Saving Seafood

NOAA Funds Projects to Reduce Bycatch With Engineering

September 4, 2018 — A group of organizations is getting more than $2 million in grants to use engineering to try to reduce bycatch in fisheries.

Bycatch is the term for when fish and other animals are accidentally caught with gear that was seeking a different species. Bycatch poses problems for rare species of dolphins, turtles, sharks and other animals.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is awarding more than $2.3 million to 14 projects as part of its 2018 Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program.

One of the recipients is Duke University, which will test the applicability of sensory-based bycatch reduction technology. Duke’s project seeks to reduce sea turtle bycatch in North Carolina.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

Our Coast’s History: NC’s Oyster War

August 29, 2018 — Late January 1891, the steamer Vesper, rented from the Wilmington Steamship Co. and mounted with a well-used howitzer and caisson borrowed from the state of Virginia, left Elizabeth City with militiamen of the Pasquotank Rifles. Their mission: To enforce “An Act to Promote and Protect the Oyster Interests of the State” that had been passed barely a week earlier.

After three years of growing tension between North Carolina oystermen and vessels drifting down from Chesapeake Bay to harvest oysters in Pamlico and Roanoke sounds, North Carolina’s legislature had acted, creating a list of draconian restrictions on the harvest that prohibited dredging and allowed only in-state residents to gather oysters.

Tasked with telling the oyster poachers — mostly from Maryland — of the new law, as conflicts go, the North Carolina oyster war wasn’t much of a war, the rhetoric far outstripping the action.

“As she (the Vesper) proceeds on the return trip if any dredgers are found continuing to ravish the oyster beds they will be arrested, even if their boats have to be blown out of the water and their crews killed,” the Wilmington Weekly Star wrote.

In the end, the Vesper made one arrest, with other boats heeding the warning and leaving North Carolina waters.

Although short-lived and bloodless, what occurred on the water was but a part of an intersection of changing priorities in northeastern North Carolina.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online 

 

The blood of horseshoe crabs is important for its medical benefits. Now they’ll get a relaxing place to recover.

August 20, 2018 — William Hall, a retired marine scientist, is scheduled for cataract surgery soon, and a horseshoe crab will play a crucial role in the surgery’s success.

The blood of horseshoe crabs contains an agent that clots when exposed to gram-negative bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella. Since the 1980s, the blood has been used to detect toxins in medical procedures, including inoculations, intravenous drugs and even rabies shots for pets.

Decades ago, scientists conducted less accurate toxin tests on rabbits. If the injected rabbit got a fever, the sample was contaminated.

Now, they use the blood of hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs. But blood extraction stresses the creatures. Fishermen under contract collect them from their habitat and haul them to a lab, where technicians extract their blood before they are carried back to the ocean and released. About 15 percent die from the process.

Thanks in part to funding from North Carolina Sea Grant, a Greensboro-based life sciences company plans to establish natural salt-water ponds where horseshoe crabs can rest and eat after having their blood extracted.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

Why sharks are thriving near the North Carolina coast

August 15, 2018 — Climate change is negatively impacting our relationship with our state’s coast. Our famous beaches are taking a heavy hit from rising sea levels. Meanwhile, loss of property, loss of natural coastal habitats, and changes to our fisheries threaten our economic well being.

Sea levels are rising especially fast in the southeast, bringing potentially devastating losses to property values and real estate. Hurricane damage and chronic flooding due to rising seas a huge concerns. By 2045, more than 15,000 homes are at risk of being flooded on more than 26 days every year.

In addition to the property losses, so much sand is being eroded from beaches at Nag’s Head that the state spent $36 million to pump new sand from the sea floor onto beaches in 2014 and will spend $48 million in 2018. This brings total state spending on beach nourishment since 1990 to $640 million. The rising costs of beach nourishment impacts our state’s coastal tourism economy, which brought in an estimated $3 billion in 2013 according to N.C. Department of Commerce. With sea level predicted to rise at least 1 foot and by as many as 8 feet by 2100, there is much at risk.

Sea-level rise is not our only problem. Pamlico Sound had changed from an occasional feeding ground to a shark nursery as a direct result of climate change. Pamlico Sound already had many of the features of a good bull shark nursery: ocean access, proper salinity, and plenty of prey fish. The only missing piece was warmer water temperature. While adult bull sharks have been occasionally encountered in the sound for a long time, the sudden appearance and consistent presence of juveniles after 2011 signaled a change that has been correlated with rising water temperatures, particularly during late spring and early summer when bull sharks give birth.

Read the full story at The News & Observer

Federal court rules against Atlantic Coast Pipeline

August 7, 2018 –The Atlantic Coast Pipeline faces problems similar to the now-halted Mountain Valley Pipeline.

On Monday, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the National Park Service’s permit for the ACP.

As a result of this decision, if ACP construction continues along its 600-mile-route from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina, it will be operating without two crucial federal permits.

The ACP is proposed to go through Highland, Augusta and Nelson counties.

“This is an example of what happens when dangerous projects are pushed through based on politics rather than science,” said D.J. Gerken, attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center. “This pipeline project was flawed from the start and Dominion and Duke’s pressure tactics to avoid laws that protect our public lands, water and wildlife are now coming to light.”

The SELC is calling on the Federal Regulatory Commission to stop all construction along the ACP route due to the decision from the 4th Circuit Court and the recent stop work order placed on the MVP.

