of Trump’s proposed budget being approved without significant changes by Congress is unlikely, as several national media outlets have reported.

Congress has ultimate say over federal spending, not the president, and typically drafts its own budget proposals that then are revised through congressional committee negotiations before being approved and enacted.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Are the red snapper regulations in federal waters too restrictive?

June 30, 2017 — Regulations surrounding red snapper are the subject of a lot of chatter on fishing docks throughout the panhandle.

The three day red snapper season in federal waters was recently expanded to cover most of the summer, but there was a trade-off in a reduced number of red snapper days in state waters.

So, are the current fishing regulations helpful? Or harmful? It depends on who you ask.

Behind a local marina in Panama City sits a third generation charter captain who makes a living off of fishing.

“Our limits have gotten smaller, the amount of days that we get are definitely smaller. I make my full living charter fishing here in Panama City, been doing it my whole life, it supports me and my family, I’ve actually got twins on the way, they’re going to be here later in the year,” Hook ’em Charters Captain BJ Burkett said.

Captain BJ tell us the current red snapper fishing regulations in federal waters, which start nine nautical miles out, hinder his ability to profit as much as he used too.

“We started out, I’d say about 10 years ago we used to have 190 day red snapper season and we’re down to a, this year we got 49 days for the federal charter for hire industry. We have had as few as 9 days in a year a couple years back, but the seasons have definitely changed. It’s kinda sad in our eyes,” Burkett said.

Representatives from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission tell us those regulations are enforced for a reason.

“Conservation laws are in place, you know, to ensure the natural resource is abundant and there for future generations to use,” Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission representative Rebekah Nelson.

We also reached out to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, who responded with a statement saying in part, NOAA Fisheries regulate fishing to help foster healthy fish populations. It continues to say fish populations can be depleted if they’re caught faster than they can reproduce.

Read the full story at WJHG

WESPAC’s Work To ‘Define Cultural Fishing’ Could Impact American Samoa

June 29, 2017 — An attorney with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has hinted to a federally established group that its work to define cultural fishing will have an impact on future issues pertaining to fisheries in American Samoa.

One of the main issues on the agenda at last week’s three-day meeting of the Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Council, held in Honolulu, dealt with defining cultural fishing in American Samoa, following a Honolulu federal judge’s decision in March, that the US National Marine Fisheries Services failed to consider the Deeds of Cession, when implementing the 2016 amendment to the Large Vessel Prohibited Area in territorial waters.

US District Court Judge Leslie Kobayashi said the NMFS’ 2016 LVPA Rule disregards its obligations under the Deeds of Cession to “protect and preserve cultural fishing rights in American Samoa.” (The Deeds for Tutuila and Aunu’u were signed in 1900, and 1904 for Manu’a — with the US.)

There were several discussions during the Council’s three-day meeting on ways to define cultural fishing and what is considered cultural fishing, as well as protecting and preserving cultural fishing in the territory.

What was clear from the speakers and answers from NOAA officials as well as others, is that ASG, the local fishing community, and others in the territory need to be consulted for a final definition.

Among the many questions raised, were those from American Samoa Council member, Christinna Lutu-Sanchez, who wanted to know if once the cultural fishing definition is finalized, would that cultural fishing definition apply to anyone fishing within the LVPA, and not necessarily just the US longline fleet based in American Samoa.

Read the full story at Pacific Islands Report

‘Fishal recognition’ for better fisheries management

June 29, 2017 — To monitor fish stocks in about 3 million square miles of ocean including the North Pacific Ocean and East Bering Sea, the Alaska Fisheries Science Center turned to facial recognition technology — or more accurately, “fishal recognition.”

Part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service, the center is working to get more accurate counts of marine life by applying the same facial recognition techniques that identify people to recognize fish according to their facial features underwater.

The agency began experimenting with this technology several years ago and is now on its second generation of camera-based trawl, or CAM-Trawl. It has worked with ADL Embedded Solutions on hardware improvements, such as small form factor embedded Vision Boxes — the image acquisition computers — a Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor to enable real-time processing of image data and waterproof enclosures and connectors.

Before using CAM-Trawl, the traditional method of measuring fish stocks had been to use trawlers to scoop up all the fish in a particular region of the ocean, bring them on deck, count them and then multiply that number out, according to said JC Ramirez, director of engineering at ADL.  “If you did 10 square miles, multiply that by 10 for 100,” for example, he said.

But that method had several shortcomings, including extrapolation errors, high costs and ecological impacts on fish populations.

“They were looking for not only a more benign way to do that, but also perhaps a way that would allow them to cover more regions and get a little bit more specificity on the variations in the data from area to area,” Ramirez said.

Now researchers can pull a rig outfitted with the cameras that are linked back to ADL’s control computer, which typically resides in the wheelhouse. It monitors external sensors such as location, time, pressure sensors and radio frequency identification tag readings. It then, based on sensor input, communicates with one or more Vision Boxes to do the image capture, managing the remote on/off power, clock syncing, and starting and stopping of image collection.

Read the full story at GCN

North Carolina environmental groups readying for a fight against seismic testing in the Atlantic

June 29, 2017 — As the deadline for public comment regarding proposed seismic testing off the Atlantic Coast approaches, several local organizations are gearing up in opposition.

Dana Sargent, head of the Cape Fear Surfrider Foundation’s Offshore Drilling campaign, has helped rally the groups against the proposal.

Members of the Cape Fear Surfrider Foundation, The North Carolina Coastal Federation, Oceana, the Water Keepers Alliance, and others have pulled together to form Don’t Drill NC, an non-profit group dedicated to fighting this proposal.

The proposal, put forward by the Marine Fisheries Division of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), seeks to allow five separate entities to conduct seismic air-blasting tests of the seafloor from the coast of Delaware, to Cape Canaveral, Fla., in an area extending 350 nautical miles offshore.

Although exploratory in nature, these tests are being used to locate areas of valuable oil and natural gas, which, if found, leaves the potential for drilling off the coast of North Carolina.

President Trump issued an executive order, called the “America First Offshore Energy Strategy,” in April of this year, aimed at repealing Obama-era regulations designed to protect the Atlantic coast from offshore drilling.

Read the full story at Port City Daily

NOAA considers moving Miami headquarters amid budget cuts

June 29, 2017 — The federal agency that oversees hurricane research and manages fisheries along the nation’s southeast coast faces an overhaul and potential downsizing that could cripple partnerships that have made Miami a leader in the world of marine and atmospheric science.

While unrelated, the timing of the two moves — possibly relocating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries headquarters from Virginia Key to St. Petersburg and pending budget cuts to the climate science program there — amount to a double whammy for the research hub and a brain drain for the region.

“It’s a big hit,” said Ben Kirtman, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and director of NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies or CIMAS. Kirtman fears a “tyranny of distance” would all but end collaborations that began when the Fisheries headquarters opened across the street from the university in 1965.

“In science, it’s very difficult to do interdisciplinary work. It’s a real challenge because you speak difference languages. And that’s where a lot of the big breakthroughs come from,” he said. “When you’re separated by floors in the same building, it’s hard to collaborate, let alone if you’re across the state.”

Built at a time when ocean science was rapidly expanding, the Fisheries headquarters on the scrubby island represented years of collaboration between the agency and Rosenstiel. After the university started a marine lab in 1943, federal fisheries officials opened offices first on the Coral Gables campus, then followed the school labs to Virginia Key. In 1972, a partnership was struck for the cooperative institute, which along with 13 other such agreements around the country provide the basic research for NOAA missions. In 2015, NOAA awarded $125 to CIMAS, which includes Florida International University and other university programs in South Florida, to continue its efforts that include weather research for the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research program.

Read the full story at the Miami Herald

Is the Cook Inlet beluga population stable or in danger? Depends on whom you ask.

June 29, 2017 — Alaska’s most urban whales have yet to show any meaningful increase in numbers, evidence that recovery remains elusive for the endangered population despite numerous protective measures imposed in recent years. On the plus side, the Cook Inlet beluga population has not declined notably in the past two years, scientists say.

The latest survey of the small and endangered white whales estimates the population at 328 animals, within a range of 279 and 386, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports.

That represents barely any change from the previous estimate of 340 animals, from 2014, but far below the 1,300 belugas that scientists say were swimming three decades ago in the silty, salty water between Anchorage and the Gulf of Alaska.

“Cook Inlet belugas are still in danger of extinction because the population is so small,” said Paul Wade, head of Cook Inlet beluga research at NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. “The population trend over the last 10 years has been relatively stable compared to the steep decline seen in the 1990s, but there is some evidence the population has continued to decline slightly. We are concerned that the population is not yet increasing towards its former abundance level,” Wade said in a prepared statement.

The newest population estimate comes from the latest in a series of regular aerial counts conducted by NMFS. The estimate is based on thousands of photographs taken from the air a year ago; analysis of those images is a laborious process, so the count that emerged required a full year of work and review, officials said.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

Fishing Report: NOAA seeks input on sanctuaries and monuments

June 29, 2017 — In a media advisory last week, NOAA said it’s soliciting public comment on National Marine Sanctuaries and Monuments designated or expanded since 2007 to determine if they should exist.

President Donald Trump’s Offshore Energy Strategy, outlined in his May executive order, has ordered the Secretary of Commerce through NOAA to review whether national monuments and sanctuaries present “lost opportunity” with regard to potential energy and mineral exploration and production.

Many in the fishing community are split about National Monuments. Some believe, as the president does, that profits and jobs should come first. However, a large part of the fishing and conservation communities believe it should be the environment and fish that should be first. Many believe that National Marine Sanctuaries and Marine Monuments serve as a sanctuary and spawning grounds for a variety of sea life and fish and should be left untouched.

For information on National Marine Monuments and Sanctuaries visit NOAA Fisheries website at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

NOAA Fisheries Proposes State Water Exemptions for Scallop Fisheries in Maine and Massachusetts

June 29, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries is seeking comment on a proposed rule that would revise the State Waters Exemption Program under the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan.

Under this proposed rule, vessels holding both a Massachusetts state scallop permit and either a Limited Access General Category (LAGC) Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) or LAGC Northern Gulf of Maine (NGOM) Federal scallop permit could continue to fish in state waters once the Federal Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for the NGOM Management Area has been fully harvested.

This action would also modify the State Waters Exemption for Maine, which already has this exemption for vessels holding state scallop permits and LAGC NGOM permits, to include vessels that have both a state scallop permit and an LAGC IFQ permit.

Read the proposed rule as published in the Federal Register.

We will be accepting public comment on this proposed rule through July 14.

Please submit comments through our e-rulemaking portal or by sending your comments to: John Bullard, Regional Administrator, Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930. Please make the outside of the envelope “Comments on Maine and Massachusetts State Waters Exemption Program.”

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel at 978-281-9175 or jennifer.goebel@noaa.gov