Saving Seafood

Border Patrol Stops Canadian Fishermen in Disputed Waters Off Maine

July 9, 2018 — As tensions rise between the United States and Canada, there’s a new clash in the cool waters off the northeast tip of Maine, which are rich with lobster, scallops and cod.

For more than a decade, American and Canadian fishermen largely have had a friendly but competitive relationship in an oval-shaped region of the Bay of Fundy known as the gray zone. But this summer that camaraderie has been threatened, Canadian fishermen claim, as officers with the United States Border Patrol have started to wade into the area, pull up aside their vessels and ask about their citizenship.

“We don’t want this to be a great international incident, but it’s kind of curious,” said Laurence Cook, the chairman of the lobster committee at the Grand Manan Fishermen’s Association in New Brunswick. “They say it’s routine patrolling, but it is the first routine patrolling in 25 years.”

At least 10 Canadian fishing boats have been stopped by American immigration authorities within the past two weeks, Mr. Cook said, the latest escalation in a more than 300-year disagreement in the disputed waters off Machias Seal Island. Both countries claim the island, which is about 10 miles off Maine and home to two full-time residents (both Canadian), puffins, rocks and not much else, and say they have the right to patrol its boundaries.

Read the full story at the New York Times

US border patrol boat strayed into Canadian waters chasing migrants: fishermen

July 5, 2018 — A US border patrol boat strayed into Canadian territorial waters while chasing “illegal immigrants” off the coast of Maine and Nova Scotia, Canadian fishermen said Wednesday.

Laurence Cook, chair of the Grand Manan Fishermen’s Association, said on Facebook that a US border patrol launch out of Maine attempted to stop a Canadian fishing vessel in Canadian waters.

Grand Manan is a Canadian island in the Gulf of Maine, right off the coast that hosts the border between the United States and Canada.

Cook said the incident took place on June 24 near Machias Seal Island, a tiny and rocky outcrop a dozen miles (kilometers) south of Grand Manan with rich lobster grounds, and whose sovereignty is disputed by Washington, although the Canadian Coast Guard maintains a lighthouse there.

According to Cook, the Canadian fishing captain, Nick Brown, informed the US vessel that “he was a Canadian vessel legally fishing in Canadian waters.”

“Typical American bullies,” said Cook, who said he was “not surprised to see the Americans trying to push people around.”

Ties between Canada and the United States have been strained since President Donald Trump slapped tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, citing US national security, with Trump calling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “very dishonest” and “weak” after a spat at the G7 meeting in Quebec last month.

Read the full story from the Agence France-Presse at Yahoo.com

Whale Deaths Increasing Up and Down East Coast

July 3, 2018 — Determining the cause of whale deaths is slow and difficult. A vessel strike likely killed the juvenile humpback whale that washed ashore in Jamestown in June 2017, but the determination is not conclusive, according to federal Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program.

It’s common not to know what killed a whale because decomposition, especially of internal organs, happens quickly. Large sea mammals like right whales are too large to bring to a labratory and often have to be towed to shore — trailed by sharks — to perform a thorough examination. A full necropsy may take days to complete and require large equipment such as a backhoe to move a carcass that can weigh up to 150 tons. Scientists must contend with odors, layers of blubber, and offshore conditions.

“If you don’t have the machinery it can take days and days, you may never finish,” said Michael Moore, a veterinarian and whale biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in an interview with NBC News.

What is known is that whale deaths have spiked in the Atlantic. Currently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is monitoring an unusual increase in whale deaths, called unusual mortality events (UME), for three species of whales: minke, humpback, and the North Atlantic right whale.

North Atlantic right whales are highly endangered, with an estimated population of 450 and declining since 2010. If the current trend continues, the species could be extinct in 20 to 25 years, according to researchers.

Vessel collisions and entanglements with fishing gear are the leading causes of whale deaths. Fishing gear snares some 83 percent of North Atlantic right whales at least once in their lives.

The right whale UME began in June 2017 and, so far, 12 of the 19 deaths occurred in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. Four washed ashore in Massachusetts.