“It’s time to pause and take a look at this project for what it is an unnecessary pipeline that’s being pushed through to benefit Dominion Energy, not the people of Virginia and North Carolina,” said Greg Buppert, senior attorney for the SELC.

According to a statement from the Sierra Club, Virginians will pay $2 billion more for the ACP than they would if the utility used existing pipelines.

Read the full story at WSLS

Trump’s Offshore-Drilling Plan Is Roiling Coastal Elections

August 7, 2018 — Carteret County sits in a region of North Carolina known as the Crystal Coast. It’s celebrated for its charming lighthouses, sun-bleached beaches, and relaxed atmosphere. The population is 89.9 percent white and staunchly Republican.

Donald Trump won the county in 2016 with 71 percent of the vote. But he has touched off an insurrection among the GOP faithful here on the issue of offshore drilling, which the county almost universally views as a threat to tourism. In that, Carteret is typical of areas up and down the Eastern Seaboard, where opposition to the Trump administration’s proposed plan to allow offshore drilling in nearly all U.S. coastal waters has become a top issue in the 2018 midterms. While coastal Republicans’ support for Trump remains strong, their opposition to drilling underscores the limits of that support when local pocketbook and quality-of-life issues are at stake.

“We’re very conservative here,” said Tom Kies, the president of the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce. It’s “a very Republican county.” But people are very aware “how important tourism, and the quality of life, is for our market,” he continued. “That really is our lifeblood.”

Read the full story at The Atlantic

NORTH CAROLINA: Governor Cooper makes MFC appointments

August 2, 2018 — The following was released by the North Carolina Fisheries Association:

We have been notified today that Gov. Roy Cooper has appointed the following individuals to the Marine Fisheries Commission:

* Rob Bizzell of Kinston as a Recreation Sports Fisherman & Chair.

Bizzell is the Founder of Realo Discount Drug Stores, and the co-founder of Carolina Home Medical. Bizzell served as the President for the North Carolina Pharmaceutical Association and Chair of the Marine Fisheries Commission.

* Mike Blanton of Elizabeth City as a Commercial Fisherman.
Blanton fishes full-time in the Albemarle Sound. He currently serves as the proxy for the North Carolina Legislative Appointee to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

* Tom Hendrickson of Zebulon and Harkers Island as a member at-large.
He is an attorney and businessman who works in real estate development, commercial real estate investment and management, including apartments in New Bern and affordable housing in Charlotte. He also serves on the Global Transpark Authority and was the Founding Chairman of North State Bank.

NCFA is pleased that the Governor has made these appointments and notes that commercial fisherman Mike Blanton is an NCFA member. We encourage fishermen to attend the next MFC meeting in Raleigh August 15 & 16.

 

Sharks Are Creeping Into the Northeast Because of Climate Change

July 30, 2018 — Warmer waters are pushing the animals further north into previously shark-free waters. Should we be worried?

Shark Week, Discovery Channel’s annual homage to the ocean’s most infamous predator, comes to a close this weekend.

But residents of northeastern states like New York—long considered a relatively shark-free zone—might not have to wait until July 2019 to see more, as global warming has been linked with a significant northern shift in the habitats of most marine animals, including most sharks.

“There’s an astounding mass migration of animal life towards the poles,” Malin Pinsky, an associate professor in Rutgers’ Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, told The Daily Beast. In his work with spiny dogfish, a thin, small shark that lives along most of the East Coast, he’s seen their habitat shift “quite substantially.”

Pinsky isn’t the only scientist to make this observation. In April, researchers in North Carolina published a paper in Nature’s Scientific Resources that documented the northern migration of bull shark nurseries.

By analyzing data from North Carolina’s Division of Marine Fisheries (NCDMF), the researchers found that between 2003 and 2011, when water temperatures in the sound were hovering closer to 22 degrees Celsius, only six juvenile sharks were caught in the area. But as temperatures began to rise, a group of bull sharks migrated from their previous home in Northern Florida and established a nursery in Pamlico, causing a drastic uptick in juvenile shark presence. Between 2011 and 2016 alone, NCDMF found 53.

Read the full story at The Daily Beast

 

Feds allow pipeline construction in North Carolina to expand

July 26, 2018 — Federal regulators are allowing work on the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline to expand in North Carolina.

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officials this week approved work to proceed without further steps to protect endangered species. The FERC order issued Tuesday said work could be stopped to protect the environment if ordered by a federal court.

Opponents are trying to force a stop to the $6 billion project after a federal appeals court in Virginia in May vacated a U.S. Fish and Wildlife service approval meant to protect threatened or endangered species.

The pipeline being developed by Dominion Energy, Duke Energy and Southern Company will carry fracked natural gas from West Virginia through Virginia to North Carolina.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WVVA

NORTH CAROLINA: Artificial Reef Program to Propose 4-Year Plan

July 26, 2018 –Meetings are planned in Raleigh, Ocracoke, Wilmington and Morehead City in August for the state Division of Marine Fisheries’ Artificial Reef Program representatives to share information and receive feedback on a proposed four-year artificial reef enhancement plan, the state agency announced Wednesday.

Artificial Reef Program representatives will be seeking partners during each meeting for regional reef enhancement projects.

In North Carolina, artificial reefs, which are a man-made underwater structures built to promote marine life in areas with a generally featureless bottom, serve as crucial spawning and foraging habitat for many commercially and recreationally important fish species, the release stated.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online