Saving Seafood

Proposed fund could help Maine lobstermen test new fishing gear

April 28, 2023 — State lawmakers are considering a measure that would create a new fund to help lobster fishermen test gear designed to reduce entanglement risks to endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The proposed fund would set aside $1 million for each of the next two years. The money would be paid to lobster fishermen who test ropeless and other kinds of new fishing gear designed to minimize interactions with right whales.

The most recent federal spending bill set aside nearly $20 million for fishing gear.

But Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said it’s reasonable that lobstermen receive a stipend for the work itself.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Maine Lobstering Union drops part of lawsuit against NOAA Fisheries

August 25, 2022 — The Maine Lobstering Union is agreeing to drop part of its lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Services, where the federal agency is closing a 960-square-mile section of the Gulf of Maine to lobster fishers.

Federal regulators said this section of ocean is prime habitat for North Atlantic right whales and argued blocking that part of the ocean off from buoy lines from Oct. 18 to Jan. 31, 2023, would help reduce the risk posed to entanglements between lobster gear and whales.

Alfred C Frawley with McCloskey, Mina, Cunniff, and Frawley, LLC, said in an email the move was made as federal agencies add more regulations against the lobster industry.

“The MLU has taken the procedural step of agreeing to dismiss its case in Maine, which was largely mooted by the DC Court’s recent decision, in order to focus its resources on the ongoing litigation in DC and on ensuring that NMFS issues a new rule that both protects the North Atlantic right whale and ensures the sustainability of Maine’s lobster fishery,” Frawley said in an email to NEWS CENTER Maine.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

Federal court rules fisheries officials didn’t do enough to protect right whales from lobster gear

July 8, 2022 — A federal court on Friday ruled in favor of environmental groups that had filed a lawsuit against the government and the Maine Lobstermen’s Association claiming federal fisheries officials had failed to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales from potentially fatal entanglements in lobster fishing gear, records show.

A judge ruled that NOAA Fisheries had violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act when it issued a May 2021 biological opinion and a September 2021 final rule because officials had not done enough to reduce the lobster fishery’s threat to right whales, the plaintiffs in the suit said in a statement.

The lawsuit was filed in 2018 by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Conservation Law Foundation, and Defenders of Wildlife.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Maine lobster industry could receive nearly $14 million in federal aid

July 5, 2022 — Maine’s lobster industry could receive most of the $14 million the federal government is allocating to help lobstermen comply with new rules that are intended to save the critically endangered right whale from extinction.

If approved by Congress, the $14 million will be doled out to states through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to cover costs incurred by the fishing industry to comply with the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan. Costs may include gear modification, configuration and marking, both in federal and state waters.

Maine is expected to receive the lion’s share of the money, since the state is home to the vast majority of the American lobster fleet. Maine lobstermen already received more than $17 million in federal aid in March as part of a $1.5 trillion omnibus funding package.

It was not clear Friday how the proposed federal funding might be allocated among Maine’s 4,500 to 5,000 licensed lobstermen.

The funding has been included in the House of Representatives’ Commerce, Justice, and Science Fiscal Year 2023 Appropriations bill. The House Appropriations Committee approved the bill Friday. From there, it will be voted on by the full House.

Read the full story at The Portland Press Herald

MAINE: Lobstermen frustrated by regulations after new study shows whale entanglements decline

June 30, 2022 — A new report has Maine lobstermen saying, “I told you so.”

The report says large whale entanglements dropped in 2020, including for the right whale.

Lobstermen in Maine have long argued they should not be blamed for the right whales’ population decline, which makes this new study from NOAA all the more frustrating.

“I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Harpswell lobster boat captain Forrest Moody said. “This is what we know.”

Moody calls the new changes to the industry “life-altering.”

“There hasn’t always been evidence to prove or say what they were asking us to do but we still were, we were still made to do it,” Moody said.

Read the full story at WGME-TV

A Story About Whales & Scallops in Maine

June 29, 2022 — The number of whales entangled in fishing gear has declined recently, but the issue remains a critical threat to rare species.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, reports that there are only 340 North Atlantic right whales in the entire world right now.

So getting tangled and trapped in fishing nets, or collisions with ships in the ocean is not good.

NOAA says the decline in entanglements could be due to fewer fishing activities due to the pandemic.

Priced Scallops lately? Two years ago they were sold for about $20 a pound. Now, $25 a pound. An increase of 25%.

Blame supply and demand.

Supply is down significantly over the past few years according to the New England Fishery Management Council.

Read the full story at Q106.5

New England wind farm, environmentalists agree on ways to protect whales

June 27, 2022 — The developers of an offshore wind farm and three environmental organizations announced Monday that they have reached an agreement to further protect rare North Atlantic right whales during construction and operation of the energy-generating project.

The agreement involving Orsted and Eversource — developers of South Fork Wind off the coast of New England and New York — was signed by the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Conservation Law Foundation, the groups said in a joint statement.

The agreement promotes the development of sustainable energy while protecting wildlife, said Alison Chase, a senior policy analyst at the NRDC.

“We don’t need to choose between clean energy development and wildlife protection, and this agreement shows how we can do both,” she said.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Right whales stay in Cape Cod Bay longer, and later

June 16, 2022 — It isn’t high gas prices that changed the travel plans of right whales.

A new study in Global Change Biology by nine authors discovered that over the last couple of decades North Atlantic right whales are most active in Cape Cod Bay 18 days later than before.

That’s a shift — with a longer stay in the month of May — that could potentially bring the whales further into conflict with the region’s annual boating  and lobster season and require an extended season of protections.

“The state has a flexible rule in place — where they can extend fishing closures and small boat speed restrictions — that now is in place up the coast to New Hampshire,” the study’s lead author, Dan Pendleton of the New England Aquarium, said. “Massachusetts Bay has seen more right whales than it used to.”

“One of the problems with migratory animals is they can get into big trouble moving into shipping lanes so if we can move and adapt the protections as (whales) adapt to climate change, that would be ideal,” Pendleton said. “So much seems out of our control but one thing we can do is push for regulations that are responsive to the needs of an endangered species.”

Beth Casoni, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, hadn’t yet seen the study, which was published June 7. Casoni said, therefore, she couldn’t comment until she has been able to read it.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Warming water pushes endangered whale toward deadly boats

June 15, 2022 — North Atlantic right whales are some of the most endangered marine mammals on the planet. Threatened by shipping collisions and tangles with fishing nets, fewer than 400 individuals are thought to exist in the wild today.

Now, scientists are adding climate change to its list of dangers.

Recent studies suggest that warming ocean waters are shifting the tiny crustaceans that right whales like to eat, causing them to multiply at different times of the year and move into new parts of the ocean. As the whales follow their prey, they’re abandoning some of their old feeding grounds, migrating into some new ones and arriving in some places earlier or later than they would usually be expected.

As a result, scientists warn, they’re showing up in spots that don’t necessarily have adequate protections in place for them. That may increase their risk of running into ships or nets.

A new study, out last week in the journal Global Change Biology, is the latest to raise the alarm.

The research finds that right whales are changing the way they move through Cape Cod Bay, one of their preferred spring foraging grounds. They’re using the habitat more heavily than they did in the past and their peak numbers are shifting later in the season.

Read the full story at E&E News

Right whales’ survival rates plummet after severe injury from fishing gear

June 14, 2022 — Most North Atlantic right whales that are severely injured in fishing gear entanglements die within three years, a new study led by scientists at the New England Aquarium and Duke University finds.

North Atlantic right whales are a critically whose population has shrunk in recent decades. Scientists estimate fewer than 350 of the iconic whales are still alive in the wild today.

To examine the role entanglements have played in the species’ decline, the researchers tracked the outcomes of 1,196 entanglements involving 573 right whales between 1980 and 2011 and categorized each run-in based on the severity of the injury incurred

The data revealed that male and female right whales with were eight times more likely to die than males with minor injuries, and only 44% of males and 33% of females with severe injuries survived longer than 36 months.

Read the full story at Phys.org