Saving Seafood

Hope, but no calves, spotted as right whales return to Georgia waters

February 5, 2018 — They call her Halo — the right whale was born to another documented calving female, Loligo, in 2005, and was last seen in 2016. That was until staff with the Sea to Shore Alliance spotted her Wednesday near Little St. Simons Island. She, and her companion, are the first right whales seen off the coast of Georgia this calving season, which typically is from November to April.

“There was an adult female spotted that has had calved before — or has had a calf before — and so we’re hoping that she’s pregnant and we’ll have a calf in the upcoming days or weeks,” said Clay George, who heads up the state Department of Natural Resources’ right whale efforts. “There was another whale seen with her that was large and appeared to be an adult or a juvenile, but it was not a calf that was born this year. So, we are hoping that perhaps it was also an adult female and may be pregnant also.”

There has also been action in the Gulf of Mexico this year.

“My understanding, from talking to colleagues that work for the state of Florida, that at least two of the sightings (in the gulf) have been confirmed to be a right whale, and the photos suggest that it may have been the same individual whale was seen in both locations, and if so, it appears to be a 1-year-old whale that was born last year,” George said. “So, those three whales are the only whales that have been seen south of Cape Hatteras, N.C.”

There is more than a little amount of worry among whale researchers and experts that the world could be watching the extinction of right whales, considering births are not keeping up with deaths — especially with human-influenced mortality from whales becoming entangled in heavy fishing gear used for lobsters and snow crabs further north.

Read the full story at the Brunswick News

 

North Carolina governor seeks offshore drilling exemption in Zinke meeting

February 5, 2018 — North Carolina’s governor said he had a good conversation on Saturday with the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, regarding plans to expand drilling for gas and oil off the state’s coast.

Roy Cooper, a Democrat, wants the Republican administration to give him an exemption similar to that offered to the Republican governor of Florida, Rick Scott.

Last month, Zinke told Scott Florida’s waters would remain closed under Donald Trump’s five-year plan, which would open 90% of the nation’s offshore reserves to development by private companies.

Interior officials later said Zinke’s promise was not a formal plan and the proposal was still under review.

At least 10 other governors from both parties have asked Zinke to remove their states from plans to expand offshore drilling from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic and Pacific.

Henry McMaster, the Republican governor of South Carolina, had a meeting on Friday with Zinke, his staff reported. Zinke did not meet with reporters after either meeting.

Cooper said he spent an hour talking to Zinke, telling him drilling could cause unrecoverable damage to the state’s $3bn tourism and fishing industries.

“We told him there is no 100% safe method to drill for oil and gas off the coast, particularly in our area off of North Carolina that sees nor’easters, that sees hurricanes,” Cooper said.

“We don’t call it the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’ for nothing, it would be catastrophic if there were to be an oil spill.

Read the full story at The Guardian

 

NOAA Fisheries Announces February 2018 Recreational Season for Black Sea Bass

January 31, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries announces a February recreational season in 2018 for the black sea bass fishery.

The current black sea bass recreational management measures of a 12.5-inch minimum size and 15-fish possession limit apply during the February 1-28 federal season.

Federal measures for the rest of the 2018 recreational black sea bass fishery will be developed through a separate action to be implemented later this spring.

Only Virginia and North Carolina have committed to participating in this February season.

Federally permitted charter/party vessels are required to abide by the more restrictive set of regulations when federal and state measures differ.

If you have questions regarding your state’s recreational management measures, please contact the marine fisheries management agency for your state or the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

For more details, read the rule as filed in the Federal Register today, and the permit holder bulletin on our website.

Learn more about NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region by visiting their site here.

 

Cooper: NC will sue if it has to over offshore drilling

January 22, 2018 — WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH, N.C. — Gov. Roy Cooper on Monday promised legal action if North Carolina is not exempted from the Trump Administration’s offshore drilling plans.

Florida won an exemption shortly after the administration announced plans to explore new drilling operations up and down the Atlantic Coast. The decision drew speculation that Florida was treated differently because it has a Republican governor or because President Donald Trump owns coastal property there.

But Cooper said he’ll stick with what Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said publicly at the time: That Florida’s heavy reliance on tourism and consideration of the “local and state voice” led to his decision to remove Florida from the plan.

“If that’s the reason to exempt Florida then it’s the reason to exempt North Carolina,” said Cooper, who was backed during a news conference Monday at Wrightsville Beach by locals opposed to offshore drilling.

This rationale has been repeated up and down the Atlantic Coast and in Pacific states that would also see their coasts open to offshore drilling, should the Trump Administration’s plan continue to advance on its current trajectory. Cooper joined governors from six other Atlantic states last week on a letter asking Zinke to reconsider the drilling plan. The governor also spoke to Zinke on the phone, he said, and the secretary agreed to visit North Carolina at some point.

Read the full story at WRAL

 

North Carolina: Tighter requirements for commercial fishing licenses proposed

January 22, 2018 — A proposal to tighten the requirements to get a commercial fishing license in North Carolina is nearing review by the state Marine Fisheries Commission following recommendations from a committee last week.

But any changes to the rules for being able to carry what is known as the Standard Commercial License would require the final approval of the N.C. General Assembly.

The panel, which was made up of commission Chairman Sammy Corbett, a commercial fisherman and dealer, recreation member Chuck Laughridge and scientist Mike Wickre, has submitted a list of five requirements. They will be subject to public comment before their presentation to the full commission at its February meeting in Wrightsville Beach.

Corbett noted in a press release from the Division of Marine Fisheries following the Jan. 11 meeting that the committee’s proposals “are not etched in stone.”

While the group’s meeting last week in Morehead City was open to the public, concerns have been raised over how they came about the proposal.

Because the committee was composed of just three commissioners, work on the plan took place in a less-than -open environment, according to some commercial industry advocates.

The meeting lasted just 30 minutes before the options were read into a motion, causing many to feel that the decisions were made outside the public’s eye.

Supporters of making changes to the rules, including Corbett, say that a number of recreational fishermen buy the $400 commercial license simply to get around catch limits, and then never sell what they catch.

“And if that in fact is happening, then it is an enforcement issue,” said Outer Banks Catch Chairperson Sandy Semans Ross. “Commercial fishing vessels must have a registration number on the vessel so they are easily spotted.”

“If a boat docks with a large catch and there is any question, Marine Patrol can ask who they are selling to and request a copy of the Trip Ticket when sold,” said Ross, who heads a group that promotes selling and serving locally-sourced seafood in stores and restaurants.

Read the full story at the Outer Banks Voice

 

Effort underway to gauge population of shad

January 19, 2018 — Interstate fishing regulators are trying to get a better handle on the population health of a species of small fish that has been harvested on the East Coast for centuries.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission says it’s starting a stock assessment for American shad that it expects to be completed by summer 2019. Shad are members of the herring family that’ve been harvested for their meat and eggs since at least the Revolutionary War.

The commercial harvest of shad has dipped over the decades. Fishermen caught more than a million pounds of them as recently as 2005, but the harvest dipped to about 375,000 pounds in 2016.

They have been historically brought to land from Maine to Florida. Recently, most East Coast shad have come ashore in the Carolinas.

Shad is unusual in that its life cycle depends on where it is found along the coast. Fish native to Florida and the Carolinas are semelparous, that is they return to their natal rivers to spawn at 4 years old and die soon after. They lay between 300,000 to 400,000 eggs.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Jones Calls for Tough Measures on Illegal Shrimp Imports

January 16, 2018 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the office of Congressman Walter Jones:

Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC-3) is continuing his long-standing fight to level the playing field for shrimping families in Eastern North Carolina and across the country.  In his latest move, Jones is calling for foreign shrimp to be part of a tough new federal monitoring program to prevent the dumping of illegal shrimp into the American market.

Foreign seafood is often produced and imported into the U.S. through illegal means including: production in countries/facilities that use slave labor; production in foreign aquaculture facilities (shrimp farms) that use illegal antibiotics banned for human consumption by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) due to a range of health impacts including antimicrobial resistance and cancer; and transshipment or mislabeling in order to evade public health testing or anti-dumping duties.  In late 2016, the Obama administration established a new Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) to ensure there are proper record keeping requirements on seafood to prevent the dumping of illegal products into U.S. markets.  Unfortunately, shrimp was not included in that program.  Jones and several of his congressional colleagues want that changed.

In a letter sent last week, the congressmen urged U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to include shrimp in the Seafood Import Monitoring Program.

“The U.S. shrimp industry is a very critical part of the Gulf and South Atlantic economies but is it slowly eroding as we allow Asian and South American countries to continue their illegal dumping activities,” said Jones and his colleagues.   “The inclusion of shrimp in Seafood Import Monitoring Program would provide a tremendous amount of transparency in the process, while also allowing this trade enforcement tool to reduce the number of illegal chemicals that are used to undercut our labeling regulations and seafood prices.  By doing this the U.S. will protect itself from becoming a dumping ground for illegal and often contaminated seafood products, and stabilize a market that has been manipulated for far too long.”

The problems with illegal and often unsafe shrimp imports are widely documented.  According to data presented in a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report entitled: Imported Seafood Safety: FDA and USDA Could Strengthen Efforts to Prevent Unsafe Drug Residues (GAO-17-443, Sept. 2017):

  • FDA tested only 0.1 percent of all seafood import entry lines for the presence of banned antibiotics in FY 2015 (see Figure 3 of the report).
  • FDA reported that it had taken 550 shrimp samples for drug testing in FY 2015 and, of those, 67 were found to have the presence of unsafe drug residues.  That is the equivalent of a 12.2 percent violation rate. 
  • The GAO further notes that same year (FY 2015), the U.S. imported 1.3 billion pounds of shrimp. When applied to all 1.3 billion pounds of shrimp imports that year, the 12.2 % violation rate suggests that as many as 158.6 million pounds of contaminated shrimp may have entered the U.S. during that fiscal year.  Assuming an average serving size of 0.5 pounds, this further suggests that more than 300 million servings of antibiotic-contaminated shrimp may have been consumed by tens of millions of individual U.S. consumers in 2015. 

In addition, shrimp from several foreign countries including China, India, Thailand and Vietnam have been subject to anti-dumping duties for over 10 years after producers there were found to be illegally dumping massive quantities of shrimp on the U.S. market.  The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) recently extended those duties for another five years after finding that removing them would likely result in a resumption of illegal dumping. Congressman Jones has been a long-time advocate for the duties, and applauded the ITC’s decision.

 

North Carolina: Cooper Petitions For Drilling Exemption

January 12, 2018 — RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Roy Cooper Wednesday petitioned Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke to grant North Carolina an exemption from the draft plan to open U.S. coastal waters to offshore drilling, just as Zinke granted for Florida.

After Zinke’s announcement Jan. 4 that nearly all U.S. coastal waters would be opened up to allow new offshore oil and gas drilling as part of the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2019-2024– compared to the current program where 94 percent of the waters are off limits — bipartisan governors have spoken out against the plan.

On Tuesday night, Zinke tweeted that after meeting with Gov. Rick Scott, Florida would be exempted from the plan.

Cooper has since requested to discuss with Zinke the risks of seismic testing and drilling off the state’s coast and demand an exemption for North Carolina like Florida received, according to a release from the governor’s office.

“The Trump Administration, through their decision on Florida, has admitted that offshore drilling is a threat to coastal economies and tourism,” Cooper said in a statement. “Offshore drilling holds the same risks for North Carolina as it does for Florida and North Carolina deserves the same exemption. As I said last summer, not off our coast.”

Read the full story at the Coastal Review

 

Massachusetts congressional delegation urges Gov. Charlie Baker to reject Trump administration’s offshore drilling plan

January 11, 2018 — Massachusetts congressional lawmakers called on Gov. Charlie Baker Wednesday to formally oppose the Trump administration’s plan to expand oil and gas drilling off the East Coast.

All 11 members of the state’s delegation penned a letter to Baker urging him to join other states’ governors in officially rejecting the Interior Department’s newly unveiled five-year drilling plan, which seeks to open federal waters off the California coast and areas from Florida to Maine for oil and gas exploration purposes.

The lawmakers, who have been critical of efforts to expand offshore drilling, contended that opening areas off the East Coast for such purposes “would pose a serious threat to our oceans and the economic viability of the Commonwealth’s coastal communities, tourism and shore-side businesses that rely on healthy marine resources.”

Pointing to maritime industries’ impact on Massachusetts’ economy, the delegation noted that the commercial fishing supported 83,000 jobs in the state and generated $1.9 billion income, as well as $7.3 billion in sales in 2015.

Marine-related tourism, meanwhile, generates tens of billion of dollars in economic value each yeah and supports more than 100,000 jobs in Massachusetts, they wrote.

“The economic effects of our ocean community are extensive, providing a source of income and jobs for commercial and recreational fishermen, vessel manufacturers, restaurants and other businesses throughout Massachusetts, all of which would be threatened by allowing offshore drilling and the risk of an oil spill off our coast,” the letter stated.

Read the full story at MassLive

 

Tiny glass eel draws big money, political muscle and poachers

January 10, 2018 — During the past few years, the GOP-controlled General Assembly has slashed the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries budget by about 40 percent, leaving departments understaffed and some employees bending under heavy workloads.

At the same time,  a review of more than 3,000 public documents shows that  several elected and former state Department of Environmental Quality officials prompted what appears to be hundreds of hours of DMF time finding ways to justify obtaining a share of the federal glass eel quota to benefit just one company in Jones County — American Eel Farm, owned by Rick Allyn.

Since 2013, Allyn has solicited support from state senators Harry Brown, R-Jones, Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, and Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, and U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, R-Farmville.

For almost two decades, the glass eel has been closely regulated by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s American Eel Management Board (AEMB), which has limited glass eel harvesing to Maine and South Carolina.

Most glass eels are exported to Asia to be raised to a larger size for use in kabayaki and other popular Japanese dishes. A pound of glass eels — about the size of a grapefruit — can consist of 2,000-4,000 fish. They are juvenile fish that are still transparent with only their spines and eyes visible.

Read the full story at the Outer Banks Voice