Saving Seafood

Unusual Mortality Event Declared for Seals in Maine

July 20, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA has declared an Unusual Mortality Event for elevated Maine harbor and gray seal strandings from June 1, 2022 to present.

Beginning in June 2022, Marine Mammals of Maine (MMoME)—a NOAA Fisheries authorized marine mammal stranding network partner—has responded to an elevated number of stranded seals. Most of the seals were found dead. On July 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirmed that samples from four stranded seals in Maine have tested positive for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1.  HPAI is a “zoonotic disease” that has the potential to spread between animals and people (and their pets).

Live seals on the beach have symptoms including lethargy, coughing, discharge from the eyes and nose, seizures, and death. Preliminary testing of samples has found some harbor and gray seals positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1, which is a zoonotic disease that has the potential to spread between animals and people, and their pets. There is an ongoing HPAI H5N1 event North America that was first detected in early winter 2021. The first detections in Maine waterfowl were in February 2022. HPAI H5N1 has now been confirmed in 41 U.S. states and 11 Canada provinces, in commercial poultry, backyard flocks, nearly 90 species of wild birds, eight species of scavenging mammals, and now seals.

According to the CDC, the health risk posed to the general public is low however, precautions are recommended for people and their pets. We continue to ask the public not to touch ill, stranded or floating dead seals, to keep pets far away from seals, and to call their local stranding network organization to report live or dead stranded seals. The most important action someone can take is to immediately report strandings to the Greater Atlantic Marine Mammal Stranding Networks rather than take matters into their own hands.

To date, the seal strandings have been focused along the southern and central coast of Maine from Biddeford to Boothbay (including Cumberland, Lincoln, Knox, Sagadahoc and York Counties). There have been a total of 150 seals reported in the event as of July 18, 2022. Harbor and gray seals in the U.S. are not listed as “endangered” or “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act or as “depleted” under the MMPA.

NOAA Fisheries is working with our local, state, tribal, federal and international partners as appropriate in the investigation of HPAI in seals. We will update our website regularly with information as it becomes available. You can follow this event through updates on this page.

Biden Administration announces funding targeting salmon recovery and restoration in the West

July 15, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today, NOAA Fisheries announced funding to boost the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund (PCSRF) program and target salmon recovery efforts across the West Coast and Alaska. NOAA recommends $95 million in funding, including $34 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds, for 19 new and continuing salmon recovery activities.

Programs and projects recommended for funding will benefit three NOAA Fisheries Species in the Spotlight: Central California Coast coho salmon, Sacramento River winter-run chinook salmon and Southern resident killer whales. In addition, programs and projects recommended for funding will aid in the recovery of 28 Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed salmon and steelhead species as well as non-listed ESA salmon and steelhead that are necessary for native subsistence or tribal treaty fishing rights. 

“This funding, including critical investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will enable NOAA Fisheries to deliver measurable, lasting benefits to both the environment and local economies on a scale like never before,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “Working with states and tribes to restore these iconic species illustrates the Administration’s commitment to supporting collaborative conservation and building a Climate-Ready Nation.”

PCSRF funds will target salmon habitat protection and restoration, enhancing tribal treaty and trust resources, critical salmon research and monitoring and will complement state and tribal programs for salmon recovery. NOAA is recommending $61 million in annual appropriation funding and $34 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding to supplement state and tribal salmon recovery programs and projects. Of the 19 applicants recommended to receive funding, 14 are individual tribal and tribal commission/consortia proposals and of those, two have not previously received PCSRF funds.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity for NOAA to fund tribal applicants with $17 million recommended in awards to Columbia River and Pacific Coast tribes,” said Janet Coit, assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries and acting assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere at NOAA. “The enhanced funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help restore vital habitat for salmon and steelhead, adding significantly to the 1.2 million acres protected and conserved in the Pacific Northwest since 2000.”

Highlighted projects and programs recommended for funding include but are not limited to: 

  • Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association: Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim Tribal Research and Restoration Program
  • Coeur d’Alene Tribe: Phase 2 Feasibility Studies for Salmon Reintroduction: Evaluation of Downstream Movement and Survival of Juvenile Chinook Salmon in the Upper Columbia Basin
  • Suquamish Tribe: Rose Point Embayment Restoration
  • Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR): Mill Creek Flow Restoration
  • Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians (CTCLUSI): Waite Ranch Tidal Wetland Restoration 
  • Karuk Tribe: Upper Red Cap Creek Floodplain Restoration Project
  • Tolowa Dee Ni’ Nation” Rowdy and Dominie Creek Fish Passage Improvement Project

NOAA funding enables some projects to bring years of planning to execution by transitioning from design to construction, while other projects use NOAA funds to design projects that will result in multiple community and economic benefits.

NOAA’s PCSRF program has provided assistance to partners across the West Coast and Alaska for over 20 years. The program has a long history of successful habitat restoration projects that support threatened or endangered salmon and steelhead populations and help maintain populations necessary for exercising tribal treaty fishing rights and native subsistence fishing. 

While application approvals and fund obligations are not yet final, each of these applications is being “recommended” for funding. This is not an authorization to start projects or guarantee of funding and final decisions will be made no later than October 1, 2022. Explore how fiscal year 2021 PCSRF efforts are benefiting communities through an interactive story map.

Council Discusses Climate Change, Research Priorities, EBFM, Sturgeon, Right Whales, and Equity & Environmental Justice

July 14, 2022 — The New England Fishery Management Council met June 28-30, 2022 and received numerous updates over the course of its three-day hybrid meeting in Portland, Maine. Here are a few of the highlights.

CLIMATE CHANGE: The Council received a presentation from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center on the Draft Northeast Climate Regional Action Plan, which is out for public comment through July 29, 2022. Version 1 of the plan was in place from 2016 to 2021. The current draft – Version 2 – will be used by NOAA Fisheries to implement the agency’s Climate Science Strategy in 2022-2024. The document contains information on warming ocean temperatures (see graphic at right) and much more. The Council received input from its Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) on the draft action plan and will be submitting its own written comments in advance of the deadline.

The Council also received a progress report on the East Coast Climate Change Scenario Planning initiative. The overarching questions are:

• How might climate change affect stock availability and distribution, as well as other aspects of East Coast marine fisheries, over the next 20 years; and

• What does this mean for effective future governance and management across multiple jurisdictions? What tools are needed to provide flexible and robust management strategies to address uncertainty in an era of climate change?

The Core Team working on this initiative hosted a June 21-23, 2022 Scenario Creation Workshop where participants developed scenarios or stories describing eight alternative futures under climate change. Next, the Core Team will review and edit inputs from the workshop to create a draft set of scenarios for further discussion and feedback during three scenario deepening webinars in mid-August. These webinars will be open to the public. The Council will have an in-depth discussion of the scenarios during its September 27-29, 2022 meeting and provide feedback to the Core Team on next steps.

Read the full release here

On the horizon: National survey in support of a strong domestic seafood economy

July 13, 2022 — American seafood harvesters play a vital role in supplying healthy, high-quality food to people across the United States and around the world. But they also face serious challenges caused by market disruptions, competing ocean uses, environmental change, and fishing regulations.

Selling seafood directly to consumers, or direct seafood marketing, has become an increasingly common way for harvesters to sell their catch. A forthcoming national survey aims to strengthen the domestic seafood economy by understanding direct marketing practices of American seafood harvesters.

Surveys of direct marketing practices have been beneficial to the agricultural sector. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) surveys American farmers engaging in direct marketing of agricultural products through the Local Food Marketing Practices Survey (LFMPS). Data from these surveys helped the USDA develop grant programs and technical assistance to support small- and mid-sized farming operations.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Feds look at expanding habitat for world’s most endangered whales

July 13, 2022 — North Pacific right whales, the most endangered whales in the world, could gain an expanded protected habitat from Alaska to Baja California, if the feds approve after a one-year review now underway.

On Monday, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries announced the review, a response to a petition filed this past March by the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity and conservation group Save the North Pacific Right Whale — dedicated to increasing protections and awareness of the rare whale. They urged the federal government to revise the critical habitat designation for North Pacific right whales under the Endangered Species Act.

In 2008, the Fisheries Service issued a final rule designating about 1,175 square miles in the Gulf of Alaska and 35,460 square miles in the Southeast Bering Sea as critical habitat for North Pacific right whales. But the environmentalists say two key habitats are essential for this right whale population’s survival — a migratory corridor through the Fox Islands in the Aleutian chain, including Unimak Pass, and feeding grounds near Kodiak Island.

In their petition, the groups argued the government should connect the existing critical habitats by extending the Bering Sea unit boundary westward and southward to the Fox Islands, through Unimak Pass to the edge of the continental slope, and eastward to the Kodiak Island. This change would encompass a key migratory point for whales and connect their foraging grounds, the organizations said.

Alice Kaswan, professor and associate dean at University of San Francisco School of Law, said while this announcement does not mean the agency will agree with the petition’s demands, it does indicate “the door’s open” for similar petitions.

“The agency’s willingness to grant the petition shows it’s open to conducting the additional science to determine whether the additional land or ocean really should be set aside as critical habitat,” Kaswan said. “It’s an indication that this administration has a willingness to protect endangered species.”

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service

Mid-depth waters off the United States East Coast are getting saltier

July 7, 2022 — A new study led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution shows a significant increase in frequency of warm saltwater intrusions from the deep ocean to the continental shelf along the Middle Atlantic Bight, which extends from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Using data collected from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service Ecosystem Monitoring program, as well as data collected from the fishing industry, the study’s results show that ocean exchange processes have greatly changed over the past 20 years in this region.

I think the reason the paper is so important is because it quantifies an ocean process changing, potentially as a direct result of ocean warming and more stratification,” said Glen Gawarkiewicz, WHOI senior scientist and paper corresponding author. “These findings could also have major shelf ecosystem implications. Given the increased frequency of mid-depth salty intrusions along the Mid-Atlantic Bight, it will be necessary to properly resolve this process in numerical simulations in order to account for salt budgets for the continental shelf and slope”

“This is a tremendous opportunity for dialogue with the fishing community, helping them recognize these mid depth intrusions once they log a profile. Then, they can use it to decide where to fish and focus the bulk of their work,” Gawarkiewicz said. “Future work is necessary to determine how the increasing frequencies of this important process may be affecting continental shelf heat and salt balances as well as broader impacts to the continental shelf ecosystem. This study is valuable in quantifying processes that may be hastening that ecosystem realignment, especially when addressing things like food insecurity.”

Read the full story at Phys.org

Captains and vessel owners are climbing the learning curve of electronic vessel trip reporting

July 7, 2022 — Among the biggest problems with effective fisheries management has always been lack of relevant data and the time lag between information retrieval and action.

One tool the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hopes to use to close those gaps is electronic vessel trip reporting or eVTR.

Using the carrot and the stick approach, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service has begun requiring many fishermen to submit vessel trip reports electronically. NMFS’s carrot is that the results may eventually benefit all, and in some fisheries recreational fishermen’s data is being added to the mix, but for small-scale fishermen, the stick of punishment for non-compliance can feel too much, especially when the failure is generated by new technologies.

While the eVTR learning curve and buggy apps create problems for some fishermen, the bigger and broader data picture that eVTR offers resource managers means that eVTR is likely here to stay. But it would appear from Facebook comments that NOAA, app developers, and fishermen need to have a conversation.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

MISSISSIPPI: Senator Wicker takes on NOAA in Sun Herald Op-Ed

July 6, 2022 — U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-MS, took aim at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in a July 3 op-ed for the Sun Herald.

In the op-ed, Wicker called out NOAA for proposed changes to the catch limit framework used for the Gulf of Mexico red snapper industry.

“Fishing for red snapper is a popular pastime on the Gulf Coast, one that brings together fishermen, boat makers, bait suppliers and restaurant owners,” writes Wicker. “This prosperous industry centers on three months of open fishing during the summer. To my dismay, regulators in Washington are now proposing a rule that could cut Mississippi’s season down to two weeks without any sound science.”

He writes that this is just another disappointing “raw deal” that NOAA has tried to give the state of Mississippi.

“Mississippi will not be alone in bearing the cost of NOAA’s poor methods. Anglers in Alabama stand to lose weeks if not months of their fishing season,” writes Wicker. “No state is ultimately safe from federal rules that disregard the best data. With the proposed rule now listed in the Federal Register, I would encourage all stakeholders to provide public comment on why NOAA got this wrong.”

NOAA’s public comment period ends on July 28, and the rule would take affect Jan. 1, 2023, if passed.

The proposed changes do not affect commercial ACLs, which would increase in 2023.

