Saving Seafood

The Delicious Draw of Hudson Canyon

June 24, 2024 — Opportunistic sightings of endangered North Atlantic right whales in unexpected places or times of year are always interesting. It raises the questions of who, what, when, where and why? We—the Northeast Large Whale Aerial Survey team—received a report of at least five right whales near Hudson Canyon on Memorial Day weekend. We knew we wanted to fly a survey in that area to get some answers.

Hudson Canyon, the largest known ocean canyon off the U.S. East Coast, is nearly 100 miles east of New Jersey. It’s currently under consideration for a national marine sanctuary designation because of its rich biodiversity. However, right whale usage of this canyon and the rest of the mid-Atlantic is poorly understood, making our survey of this area even more important.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

New Evidence of Seasonal and Temperature-Driven Movement of Alaska Pollock across the U.S.-Russia Maritime Boundary

June 22, 2024 — Scientists placed specially designed moorings, equipped with sonar, on the seafloor to acoustically monitor pollock abundance and movements between U.S. and Russian waters. They found that a substantial amount of pollock travel between the two exclusive economic zones (EEZs) seasonally.

The study was conducted from summer 2019 to summer 2020. During this time, pollock moved southeast over the maritime boundary in winter as the sea ice formed. They were largely absent in late spring when ocean temperatures were near freezing and the sea ice was still present. They subsequently migrated northwest in late spring and early summer as waters warmed. The extent of the movement between EEZs) appears to be partially driven by water temperature.

When the moorings were deployed in summer 2019 the area was unusually warm. Following the winter migration into U.S. waters, conditions were cooler in summer 2020. Over the year of observations, 2.3 times more pollock moved into the U.S. EEZ in fall and winter then exited during the subsequent spring and summer. Scientists believe the cooler conditions in 2020 led to fewer pollock moving into Russian waters than had the previous year.

“There are some important implications for pollock management,” said Robert Levine, physical scientist and lead author on a new paper published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science. “Our research suggests that in years when water temperatures are warmer than average, the proportion of fish moving across the boundary will be greater.”

Scientists suspect that continued warming in the eastern Bering Sea will increase the proportion of the pollock stock found in Russian waters. Currently, pollock support the top U.S. commercial fishery, which harvests more than 1 million metric tons annually.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

Recent Grants Supporting Sea Turtle Conservation

June 21, 2024 — In March 2024, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation announced new grant recipients awarded through their Sea Turtles Program. This is a partnership between NFWF, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and NOAA. It is one of the longest running programs at NFWF, with investments dating back more than three decades. It supports conservation capacity and threat reduction across regional networks. The Foundation has invested more than $3.4 million in awards through the program in just the past 5 years.

This year, the program awarded grants to organizations in the United States and its territories who provide stranding response and/or rehabilitate sick or injured sea turtles. Sea turtles face numerous threats, including:

  • Habitat degradation due to climate change
  • Disease and illness
  • Entanglement and ingestion of marine debris
  • Vessel strikes and fisheries interactions

These funds will be used to help our stranding network partners improve their ability to respond to and rehabilitate stranded and injured sea turtles.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

NOAA predicts above-average Gulf of Mexico dead zone this summer

June 20, 2024 — NOAA scientists are predicting the Gulf of Mexico’s fish-killing dead zone will be larger than average this summer.

The dead zone is a hypoxic area roughly the size of the U.S. state of Connecticut with low oxygen levels that can kill off tens of thousands of fish. Caused by excess nutrient pollution from human activity along the Mississippi-Atchafalaya watershed, the dead zone affects fish every summer.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NOAA releases draft update to ecosystem-based fisheries management roadmap

June 20, 2024 — NOAA Fisheries is now accepting public comments on its updated ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) roadmap.

NOAA first established an EBFM roadmap in 2016 to provide guidance on the agency’s policy shift toward implementing ecosystem-level planning for the country’s fisheries. The management style involves setting quotas while also considering how an individual species fits into the wider ecosystem, rather than the status of an individual stock.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Massachusetts Cold-stunned Sea Turtles: A Sign of Climate Change?

June 19, 2024 — Four species of sea turtles—Kemp’s ridley, loggerhead, green, and leatherback—are seasonal residents of New England. They arrive in May and June, feeding in our coastal waters through the summer and early fall. When temperatures drop in mid-fall, these reptiles need to migrate south into warmer waters for the winter. However, sometimes their migration is affected by geographic barriers: The hook shape of Cape Cod can trap them within Cape Cod Bay for weeks to months. This puts turtles at risk of being exposed to waters that are too cold for them.

Cold-stunned Turtles Need Rescue

Since they are cold-blooded, sea turtles’ body temperatures mirror those of surrounding waters. When turtles have a low body temperature, they stop feeding; their body systems slow down; their immune systems become suppressed. This is all part of a condition called cold stunning. When cold-stunned turtles wash up on local beaches, they need immediate rescue or they will not survive. Luckily,the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network collects sick, injured, and cold-stunned turtles from beaches and brings them to rehabilitation facilities for medical care.

In Massachusetts, Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary rescues cold-stunned sea turtles off Cape Cod beaches. They bring live turtles to two Massachusetts rehabilitation facilities: the New England Aquarium and the National Marine Life Center. There, turtles are slowly warmed up, given medical care, reintroduced to swimming and feeding, and stabilized. It can take weeks to months for these debilitated turtles to be healthy enough to be released again into the ocean.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

ALASKA: Invasive European green crabs are expanding their territory in Southeast Alaska

June 19, 2024 — Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Friday that shells of the invasive European green crab were spotted along the shores of Bostwick Inlet on Gravina Island near Ketchikan.

European green crabs have the potential to wreak havoc on commercial and subsistence fisheries in Alaska — the crabs are highly competitive and very hungry. They eat clams, oysters, scallops, other crabs and are known to rip up seagrass in their search for food. Fish and Game said that as a result, they can displace local crab populations like the Dungeness crabs in Bostwick Inlet. They can also decimate eelgrass and saltmarsh habitats, disrupt ecosystem balance, and cheapen overall intertidal biodiversity.

According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, they have even been reported in British Columbia eating juvenile salmon. The International Union for Conservation and Nature ranks them as one of the top 100 worst invasive species in the world.

Read the full article at KTOO

NOAA reports to Congress on monitoring of seafood imports

June 17, 2024 — Federal fisheries officials combatting illegal, unreported and unregulated fisheries are working to expand partnerships to perform intelligence-led investigations to target future suspected violations, while facilitating the flow of legal seafood into U.S. commerce.

All this and more is included in this latest Report on the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) delivered to Congress, NOAA officials said on May 31. The report offers an overview summary of seafood imports subject to SIMP and enforcement action associated with SIMP imports.

A second report discusses efforts of the Maritime Security and Fisheries Enforcement (SAFE) Act’s Interagency Working Group to investigate and prosecute groups and individuals engaging in IUU fishing.

Read the full article at The Cordova Times

NOAA finalizing impact analysis of Alaska’s troll fishery on Southern Resident killer whales

June 17, 2024 — NOAA Fisheries is finalizing documents that will serve as a response to a lawsuit that resulted in the near-cancellation of Southeast Alaska’s commercial Chinook salmon fishery in Southeast Alaska in 2023.

The announcement is the latest development in an ongoing lawsuit between environmental group Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) and the U.S. government. WFC sued NOAA Fisheries in 2020, claiming that the commercial Chinook salmon harvest and government-funded hatchery programs were taking prey needed by Southern Resident killer whales, starving them in the process. In 2021, a district court ruled in favor of WFC, finding flaws in the official documentation and that analysis was needed to allow commercial fishing operations.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Federal Officials Release Long-Term Plan For Northeast Canyons And Seamounts National Monument

June 14, 2024 — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have released the final management plan for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, outlining a fifteen-year vision for the 3.1-million-acre sanctuary 130 miles off Cape Cod.

Hosting dozens of deep-sea corals and a plethora of endangered species, such as right and sei whales, the sanctuary was originally designated as the first of its kind in the Atlantic by former President Barack Obama in 2016, opening a lengthy and at-times contentious debate on the appropriate regulatory governance of the Monument.

During Obama’s, Trump’s, and Biden’s presidencies, each Administration was sued by commercial fishing or conservation interests over each administration’s support or opposition to large-scale fishing in the area.

According to the new mandate, the sanctuary will now be managed toward conserving its marine ecosystems while prohibiting commercial fishing and oil drilling, establishing proper staffing in collaboration with conservation partners, and conducting research and exploration of the Monument’s creatures and ecosystems, of which an estimated 50% of species remain undiscovered.

Read the full article at CapeCod.com