Read the full story at ecoRI

Heightened protection for at risk North Atlantic salmon stocks

June 29, 2018 — New regulatory measures for salmon fisheries around the Faroe Islands and off west Greenland have been adopted by the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO).

While the measure applying to the Faroes is a rollover of the previous zero-catches measures, the European Commission (EC) said that the agreement on a new regulatory measure for western Greenland was “particularly significant.” This is because the latter addresses several shortcomings in terms of control and monitoring of the catches and sets an annual total allowable catch (TAC) of 30 metric tons (MT) for the period 2018-2020.

Under the previous regulatory measure in place since 2015, no agreement could be reached on the TAC, and Denmark (in respect of the Faroe Islands and Greenland) had autonomously declared an annual quota of 45 MT.

The EC said that the new agreement illustrated a renewed willingness of all parties to improve cooperation toward the conservation of these salmon stocks and represented an important step to protect the especially endangered southern populations.

These new protection measures were agreed at NASCO’s 35th annual meeting, held in Portland, Maine, U.S.A.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

SAVE Act gets boost

June 22, 2018 — A statewide association of commercial lobstermen has thrown its weight behind a $50 million federal bill to protect North Atlantic right whales with targeted research that emphasizes collaboration.

The group intends to work with the International Fund for Animal Welfare to develop a pilot program to test buoyless gear this summer, according to Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association Executive Director Beth Casoni.

“Massachusetts lobstermen are currently the leaders in the world for the conservation of right whales, and the association proudly supports the SAVE Right Whale Act of 2018,” Casoni wrote in an email.

Filed in Congress on June 7, the legislation would allocate $5 million annually in grants through 2028 for conservation programs, and the development of new technology or other methods to reduce harm to right whales from fishing gear entanglements and ship collisions. Grants could promote cooperation with foreign governments, affected local communities, small businesses, others in the private sector or nongovernment groups.

A grant program that is specific for right whale conservation and research will allow “the continued collaborative research needed for safe, realistic and viable outcomes for all that depend on the stocks’ success,” Casoni said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Greenland Salmon Agreement Touted as Path to Save Fish

June 21, 2018 — Conservation groups say they are optimistic that an agreement with Greenland will help endangered wild Atlantic salmon begin to recover.

The salmon are considered endangered in the Gulf of Maine by the U.S. government. The North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization held a meeting in Portland last week to try to broker a deal to keep more of the fish alive.

Greenland fishermen continue to fish for the salmon, while U.S. commercial fishermen do not. The NASCO meeting resulted in a deal in which Greenland will reduce its annual quota for the fish from nearly 100,000 pounds to about 66,000 pounds. It also suspends Greenland’s commercial harvest of the fish.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at US News

Canada temporarily shuts fishing areas to help right whales

June 20, 2018 — The Canadian government says it is taking steps to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales from encounters with fishing vessels and gear.

The whales are one of the world’s rarest marine mammals, and they have struggled with high mortality in recent years, especially in Canadian waters. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says it’s enacting temporary fisheries closures in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and off Quebec.

The Canadian agency says the closures go into effect Tuesday afternoon and will stay in place until further notice. The agency says the closures are due to the presence of right whales in the area.

U.S. and Canadian officials have debated the proper course for protecting right whales in recent months. U.S. Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, says Canadian protections “have got to work parallel” to U.S. efforts.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Boston.com

SAVE Right Whales Act Could Provide $50 Million Grant For Ropeless Fishing Technology

June 15, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The SAVE Right Whales Act of 2018, filed in Congress on June 7, could provide a $5 million annual grant program to allow fishermen, shippers and conservationists to collaborate to protect North Atlantic right whales.

Introduced by U.S. Reps Seth Moulton and William Keating, and by U.S. Senator Cory Booker, the SAVE Act stands for Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales. If it becomes law, the act would provide a total of $50 million dollars in federal funds, distributed as $5 million over 10 years, to aid conservation programs with rebuilding the North Atlantic right whales. Projects would include developing, testing or using technology or other methods to reduce entanglements and vessel collisions, which is the leading cause of right whale deaths. This could include developing and testing more ropeless fishing gear technology, which would remove thousands of ropes from the water.

