Saving Seafood

Sea snails on pace to bring bigger prices

July 11, 2016 — LITTLE COMPTON, R.I. — Cooking a channeled whelk is not for the squeamish. But sliced and sprinkled over a bed of linguine, it’s a chewy delicacy in old-fashioned Italian eateries along the East Coast.

The sea snails known by Italian-Americans as scungilli used to be such a niche market that fishermen ignored them when they turned up in lobster traps or oyster dredges.

Now they’re a prized commodity. Because of growing demand in Asia and the collapse of other industries, such as lobster, fishermen searching for something else to catch are keeping and selling the big marine snails.

“There’s an international market for the product, primarily in Hong Kong and South China,” said Rick Robins, who owns Bernie’s Conchs in Virginia and manages export sales for Chesapeake Bay Packing. “It’s a popular item in Cantonese cooking.”

Most people who order a plate of scungilli probably haven’t seen one of the hairy-shelled gastropods in the wild. A voracious predator, it crawls along the bottom of Atlantic coastal inlets from Nantucket Sound to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, piercing its razor-edged proboscis into clams and other prey.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

‘Ugly’ snails, once ignored by fishermen, now a prized catch

July 7, 2016 — LITTLE COMPTON, R.I. — Cooking a channeled whelk is not for the squeamish. But sliced and sprinkled over a bed of linguine, it’s a chewy delicacy in old-fashioned Italian eateries along the East Coast.

The sea snails known by Italian-Americans as scungilli used to be such a niche market that fishermen ignored them when they turned up in lobster traps or oyster dredges.

Now they’re a prized commodity. Because of growing demand in Asia and the collapse of other industries, such as lobster, fishermen searching for something else to catch are keeping and selling the big marine snails.

“There’s an international market for the product, primarily in Hong Kong and South China,” said Rick Robins, who owns Bernie’s Conchs in Virginia and manages export sales for Chesapeake Bay Packing. “It’s a popular item in Cantonese cooking.”

Most people who order a plate of scungilli probably haven’t seen one of the hairy-shelled gastropods in the wild. A voracious predator, it crawls along the bottom of Atlantic coastal inlets from Nantucket Sound to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, piercing its razor-edged proboscis into clams and other prey.

“They’re not like their Caribbean cousin,” said Rhode Island fisherman Greg Mataronas, comparing it to the tropical, vegetarian conch. “They’re the Northern, ugly version. Their faces are a hunk of meat.”

It’s an increasingly lucrative hunk of meat: A large whelk can be sold for as much as $7 in a live market.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

Ocean Drifters Aid University Study of Currents

June 17, 2016 — A team of scientists and teachers last month deployed a small fleet of devices off Lucy Vincent Beach in the hope of tracking their journey to Narragansett Bay. Most of the 10 devices, known as ocean drifters, sailed past Noman’s Land and across Rhode Island Sound, confirming a link between Narragansett Bay and the waters south of the Vineyard.

Chris Kincaid, a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, and his colleagues have been trying to understand circulation within Narragansett Bay, which lies about 25 miles west of Vineyard Sound. Among other things, they hope to reveal the origin of the currents, along with the critical nutrients they carry.

“We know that there is a lot of nitrogen in the bottom water of Rhode Island Sound,” Mr. Kincaid told the Gazette this week. But he said those nutrients are mostly trapped at the bottom by changes in the water density. “To get marine growth, you need nitrogen to be where the sunlight is, near the surface,” he said. “Our hypothesis is that there’s a lot of material that fuels the ecosystem that comes in this coastal current from the area of Martha’s Vineyard.”

The study has a number of applications, including the tracking of oil spills and floating garbage. But the ultimate goal is fisheries management. The study has received funding from Rhode Island Sea Grant, a partnership that includes URI and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which regulates offshore fisheries.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

Rep. Zeldin’s Bill for Long Island Fishermen Passes House of Representatives

June 13, 2016 — On Tuesday, June 7, 2016, Congressman Lee Zeldin’s (R, NY-1) EEZ Transit Zone Clarification Act (HR 3070) unanimously passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. You can watch passage of the bill here. The Congressman’s bill, which passed the House Natural Resources Committee with unanimous support on Wednesday, March 15, 2016, would clarify federal laws governing the management of the striped bass fishery in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) between Montauk, New York, and Block Island, Rhode Island, permitting striped bass fishing in these waters.

Between New York State waters, which end three miles off of Montauk Point, New York, and the Rhode Island boundary, which begins three miles off of Block Island, there is a small area of federally controlled water that is considered part of the EEZ. The EEZ, which extends up to 200 miles from the coast, are waters patrolled by the Coast Guard, where the United States has exclusive jurisdiction over fisheries and other natural resources. Striped bass fishing has been banned in the EEZ since 1990. Congressman Zeldin’s EEZ Transit Zone Clarification Act would authorize the Secretary of Commerce to open this area to striped bass fishing.

Read the full story at Long Island Exchange

Monkfish Money to Allow Study of the New England Fishery

June 13, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — The federal government says two projects designed to improve the future of the monkfish fishery will receive more than $3.7 million in grants.

The grants are going to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology and Cornell University Cooperative Extension.

The monkfish fishery was worth more than $18 million in 2014. It is based in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Fishermen also land monkfish in other states including New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Maine.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Maine Public Broadcasting Network

Northward Movement of New England Lobsters Putting Strain on Industry, Trade Group Says

June 6, 2016 — One of Southern New England’s most iconic sea creatures is being displaced by a warming planet.

A trade group says rising ocean temperatures has been putting a strain on lobster fisheries in Southern New England, including Southern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York.

According to a report from the National Observer, the Lobstermen’s Association of Massachusetts revealed that lobsters are moving further north, seeking habitats in colder waters.

“This is a real concern for us,” Beth Casoni, executive director of the Lobstermen’s Association of Massachusetts told weather.com in a phone interview.

Megan Ware, Lobster Fishery Management Plan Coordinator at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, explained to weather.com that the number of adult lobsters in Southern New England —south of Cape Cod— has plummeted to “roughly 10 million.”

Read the full story at The Weather Channel 

Seafood Industry Airs Views During Congressman’s Visit to New Bedford Waterfront

Bishop 3

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell (left) and Rep. Rob Bishop (right) discuss fishing issues in New Bedford on Thursday, June 2. (Photo: House Natural Resources Committee)

June 3, 2016 — The following is excerpted from a story published today by the New Bedford Standard-Times:

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A congressman from the Mountain West got a full dose of a New England coast Thursday, as seafood and fishing industry representatives aired their views on several contentious issues — including the ongoing marine monument debate — during a whirlwind tour of New Bedford’s waterfront.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, visited the city to get a firsthand look at the highest-value commercial fishing port in the country. Numerous industry leaders from across the region took the opportunity to speak to the committee chairman, particularly about the push for monument status in the New England Canyons and Seamounts, about 100 miles southeast of Cape Cod.

Eric Reid, a general manager with Rhode Island frozen fish business Seafreeze, told Bishop during a noontime forum at the New Bedford Whaling Museum that economic impacts from monument status, which would restrict commercial fishing, could cost $500 million and “countless jobs.”

Reid unfurled a map of ocean waters on a Whaling Museum table and pointed out to Bishop where he felt commercial fishing businesses could, and could not, survive if a monument status was put in place. Reid suggested a line of demarcation in the Canyons and Seamounts area, where bottom-fishing would be allowed north of the line but not to the south.

“We can protect the industry, and we can protect the corals,” Reid said, urging that “pelagic” fishing, or fishing that occurs well above ocean floors, be allowed in both zones.

Bishop called the map an “extremely good” start to alternative proposals for which he could advocate as the issue unfolds in coming months, during the final stretch of President Barack Obama’s administration.

Bob Vanasse, a New Bedford native and executive director of Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization Saving Seafood, said Bishop’s visit hopefully was the first of many lawmaker visits facilitated by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC). Saving Seafood launched the coalition last fall, with members that span the country and include New Bedford’s Harbor Development Commission.

“We want to bring these members of Congress who have jurisdiction over the fishing industry, to visit the ports that their laws regulate,” Vanasse said. “This is the kind of communication effort that the National Coalition is about.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford-Standard Times

New England lobsters swim to Canada, bringing jobs with them

June 2, 2016 — Warming waters from climate change off the Atlantic coast are driving lobsters further north than ever before, disrupting fisheries and – for some – perhaps changing a way of life forever.

While the southern New England lobster fishery has all but collapsed, fishers in Maine, Prince Edward Island and even further north are benefiting from the crustaceans’ movement.

“I’ve seen enough of the charts to say the water’s warming, and if that’s climate change, it’s happening. It is happening,” says Beth Casoni, executive director of the Lobstermen’s Association of Massachusetts.

Casoni estimates some 30 fishers still trap lobster in southern New England, down from hundreds previously. The impacted areas include Southern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York.

At the same time the lobster fishing in Maine and north has exploded. Maine is seeing historically high landings now, roughly five times higher than it was back in the 1980s and ‘90s.

It’s a similar story in P.E.I., where lobster landings have gone from a low of 17.6 million pounds in 1997 to a high of 29.7 million pounds in 2014.

Read the full story at the National Observer

Video equipment installed on Cape fishing boats

May 31, 2016 — On the Dawn T, commercial fisherman Nick Muto inked “Big Brother” next to a switch that turns on a sophisticated video system that will record everything on deck from the time he leaves the dock to his return.

Between 10 and 20 fishermen from Rhode Island to Maine on Wednesday will flip the switch and turn on the cameras. Three Cape fishermen have had the equipment installed on their vessels, and three more are scheduled to be outfitted.

“We all need to take ownership of what we are doing,” Muto said. “If we want to see a future in fishing, we need more accurate information.

While there have already been pilot programs to evaluate video monitoring, this is the first time, under what is known as an Exempted Fishing Permit, that the information gathered by video will be incorporated into the management process. The fishermen, Muto included, volunteered for the program.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

NOAA Eyes Possible Move from Woods Hole

May 27, 2016 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is zeroing in on a new home for its Northeast Fisheries Science Center, a mainstay in the culture and economy of Woods Hole. The federal agency said last week that it has narrowed its search to Barnstable County, which includes all of the Cape, and would keep the center closer to research partners in the area.

NOAA began assessing its Woods Hole complex more than a year ago, in light of dwindling office and laboratory space and other concerns. As a first step, a feasibility study is expected to be completed this summer or fall, although a final decision about whether and where to relocate is likely years down the road.

But NOAA representative Teri Frady told the Gazette that the process is moving forward.

“The analysis thus far has reviewed many locations across the region and based on needs and partnerships, Barnstable County has been selected as the best fit for a potential facility re-capitalization,” she said in an email.

The original list had included New Bedford, Narragansett, R.I., and Groton, Conn. In recent months since the plans emerged, officials in New Bedford and elsewhere have lobbied for NOAA to come to their towns, while the Falmouth selectmen have pleaded for the science center to stay put.

But it may not be as simple as picking up and leaving, said Bill Karp, the center’s director of science and research.

“There are a number of different options on the table,” Mr. Karp told the Gazette. “One possibility is that we would maintain some presence on the waterfront in Woods Hole, and then have a second facility upland. But there is a lot of moving parts to this.”

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette