Saving Seafood

Finding consensus on whale protections a tough call in Maine

May 13, 2019 — Federal regulators have given Maine’s lobster industry its marching orders: Find a way to cut the number of surface-to-seabed fishing lines by 50 percent to help prevent the injury or death of even one of the endangered right whales that pass through the Gulf of Maine.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is allowing each lobstering state to develop its own plan to protect the whale, whose numbers have fallen to a little more than 400 in recent years. But it will be hard to find one way to make it work in Maine, where the $485 million-a-year fishery is known for its diversity.

“The devil will be in the details,” said state Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Pat Keliher.

Of the 4,500 people who lobster for a living along Maine’s coast, some fish with single traps at the end of each buoy line while others place multiple traps, from two or three to as many as 30, on a single weighted ground line, with both ends linked to the surface by a single buoy line.

Deciding how many traps to put on a trawl – the gear that connects a line of lobster traps – varies throughout each of the state’s seven lobster zones, depending on traditional fishing practices, shipping traffic, the geography of the ocean floor and the size of the lobster operation.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobstermen rally against delay in opening season

May 10, 2019 — South Shore lobstermen rallied Thursday morning at Town Wharf to protest the decision by the state Division of Marine Fisheries to delay the opening of the season until May 14 to protect right whales.

“There’s a lot of people that are suffering with this closure,” said rally organizer Sheryl Holmes, whose husband, Roscoe “Stoney” Holmes, is a commercial lobsterman who owns the F/V Haley’s Comet out of Plymouth.

The seasonal speed reductions and trap-gear bans imposed by the state to protect right whales typically end May 1, but have been extended first to May 8, and now to May 14.

Read the full story from the Cape Cod Times at the Patriot Ledger

Lobstering industry objecting to ‘unfair closure’

May 9, 2019 — Lobstering industry members plan to gather in Plymouth on Thursday to speak out against what they see as the unfair closure of lobstering in the waters south of Scituate.

Industry representatives on the South Shore say they have worked to implement fishing techniques to protect right whales but say their efforts have been ignored by regulators in favor of blanket policies. They plan to make the case that there have been no whale entanglements in certain parts of Cape Cod Bay.

In late April, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team recommended measures that could protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobstermen to rally in Plymouth over Cape Cod Bay closures

May 9, 2019 — After a period of bad weather, surveyors of North Atlantic right whales were able to fly on Tuesday over Cape Cod Bay, where the continuing presence of the animals has led state officials to extend seasonal bans on high boating speeds and lobstering through May 14.

But commercial lobstermen are beginning to bristle at the closures, citing the impact on their livelihood. South Shore lobstermen are planning a rally Thursday morning in Plymouth to protest the extended ban.

“There’s a lot of people that are suffering with this closure,” said rally organizer Sheryl Holmes, whose husband, Roscoe “Stoney” Holmes, is a commercial lobsterman who owns the F/V Haley’s Comet out of Plymouth.

The seasonal speed reductions and trap-gear bans imposed by the state Division of Marine Fisheries to protect right whales typically end May 1, but have been extended first to May 8, and now to May 14.

The Plymouth rally will be the first time commercial lobstermen in the region have come out as a group to protest against the closure extensions due to the ongoing presence of right whales, Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association Executive Director Beth Casoni said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

NOAA Team Reaches Consensus on Right Whale Survival Measures

May 6, 2019 — After many hours of discussion over a span of four days, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team was able to reach nearly unanimous consensus on right whale survival measures.

The agreement consists of a package of measures that would achieve at least a 60-percent serious injury and mortality reduction goal in each of the lobster management areas. Two general risk reduction approaches emerged as the Team’s preferred options: line reduction and gear modification.

“This is hard work. The Team members brought not only their expertise but also their passion for the people and communities they represent to the table. Everyone understands that there are real and difficult consequences to fishermen as a result of the choices made in this room,” said Sam Rauch, NOAA Fisheries deputy assistant administrator for regulatory programs.

“I am confident that the meaningful measures supported by the majority of the Team today present a substantial opportunity to reduce the impacts of U.S. fisheries on right whales and an opportunity to support the recovery of this species.”

The measures in the package include reductions in vertical buoy lines as well as gear modifications to reduce the strength at which lines will break. Reduced breaking strength lines would allow entangled whales to more easily break free of gear.

Additionally, an expansion of gear marking to create larger and more frequent marks on U.S. trap/pot fishery buoy lines throughout U.S. East Coast waters was supported by most team members.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Some whale protection rules on hold

May 3, 2019 — Inshore lobstermen will get a break when the federal government adopts new whale protection rules, but it remains to be seen for how long.

On Thursday, May 2, Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher announced on the DMR website that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will delay imposing any whale protection rules to see whether measures likely to be adopted by NOAA Fisheries offer sufficient protection to endangered right whales.

Late in April, NOAA’s Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team (TRT) recommended a 50 percent reduction in the number of vertical endlines (which connect lobster traps on the sea bottom to marker buoys on the surface) in the water. The TRT also called for the use of weaker rope, likely for the upper 75 percent, of the endlines that remain so that if whales swim into the rope it will break.

According to DMR spokesman Jeff Nichols, while the 50 percent reduction in endlines applies to both inshore and offshore fisheries, “the weak rope provision targets federal waters,” outside the three-mile limit.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Moulton’s right whale bill sailing toward House

May 3, 2019 — Last week, a federal panel drafted a slew of conservation recommendations to help the imperiled and declining North Atlantic right whale population. Now Congress may enter the fray.

A House bill to create a decade-long, $50 million grant program to help protect the North Atlantic right whales was approved Wednesday by the National Resource Committee and is heading to a vote by the full House membership.

The bill, with U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton — now announced as a presidential candidate — as the primary sponsor, would require the Commerce secretary to provide $5 million annually for 10 years to fund competitive grants for projects related to the conservation of the whales, whose declining population is estimated to hover under 450.

“The health of the right whales is directly tied to the health of our region’s economy and identity,” Moulton said in a statement. “The whales play a key role in an ecosystem that supports thousands of jobs in commercial fishing and tourism, and it’s up to us to do everything we can to save this species.”

The bill is supported by the New England Aquarium in Boston and the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance.

A similar bill, with Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey as a co-sponsor, has been filed in the Senate.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

SAVE Right Whales act approved by US House committee

May 2, 2019 — The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee approved the Scientific Assitance for Very Endangered (SAVE) Right Whales Act, introduced by U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, on 1 May.

The bipartisan bill was introduced back in March, and is directed at additional funding – up to up to USD 5 million (EUR 4.47 million) each year for 10 years – to research methods of rebuilding the population of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. Some of the grant money would go towards developing new commercial fishing gear, in order to prevent entanglements which have already killed multiple whales.

“We humans have nearly killed every right whale in existence through our direct and indirect actions over the past two centuries.” Moulton said. “Now we have a choice: We can be the generation that brings the right whale back, or the generation that allows their extinction.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

A daunting task begins: Reducing lobster gear to save whales

April 30, 2019 — Fishing managers on the East Coast began the daunting process Monday of implementing new restrictions on lobster fishing that are designed to protect a vanishing species of whale.

A team organized by the federal government recommended last week that the number of vertical trap lines in the water be reduced by about half. The lines have entrapped and drowned the North Atlantic right whale, which number a little more than 400 and have declined by dozens this decade.

The interstate Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission met Monday outside Washington to discuss the implementation of the new rules, which are designed to reduce serious injuries and deaths among whales by 60 percent.

The rules will be developed in the coming months and could have a huge effect on the lucrative fishery. Some individual lobstermen place several miles of trap lines in the water, meaning hundreds of miles will have to be removed in total to meet the goal.

“States are committed to taking on the reductions,” said Toni Kerns, interstate fisheries management program director for the commission, after the meeting. “This is a very complex issue, and it will be challenging, but they will find a way to make it work.”

Exactly how long it will take to implement the new rules is unclear at the moment, Kerns said. It also remains to be seen whether the commission or states will take the lead in implementing the rules, she said.

Colleen Coogan, who coordinates the federal government team designed to protect the whales, said during the meeting that cooperating with Canadian authorities is also going to be very important. Canadian fishermen harvest the same species of lobster, and the endangered whales also swim in Canadian waters.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post

New restrictions placed on New England fishing industry to protect whales

April 29, 2019 — Fishermen across New England are facing new restrictions after a panel of experts convened by the federal government agreed on Friday to a plan to step up protection of the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

The group of federal and state officials, scientists, fishermen and environmental advocates, created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, capped a four-day meeting in Providence by reaching consensus on a plan to reduce entanglements in fishing gear, which is the leading cause of injuries to the whale and deaths. The measures, which include using weaker ropes or breakaway ropes and reducing the number of vertical lines in the water, will primarily affect the region’s lobster fisheries.

While the plan agreed to by the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team sets an overall goal of reducing whale deaths caused by fishing gear by 60 percent, each state will meet that target through a combination of different measures.

In Rhode Island, lobstermen will cut the number of end lines — the ropes that run vertically from traps on the ocean bottom to buoys on the surface — by 18 percent over the next three years and, on the remaining lines, use rope sleeves that would break apart under enough force. In Massachusetts, the reduction in vertical lines will be 30 percent and in Maine 50 percent.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal