Saving Seafood

Presidential Proclamation — Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument

September 16, 2016 — The following was released by the White House:

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

For generations, communities and families have relied on the waters of the northwest Atlantic Ocean and have told of their wonders. Throughout New England, the maritime trades, and especially fishing, have supported a vibrant way of life, with deep cultural roots and a strong connection to the health of the ocean and the bounty it provides. Over the past several decades, the Nation has made great strides in its stewardship of the ocean, but the ocean faces new threats from varied uses, climate change, and related impacts. Through exploration, we continue to make new discoveries and improve our understanding of ocean ecosystems. In these waters, the Atlantic Ocean meets the continental shelf in a region of great abundance and diversity as well as stark geological relief. The waters are home to many species of deep-sea corals, fish, whales and other marine mammals. Three submarine canyons and, beyond them, four undersea mountains lie in the waters approximately 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod. This area (the canyon and seamount area) includes unique ecological resources that have long been the subject of scientific interest.

The canyon and seamount area, which will constitute the monument as set forth in this proclamation, is composed of two units, which showcase two distinct geological features that support vulnerable ecological communities. The Canyons Unit includes three underwater canyons — Oceanographer, Gilbert, and Lydonia — and covers approximately 941 square miles. The Seamounts Unit includes four seamounts — Bear, Mytilus, Physalia, and Retriever — and encompasses 3,972 square miles. The canyon and seamount area includes the waters and submerged lands within the coordinates included in the accompanying map. The canyon and seamount area contains objects of historic and scientific interest that are situated upon lands owned or controlled by the Federal Government. These objects are the canyons and seamounts themselves, and the natural resources and ecosystems in and around them.

The canyons start at the edge of the geological continental shelf and drop from 200 meters to thousands of meters deep. The seamounts are farther off shore, at the start of the New England Seamount chain, rising thousands of meters from the ocean floor. These canyons and seamounts are home to at least 54 species of deep-sea corals, which live at depths of at least 3,900 meters below the sea surface. The corals, together with other structure-forming fauna such as sponges and anemones, create a foundation for vibrant deep-sea ecosystems, providing food, spawning habitat, and shelter for an array of fish and invertebrate species. These habitats are extremely sensitive to disturbance from extractive activities.

Because of the steep slopes of the canyons and seamounts, oceanographic currents that encounter them create localized eddies and result in upwelling. Currents lift nutrients, like nitrates and phosphates, critical to the growth of phytoplankton from the deep to sunlit surface waters. These nutrients fuel an eruption of phytoplankton and zooplankton that form the base of the food chain. Aggregations of plankton draw large schools of small fish and then larger animals that prey on these fish, such as whales, sharks, tunas, and seabirds. Together the geology, currents, and productivity create diverse and vibrant ecosystems.

Read the full proclamation at the White House

Tarr: Marine monument punishes fishermen

September 16, 2016 — Creating the Atlantic Ocean’s first marine national monument is a needed response to dangerous climate change, oceanic dead zones and unsustainable fishing practices, President Barack Obama said Thursday.

But state Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, a Gloucester Republican, said the designation “singled out commercial fishing for more punishment.”

The new Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument consists of nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains about 150 miles southeast of Cape Cod.

Gov. Charlie Baker said he is “deeply disappointed” by Obama’s designation of an area off the New England coast as the first deep-sea marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean, a move the Swampscott Republican’s administration sees as undermining Massachusetts fishermen.

The monument area includes three underwater canyons and four underwater mountains that provide habitats for protected species including sea turtles and endangered whales.

Fishing operations

Recreational fishing will be allowed in the protected zone but most commercial fishing operations have 60 days to “transition from the monument area,” according to the White House. Red crab and lobster fisheries will be given seven years to cease operations in the area.

Tarr said the designation marked a missed opportunity to “balance conservation and support for commercial fishing.”

“In New England, we have one of the most highly regulated fishing industries in the world, and we have had a steady decline in the amount of area available to fish, and it should be a last resort to take away more area as opposed to trying to carefully draw the lines of this monument area,” Tarr told the State House News Service.

The marine protections will hurt red crab, swordfish, tuna, squid, whiting and offshore lobster fisheries, according to the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, which said industry representatives offered White House aides alternative proposals that would have protected coral habitat while still allowing fishing in some areas.

