Saving Seafood

Another GBP 1 billion year for UK fishing fleet but profits fall

August 22, 2019 — The turnover achieved by the United Kingdom’s fishing fleet reached GBP 1 billion (USD 1.2 billion, EUR 1.1 billion) for the second consecutive year in 2018, although external factors such as fuel cost, weather, and the political landscape have led to a fall in profits, new figures released by seafood public body Seafish showed.

Seafish’s report, “Economics of the UK Fishing Fleet 2018,” which analyzes the performance of the catching sector and is based on the most recent annual accounts available for fishing vessels, also confirmed that operating costs for U.K. vessels increased by 2 percent last year to GBP 759 million (USD 922.9 million, EUR 832.6 million).

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Canada’s Nova Scotia province beefs up aquaculture escape rules

August 20, 2019 — The Canadian province of Nova Scotia is moving forward with aquaculture management regulations intended to make it more difficult for fish to escape from net pens and easier to trace escaped fish to their original farms later, bringing the new rules into effect last week, the CBC reports.

The news service quotes Keith Colwell, Nova Scotia’s minister of fisheries and aquaculture, as saying that the changes approved by his cabinet follow an earlier report by a committee looking at the issue of fish containment.

The tracking options including testing DNA or tagging fish, while other changes include rules on making sure fish pens are strong enough to withstand bad weather, requiring operators have farm management plans and creating separate ocean bottom assessment requirements for shellfish-based aquaculture projects.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Watch as a response team helps partially untangle a right whale

August 8, 2019 — A right whale received some extra help off the coast of Cape Cod as a response team partially disentangled him Aug. 2.

“Despite a horrific entanglement, the whale was highly mobile,” according to the Center for Coastal Studies.

This particular whale, a male, was initially discovered July 4 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. He was spotted again July 19, and a team from the New England Aquarium was able to attach a telemetry buoy to the whale to track his movements, the center said.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Scientists Say More Right Whales Are Dying Off Canada As Climate Change Disrupts Food Sources

August 6, 2019 — For the past several years, including this one, endangered North Atlantic right whales appear to have been bypassing traditional feeding grounds off Maine’s coast, congregating instead off Canada in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where some are dying.

Scientists are working hard to understand that shift, while lobstermen here in Maine say it shows the whales’ risk of entanglement in their gear is overblown.

For decades, the North Atlantic right whales’ annual migration took them from the Florida coast up past Maine and into the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, where, from midsummer to fall, they would feast together on massive plumes of tiny crustaceans.

But these days, the whales are showing up far from their usual haunts.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Two percent of the world’s North Atlantic right whales have died in the last two months

August 1, 2019 — A Canadian surveillance plane was scanning the waters of Gulf of St. Lawrence when it made a grisly discovery: The carcass of a North Atlantic right whale, one of some 400 remaining in the world, was drifting in the current, much of its skin sloughed off.

From there, the news would only get worse. The next day, another dead right whale was spotted in the same body of water. And an 18-year-old right whale was entangled in fishing gear near Quebec, with a rope cutting into its head and over its blowhole.

It’s been a devastating summer for the endangered marine mammal. Since the start of June, eight North Atlantic right whales — or 2 percent of the global population — have been found dead in Canadian waters, alarming scientists, conservationists and government officials who had believed they had begun to make progress in protecting the imperiled species.

“It’s a horrifying step toward extinction,” said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, the executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conservation USA. “They’re a quiet, understated superhero, and we’re losing them.”

Necropsy results are still pending for most of the whales, but preliminary findings for three of them suggest ship strikes.

Particularly troubling about this year’s deaths is that four of the whales were breeding females, of which fewer than 100 remain. Calving rates have dropped 40 percent since 2010, according to scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, making the deaths of the females a major blow.

“This is currently very clearly not sustainable,” said Philip Hamilton, a research scientist at the New England Aquarium in Boston. “At this rate, in 20 years, we’re going to have no more breeding females, and the population will be effectively extinct.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post

KATHLEEN SAVESKY: Working together, we can save the North Atlantic right whale

July 31, 2019 — Last century, governments around the world came together to reduce commercial whaling, culminating in 1982 with the International Whaling Commission’s worldwide moratorium on that cruel and outmoded practice. Since the ban, cooperation among governments, conservationists, researchers and others have led to impressive recoveries for many threatened whale populations worldwide.

Today, just off our shores, Mainers face another historic threat to marine life that will require the same kind of commitment and creativity to solve.

