Saving Seafood

Researchers are now fighting marine poaching with GPS-equipped sea birds

January 31, 2020 — Illegal fishing is one of the biggest threats to oceans today, responsible for roughly 20 percent of the global seafood catch, according to estimates by Pew Charitable Trusts. It devastates marine ecosystems and causes billions in economic damage, injuring and killing untold dolphins, sea birds and turtles, and pushing some species to near-extinction.

Marine poaching is so widespread, in part, because it’s fiendishly difficult to locate illegal vessels in the vast expanses of sea. But a team of researchers from France, New Zealand and the United Kingdom recently discovered a novel way for pinpointing the exact locations of such ships. And in a bit of poetic justice, the method relies on one of the animals at the greatest risk of harm from illegal fishing: the albatross.

Every year, thousands of albatross are inadvertently killed by legal and illegal fishing vessels. The massive birds are particularly vulnerable to longline fishing, which involves dragging thousands of baited hooks behind a boat. Albatross and other birds attempt to eat the bait and get caught on the hook and dragged underwater, drowning in the process.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

West Coast fisheries took steps to protect whales, turtles in 2019

January 6, 2020 — West Coast fisheries cleaned up their act in 2019, with new rules to promote sustainable fishing practices and new alliances to protect ecological and economic interests.

The changes include approval of new gear that reduces unwanted catch, safeguards for delicate bottom habitat, and guidelines for managing whole ocean ecosystems, instead of handling species separately.

Those regulations reflect input from regulators, conservationists and fishermen and represent unprecedented compromises among groups that often have been at odds.

In September, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council approved new “deep set buoy” gear for swordfish, to avoid snaring turtles, marine mammals and other unintended catch. Swordfish have typically been caught using vast drift gillnets set overnight, which often ensnare other fish species, sharks, and marine mammals. The new method allows fishermen to drop hooks into deeper waters where swordfish forage during the day, catching the prized fish without ensnaring other animals.

Then, in November, the body voted to uphold an existing ban on longline fisheries on the open ocean off the West Coast. That fishery had been closed to West Coast fishermen since 1989 because of the high numbers of non-target fish and other animals that were caught.

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

ICCAT lowers catch limit, reduces FADs for bigeye tuna

November 29, 2019 — At its annual meeting earlier this week, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas took steps to reduce fishing effort for bigeye tuna.

The regional fisheries management organization lowered the total allowable catch for bigeye tuna in 2020 and 2021 from 62,500 metric tons (MT) to 61,500 MT, and reduced the allowed maximum number of fish aggregating devices (FADs) from 500 to 350 in 2020 and to 300 2021. It also implemented a FAD fishing closure period for the entire Atlantic area for two months in 2020 and three months in 2021. In addition, ICCAT increased coverage by its observer program from 5 percent to 10 percent and moved to develop minimum standards for electronic monitoring.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Conservation groups criticize US, EU for ICCAT inaction on shortfin mako sharks

November 27, 2019 — The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas ended its annual meeting on Monday, 25 November, with members unable to approve a recovery plan conservationists believe is essential for the long-term survival of shortfin mako sharks.

At least two groups pinned the blame on the United States and the European Union. During the weeklong meeting in Mallorca, Spain, it was decided that the commission would continue to use guidelines passed two years ago that some fear will lead to further population declines.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MASSACHUSETTES: Cape fishermen celebrate new trawling restrictions

November 26, 2019 — In 2002, when Peter Baker first voiced his opposition to the large herring trawlers towing even larger nets off the beaches of Cape Cod, he didn’t think it would take 17 years to get a ban on what he and others saw as a return to the industrialized fishing that had wiped out New England herring, mackerel and menhaden in the 1970s before the U.S. pushed the foreign fleet 200 miles offshore in 1976.

Last week, the efforts of local fishermen, boards of selectmen, voters, environmental groups and state legislators who spoke out against the midwater trawl herring fishery finally paid off with a federal restriction on large herring vessels fishing within 12 miles of the coast from the Canadian border to Connecticut, and within 20 miles of shore along the Outer Cape coastline south to the waters off Martha’s Vineyard.

“This is the culmination of a decade and a half of hard work,” said Baker, who is the director of marine conservation work in New England and Atlantic Canada for the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Plan would protect 21 coral hot spots in Gulf of Mexico

November 15, 2019 — A plan to protect corals in the Gulf of Mexico is close to becoming a law, drawing cheers from environmental groups who believe leaving the corals alone would help vulnerable ocean ecosystems to grow.

The plan would create 21 protected areas off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Thirteen of the areas would carry new commercial fishing restrictions, and that has attracted the attention of fishing groups, who want the government to take a cautious approach.

Pew Charitable Trusts has characterized the plan as a way to protect nearly 500 square miles of slow-growing coral “hot spots,” and is championing the protection plan as a way to spare vulnerable corals from fishing gear. The proposal would prohibit gear such as bottom trawls and dredges that can disrupt the corals.

Sandra Brooke, an oceanographer and coral ecology expert at Florida State University’s Coastal and Marine Laboratory, said it’s important to spare the corals because of their importance to the marine environment and because they can have value for the development of new medicines.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WRAL

Cape Town Agreement on vessel safety gains public support from nearly 50 countries

October 28, 2019 — Forty-eight countries have signed a public declaration that they intend to bring the Cape Town Agreement on vessel safety into force by October 2022, including major fishing countries such as China, South Korea, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom. South American countries also made a strong showing with Peru, Chile, and Argentina signing the declaration.

The countries signaled their intent during the Torremolinos Ministerial Conference on Fishing Vessel Safety and Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing, which took place in Spain from 21 to 23 October.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Ocean-based climate action urged in new United Nations report

October 3, 2019 — Ocean-based solutions can play an important role in the fight against climate change, according to a new scientific report published last week at the United Nations Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit in New York City, U.S.A.

The report, “The Ocean as a Solution to Climate Change: Five Opportunities for Action,” written by a consortium of scientsts affiliated with the World Resources Institute, begins with the dramatic statement, “The ocean is on the front lines of the battle against climate change.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Tuna Transshipment Management Compromised

September 16, 2019 — The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission’s (WCPFC’s) management of transshipments in its waters is compromised by significant gaps in reporting, monitoring and data sharing, according to a report released by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Transshipment is the transfer of fish from the vessel that caught the fish to a carrier vessel that will deliver the fish to port, an activity that often takes place on the high seas and outside the view and reach of authorities. The practice allows unscrupulous fishing vessel operators to obscure or falsify data on their fishing practices. This contributes to millions of dollars of illegally caught fish entering the seafood supply chain each year.

The Pew Charitable Trusts combined commercially available Automatic Identification System data with the application of machine learning technology to analyze the track histories of carrier vessels operating in WCPFC convention area waters in 2016. Researchers then compared this analysis with publicly available information on transshipments and carrier vessels.

Read the full story at The Marine Executive

At G7, U.K. Urges Increase in Global Ocean Protections

August 30, 2019 — The following was released by Pew Charitable Trusts:

It’s rare that a world leader could make significant news at a major summit without drawing media attention, but that’s exactly what happened this week at the Group of 7 (G7) meeting in Biarritz, France.

During remarks at the close of the summit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the Aichi targets—goals set nearly a decade ago as part of the United Nations’ Strategic Plan for Biodiversity—must be “replaced with new, more ambitious targets to help us get back the biodiversity that this planet is losing, and has lost.” The United Kingdom Department of Environment has since emphasized how the prime minister urged countries at the G7 to back Britain’s call to protect 30 percent of the world’s ocean by 2030. Fortunately, a roadmap for just such an ambitious target has existed since 2016, when the International Union for Conservation of Nature first issued the science-based 30-by-2030 recommendation to restore and strengthen the health of our marine environment.

Along with urging other world leaders to embrace marine conservation, Johnson is showing his eagerness to extend the U.K.’s global leadership on ocean protection. Since announcing its Blue Belt policy in 2015, which aims to safeguard 4 million square kilometres of British ocean territory, the U.K. has designated a massive marine protected area (MPA) in the Pitcairn Islands, enhanced protections for the remote South Sandwich Islands. It has also established a network of MPAs around Great Britain. As a result, the U.K., in partnership with its Overseas Territories, is very close to fully protecting 30 percent of its waters.

Read the full release here