Saving Seafood

Senate right whale protection bill advances

November 22, 2019 — The U.S. Senate last week moved a step closer to providing substantial financial assistance to efforts aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Scientists warn that, with a population of only about 400 animals, the giant mammals face a real threat of extinction. The whales have experienced a high rate of mortality in the past few years resulting mostly from ship strikes and entanglement with fishing gear. The population also has had a low rate of reproduction.

Last Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation passed the “SAVE Right Whales Act” (the Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales Act of 2019) and referred it to the full Senate for action.

The bill is identical to legislation now awaiting action in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The legislative activity comes at a time when right whale conservation is front and center with federal and Maine fisheries regulators and in the federal courts.

The NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has proposed a set of rules that would, among other things, require Maine lobstermen to reduce the number of vertical buoy lines they use by 50 percent.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is in the process of developing its own proposal to submit to NMFS this month.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Why Atlantic Canada’s lucrative seafood industry is concerned about Elizabeth Warren

November 21, 2019 — Canada is defending measures it has taken to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, as political pressure — and blame — mounts from the United States in the wake of a rash of whale deaths in Canadian waters in 2019.

“We’re very confident that our measures are world-class in nature and stand up extremely well to those in the United States,” said Adam Burns, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ director of resource management.

Burns was responding to the latest salvo from Massachusetts senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, who are threatening a ban of some Atlantic Canadian seafood products.

The senators blame a Canadian “roll back” of whale protection measures in 2019. Canada had 12 right whale deaths in its waters in 2017, then none in 2018.

Read the full story at CBC News

Tracking New Bedford scallops from ocean to plate, with blockchain

November 21, 2019 — Are the fancy scallops on the menu really from the North Atlantic?

Reports of mislabeled fish have left some diners wondering if their snapper is really snapper. But with the help of digital data, one New Bedford seafood company has no trouble proving the provenance of its scallops.

Captain Dan Eilertsen’s Nordic Inc. is working with a Fall River fish processor, tech juggernaut IBM and a California restaurant company to use blockchain technology to track scallops from ocean to table.

Just scan a QR code on your restaurant menu and see exactly where the scallops were caught, when, and by whom.

“This is going to be a good way of sustaining our fishing industry and showing people that you can trust where your food comes from,” said Eilertsen, a longtime fisherman and owner of six scallop boats.

One if his vessels, the Venture, is equipped with IBM Food Trust, which creates a permanent, shared record of data about where food comes from and where it’s been. At every step along the way, people enter data into the blockchain.

On board the vessel, scallops get shucked, washed, bagged and weighed. A printer spits out a label with a QR code that goes right on the bag.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

US Senators call on Canada to increase right whale protection, Maine lobstermen reject DMR plan

November 20, 2019 — The Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) has voted not to support a Maine Department of Marine Resources whale plan intended to reduce risk to the endangered North Atlantic right whale species.

The vote not to support the plan came just before two Democratic senators from Massachusetts – Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren – sent a letter to NOAA Fisheries asking the organization to examine whether Canada’s Atlantic Fisheries marine mammal conservation standards are “doing enough to protect” the right whale. If not, the letter calls on NOAA to use its authority under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) to prohibit imports and fishery products from Canadian fisheries impacting the whales.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Scientists meeting in Portland say right whales on the way to extinction

November 18, 2019 — The future continues to grow ever darker for the highly endangered right whale, a species that has been in decline every year since 2010 and is at the heart of regulatory protection efforts threatening to upend Maine’s valuable lobster fishery.

The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium estimates only 409 whales survived 2018, down from about 428 in 2017 and 457 in 2016. With seven births and 10 documented deaths in 2019 factored in, that tally is now probably about 406. Three of those are about to succumb to injuries.

“We are in yet another year of decline for the right whales,” said Mark Baumgartner, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and chairman of the consortium, which kicked off its annual right whale meeting Thursday in Portland. “This is extremely concerning.”

