Saving Seafood

Women’s History Month: Talking with Kate Sampson

March 26, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

What do you do as the Sea Turtle Stranding and Disentanglement Coordinator for NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region?

I oversee a network of organizations that respond to and care for stranded (sick, injured, or dead) and entangled sea turtles. There are many facets of this role, including coordinating the placement of sick or injured sea turtles in rehabilitation facilities, solving state and federal permitting issues. I help locate pilots and planes to carry turtles south for release into warmer waters and consistent communication through the network. I also manage the important data collected from these events.

What do you like best about your job?

I enjoy working with the dedicated, caring staff and volunteers in the network. They impress me every day with their tireless efforts to rescue these endangered and threatened sea turtles.

What’s the hardest part of your job?

The hardest part is witnessing the conflict between sea turtles and human activities, such as boating, recreational and commercial fishing, and marine debris. Documentation of strandings is a vital source of information about the threats facing sea turtles. However, it’s difficult to see the results of these conflicts and not have immediate solutions. We continue to try to understand these conflicts and brainstorm new ways to address them.

Read the full release here

Florida’s freshwater turtles falling prey to the international black market

March 4, 2020 — Florida freshwater turtles are being illegally caught and exported live in increasingly large numbers to keep up with demand for their meat, their supposed medicinal purposes and their value as pets, state wildlife officials said this month.

The black market trade is putting a strain on the state’s already vulnerable fresh water and terrestrial turtle populations, and officials say they expect demand to grow along with the dollar amount poachers in Florida can fetch.

Depending on the species, harvesters can make anywhere from $300 to more than $16,000 for a single turtle, officials say.

The appetite for freshwater turtles in Asian countries like China, Indonesia and India is already measured in tons per day, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and it has reached the point where it is unsustainable. While China has large farms raising turtles, the demand for wild caught adult turtles in the country is exploding.

Turtles live a long time, some species from 80 to more than 100 years, and they reach sexual maturity later in life than many other animals. This combination makes their populations particularly at risk to not only poaching, but to development, traffic and predatory animals, as well as sea level rise and climate change.

Read the full story from the Miami Herald at the Baltimore Sun

Hawaiian swordfish catches to recommence after loggerhead-related closure

January 21, 2020 — The US state of Hawaii’s swordfish fishery is expected to land its first catch in nine months this weekend (Jan. 18-19), after closing on Mar. 19, 2019 upon reaching the loggerhead turtle interaction cap.

The fishery produces about 55% of America’s domestic swordfish and supplies 14% of the total US swordfish market.

“Without Hawaii swordfish, US markets will increase their dependence on foreign suppliers,” said Kitty Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC), which manages the fishery.

“Our pelagic longline fisheries are well managed and rigorously monitored, and regulations are enforced. International fishery management organizations consider them model fisheries and have adopted many of the measures we developed. Our fishery targets the North Pacific stock, which is healthy…and avoids the troubled Eastern Pacific and South Atlantic stocks.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

NOAA finalizes TED rule for shrimp skimmer trawls

January 21, 2020 — Three years after it was proposed, NOAA has adopted a rule to expand sea turtle excluder requirements in the U.S. shrimp fishery – but has decided to spare about 80 percent of shallow water fishermen who could have been affected.

Turtle excluding devices, or TEDs, have been required for years on shrimp otter trawls, and the new rule will impose that on boats 40 feet and over pulling skimmer nets.

Read the full story from National Fisherman at Seafood Source

Hawai’i Swordfish Harvest Is Back after Nine-Month Hiatus – New Measures Will Aid Fishery and Protect Sea Turtles

January 17, 2020 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

The Hawai’i swordfish fishery is expected to land its first catch in nine months tomorrow. This healthy fishery produces approximately 55 percent of America’s domestic swordfish and supplies 14 percent of the total US swordfish market.

“Without Hawai’i swordfish, US markets will increase their dependence on foreign suppliers,” said Kitty M. Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which manages the fishery. “Our pelagic longline fisheries are well managed and rigorously monitored, and regulations are enforced. International fishery management organizations consider them model fisheries and have adopted many of the measures we developed. Our fishery targets the North Pacific stock, which is healthy (not overfished or subject to overfishing), and avoids the troubled Eastern Pacific and South Atlantic stocks.”

