Saving Seafood

Sens. Markey, Warren support right whale legislation

July 11, 2018 — Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren will co-sponsor the SAVE Right Whales Act, filed June 7 by four other Atlantic Coast senators.

“Senator Markey wanted to ensure that all of the stakeholders in Massachusetts that would be impacted by the legislation were briefed on the bill, understood its provisions, and had the opportunity to share their perspectives before he committed to co-sponsorship,” a spokesman for the senator said.

On Monday, Markey and Warren both became co-sponsors of the bill joining Democrats from New Jersey, Delaware, New Jersey, Florida and New York.

U.S. Rep. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., introduced a similar bill in the House on June 7 with three other representatives.

The legislation would allocate $5 million annually in grants through 2028 for conservation programs, and the development of new technology or other methods to reduce harm to right whales from fishing gear entanglements and ship collisions. Grants could promote cooperation with foreign governments, affected local communities, small businesses, others in the private sector or nongovernment groups. The National Marine Fisheries Service has funded North Atlantic right whale protections at more than $8 million annually since fiscal year 2009, with another $128,000 released last year with announcement of an unusual mortality event after 17 right whales were observed dead in Canadian and U.S. waters.

The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association gave its nod of approval on June 20 to the SAVE Act. The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance has endorsed the bill as well.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Officials: No right whale deaths in Canada

July 10, 2018 — Canadian fisheries and ocean transportation officials said Friday that so far this year no North Atlantic right whale deaths have been reported in theirwaters, but the critically endangered animals are expected to remain in the Gulf of St. Lawrence for a least another two months.

Last year 12 right whale deaths were documented, largely attributed to gear entanglement and ship strikes, along with five documented live whales entangled in rope. In total, 17 right whales in both Canadian and U.S. waters were documented as having died last year, representing about 4 percent of the total North Atlantic right whale population of about 450.

Canadian officials have been under pressure to prevent deaths this year. Many of the migratory whales tend to head toward Canadian waters after leaving Cape Cod Bay in the middle of May.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

NOAA Creates Protected Zone for Endangered Whales

July 6, 2018 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will implement a protected zone off the coast of Massachusetts until the middle of the month to try to help endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The protected area is located south of Nantucket and is designed to protect right whales. The whales are among the most endangered marine mammals, and they have suffered from high mortality and low reproduction in recent years.

There are as few as 360 right whales remaining.

Their critical habitat is around Cape Cod and in the Gulf of Maine, and just off of New Hampshire’s coastline, according to NOAA Fisheries. They can be found from Nova Scotia to the Southeast Atlantic coast, where pregnant females travel to give birth and nurse their young.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at NHPR

Mariners brake for right whales

July 5, 2018 — NOAA Fisheries announced Tuesday that a voluntary vessel speed restriction zone has been established to protect a group of four North Atlantic right whales sighted two nautical miles south of Nantucket on June 30, according to a press release.

Mariners are asked to travel at 10 knots or less inside the area where the whales were spotted, in order to avoid ship collisions with the endangered species. Effective through July 15, either slow to 10 knots or avoid the area of 41 32 N, 40 54 N, 070 29 W, 069 36 W.

Mandatory speed restrictions of 10 knots or less are also in effect in the Great South Channel through July 31.

In 2017, 17 whales died, plus an additional mortality in January 2018, totaling about 4 percent of the entire right whale population. Also in 2017, two right whale carcasses washed up on Vineyard beaches, and two other carcasses were found on Nantucket and the Elizabeth Islands. This sparked an increased local effort by the NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard to protect the whales from further harm. Migratory patterns of right whales trace directly through parts of Nantucket and Vineyard Sound as they travel to seasonal plankton blooms for food. The whales are a critically endangered species, with a population estimated at about 450 animals, according to the release.

Read the full story at the Martha’s Vineyard Times

Whale Deaths Increasing Up and Down East Coast

July 3, 2018 — Determining the cause of whale deaths is slow and difficult. A vessel strike likely killed the juvenile humpback whale that washed ashore in Jamestown in June 2017, but the determination is not conclusive, according to federal Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program.

It’s common not to know what killed a whale because decomposition, especially of internal organs, happens quickly. Large sea mammals like right whales are too large to bring to a labratory and often have to be towed to shore — trailed by sharks — to perform a thorough examination. A full necropsy may take days to complete and require large equipment such as a backhoe to move a carcass that can weigh up to 150 tons. Scientists must contend with odors, layers of blubber, and offshore conditions.

“If you don’t have the machinery it can take days and days, you may never finish,” said Michael Moore, a veterinarian and whale biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in an interview with NBC News.

What is known is that whale deaths have spiked in the Atlantic. Currently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is monitoring an unusual increase in whale deaths, called unusual mortality events (UME), for three species of whales: minke, humpback, and the North Atlantic right whale.

North Atlantic right whales are highly endangered, with an estimated population of 450 and declining since 2010. If the current trend continues, the species could be extinct in 20 to 25 years, according to researchers.

Vessel collisions and entanglements with fishing gear are the leading causes of whale deaths. Fishing gear snares some 83 percent of North Atlantic right whales at least once in their lives.

The right whale UME began in June 2017 and, so far, 12 of the 19 deaths occurred in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. Four washed ashore in Massachusetts.

Read the full story at ecoRI

MASSACHUSETTS: Local lobsterman to test ropeless buoy equipment

July 2, 2018 — Sonar technology used in Australia for southern rock lobster commercial fishing will be tested in July, possibly in Cape Cod Bay, as a method to better protect imperiled North Atlantic right whales from rope entanglements.