The meeting attracted hundreds of scientists, policymakers, animal rights advocates and several dozen curious fishermen. Topics ranged from new developments in how to safely tag a right whale to a review of right whale deaths in 2019 to the impact of whale-related fishery closures in Canada.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

U.S. senators call for review of Canadian protections of endangered right whales

November 18, 2019 — Two U.S. senators from Massachusetts, including presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, are calling for an investigation of Canada’s regulatory measures to protect the North Atlantic right whale.

Democrat senators Edward Markey and Warren sent a letter this week to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration arguing Canadian rules for protecting the endangered whales are less strict than those in the United States.

Their request notes New England lobster fishermen are currently responding to a federal plan that reduces the amount of rope in the water and requires lines that break more easily.

Read the full story at CTV

Group Discusses Potential Gear Restrictions At North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium

November 15, 2019 — An international group of scientists, conservationists, fisheries managers and others are gathered in Portland this week for the annual meeting of what’s called the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.

Federal regulators told the group that they are looking at a wide slate of measures to protect the endangered whales from entanglement in fishing gear. Some measures include reductions in the amount of lobster-trap rope allowed in the water and in the strength of that rope. The feds say they are also considering having a part of Cape Cod Bay that is now closed February to April closed to endlines but open to ropeless gear in the future.

Read the full story at Maine Public

MAINE: Lobstermen’s Association rejects DMR whale proposal

November 14, 2019 — Efforts to find consensus over how to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglement in fishing gear without decimating the Maine lobster industry took a blow last week.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) announced that it would not support a plan developed by the Department of Marine Resources “because it seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery” and “creates unresolved safety and operational challenges for some sectors of the lobster industry,” MLA Executive Director Patrice McCarron said in an email Saturday.

The MLA decision came late last week after DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher held a series of meetings with lobstermen in Ellsworth, Waldoboro and South Portland.

The meetings were held to present the department’s response to a proposal by the National Marine Fisheries Service that would require a 50 percent reduction in the number of vertical endlines, which connect lobster traps to buoys on the surface, used by Maine lobstermen.

The goal, according to NMFS, was to reduce the risk of right whale entanglement in fishing gear by 60 percent.

Throughout the summer, DMR developed an alternative plan that called for many Maine lobstermen to “trawl up” by fishing more traps in strings attached to one or two endlines.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Maine lobstermen group pans state whale plan

November 13, 2019 — The state of Maine has opted to go it alone against NOAA Fisheries and the plan drafted by the federal Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction team to impose new right whale protections. But that decision seems to have hit a sizable snag.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association, the state’s largest and most influential lobster trade group, has said it will not support the state’s autonomous draft plan, not even over the more rigorous and restrictive plan developed by the take reduction team.

According to the MLA, both plans place too much onus and blame on the state’s $500 million lobster industry for entanglements that may lead to critical injuries or deaths for the imperiled North Atlantic right whales. Estimates are there are only about 400 of the whales.

“The Maine Lobstermen’s Association voted not to support the Maine Department of Marine Resources whale plan because it seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery as demonstrated in MLA’s analysis of (NOAA Fisheries) data,” the MLA said in a statement. “The MLA conducted a thorough analysis of fishing gear removed from entangled right whales which revealed that lobster is the least prevalent gear. The MLA is also concerned the state’s plan creates unsolved safety and operational challenges for some sectors in the lobster industry.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Second Maine lobstering group rejects state’s plan for protecting whales

November 11, 2019 — The state’s biggest lobster trade group will not support Maine’s right whale protection plan, saying it asks the state’s most valuable fishery to make concessions that exceed the risk it poses to the endangered species.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association staked out its position on the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ proposal with a board vote Thursday night. Director Patrice McCarron would not disclose the vote breakdown, calling that a private matter. The group did, however, release a statement about why it couldn’t support the plan.

“It seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery,” the statement said of the state plan. “The MLA conducted a thorough analysis of fishing gear removed from entangled right whales which revealed that lobster is the least prevalent gear.”

The MLA has decided to come up with its own whale protection plan based on right-sized risks posed by the industry that it will submit to the National Marine Fisheries Service. The federal agency is drafting a new regulation, which is due out early next year, to protect right whales from fishing entanglements.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald