Saving Seafood

NOAA Seeks Nominations for Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel

September 28, 2018 — NOAA Fisheries is soliciting nominations for the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Southeast Data, Assessment, and Review Workshops (SEDAR) Advisory Panel. Panel members may participate in the various data, assessment, and review workshops associated with shark stock assessments. If selected to participate in a workshop, members would consider the scientific information—including data and models—used in stock assessments and advise NOAA Fisheries on the conservation and management of Atlantic sharks.

In 2019, NOAA Fisheries anticipates conducting a benchmark stock assessment for Atlantic blacktip sharks. In 2020, we intend to begin a research track assessment for the hammerhead shark complex. Meetings or workshops for these assessments will be determined according to SEDAR guidelines.

This is a 5-year appointment beginning in 2019 and ending in 2024.

Eligible Nominees

To be considered, individuals must have definable interests in:

  • Recreational and commercial fishing and related industries.
  • The environmental community.
  • Academia.
  • Non-governmental organizations.

View the full solicitation at The Fishing Wire

 

California bans giant ocean fishing nets blamed for killing sea turtles, whales

September 28, 2018 — Ending years of controversy and debate, Gov. Jerry Brown late Thursday signed a new law phasing out the use of giant ocean fishing nets used to catch swordfish, but blamed for accidentally killing sea turtles, dolphins and other sea creatures.

The bill, SB 1017 by state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Redondo Beach, requires the state to set up a program to buy back nets and fishing permits from commercial fishermen who work in the state’s drift gill net fishery.

The nets — giant nylon curtains that can stretch one mile long and extend 100 feet underwater — are used mostly by fishermen between San Diego and Big Sur. Although they are intended to catch swordfish, thresher shark and opah, studies have shown that they entangle dozens of other marine species, including whales, dolphins, sea lions and sea turtles, fish and sharks. Those animals, known as bycatch, are often thrown back overboard, injured or dead.

“There is no longer room in our oceans for any fishery that throws away more than it keeps,” said Susan Murray, deputy vice president for Oceana, an environmental group with offices in Monterey that pushed for the new law.

Read the full story at Mercury News

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Public Meeting Scheduled to Discuss Cape Cod Shark Issues

September 21, 2018 — A community meeting has been scheduled for next week on the Outer Cape to discuss the recent fatal shark attack in Wellfleet.

Officials will also address the larger issue of how to best manage the increasing numbers of great white sharks off local beaches.

Wellfleet Town Administrator Dan Hoort said the meeting will take place at 6 p.m. on September 27 at the Wellfleet Council on Aging.

Hoort said everything will be on the table in terms of discussion points as they want to see what we can do to protect beachgoers.

“We hope to bring in a couple of experts in shark activity to help facilitate the conversation,” Hoort said.

“We want to hear from them and we want to hear from the community.”

Representatives from the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy and many local lawmakers and town officials are being invited.

Hoort is also hoping Dr. Greg Skomal, the state’s shark expert and senior fisheries scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, will be able to attend.

Arthur Medici, of Revere, was fatally wounded by a shark bite on Saturday while boogie boarding at Newcomb Hollow Beach.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Cape leaders look for solution to increased shark sightings

September 19, 2018 — CAPE COD, Mass. — We’ve seen them through out the summer; Video after video of shark encounters off the Massachusetts and Rhode Island coasts.

But this weekend, a deadly encounter occurred off the Cape – the first in the Bay State in over 80 years.

“This is a horrible tragedy,” said Dr. Greg Skomal, a shark expert with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

 “No one wants a shark attack of any kind,” said Skomal, “and a fatal attack is the worst kind.”

After studying the case, Dr. Skomal thinks he knows the culprit in last weekend’s deadly attack.

Read the full story at WLNE

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Officials to Discuss Shark Safety Following Fatal Attack

September 18, 2018 — The Outer Cape continues to mourn the loss of Arthur Medici after Saturday’s fatal shark attack off Wellfleet and local and Cape Cod National Seashore officials are looking to see what should be done in the future to keep people safe.

They are also looking to see what, if anything, could have been done to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening.

Medici, the 26-year-old from Revere, was attacked by a shark while on a boogie board at Newcomb Hollow Beach around noon on Saturday. He was pronounced dead at Cape Cod Hospital.

The attack was the first fatality by shark in Massachusetts since 1936.

It was the second shark attack on Cape Cod as a man from Scarsdale, New York was bitten off Truro last month. He survived the attack and is recovering from the injuries suffered.

National Seashore Superintendent Brian Carlstrom said they will continue to consult with the White Shark Working Group which is a collaboration between several Cape Cod and Southcoast communities, and shark experts and researchers with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy and the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

“Anytime you have an incident like this you want to evaluate how you are doing things and see if there are areas where you can improve,” Carlstrom said. “Maybe some things with communications, maybe some applications with technologies – we are going to have to look at that very closely and see what we might be able to implement.”

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Alec Wilkinson: A Deadly Shark Attack at a Beach on Cape Cod That I Know Well

September 17, 2018 — I grew up spending summers in a house that my parents built for five thousand dollars, in 1952, on a hill above Newcomb Hollow, in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, where a young man died on Saturday from a shark bite. My father used to say that there were no sharks off the Cape, because the water was too cold. He was wrong, of course. The sharks were likely always there, but in deep water, following whales. The whales would occasionally die, for whatever reason, and fishermen would sometimes see sharks feeding on their carcasses. Now, however, the sharks are close to shore, because they prey on seals, which used to be scarce and are not any longer, a result of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, passed in 1972. The act is typical of our attempts to manage nature. In my childhood, I never saw seals, and it seemed desirable to protect them from being drowned in fishermen’s nets. Now there are so many that one of my nieces described them as an infestation. This summer, I started to think of them as sea rats.

Arthur Medici, the man who died, was twenty-six. He came to America two years ago from Brazil to go to college. In photographs, he is handsome, with dark eyes and a direct gaze. On Saturday, he broke a rule that is risky to break, by swimming at some distance from the crowd. Sharks patrol the shore for seals. They are white sharks, which were once called man-eaters; sometimes they are called “the men in gray suits,” since they are gray with white undersides. They are shaped like torpedoes with fins, a minimalist fish, and there is nothing fancy about their appearance, as if only two colors were necessary for a serious creature. On videos taken from airplanes, you see them moving lazily, unconcerned, since nothing threatens them. The planes tend to be working for Greg Skomal, of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, who, with the help of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, has been tagging white sharks for the last few years in order to determine how many visit the Cape—white sharks are not so much migratory as footloose; one of the surprises of tagging them has been learning that instead of following patterns or routes they seem to go wherever the hell they feel like. When Skomal stabs them with a tracking tag on the end of a harpoon, some of them don’t even react, although this summer, one of them leapt up beneath him as if to attack him as he stood on the bow pulpit with his harpoon.

Read the full opinion piece at The New Yorker

 

Fatal Shark Attack Off Cape Cod Is First in Massachusetts Since 1936

September 17, 2018 — A man was killed by a shark off Cape Cod over the weekend in the first fatal shark attack in Massachusetts since 1936.

The man, Arthur Medici, 26, of Revere, Mass., was attacked at Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet on Saturday, according to the National Park Service. He was pulled out of the water and taken to Cape Cod Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, officials said.

Officials were investigating the attack, but they suspect that Mr. Medici was killed by a great white shark.

Great white sharks, which can be up to 20 feet long, do not hunt humans but may mistake them for prey because they are about the same size as seals and other marine mammals, experts said.

“Pretty much every shark bite is an accident,” said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “It’s mistaken identity.”

Read the full story at The New York Times

ASMFC Coastal Sharks Board Releases Draft Addendum V for Public Comment

August 31, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Coastal Sharks Management Board releases Draft Addendum V to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Atlantic Coastal Sharks for public comment. The Draft Addendum proposes options to allow the Board to streamline the process of state implementation of shark regulations so that complementary measures are seamlessly and concurrently implemented at the state and federal level whenever possible.

The FMP currently allows for commercial quotas, possession limits, and season dates to be set annually through Board approved specifications.  All other changes to commercial or recreational management can only be accomplished through an addendum or emergency action. While addenda can be completed in a relatively short period of time, the timing of addenda and state implementation can result in inconsistencies between state and federal shark regulations, particularly when NOAA Fisheries adopts changes through interim emergency rules. The only option for the Board to respond quicker than an addendum is through an emergency action, which has a set of criteria that are rigorous and often not met, making it rarely used to enact regulatory changes. The Draft Addendum seeks to provide the Board more flexibility in responding to changes in the fishery for shark species managed under the FMP.

A public hearing webinar will be held Tuesday, September 25th at 5:30 p.m. The details of the webinar follow:

Registration URL: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2613822106816627203

Phone: 1.888.585.9008

Room Number: 853-657-937

Fishermen and other interested groups are encouraged to provide input on Draft Addendum V either by attending the public hearing webinar or providing written comment. The Draft Addendum is available at

http://www.asmfc.org/files/PublicInput/CoastalSharksDraftAddendumV_PublicComment_Aug2018.pdf and can also be accessed on the Commission website (www.asmfc.org) under Public Input. Public comment will be accepted until 5:00 PM (EST) on October 1, 2018 and should be forwarded to Kirby Rootes-Murdy, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at 1050 N. Highland Street, Suite 200A-N, Arlington, VA, 22201; 703.842.07401 (fax); or comments@asmfc.org (Subject line: Draft Addendum V).

Tracking tools identify regional hubs of whale shark activity

August 17, 2018 — Where do the biggest fish in the sea go to find enough food? Turns out, not too far, if they live in a region with lots of food.

Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) swim about 25 kilometers (15 miles) per day and can make some tremendous long-distance oceanic movements. Scientists recently tracked a female whale shark from the eastern Pacific to the western Indo-Pacific for 20,142 kilometers (more than 12,000 miles) over 841 days, the longest whale shark migration route ever recorded.

Juvenile sharks in a series of four studies, one in the Philippines and three in the western Indian Ocean, apparently prefer to swim laps around their favorite feeding grounds.

Whale sharks are the world’s largest fish, growing up to 12 meters (40 feet) long and weighing up to 25 tons; even juveniles are 7 to 9 meters (23 to 30 feet) long. Scientists are keen to understand where these huge fish spend their time to better conserve them.

Fishing activity threatens whale sharks through direct killing, capture as bycatch, and boat strikes. Half of the world’s whale shark population has been killed since the 1980s, primarily by fisheries in China, India, the Philippines and Taiwan, and Chinese fisheries still target whale sharks for their fins and meat. The rapid decline in whale sharks’ global population prompted the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to reclassify the species as endangered in 2016.

Read the full story at Mongabay News

MARYLAND: After 42 years of fishing, he’s never seen anything like this 310-pound bull shark

August 15, 2018 — In the picture, the bull shark towers over the Maryland fisherman.

Larry “Boo” Powley stares into the camera, seemingly unfazed.

The story of how the 65-year-old commercial fisherman came to pose with a 310-pound bull shark began Monday morning when Powley set out on the Patuxent River in Southern Maryland.

Powley, who has been on the water for 42 years, said he was planning to catch his usual crop of menhaden, a common fish often used in fish oils for humans and bait for blue crab. Menhaden measure 15 inches at most, so the 8.6-foot-long bull shark that got stuck in his trap off Cedar Point, in St. Mary’s County, around sunrise wasn’t hard to notice.

Read the full story at The Washington Post