“The Baker-Polito Administration is deeply disappointed by the federal government’s unilateral decision to undermine the Commonwealth’s commercial and recreational fishermen with this designation,” Baker spokesman Brendan Moss said in an email. “The Commonwealth is committed to working with members of the fishing industry and environmental stakeholders through existing management programs to utilize the best science available in order to continue our advocacy for the responsible protection of our state’s fishing industry while ensuring the preservation of important ecological areas.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

What the ‘sixth extinction’ will look like in the oceans: The largest species die off first

September 15, 2016 — We mostly can’t see it around us, and too few of us seem to care — but nonetheless, scientists are increasingly convinced that the world is barreling towards what has been called a “sixth mass extinction” event. Simply put, species are going extinct at a rate that far exceeds what you would expect to see naturally, as a result of a major perturbation to the system.

In this case, the perturbation is us — rather than, say, an asteroid. As such, you might expect to see some patterns to extinctions that reflect our particular way of causing ecological destruction. And indeed, a new study published Wednesday in Science magazine confirms this. For the world’s oceans, it finds, threats of extinction aren’t apportioned equally among all species — rather, the larger ones, in terms of body size and mass, are uniquely imperiled right now.

From sharks to whales, giant clams, sea turtles, and tuna, the disproportionate threat to larger marine organisms reflects the “unique human propensity to cull the largest members of a population,” the authors write.

“What to us was surprising was that we did not see a similar kind of pattern in any of the previous mass extinction events that we studied,” said geoscientist Jonathan Payne of Stanford University, the study’s lead author. “So that indicated that there really is no good ecological analogue…this pattern has not happened before in the half billion years of the animal fossil record.”

The researchers conducted the work through a statistical analysis of 2,497 different marine animal groups at one taxonomic level higher than the level of species — called “genera.” And they found that increases in an organism’s body size were strongly linked to an increased risk of extinction in the present period — but that this was not the case in the Earth’s distant past.

Indeed, during the past 66 million years, there was actually a small link between smaller body sizes and going extinct, marking the present as a strong reversal. “The extreme bias against large-bodied animals distinguishes the modern diversity crisis from all potential deep-time analogs,” the researchers write.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

JOHN SACKTON: If it is Unethical in Thailand, It is Unethical in Hawaii Also

September 8, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Charlie Nagle said it best:  We “do not and will never knowingly source from vessels that mistreat their crew.” The Nagle family has been in the fish business on the Boston Fish Pier for 130 years.

The AP report on the imprisonment of foreign fishermen on Hawaiian vessels is a wake-up call.  No seafood buyer will tolerate abusive conditions for fishermen, whether the result of a legal loophole or not.

The US has been highly critical of Thailand, where abusive labor practices and human trafficking in the seafood industry earned worldwide condemnation and resulted in changes in laws and in close audits of the supply chain.

In New Zealand, documentation of abusive labor practices on offshore vessels led to changes in the law and requirements that crews on these boats be free from unfair labor contracts, be paid according to New Zealand laws, and through New Zealand bank accounts out of reach of the labor brokers who hired them.

Can we expect anything less in Hawaii?

The fishermen in question are hired overseas, brought to Hawaii by boat never having set foot in the US, and then kept onboard for months without any possibility of coming ashore while their vessels dock in Hawaii and California.  They are paid as little as $0.70 per hour.

The AP report says that “under the law, U.S. citizens must make up 75 percent of the crew on most American commercial fishing boats. But influential lawmakers, including the late Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye, pushed for a loophole to support one of the state’s biggest industries. It exempted Hawaiian commercial fishing boat owners from federal rules enforced almost everywhere else.

Thus the workers in Hawaii, who catch $110 million worth of seafood annually, are paid as little as 70 cents an hour. They are detained on boats by captains who are required by law to hold their passports. That potentially goes against federal human trafficking laws saying bosses who hold workers’ identification documents can face up to five years in prison.”

The Hawaiian tuna and mahi fleet has no excuse.  They can either find fishermen and pay them a US wage, or stop selling to most US markets.

It is simply not acceptable for buyers to express huge concern about fishery labor abuses in Thailand, and ignore those that legally take place in Hawaii.

The fact that these workers can’t come ashore due to lack of visas doesn’t excuse the practice of holding these men on vessels who have no opportunity to leave, nor any opportunity to change their work situation or demand higher pay.  All the condemnation of labor agents and traffickers that supply labor to Thai fishing boats applies to these vessels in Hawaii also.

Undoubtedly the AP story will lead to a change in laws.  But the seafood industry, including the Hawaii longline fleet, cannot wait until then.  They must reform this practice immediately, or shut down.  There is no middle ground.

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

Regulators Put Limits on Fish No One Wants to Eat

August 23, 2016 — Atlantic saury, pearlsides, sand lances—you’ve probably never tasted any of these fish (or heard of them). But they and other “forage” species play a vital role in our oceans—they’re food for the fish we eat. In fact, these lowly forage species are so essential to the health of marine ecosystems that some people are taking extra steps to protect them—especially as the global demand for seafood soars. Last week the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which oversees fishing in U.S. waters from New York State to North Carolina, decided to start managing more than 50 species of forage fish.

The council’s decision is a bit unusual—after all, none of the forage fish populations are in danger of collapse, and only one of the 50-plus species is harvested on a large scale in the mid-Atlantic today. In the region, people have mostly ignored these fish because they tend to be small, low-value and not very appetizing. But the council is trying to handle its fisheries more holistically because it has realized that putting controls on a single species at a time just will not work. “There’s a move now to manage all fisheries as part of a bigger system,” says Steve Ross, a research professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington who is one of the council’s scientific advisors. “When you manage one fish, you try to manage its whole environment—and that includes the food web.”

These small, nutrient-rich forage fish pump energy through the ecosystem in a way that no other marine animal can. They feed on the bottom of the food chain—on single-celled plankton, which larger fish cannot eat—and then they become prey for all sorts of upper-level predators like tuna, sea bass and halibut as well as seabirds and marine mammals. “I like to say that forage fish help turn sunlight into salmon,” explains Ellen Pikitch, a professor of marine biology at Stony Brook University. “They support so much of the ocean ecosystem.”

Read the full story at Scientific American

Both Sides in Marine Monument Fight Invoke Hawaiian Culture

August 17, 2016 — This year, a group of Native Hawaiian leaders urged President Barack Obama to expand Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, while keeping the main Hawaiian islands outside the boundaries. The move would make the monument about 582,000 square miles, more than twice the size of Texas.

The White House isn’t indicating when a decision will be made. Obama also has been asked to designate new national monuments in Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Maine and elsewhere.

The effort to expand the Pacific monument has supporters and opponents invoking Hawaiian culture to further their agendas. Some believe expansion of one of the world’s largest marine conservation areas will protect a sacred place, while others say making more waters off-limits will harm fishermen for a cause pushed by environmentalists with deep pockets.

Peter Apo opposes adding the massive area to the monument and said doing so contradicts the way ancient Hawaiians managed natural resources.

Apo is a trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which supports expansion as long as the agency gets an official say in management of the area, including advocating for Native Hawaiian access.

It’s difficult to be a Native Hawaiian and an expansion opponent, Apo said.

“We look like we’re bad guys. We’re opposing what seems to be addressing a global problem,” he said of issues like climate change and overfishing that supporters point to.

He cited how Hawaiians utilized periods of kapu, or temporary restrictions in response to overharvesting.

“Food security was critical to Hawaiians,” Apo said.

It’s difficult to estimate the financial effect that expansion would have on the $100 million per year longline industry, which supplies a large portion of the fresh tuna and other fish consumed in Hawaii, said Sean Martin, president of the Hawaii Longline Association.

He estimated about 2 million pounds of fish annually come from the proposed expansion area, where vessels string lines ranging from a mile to 50 miles long in the ocean to catch fish.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

Connecticut Lawmakers, Proposed Atlantic Monument Met With Opposition From Commercial Fishermen

August 5, 2016 — The following is excerpted from a story published yesterday by the Hartford Courant:

A plan announced Thursday that would designate a unique undersea area 150 miles off the New England coast as the nation’s first Atlantic marine national monument was met with immediate opposition from commercial fishermen.

Connecticut’s congressional delegation, as well as environmental and educational groups, want President Barack Obama to preserve the “New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts” area, which lies along the continental shelf.

The proposal would dramatically restrict commercial fishing in that area and is drawing fierce opposition from commercial fisherman like Stonington’s Bobby Guzzo, who owns and operates two boats.

“That’s just the government trying to take all our water,” Guzzo said Thursday from aboard his fishing vessel. “I’m dead set against it.”

Joseph Gilbert’s Empire Fisheries operates four fishing boats out of Stonington, and he also has problems with the proposed undersea sanctuary. “Fishermen are conservationists, too,” Gilbert said, explaining that he believes the proposal “is well intentioned” but simply “goes too far” without considering the impact on commercial fishing operations and supplies of fish for consumers.

“A lot of these areas are protected already,” Gilbert said.

Commercial fishing groups such as the National Coalition for Fishing Communities argue that there already exist federal laws and regulatory commissions that are set up to protect valuable marine resources like those within the proposed marine sanctuary.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which is responsible for regulating fishing in the region, is also opposed to creation of a protected marine monument off New England’s continental shelf. Commercial fishing organizations warn that the plan would hamper fishing for red crab, swordfish, tuna, as well as off-shore lobster fisheries.

Jon Mitchell, mayor of New Bedford, Mass., New England’s most important fishing port, has also objected to the proposal, as has Maine Gov. Paul LePage.

Read the full story at the Hartford Courant

Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel Meeting September 7-8, 2016

August 4, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA:

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) intends to hold a meeting of the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Advisory Panel (AP) on September 7-8, 2016, at the Sheraton Silver Spring Hotel, 8777 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910.  The AP meeting and webinar will be held from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on both Wednesday and Thursday, September 7 and September 8, 2016.

On Wednesday, September 7, 2016, the conference call information is phone number 1-888-469-2188; Participant Code: 7954019; and the webinar event address is: https://noaaevents2.webex.com/noaaevents2/onstage/g.php?MTID=eec1bb32466dd8905125c5db01b539623; event password: NOAA.

On Thursday, September 8, 2016, the conference call information is phone number 1-888-469-2188; Participant Code: 7954019; and the webinar event address is:  https://noaaevents2.webex.com/noaaevents2/onstage/g.php?MTID=e9fcef19f3c43ce6255dfad07807a71f4 ; event password: NOAA.

Participants are strongly encouraged to log/dial in 15 minutes prior to the meeting.  NMFS will show the presentations via webinar and allow public comment during identified times on the agenda.

The intent of this meeting is to consider alternatives for the conservation and management of all Atlantic tunas, swordfish, billfish, and shark fisheries.  We anticipate discussing the results of the 2016 dusky shark stock assessment and the Amendment 5b timeline; Draft Amendment 10 on Essential Fish Habitat, including potential Habitat Areas of Particular Concern; implementation updates for Final Amendment 7 on bluefin tuna management; and progress updates on various other rulemakings, including archival tag requirements, blacknose and small coastal shark management; domestic implementation of recommendations from the 2015 meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas; and potential changes to limited access vessel upgrading requirements and Individual Bluefin Quota program inseason transfer criteria.  We also anticipate discussing recreational topics regarding data collection and economic surveys, as well as progress updates regarding the exempted fishing permit request to conduct research in pelagic longline closed areas.  Finally, we also intend to invite other NMFS offices to provide updates on their activities relevant to HMS fisheries.

To Help New England Fisheries, Cooking Up Invasive Crabs

July 26, 2016 — They have green backs, pink bellies and are only about 2 inches in diameter. The green crab is an invasive predator that’s been destroying clam and scallop populations from South Carolina to Maine — since they were introduced here two centuries ago.

Now, some New England chefs are looking for ways to put this invasive species – on the menu.

“I’m probably gonna upset some of my fisherman friends,” says Brendan Vesey, the chef at The Joinery, an upscale restaurant in Newmarket, N.H. “Because I think Tuna is delicious, and I understand why we catch it, but I currently don’t serve it.”

Why? He says – eating that one big predator at the top of the food chain throws off the whole ecosystem. Instead of seared tuna steaks Vesey serves invasive Green Crab Bisque, with seared fish, fresh peas, and house-made bacon.

Fisherman Everett Leach stops by the restaurant to drop 20 pounds of green crabs, clawing and crawling in a plastic bucket. As he stops one from escaping, another crawls out of the bucket.

“Keep an eye on ‘em, they’re runners,” he warns Vesey.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio

Hawaii’s Longline Fishermen Hit Bigeye Tuna Limit Early

July 21, 2016 — For the second year in a row, Hawai‘i longline fishermen are on course to hit their annual limit for bigeye tuna. And again, it’s much earlier than expected. The island’s longline fleet will close in Western and Central pacific waters this Friday, and larger vessels in the Eastern region will also be halted a few days later. HPR’s Molly Solomon has more.

Starting Friday, the productive fishing grounds west of the Hawaiian Islands will be off limits for Hawai‘i’s longline fishing fleet. That’s more than three weeks earlier than fishery officials had predicted.

Sean Martin is president of the Hawai‘i Longline Association. They represent the 140 vessels that will be affected by the closure.

“Having less area to explore and trying to find an area of productive fishing becomes more complicated because a large swath of the ocean is no longer available,” said Martin.

Read and listen to the full story at Hawaii Public Radio