“Getting these and other systems into the hands of the fishermen and incorporating their ideas and feedback into their development is the key,” said Patrick Ramage, marine conservation program director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which has its operations center in Yarmouth Port.

IFAW will pay $30,000 to provide the equipment, a trainer and onboard support for what is expected to be a test by one member of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association of the acoustic release equipment manufactured by Desert Star Systems, a company based in Marina, California, and founded by Marco Flagg.

The equipment replaces the typical surface buoy and vertical rope that lobstermen attach to their traps on the seafloor to identify the trap locations. Instead, the new equipment has a bottom-anchored mesh bag full of rope and floats that can open and pop up to the surface with an acoustic command from a boat. The equipment dates from the mid-1990s when a lobster fisherman in Australia wanted to prevent trap losses from gear entanglement with ships.

The equipment was tested earlier this year by five commercial snow crab fishermen in Canadian waters, Flagg said.

“The Massachusetts test is on the small side but I’m happy it’s happening,” Flagg said of what is the first pilot of the product in United States waters. Each release mechanism costs about $1,500 to $1,700 and lasts for 10 years, he said.

A Sandwich-based lobsterman is expected to pilot the equipment, according to the lobstermen’s association president Arthur “Sooky” Sawyer.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Right whales: The fight for survival

June 28, 2018 — Will $5 million in research funds every year for 10 years save the right whale from extinction? A group of lawmakers hopes so.

Companion bills in the U.S. Senate and House, filed by five senators and four representatives, including the Cape’s Bill Keating, have put forward The SAVE Right Whales Act of 2018 (aka Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales, Act of 2018).

It would establish a grant program to fund collaborative projects between states, nongovernmental organization, and members of the fishing and shipping industries to reduce the impacts of human activities on North Atlantic right whales.

“There are fewer than 450 North Atlantic right whales remaining in the world, and their population is rapidly declining,” said Scott Kraus, vice president and chief scientist of Marine Mammal Conservation at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.

“The biggest threat to their survival is entanglement in fishing gear. Eighty-five percent of right whales have been entangled once, and 60 percent have been entangled twice. This proposed bill is a great start toward finding solutions that protect both whales and the fishing industry. It calls for science-led conservation efforts with all stakeholders working cooperatively. Researchers, fishermen and government officials coming together is the only way that sustainable change will happen,” he said.

The northern reaches of Cape Cod Bay are familiar territory for right whales; they typically are the first whales seen returning to the area after the new year. In 2018 the first group, of about 15, was spotted in mid-January by Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Environmental group plans lawsuit calling for ban on lines used by lobstermen

June 27, 2018 — Another environmental group is threatening a lawsuit to stop Maine lobstermen from using vertical fishing lines that it says pose a danger to right whales.

Whale Safe USA has served the Maine Department of Marine Resources with a written notice of its intent to sue that agency, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association and individual Maine lobstermen for violating an Endangered Species Act prohibition on killing and injuring endangered species such as the right whale.

The paperwork serves as a 60-day notice of civil action.

Led by Massachusetts advocate Max Strahan, who has called himself the “Prince of Whales,” the group wants to stop Maine from issuing licenses to fishermen who use lobster pot gear that can entangle right whales, especially the ropes that connect lobster pots that sit on the ocean floor to the buoys that float on the surface.

“The MDMR in its current and past incarnations has been responsible for the killing and injuring of many endangered whales and sea turtles since before the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973,” Strahan said in a prepared statement. “It knows it (is) killing endangered whales and sea turtles but it simply will not stop.”

Some scientists who study right whales say the species, whose numbers have dropped to about 450 animals, could be doomed to extinction by 2040 if society doesn’t take significant steps to protect them.

Seventeen right whales were found dead in the summer and fall of 2017 in the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off Cape Cod, many because of ship strikes or entanglements.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

SAVE Act gets boost

June 22, 2018 — A statewide association of commercial lobstermen has thrown its weight behind a $50 million federal bill to protect North Atlantic right whales with targeted research that emphasizes collaboration.

The group intends to work with the International Fund for Animal Welfare to develop a pilot program to test buoyless gear this summer, according to Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association Executive Director Beth Casoni.

“Massachusetts lobstermen are currently the leaders in the world for the conservation of right whales, and the association proudly supports the SAVE Right Whale Act of 2018,” Casoni wrote in an email.

Filed in Congress on June 7, the legislation would allocate $5 million annually in grants through 2028 for conservation programs, and the development of new technology or other methods to reduce harm to right whales from fishing gear entanglements and ship collisions. Grants could promote cooperation with foreign governments, affected local communities, small businesses, others in the private sector or nongovernment groups.

A grant program that is specific for right whale conservation and research will allow “the continued collaborative research needed for safe, realistic and viable outcomes for all that depend on the stocks’ success,” Casoni said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Canada temporarily shuts fishing areas to help right whales

June 20, 2018 — The Canadian government says it is taking steps to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales from encounters with fishing vessels and gear.

The whales are one of the world’s rarest marine mammals, and they have struggled with high mortality in recent years, especially in Canadian waters. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says it’s enacting temporary fisheries closures in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and off Quebec.

The Canadian agency says the closures go into effect Tuesday afternoon and will stay in place until further notice. The agency says the closures are due to the presence of right whales in the area.

U.S. and Canadian officials have debated the proper course for protecting right whales in recent months. U.S. Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, says Canadian protections “have got to work parallel” to U.S. efforts.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Boston.com