Saving Seafood

NOAA Announces Right Whale Speed Restriction Zone Off Nantucket

March 23, 2018 — NANTUCKET, Mass. — In an effort to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, NOAA Fisheries has implemented a voluntary vessel speed restriction zone off Nantucket.

The Dynamic Management Area 11 miles southwest of the island was established after six whales were spotted in the area on Tuesday.

Mariners are asked to avoid the area or travel at speeds of 10 knots or less through April 4.

At least 18 of the whales died over the last year and the population is estimated to be around 430.

Read the full story at Cape Cod

 

Gloucester Times: Cooperation needed to save endangered whales

March 23, 2018 — These are dire times for the North Atlantic right whale.

A record number of the whales — 17 — died due to ship strikes or gear entanglements last year. Meanwhile, scientists who have been tracking the mammals noted the birth of a mere five calves over the same period. The troubling trend does not bode well for the species.

“The story is just a simple one of arithmetic,” Charles “Stormy” Mayo, director of the right whale ecology program at the Center for Coast Studies, told Public Radio International. “If you have fewer births and higher mortalities, extinction is around the corner.”

It doesn’t have to be this way. Right whales, docile creatures that grow to about 50 feet long and about 70 tons, at one time seemed to be one of the conservation movement’s greatest success stories. The creatures — hunted nearly to extinction in the whaling era — saw their numbers grow from fewer than 250 to the current estimate of 450 after two decades of conservation efforts on the part of the federal government and the fishing and shipping industries.

The measures that worked before, however, are no longer sufficient to keep the species healthy. This is in large part due to the fractured nature of their habitat, which runs from the southeastern United States to Nova Scotia.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Right whale survival may be dependent on snow crab fishery’s flexibility

March 22, 2018 — The future of the North Atlantic right whale is looking more and more bleak, and with their fate inextricably tied to the lobster and crab fishing grounds off the coast of Northern New England and Eastern Canada, pressure is mounting on the fisheries and their regulators to take more drastic action.

No right whale calves have been spotted so far this year – the latest in a string of bad news for the species, which lost 17 members in 2017. That total represented about four percent of its remaining population, and was around six times the normal mortality of the whales.  An eighteenth dead whale was found entangled in fishing gear off the coast of Virginia in January. Gear entanglement, followed by blunt force trauma caused by collisions with ships, have been identified as the main causes of these deaths.

Philip Hamilton, a research scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium, who studies the mammals, said there’s slim hope remaining that researchers have missed spotting any new calves.

“The calving season isn’t considered completely over – the folks who are doing the surveys on the calving grounds off of Florida and Georgia will be going for another month, but we’ve never gone this long and not found a calf,” Hamilton said. “And there are only a few whales that have not been seen, so we’re not particularly optimistic that a calf will be seen down there.”

With only an estimated 100 breeding females left in the entire North Atlantic right whale population, scientists are closely monitoring the changing reproductive cycle of the whales.

“We have had drops in reproduction in the past. We had a dip in the early 1990s and then a pretty dramatic downturn in the late 1990s that culminated with just a single right whale calf born in 2000. So we have seen this before, but we’ve never seen it in conjunction with such extremely high mortality,” Hamilton said.

In addition to the premature deaths and low birth rate, the right whale species faces the new and additional challenge of a lengthier gestation period. According to Hamilton,  their inter-birth interval has been increasing over the last five or six years, going from the standard of three to four years to 6.6 years in 2016, and jumping to an average of 10.2 years in 2017.

“There is a lot going on for them. We do know that females will forego reproduction if they aren’t in adequate body condition, meaning they have to have substantial fat reserves to support a calf. They end up losing up to a third of their body weight nursing a calf, so they have be able to handle that,” Hamilton said. “And there are a couple of factors which may be impacting female body condition. One would be food availability.”

The whales have been shifting where they feed in recent years and largely not going to some of their standard, historically productive feeding grounds like the Bay of Fundy and Roseway Basin and Great South channel east of Cape Cod. Instead, last year many ended up in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they are in much greater danger of entanglement with fishing gear, Hamilton said.

 

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Whale deaths result in Canada’s snow crab fishery losing MSC certification

March 21, 2018 — Canada’s East Coast snow crab fishery has had its sustainable catch certification suspended by the Marine Stewardship Council, the organization announced on 20 March. Until another audit occurs in October 2018, some Maritime snow crab will not be able to display the MSC label.

The certification suspension is the result of incidents involving the deaths of 13 North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2017. Necropsies showed that three of the whales died as the result of entanglement with crab gear. The audit also found that of a further five live entanglements, four were with crab gear.

The certification suspension is the result of incidents involving the deaths of 13 North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2017. Necropsies showed that three of the whales died as the result of entanglement with crab gear. The audit also found that of a further five live entanglements, four were with crab gear.

Philip Hamilton, a research scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium, described last summer as the perfect storm when it came to right whale mortality. The whales appeared in waters where they have never been before and during a fishing season when there were more crab pots and rope in the water.

Peter Norsworthy, executive director of the Affiliation of Seafood Producers Association of Nova Scotia (ASPANS), said 2017 was an extraordinary year.

“It was a longer fishery last year because the quota was higher than it had ever been. So it took a lot longer to execute the fishery than it normally would. Normally, 75 percent of the catch is landed within the first three weeks. This year, the quota is going to be down to normal levels, about 25,000 tonnes vs last year’s 43,000 tonnes. So we fully expect it will be caught in a normal time period and finish by the end of May,” Norsworthy said. “Hopefully, with an earlier start we’ll get most of the fishing completed before the whales show up, if they show up again.”

Norsworthy said fishermen were unsure what the certification suspension will mean to individual fishermen in terms of catch prices. He said they will wait to see “how the market responds.”

“I think most buyers realize 2017 was an unusual circumstance and are fairly well-informed about what activities are being undertaken [to protect the whales],” he said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

NOAA closes areas to protect whales

March 20, 2018 — As NOAA Fisheries continues to address the rising peril to whales in coastal waters stretching from New England to Florida, it is reminding local fishermen of current or impending gear closures off Massachusetts.

The closures, primarily around Cape Cod and in Cape Cod Bay, are part of NOAA Fisheries’ Atlantic large whale take reduction plan developed to provide increased protection to several species of whales — particularly the endangered North Atlantic right whales whose population continues to plummet.

Some of the gear closures impact trap and pot fishermen, while other impact gillnetters.

The closures have been greatly enlarged as part of a 2015 amendment to the large whale take reduction plan, according to Mike Asaro, the Gloucester-based marine mammal and sea turtle branch chief for NOAA Fisheries.

“The Cape Cod Bay closure has been greatly expanded northward and out beyond the outer Cape toward Nantucket,” Asaro said.

The closest closure to Cape Ann is the Massachusetts Restricted Area that encircles Cape Cod, with its northwest corner approaching the southern end of Cape Ann. The area is closed to all trap and pot fishing until April 30.

The Great South Channel restricted area, which sits to the east and southeast of Cape Cod, will be closed to all trap and pot fishing from April 30 until June 30. The Great South Channel also will be closed to all gillnetting during the same time.

Gillnetters also will be prohibited from fishing in the Cape Cod Bay restricted area until May 15.

Asaro said the closures are just one element in NOAA Fisheries’ strategy for mitigating dangers to the whales from gear and other man-made obstacles in the ocean’s waters.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Low Numbers of Endangered Whales Sparks Debate About Whether Lobster Industry Threatens Species

March 9, 2018 — The population of the endangered North Atlantic right whale took a big hit last year with a record number found dead in Canadian waters from ship strikes and entanglements. With this year’s calving season ending and no new births observed, an ongoing debate over whether Maine’s lobster industry poses a mortal threat to the species is gaining new urgency.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist Mark Baumgartner says that to help the whales survive much longer, the ropes Maine lobstermen use to tend their traps have to be modified or even eliminated. And it’s not just for the whales’ sake.

“I feel the industry is in jeopardy,” Baumgartner says.

Baumgartner was at the Fishermen’s Forum in Rockland late last week to detail the whale’s plight. If the lobster industry doesn’t respond effectively, he says, the federal government will step in.

“As the population continues to decline and pressure is put on the government to do something about it, then they’re going to turn to closures, because that’s all they’ll have,” he says.

There were about 450 North Atlantic right whales estimated to be alive in 2016. There were only five calves born last year, and a record 17 deaths caused by entanglement or ship strikes.

Read the full story at Maine Public

 

Gear is in wrong place for right whales, scientists say

March 7, 2018 — ROCKPORT, Maine — Last summer, at least 17 endangered North Atlantic right whales died during their northwards migration from their spawning grounds off the coast of Florida and Georgia. Of those, 12 were found dead in Canadian waters, while five were found off the coast of the United States.

Besides the whales that died last year, several more were found entangled in fishing gear, and at least one more whale died in January of this year.

