Saving Seafood

Call for Summer Flounder Stock Assessment Workshop Working Group Members

July 10, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center seeks Stock Assessment Workshop (SAW) Working Group applicants for the upcoming summer flounder stock assessment, scheduled for peer review in 2018. Our goal is to create the most capable and balanced Working Group possible to carry out this stock assessment and produce high quality science products.

The Northeast Region Coordinating Council (NRCC) recently developed written guidelines for SAW Working Group formation and membership. With the exception of the Working Group Chair and lead stock assessment scientist, candidates for SAW Working Groups need to fill out a short questionnaire. The completed questionnaires will then be reviewed by the SAW Working Group Chair and the SAW Chair, followed by a higher-level NRCC decision committee. 

Application Instructions

Applicants should complete the questionnaire and email to Sheena Steiner at sheena.steiner@noaa.gov by August 3, 2017. Applicants may also mail the completed document to Sheena c/o NEFSC, 166 Water Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543. Applicants will receive an email confirmation once the questionnaire has been submitted. 

Timeline

  • Questionnaire available to public: July 6, 2017
  • Completed questionnaires due back to the NEFSC: August 3, 2017
  • Short lists selected for SAW Working Groups: August 15, 2017
  • All questionnaires and short lists delivered to NRCC Selection Committee:  August 18, 2017 (target date)
  • NRCC decisions due to NEFSC: August 28, 2017 (target date)
  • Public Announcement of Decisions: August 30, 2017 (target date)

Questions? Contact Sheena Steiner at 508-495-2177 or sheena.steiner@noaa.gov.

Citizen scientists on the seaboard: How lobstermen gather data from the bottom of the ocean

July 5, 2017 — A few decades ago, Jim Manning wanted to know what was at the bottom of the sea. And after years of studying waterways on the Atlantic coast, he says he’s seen a steady change in ocean temperatures that he calls ‘unprecedented.’

Manning is an oceanographer at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He partners with lobstermen on the Northeast Shelf from Maine to New York, attaching low-cost temperature and depth loggers to some of the millions of lobster traps deployed throughout New England.

The project, called eMOLT (Environmental Monitors on Lobster Traps) records and plots long-term seabed temperature records.

Fishermen use bottom water temperatures to look for changes over time in their favorite locations, which might indicate lobsters are moving in or out of that area.

“Every day they go out, they wonder why does their catch change from day to day and what is it that drives the animals to one day go in the trap and others not,” Manning said. “Almost all of the hundreds of lobstermen that I’ve talked to are convinced that temperature is the big driver and what moves the animals. The more the temperature changes, the more the lobsters move. The more they move, the more [they are] exposed to the traps.”

About a dozen boats are outfitted with wireless sensors that can deliver data immediately as the fishing gear surfaces, allowing near real-time data transfer to NOAA.

Read the full story at FOX News

From Beaches to the Bottom of the Sea, Microplastics Are Everywhere

July 5, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

Each year, millions of tons of plastic debris, from water bottles to fishing nets, plastic bags and anything else made of plastic, enters the ocean as marine debris through beach littering, road runoff, sewage, and illegal dumping.

Microplastics, defined as pieces of plastic less than 5 millimeters in size (less than 1/5th of an inch), are everywhere – in the sediments and in the water column, on beaches and in the deep sea. Some microplastics are manufactured at that small size as microbeads for use in cosmetics, toothpaste and facial scrubs, or made as microfibers in synthetic items such as fleece or rope. Others come from larger pieces of plastic that are broken down over time by waves and sunlight into smaller fragments.

Marine animals, from shellfish and fish to larger marine mammals, ingest them through the water or eat prey that contains them. The impact can be serious, affecting an animal’s feeding and reproduction.

Chemists Ashok Deshpande and Beth Sharack of the NEFSC’s Sandy Hook Lab study the impact of chemicals in the marine environment, using analytical tools like gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, commonly known as GC/MS, to look much more closely at the chemical components of plastic pollution. It’s a detective story, as they identify different types of polymers, how they change over time, and where they may have come before they are found in fish and shellfish and in marine sediments.

Their latest tool adds pyrolysis to GC/MS, a technique known as Pyr-GC/MS. In simple terms, a very small piece of plastic, or microplastic, less than 1 milligram in size is placed in a narrow quartz tube which is then placed in a platinum coil and heated to 750 degrees C (about 1,382 degrees F).  The intense heat breaks down the large polymer chain into smaller fragments which are then analyzed by the GS/MS to identify the specific chemicals and contaminants in that sample – a chemical fingerprint of sorts.

“Information on polymer chemistry will help identify plastic products and perhaps help in the mitigation, control, and monitoring of the status and trends of plastic pollution,” said Deshpande, a research chemist in the Habitat Ecology Branch at the Sandy Hook Lab. “Different polymers, which are large molecules made up of many smaller molecules or monomers, have different toxicities and adsorb or bind contaminants in different ways.”

Deshpande said marine animals exposed to microplastics are subjected to a triple threat. “There is the toxicity of the plastic polymer itself, toxicity of the contaminants adsorbed on the plastics, and the nutritional challenge due to the consumption of plastics with literally no food value. It is an area of concern in the management of fisheries resources and endangered species. Some scientists refer to plastics as the next wildlife predator due to their potential behavioral, morphological, physiological, and life cycle effects on wildlife.”

Deshpande, Sharack and colleagues have developed a baseline library of the pyrolysis GC/MS spectra – the chemical fingerprints – from commonly used plastic polymers. They are currently testing the proof of concept of this novel method by analyzing routine plastic items used in our daily lives and the broken pieces of plastics from field collections. The results so far are encouraging.

Understanding what the microplastic pollution is made of, where it is being found and how it is affecting marine species and their habitats will help improve fisheries and habitat management.

Read the full release here

NOAA study: Locally caught fish lands on plates locally

June 28, 2017 — It’s like Las Vegas, only colder: Groundfish landed in the Northeast generally stay in the Northeast.

NOAA Fisheries this week released a study tracing the ultimate destination of seafood landed in the Northeast that concluded that most of the groundfish landed in this region is consumed as food by consumers in the region.

According to the study, other species, such as scallops, are processed for wider domestic and international distribution, while some — such as monkfish — are sold in parts or whole in more limited markets.

The study said only a small percentage of the scallops landed in the region remain here. Most are sold to large industrial food companies and transported throughout the country or flash-frozen and transported to Europe or elsewhere.

Groundfish, it said, is one of the few fisheries that is primarily consumed regionally.

Using data from the New England Fishery Management Council and other stakeholders, the study traced the region’s boat-to-consumer supply chain, of which Gloucester plays a pivotal role along with New Bedford, Boston and Portland, Maine.

“This study is a first step in characterizing New England fisheries, including where fish are caught, what they are used for, and where they go once they are landed,” Patricia Pinto da Silva, a social policy specialist at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center and one of the study’s author, said in a statement accompanying the release. “We did not include aquaculture or the regional recreational harvest, which is something we would like to do in the future.”

The study showed the seafood species landed in the Northeast “vary widely in where they are sold and how they are used.”

Much of the groundfish landed within the region — including cod, haddock, pollock and several flounders — ends up sold as food fish to local restaurants, fishmongers and domestic supermarkets, the study stated.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Marine scientists use drifters to explore regional currents

June 27, 2017 — We know Clint Eastwood was the High Plains Drifter. And we’ve heard Bob Dylan’s tale of the Drifter’s Escape. But now the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole is employing drifters not on the plains but on the waves around Cape Cod and the Gulf of Maine.

“I’m excited about our latest drifter project,” proclaimed NMFS Oceanographer Jim Manning. “It’s one of many we’ve had and it seems like a real application for drifters. We’ve used them for a lot of fun educational purposes but our recent project in the Bay of Fundy has real purpose.”

They’ve been used with purpose in Cape Cod Bay as well. But, you might ask, what exactly is a drifter? It’s not a shiftless character begging at the kitchen door for scraps.

“It looks like an underwater kite, like a box kite,” Manning explained. “It’s a meter by a meter of cloth sails and they only thing that sticks out is a satellite transmitter. It provides us an estimate of the surface current.”

Its function is similar to that of a glass bottle with a note in it. You toss it in the ocean, it drifts somewhere, and you find out where it went.

With the old bottle you had to wait months or years until someone wrote back but a transmitter can tell you where it is today. It reveals where the surface currents are headed and can tell you where anything drifting along, like a cold-stunned sea turtle in Cape Cod Bay, or a swath of toxic algae in Maine, might wind up.

The current project Manning is excited about focuses on Alexandrium fundyense, the plankton that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning in anyone that eats a shellfish, usually a clam, that has filter fed on it. It’s the same algae that lives in the Nauset Marsh between Orleans and Eastham, and causes annual shutdowns of shellfishing harvests.

The plankton has a resting stage where it sits as cysts in the mud. When conditions are right and the water warms the cysts germinate, it swims up towards the surface and the currents carry it away. In Nauset Marsh it doesn’t go far and stays in the marsh but in the Bay of Fundy it’s carried down the coast.

“The main objective is to help numerical modelers try to simulate the ocean,” Manning said. “A couple of universities have big computer models. These models are used for a variety of things. We’ve deployed the drifters north of Grand Manan Island up in the Bay of Fundy to demonstrate how complicated the currents are. Every time we put one out it goes in a different direction.”

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Public health could – and should – play bigger role in US fisheries policy

June 26, 2017 — U.S. dietary guidelines call for Americans to eat more fish. But fishery managers don’t usually manage stocks with this goal in mind, according to a recent study.

Fisheries policy is essentially part of the nation’s food policy, which affects public health. So, fishery managers, whether they mean to or not, affect the availability, access and distribution of healthy seafood for Americans nationwide.

Despite this intrinsic link, fishery managers don’t usually take public health into account, the researchers said.

The primary authors of the study published in June were Dave Love, an associate scientist at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable Future, and Patricia Pinto da Silva, a social scientist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Fisheries managers should consider how management decisions affect markets, access and use of seafood,” the researchers told SeafoodSource in an email.

The Magnuson-Stevens Act, which is the main fisheries management law in the U.S., requires fisheries to be managed to produce the greatest benefits to the nation in terms of food production, within environmental constraints.

“However, while this is a key component of the [law], fisheries are generally not managed with food production in mind,” the researchers said.

Current fisheries management doesn’t take into account what the fish is used for once it’s caught, or where it goes. This means that it’s impossible to know if the country is meeting optimum yield, the researchers said.

Part of this disconnect comes from the fact that fisheries policymakers and public health officials are literally in different federal departments: Commerce for fisheries and Health and Human Services for public health. Federal agencies do cooperate on seafood inspection.

The researchers recommend fostering better collaboration between fisheries and health agencies.

“The public health and medical community needs to seek out information from the fisheries community about the ecological health of a resource before they make recommendations about what seafood consumers should eat,” they said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Following the Fish: Where New England’s Catch Goes and Why It Matters

June 20, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

Ever wonder where the fish landed at the dock ends up, and what it is used for? For some species the trip is short and direct and for one purpose, while other species travel thousands of miles to their final destination and have multiple uses. Besides food for humans, seafood could be used as bait for other fisheries, in pet food, as fertilizer, or in nutraceuticals – products derived from a food source that claim to have a health benefit.

As the public becomes more interested in where the food they eat comes from, NEFSC’s social scientists have followed the fishery supply chain from harvest to its final destination. They looked at where fish and other seafood are caught, where they go after they are landed, how they get there, and what they are used for. Following the fish means following a route that can be local, regional, national or international, depending on the species. It leads to a better understanding of the sustainability of regional fisheries and their social, economic and cultural relationships.

“Many fish species caught in New England are primarily used for food,” said Patricia Pinto da Silva, a social policy specialist in the Center’s Social Sciences Branch and one of the study authors. “Some are processed and distributed nationally and internationally, such as scallops, while others are sold in parts or whole in more limited markets, such as monkfish. Groundfish is one of the few fisheries that is primarily consumed regionally.”

Pinto da Silva and colleagues looked at species in the New England Fishery Management Council’s fishery management plans. They examined self-reported fisheries data and data collected by at-sea observers as well as data from dealers. They also spoke with fishermen, seafood dealers, staff at processing plants and others with knowledge of different aspects of the fishery, including harvest, processing and distribution.

Current and historical Information about each fishery, the gear types used, its supply chain, emerging markets, and how the information was gathered and from whom were included in a summary of each fishery along with a map of its supply chain. The only exception was American lobster, due to a lack of the kind of data that were available for the other fisheries.

“This study is a first step in characterizing New England fisheries, including where fish are caught, what they are used for, and where they go once they are landed,” Pinto da Silva said. “We did not include aquaculture or the regional recreational harvest, which is something we would like to do in the future.”

Fish caught in New England vary widely in where they are sold and how they are used. Monkfish, for example, is primarily sold as a food fish, and largely destined for an international market. Vessels supply a small domestic market through restaurants, wholesalers and small retail fish markets, but most monkfish is exported to Europe and Asia by container ship and airplane, with parts of the fish sold for different uses in different countries.

Atlantic herring, once a canned food product supporting a regional canning industry that has since disappeared, is now primarily used as bait for the regional lobster fishery. Some herring is also used as bait in the tuna or longlining fisheries, and a few herring are pickled or smoked for specialty products or sold as pet food.

One of the highest valued fisheries in the nation, Atlantic sea scallops are sold as food in domestic and international markets. Most are shucked at sea and generally only the adductor muscle is harvested and sold.  Only a small percentage of landings remain in the region, where local dealers sell directly to the public and to small regional retailers and restaurants. More often, large scallop processors sell directly to large industrial food companies that sell to grocery stores and restaurants nationwide. Flash-frozen scallops are sold to domestic and European export markets.

Many of New England’s groundfish, including cod, haddock, pollock and several flounders, are used as food fish, sold to local restaurants and fish markets and to domestic grocery stores. Depending on the species, groundfish that stays local travels from the boat to a dealer to fish markets, local restaurants and community supported fisheries.

Most of the groundfish caught in the Northeast stays in the Northeast, but it is also trucked to large seafood markets on the East Coast or shipped by air to the Midwest and other distant markets. Processors export some groundfish species to Europe, Canada and Japan for use there or to be processed and re-imported to the U.S. Use varies by species, but includes processing as fillets, for fish and chips, salted or smoked, or used for bait, in pet food, fertilizer or in nutraceuticals.

While many fish species are landed in the Northeast, the high demand for fish means much of it is imported from other countries, or caught in the U.S., exported to another country for processing, then imported back into the U.S. for sale.

“More than 90 percent of the fish consumed in the U.S. is imported, much of it farm-raised or aquacultured salmon and shrimp, and canned tuna,” Pinto da Silva said.  “In some ways we know more about tracing our imports than we do about the fish caught in our own federal waters. This study was an attempt to describe the broader food system in the region beyond harvesting so we are more aware of all the connections between fishing, markets, and communities and can begin to address the socially-valued outcomes from fisheries management.”

In addition to Pinto da Silva, other authors of the study were Julia Olson, Sharon Benjamin, Ariele Baker and Meri Ratzel from the NEFSC’s Social Sciences Branch.

Read the full release here

NEFSC Seeks Atlantic Herring, Sea Scallop SAW Working Group Applicants

June 22, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) is seeking qualified applicants to serve on two different Stock Assessment Workshop (SAW) Working Groups for upcoming benchmark stock assessments for Atlantic herring and Atlantic sea scallops.  The deadline for submitting questionnaires for use in the selection process is June 30, 2017.

RESPONSIBILITIES:  The SAW is a formal scientific peer review process for evaluating and presenting stock assessment results.  SAW Working Groups prepare benchmark stock assessments that are peer reviewed by a Stock Assessment Review Committee and then published.  

BENCHMARKS:  The benchmark stock assessments for Atlantic herring and Atlantic sea scallops will be conducted in the first half of 2018.  Preparations are underway.

SELECTION PROCESS:  The Northeast Regional Coordinating Committee (NRCC) recently developed new guidelines related to the formation of SAW Working Groups and the selection of participants.  As part of the new format, all candidates — other than the Working Group chair and lead stock assessment scientist — now are required to fill out a questionnaire.  The questionnaires will be used to guide the rest of the selection process.  Final selections will be made by a NRCC selection committee.

CRITERIA:  The selection committee will consider, among other criteria, the independence, expertise, and education of candidates.  The size, composition, and balance of the SAW Working Groups also are factors.  NEFSC stated, “Effective assessment workgroups typically consist of 4-8 members with a broad range of skills and proficiency and should include individuals from several disciplines.  Applicant qualifications should be directly relevant to the particular stock they wish to assess.”

TIMELINE:  The deadline for submitting completed questionnaires is June 30, 2017.  A short list of selected SAW Working Group candidates is expected to be announced by July 11, 2017.  The NRCC will review the short list and make final recommendations to the science center.  A public announcement of the final decisions and working group compositions is targeted for July 24, 2017.

APPLICATION QUESTIONNAIRE:  Additional information and the application questionnaire are available at SAW Working Groups.

QUESTIONS:  Completed forms should be emailed to Sheena Steiner at sheena.steiner@noaa.gov.  Sheena also is available by phone at (508) 495-2177 to answer questions. 

NOAA Seeks Participants on Herring and Scallop Stock Assessment Working Groups

June 5, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center is seeking Stock Assessment Workshop (SAW) Working Group applicants for upcoming Atlantic herring and Sea scallop stock assessments, scheduled for peer review in 2018. Our goal is to create the most capable and balanced working groups possible to carry out these stock assessments and produce high quality science products. 

Application Instructions

The application process and selection criteria are available online. Applicants should complete the questionnaire, specifying their preferred stock, and email the document to Sheena Steiner at sheena.steiner@noaa.gov by June 30, 2017. You may also mail the completed document to Sheena Steiner c/o NEFSC, 166 Water Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543. 

If you have any questions about the process, please contact Sheena by email or at (508) 495-2177. All applicants will receive an email confirmation upon receipt of a completed questionnaire.

Northern Gulf of Maine Scallop Management Area to be Surveyed this Summer through Scallop RSA Program

June 2, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

At the request of the New England Fishery Management Council, NOAA Fisheries intends to take action to facilitate survey work this summer in the southern portion of the Northern Gulf of Maine (NGOM) Scallop Management Area. The additional coverage will occur through the Scallop Research Set-Aside (RSA) Program. The agency is working to amend two previously approved RSA awards for 2017 scallop surveys on Georges Bank so that both surveys can be expanded to include coverage in the Gulf of Maine as follows.

  • Coonamessett Farm Foundation will receive an additional 12,000 pounds of scallop RSA allocation to: (1) survey portions of Stellwagen Bank and Jeffreys Ledge with HabCam, a habitat mapping camera system; and (2) conduct complimentary scallop dredge surveys to collect biological samples. And,
  • The School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth will receive an additional 1,734

During its mid-April meeting, the Council voted to send a letter to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) asking the center to explore options for including the southern portion of the NGOM area in upcoming 2017 scallop surveys. A 2016 survey conducted by the Maine Department of Marine Resources and the University of Maine indicated that biomass in the NGOM had increased substantially since the last time the area was surveyed in 2012, but no additional survey work was scheduled for 2017.

Fishing effort increased significantly in 2016 and 2017 in the area, especially off Cape Ann and the northeastern portion of Stellwagen Bank. Consequently, the Council determined it needed the most updated biomass estimates possible to help inform the management of the NGOM going forward.

Read the full release here