January 9, 2024 — NOAA Fisheries has taken emergency action to increase the Gulf of Maine haddock acceptable biological catch (ABC) for the 2023 fishing year.
At the New England Fishery Management Council’s request, NOAA Fisheries increased the fishing year 2023 ABC to the fishing mortality associated with the maximum sustainable yield (FMSY), which is 2,515 metric tons. The action is effective Tuesday, Jan. 9.
January 7, 2023 — US Wind has submitted a request for Incidental Take Regulations to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in regards to construction of the Maryland Offshore Wind Project.
The regulations would govern the authorization of take of a small number of 19 species of marine mammals. A “small number” is considered less than one-third of estimated populations in the area, though specific small numbers are not defined. According to NOAA, take is harassing, hunting, capturing or killing any marine mammal, or attempting to do so. Though intentional take is prohibited, incidental take of small numbers can be allowed through an application process.
Actions of take can include negligent or intentional operation of an aircraft or boat, detaining marine mammals and other acts which result in disturbing them. Take can occur through acts with the potential to injure these animals in the wild, classified as level A harassment, or potential to disturb behavioral patterns like breathing, migration, breeding and sheltering, which are classified as level B harassment.
January 7, 2024 — Several U.S. senators want to be able to track fishery disaster determinations the same way consumers track packages throughout their shipping process.
The Republican lawmakers are demanding more transparency from NOAA Fisheries on how the agency makes determinations of fishery disasters – a designation that makes communities and industries eligible for federal financial relief.
January 4, 2023 — The Groundfish Forum – a Seattle, Washington, U.S.A-based trade group representing five U.S. trawling companies – has sued NOAA Fisheries over a newly adopted plan to reduce halibut bycatch in Bering Sea and Aleutian Island groundfish fisheries.
In November 2023, NOAA Fisheries finalized a rule potentially lowering the annual halibut catch limit for the Amendment 80 sector – a fleet of 20 groundfish-trawling vessels operating in the Bering Sea. The new rule, which went into effect 1 January 2024, ties the annual catch limit to the most recent halibut abundance figures. The previous static catch level of 1,745 metric tons (MT) for halibut bycatch is kept as a ceiling, but the catch limit can be lowered by up to 35 percent if the abundance level is considered low.
January 3, 2023 — The following was released by the NOAA Fisheries:
An influx of $27 million from the Office of Habitat Conservation under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act is reinvigorating efforts to restore threatened salmon and trout species in Oregon’s Willamette River watershed.
“This funding is a true lifeline to restoration practitioners who have been working to recover Endangered Species Act-listed Upper Willamette River Chinook and steelhead,” says NOAA Fisheries Biologist Anne Mullan. “These species are on the downward trajectory, but this funding gives us hope.”
Multiple major dams on the Willamette River tributaries stand between salmon and steelhead and their historic spawning grounds in the upper watershed. The Office of Habitat Conservation’s Restoration Center and its partners are restoring degraded habitat in the lower watershed. NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region works with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others to provide passage for Chinook salmon and steelhead between the lower river and their upstream spawning habitat.
Four awards to the McKenzie Watershed Alliance, American Rivers, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and the Clackamas Partnership will:
January 2, 2024 — When wind turbine companies seek permission to harm sea life, reporters for The Associated Press blame The Heritage Foundation (where I work) and The Heartland Institute, instead of reporting the facts.
It was a Chico Marx moment: “Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?
The misleading AP article—carried by WBTS-TV in Boston; The Daily Star newspaper of Oneonta, New York; and WTFX-TV in Philadelphia, among others—stated that “scientists say there is no credible evidence linking offshore wind farms to whale deaths” and that “offshore wind opponents are using unsupported claims about harm to whales to try to stop projects, with some of the loudest opposition centered in New Jersey.”
The article accuses opponents of causing “angst in coastal communities, where developers need to build shoreside infrastructure to operate a wind farm.”
If so, why are offshore wind farm companies asking Uncle Sam for permission to harm ocean mammals, and why are dead whales washing up on East Coast beaches?
According to AP reporters Christina Larson, Jennifer McDermott, Patrick Whittle, and Wayne Parry, “One vocal opponent of offshore wind is The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the foundation’s center for energy, climate and environment, wrote in November that Danish company Ørsted’s scrapped New Jersey wind project was “unsightly” and “a threat to wildlife.” (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
If the four reporters had done their homework, they would have mentioned that in required environmental-impact filings with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, companies explain that sounds generated by their activities will harm ocean mammals.
For example, Atlantic Shores and Ørsted’s Ocean Winds both requested permission to harm ocean mammals in their applications for New Jersey offshore-wind projects. And, since boats ramped up offshore surveys in May 2022, 31 dead whales have washed up on New Jersey and surrounding beaches.
Ørsted, which in November pulled out of a proposed New Jersey offshore wind farm, requested permission to harm 30 whales, 3,231 dolphins, 82 porpoises, and eight seals through sound waves generated by its surveys—although the company claims that the damage would be negligible.
The precise numbers and detailed species can be found on the website of the NOAA, in Ørsted’s Application for Incidental Harassment Authorization (Table 9).
Atlantic Shores, owned by Dutch Shell oil and French EDF, is still seeking permission to locate an offshore wind farm in New Jersey. In its Request for Incidental Harassment (Table 6-3) it stated that acoustic waves associated with the siting of the wind turbines would likely affect 10 whales, 662 dolphins, 206 porpoises, and 546 seals (also termed a negligible amount). It received permission to harm these marine animals.
Although the companies describe effects as “negligible,” the NOAA website states that it’s difficult to measure the effects of manmade sounds on mammals.
“Acoustic trauma, which could result from close exposure to loud human-produced sounds, is very challenging to assess, particularly with any amount of decomposition,” or damage to the whale’s body, states NOAA on its website.
Sean Hayes, chief of protected species for the NOAA, wrote in a letter to Brian Hooker, lead biologist at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management: “The development of offshore wind poses risks to these species [right whales], which is magnified in southern New England waters due to species abundance and distribution … . However, unlike vessel traffic and noise, which can be mitigated to some extent, oceanographic impacts from installed and operating turbines cannot be mitigated for the 30-year life span of the project, unless they are decommissioned.”
In addition, the AP article made no mention that some of the companies that would install these wind farms are owned by Denmark, the Netherlands, and France—despite the fact that renewable energy tax credits in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act are aimed at stimulating domestic firms to produce renewable energy. And there was no mention that New Jersey offshore wind farms would have practically no effect on mitigating global temperatures, either now or by 2100.
Local municipalities are increasingly rejecting wind farms, according to a Renewable Rejection Database tracker maintained by environmental scholar Robert Bryce. He reports that 417 wind farms and 190 solar arrays have been rejected by local communities in 2023. More than 600 projects have been rejected in 2023, up from 489 in 2022 and 208 in 2018.
Proponents of renewable energy are trying to gloss over its harms and exaggerate its benefits in an attempt to push costly offshore wind farms. For the record, French- and Dutch-owned Atlantic Shores and Danish-owned Ørsted asked permission to hurt whales, dolphins, porpoises, and seals.
Americans in New Jersey and elsewhere oppose that environmental damage.
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December 31, 2023 — NOAA Fisheries released the 2023 Ecosystem Status Reports for the eastern Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, and the Gulf of Alaska. The reports provide the basis for current conditions and trends for critical oceanographic, biological, and ecological indicators in marine ecosystems.
Every year, fishery managers at NOAA, U.S. federal and state agencies, academic institutions, tribes, nonprofits, and scientists contribute to the reports. The data and information from these reports support federal commercial fish and crab fisheries management. For nearly three decades, fishery management has relied on these reports to understand further how commercial fish and crab populations are affected by changes in the marine environment.
“Warming at rates four times faster than the rest of the ocean, Alaska’s Arctic ecosystems are a bellwether for climate change. Now more than ever, ecosystem and climate-related data and information are essential to support adaptive resource management and resilient commercial, recreational, and subsistence fisheries, and rural and coastal communities,” said Robert Roy, director of Alaska Fisheries Science Center.
December 31, 2023 — A new federal report on Alaska ecosystems warns that the current El Nino status and associated warming surface waters predicted for the winter and spring of 2024 may result in reduced availability of Gulf of Alaska needed by many groundfish and reduced quality of that zooplankton itself.
According to NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, the overriding message from this year’s report card is that now in the time for action.
“NOAA and our federal partners have ramped up our support and collaboration with state, tribal and local communities to help build climate resilience,” Spinrad said. “At the same time, we as a nation and global community must dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are driving these changes.”
The 2023 Gulf of Alaska Ecosystem Status Report is part of NOAA’s 2023 Arctic Report Card, a cooperative effort of federal and state agencies and numerous other collaborators.
December 31, 2023 — The Center for Biological Diversity and the Turtle Island Restoration Network sued the National Marine Fisheries Service on Thursday, accusing the federal agency of failing to protect endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtles and their habitats from sablefish trapping gear that can injure or kill the turtles.
The groups seek to block a Dec. 1 rule that allows pot fishing for bottom-feeding sablefish in protected coastal areas near Oregon and California that have been closed since the early 2000s.
Leatherbacks get tangled in pot traps, causing them to drown to death or become seriously injured, the plaintiffs say, contributing to dwindling populations: If current trends keep up, leatherbacks may be effectively extinct in the West Pacific within 20 years.
“It’s horrific that hungry leatherback sea turtles have to navigate a vast maze of fishing pot strings after migrating thousands of miles to California,” Catherine Kilduff, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press release.
December 28, 2023 — The waters off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands registered the warmest winter temperatures in over a century, part of a decade-long period of warming, according to a report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The record-high temperatures in the western and central Aleutians moderated later in the year but warmer-than-normal conditions persisted for the rest of the year throughout the waters around the 1,100 mile chain extending from southwestern Alaska, according to the 2023 NOAA Fisheries Ecosystem Status report for the region.
The Aleutians report is one of three annual ecosystem status reports issued by NOAA Fisheries for marine areas of Alaska. The reports, compiled by large teams of scientists, were released earlier this month and presented to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the panel that sets regulated commercial fishing in federal waters off Alaska.