Saving Seafood

Fishery Board Considers Ideas To Protect Southern New England Lobsters

May 6, 2016 — The health of Southern New England’s American lobster population remains a concern for fishermen, scientists and regulators. Ideas for how to help replenish lobsters are still making their way through a long process.

This week the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s lobster management board offered ideas on how to improve the health of the declining lobster populations in areas critical to southern New England fishermen.

Mark Gibson, a board member representing Rhode Island and chief of the fisheries division at the state Department of Environmental Management, said they are just that: ideas.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio

ASMFC Atlantic Menhaden Board Approves Draft Addendum I for Public Comment

May 5, 2016 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Comission:

Alexandria, VA – The Atlantic Menhaden Management Board approved Draft Addendum I to Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Atlantic Menhaden for public comment. The Draft Addendum proposes modifying the FMP’s bycatch allowance provision. Specifically, it considers allowing two licensed individuals to harvest up to 12,000 pounds of menhaden bycatch when working from the same vessel fishing stationary, multi-species gear – limited to one vessel trip per day. Bycatch represents less than 2% of the total coastwide landings.

The practice of two permitted fishermen working together from the same vessel to harvest Atlantic menhaden primarily occurs in the Chesapeake Bay pound net fishery.  This practice enables the fishermen to pool resources for fuel and crew.  However, the practice is currently constrained by the FMP’s bycatch allowance provision, which includes a 6,000 pound/vessel/day limit. The Draft Addendum seeks comment on whether the provision should be revised to accommodate the interests of fixed-gear fishermen who work together, as authorized by the states and jurisdictions in which they fish.

The intent of Draft Addendum I is to add flexibility to one element of the bycatch allowance provision while the Board prepares to address menhaden management more comprehensively through the development of Draft Amendment 3 to the FMP over the next two years. A subsequent press release on the public hearing schedule and Draft Addendum I availability will be distributed once state hearings have been scheduled.

In a separate action, the Board extended the episodic event set aside program until the finalization of Amendment 3. It also conditionally approved a request from New York to be added as an eligible state.  The program reserves 1% of the coastwide total allowable catch to be used by New England states in areas and times when menhaden occur in higher abundance than normal.  Rhode Island opted into the program in 2014 and 2015, and harvested a portion of the set aside each year.  As a result of the Board’s decision to extend the program, the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut remain eligible to participate in the program in 2016.

New York is currently reporting unusually large amounts of menhaden in the Peconic Bay estuary, raising the potential for more large fish kills, similar to last year, as the waters warm.  New York sought Board approval to participate in the episodic event set aside program so fishermen can harvest a portion of the large build-up of menhaden in the Peconic Bay estuary to mitigate the impacts of additional fish kills. The Board approved the request subject to a one million pound harvest cap under the episodic event set aside.

Lobster fishing to be restricted in bid to save population

PORTLAND, Maine — May 3, 2016 — Southern New England’s fading lobster fishery will be the subject of a battery of new regulations to try to save the crustacean’s population locally.

The number of adult lobsters in New England south of Cape Cod was estimated in 2013 to be about 10 million, which is one-fifth the total from the late 1990s. Scientists issued a report last year that said the historic and economically important species is shifting northward in large part due to the warming of the ocean.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s lobster management board voted on Monday to use new measures to address the lobster decline, which has dramatically reduced lobster catches off Rhode Island and Connecticut.

The new regulations could include a combination of things like closed seasons, closed fishing areas, trapping cutbacks and stricter standards about the minimum and maximum size of harvestable lobsters.

“We’ve clearly got an overfished stock. We’ve got multiple problems that we actually need to fix,” said David Borden, chair of the lobster board. “The climate’s changing. When you do this, there is a cost to the industry.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CBS Boston

New England’s Commercial Fishermen Worried About Sustainability of Fishing Communities

April 28, 2016 — PROVIDENCE, RI — Fishermen, scientists and interested citizens gathered in mid-April at Rhode Island College for a panel discussion about whether commercial fishing is, or can be, sustainable.

The panel consisted of six speakers who discussed the current state of fish populations within U.S. waters, climate change and its impact on fish stocks, and the current rules and regulations imposed on commercial fishermen. The discussion was often heated, and it was obvious that the fishermen, both on the panel and in the audience, weren’t happy with current catch quotas and monitoring regulations.

Panelist John Bullard, the northeast regional administrator of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said commercial fishing is “definitely sustainable.” But fishermen David Goethel and Mark Phillips, also on the panel, believe the more important question to explore is if fishing communities are sustainable. Both fishermen said that between catch quotas and the crippling expenses fishermen have to face both to run their boats and pay catch monitors, makes fishing as a way of life all but impossible.

“The smell of fish is gone, replaced by burnt coffee,” Phillips said about the traditional fishing docks of New England.

NOAA regulates the fishing industry, and both Phillips and Goethel are involved in a lawsuit against the federal agency regarding the costs incurred by New England fishermen who now have to pay monitors about $700 a day to be on their boats.

Read the full story at ecoRInews

Hardy eels are holding on in Rhode Island

April 25, 2016 — The American eel has been a valuable resource in Rhode Island for hundreds of years.

Narragansett tribal historian Lorén Spears tells a story about how her father-in-law and tribal elder, Robin Spears, used to fish for eels on the salt marshes.

“What they used to do to get the eels is they would walk through the eel grass at night, and the eels would actually stand up like fence posts and then you harvest the eels,” she said. “Then, you would roll them in Jonnycake meal when you were cooking them. The eels are unique, because they cross the land, which is why you could get them in the eel grass.”

The Narragansetts also used eel skins. “You could tan the skin and use as you would use a snakeskin, where it could be part of clothing or adornment,” she said.

Today in Rhode Island, eels are still eaten, but they are most often used as bait in the recreational fishery. Catch limits are 25 eels for individuals and 50 eels for large recreational fishing boats. The eels must be over 9 inches long.

Read the full story at The Westerly Sun

RHODE ISLAND: Fishermen-heavy crowd shows frustration with catch rules, monitoring costs at RI forum

April 14, 2016 — PROVIDENCE, RI — A forum on the sustainability of the commercial fishing industry revealed significant frustration in a fisherman-heavy crowd and a few suggestions for future changes, but little tangible optimism, Thursday night at Rhode Island College.

“Right now, there are more fish in the Atlantic Ocean than there was 20 or 30 years ago — we are just not allowed to catch them anymore,” said fisherman Mark Phillips, a New York native who has fished out of New Bedford for several decades.

Phillips and New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel, who sued the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in December over catch monitoring costs, were the two fishermen on the forum’s six-person panel.

They drew, by far, the most applause from the crowd throughout the event, as both reiterated industry-wide complaints about a regulatory environment that fishermen say is choking their viability.

The forum was titled, “Is Commercial Fishing Sustainable?” But Phillips said the real question, in his view, is whether fishermen and fishing communities are sustainable.

See the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

NOAA Research Vessel Now Homeported in Newport

April 13, 2016 — NEWPORT, RI — Today marks the first day that the 209-foot research vessel Henry B. Bigelow is officially homeported here in Newport, marking a “victory for the Ocean State,” according to U.S. Sen. Jack Reed.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association fisheries research vessel has a primary objective of studying and monitoring Northeast Marine Fisheries throughout New England and has nets that trawl as deep as 6,000 feet.

The Bigelow collects data used for stock assessments that ultimately influences catch limits and fishing quotas as well as help scientists understand changes to the fishery.

Reed said that he has been lobbying for years for the ship to be homeported here in Rhode Island to save taxpayers money.

NOAA officials said that change is based on a study that included another vessel, the Okeanos Explorer, a deep sea exploration ship homeported at Quonset Point at the Port of Davisville in North Kingstown.

See the full story at the Newport Patch

Dedicated Man Helps Endangered Herring Complete Spawning Run

April 12, 2016 — When Bill McWha moved to Wakefield, RI, he expected to deliver packages for UPS. Instead, he found himself transporting tens of thousands of river herring en route to their spawning grounds on the Saugatucket River. According to National Geographic, McWha first visited the river in 2010 and saw thousands of river herring unable to pass the Main Street Dam. So, armed with only a net, he perched himself on a 14-foot board and scooped 10 to 15 fish at a time, then placed them back into the river above the dam.

Though many simply shook their heads, some curious passersby stopped to help. McWha and a dozen volunteers helped about 20,000 fish over the dam during the next three weeks. Since then, helping the herring on their spawning run has become an annual event in Wakefield. Every March and April, growing numbers of volunteers join McWha as he mounts a wooden platform and nets the fish.

McWha says that he felt terrible about the herring’s plight and knew that he had to help. To him, it was “a waste that these herring weren’t going to be able to spawn.”  McWha told National Geographic that he “felt an emotional connection to them, and just had to get them over the dam.”

McWha’s efforts expanded upstream in 2013, when volunteers used buckets to move fish beyond a second dam. In 2014, 75 volunteers, armed with only nets, helped an astonishing 72,000 fish navigate the Main Street Dam. Over the past year or so, however, efforts have slowed down as officials work on existing fish ladders, improving the run. McWha and his band of volunteers will be standing by to count fish and, if necessary, break out the nets and help fish over the dam.

See the full story at Field & Stream

Regulations call for fewer, bigger black bass on hook

April 12, 2016 — While the Massachusetts regulations for recreational fluke and scup remain unchanged for the upcoming 2016 fishing season, recreational anglers will have to adhere to smaller bag limits and minimum possession guidelines for black sea bass.

Massachusetts, which is part of a multi-state management plan for black sea bass administered by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, must join Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey in the northern region in reducing its black sea bass harvest by 23 percent to adhere to the new management plan restrictions.

In Massachusetts, the 2016 black sea bass season will run May 21 to Aug. 31 and recreational fishermen will be limited to keeping five fish per day, with the minimum catch size set at 15 inches.

Those parameters are different from 2015, when the season ran May 23 to Aug. 27 and anglers were allowed to keep eight black sea bass per day as long as they met or exceeded the minimum possession size of 14 inches.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Sale of sea scallops to fund research on loggerhead turtles

April 12, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Organizations in five states will receive more than $15 million for marine science research projects funded by the sale of sea scallops.

One of the projects seeks to understand the impacts of sea scallop fishing on loggerhead sea turtles through the use of satellite tagging. Coonamessett Farm Foundation Inc. of Falmouth, Massachusetts, is the lead investigating organization on that effort.

Recipients of the grants are located in Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Virginia. They range from universities and educational organizations to commercial fishing businesses.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Virginian-Pilot