Unfortunately, the North Atlantic right whale, a species whose ancient migratory pathway leads through Maine’s waters, is in crisis. The fate of this species, of which an estimated 411 individuals and fewer than 100 breeding females remain, depends not only on increased action from the governments of the U.S. and Canada, but also on the cooperation, coordination and creative collaboration of the fishing industry and responsible conservationists.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News

Following the food trail to help right whales

July 25, 2019 — Scientists are gathering data on a flea-sized, fat-rich organism that could be key to predicting where North Atlantic right whales venture in their search for food in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence.

A team from Dalhousie University and the University of New Brunswick is taking samples of copepods—a tiny zooplankton that is the primary food source for the massive  who scoop them up in dense patches.

Hansen Johnson, a Ph.D. candidate in Dalhousie’s Department of Oceanography, says the information could help indicate where the whales may travel as they seek out food and better protect them against their : ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements.

“It’s driven by this pressing need to figure out where  are going to be so management measures can be as effective as possible,” he says. “We think the whales are coming here to feed, so if we can find the food we can find the whales.”

Read the full story at PHYS.org

‘Smart boats’, AI could revolutionise UK fishing, seafood industries

July 22, 2019 — UK environment secretary Michael Gove has today delivered a boost for innovation in the country’s seafood industry with the opening of a new £10 million research and development fund.

The move paves the way for the potential use of artificial intelligence by fishermen and providing a potential double return on investment for the UK economy, the government claimed.

With the UK fishing industry contributing around £1.4 billion to the economy and employing over 24,000 people, there is huge potential for innovation to improve the technology available across the sector.

Unlike existing funding programs, the Seafood Innovation Fund will focus on delivering longer-term, cutting edge innovation.

UK businesses are already developing satellite technology and virtual watch rooms to track vessel movements, and integrating lighting into fishing nets to reduce unwanted catch and improve efficiency. But with the global fishing industry worth nearly £300bn, the government hopes this fund will encourage further technological development and unlock export opportunities around the world for UK technology pioneers.

“This government is investing record amounts in research and development, with this £10m fund further driving UK innovation,” said Gove. “As the UK establishes itself as an independent coastal state, the Seafood Innovation Fund will bring together our world-leading fishing, seafood, and technology industries to deliver more sustainable and productive fisheries for the future.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

NOAA Fisheries Sets 2019 Management Measures for Northeast Groundfish

July 18, 2019 — We are approving Framework 58 and implementing new catch limits for seven groundfish stocks for the 2019 fishing year (May 1, 2019 – April 30, 2020), including the three stocks managed jointly with Canada. These revised catch limits are based upon the results of stock assessments conducted in 2018.

In 2019, commercial groundfish quotas increase for four stocks from 2018: Georges Bank cod (+15%), Georges Bank haddock (+20%), Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder (+31%), and Acadian redfish (+2%); and decrease for three stocks: Gulf of Maine haddock (-5%), Georges Bank yellowtail flounder (-50%), and American plaice (-7%).

Framework 58 also:

  • Exempts vessels fishing exclusively in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization Regulatory Area (i.e., in international waters) from the domestic groundfish fishery minimum fish sizes to allow them to better compete in the international frozen fish market.
  • Extends the temporary change to the scallop accountability measure implementation policy for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder to provide the scallop fishery with flexibility to adjust to current catch conditions while still providing an incentive to avoid yellowtail flounder.
  • Revises or creates rebuilding plans for five stocks: Georges Bank winter flounder, Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder, witch flounder, northern windowpane flounder, and ocean pout.

In this rule, we are also announcing:

  • Reductions to the 2019 commercial quota for Gulf of Maine cod by 29.2 mt because the quota was exceeded in 2017.
  • A permanent extension of the annual deadline to submit applications to lease groundfish days-at-sea between vessels from March 1 to April 30 (the end of the fishing year); and
  • Changes to the regulations to clarify that vessels must report catch by statistical area when submitting catch reports through their vessel monitoring system.

Read the final rule  as filed today in the Federal Register and the permit holder bulletin available on our website.

Read the full release here

Canada Announces New Protections for Rare Right Whales

July 11, 2019 — The Canadian government is announcing new protections for endangered North Atlantic right whales following a string of deaths and entanglements involving the marine mammals.

Six of the whales have died in Canadian waters in the last several weeks, and necropsies show three of them appear to be due to vessel strikes. The Canadian government said three more whales have been found entangled in rope, and it’s unclear whether they will survive.

Cape Cod Bay is home to most of the species during part of the year.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com