Saving Seafood

Fishermen Use Electronic Reporting in Real Time to Help Understand Ocean Ecosystem

October 18, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — It’s been almost 15 years since New England groundfish fishermen began monitoring data from their hauls, bottom temperatures from gauges connected to their gear, numbers and types of discards, and other fishing observations to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center biologists.

The Study Fleet, a pilot project of the Cooperative Research Program at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC), began by assembling commercial New England groundfish vessels willing to provide high resolution or haul-by-haul self-reported data on catch, effort and environmental conditions while conducting normal fishing operations.

“If we are going to manage the ocean, we need to understand it, and participating in programs like this helps me as a fisherman to understand what is going on,” David Goethel, captain of the F/V Ellen Diane said in an interview in 2008. “It also helps the scientists learn how fishermen do things, what knowledge and skills they have. Everybody learns.”

Seven years ago, New Bedford fisherman Tony Borges joined the group and began to get useful real-time information from monitoring.

The software both fishermen use is called Fisheries Logbook Data Recording Software (FLDRS or “Flounders”). Study Fleet vessels may also collect biological data from their catch when additional data needs are identified by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center scientists.

“We verify what is being reported by the captain and crew both at sea and through statistical data quality checks. Vessel owners are financially compensated for their participation in the Study Fleet,” said Bill Duffy, Port Agent, Greater Atlantic Region.

Borges, who fishes groundfish, fluke and squid, get useful real-time information from monitoring.

“It helps me as a fisherman, since the water temperature at the bottom tells me when I am on fish, and if I move away a couple of degrees, it makes a big difference to what I catch,” said Borges.

“When he sells the fish, NOAA Fisheries can check his data against the dealer report. We can get information on where the fish was caught, the water temperature data for that tow, and the reported catch for that tow,” said Duffy.

“This provides valuable information to fisheries scientists and managers who evaluate the health of the stocks. They can incorporate data like these into their research and assessments. For fishermen, participating in Study Fleet allows them to contribute quantitative information to scientific research and improve understanding of the northeast’s complex ocean ecosystem.”

Duffy and the fleet are working to develop an app called Graphic Offshore Fishing Information System Homepage (GOFISH) that will allow commercial fishing captains and vessel owners to map, graph, and analyze the data they have entered through FLDRS. The GOFISH app produces temperature-depth plots, bycatch analysis graphics, and other visualizations that can assist in fishing operations. The data remain the property of the vessel owner, but can also be used in research to improve our understanding of marine ecosystems.

Electronic monitoring is not an easy sell to fishermen who have learned through years of experiencing the ocean, the weather, and the vagaries of stock movements. They trust their instincts.

“Nobody likes it, let’s be honest, nobody likes to be monitored, nobody likes observers,” says Borges. Instead, Borges suggests, “Let us do our stuff out there and monitor us at the dock, make it so you can’t unload without a monitor.”

But the value of the information is worth any inconvenience, and Borges knows how important it is to manage the resource sustainably.

“Imagine if we had this data 40 years ago,” Borges said.

In 2008, when the system had been running for only a few years, Bill Lee expressed the same sentiment about the importance of data from the fishermen. Lee was captain and owner of the F/V Ocean Reporter from Rockport, Mass., and been involved in NOAA’s Cooperative Research Program and the Study Fleet project from the beginning.

“It is very important to have fishermen involved in the research about their industry,” he said. “The only way we are going to get things to improve is to participate in the process. I get frustrated at times that things haven’t moved further forward, but at least they are moving in the right direction.

“It is all about cooperation. Scientists need and want data about the ocean, and fishermen can help provide that,” Lee said.

In January 2008, the Study Fleet project expanded into two data-poor fisheries, hagfish and tilefish. Mike Palmer, a NEFSC fisheries biologist, said the study fleets have the highest chance of improving stock assessments in data-poor fisheries where there is limited observer coverage and species are not sampled well by NEFSC surveys.

The Cooperative Research Program, of which the Study Fleet project is a part, was established in 1999 by NOAA Fisheries to involve the fishing industry directly in planning and conducting studies that provide useful information for managing fisheries.

When the electronic logbook system was field-tested nearly twenty years ago (between November 2002 and August 2005) about 1,100 trips were reported by 33 vessels using the system in the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and Mid-Atlantic Bight.

Data were more accurate and precise than that provided by fishing vessel trip reports in terms of identifying the area of fishing and the duration of effort, and more timely because of the electronic collection and at-sea transmission.

“Sometimes fishermen are surprised by the results from a cooperative research project, but they know they are accurate because they were there,” Goethel said. “The results speak for themselves. We need more efforts like this. There is a lot to be gained for everyone.”

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It was reprinted with permission.

Deep water sites off the US northeast coast are suitable for offshore blue mussel farms

October 17, 2019 — Offshore mussel farm sites need to have the right temperature, food availability, and the right currents. According to a study by researchers at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, several suitable locations can be found off the Northeastern U.S.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, suggest that the most promising locations for mussel aquaculture among the six oceanic sites studied are off New York’s Long Island, north of Cape Ann in Massachusetts, and off New Hampshire.

A number of research projects have been conducted in the past few decades at pilot mussel farms in Rhode Island Sound near Martha’s Vineyard, off the Isle of Shoals in New Hampshire, and north of Cape Ann in Massachusetts. Results were encouraging, but no commercial ventures have gone forward.

The authors acknowledge that these waters are busy and already subject to numerous competing and overlapping uses. They argue that finding the optimum locations for farms, where the conditions can support the kind of production that will be profitable, is an essential first step in development. If farms are going to compete with other uses, then managers and entrepreneurs alike need to know as much as possible about the requirements and benefits of offshore shellfish farms — especially when some uses must be excluded so that others may thrive.

Read the full story at Science Daily

New tool enables Nova Scotia lobster fishery to address impacts of climate change

October 15, 2019 — U.S. and Canadian researchers have developed a tool that incorporates projected changes in ocean climate onto a geographic fishery management area. Now fishermen, resource managers, and policy-makers can use it to plan for the future sustainability of the lobster fishery in Nova Scotia and Canadian waters of the Gulf of Maine.

“Climate change has socio- on coastal communities and the seafood market, but integrating that information into planning and decision-making has been a challenge,” said Vincent Saba, a fishery biologist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and a co-author of the study. “Ocean warming is leading to an accelerated redistribution of marine species. Knowing how animals will shift distribution, and what to do about shifts across management borders both regional and international, will be critical to planning on how to adapt to those changes.”

American  is Canada’s most valuable fishery, contributing 44 percent of the total commercial value of all fisheries in Atlantic Canada in 2016. Lobster landings have been trending upward in recent decades, and many small rural communities in Atlantic Canada rely heavily on lobster for their economic well-being. Changing climate could have a significant impact on the fishery and on those communities.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

A Fishermen’s Perspective on Electronic Reporting

October 15, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

For 200 days of each of the past 44 years, Tony Borges has been setting out from New Bedford, Massachusetts in search of groundfish, fluke, and squid. That’s roughly 8,800 days for those of you keeping score at home. He started fishing with his father, though Borges says his father tried to dissuade him from being a fisherman. He encouraged Borges to join the U.S. Coast Guard instead.

Nevertheless, in 1977, along with his cousin, aunt, and father, he purchased the brand new FV Sao Paulo. He still owns and operates it today.

For the last seven years, Borges has also been participating in the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Study Fleet. As part of this scientific data collection program, he records haul-by-haul catch (kept and discarded) information for all species.

When I met Borges early one morning on the Sao Paulo, he was down in the engine room covered in grease. He was working on his vessel’s first complete overhaul in 40 years!

Read the full story.

NOAA: Overfished cod not on target to rebuild by 2024

October 10, 2019 — Cod stocks in the area remain overfished and are not on target to be rebuilt by 2024, according to new federal data. In its latest stock status for the Gulf of Maine Atlantic cod, NOAA Fisheries also reported that “overfishing is occurring” among an already-depleted population. The status is unchanged from NOAA’s 2017 assessment.

“The Gulf of Maine Atlantic cod shows a truncated size and age structure, consistent with a population experiencing high mortality,” researchers wrote in a 208-page report released Wednesday. “Additionally, there are only limited signs of incoming recruitment, continued low survey indices, and the current spatial distribution of the stock is considerably less than its historical range within the Gulf of Maine.”

The cod assessment is part of an operational assessment, updated through 2018, of 14 Northeast groundfish stocks by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. Cod was identified as a stock that is experiencing overfishing, and the report categorizes eight groundfish stocks as having been overfished.

Read the full story at The Daily News

Improving Safety Before a Trip Benefits Everyone on Commercial Fishing Vessels

October 9, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Ensuring a safety culture is critical to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Fisheries Sampling Branch mission. The branch manages fisheries observer and monitoring programs in the Greater Atlantic region from North Carolina to Maine. Assessing observer practices and procedures is an ongoing effort. That was reflected in a summer workshop organized by the branch to evaluate the process of completing the required observer’s pre-trip vessel safety checklist.

The August workshop brought together a diverse group of professionals. The 24 people who attended have a combined 440 years of experience working with observer programs and/or commercial fishing vessels. A report on the workshop is now available.

Participants came from the U.S. Coast Guard enforcement and vessel safety offices in two districts, the fishing industry, NOAA’s National Observer Coordination office, regional observer programs, observer provider companies, and the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office. There were groundfish sector managers, observers, safety trainers, and gear specialists.

“The top nine life-saving items listed in our workshop report need to be present and operable every trip,” said Amy Martins, chief of the Fisheries Sampling Branch. “Observers and fishermen have offered suggestions for improvements to the safety checklist to make it safer and more efficient for everyone, plus we all benefit by cooperative efforts and shared expert advice.”

The Fisheries Sampling Branch plans to start testing and incorporating improvements to the safety checklist process beginning in the fall of 2019 and continuing into the spring of 2020. The proposed changes developed at the workshop will be evaluated to assess their effectiveness and may be changed if safety is thought to be compromised.

Read the full release here

East Coast Marine Life Survey Renewed for Five More Years

September 26, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species, or AMAPPS, allows researchers to put all the information about abundance, distribution, ecology and behavior of protected species – from whales, dolphins, and seals to marine turtles and seabirds – into an ecosystem context so resource managers can use it for conservation measures and decision-making.

“Long-term year-round ecological data on protected species and their environment in the Atlantic are limited,” said Debra Palka, a research biologist at the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center who coordinates the program for the Northeast and Southeast Fisheries Science Centers. “The aerial and shipboard observations, oceanographic sampling, telemetry and passive acoustic monitoring supported by AMAPPS give us data that can be used to quantify changing distributions and assess the potential impact on protected species caused by human
activities.”

The primary funders of AMAPPS are NOAA, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Navy. One of the goals of the program is to develop models and related tools to provide distribution patterns and density estimates by season and location that includes habitat characteristics of marine mammals, turtles and seabirds along the U.S. East Coast.

Read the full release here

Sneak Peek: 2019 Northeast Groundfish Assessment Peer Review

September 5, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Peer reviewers are evaluating 14 Northeast groundfish stock assessments September 9-13. The review meeting is at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Clark Conference Room, Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

How Much Review?

To keep fisheries and fishery management successful in the Northeast, scientists provide information on about 60 fishery stocks in the form of stock assessments. Of these,14 groundfish stocks are under review this year.

There are two tracks for peer review – one for management and one for research. This ensures that the information needed for fishery management in a given year is available and that there is sufficient time to improve assessment science.

Management Assessments

The management assessment schedule is designed to provide set cycles for each stock. Some are assessed every year, some every two years, and so on. In a given year, the selected stocks are reviewed in the early summer or in the early fall.  The timing aligns with the fishery management timelines for the various stocks.

This way, all stocks are assessed often enough to provide managers with what they need to develop good management measures and appropriate catch limits.

All of the assessments under review this week are management assessments. These are designed to be simple, quick, and more efficient than research assessments.

Using the new assessment process, an oversight panel met in June. They determined how much detail to include in each groundfish assessment and how much time to devote to review. Assessments for 10 of the 14 stocks will be further examined by the peer reviewers. Assessments for four will be reported directly to the New England Fishery Management Council.

Read the full release here

Meet Zach Fyke, Observer Compliance Liaison

August 28, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Zachary Fyke is the new Observer Compliance Liaison in the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Fisheries Sampling Branch. A former fishery observer himself, he has been there and done that, as they say, and is up to the task.

“Observers can spend days or weeks aboard commercial fishing vessels, and the work is intense,” Fyke said. “Conditions may be uncomfortable. Long trips in close quarters and the observer’s role in monitoring compliance can sometimes lead to tensions on a vessel. That is where I come in.”

In addition to resolving conflicts, Fyke also helps ensure that vessels comply with procedures that keep the observer program on track to meet monitoring goals. That includes adequate observer notification about trips, taking observers when scheduled, and providing safe and suitable accommodations for them on the vessel. It also means allowing observers to do their job, and complying with safety and other environmental regulations.

Read the full release here