Saving Seafood

SAVE Right Whales Act Could Provide $50 Million Grant For Ropeless Fishing Technology

June 15, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The SAVE Right Whales Act of 2018, filed in Congress on June 7, could provide a $5 million annual grant program to allow fishermen, shippers and conservationists to collaborate to protect North Atlantic right whales.

Introduced by U.S. Reps Seth Moulton and William Keating, and by U.S. Senator Cory Booker, the SAVE Act stands for Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales. If it becomes law, the act would provide a total of $50 million dollars in federal funds, distributed as $5 million over 10 years, to aid conservation programs with rebuilding the North Atlantic right whales. Projects would include developing, testing or using technology or other methods to reduce entanglements and vessel collisions, which is the leading cause of right whale deaths. This could include developing and testing more ropeless fishing gear technology, which would remove thousands of ropes from the water.

“If we don’t take immediate action, the storied North Atlantic right whale could go extinct in our lifetime,” Booker said while introducing the SAVE Right Whales Act. “We have a responsibility to find and implement solutions that will help protect endangered species for generations to come.”

The bill needs to garner more support from members of Congress in order to be signed into law. Currently the population of the North Atlantic right whales is estimated to be at about 450.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

SONIA FERNANDEZ: Doing right by the whales

June 12, 2018 — These are not good times for the North Atlantic right whale. Ship strikes and gear entanglement play major roles in the mortality of these highly endangered mammals, which now number fewer than 500. Making matters worse, climate-mediated shifts are pushing their prey out of the whales’ usual feeding grounds, rendering traditional habitat-focused protection policies less than optimal.

This reality was starkly apparent in the summer of 2017, when 17 turned up dead in U.S.-Canadian waters—a mass mortality event attributed in large part to gear entanglement and ship strikes. The event also revealed that the whales had gone beyond their typical distributional boundaries. Scientists estimate that unless protective policies are expanded to cover their shifting distribution, right whales may face extinction in less than 30 years.

That’s according to a new study by researchers including UC Santa Barbara Marine Science Institute ecologist Erin Meyer-Gutbrod. With atmospheric scientist Charles H. Greene, of Cornell University, and postdoctoral research associate Kimberley T. A. Davies, of Dalhousie University, Meyer-Gutbrod authored the paper “Marine Species Range Shifts Necessitate Advanced Policy Planning,” which appears in the journal Oceanography.

According to the group’s findings, “only five calves were born in 2017 and no newborn calves have been sighted thus far in 2018.”

“What we have seen with prey limitation is that whales will search outside of their traditional feeding grounds, looking for denser aggregations of zooplankton,” said Meyer-Gutbrod, who studies the effects of environmental change on right whale populations. Due to the northward movement of their food from their usual Gulf of Maine feeding grounds to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canadian waters, the whales, too, are shifting away from their usual habitats and into unprotected regions. The combination of food scarcity in their usual habitat and lack of protection in their adopted feeding grounds, Meyer-Gutbrod and colleagues say, calls for advanced policy planning that essentially follows these whales as they stake out new territory.

“Prey limitation is not typically so severe that right whales starve to death,” said Meyer-Gutbrod. However, she explained, when prey is scarce, adult females don’t have enough energy to reproduce successfully. In addition, when the whales move from their typical protected waters into heavily-trafficked and unprotected areas, they encounter a minefield of obstacles, from commercial shipping vessels to crab and lobster fishing gear.

Read the full opinion piece at PHYS.org

Frustration mounts in Gulf of St. Lawrence lobster fishery over right whale closures:union

June 12, 2018 — A group representing Gulf of St. Lawrence lobster fishermen says frustration is mounting after the federal government rejected its proposal for a shallow-water exemption to fishery closures aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) says it considered the proposal by the Maritime Fishermen’s Union and the Pecheurs professionnels du Sud de la Gaspesie, but will not exempt waters of up to 10 fathoms — or 18 metres — in depth.

“We felt staying in that depth of water, which is where most of our fishermen are now at this time of year anyways, was a really good compromise,” said Carl Allen, president of the Maritime Fishermen’s Union.

Last week, DFO issued temporary closures to six more grid areas due to the presence of right whales. The move came after six areas were closed to several fisheries as of May 22.

A static closure zone is in place along New Brunswick’s northern coast until June 30, while DFO has been enforcing what are called dynamic management closures that shut down fishing activities for 15 days once a right whale sighting is confirmed.

In an interview Monday, Allen said fishermen are having a hard time understanding DFO’s logic after they were willing to comply with any number of measures, including the use of tracking technology and observers.

Read the full story at CTV News

Right whale sightings prompt temporary closing of East Coast fishing areas

May 22, 2018 — East Coast fishermen were scrambling to move their traps this weekend after the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) announced plans to temporarily close a section of the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Tuesday, to protect two endangered right whales spotted swimming in the waters during aircraft surveillance.

The decision is the latest attempt to avoid a repeat of last year, when 12 whales died in Canadian waters, either from being struck by boats or tangled in fishing ropes that stretch from the surface to the traps below.

The department has already permanently closed a section of the gulf where whale populations are known to congregate, but that is lucrative for snow crab fishermen. This has raised concerns that if temporary closings also expand, fishermen may not be able to fill their quotas, or will be forced to cluster in certain areas and risk overfishing, said Carl Allen, the president of the Maritime Fishermen’s Union.

“It’s been tough,” he said, speaking on Monday from his home in Cap-Pele, N.B. “Today, anybody [with traps in the newly closed area is] scrambling to get out there and get their gear on their boat. Hopefully they can find a place where the crab hasn’t already been picked over.” The closing was announced on Sunday, giving fishermen 48 hours notice to remove traps from the areas or face possible fines. The area, which is east of the Miscou Island and just north of the area where fishing is already prohibited, will be closed for at least 15 days, longer if the whales remain, according to a department statement.

Read the full story at The Globe and Mail

 

Massachusetts: South Shore lobstermen finally put traps in water

May 17, 2018 — MARSHFIELD, Mass. — A dozen lobstermen hauled traps onto boats, tinkered with on-board computer systems and chatted, as they waited for the high tide they needed to clear the channel out of Green Harbor and get to work.

South Shore lobstermen are back on the water this week after more than a three month ban on lobster fishing, aimed at protecting endangered whales. The ban was supposed to be from Feb. 1 to April 30, but an additional two weeks was added because whales were spotted close to the shore last month. In all, local lobstermen have gone 15 weeks without pulling a trap or making a sale.

“We’re going into the season broke, let’s put it that way,” fisherman Dana Blackman said Wednesday morning, the day after lobster fishing resumed.

Lobster fishing on the South Shore used to be a year-round industry, but in 2014 federal regulators made it illegal to use lobstering equipment off the southern Massachusetts coast in February, March and April when the endangered North Atlantic right whales are in the area and could be injured or killed by fishing gear and boats.

The ban affects about 75 lobster boats in Marshfield and Scituate alone.

Read the full story at the Patriot Ledger

 

Maine: Photos reveal multiple rare right whales off York County coast

May 16, 2018 — Scientists from the New England Aquarium have concluded that the endangered North Atlantic right whales spotted swimming and feeding off the coast of York County last weekend were not the same animal.

Tony LaCasse, spokesman for the New England Aquarium, which catalogs all right whales, said in a telephone interview Tuesday evening that the scientists used photographs to confirm that the right whale photographed off Long Sands Beach in York was right whale No. 1409.

A North Atlantic right whale spotted off the coast of Wells was a different whale, according to LaCasse.

The York whale is a male born in 1984. Its mother was known as No. 1160. Her death was confirmed in 2005 after her carcass was found floating offshore.

Whale No. 1409 “is definitely an adult male whose length is estimated at 45 feet and weighs around 90,000 pounds,” LaCasse said, dispelling reports from untrained observers that the whale was a juvenile. “The photograph was outstanding.”

Some right whales are assigned names. LaCasse said there is a right whale named Van Halen because the pattern on its forehead looks like an electric guitar.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Boston advocacy group sues NMFS twice

May 11, 2018 — The Conservation Law Foundation, a Boston, Massachusetts-based environmental advocacy group, filed two law lawsuits this week against the US’ top fishing regulatory agency over environmental concerns, Courthouse News reports.

In one lawsuit, filed against the US National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric assistant administrator Chris Oliver and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, the group says the partial passage, on April 9, of  New England’s Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment failed to meet some of its initial goals, like minimizing the impact of fishing gear on fish habitats.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Pair of Lawsuits Seek to Bolster Protections for Right Whale

May 11, 2018 — WASHINGTON — The critically endangered right whale took center stage in a pair of federal lawsuits from an environmental nonprofit that says a significant reduction in protected fish habitat in the Northeast will further imperil the whale and other fish species.

In one of the lawsuits filed Monday, the Conservation Law Foundation says partial passage on April 9 of New England’s Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment failed to meet some of its initially worthy goals, like minimizing the impact of fishing gear on fish habitats.

The Conservation Law Foundation says the amendment opened up more than 3,000 square miles of once protected ocean in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean to commercial fishing activities known to destroy fish habitats.

“In the region, the final Amendment reduced the amount of currently protected essential fish habitat by over 40 percent and lifted current restrictions on destructive fishing practices in vital parts of the remaining ‘protected’ habitat, including areas that are critical habitat for endangered North Atlantic right whales,” the complaint says.

In particular, the environmentalists argue federal regulators have failed to minimize the impacts of fishing gears in the Cashes Ledge area, which has been closed since 2002 to large bottom trawls and other bottomtending fishing gears capable of catching groundfish.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

 

The Future of Lobstering May Mean Fishing by Computer

May 9, 2018 — The endangered North Atlantic right whale is facing extinction, with fewer than 450 left. The cause of the highest mortality is entanglement in fishing gear, including lobster trap lines. A lawsuit forcing the government to protect the whales may bring about a change in the way lobster fishermen have worked for more than a hundred years.

Lobster fishing used to be pretty straightforward. But there may be big changes ahead for fishermen in New England.

“First thing you have to remember is, you’re taking the lobster industry and flipping it around on its head and shaking it,” Mike Lane said, sitting on his lobster boat in Cohassett Lane. Lane is a life-long fisherman. His dad fished for lobster before him. He’s concerned about the proposals. “How are you going to teach 60-year old men that don’t use computers to use a computer?”

Pretty soon, Lobstermen may be asked to find their traps using computers, instead of buoys. New fishing technology is being developed to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale—it’s called ropeless fishing.

Read the full story at WCAI

 

Massachusetts extends ban on lobstering over right whales

May 8, 2018 — MARSHFIELD, Mass. — Massachusetts officials have extended a ban on lobster fishing along Cape Cod Bay because critically endangered right whales are feeding in the area.

The state Division of Marine Fisheries announced lobstermen won’t be able to set their traps until May 16, two weeks later than usual, the The Patriot Ledger reports.

The state says surveys have found up to 100 right whales are still in western Cape Cod Bay.

Lobstermen have faced a three-month ban on setting their traps since 2015 as part of an effort to lower the amount of whales that get caught in fishing gear during their migration.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times