Saving Seafood

The Importance of Conducting Groundfish Surveys

March 4, 2024 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

About the Survey

Every year, NOAA Fisheries, in collaboration with the Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program, conducts surveys of groundfish (bottom-dwelling fish and invertebrate species) in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. These research expeditions take place twice a year, during the summer and fall, covering waters from Dry Tortugas, Florida to Brownsville, Texas. Some of the most common species seen on this survey include red snapper, northern brown shrimp, Atlantic croaker, pinfish, and many others!

We have been conducting the summer survey since 1982 and the fall survey since 1986. We sample nearshore and continental shelf areas ranging from 5-60 fathoms (9-110 meters) in depth. Species abundance and distribution data from groundfish surveys are used in stock assessments of approximately 20 species, including three shrimp species (brown shrimp, white shrimp, pink shrimp), red snapper, and gray triggerfish, among others. Biological and oceanographic data are also used to monitor the health of the ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico (e.g., coastal hypoxia).

Some of the data collected on this survey are:

  • Biological: Catch composition, abundance, weight, sex and maturity
  • Environmental: Air temperature, barometric pressure, surface water temperature, wind speed, and wind direction
  • Water column profile: Temperature, conductivity (salinity), depth, transmissivity, dissolved oxygen concentrations, fluorometry

So why should we all care about this survey and the valuable information that it provides? Species abundance and distribution data from the groundfish (and other) surveys provide valuable inputs into the stock assessments of many managed species. These assessments are then used to inform management and policy decisions. Environmental data collected from the water column helps researchers assess the long-term health of the Gulf ecosystem, including the impacts of natural and anthropogenic disturbances.

NOAA proposes national marine sanctuary in Papahānaumokuākea

March 2, 2024 — Today, following input from state and federal agencies, local communities and the public, NOAA released for public comment its draft proposal to designate marine portions of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument as a national marine sanctuary. The proposed Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary would supplement and complement existing authorities, including the area’s designation as a marine national monument.

Sanctuary designation would provide clarity and comprehensive protections for Papahānaumokuākea’s ecosystems, wildlife and cultural and maritime heritage resources. NOAA and the State of Hawaii would co-manage the proposed sanctuary, complementing the existing management structure for the monument. The monument is currently jointly administered by four Co-Trustees — the Department of Commerce, the Department of the Interior, the State of Hawaii and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

“This proposed designation furthers the Biden-Harris Administration’s steadfast commitment to conserving and protecting vital marine ecosystems,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “NOAA looks forward to continuing our work with partners and co-managers to strengthen the conservation of Papahānaumokuākea’s natural, cultural and historic treasures.”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

NOAA Fisheries Gathers Experts to Combat Forced Labor in the Seafood Sector

March 2, 2024 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

On February 28, NOAA Fisheries brought together more than 100 officials representing government agencies, labor and environmental advocacy organizations, and the seafood industry. They reflected on progress and identified next steps in their efforts to address labor issues within the seafood supply chain. The Seafood Labor Summit was the final step in a 15-month initiative known as the Collaborative Accelerator for Lawful Maritime Conditions in Seafood, or CALM-CS.

NOAA developed the initiative to promote legal and safe working conditions throughout the fishing and seafood industry by combating forced labor and advocating for lawful and secure working conditions within the seafood sector. Its goals included identifying best practices to ensure that seafood entering the United States is not harvested using illegal or unsafe labor practices.

NOAA leadership emphasized the importance of addressing forced labor throughout the summit. “The Biden Administration is committed to making good on the shared vision of fair, decent and legal working conditions for all, across the seafood supply chain,” said NOAA Administrator Dr. Rick Spinrad. “From developing a collective vision for how due diligence elements can be applied across the seafood industry, to exploring practical and effective tools to implement ethical recruitment practices, the CALM-CS initiative has delivered tangible progress.”

Celebrating 25 Years of the Northeast Aquaculture Conference and Expo

March 2, 2024 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries: 

The joint 25th Northeast Aquaculture Conference and Expo and 43rd Milford Aquaculture Seminar was held in Providence, Rhode Island, January 10-12, 2024. This year’s conference had its largest ever showing with 634 attendees and 236 presenters during 42 sessions over 3 days. In addition, 59 students received support to attend and present their work.

