Saving Seafood

For lobster industry, a boatload of stresses

July 8, 2019 — This year’s delayed lobster season kicked off with a cold, rainy spring and bait worries, but lobstermen haven’t been idle. Instead, they’ve been hunting for a way to cope with looming North Atlantic right whale protections.

“The overall feeling around the docks this year is pretty glum,” said Jason Joyce of Swans Island. “Catch is low, expenses are high and (there are) stormy forecasts ahead thanks to wealthy, politically connected multinational environmental groups that have been targeting us as their latest fundraising villain.”

Lousy spring weather means many midcoast lobstermen have set only half their traps. Farther Down East, lobstermen have set their traps but the catches are light. Topping it off: Bait prices are about twice what they were last summer in some ports.

Underscoring those challenges is the persistent uncertainty about what right whale protections will do to Maine’s $485 million industry, a concern heightened by recent reports of six right whale deaths in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Many of Maine’s 4,500 licensed commercial lobster fishermen have been following federal efforts to protect the endangered right whale, especially a mandate that the Maine fleet reduce its buoy lines by half to prevent entanglements.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Immediate Action Needed to Save North Atlantic Right Whales

July 5, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The North Atlantic right whale is one of the world’s most endangered large whale species, with only about 400 whales remaining. The situation has become even more alarming with the recent discovery of six North Atlantic right whale deaths and one entanglement in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. Four deaths were mature females. With fewer than 95 breeding females left, protecting every individual is a top priority. Right whales cannot withstand continued losses of mature females—we have reached a critical point.

Vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are the two greatest threats to these whales, and to make matters more complex, their habitat overlaps with commercially important areas. As right whales live and travel more than 1,000 miles from their feeding grounds off the Canadian Maritimes and New England to the warm coastal waters off South Carolina, Georgia, and northeastern Florida, it is the responsibility of the governments of the United States and Canada as well as the fishing and shipping industries in both countries to ensure that these whales have a safe place to live, feed, and reproduce for their survival.

The United States has endeavored for many years to reduce the risks to North Atlantic right whales from entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with ships, and we continually refine our management measures to support recovery of this critically endangered population. In 2008, we adopted ship strike reduction measures that include seasonal speed restrictions near shipping lanes when right whales might be present. Since 1997, we have worked with stakeholders on the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan to reduce the impacts of commercial fishing gear on right whales. We are currently expediting measures to reduce an additional 60 percent of serious injuries and lethal entanglement risks as recommended by our Take Reduction Team in April 2019.

Read the full release here

Scientists Sound Alarm After 6 Rare Whale Deaths in a Month

July 5, 2019 — A half-dozen North Atlantic right whales have died in the past month, leading scientists, government officials and conservationists to call for a swift response to protect the endangered species.

There are only a little more than 400 of the right whales left. All six of the dead whales have been found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence off Canada, and at least three appear to have died after they were hit by ships.

The deaths have led scientists to sound the alarm about a potentially catastrophic loss to the population. The deaths are especially troubling because they include females, said Philip Hamilton, research scientist with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.

“If we’re going to have deaths, they just can’t be female,” Hamilton said, adding the population is down to only about 100 reproductive females. “We need a different system.”

Right whales have suffered high mortality and poor reproduction in recent years, particularly in 2017. The whales appear to be traveling in different areas of the ocean than usual because of food availability, said Nick Record, senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times

Six Right Whale Deaths In One Month: ‘Panicking Seems Appropriate’

July 3, 2019 — Five North Atlantic right whales have been found dead in the past week, and six in the last month. With just over 400 remaining and calving rates low, that’s a death toll the critically endangered population can’t afford.

“Panicking seems appropriate, yes,” said Peter Corkeron, who leads the large whale research program at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

The whales’ death toll is similar to that of the summer of 2017, when there was one death in early June, and then, later in the month, five deaths in the span of a week, all in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. That summer went on to become catastrophic for the whales, with a total of 12 documented fatalities in Canadian waters and another six in U.S. waters.

There are notable differences, as well, though. In 2017, some whales were hit by ships, but many of the deaths were due to whales getting tangled in fishing gear. This year, ship strikes seem to be the primary problem.

Large numbers of North Atlantic right whales have been sighted in the western Gulf of St. Lawrence in recent summers. Corkeron says that may be because of a subtle shift in where the animals are spending their time. Right whales have only started showing up in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in significant numbers in the past few years, a change in their migration patterns that researchers attribute to climate change.

Read the full story at WGBH

Changes to lobster fishery to help whales might arrive 2021

June 28, 2019 — Changes to the Maine lobster fishery designed to help a critically endangered species of whale might arrive in 2021 after a lengthy rulemaking process.

A team assembled by the federal government has called for the removal of half the vertical trap lines from the Gulf of Maine to reduce risk to North Atlantic right whales. The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been meeting with lobstermen around the state to begin the process of crafting rules to achieve that goal.

The state held the last of several meetings with lobstermen about the new rules on Thursday in Freeport. Hundreds of members of the state’s lifeblood industry have attended the meetings.

