Saving Seafood

Scientists eye flu, pollution in spike in seal deaths

August 22, 2018 — As the number of dead or stranded live seals washing up along the coast from northern Massachusetts to southern Maine continues to increase dramatically, marine mammal experts are considering influenza or environmental pollution as potential explanations.

Although there is no definitive cause for the uptick in seal deaths — the count is more than 400 so far this year — the Seacoast Science Center, in Rye, New Hampshire, is continuing to test tissue from fresh seal carcasses to determine if there is a possibility of illness. Live seals have been found in poor condition with signs of lethargy, coughing, sneezing and having seizures, according to Jennifer Goebel, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration based in Gloucester.

NOAA, a scientific agency which focuses on the conditions of the oceans, major waterways and the atmosphere, released an updated number of seal strandings and deaths Tuesday morning, primarily gray and harbor seals.

In northern Massachusetts and New Hampshire, marine mammal specialists found 15 live and 26 dead seals in July. As of Aug. 20, they had found 14 live and 31 dead seals in the same region. As of the same date, 57 dead seals have been accounted for in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, according to NOAA statistics. Four seals, three babies and one adult, were reportedly found dead on Plum Island in the last week.

NOAA scientists totaled 404 dead and live seals when examining all seals found on the shoreline in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Experts still haven’t found cause of southern Maine seal ‘die off’

August 21, 2018 — Even as volunteers for Marine Mammals of Maine responded to more dead seals in southern Maine on Monday — more than 125 since Aug. 12 — officials from various agencies were clear that no cause for the “die off” has been determined.

“There have been no results yet to say what’s going on,” Lynda Doughty of the Harpswell-based nonprofit organization said Monday. “Other media speculation is that pollution is causing the die-off [but] no conclusive tests have been returned on southern Maine seals.”

Friends of Casco Bay, a marine stewardship organization founded in 1989 to improve and protect the environmental health of Casco Bay, reported Monday that tests conducted last week “show good water quality with enough oxygen for marine life.”

On Thursday, NOAA Fisheries New England/Mid-Atlantic wrote on its Facebook page that while samples have been taken from the seals and are being tested, “we don’t have any results yet — and that may take a few weeks.”

Previous mass deaths of seals in Maine have been attributed to avian influenza, distemper and harmful algal blooms such as red tide, the organization said.

On Monday, Doughty said the number of mostly seals found dead or stranded in southern Maine was “out of the norm for what we normally see.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Return of the seals: Once eradicated mammals back in local waters

July 2, 2018 — At any given time, approximately 600 seals splash, bathe and feed around a modest mass of rocks six miles off the coast of Maine, the northernmost of the Isles of Shoals.

These seals, both gray and harbor species, have made a resurgence in local waters over the last two decades following the imperative enaction of federal protections. Prior to the 1970s, the species had essentially been extirpated in Maine and Massachusetts, after being hunted for their pelts, and killed as competition for fish, said Jennifer Seavey, executive director of Shoals Marine Laboratory on Appledore Island, a joint program between the University of New Hampshire and Cornell University.

Since 2011, Seavey and her staff have been monitoring the seal resurgence at Duck Island, an effort led by Andrea Bogomolni, a researcher from Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institution. The work is conducted with undergraduate interns, and each summer, two students learn the monitoring methods, which are done by boat and with very specific tracking technology and procedures.

The monitoring program runs from May to August, Seavey said, and the interns take to the water approximately 30 times, the boat running a specific transect around the island. Photographs are taken on the same transects each time, where the laboratory uses the unique pattern on the seals’ fur to identify them as individuals.

Read the full story at the Portsmouth Herald

Scientists study how marine mammals survive at great depths

April 30, 2018 — Whales, dolphins and seals have evolved to hunt prey deep in the ocean, an environment that would otherwise prove deadly to animals that depend on breathing air to live. Until recently, scientists believed marine mammals’ known physical adaptations protected them from the effects of such punishing depths.

But scientists were baffled by computer models that showed that, even with the known adaptations, 50 percent of animals studied still should have experienced the bends. Researchers concluded there must be some else going on.

A new study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Oceanographic Foundation of the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain, may provide an answer. The study, funded by the U.S. Navy, found that deep-diving marine mammals use a physical adaptation — the collapse of one portion of the lungs — to block the flow of nitrogen into the blood and prevents the animals from getting the bends, the crippling release of nitrogen gas that can occurs when surfacing from dives deeper than 130 feet.

“If you get the conditions right, you can get a nice exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide but block the nitrogen,” said Michael Moore, a WHOI senior scientist who specializes in the analysis of marine mammal mortalities. Moore is a co-author of the study, which was published April 25 in the journal “Proceedings of the Royal Society B.”

