Saving Seafood

Potential changes coming for Maine’s lobster industry

February 8, 2019 — Multiple rule-changes could be coming for Maine’s lucrative lobster industry from both the state and federal governments in the coming year.

At the federal level, concerns over entanglements with the endangered North Atlantic right whale have led fisheries managers to begin discussing what steps need to be taken by the lobster industry to avoid whale deaths. Currently there are just over 400 right whales left in the world, and high death rates in 2016 and 2017 have led rule makers to consider changes to gear requirements.

At a meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council in Virginia, the lobster board voted unanimously to push forward a set of actions intended to reduce the amount of vertical lines from lobster traps in the water. Those changes could include lower limits on the number of traps that lobstermen are allowed to use, changes in gear configuration, and seasonal closures.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Reports of Right Whale Calves Give Researchers Hope

January 23, 2019 — Local North Atlantic Right Whale researchers are hearing some good news from their colleagues off the southeastern coast of the United States.

A third right whale calf was recently spotted during the current birthing season in waters off Florida.

The critically endangered species has an estimated population just over 400.

Center for Coastal Studies Researcher Charles “Stormy” Mayo said the three births are excellent news but female right whales need to reproduce more.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

MASSACHUSETTS: Grant Awarded to Protect Local Waters, Sea Creatures

June 29, 2018 — The Baker-Polito Administration today awarded $542,354 in grants to 16 projects across the state for the restoration and improvement of aquatic habitat, rivers and watersheds, and protection of endangered marine animals, including at-risk sea turtles and the rarest large whale, the North Atlantic right whale.

The grants, funded by the Massachusetts Environmental Trust, were announced by Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton during an event at the Waquoit Bay Estuary Watershed.

“The Massachusetts Environmental Trust continues to have a meaningful impact on the Commonwealth’s environmental resources and natural habitat,” said Governor Charlie Baker. “Funding projects that aim to preserve and protect marine wildlife and environmental resources is consistent with our Administration’s commitment to working closely with local partners around the Commonwealth to improve natural habitats and promote environmental stewardship.”

Since it was founded in 1988 as part of the Boston Harbor cleanup, the Massachusetts Environmental Trust has awarded more than $20 million in grants to organizations statewide that provide a wide array of environmental services, from supporting water projects in communities to protecting coastal habitats. Funding for this program comes from the sale of the state’s three environmentally-themed specialty license plates: the Right Whale Tail, the Leaping Brook Trout, and the Blackstone Valley Mill.

“The grants being awarded by the Baker-Polito Administration will help to protect marine animals and restore critical aquatic ecosystems,” said Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton. “This funding has been made possible because over 40,000 drivers in Massachusetts choose to purchase one of the three environmental license plates, and I applaud our state’s residents for their continued commitment to the well-being of the Commonwealth’s environment.”

Read the full story at WBSM

Massachusetts: Whales in distress located off Provincetown

April 27, 2018 — The Center for Coastal Studies Marine Animal Entanglement Response team recently shot a “cutting arrow” at a rope around a whale to save the marine mammal from entanglement.

Two weeks ago the team got a report of an entangled right whale about three miles north of Provincetown.

The right whale was identified as a mature female, according to a statement from Center for Coastal Studies executive assistant Cathrine Macort.

“She was found with a tight wrap of very thick rope around her upper jaw and over the top of her rostrum (blow hole),” it stated. “There was no trailing line, so the usual technique of attaching buoys to the entanglement to slow the whale and keep it at the surface could not be utilized. Instead, responders used a cutting arrow fired from the deck of the rescue boat to damage the rope. The now-weakened line should deteriorate and be shed naturally over time.”

Researchers will continue to monitor the whale. It was originally seen in Stellwagon Bank, the 842-square-mile federally protected marine sanctuary.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Wicked Local

 

Massachusetts: Hoping for a state contract, Bay State Wind offers more than $2 million in environmental research grants

April 11, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — In what could be the final weeks before Massachusetts awards its first offshore wind contract, Bay State Wind has announced more than $2 million in grants it would provide for fisheries research and whale protection, contingent upon Bay State Wind winning a contract.

The grants include:

• $1 million for a marine science grant program to be administered by Bay State Wind. It would fund research in the Bay State Wind lease area designed to address specific questions and concerns raised by the fishing industry.

• $500,000 to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for a multi-year grant to develop advanced whale detection systems.

• $250,000 each to the New England Aquarium right whale research project and the Lobster Foundation of Massachusetts to prevent gear entanglement of the North Atlantic right whale.

The deadline for the state and electric companies to announce one or more winners of offshore wind contracts is April 23, but the decision could be delayed, State House News Service reported last week.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

NOAA Fisheries opens investigation into minke whale deaths

February 1, 2018 — NOAA Fisheries has opened an investigation into the recent deaths of minke whales along the U.S. East Coast, the agency announced on Wednesday, 31 January.

Since January 2017, when a dead minke whale was found near New York’s LaGuardia Airport, the agency has documented a total of 29 stranded minke whales from the coasts of Maine to the Carolinas. Of those 29, 19 were dead. That has prompted NOAA Fisheries to initiate a so-called “Unusual Mortality Event” investigation into the strandings.

Opening a UME investigation will enable NOAA officials to allocate additional resources and respond more quickly to any new strandings that take place. Officials will create a team of scientists to develop a plan of action and collect data from documented and future strandings.

While the whales have only been found between Maine and South Carolina, officials are extending the investigation area to include as far south as Florida to take into consideration the whale’s migration patterns.

While not all the investigations into the deaths have been concluded, officials said preliminary information shows 11 of the dead whales had confirmed or suspected human or fishery interaction, such as blunt force trauma or a net entanglement. Investigators also believe eight of the whales carried an infectious disease.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Climate change, sparse policies endanger right whale population

November 8, 2017 — North Atlantic right whales – a highly endangered species making modest population gains in the past decade – may be imperiled by warming waters and insufficient international protection, according to a new Cornell University analysis published in Global Change Biology.

North Atlantic right whales’ preferred cuisine is copepods that thrive in cool waters, such as the Gulf of Maine, said author Erin Meyer-Gutbrod, who conducted the work as a doctoral student and postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Charles Greene, professor of oceanography and co-author on the paper.

Scientists once relied on continuous plankton sampling to track the copepods, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations’ National Marine Fisheries Service discontinued the program, preventing researchers from observing ecosystem changes as they occur.

Read the full story at Science Codex

 

Right whale deaths raise concern for species’ survival

October 24, 2017 — CAPE COD, Mass. — The discovery Monday of another dead North Atlantic right whale off Cape Cod escalated the already fevered concern among Canadian and U.S. marine scientists and fishery managers on the imperiled state of the highly endangered species.

The discovery of the severely decomposed whale brings the 2017 death count to at least 16, with the majority of the mortalities — attributed exclusively by researchers to ship strikes and gear entanglements — occurring in Canadian waters.

Four of the right whale deaths have occurred off the coast of Massachusetts.

“Our research and data have shown us that ship-strike or entanglement are the only definitive cause of death,” said Mike Asaro, NOAA Fisheries’ Gloucester-based marine mammal and sea turtle branch chief for the Atlantic region. “There’s nothing else we’re aware of.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times 

Right whale deaths called ‘apocalyptic’

October 23, 2017 — NEW BEDFORD, MASS. — Whale scholars, lobstermen, conservationists and government officials converged Sunday in Nova Scotia to save right whales.

“Everybody is running out of adjectives,” Defenders of Wildlife attorney Jane Davenport said of the death of 12 North Atlantic right whales since June in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and another three off the U.S., totaling 3 percent of the total population. “It’s apocalyptic. It really is.”

At the annual North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium meeting in Halifax, right whale researchers released their latest population tally of 451 for 2016, typically counted with a year’s lag. But it’s easy to see where next year’s number is headed given the 15 known deaths and only five known births, said consortium chairman Mark Baumgartner, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist.

“2017 will be another year of decline,” Baumgartner said.

In early October, the Defenders of Wildlife and three other conservation groups sent a 60-day notice of intent to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service for failure to protect North Atlantic right whales from fishing gear entanglement, believed by researchers to be one of two primary right whale killers, along with ship strikes.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times

MASSACHUSETTS: South Shore lobster fishermen seek exemption from closure

June 9, 2016 — Finding ways to share the seas with important marine creatures, such as right whales, while keeping business afloat is a priority for local lobstermen and fishermen.

Representatives from local fishermen’s associations may have a solution they hope can lead to an exemption in a federally mandated closure that grounds local fishermen from Feb. 1 to April 30.

The closure encompasses nearly 3,000 square nautical miles, including parts of Massachusetts Bay and the waters around Cape Cod. It was first implemented in 2015 and affects fishermen who use vertical lines, such as lobster fishermen.

The goal behind the closure is to protect the right whale from possible entanglements. Since before the closure began, the fishermen have been looking for a compromise so they can help protect the endangered species without hurting their livelihoods.

“The commercial lobstermen want to coexist with the right whale. I don’t want to kill the whale, and I want to catch lobsters. We need to come up with a plan to make everyone happy,” said John Haviland, a Marshfield fisherman and president of the South Shore Lobster Fisherman’s Association.

The solution that may be the key to an exemption is a type of sleeve local fishermen have been trying out for about two years.

The sleeves wrap around the vertical lines, which are cut into 40-foot segments. Though the lines themselves break at around 4,000 pounds of pressure, the sleeves break with about 1,700 pounds of pressure—about the strength of the whale.

Read the full story at the Marshfield Mariner