Maine hopes to present a plan to the federal government by September, department spokesman Jeff Nichols said before the meeting. The industry is getting ready to grapple with the task of getting so much gear out of the water, said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

“There’s definitely concern among lobstermen because they will be changing how they fish,” she said. “It’s not a simple task, but once guys are thinking it through and making changes, there seems to be viable strategies for each person.”

Read the full story at the Associated Press

A Life-Long Lobsterman Also Works Hard On Ways To Avoid Whales

June 28, 2019 — Rob Martin was five miles out on his boat, Resolve, lobstering with his crew, and made a call on his way back to port.

Martin wasn’t calling his buyer. He was joining a conference call for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team, of which he is a member.

Martin intended to just listen, but they started talking about gear modifications, which he knows a good deal about.

They asked him to chime in as he was offloading, but there was quite a bit of background noise on his end.

“Can you hold on a second? I have to shut the boat down,” he remembers asking. “Actual fisherman here out fishing and coming in to talk!”

The conversation revolved around installing breakaway sleeves in vertical lines from traps to buoys so whales can snap them on contact and not become entangled.

Martin wasn’t required to make those changes, but he already had. He has been working for years to find a way to continue fishing and protect whales, like other proactive lobstermen. So when managers and others first started talking about “breakaway” lines he took the hint and started retrofitting his gear. In the 1990s, when regulators were looking at sinking lines to help avoid whales, he got ahead of that too. Sinking lines, weighted to drop to the bottom if they break free, are now a requirement.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Grandmother and Grandfather Among 4 Endangered Whales That Died This Month

June 26, 2019 — Four North Atlantic right whales were found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada in the last three weeks, representing about one percent of the remaining population that is closely watched.

One, named Punctuation, was a breeding female who had mothered eight calves and then gone on to have several grandchildren, making her death a significant loss for a dwindling population. She had been sighted as long ago as 38 years.

Another, known as Comet, was roughly 33 years old and well known to whale-watching experts, who also said that he had become a grandfather.

Two others were a younger male named Wolverine that died earlier this month, and an 11-year-old female that was found dead along with Comet near New Brunswick’s Acadian Peninsula on Tuesday night.

The New England Aquarium, which tracks the endangered population, said in a statement: “The loss of sexually mature females is biologically a major loss to this species that has seen a precipitous population decline over the past several years.”

The aquarium noted that hundreds of the right whales had migrated northward into the Gulf of St. Lawrence as warming waters reduced their food source, mainly copepods in the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of Maine.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Study calls for urgent action to save right whales

June 25, 2019 — A new study published last week underscores the urgency of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) taking decisive action to protect the North Atlantic right whale from extinction. North Atlantic right whales are among the most endangered whales in the world, with a population numbering no more than four hundred and eleven.

The study, published in the scientific journal Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, reveals how humans are pushing the North Atlantic right whale to extinction. The study examined the cause of death for 70 dead right whales from 2003 to 2018 and found that over 88% of the deaths were attributable to ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. The study also found that right whale entanglement mortalities increased from 21% in the study period 1970 to 2002 to 51% from 2003 to 2018.

Despite these alarming statistics, the United States has failed to implement decisive measures to reduce entanglements of the right whale in fishing gear. Plans to implement regulations appear to have stalled due to opposition from some sectors of the fishing industry. This spring, PEER sought documents from NMFS regarding right whale entanglements. PEER received hundreds of pages of redacted documents, and virtually nothing indicating that NMFS was taking serious action to save the whales. Last week’s study stressed the need for swift action, stating, “These cumulative mortalities are also unsustainable at the population level, so urgent and aggressive intervention is needed to end anthropogenic mortality in this critically endangered species.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Officials confirm year’s second right whale death

June 24, 2019 — The second dead right whale of the year was found Thursday by a surveillance flight, drifting northeast of the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, according to the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The death was confirmed by New England Aquarium, which has identified the whale as “Punctuation,” an adult female that has been studied by researchers for nearly 40 years and seen more than 250 times along the coast of the U.S. and Canada.

The aquarium maintains a photographic identification catalog that encompasses most of the right whale population. Punctuation was first photographed in 1981.

“All right whale deaths hit hard, but this one is particularly devastating to the population,” the aquarium staff wrote in an emailed statement.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Rep. Moulton seeking money for right whale research

June 21, 2019 — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton is trying to secure additional funding for North Atlantic right whale research through an amendment to the federal government funding bill for fiscal year 2020.

Moulton, D-Salem, successfully amended the House of Representatives’ funding bill to include an additional $1.5 million for cooperative research by federal fishery regulators, commercial fishermen and conservation groups.

The amended funding bill now contains $2.5 million for right whale research.

To secure the funding however, the amended legislation first must first pass the House next week and survive negotiations between the House and the Senate on a final spending bill. Ultimately, it would have to have to be signed by President Donald J. Trump.

Moulton, a Democratic presidential candidate, said the fight to save the remaining North Atlantic right whales — whose population now is estimated at 411 — “is also a fight to protect thousands of jobs in commercial fishing and tourism in Massachusetts.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times