“If we don’t take immediate action, the storied North Atlantic right whale could go extinct in our lifetime,” Booker said while introducing the SAVE Right Whales Act. “We have a responsibility to find and implement solutions that will help protect endangered species for generations to come.”

The bill needs to garner more support from members of Congress in order to be signed into law. Currently the population of the North Atlantic right whales is estimated to be at about 450.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

SONIA FERNANDEZ: Doing right by the whales

June 12, 2018 — These are not good times for the North Atlantic right whale. Ship strikes and gear entanglement play major roles in the mortality of these highly endangered mammals, which now number fewer than 500. Making matters worse, climate-mediated shifts are pushing their prey out of the whales’ usual feeding grounds, rendering traditional habitat-focused protection policies less than optimal.

This reality was starkly apparent in the summer of 2017, when 17 turned up dead in U.S.-Canadian waters—a mass mortality event attributed in large part to gear entanglement and ship strikes. The event also revealed that the whales had gone beyond their typical distributional boundaries. Scientists estimate that unless protective policies are expanded to cover their shifting distribution, right whales may face extinction in less than 30 years.

That’s according to a new study by researchers including UC Santa Barbara Marine Science Institute ecologist Erin Meyer-Gutbrod. With atmospheric scientist Charles H. Greene, of Cornell University, and postdoctoral research associate Kimberley T. A. Davies, of Dalhousie University, Meyer-Gutbrod authored the paper “Marine Species Range Shifts Necessitate Advanced Policy Planning,” which appears in the journal Oceanography.

According to the group’s findings, “only five calves were born in 2017 and no newborn calves have been sighted thus far in 2018.”

“What we have seen with prey limitation is that whales will search outside of their traditional feeding grounds, looking for denser aggregations of zooplankton,” said Meyer-Gutbrod, who studies the effects of environmental change on right whale populations. Due to the northward movement of their food from their usual Gulf of Maine feeding grounds to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canadian waters, the whales, too, are shifting away from their usual habitats and into unprotected regions. The combination of food scarcity in their usual habitat and lack of protection in their adopted feeding grounds, Meyer-Gutbrod and colleagues say, calls for advanced policy planning that essentially follows these whales as they stake out new territory.

“Prey limitation is not typically so severe that right whales starve to death,” said Meyer-Gutbrod. However, she explained, when prey is scarce, adult females don’t have enough energy to reproduce successfully. In addition, when the whales move from their typical protected waters into heavily-trafficked and unprotected areas, they encounter a minefield of obstacles, from commercial shipping vessels to crab and lobster fishing gear.

Read the full opinion piece at PHYS.org

Frustration mounts in Gulf of St. Lawrence lobster fishery over right whale closures:union

June 12, 2018 — A group representing Gulf of St. Lawrence lobster fishermen says frustration is mounting after the federal government rejected its proposal for a shallow-water exemption to fishery closures aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) says it considered the proposal by the Maritime Fishermen’s Union and the Pecheurs professionnels du Sud de la Gaspesie, but will not exempt waters of up to 10 fathoms — or 18 metres — in depth.

“We felt staying in that depth of water, which is where most of our fishermen are now at this time of year anyways, was a really good compromise,” said Carl Allen, president of the Maritime Fishermen’s Union.

Last week, DFO issued temporary closures to six more grid areas due to the presence of right whales. The move came after six areas were closed to several fisheries as of May 22.

A static closure zone is in place along New Brunswick’s northern coast until June 30, while DFO has been enforcing what are called dynamic management closures that shut down fishing activities for 15 days once a right whale sighting is confirmed.

In an interview Monday, Allen said fishermen are having a hard time understanding DFO’s logic after they were willing to comply with any number of measures, including the use of tracking technology and observers.

Read the full story at CTV News