The mammals have other physical adaptations that help them survive the depths when they exhaust available oxygen in their lungs, including a high amount of proteins in blood and muscle that bind oxygen and a higher ratio of red to white blood cells. Their ribs and lungs can collapse under pressure without breaking and their airways are hardened bunkers that remain partially open to power the signals they use to locate one another and their prey.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

NOAA publishes global list of fisheries and their risks to marine mammals

April 3, 2018 — The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has published the first list of foreign fisheries, detailing the risks that commercial fishing around the world pose to marine mammals.

“The [List of Foreign Fisheries] is an important milestone because it provides the global community a view into the marine mammal bycatch levels of commercially relevant fisheries,” according to a statement published on the NOAA Fisheries website.

“In addition, it offers us a better understanding of the impacts of marine mammal bycatch, an improvement of tools and scientific approaches to mitigating those impacts, and establishes a new level of international cooperation in achieving these objectives,” the statement says.

The register is a step toward meeting specific requirements in the Marine Mammal Protection Act on the sources of fish imported into the U.S. It includes nearly 4,000 fisheries across some 135 countries. These fisheries have until 2022 to demonstrate that the methods they use to catch fish, as well as other marine animals such as coral, crabs, lobsters and shellfish, either aren’t much of a danger to marine mammals, or they employ comparable methods and mitigation measures to similar operations in the United States.

Fishing nets can exact a high toll on animals that fishers don’t intend to catch. Nets themselves can trap dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea lions as bycatch. In Mexico, a fishery targeting the totoaba for its swim bladders that fetch high prices in Asian markets has decimated the tiny porpoise known as the vaquita (Phocoena sinus). Perhaps as few as 12 remain in the wild.

The lines from traps, pots and nets can also ensnare even the largest animals in the ocean. Recent research has shown that almost every one of the estimated remaining 451 North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) either is toting errant fishing equipment around or it bears the scars of entanglements with gear. These ropes can cause injuries to right whales and other animals that can lead to infection or death. And towing pieces of gear that can be longer than the whale’s body causes what scientists call “parasitic” drag that can interfere with the ability to find food.

Read the full story at Mongabay

 

Zero Dollars for Marine Mammals?

February 27, 2018 — The future of marine mammals is at risk in U.S. waters. President Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2019 would eliminate the Marine Mammal Commission. With an annual operating budget of $3.4 million, which comes to just over one penny per American per year, the Marine Mammal Commission has for 45 years been assiduously developing science and policy to protect seals, sea lions, dolphins, whales, dugongs and walruses. Through the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), Congress charged the commission with providing independent oversight of marine mammal conservation policies and programs being carried out by federal regulatory agencies. Obviously, with a proposed budget of zero dollars, it would be impossible to execute the federally mandated objectives of fostering sustainable fisheries (through the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act [MSA]) and protecting endangered species (through the Endangered Species Act [ESA]).

Marine mammals are more than just lovable creatures. They are important components of productive marine and coastal ecosystems that overall generate $97 billion of the gross domestic product. Whales function as ecosystem engineers by cycling vital nutrients between deeper and surface waters in the oceans. Without this nutrient cycling, oceans would produce less plankton and phytoplankton, which would eventually mean less fish. Also, through complex food-web interactions, marine mammals help to regulate fish populations. For example, marine-mammal–eating killer whales (often called “transient” killer whales) will eat seals, a common predator of pelagic fish—enabling fish populations to stay high. This kind of interaction is called a trophic cascade and is very common in marine ecosystems.

Serving as an independent oversight body, the commission has the critical task of assessing the scientific validity and effectiveness of research conducted to meet the federal mandates of the MMPA, ESA and MSA. If we as a country can’t even protect the charismatic species, I worry for all the less adorable parts of nature. So we need to draw a line in the sand. In this era of “fake news,” maintaining this entity to guard against encroachments to science-based policymaking on is more valuable than ever.

Read the full story at the Scientific American

 

Court approves threatened-species status for ringed seals in Alaska

February 13, 2018 — In a decision based on long-term climate projections, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed ringed seals in Alaska as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The ruling could result in limits on oil and gas projects and other activity in the Arctic. It reverses a 2016 decision by U.S. District Court Anchorage Judge Ralph Beistline.

The National Marine Fisheries Service in 2012 listed the Arctic ringed seal as threatened, based on long-term climate-model projections showing its sea-ice habitat shrinking.

The agency’s finding that the seal “was likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future – was reasonable and supported by the record,” the appeal court’s decision says.

The state of Alaska, the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, and other groups had challenged the listing.

In a related case, the U.S. Supreme Court in January decided not to review the appeals court’s conclusion upholding the threatened listing of Alaska’s bearded seal.

The bearded and ringed seals are “closely related,” the appeals court said Monday. The bearded-seal case adjudicated the same issues, and the court is bound by that precedent, the appeals court said.

The Alaska Oil and Gas Association, the state of Alaska and other plaintiffs had challenged that listing as well.

Kara Moriarty, president of AOGA, called the decisions disappointing. She said there are millions of bearded and ringed seals worldwide.

“The ESA listing was made despite a lack of sufficient scientific evidence to suggest that the species would be threatened any time in the near future,” Moriarty said. “Under such a standard, virtually any and all species could be listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA. All this will do is add additional cost and burden to our industry for seals with extremely healthy populations.”

Kristen Monsell, senior attorney for Center for Biological Diversity, a defendant in the case along with the federal government, said NMFS will implement a recovery plan for the ringed seal and designate critical habitat. The agency in 2014 proposed critical habitat for the seal off Alaska’s northern and western coasts.

To protect the threatened seals, the federal government could set limits affecting industrial activity, Monsell said. Agencies may require, say a re-route of pipeline construction plans, or stopping noisy work during birthing seasons.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

NOAA Announces New Marine Mammal Stranding Response Organization in Nantucket

February 9, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:   

Today, NOAA Fisheries announces that Marine Mammal Rescue Nantucket is now an authorized marine mammal stranding response organization for Nantucket, Tuckernuck, and Muskeget Islands.

After four years of no stranding coverage on Nantucket and the outer islands, Marine Mammal Rescue Nantucket (known as MMRACK, after ACK – the call letters for Nantucket Airport) fills an important gap in the GARFO network. Led by Marine Mammal Alliance Nantucket CEO Scott Leonard, who spent more than a decade working as a stranding volunteer with New England Aquarium, MMRACK will respond to both live and dead whales, dolphins, and seals. In addition to assessing and providing transportation for animals in need of treatment, Leonard’s team, which consists of seasoned volunteers who have worked or trained with the New England Aquarium, will also perform necropsies (animal autopsies) on dead animals.

“Nantucket is a unique place with a rich marine mammal history,” says Leonard. “MMRACK’s mission is to provide public education and outreach with the focus on raising awareness of human and marine mammal interaction, while providing humane care to our marine species. We are looking forward to being part of the network, and plan on working closely with International Fund for Animal Welfare, Marine Mammals of Maine, U.S. Coast Guard, Massachusetts Environmental Police, and other regional partner organizations.”

NOAA Fisheries looks forward to working with MMRACK to increase stranding response capabilities on Nantucket, and to help with monitoring marine mammal populations and health.

“Nantucket is an important area for marine mammal populations, particularly gray seals that breed and pup there,” says Mendy Garron, NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region Marine Mammal Stranding Response Coordinator. “Having a stranding response organization on the island will help us track the health and welfare of these populations and help reduce conflicts through education and outreach.”

Please report stranded marine mammals on Nantucket, Tuckernuck, and Muskeget to the Marine Mammal Rescue Nantucket Hotline: 833-667-6626.

Learn more about about NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region by visiting their site here.

 

Wandering seal pup rescued at Yarmouth pizza shop

January 2, 2018 — YARMOUTH PORT, Mass. — A harbor seal pup seemed to have her heart set on an anchovy pizza when she wandered a couple of miles inland Friday night and wound up in the parking lot of Yarmouth Pizza by Evan.

Brian Sharpe, manager of Marine Mammal Rescue and Research for the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Yarmouth Port, said it appeared the 6-month-old pup had followed winding White’s Creek inland from Grays Beach through a marsh and crossed Route 6A near Weir Road where the creek goes under the road.

“This does happen, especially with the younger ones,” said Sharpe. He and a veterinarian from IFAW responded to the pizza shop’s parking lot where the 3-foot-long, 40-pound seal had been placed into a box, then transferred to a pet crate by passerby who were concerned the animal would cross Route 6A again and get hit by a vehicle.

Although they were well-intentioned, Sharpe cautioned the public against approaching or handling marine mammals. The National Marine Fisheries Service guidelines ask people to remain at least 150 feet from seals.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

MASSACHUSETTS: You can see the seal population in Chatham from space

August 29, 2017 — There are so many seals on the coast of Massachusetts that you can see them from space.

Literally. If you zoom in on Cape Cod using the satellite photo feature on Google Maps, you won’t miss the herds of seals scattered along the coast.

Start at the southern tip of Monomoy Island near Monomoy Point and move north on the ocean side of Monomoy Island.

Kimberly Murray, a research coordinator for the seal program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, said officials this year observed up to 25,000 seals off Massachusetts in a single day.

The number of seals currently residing in the waters off the state’s coast is likely as high as 50,000, based on recent research that also factored in the number of seals in the water.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe