Saving Seafood

Report: Speed compliance to save rare whales could be better

January 25, 2021 — Compliance with speed rules designed to protect rare whales has increased in recent years but could still be higher, according to a report from the federal government.

The slow speed zones are implemented to protect North Atlantic right whales, which number about 360 and are vulnerable to collisions with ships. The National Marine Fisheries Service implemented seasonal, mandatory vessel speed rules in some areas along the East Coast in 2008 to try to help the whales.

A report released by the service this week states that the level of mariner compliance with the speed rule increased to 81% in 2018-19. That was the highest level on record.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Gloucester Daily Times

PFMC Adopts Salmon Measures to Help Southern Resident Killer Whales

November 25, 2020 — The Pacific Fishery Management Council unanimously adopted new ocean salmon fishing regulations last week to help save critically endangered Southern Resident killer whales from extinction. While the birth of two calves this year was welcome news, Southern Residents face an uncertain future with only 74 individuals left and a diet almost entirely comprised of declining salmon populations, especially Chinook salmon, Oceana said in a press release.

Pacific salmon, primarily Chinook salmon, are 99 percent of the diet of Southern Resident killer whales. A single adult Southern Resident typically needs to eat 12 to 20 Chinook salmon every day, and as many as 30 depending on the size and nutrition levels of the fish. Wild salmon populations have been in decline due to a combination of issues, including dams, habitat loss and fishing pressure, Oceana said.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Choked, strangled and drowned. How balloons and plastic bags are killing marine animals

November 20, 2020 — In Florida, a critically endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle was entangled in a plastic bag that had become filled with sand. The plastic bag had wrapped around the turtle’s neck, which likely led it to drown or suffocate.

In another Florida case, a recently hatched sea turtle was found with two plastic balloons in its gastrointestinal tract, causing a blockage that potentially led to the animal’s death.

Balloons, plastic bags, recreational fishing line and food wrappers are killing thousands of marine animals as they eat plastic items that later perforate internal organs, or they become entangled and drown, Oceana said in a new report.

Read the full story at The Miami Herald

Plastic measures: Report lays out dangers plastics pose to marine life

November 19, 2020 — When Dr. Charles Innis, the lead veterinarian at the New England Aquarium, cut into a 400-pound leatherback sea turtle that had washed up dead on Sandy Neck in November of 2015, he was looking for cause of its demise, signs of disease or parasites.

What the necropsy team encountered was a 3-foot-square sheet of plastic lodged in its stomach.

By any measure, this turtle had experienced the worst that mankind could dish out. Shell deformities and X-rays revealed extensive fractures of the shell and vertebrae from a collision with a vessel. Heavy abrasions and lacerations around the front flippers indicated it had been entangled in fishing gear and that was believed to be the likely cause of death.

But the plastic, which when floating in the water resembles the jellyfish that are the leatherback’s favorite food, would have killed it eventually by blocking its intestine, Innis concluded.

From plastic netting and lines, down to the tiniest nanoplastics that can be eaten by zooplankton and enter the food chain, our seemingly endless seas are choking on plastic, and so are the animals who live there, according to a report released Thursday by the international ocean advocacy nonprofit Oceana.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Right whale estimate plummets while Maine lobstermen await restrictions

October 29, 2020 — A new scientific estimate has found the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale population is declining.

The estimate, from the National Marine Fisheries Service, comes as the lobster fishery awaits a draft of new federal restrictions that aim to reduce the potential for fishing gear to entangle the whales.

The number of right whales worldwide has declined from just over 400 to about 360, new data is showing.

Oceana, an ocean conservation nonprofit in Washington, D.C., is calling on the service to take immediate action to save the species from extinction.

“The new estimates that only about 360 North Atlantic right whales remain underscores the need for immediate action to protect this critically endangered species,” Oceana campaign director Whitney Webber said in the release.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

California rolls out new Dungeness crab regulations to reduce entanglements

October 28, 2020 — California officials on Monday, 26 October, announced new Dungeness crab fishing regulations designed to reduce encounters with several endangered species.

The new regulations, which will take effect on Saturday, 1 November, call for fishermen to lower the number of traps in areas where a higher number of whales or sea turtles are present. The state also reserves the right to close an area if an entanglement occurs.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

‘Like Christmas in October.’ Deep-sea corals get new protections in the Gulf of Mexico

October 19, 2020 — The federal government has approved new protections for 500 square miles of deep-sea coral habitat in the Gulf of Mexico.

The protected areas are scattered across 13 reef and canyon sites from Texas to the Florida Keys that support an abundance of sea life, including snapper, grouper and other fish favored by commercial and recreational fishers.

The rules, approved Thursday (Oct. 15) by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, prohibit fishing with bottom tending nets and other gear, which can rip apart corals that have lived for hundreds of years.

The environmental group Oceana has pushed for the protections for some 20 years.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this,” said Gib Brogan, an Oceana campaign manager. “It’s like Christmas in October.”

Deep-sea corals, like their shallow and warm-water cousins, are actually colonies of small animals that build a common skeleton. But unlike tropical reef corals, deep-sea varieties live in cold, dark depths of up to 10,000 feet. Deep-sea corals form into tree, feather and fan shapes that host a variety of other species, including shrimp, crab and fish.

Read the full story at NOLA.com

Federal court ruling requires NMFS to improve sea turtle monitoring in Atlantic scallop fishery

October 6, 2020 — A federal court has ruled in favor of an Oceana challenge to National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) rules regarding the incidental take of endangered sea turtles in the U.S. Atlantic scallop fishery, siding with the nonprofit in its assertion that the rules are inadequate.

The ruling, according to Oceana, is the latest in a “decades-long effort” by the nonprofit to ensure the scallop fishery “minimizes its harmful impacts on sea turtles.” The ruling will require the NMFS to revise its incidental take statement (ITS) to either more thoroughly explain the surrogate information, or revise its selections.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Monitor measure leaves many unhappy

October 6, 2020 — We here at FishOn have a couple of parting thoughts on the New England Fishery Management Council passage last week of Amendment 23 that will mandate observer coverage aboard 100% of Northeast groundfish vessel trips when it goes into effect in 2022. And then, we promise, we’ll shut up about it.

In the heel of the hunt, no one seemed all that satisfied with the measure except the council, which found enough common ground to obtain its preferred alternative for 100% monitoring coverage and still provide some financial breathing room for fishermen.

Conservation groups were happy with the 100% coverage, but also tres miffed with the minimum coverage rate of 40% that would kick in if federal funds can’t carry the freight at 100%.

“Forty percent just won’t do it,” Gib Brogan of Oceana stated flatly.

The industry was relieved that affordability became a driving force finally, but many fishing stakeholders remain wholly unconvinced that the council made its case for the need of the far-reaching amendment in the first place.  And they hated on the proposal’s draft environmental impact study the way we hate on eggs.

And saving the best for last, the plan depends hugely on the sustained munificence of — gulp — the federal government to succeed. Are we the only ones that think that leaves us a couple of legislative Crazy Ivans away from reigniting the whole issue?

OK, we’re zipping it on monitoring. For a spell.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times