right whales Archives - Page 82 of 84

NOAA Fisheries Announces New Voluntary Speed Restriction Zone South of Nantucket

June 20, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries has established a voluntary vessel speed restriction zone south of Nantucket, MA established to protect an aggregation of three right whales sighted in this area on June 15, 2017.

Mariners, please avoid or transit at 10 knots or less inside the area (map below).

Nantucket, MA zone coordinates:

41 17 N

40 47 N

070 24 W

069 44 W

This voluntary speed restriction zone is in effect through June 30.

Find out more about all the dynamic and seasonal management areas where speed is restricted.

Learn more about how to reduce vessels strikes of whales.

You can also get recent right whale sightings and the latest acoustic detections of right whales in Cape Cod Bay and the Boston shipping lanes. Or, download the Whale Alert app for iPad and iPhone.

Remember that approaching a right whale closer than 500 yards is a violation of federal and state law. Please report all right whale sightings to 866-755-NOAA (6622)

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel at 978-281-9175 or jennifer.goebel@noaa.gov

Trump’s proposed cuts to NOAA alarm Maine’s marine community

March 7, 2017 — A Trump administration proposal to slash funding for the federal government’s principal marine agency and eliminate the national Sea Grant program is prompting alarm in Maine’s marine sector because it depends on services provided by both.

President Trump wants to slash the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the agency responsible for fisheries management, weather forecasting, nautical surveys and assisting marine industries – by 17 percent, The Washington Post reported Friday. And he wants to eliminate NOAA’s Sea Grant program, the marine equivalent of the federal agricultural extension and research service, in the fiscal 2018 budget, which begins Oct. 1.

“There was a lot of concern when the news broke, and a flurry of messages went out to our congressional delegation from fishermen and aquaculturists who understand how they benefit from Sea Grant,” said Paul Anderson, director of Maine Sea Grant at the University of Maine in Orono, one of 33 Sea Grant universities in the country. “I don’t now if on October 1st we will all of a sudden not exist.”

The news has sent reverberations across Maine’s marine community, which has long benefited from the partnership between UMaine and the federal government. Sea Grant researchers created the Fishermen’s Forum – the industry’s premier event – in 1976, and also helped found the Portland Fish Exchange and the university’s Lobster Institute, which researches issues of concern to the industry.

Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said the cuts to NOAA would be terrible for fishermen. “The industry relies pretty heavily on their forecast reports on the wind and the wave heights and make decisions day to day if they are going to go out, so those satellites are really important,” she said. “And nobody loves (the National Marine Fisheries Service), but keeping them fully funded and their research going is essential to manage our fisheries.”

She noted that recent cuts to the agency’s right-whale monitoring program had hurt fishermen because if scientists didn’t have time to find the whales, they had to assume they weren’t there, increasing the regulatory burden on lobstermen, whose gear the whales sometimes get entangled in.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Right Whales Gather Early; Mariners Asked to Take Caution

February 28, 2017 — Sailors are asked to take caution in waters around Martha’s Vineyard after 10 critically-endangered North Atlantic right whales were seen feeding in waters south of the Island.

Last week NOAA fisheries announced a voluntary vessel speed restriction zone 16 nautical miles south of the Vineyard. Mariners are asked to either avoid the area or travel through at 10 knots or less. Coordinates are available at the fisheries website.

The speed restriction zone is in effect through Wednesday, March 8.

According to NOAA an aggregation of 10 right whales was spotted in the area on Feb. 21, including one whale south of Gay Head and Noman’s Land and several other whales directly south of the middle of the Island.

North Atlantic right whales weigh up to 79 tons and can grow to be 50 feet long. They give birth to calves from December through March in coastal waters off Georgia and Florida, and travel north to New England waters to feed on plankton. The first reports of North Atlantic right whales this season in Cape Cod Bay came in late December, and aerial surveys have shown aggregations of 25 to 30 whales in the bay since then, according to the Center for Coastal Studies, a larger than average number. Right whale sightings usually increase beginning in mid-March.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

Researchers: Where are all the right whales?

February 24, 2017 — MELBOURNE, Fla. — Maybe the right whales are all just in the wrong place at the wrong time this year.

Where spotters typically see 20 newborn North Atlantic right whales, this winter only three have been born, the lowest number of newborns since only one was born in 2000.