NOAA Engaging the Aquaculture Community

Keynote speaker Danielle Blacklock, the Director of the NOAA Office of Aquaculture, shared her personal experiences with seafood and stories of aquaculture businesses. She also talked about the importance of domestic aquaculture to the American economy and national food security. This was followed by industry updates from states from Maine to Virginia, as well as the Canadian Maritime provinces.

The Office of Aquaculture also held an interactive public listening session. Aquaculture growers, seafood industry workers, researchers, coastal community members, and the public shared their views on the future of aquaculture at NOAA Fisheries. This included which aspects of NOAA’s science and services are of most value to the public.

“Engaging with the public, fostering open and collaborative conversation, is critical as we chart the course for the future of aquaculture at NOAA Fisheries,” said Danielle Blacklock, director Office of Aquaculture. “The energy and ideas brought to this conference will help inspire and shape our vision moving forward.”

Information about upcoming listening sessions can be found on the Office of Aquaculture website.

Aquaculturists Unite

While the aquaculture community is growing, many have attended this meeting for years. “Information about what we do can be hard to come by, and this is the place to find it. Everyone is here—shellfish growers, NOAA Fisheries, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and many more,” shared Thomas Henninger, owner of Madeleine Point Oyster Farms in Yarmouth, Maine, and former commercial fisherman. “It’s a chance to see people you don’t see very often—like my version of a school reunion, and it’s a blast. Everyone who I asked questions to when I was first starting to grow shellfish is here. How can you miss that?”

The conference is jointly organized by NOAA Fisheries Milford Laboratory, which conducts science to inform management for the sustainable expansion of aquaculture, and the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, an organization dedicated to developing socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable aquaculture opportunities in Maine. It was sponsored by 17 additional organizations, including:

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The conference brings together:

  • Aquaculture industry members
  • Scientists
  • Service providers
  • Resource managers
  • Vendors
  • Students

NOAA selects companies to compete for fisheries tech support funding

February 29, 2024 — NOAA has selected 21 companies eligible for fisheries-related funding under a massive USD 8 billion (EUR 7.4 billion) program that will provide the agency a variety of professional, scientific, and technical support services.

The Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services Program (ProTech) is the primary way NOAA contracts logistical support services. With the current set of ProTech contracts set to expire, NOAA has been working to replace them with ProTech 2.0 contracts across four domains: fisheries, satellite, weather, and oceans. Companies awarded ProTech 2.0 contracts will be eligible to receive orders from NOAA over the next five years, although the government has the option to extend those contracts another five years.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Improving Fisheries and Ecosystem Data Collection in the Caribbean through Partnership, Collaboration, and 117 Ideas

February 29, 2024 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Caribbean Fishery Management Council has more commercial and recreational species under its management than any other council in the nation. However, the fishery and ecosystem data collection to support the assessment, monitoring, and management of these stocks comes from disparate sources that are often siloed from one another. This creates substantial challenges that require collaboration, coordination, and integrated funding considerations when it comes to ensuring sustainability.

To help overcome these challenges, NOAA Fisheries’ Southeast Fisheries Science Center hosted a strategic planning workshop. Representatives from 13 regional partners focused on strategy and innovation to improve fisheries management in the region.

“The strategic planning project came about because partners across the region recognized the need to better coordinate and cooperate to address data collection challenges,” said Kevin McCarthy, chief of the Caribbean Fisheries Branch in the Center’s Sustainable Fisheries Division. “These collaborative efforts to find and organize new data sources will set us up for success when studying and managing Caribbean fishery species.”

Murkowski calls proposed endangered listing for Alaska king salmon ‘wrongheaded’

February 28, 2024 — U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski believes an effort by a Washington-state conservation group to put Alaska king salmon on the federal endangered-species list is misguided.

The Wild Fish Conservancy filed a petition with NOAA Fisheries in January, but Murkowski says the organization has missed the mark.

“They are attempting to utilize a very legitimate law, the Endangered Species Act, for what I would consider to be a very wrongheaded purpose,” Murkowski said by phone. “And that is to basically stop our wild fisheries.”

Murkowski says Alaska’s fisheries are under threat from several sources, including environmental pressure from climate change and warming oceans, and economic pressure from Russia’s oversupply of traditional seafood markets. And there’s also ongoing litigation by the Wild Fish Conservancy itself, which sued NOAA Fisheries in 2020 to shut down the commercial troll fishery for kings in Southeast Alaska.

That tactic has yet to succeed, so Murkowski is not surprised that the Wild Fish Conservancy is trying another.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Do Alaska Kelp Farms Provide Habitat for Native Species?

February 28, 2024 — Marine aquaculture, or mariculture, provides economic opportunities for coastal communities in Alaska through the farming of shellfish and seaweed. NOAA Fisheries continues to support Alaska’s growing aquaculture industry through policy and permitting, providing access to capital, and research.

This new video highlights one of our newest aquaculture research collaborations. This research is being conducted by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s Kodiak Laboratory and Alaska Ocean Farms, an aquaculture company based in Kodiak. The project is spearheaded by NOAA’s Dr. Alix Laferriere and Alaska Ocean Farms manager Alf Pryor. It’s investigating whether seaweed farms provide habitat for native Alaskan marine species.

In early 2023, Dr. Laferriere launched a research project that would determine how a seaweed farm might provide habitat and shelter for local fish species. It compared the fish species present within Pryor’s farm to the fish species diversity in natural kelp beds. To do this, she is collecting fish and looking for environmental DNA found in the water. She has deployed a network of underwater cameras in the farmed kelp bed and in a nearby natural kelp bed. She’s tracking the number and species of fish that pass through both environments.

The video dives into the methods that Dr. Laferriere is using to track species diversity. It discusses the importance of the collaboration between the aquaculture industry and researchers to ask industry-driven questions about aquaculture. This is an essential tool for future aquaculture industry development in Alaska.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

Deadline sought on overdue protections for North Atlantic right whales

February 27, 2024 — The following was released by WDC:

Conservation groups have asked a federal court on Feb. 13 to lift a stay and allow paused litigation to proceed, in pursuit of a deadline for final action on a proposed rule expanding protections for North Atlantic right whales from deadly vessel strikes. Filed in 2021, the case challenges the federal government’s unreasonable delay in acting to protect these critically endangered whales.

“The federal government has known for years that right whales urgently require expanded vessel strike protections, yet has repeatedly kicked the can down the road,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. “When the Biden administration finally issued a proposal to do just that, we hoped it would act as quickly as it promised to finalize the expansion. Unfortunately, it has continued its practice of overpromising and underdelivering. We have no choice but to go back to court to get a deadline to force the government to do its job.”

Only around 360 North Atlantic right whales survive today. The population is declining faster than birth rates can keep up due to vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglements throughout their habitat in the  United States and Canada. Since the groups filed suit in January 2021, vessel strikes in the U.S. have killed a first-time mother and her calf, followed by an adult male. A more recent strike seriously injured a newborn calf, which was spotted in early January with devastating head and face wounds from a boat propeller and is unlikely to survive.

“Until proven technological solutions exist, the best solution is to immediately implement mandatory slow zones to protect both right whales and boaters,” said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conservation. “Both physics and common sense tell us there’s a reason we don’t encourage drivers to speed through school zones.”

In November, pregnant right whales begin their annual migration from northern feeding grounds to their only known calving grounds in the warm, shallow waters off the southeastern U.S., between North Carolina and Florida. Mother-calf pairs spend a great deal of time at or near the water’s surface, making them particularly vulnerable to vessel strikes. For the past two years, the Biden administration has denied petitions by conservation groups calling for an emergency rule expanding protections for mothers and calves in the calving grounds.

“The saddest aspect of the last several years is the avoidable deaths of calves that didn’t even make it to their first birthday,” said Erica Fuller, senior counsel at Conservation Law Foundation. “Good intentions will not save right whales; a strong vessel speed rule will save right whales. The government needs to act with the urgency that the situation demands.”

A 2008 vessel speed rule is the only protection right whales currently have from vessel strikes in U.S. waters. The rule applies only to vessels 65 feet and longer, requiring a speed limit of 10 nautical miles per hour in times and places right whales were considered most at risk in 2008. Since then, due to changing climate, right whales have shifted their habitat and new data shows that vessels between 35 and 65 feet long have struck and killed right whales. NOAA Fisheries has repeatedly stated that a vessel speed rule expansion is necessary to safeguard right whales from extinction.

“Watching North Atlantic right whales get hurt while federal agencies drag their feet on a speed limit rule is heart-wrenching and beyond frustrating,” said Catherine Kilduff, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’ve already seen the devastating consequences of an ‘anything goes’ approach, when a boat struck and gravely injured a calf off South Carolina last month. No one wants to lose more right whales, and slowing down vessels is the least we can do to try and prevent these beautiful creatures from going extinct.”

In 2012 and 2020, the conservation groups petitioned the federal government to expand the 2008 rule. When the government failed to respond to those petitions, the groups filed suit in 2021. NOAA Fisheries published a proposal to expand the 2008 regulation in August 2022, but the rule has yet to be finalized.

In August 2022, conservation groups reached an agreement with the federal government to put the case on hold after NOAA Fisheries released its proposed rule. This new action by conservation groups was prompted by the ongoing delay in finalizing the rulemaking, coupled with the recent vessel strike on the calf in the southeastern calving grounds, which NOAA Fisheries found was likely caused by a vessel between 35 and 57 feet long.

If finalized, the proposed speed rule would apply to vessels 35 feet and longer and would update seasonal speed zones to match right whale distribution. It would also require vessels to comply with temporary dynamic speed zones triggered by visual or acoustic right whale detections.

Contact:

Regina Asmutis-Silvia, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, (508) 451-3853, regina@whales.org

Jay Petrequin, Defenders of Wildlife, (202) 772-0243, jpetrequin@defenders.org

Catherine Kilduff, Center for Biological Diversity, (202) 780-8862, ckilduff@biologicaldiversity.org

Jake O’Neil, Conservation Law Foundation, (617) 850-1709, joneill@clf.org

ALASKA: NOAA Fisheries Releases New State of Alaska Aquaculture Report

February 26, 2024 — The following released by was NOAA Fisheries: 

NOAA Fisheries continues to direct support towards Alaska’s growing aquaculture (also known as “mariculture”) industry. Marine aquaculture in Alaska contributes to economic opportunities for coastal communities through the farming of shellfish and seaweed. Research is increasingly showing the ecological benefits of aquatic farming.

To date, commercial aquaculture activities in Alaska have been relatively small-scale, and have primarily involved Pacific oysters, seaweed, and blue mussels. Finfish farming is illegal in Alaska state waters.

To document and celebrate the continued growth of the aquaculture industry, NOAA Fisheries has released its first State of Alaska Aquaculture Report. This project was conducted in partnership with economic development organizations such as the Alaska Mariculture Alliance and Southeast Conference, and government organizations:

  • Alaska Sea Grant
  • Alaska Department of Fish and Game
  • Alaska Department of Natural Resources

The report summarizes the current state of the aquaculture industry in Alaska including:

  • How it has changed over preceding years
  • Where it is developing
  • Outlining some of the opportunities for aquaculture farmers, researchers, and other stakeholders interested in getting involved in the industry

The report includes an overview of oyster and seaweed production in the state and a regional breakdown of the industry across Alaska. It also includes perspectives on the current state of the Alaska aquaculture industry written by hatchery operators, farmers, and state officials. It contains information about aquaculture in Alaska, funding resources for those interested in getting involved, and information about NOAA’s plans to identify Aquaculture Opportunity Areas  in Alaska.

The State of Alaska Aquaculture report is a first-of-its-kind overview of the aquaculture industry in Alaska, revealing the state’s opportunities and challenges to date. It also highlights the potential for future industry growth in Alaska, and how much work is underway to improve sustainable aquaculture production around the state. Learn more about NOAA’s involvement with aquaculture in Alaska