Saving Seafood

The Future of Fishing Is Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

May 10, 2018 — New England’s groundfish season is in full swing, as hundreds of dayboat fishermen from Rhode Island to Maine take to the water in search of the region’s iconic cod and haddock. But this year, several dozen of them are hauling in their catch under the watchful eye of video cameras as part of a new effort to use technology to better sustain the area’s fisheries and the communities that depend on them.

Video observation on fishing boats—electronic monitoring—is picking up steam in the Northeast and nationally as a cost-effective means to ensure that fishing vessels aren’t catching more fish than allowed while informing local fisheries management. While several issues remain to be solved before the technology can be widely deployed—such as the costs of reviewing and storing data—electronic monitoring is beginning to deliver on its potential to lower fishermen’s costs, provide scientists with better data, restore trust where it’s broken, and ultimately help consumers gain a greater understanding of where their seafood is coming from.

“Electronic monitoring is a tremendous tool,” says Brett Alger, national electronics technology coordinator for NOAA Fisheries. “It isn’t necessarily for everyone or every fishery,” but “we’re working collaboratively in all of our regions with fishermen on the ground to understand their needs. I expect it to grow.”

The technology is required for highly migratory longline species in the Atlantic (swordfish). It’s thriving in the Pacific coast groundfish industry, and dozens of other fisheries regions have pilot initiatives.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

 

Senators Feinstein, Harris introduce bill to ban drift nets in California

April 30, 2018 — A bipartisan bill to ban controversial drift net fishing off California’s coast was introduced Thursday by Democratic California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, along with West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito.

The nets, which can be more than a mile long, are intended to catch swordfish but end up trapping dolphins, sea lions and a host of other marine life, many of which die.

“The use of drift nets to target swordfish harms too many endangered or protected marine animals and should be phased out,” Feinstein said in an emailed statement. “It’s unacceptable that a single California fishery that uses this type of drift net is killing more dolphins and porpoises than the rest of the West Coast combined.”

Large mesh drift nets are already banned in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, as well as off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Hawaii, according to Feinstein. Additionally, the United States is a signatory to international agreements that ban large drift nets in international waters.

Read the full story at the Orange County Register

 

NOAA gives foreign fisheries 4 years to detail marine mammal protections

April 4, 2018 — The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has published a list of marine mammals at risk in 135 countries and given each foreign commercial fishery four years to report what harvesting practices are being employed to preserve the species, Mongabay, an environmental science and conservation news site, reports.

The list is born from a 2016 rule that grew out of a 2008 petition to the Department of Commerce brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network to halt the import of swordfish from countries where fishing methods put other animals in danger, the news service explains.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Fight begins over fate of leatherback sea turtle

March 23, 2018 — Leatherback turtles are nature’s U-boats, 1,500-pound reptiles that can dive to depths of more than half a mile, snatch a jellyfish and stay submerged for more than an hour before resurfacing.

Protected as endangered species for nearly half a century, their Atlantic population soon may lose that status, in what is becoming a fight between commercial fishermen and conservationists.

The Blue Water Fishermen’s Association, which represents longline fishermen who catch swordfish, tuna and other big fish along the east coast, has petitioned the federal government to reclassify from endangered to threatened the northwest Atlantic population of leatherbacks, which crawl up on Florida beaches every spring and summer to lay eggs.

With the Pacific leatherback population crashing, they say the northwest Atlantic population should be classified separately so U.S. fishermen aren’t penalized for the failure of other countries to protect them.

“Right now the leatherback population of the Earth is considered to be one stock of turtles,” said Jack Devnew, president of the Blue Water Fishermen’s Association. “Things happen in a different part of the ocean, and our fishermen pay the price.”

European, Canadian and Pacific fishing fleets operate with fewer of the restrictions imposed by the U.S. government to prevent the accidental catch of sea turtles, he said. U.S. longline boats, for example, must use circle hooks, sharply curved hooks that are harder to swallow and have reduced their swordfish catch by 30 percent, he said.

Although leatherback populations in the Atlantic are generally increasing, with some fluctuations here and there, their outlook in the Pacific is far grimmer, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. In the western Pacific, they have declined more than 80 percent over the past three generations, and in the eastern Pacific, they have declined more than 97 percent. In Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico and other Pacific rim countries, people routinely dig up leatherback nests to eat their eggs.

Read the full story at the Sun Sentinel

 

NOAA to end SIMP “informed consent” period in April

February 16, 2018 — The date when the United States will begin enforcing full compliance with a program designed to prevent illegally fished and counterfeit products has been set as 7 April, according to a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Seafood Import Monitoring Program officially took effect on 1 January, nearly 13 months after officials revealed its regulations that required importers to keep records on selected products. However, officials opted to begin the program with an “informed compliance” phase, choosing to allow shipments with missing or misconfigured data.

“NOAA Fisheries has observed an encouraging and steadily increasing rate of compliance with SIMP filings,” the agency said in a statement.

SIMP requires importers to maintain records for Atlantic cod, blue crab, dolphinfish, grouper, king crab, Pacific cod, red snapper, sea cucumber, sharks, swordfish, and tunas detailing how they were caught or harvested and tracking the products until they reach the U.S.

In January 2017, the National Fisheries Institute and a group of seafood companies sued the government, claiming SIMP violated federal law. However, a federal judge in August ruled against the plaintiffs, saying Congress gave the authority to agencies to issue regulations.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the NFI said that programs like SIMP experience “growing pains” and that the industry will look for opportunities to help NOAA handle such issues as the April deadline draws closer.

“NFI members will work to ensure they are prepared for full implementation of SIMP,” said Gavin Gibbons, the NFI’s vice president of communications.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

US appeals court: Feds erred in Hawaii fishery expansion

December 29, 2017 — HONOLULU — Federal agencies were wrong to allow Hawaii’s longline swordfish industry to expand fishing efforts while allowing the hooking or entangling of more endangered sea turtles, a U.S. appeals court ruled.

The panel of judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to consider scientific data that showed the loggerhead turtle population would significantly decline when it set limits for the industry. The judges also said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service illegally allowed the industry to kill protected migratory birds.

Swordfish longline fishing involves hundreds of baited hooks on miles of line. The practice can ensnare birds, turtles and other marine life.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Hawaii Tribune-Herald

 

The Sea Is a Terrifying Place to Work

November 13, 2017 — Fishing remains one of the most dangerous jobs in Canada. We talked to captains about their most hazardous experiences.

In 2017, fishing remains one of most—if not the most—dangerous jobs in Canada. Between 1999 and August of 2015, 55 people died on Canadian fishing vessels simply because they fell overboard, according to the Transportation Safety Board. Overall, more than 200 fishermen have died in Canada since 1999. A recent Globe and Mail investigation showed that fishing vessel deckhands have a higher workplace fatality rate than roofers, farmers, pilots, and—by a wide margin—cops. In all, fishing has the highest fatality rate of any sector in Canada. Storms, equipment failures, and even stingrays are among the many hazards fishermen face. Then there’s the everyday work, including setting longlines with hundreds of sharp hooks, hauling heavy lobster traps, and gutting swordfish, sharks, and tuna. Yet for many fishermen, the potential pay outweighs the hazards. Statistics Canada says the average pay for a fisherman is about $1,000 a week. But fishermen will tell you that a crew member working year-round for a skilled captain can make $75,000 to $120,000—serious money in many of the economically depressed fishing towns on the East Coast of Canada. Even six months on a lobster boat can net a deckhand $50,000 to $90,000 depending on market prices. Fishing is a rarity in that you can make six figures without a high school diploma. Others simply love the thrill of fishing, or see it as their only job option. Regardless of what pulls a fisherman to sea, hazards are always lurking, so we talked to three East Coast captains about their most harrowing experiences at sea.

Richard Gillett has lost three fishing boats. Two sunk—one was a “total destructive loss.” The first sinking was the most harrowing, the 46-year-old says in an interview by phone, while mackerel fishing off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

Gillett was 25 and aboard his 34-footer, Sea Breeze, with a crew of three. The men were off the coast of Labrador, Canada, with a load of seals aboard, caught in a fierce storm: hurricane-force winds of 80 miles per hour and 45-foot waves. Plus, chunks of ice—some as large as buildings and half city blocks—surrounded the boat. “We figured we could ride it out on the sheets of ice,” he recalls. “Unfortunately we couldn’t.”

Read the full story at VICE

 

Trump Plan to Open Up Monuments Draws Industry Praise, Environmentalists’ Ire

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is also moving to expand fishing, hunting at national monuments

September 21, 2017 — More than 100 miles off Cape Cod, a patch of the Atlantic Ocean conceals four undersea mountains, three canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon, and serves as a refuge for the world’s most endangered sea turtle.

It also supports a buffet of tuna and swordfish vital to the livelihood of New Jersey fisherman Dan Mears, whose lines have been banned from the zone since former President Barack Obama designated the area as the Atlantic’s first federal marine preserve last year.

But the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts could reopen to commercial fishing if President Donald Trump enacts the recent recommendations of his Interior Secretary to reduce protections of land and sea preserves known as national monuments.

“I couldn’t believe it when they cut that off,” said Mr. Mears, 58, of Barnegat Light, N.J., who owns the 70-foot fishing vessel Monica, and estimates he lost about one third of his catch after the area was closed to him and other types of commercial fishing last year. “It’s going to be huge if we can get that back.”

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, whose department manages federal lands, is making major moves to open up protected swaths of land and ocean to industry, recreational hunting, shooting and fishing.

In Hawaii, Mr. Zinke’s recommendation to allow fishing in the Remote Pacific islands about 300 miles south of the Hawaiian Islands could increase the catch there by about 4%, said Sean Martin, president of the Hawaii Longline Association.

“That may not sound like much, but if you cut your salary by 3% or 4% it’s a big deal to you,” Mr. Martin said. “Certainly this will have economic importance to us.”

Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal

Study negates concerns regarding radioactivity in migratory seafood

September 5, 2017 — When the Fukushima power plant released large quantities of radioactive materials into nearby coastal waters following Japan’s massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami, it raised concerns as to whether eating contaminated seafood might impair human health—not just locally but across the Pacific.

A new study by an international research team shows that those concerns can now be laid to rest, at least for consumption of meat from migratory marine predators such as tuna, swordfish, and sharks.

The team focused on cesium, a silvery metal with a large number of radioactive isotopes. Two of these, 134Cs and 137Cs, form when uranium fuel breaks down in nuclear reactors. The cesium isotopes are of particular concern because they were discharged in large quantities following the disaster, exhibit relatively long half-lives (2.1 and 30 years respectively), and tend to accumulate in the muscle tissues that people like to eat.

However, the team’s sampling of tissues from predatory fishes and other large vertebrates collected across the northern Pacific between 2012 and 2015 revealed no detectable levels of 134Cs, and 137Cs concentrations that were generally consistent with background levels from aboveground nuclear testing during the 1940s and 50s. They collected the animals from waters near Japan, Hawaii, and California.

Read the full story at Phys.org

Western Pacific Council to Tackle Management in Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument

March 23, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — At this week’s Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council in Honolulu, members are developing new fishing rules for the marine national monument that was expanded last year and decided which species will be under federal management as components of the area’s ecosystem.

The Presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act that expanded the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument calls for closing offshore commercial fisheries from 50 to 200 miles around the NWHI, an area twice the size of Texas. The Council includes the local fishery department directors from Hawai’i, American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), fishing experts appointed by the Governors and federal agencies involved in fishing-related activities.  The meeting runs through tomorrow and is open to the public.

The Presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act that expanded the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument calls for closing offshore commercial fisheries from 50 to 200 miles around the NWHI, an area twice the size of Texas.

The Hawai’i-based longline fleet is expected to redirect its fishing efforts to the high seas (beyond 200 miles from shore) or into the allowable longline fishing area 50 to 200 miles offshore around the main Hawaiian Islands. The Hawai’i longline fleet, which catches bigeye tuna and swordfish, is banned from 0 to 50 miles throughout Hawai’i.

While the Presidential proclamation bans commercial fishing around the NWHI, it allows regulated non-commercial and Native Hawaiian subsistence fishing.

This week the Council is considering the results of public scoping meetings that were conducted throughout Hawai’i in December as well as the recommendations of its advisory bodies.

The Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), which met March 7 to 9 in Honolulu, recommends that existing data, such as data from the former sport-fishing operation at Midway Atoll in the NWHI and the Hawaii tuna tagging project, be explored.

The SSC also recommends that potential impact on protected species be considered as fishing effort is redistributed.

The Council advisory bodies jointly support the removal of fishing provisions in the NWHI as well as other marine monuments in the region: Rose Atoll (American Samoa), Marianas Trench (CNMI) and Pacific Remote Islands (the US atoll and island possessions of Johnston, Palmyra, Wake, Baker, Howland, Jarvis and Kingman Reef). The group recommends that the Council continue to express its concerns to the new Administration regarding the impacts to fisheries from the monument designations and their expansions as well from military closures and other marine protected areas in the region.

In addition to management of the monument, the Council will determine which of the thousands of marine species in the region will be managed using annual catch limits as targeted fish species,  and which will be managed using other tools (for example, minimum sizes and seasonal closures) as ecosystem component species. The Council may endorse the SSC recommendation to form an expert working group to ensure the final listings take into account species of social, cultural, economic, biological and ecological importance.

As part of the Council meeting, a Fishers Forum on Using Fishers Knowledge to Inform Fisheries Management will be held 6 to 9 p.m. on March 22 at the Ala Moana Hotel, Hibiscus Ballroom. The  event includes informational booths, panel presentations and public discussion.

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