Three dozen or more adult and baby right whales usually pass through Florida and Georgia waters during the winter calving season, which runs mid-November to mid-April. This year, only seven whales have been documented.

“Not only is it the fewest number of calves, but it’s also the fewest number of individuals seen,” said Phil Hamilton, a research scientist at New England Aquarium, which monitors right whales.

Scientists suspect a warmer North Atlantic, driven in part by climate change, might be disrupting the density of animal plankton that the whales need to feed, increasing the time it takes for females to bulk up for pregnancy and forcing the whales to scatter in search of food.

“A lot of people are doing a lot of head scratching,” Julie Albert, who monitors right whales for the nonprofit Marine Resources Council, said of this winter’s whale migration.

Read the full story from Florida Today at NorthJersey.com

MASSACHUSETTS: Right whales return to Cape Cod Bay

January 24, 2017 — Two rare and critically endangered North Atlantic right whales were spotted in Cape Cod Bay, the first of the year seen in the area, according to the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown.

The center’s research vessel Shearwater spotted the two whales in the bay five miles south of Provincetown Harbor on Jan. 17. On Thursday, center officials say they saw five right whales in the same area.

There are only an estimated 524 right whales in the world, according to the center. They come to the bay every winter due to the high concentrations of microscopic zooplankton there, which is a food source for the whales.

The whales’ presence in the bay warrants caution, according to the center.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Legal Proceedings Preserve Fishing Industry Rights as New York Wind Energy Lease Sale Proceeds

December 15, 2016 — The following was released by the Fisheries Survival Fund:

Last week, a group of fisheries organizations, communities and businesses filed suit against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), seeking a temporary restraining order to delay today’s auction of leasing rights to the proposed New York Wind Energy Area. The suit also sought a preliminary injunction to prevent BOEM from executing any resulting wind energy lease.

The plaintiffs allege that BOEM did not adequately consider the effect on the region’s fishermen of a 127-square-mile wind farm off the coast of New York and New Jersey.

Subsequently, a scheduling agreement was reached between the parties that allows the court to take adequate time to deliberate carefully on the case’s important issues. The plaintiffs agreed to withdraw their motion for a temporary restraining order that would have delayed the scheduled auction. Although the auction is proceeding today, under BOEM’s final sale notice for the auction, the lease will not be final until further steps, as outlined in the sale notice, are completed.

On Monday, Judge Tanya Chutkan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia set a court schedule on the plaintiffs’ motion to preliminarily enjoin BOEM’s execution of any lease resulting from today’s auction. The schedule concludes with a hearing in Federal court on February 8.

Under Judge Chutkan’s order, if the lease is ready to be executed before the court is able to rule on the plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction motion, BOEM must provide the court no less than 14 days notice. If that notice is provided, the preliminary injunction proceedings will be expedited.

The Fisheries Survival Fund, representing the majority of the U.S. Atlantic scallop industry, is the lead plaintiff in the case. The lease area includes documented scallop and squid fishing grounds, which serve as essential fish habitat and grounds for other commercially important species, including black sea bass and summer flounder. It is also an important foraging area for threatened loggerhead sea turtles and critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Other organizations joining as plaintiffs include the Garden State Seafood Association and the Fishermen’s Dock Co-Operative in New Jersey; the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in New York; and the Narragansett Chamber of Commerce and Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance.

Joining as plaintiffs are the City of New Bedford, Mass.; the Borough of Barnegat Light, N.J.; and the Town of Narragansett, R.I.

Also joining are three fishing businesses: SeaFreeze Shoreside, Sea Fresh USA and The Town Dock.

NEW YORK: Acoustic buoy now detecting rare, endangered whales in New York Bight

November 17, 2016 — An acoustic buoy recently deployed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and WCS’s (Wildlife Conservation Society) New York Aquarium is making its first near real-time detections of two rare great whale species in the New York Bight, including the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale.

On November 14th, the hi-tech buoy named “Melville” detected the telltale “up call” of the North Atlantic right whale, one of the world’s highly endangered whale species that numbers only 500 individual animals. It is the second detection of a North Atlantic right whale made by the buoy since October 26th. The acoustic buoy made another rare find on October 31st with the detection of a sei whale, a species that grows up to 65 feet in length and is rarely observed in New York waters.

North Atlantic right whales are particularly vulnerable to getting hit by ships, so any information on the whereabouts of these animals along the coast is important. Researchers from WCS and WHOI report that the North Atlantic right whale detected on October 26th was outside of the New York Harbor Seasonal Management Area (SMA), one of a series of zones along the eastern seaboard established to protect the slow-swimming whales with boat speed restrictions during their migration periods. Vessel speed restrictions for the mid-Atlantic seasonal management areas—including the SMA in New York Bight—runs between November 1st and April 30th.

“Having the ability to detect North Atlantic right whales and other species rarely seen in New York waters is extremely important given their endangered status,” said Dr. Howard Rosenbaum of WCS’s Ocean Giants Program and co-lead of the WCS New York Aquarium-WHOI project. “In particular, our ability to detect North Atlantic right whales in this area near the shipping lanes but outside these seasonal management areas will hopefully help with efforts to safeguard this highly endangered species in the New York Bight.

Read the full story at Phys.org

NOAA: Fishing gear killed endangered right whale

October 3, 2016 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Entanglement in a morass of fishing gear killed an endangered right whale spotted off Boothbay Harbor last week and brought ashore in Portland last weekend for a necropsy, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Speaking on Monday, Jennifer Goebel, a spokeswoman for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Region in Gloucester, Mass., said scientists from the fisheries service had determined that “chronic entanglement was the cause of death” of the 45-ton, 43-foot-long animal.

Goebel also said that the New England Aquarium had identified the whale as No. 3694 in its North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog. According to Goebel, the whale was a female, believed to be about 11 years old, with no known calves.

The whale was first sited by researchers in 2006. Since then, the whale has been sited along the Atlantic Coast 26 times, most recently off Florida in February of this year.

According to Goebel, passengers on a Boothbay Harbor-based whale watching boat spotted the dead whale on Friday floating about 12 to 13 miles off Portland wrapped in fishing gear. Rope was reportedly wrapped around the whale’s head, in its mouth and around its flippers and its tail.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Spate of whale entanglements could inform regulations

September 28, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — A recent spate of entanglements of rare whales off of New England could help shape future regulations to preserve the endangered animals, federal authorities said Tuesday.

A North Atlantic right whale was found dead about 12 miles off the Maine coast over the weekend, entangled in fishing gear. Two other right whales were also found entangled recently. One of them was reported alive, and researchers plan to reassess its condition.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the 45-ton animal’s death near Maine was still being investigated, including whether the gear can be traced back to its owner.

“We’re on par for the course with the averages for the year for entanglements,” he said. “Overall, if you look at entanglements of all large whale species, we’re a little bit above our average.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Boston Globe

Scientists bemoan spate of whale entanglements

September 28, 2016 — It has not been a good week for right whales off the coast of New England, nor for the marine scientists who study them.

In the wake of the three separate right whale incidents since last Thursday, including two involving dead right whales, NOAA Fisheries organized a teleconference Tuesday in which a number of scientists said the recent spate of incidents reflect the continuing crisis of trying to return the right whale population — now estimated at about 500 — to health.

“In recent years, we’re not seeing the strides we had once seen,” said David Gouveia, the marine mammal and sea turtle program coordinator in NOAA’s greater Atlantic region. “When you have something like this, that within a three-day period you’ve lost two valuable members or contributors to the population, that’s something we wanted to share with our partners and wanted to share with the public and wanted to really stress the continued importance of us being mindful of our conservation efforts.”

Michael Moore, a senior research specialist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was even more emphatic in his reaction to the trio of right whale incidents.

“The fishermen and the fisheries, the stakeholders, have been put through an enormous amount of gear change and stress to make a more whale-friendly fishery and we’re not out of the woods by any means,” Moore said. “There needs to be a revisiting of strategy and public expectations. Something needs to change.”

The first incident occurred Thursday, when recreational boaters off Cape Cod reported seeing an entangled right whale — later identified as an 8-year-old female — towing hundreds of feet of line and buoys from its jaws.

A disentanglement team cut away some of the line and made other cuts scientists believe helped the whale, which scientists believe to be alive somewhere in the Gulf of Maine, to shed even more of the gear.

The gear was recovered and Gouveia said it provides clues to who owned the gear, where it was fished and whether that fisherman was in compliance with safety and gear regulations related to fishing in areas populated by right whales.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times