Read the full story at WDAM

NOAA Fisheries Invites Public Comment on New Draft Equity and Environmental Justice Strategy

June 30, 2022 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

Council Family – This topic was discussed at the most recent advisory group and Council meetings. As you know, the Western Pacific Region is recognized for community development and education and training programs in the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and yet have been underfunded for many years. NMFS will host four webinars – see details below. At the June 30 session, NMFS Pacific Islands Region staff will focus on Pacific Islands Regional issues and will be on hand to answer questions. We encourage you all to participate.

-Kitty Simonds

The following was originally released by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) May 6, 2022.

NOAA Fisheries shared its first-ever draft Equity and Environmental Justice Strategy and invited public comments through August 19 (*extended to August 31*). In addition to accepting written comments, we will host four webinars on the strategy, where comments will be accepted. Additional in-person meetings and opportunities to comment via phone will be announced on a rolling basis, once those plans are finalized.

“NOAA Fisheries is focused on serving all communities more equitably and effectively, and this strategy will provide the framework to do just that,” said Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries and NOAA’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere, Janet Coit.

“We are committed to advancing equity and environmental justice, including equal treatment, opportunities, and environmental benefits for all people and communities, while building on continuing efforts and partnerships with underserved and underrepresented communities,” she added.

Goals and Objectives

The agency identified three overarching, long-term goals in the strategy. They are:

  • Prioritize identification, equitable treatment, and meaningful involvement of underserved communities
  • Provide equitable delivery of services
  • Prioritize equity and environmental justice in our mandated and mission work

The agency also identified six short-term objectives in the strategy. They are:

  • Provide an empowering environment within the agency to support multiple equity and environmental justice approaches at NOAA Fisheries
  • Incorporate equity and environmental justice in agency policies and plans
  • Achieve equity in research and researching equity
  • Outreach and engage equitably
  • Equitably distribute benefits
  • Ensure inclusive governance

This national strategy is the result of guidance from recent Executive Orders, the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, the Department of Commerce’s Equity Action Plan, NOAA’s Climate Council and agency leadership, enthusiastic staff participation, and a clear and growing need indicated by underserved communities. The strategy also builds on our previous equity and environmental justice efforts to provide guidance for incorporating and prioritizing EEJ in ongoing and future activities in support of our mission.

“While we are making progress in addressing equity and environmental justice, we know that we have much more work to do to embed EEJ into our day-to-day efforts,” said NOAA Fisheries Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs, Sam Rauch, who also convened and led the agency’s EEJ Working Group. “By focusing on these goals and objectives we will provide more equitable stewardship of the nation’s ocean resources and their habitat.”

How You Can Help

NOAA Fisheries’ science, conservation, and management activities serve a diverse array of communities across the United States and territories. However, not all communities have equal opportunities and access to agency-led services. Through this call for public comment, we seek assistance in several areas, including help to identify:

  • Who the agency’s underserved communities are
  • How the agency can reduce barriers to underserved communities
  • How the agency can better incorporate equity and environmental justice into our daily activities
  • How we can improve equity in our programs and policies now, with our current resources, and in the future
  • Help evaluating whether the draft recommendations for action are on target

How to Provide Comment

You can provide comments online. You can also comment at webinars, by phone, and at in-person meetings. The webinars will be held on:

  • June 30, 2022, 1 – 3 p.m. HST, noon – 2 p.m. SST, July 1, 2022, 8 – 10 a.m. ChST 

(Visit this page and click on “Register for June 30 webinar”)**** (link corrected)

  • July 19, 2022, 10 a.m. – noon HST, 9 – 11 a.m. SST, July 20, 2022, 6 – 8 a.m. ChST

(Visit this page and click on “Register for July 19 webinar”) (link corrected)

****At this session, NMFS Pacific Islands Region staff will focus on Pacific Island Regional issues and will be on hand to answer questions.

Achieving Our Goals

To achieve our initial equity and environmental justice goals, each of the agency’s national program offices and geographic regions will incorporate EEJ into a step-down implementation plan. These plans will be specific and responsive to the needs of underserved communities and allows for the input of underserved communities. Each program, science center, and regional office will set equity and environmental justice as a Priority Area or milestone in annual strategic planning starting in 2023. And, the agency’s step-down implementation plans will include metrics describing equity and environmental justice actions. Our progress will be publicly reported annually in an EEJ Scorecard.

“To be clear, this strategy does not endorse business as usual and is not a rebranding of existing activities. Rather, this national strategy describes the path that NOAA Fisheries will take to incorporate EEJ into the vital services we provide to all stakeholders,” said Coit.