Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Ripple effect of shutdown felt across Cape Cod

January 14, 2019 — Brewster Natural Resources Director Chris Miller was in Washington, D.C., this week at an environmental conference where half the speakers he had hoped to hear — all federal environmental and science agency employees — were absent.

While many stories have focused on the shutdown’s financial effects on employees, it is also hurting those who depend on the federal government for funding and expertise.

The New England Fishery Management Council, which formulates management plans for the billion-dollar Northeast commercial fishing industry, depends on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists and fishery management personnel for analysis and input. But NOAA headquarters in Gloucester and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole are closed, and the council has had to postpone any decisions at their upcoming meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and postpone most advisory committee meetings until the shutdown is resolved.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

New England Council Update – January 8, 2019

January 11, 2019 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

This is an important update regarding New England Fishery Management Council meetings during the partial government shutdown.

IS THE COUNCIL IMPACTED BY THE SHUTDOWN: The Council staff is at work and conducting business as usual. However, most of our federal partners at the NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO) and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) are on furlough during the shutdown.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS: Since many GARFO and NEFSC scientists and fishery management specialists are key contributors to the Council’s Plan Development Teams (PDTs) and provide critical input and analyses during Committee meetings, the Council is rescheduling or modifying the agendas of several meetings where NOAA Fisheries representatives were expected to provide pivotal presentations, reports, and/or analyses.

WHAT ABOUT THE COUNCIL’S JANUARY 2019 MEETING: The Council’s January 29-31, 2019 meeting in Portsmouth, NH will proceed on schedule. The Council will not be taking final action on any agenda items during this meeting. If the partial government shutdown remains in place, the Council will conduct as much business as possible given the federal furlough. The agenda and additional information can be found at NEFMC January 2019 meeting.

GROUNDFISH: Groundfish PDT meetings have been revised or postposed. The Recreational Advisory Panel (RAP) meeting that was scheduled for Tuesday, January 15, 2019 has been postponed. The Groundfish Committee will meet on January 15 at the Doubletree by Hilton in Danvers, MA beginning at 10:00 a.m. under a revised agenda. All groundfish-related meetings and agenda updates will be posted on the Council’s groundfish webpage. Check back frequently during the shutdown.

RECREATIONAL WORKSHOPS: GARFO and Tidal Bay Consulting were scheduled to host three workshops to collaboratively brainstorm short- and long-term approaches for possible future recreational fisheries management strategies that could be shared with the Council, Groundfish Committee, and RAP. The January 8 Recreational Fishing Workshop in Portsmouth, NH has been postponed. The January 10 workshop in Narragansett, RI and the January 12workshop in Plymouth, MA also may be postponed. Interested parties are encouraged to continue checking the workshop registration page at the dates above for more developments.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: The Council’s Executive Committee will meet on Wednesday, January 16, 2019 at the Four Points by Sheraton in Wakefield, MA. Meeting details will be available shortly at Executive Committee.

SCALLOPS: The Council’s Scallop Advisory Panel (AP) will meet on Thursday, January 17, 2019 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Boston beginning at 9 a.m. Learn more at Scallop AP. The Scallop Committee will meet the following day, Friday, January 18, 2019, at the same hotel. The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. Meeting materials will be posted in the near future at Scallop Committee.

EBFM: The Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management (EBFM) PDT meeting that initially was scheduled for January 9, 2019 has been rescheduled for January 18. The revised meeting notice and agenda are available at EBFM PDT. The EBFM Committee will meet for two days, Wednesday and Thursday, January 23-24, 2019, at the Boston Marriott Quincy in Quincy, MA. The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. both days. Visit the EBFM meeting webpage for more information.

NEW ENGLAND COUNCIL UPDATES: Any further updates to the Council’s January PDT and Committee meetings will be posted on the Council website. Visit the homepage at www.nefmc.org and click on the fishery management plan or Committee you are interested in.

COUNCIL PRIORITIES: During its December 2018 meeting, the New England Council adopted 2019 priorities for each of its fishery management plans, committees, and other responsibilities with partner agencies. View the list at NEFMC 2019 Priorities.

BOEM: Also of interest to New England Council stakeholders, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has postponed a January 8 meeting in New Bedford and a January 9 meeting in Narragansett, RI that were intended to gather public comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Vineyard Wind. Check the Vineyard Wind Website for updates on these two meetings, as well as the January 15 and 16 meetings currently scheduled for Hyannis and Nantucket, MA respectively.

Shutdown hooks fisheries

January 10, 2018 — The real-world implications from the partial shutdown of the federal government, which entered its 19th day on Wednesday, are starting to be felt by the fishing industry and other stakeholders.

In Gloucester, the shutdown effectively has shuttered the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office on Great Republic Drive, impeding fishermen from dropping off documentation in person, contacting NOAA Fisheries personnel by telephone or email, and leaving other regulatory groups scrambling without essential input and participation from many NOAA Fisheries staffers.

So, while the New England Fishery Management Council remains at work, it is being hampered by lack of access to its federal management partners at GARFO and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole.

“Since many GARFO and NEFSC scientists and fishery management specialists are key contributors to the council’s plan development teams and provide critical input and analyses during committee meetings, the council is rescheduling or modifying the agendas of several meetings where NOAA Fisheries representatives were expected to provide pivotal presentations, reports and/or analyses,” the council said in a release detailing the impact of the shutdown.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA Calls for Protection of Female North Atlantic Right Whales

December 20, 2018 — NOAA Fisheries researchers and colleagues are taking a closer look as to why the endangered western North Atlantic right whale population is growing at far more slower rate than that of southern right whales, a sister species also recovering from near extinction by commercial whaling.

Researchers and colleagues looked at the question and have concluded that preserving the lives of adult females in the population is the most effective way to promote population growth and recovery.

Most of these deaths are attributed to entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with ships. The findings are reported in Royal Society Open Science.

“Had North Atlantic right whales increased at the annual rate that we show they are capable of, the population number would be almost double what it is now and their current situation would not be so dire,” said Peter Corkeron, who is lead author of the paper and heads the large whale research effort at NOAA Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

The North Atlantic right whale is one of three species of right whales. Of the three, it lives in the most industrialized habitat and migrates close to shore.

From 1970 to 2009, 80 percent of all North Atlantic right whale deaths (70 of 87) for which the cause is known were human-induced, mainly from entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with ships.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

2018 Northeast Fall Bottom Trawl Survey Completed

December 4, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA:

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s 2018 Fall Bottom Trawl Survey aboard the NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow has been completed. The survey began on September 4 as scheduled and ended on November 13, finishing 83 percent of planned stations (314 of 377).

The NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow supports a variety of marine research. The NEFSC’s twice-yearly bottom trawl survey of fish and invertebrates is the longest running of its kind in the world, and collects data used to understand changes in marine life and their habitats over time.

Resource Sampling
During Leg 1, Hurricane Florence passed through south of Delaware Bay, yet operations continued by adjusting the survey track. Some planned inshore stations in the storm’s path were not sampled. Still, Legs 1 and 2 were the most productive for this survey.

Leg 3 left on schedule to cover Southern New England and Georges Bank. About midway through the leg, strong winds forced operations away from eastern Georges Bank and into Cape Cod Bay. While sampling there, crew members discovered a small hole in the aft part of the vessel through which draining seawater was being retained in a watertight space. The ship returned to Newport, RI on October 19 to address the issue. The repair was done quickly but continued high winds, short-term staffing issues, and replacement of a required back-up electrical system consumed the remainder of sea days available for Leg 3. In all, 7 sea days were lost.

Leg 4 started on time October 30 with 3 sea days added to offset days lost during Leg 3. About mid-way through Leg 4, a damaged pipe was found in the vessel’s sea chest. The ship returned to Newport for repair November 8 and departed the same day resuming operations in the western Gulf of Maine. The 3 sea days added for use in Leg 4 were then lost to high winds. Priority was given to stations in the western Gulf of Maine and stations planned in the eastern Gulf of Maine were not completed.

Ecosystem Sampling
Temperature and salinity measurements were conducted at all but one of the stations occupied. Plankton tows were also planned at a subset of stations, and about 75% (87 of 116) of the planned stations were completed. Reduced plankton tow coverage was mostly caused by lost sea days, although 4 stations were affected by equipment problems.

Gear Testing
In close consultation with the Northeast Trawl Advisory Panel, we set aside time during this survey to focus on achieving consistent net spread with our survey gear in shallow water, testing several different trawl door types. We completed approximately 24 hours of testing for the 66″ Thyboron Type IV doors during calibration work leading up to the survey. We planned to test other types using any remaining sea days after the survey was completed. These experiments did not occur owing to lost sea days, but will be rescheduled during a future field season.

Read the full release here

Moratorium on Northern Shrimp Commercial Fishing Maintained Through 2021

November 19, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

In response to the continued depleted condition of the northern shrimp resource, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section extended the moratorium on commercial fishing through 2021. This three-year moratorium was set in response to the low levels of biomass and recruitment and the fact that, should recruitment improve, it would take several years for those shrimp to be commercially harvestable.

The 2018 Stock Assessment Update indicates the Gulf of Maine northern shrimp population remains depleted, with spawning stock biomass (SSB) at extremely low levels since 2013. SSB in 2018 was estimated at 1.3 million pounds, lower than SSB in 2017 (1.5 million pounds). Recruitment has also been low in recent years, with 2018 recruitment estimated at two billion shrimp. This is below the time series median of 2.6 billion shrimp. Fishing mortality has remained low in recent years due to the moratorium.

High levels of natural mortality and low levels of recruitment continue to hinder recovery of the stock. Predation contributes significantly to the natural mortality of northern shrimp and has been at high levels over the past decade. In addition, long-term trends in environmental conditions have not been favorable for the recruitment of northern shrimp. Ocean temperatures in the western Gulf of Maine have increased over the past decade, with warmer water temperature generally associated with lower recruitment indices and poorer survival during the first year of life. With ocean temperatures predicted to continue to rise, this suggests an increasingly inhospitable environment for northern shrimp in the Gulf of Maine.

Given this change in the environment and the lack of change in stock status despite the fishery being under a moratorium for the past five years, the Section debated current management approaches and if they are appropriate in the face of changing ocean conditions.  Ultimately, the Section unanimously agreed to establish a working group to evaluate management strategies for northern shrimp given changes in species abundance, particularly as a result of changing ocean conditions.  In February 2018, the Commission approved guidance that species management boards and sections could use to address shifts in species abundance and distribution.  The Section will have the opportunity to use this guidance to determine if or what management changes should be made if the stock has no ability to recover.

While industry members advocated for re-opening the commercial fishery in order to evaluate the stock status and provide economic benefits to local fishermen, Technical Committee analysis showed there is little-to-no possibility of 2019 SSB being greater than it was in 2017, even in the absence of fishing. Given the low biomass of the stock, the Section did not establish a Research Set Aside; however, annual surveys including the summer shrimp survey and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center trawl survey will continue to collect important data on the stock.

The Section also approved Addendum I to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Northern Shrimp. The Addendum provides states the authority to allocate their state-specific quota between gear types in the event the fishery reopens.

Finally, the Section established a second working group to review the existing Gulf of Maine Summer Northern Shrimp Survey. This working group will evaluate ways to improve the reliability and efficiency of the survey, including shifting to greater commercial industry involvement in the collection of data. Transitioning the shrimp survey to a commercial platform would be one of the options considered by the working group.

For more information, please contact Megan Ware, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at mware@asmfc.org  or 703.842.0740.

Fisheries Researchers Map Habitats Ahead of Offshore Wind Development

November 9, 2018 — HYANNIS, Mass. – NOAA Fisheries researchers are helping to inform federal managers and developers on the impacts that construction and operation of offshore wind facilities will have on ocean bottom habitats and fisheries.

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center conducted four years of research to build a database of information, including water temperatures, topography, sediments, currents and marine life in the eight Wind Energy Areas authorized by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management along the East Coast.

The designated WEAs encompass just over 4,000 square nautical miles of seafloor from Massachusetts to North Carolina. About 40 percent of the area has actually been leased to date, including the Vineyard Wind project development south of Martha’s Vineyard.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Study says ocean oscillation changes reduced shellfish landings

November 6, 2018 — For years, Maine shellfish harvesters have been complaining that there are fewer softshell clams while arguing that the diggers who go out on the mud flats aren’t the cause of the problem.

A recent study by researchers from NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources backs them up on both counts.

According to Clyde L. MacKenzie Jr. of NOAA and Mitchell Tarnowski from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, between 1980 and 2010, documented landings of the four most commercially important inshore bivalve mollusks along the Northeast coast — eastern oysters, northern quahogs, softshell clams and northern bay scallops — dropped by 85 percent.

The principal cause, they say, was warming ocean temperatures associated with a shift in the North Atlantic Oscillation which resulted in damaged shellfish habitat and increased predation from Maine to North Carolina.

“My first response is that the article confirms what I have been seeing with soft-shell clams over at least the last decade or so,” Brian Beal, a professor of marine ecology at the University of Maine Machias and director of research at the Downeast Institute on Great Wass Island, said last week.

The North Atlantic Oscillation is a fluctuation of atmospheric pressure over the North Atlantic that affects both the weather and the climate along the East Coast, especially in winter and early spring.

According to NOAA, shifts in the oscillation can affect the timing of a species’ reproduction and growth, the availability of microscopic organisms for food and predator-prey relationships.

Over a period of several years, MacKenzie and Tarnowski interviewed shellfish wardens and harvesters along the New England coast, as well as examining landings records and other research in an effort to determine the “true causes” of the precipitous drop in shellfish landings.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

NOAA scientists admit a gaffe on risk to whales of lobster trap lines

October 29, 2018 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Late last month, the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center released a “technical memorandum” suggesting that expensive efforts by Maine lobstermen aimed at reducing the risk that endangered North Atlantic right whales and other large whales would become entangled in vertical buoy lines had backfired.

According to the memorandum, issued just before a weeklong meeting of NOAA’s Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team in Providence, R.I., to consider possible changes to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan, when the industry increased the number of traps trawled together and marked by a single buoy line, lobstermen began using stronger rope. That worsened the entanglement problem.

The memorandum seemed to offer support for calls by some conservation groups for the use of even fewer vertical buoy lines, weaker ropes and the development of a “ropeless fishery” with traps that used a remote device to release a submerged buoy when it was time to raise the gear.

In a letter addressed to NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center Director Jon Hare, Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher blasted the memorandum, expressing “significant concerns about the scientific merit” of the data and research on which it was based.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

 

Scallop fishery may be imperiled by acidic seas

October 16, 2018 — Increasingly acidic seas pose a serious threat to the sea scallop fishery, a recent collaborative study by the University of Virginia, the Ocean Conservancy, the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) concluded.

“As levels of carbon dioxide increase in Earth’s atmosphere, the oceans become increasingly acidic — a condition that could reduce the sea scallop population by more than 50 percent in the next 100 years under a worst-case scenario,” the study states. Models from the study, which were published recently in the journal PLOS One, combine existing data with several factors that impact the fishery: “future climate change scenarios, ocean acidification impacts, fisheries management policies, and fuel costs for fishermen.” Those factors were modeled out into 256 different possibilities.

Oceans absorb vast quantities of carbon dioxide. Fossil fuel emissions exacerbate what the oceans take in, further acidifying the water. “That acidity can corrode the calcium carbonate shells that are made by shellfish like clams, oysters, and scallops, and even prevent their larvae from forming shells in the first place,” the study states.

“[The scallop fishery is] healthy and valuable today in part because it is very well managed,” says Scott Doney, a co-author from WHOI and the University of Virginia. “We also used the model to ask whether management approaches could offset the negative impacts of ocean acidification.”

It couldn’t. In every scenario, elevated carbon dioxide levels created acidiferous ocean water. The culprit, the study concluded, was “unabated carbon emissions.”

Read the full story at the MV Times