Some of these rigorous conservation measures include rules protecting sea turtles, gear restrictions and a cap on the number of sea turtles with which the fishery may interact. The fishery currently operates under an annual cap of 17 loggerhead and 16 leatherback turtle interactions and has 100 percent observer coverage. An interaction occurs whenever a sea turtle becomes hooked or entangled in longline gear, as recorded by the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) observer.

The fishery closed on March 19 last year after reaching the loggerhead cap and reopened on Jan. 1, 2020.

According to a 2019 biological opinion issued by NMFS, the Hawai’i shallow-set longline fishery for swordfish does not jeopardize the continued existence of loggerhead and leatherback sea turtle populations. Ninety-nine percent of turtle interactions in the fishery result in the turtle being released alive. The loggerhead turtle population, which nests in Japan, is growing at an annual rate of 2.4 percent.

The Council has developed amended measures, which were transmitted to the Secretary of Commerce on Wednesday for review and approval. The amendment, which could be effective as early as May 2020, would remove the loggerhead cap and have a leatherback cap of 16. The amendment includes a trip limit of five loggerhead and two leatherback interactions, after which a vessel would be required to return to port. If that vessel reaches the trip limit again, it could not fish for swordfish for the remainder of the year and it could interact with only five loggerhead and two leatherbacks total the following year.

Mike Lee of Garden and Valley Isle Seafood notes: “The Hawai’i swordfish fishery has a multimillion dollar impact to the local economy, which includes several wholesale seafood distribution companies. Hawai’i swordfish is a premium product with high levels of demand. Fishery closures disrupt market channels and leave our customers little choice but foreign imports.”

“For the last two years the fishery operated for about three months due to premature closure and generated around $1.5 million in landed value, said Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association (HLA). “By comparison, the fishery produced three times that revenue ($4.5 million) in 2017 and nearly $9 million in 2009. Additionally, closing the fishery forces swordfish vessels to convert to target tuna (ahi) with the risk that the bigeye tuna quota may be reached before the end of the year, when market demand peaks.”

The Lady Luck, the first vessel from the Hawai’i swordfish fleet, is expected offload around 35,000 pounds of swordfish at Pier 38 in Honolulu around 5 a.m. tomorrow, Friday, Jan. 17. The swordfish could appear on the auction floor around 9 a.m. For more information, contact Eric Kingma, HLA executive director, at (808) 389-2653 or eric.k.kingma@gmail.com or Asuka Ishizaki, the Council’s protected species coordinator, at (808) 522-8224 or asuka.ishizaki@wpcouncil.org.

FAST FACTS ABOUT THE US SWORDFISH FISHERY OPERATING UNDER HAWAI’I LONGLINE FEDERAL PERMITS

  • Major domestic fish producer – providing 55 percent of US swordfish
  • Major supplier to total US market including imports – providing 14 percent of US swordfish market
  • Ex-vessel (landed) value – $1.5 million in 2019 (Jan. 1 – March 19); $4.5 million in 2017; $9 million in 2009
  • Management measures – permit requirements, limits on vessel size and numbers, gear restricted to circle hooks and mackerel-type bait, limit on number of sea turtle interactions, required turtle handling tools, requirement to release turtles unharmed, mandatory protected species workshops, prohibited from operating within 50 nautical miles of the Hawaiian Islands
  • Monitoring – logbooks, vessel monitoring system, 100 percent observer coverage (NMFS approved, independent observer on each vessel on every trip)
  • Enforcement – closure of fishery if sea turtle cap is reached
  • Target stock – North Pacific swordfish, a healthy fishery that is neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing
    • Maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of the stock – 15,000 metric tons (mt)
    • Current spawning stock biomass – almost double spawning stock biomass at MSY
    • Current total catch by all fleets combined – about 11,000 mt or about 73 percent of MSY
    • US harvest – currently about 1,000 mt or 10 percent of the total harvest. In 2008, the US (i.e., Hawai’i longline fisheries) harvested 18 percent of the total catch.
    • Other major fleets harvesting the North Pacific stock – Japan (about 8,000 mt) and Taiwan (about 2,000 mt)
  • Foreign competitors in the US swordfish market
    • Brazil – targeting North and South Atlantic stock, the latter of which is overfished and experiencing overfishing
    • Mexico and Ecuador (including charter vessels from Spain and the European Union) – targeting Eastern Pacific stock, which is experiencing overfishing
  • Fleet size – currently 14 vessels of which five are based in California
  • Average vessel size – 65 to 70 feet (maximum allowable 101 feet)
  • Average target depth – 98 feet

Scientists Work to Save World’s Smallest Sea Turtle

January 9, 2020 — The combination of the curving shape of Cape Cod, the region’s strong winds and currents, and the rapid cooling of the ocean in October and November make for a deadly threat to the rarest and smallest sea turtle on Earth.

That’s the problem being addressed by a series of research projects conducted by an oceanographer at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass., and a doctoral student at the University of Rhode Island. The scientists used satellite-tracked oceanographic instruments called drifters to determine where Kemp’s ridley turtles that are late to return south in the fall are most likely to float ashore near death along the Cape Cod shoreline.

The critically endangered turtles lay their eggs on beaches on the Gulf Coast of Mexico in a mass nesting event called an arribada. After spending their first few years far offshore in the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda, many of the young turtles visit the waters of the Gulf of Maine to feed on crabs and other small marine creatures that live on the seafloor.

“There are little warm water bridges from the Gulf Stream that come up here, and we think some of the turtles are riding those into the area,” URI student Felicia Page said. “The problem comes when those little bridges close off and the water in Cape Cod Bay and the Gulf of Maine stay warm, which keeps the turtles here longer than they should instead of heading south in September.”

Read the full story at EcoRI

Trump administration sued over endangered Florida sea turtle protection from climate change

January 9, 2020 — Several environmental groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming agencies in the Trump administration have failed to protect green sea turtle habitat as required by the Endangered Species Act.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the turtles’ nesting beaches in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as their ocean habitat, face threats from sea level rise brought on by climate change and plastic pollution, according to a news release from the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs.

Other plaintiffs are the Sea Turtle Oversight Protection and the Turtle Island Restoration Network.

Read the full story at the Treasure Coast Newspaper

Federal court stops longline fishing to protect turtles

January 8, 2020 — Longline fishing won’t be allowed off the California coast, after a federal district court suspended permits for the fishing method.

In December, the court struck down longline fishing permits that the National Marine Fisheries Service issued last spring, ruling that the service didn’t properly analyze threats to critically endangered leatherback sea turtles.

“The permits were vacated by the court, so the permits are no longer in effect,” said Catherine Kilduff, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit with Turtle Island Restoration Network, challenging the permits.

The National Marine Fisheries Service declined to comment on the case while it analyzes the decision, spokesman Jim Milbury said.

Read the full story at The San Diego Union-Tribune

Environmental groups file federal suit seeking green sea turtle habitat protections

January 8, 2020 — Three conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday, 8 January, against the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, claiming it has not done enough to protect green sea turtle habitats across the country from a variety of threats.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the Turtle Island Restoration Network, and Sea Turtle Oversight Protection claim NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined nearly four years ago that the turtles still required protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) because of threats from climate change and rising sea levels.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Judge sides with Olema environmental group on sea turtle protections

January 3, 2020 — A federal judge has sided with an Olema-based conservation group in finding the federal government violated environmental laws including the Endangered Species Act by allowing longline fishing in West Coast waters without assessing threats to endangered sea turtles.

Judge Kandis A. Westmore of the U.S. District Court of Northern California wrote in her ruling late last month that the National Marine Fisheries Service’s issuance of two longline fishing permits earlier this year would “reverse protections in place for leatherback sea turtles despite continuing population declines and the agency’s admission that the extinction of Pacific leatherbacks ‘is almost certain in the immediate future.’”

As part of her Dec. 20 order, Westmore set aside the two fishing permits that were issued in May as well as the agency’s finding that the fishing would have no significant environmental impacts.

Todd Steiner, executive director of the Olema-based Turtle Island Restoration Network, which co-led the lawsuit with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the fishing permits were essentially a back-door attempt by the Trump administration to reopen longline fishing despite a 2004 federal ban. The lawsuit was filed in June.

“We have closed the back door and leatherback sea turtles are safe from drowning on the ends of longline fishing hooks,” Steiner said.

Read the full story at The Marin Independent Journal