Saving Seafood

Scientists blast Maine lobstermen’s whale safety stance

September 24, 2019 — Eighteen scientists who work in North Atlantic right whale research and rescue have said the Maine lobster industry is “significantly underestimating” the harm their equipment causes.

The scientists have called on the state of Maine to support the National Marine Fisheries Service in developing new rules to protect the whales from lobster gear injuries.

“Reducing entanglement in East Coast waters of the United States is a critical part of a comprehensive strategy for right whale survival and recovery,” Scott Kraus, chief scientist for marine mammals at New England Aquarium’s Anderson Center for Ocean Life, and Mark Baumgartner, associate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and chairman of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, said in a letter Tuesday to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

In addition to Kraus and Baumgartner, other scientists at WHOI and the Anderson Center for Ocean Life in Boston signed the letter, as well as leaders from the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which has an operations center in Yarmouth Port.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Collins proposes reforms to support Maine lobster industry, protect whales

September 23, 2019 — U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) proposed changes to federal reforms that would protect whales and support the Maine lobster industry.

Sen. Collins joined her congressional colleagues from Maine in jointly responding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) call for input to develop modifications to the proposed regulations developed by NOAA’s Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team (TRT).

In a letter sent on Tuesday to the NOAA TRT team, the delegation recommended measures that would help reduce right whale fatalities without threatening the lobster industry, including more Maine-specific gear markings, improved monitoring, support for the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ proposal to preserve the current regulatory exemptions line, and the state’s plan to improve data collection.

Read the full story at The Ripon Advance

Maine gov, delegation: Whale rules must protect lobstermen

September 19, 2019 — Maine’s most prominent politicians are calling for the federal government to take a new approach to saving an endangered species of whale so protections don’t threaten the state’s lobster industry.

The four members of Maine’s congressional delegation sent recommendations to federal fisheries regulators late Tuesday about how to protect the North Atlantic right whale, which numbers about 400. Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, also called on the government Wednesday to protect whales in a way that keeps lobstering viable.

Read the full story at Sea Coast Online

Right whale found dead this week identified as potentially ‘one of the great fathers of the population’

September 19, 2019 — The North Atlantic right whale found dead this week off Long Island, N.Y., has been identified as a 40-plus-year-old male who had been seen this summer entangled in fishing gear in Canadian waters.

The whale, known to researchers as “Snake Eyes,” was last seen entangled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in August, after being seen there free of gear in July.

“This is his first sighting since the entanglement,” said Jennifer Goebel, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Scientists at the New England Aquarium called the whale Snake Eyes because of two bright white scars on the front of his head “that look like a pair of eyes when he swam towards you,” they said Wednesday.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Maine regulators to meet with lobstermen again about new whale rules

September 18, 2019 — Maine regulators are working on a new slate of meetings with the state’s lobstermen to discuss potential new whale protection rules that could impact the fishery.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources is developing a proposal for the federal government about how to better protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. It had scheduled several meetings with lobstermen about the proposal for this month, but has temporarily put them on hold.

Department spokesman Jeff Nichols said a revised schedule will be out after regulators have had a chance to develop a proposal that reflects “another review of all data.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News

Maine lobsterer group calls Rep. Seth Moulton to task

September 18, 2019 — The head of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association countered comments Monday by U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, saying Moulton mischaracterized the organization’s motives and actions when it withdrew its support for the federal plan for increased protections to the North Atlantic right whales.

“Contrary to the congressman’s characterization, the MLA remains engaged in the (take reduction team) process and will continue to work with the agency and our members to identify measures to the risk that the Maine lobster industry poses to right whales,” Patrice McCarron wrote in an email to the Gloucester Daily Times. “However, the MLA cannot support the Northeast lobster fishery being singled out as the sole source of entanglement risk.”

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association on Aug. 30 withdrew its support for the most current plan devised by the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team because of what it described as questionable data from NOAA scientists and an unfair portrayal of the industry’s culpability as a primary cause of injury or death to the right whales. It also criticized the rule-making process as rushed.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Moulton praises local lobsterers for staying at whale rule table

September 17, 2019 — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton on Monday called the Maine Lobstermen’s Association shortsighted for stepping away from the federal plan to increase protections for North Atlantic right whales, saying the defection will dull its membership’s ability to influence the plan ultimately adopted by NOAA Fisheries.

“It limits their involvement in the solution going forward,” Moulton said on a teleconference organized by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “We really want to get everyone on board here and we want to make sure that it’s a solution that works for all the stakeholders. I don’t think you’re going to find any lobstermen that who say they want the right whale to go away.”

Moulton, a primary author of a House bill to help save the endangered right whales, said he believes the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association’s decision to remain at the table as the Atlantic right whale take reduction team thrashes out the final plan for the approval of NOAA Fisheries is the proper one.

“I think part of the reason the Massachusetts lobstermen are at the table to be a part of this process and its agreement moving forward is because they recognize that if this gets even more dire, they may literally be regulated out of business,” Moulton said. “I think the lobstermen in Massachusetts are being really smart. I think right now the lobstermen in Maine are being shortsighted. But we hope to bring them back on board, because ultimately they’re going to be better off having a seat at the table than not.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MAINE: Right whales and lobsters: what to do?

September 16, 2019 — When the Maine Lobstermen’s Association informed the National Marine Fisheries Service at the end of August that it was withdrawing its support for the agency’s proposed whale protection rules, it also offered a list of 10 “actions” NMFS should take.

The proposed rules could force lobstermen to remove half their vertical buoy lines from the waters of the Gulf of Maine. The Lobstermen’s Association in its letter offered 10 alternative suggestions “to develop an effective right whale protection program.”

The suggestions, most of which dealt with the way NMFS collected, interpreted or disseminated the data on which it based its proposals, ranged from the general to the extremely specific.

The association called on the fisheries service to “publish a thorough analysis of its own data regarding known sources of entanglement risk to right whales,” and to “conduct a new analysis of the risk reduction target” based on MLA-supplied data and to “reconsider” the risk reduction role in light of what the group described as NMFS’s “flawed assumptions and omission of consideration of risk posed by other U.S. fixed gear fisheries.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

The North Atlantic right whale will soon be extinct unless something is done to save it, researchers warn

September 13, 2019 — The fate of the increasingly rare North Atlantic right whale has always been left up to humans.

Once hunted nearly to extinction, their population is sharply declining again. Any hope for their survival, researchers say, demands immediate action.

A new report from Oceana, a non-profit ocean advocacy group, says unless protections are put in place, the North Atlantic right whale will die out.

“At some point, if trends continue, recovery will simply become impossible,” researchers wrote.

There are only 400 of them left, and less than 25% of them are breeding females responsible for the species’ survival. At least 28 have died in the past two years, Oceana campaign director Whitney Webber told CNN.

It’s a sharp decline driven by fishing, boating and climate change that impacts their food supply, according to the report.

“We’re really not seeing the whales die of natural causes anymore,” she said. “They’re dying at our hands.”

Read the full story at CNN

Congress could provide $50 million for right whales

September 13, 2019 — Legislation to provide $5 million in annual federal funding for reducing North Atlantic right whale deaths from ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement was introduced in the U.S. Senate Tuesday.

Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) co-sponsor S-2453, dubbed the “Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered (SAVE) Right Whales Act.” The measure would authorize $5 million in annual grant funding over the next 10 years for cooperative projects between state governments, nongovernmental organizations and the shipping and commercial fishing industries.

With a surviving population of around 400 animals, the North Atlantic right whale is one of the world’s most endangered species. Ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement are major causes of mortality. Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence has been particularly deadly in recent summers and Canadian authorities have enforced vessel speed restrictions in an effort to reduce the risk, which has led to 28 deaths in the last two years, according to NOAA.

Read the full story at National Fisherman