Now scientists and fisheries regulators are working to find ways to reduce the risk of entanglement. They may implement changes in fishing rules that have an enormous impact on Maine’s lobster industry.

The NOAA Fisheries Large Whale Take Reduction Team recently established separate working groups to study two proposals to reduce the risk of entanglement: splicing several 1,700-pound breaking strength “weak link” sleeves into vertical lines such as those that connect lobster buoys to traps; and removing those ropes altogether by requiring the use “ropeless” fishing gear.

Those working groups will focus on whether either solution is technologically feasible, whether it will actually work for fishermen, and whether it can be cost effective for fishermen.

According to scientists from NOAA Fisheries and the New England Aquarium in Boston, the evidence suggests that the already tiny right whale population is declining.

Read the full story the Mount Desert Islander

 

Maine: Lobstermen pack meeting concerning right whales, possible gear changes

March 5, 2018 — Lobstermen from all over the state packed the Rockport Room at the Samoset Resort to overflowing Friday to hear about the potential for ropeless fishing and use of break-away lines to help save the endangered right whale.

The panel discussion March 2 at the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum brought fishermen together with several experts including scientist Mark Baumgartner of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Amy Knowlton of the New England Aquarium and Mike Asaro of NOAA Fisheries.

Right whales are endangered and on the brink of extinction. They are down to about 450 animals worldwide. In 2017 only five new whales were born to the species and 17 died. Scientists say the cause of their deaths is almost always human in origin, either ship strikes or entanglement in fishing gear.

“We have years, not decades to solve this problem,” Baumgartner said.

Knowlton said the increase in deaths of right whales is due in part to the fact that rope has become so much stronger over the years through technological improvements. She advocated using ropes with strength of no more than 1,700 pounds. One way to achieve this is to braid short lengths of weaker line, which she called “sleeves” because they are hollow, into the ropes, used at intervals of every 40 feet. A whale entangled in this gear could break out of it.

Read the full story at VillageSoup

 

Future for Right Whales Grows Even More Bleak

March 2, 2018 — After a year of rising concern about North Atlantic right whales, which scientists say could go extinct in the next 20 years, researchers have yet to document a single newborn whale during the calving season that is coming to an end.

Bad news about the calving season follows a year with 17 documented unnatural right whale deaths in the United States and Canada, an alarming number for a species with a population of about 450 animals.

Scientists said this week that it’s too early to say with certainty that no calves were born this year, but things are not looking good. The official number won’t be known until around July, according to biologist Peter Corkeron, who leads the large whale team of the protected species branch at NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

“I don’t want to downplay how bad this is, but we don’t yet know zero,” he told the Gazette this week. “If there were 20 calves born somewhere else, I think we’d know about. While it’s too early yet to say zero, it’s not too early yet to say — well this isn’t looking very good, is it.”

Mark Baumgartner, a biologist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and leader of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, agreed. “It’s not

looking like this is a boom year, that’s for sure,” he said. “If I were to guess I would think it would just be maybe one or two calves. We’re not looking for a stash of 10 calves.”

North Atlantic right whales generally give birth in the winter in the ocean off northern Florida and southern Georgia. Mr. Baumgartner said whales have had calves in the Gulf of Maine “once in a blue moon.”

Aerial surveys over southern waters during calving months are on the lookout for female whales and their calves. Because the whales are so small, scientists have documented each individual and have a good idea about the number of females who are of calving age and due to give birth. Mr. Baumgartner said historically there has been a three-year interval between when female right whales have calves. As of last year, the average interval was 10 years.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

 

Are North Atlantic Right Whales Becoming Extinct? Experts Warn About Declining Fertility

February 27, 2018 — The North Atlantic right whales may soon become extinct as no new births have been recorded, experts have warned.

According to a report in the Guardian, the scientists who observed a whale community off the U.S. coast have not recorded any new births in the right whale population. The report also stated that a huge number of right whale deaths were recorded in 2017.

Scientists have, therefore, said that a blend of the rising mortality rate and the declining fertility rate is resulting in the extinction of the right whales. They predicted that at this rate, the whales would become extinct by 2040.

“At the rate, we are killing them off, this 100 females will be gone in 20 years,” Mark Baumgartner, a marine ecologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts said adding that the North Atlantic right whales will be functionally extinct by 2040 if no action is undertaken to protect them.

Speaking of North Atlantic whales, Baumgartner said the population of these whales was quite healthy about seven years ago. However, it soon began to decline after lobster fishermen began fishing in the waters.

Read the full story at the International Business Times