Saving Seafood

Lobster industry taking a hit as a result of rules protecting right whales

April 30, 2018 — New rules off the coast of New England are designed to protect endangered right whales, but as a result, the lobster industry is taking a hit.

Some lobstermen say they’re losing thousands of dollars.

For David Hobson, it’s a way of life. He’s been a commercial fisherman for 30 years, but for three months out of the year, he can’t catch lobsters due to the fishing ban in Cape Cod Bay to protect the endangered right whales.

“The business doesn’t just stop on February 1, it continues on. Bills keep rolling,” said Hobson.

Losing out on thousands of dollars, he took a part-time job to make ends meet.

Read the full story at WFXT

 

Senators push for federal assessment of right whale deaths

April 30, 2018 — BOSTON — Eleven Democratic senators are asking the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to conduct an urgent assessment of the impacts to the endangered North Atlantic right whale from fisheries in Canada.

The senators led by Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey said fishing communities across New England have worked to reduce impacts on marine mammals. Markey said last year most observed right whale deaths were in Canadian waters.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Herald

 

Massachusetts: Right Whales Spotted South of Vineyard

April 27, 2018 — With three North Atlantic right whales seen south of Martha’s Vineyard this week, mariners are advised to be on the lookout for the critically endangered animals.

NOAA Fisheries announced Thursday that a voluntary vessel speed restriction zone has been established in the area after the whales were seen on 19 nautical miles south of the Vineyard on April 24. Mariners are asked to avoid the area or transit at 10 knots or less.

The restriction zone is in effect until May 9. Voluntary and mandatory speed restrictions are also in effect in other areas.

North Atlantic right whales feed in the waters off New England in the late winter and early spring. Researchers estimate that there are about 433 right whales in existence. With recent whale deaths from fishing gear entanglement and a low birth rate, scientists say the species could go extinct in the next 20 years.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette 

 

Massachusetts regulators: Lobster season will have to wait

April 27, 2018 — MARSHFIELD, Mass. — The dozens of right whales spotted off South Shore coasts since Sunday have delivered a major blow to the local fishing fleet.

The unusually large number of right whales feeding close to the shores of Marshfield and Hull and in Cape Cod Bay this week has led the state Division of Marine Fisheries to implement two emergency regulations, which will push off the start of lobster season in southern Massachusetts.

Lobstermen already have to observe a three month closure from Feb. 1 to April 30 annually in an effort to reduce the number of whales that get entangled in fishing gear during their annual migration. Now, however, boats won’t be able to hit the water until May 6 at the earliest, and a second regulation imposes a 10 knot speed limit for vessels less than 65 feet long through May 15. Right whales feed close to the surface and are vulnerable to vessel strikes.

Read the full story at the Patriot Ledger

 

New protections for right whales

April 27, 2018 — The plight of North Atlantic right whales remains at the forefront of priorities for state and federal fisheries regulators, leading them to impose new measures to protect the marine mammals as their seasonal presence grows in the waters off Massachusetts.

Within the past week, pods of the endangered whales have announced their presence with authority in the waters off the Bay State to the delight of whale enthusiasts, marine biologists and the general public.

According to the state Department of Marine Fisheries, the most recent aerial survey last week showed 100 right whales — or about 25 percent of the species’ known population — in western Cape Cod Bay.

Last weekend, a pod of about 30 right whales — whose global population has shrunk to about 450 — was spotted feeding off the coast of Marshfield. Gloucester-based whale watch boats this week also reported the presence of right whales near the northwest corner of Stellwagen Bank.

On Wednesday, the state Division of Marine Fisheries enacted two emergency regulations “to protect vulnerable aggregations of endangered northern right whales in Cape Cod Bay” from collisions with vessels and entanglements in fishing gear.

The measures are effective immediately.

The first emergency regulation extends trap gear closures throughout most of Cape Cod Bay to May 6 from the original ending date of April 30. The closure extension does not apply to waters north of Cape Cod on Stellwagen Bank or within the Outer Cape Cod Lobster Management Area.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Lawsuit challenges fishing methods that could threaten right whales

April 27, 2018 — BOSTON — A noted environmental activist has gone to court to stop the use of vertical buoy fishing lines in Massachusetts waters to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

In a lawsuit filed in late February in U.S. District Court in Boston, Cambridge-based conservationist Richard Maximus Strahan names the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the assistant administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service, the secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the director of the state Division of Marine Fisheries, the commissioners of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, as a representative of its 1,800 members.

The lawsuit is the third filed in federal court this year related to protecting North Atlantic right whales.

Strahan is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop lobstermen’s association members from further lobster pot and gill net commercial fishing operations that could result in the entanglement of any endangered whale or sea turtle, according to the amended complaint. In that same order, Strahan seeks to stop government defendants from licensing those types of commercial fisheries operations unless they can scientifically demonstrate that endangered whales and sea turtles would not be killed or injured.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

These whales will be extinct in 25 years, scientists say — unless we act now to save them

April 20, 2018 — PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — The crew of the research vessel Shearwater has been out on the water for six frigid hours with almost nothing to show for it.

On deck, two coverall-clad observers brace themselves against the biting wind and snow, alert for the white plume of a spout or the fleeting wave of a tail.

On the bridge, marine biologist Charles “Stormy” Mayo searches, too, his brow furrowed in a deepening frown. It is early April, and these plankton-rich waters should be full of hungry animals. But all he can see are dark gray waves and dull, cloudy sky.

“Where the hell are the whales?” he demands.

For years, spring has signaled the return of North Atlantic right whales — one of Earth’s most endangered species — to Cape Cod Bay.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

NOAA: New Voluntary Slow Speed Zone to Protect Right Whales

April 19, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries announces that a voluntary vessel speed restriction zone (Dynamic Management Area  or DMA) has been established to protect a group of five right whales sighted 12 nautical miles east of Boston on April 18.

Mariners are requested to route around this area or transit through it at 10 knots or less.

VOLUNTARY DYNAMIC MANAGEMENT AREAS (DMAs)

Mariners are requested to avoid or transit at 10 knots or less inside the following areas where a group of right whales has been sighted. Find out more about ship strike reduction efforts.

East of Boston – In effect through May 3.

42 43 N
42 00 N
071 17 W
070 20 W

ACTIVE SEASONAL MANAGEMENT AREAS (SMAs)

Mandatory speed restrictions of 10 knots or less (50 CFR 224.105) are in effect in the following areas:

  • Cape Cod Bay SMA in effect through May 15, 2018
  • Block Island SMA in effect through April 30, 2018
  • New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk SMA in effect through April 30, 2018

Right Whales in Crisis

The year 2017 was devastating for North Atlantic right whales, which suffered a loss of 17 whales, plus an additional mortality in January 2018–about 4 percent of their population–an alarming number for such a critically endangered species with a population currently estimated at about 450 animals.

In August 2017, NOAA Fisheries declared the increase in right whale mortalities an “Unusual Mortality Event,” which helps the agency direct additional scientific and financial resources to investigating, understanding, and reducing the mortalities in partnership with the Marine Mammal Stranding Network, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and outside experts from the scientific research community.

More Info   

Recent right whale sightings

Download the Whale Alert app for iPad and iPhone

Acoustic detections in Cape Cod Bay and the Boston TSS

Send a blank message to receive a return email listing all current U.S. DMAs and SMAs.

Details and graphics of all ship strike management zones currently in effect.

Reminder: Approaching a right whale closer than 500 yards is a violation of federal and state law.

 

Regulators push for rope removal to save North Atlantic right whale

April 18, 2018 — In a multinational drive to protect the North Atlantic right whale, fisheries along the east coasts of the Canada and the United States are being mandated, legislated, or volunteering to reduce rope use as much as possible.

The Canadian government has instituted steps that requires snow crab fishermen use less rope, use more easily breakable rope and report any lost gear as soon as possible. These conditions apply to all fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

While Canada’s federal effort has been heavily on the snow crab fishery, the Prince Edward Island Fishermen’s Association (PEIFA) recently laid out its own plan to reduce potential entanglements and involvements with the endangered whales.

No right whale has been found entangled in lobster gear, but nevertheless, the lobster fishermen in Area 24, along Prince Edward Islands’s North Shore, have agreed to voluntarily reduce what the gear they put in the water by at least 25 percent – setting their traps in bunches of six rather than a one trap set or smaller bunches.

“We feel we’re eliminating somewhere around 16,000 Styrofoam buoys out of the system and each of those buoys is responsible for 130 or 140 feet of rope, which go from the buoy down to the trap,” Francis Morrissey, of the Area 24 Lobster Advisory Board, said. “So we feel that by doing this, there’s 16,000 less chances for marine mammals to get entangled.”

South of the border, an op-ed in The Boston Globe by John K. Bullard, the retiring regional administrator for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, challenged the U.S. lobster industry to take the lead in heading off the extinction of the North Atlantc right whale.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Fate of the Lobster Fishery May Depend on Fate of the Right Whale

April 18, 2018 — The North Atlantic right whale was once seen as an inexhaustible natural resource. It was hunted for its oil and enriched New England. That ended one-hundred years ago, but the right whale’s numbers have never been the same. Now, the whales that are left are in direct conflict with the harvesting of another rich natural resource: lobsters.

About the time when the first crocuses start to bloom, the North Atlantic right whale comes back in numbers to feed in Cape Cod Bay, and researchers go out on the water to count them.

A research vessel from the Center for Coastal Studies is off the coast of Provincetown and coordinating with a crew in a spotter plane. There are so few whales left, the scientists can often identify individual animals.  They see two: Elf and Ruffian.

When commercial whaling ended in the 1930s, there were only about 100 North Atlantic right whales left in the world. Now that people weren’t killing them on purpose, their numbers slowly climbed, topping out at about 550 in the year 2010. Then something happened. Their numbers started to drop. But why? Their relatives, the Southern right whales, are doing fine.

Michael Moore is a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who has been examining dead whales for 30 years to figure out what happened to them. Moore says, “The two pieces that make the difference between the Southern right whale’s success and the Northern Atlantic right whale’s struggle has been vessel collisions and entanglement in fixed fishing gear.”

He says, in the southern oceans there are fewer ships and less fishing gear, and that has allowed Southern right whales to grow to a population of 15,000. There are now fewer than 450 North Atlantic right whales here off the coast of New England.

Read the full story at WCAI