Saving Seafood

New study looks to how wind projects will change ocean

August 27, 2024 — Plans to build hundreds or even thousands of offshore wind turbines off the U.S. East Coast “will be the biggest change to the sea floor in the area since the last Ice Age ended about 14,000 years ago,” according to scientists.

Around 20 offshore wind lease areas are now planned for mainly soft bottom of sand or mud, with scattered hard substrate of gravel, cobble and rock, according to their recently published study.

As wind turbine arrays are built, they will add massive steel towers, electric power cables, and millions of tons of rock to protect the new industrial infrastructure.

“Wind farms will add a lot of hard structures to these areas, potentially altering the habitat and species that inhabit these areas, which will likely affect fisheries,” wrote the research team led by Kevin Stokesbury, dean of the School for Marine Science & Technology (SMAST) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

In its natural state, “the sand will move around but it doesn’t change the community” of marine life living there, said Stokesbury. Off the Mid-Atlantic coast particularly, the wave-swept sand bottom “is like the Great Plains before development,” he said.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

2022 NOAA Northeast Sea Scallop Survey Results

June 28, 2022 — The NOAA Fisheries Integrated Sea Scallop and Habcam Research Survey is in the books for 2022. Scientists and crew completed their work aboard the University of Delaware’s R/V Hugh R. Sharp on June 13, 2022.

The Atlantic sea scallop population is surveyed every summer by NOAA Fisheries and partnering research groups. This year those partners are the Coonamessett Farm Foundation, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth School of Marine Science and Technology. Each partner surveys an assigned area using similar methods and a standardized survey design. Here, we are reporting results for the survey areas allocated to the NOAA Fisheries-based effort, led by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

Resulting data are used for fishery stock assessments, fishery management, and biological studies. Sea scallops are one of the most valuable commercial fishery species in the nation.

Leg 1 of the survey was conducted May 14 to 23 off the Mid-Atlantic and southern Georges Bank. Researchers deployed the stereo camera and sensor system known as Habcam V4.

Leg 2 was conducted from May 25 to June 3, and Leg 3 operated from June 5 to June 13. On these legs, we deployed both Habcam V4 and a scallop dredge. The dredge is a standardized 8-foot wide New Bedford sea scallop dredge that collects sea scallops for biological analyses.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

New research suggests cod, New England’s founding fish, may be returning to local waters

May 5, 2022 — “For the first time in about 20 years we’ve seen and are tracking a successful year class of cod, and they seem to be growing at a very good rate,” said Kevin Stokesbury, a fisheries science professor at UMass Dartmouth leading a multi-year survey of codfish in the Gulf of Maine.

Stokesbury has a history of using scientific innovation to produce new findings that upend fishing regulations. In the 1990s, he devised a new way of counting scallops that helped open up a tightly regulated fishery.

A typical government-led survey determines scallop numbers by dredging the ocean floor, counting the scallops it pulls up, and estimating what percentage that is of the total scallops in the sample area. Stokesbury’s surveys rely on pictures of the ocean floor instead. A team of his undergraduates count all the scallops in their sample areas one-by-one, eliminating much of the guesswork.

Stokesbury’s method for counting scallops was peer reviewed and eventually incorporated into the government’s periodic stock assessments, which form the basis of fishing regulations in America. In the early 2000s, regulators had already suspected scallops were rebounding to some extent, but Stokesbury’s findings upended what they had been saying for years.

“They thought there were two to three times as many scallops in there,” Stokesbury said, “and there were actually about 14 times as many.”

But the UMass Dartmouth scientist has his own critics when it comes to codfish. One of them has an office down the hall from him.

Professor Steve Cadrin, a fisheries scientist leading a periodic review of how the government assesses cod stocks, said the cod fishery has opened up prematurely once before.

“We’ve seen other year classes that have not survived,” Cadrin said.

Some years, Cadrin said NOAA’s projections have been overly optimistic.

“They led to continued overfishing and the stock hasn’t rebuilt,” Cadrin said. “It’s a lot more than just a heartbreak. There’s been a lot of fishery restrictions because of that.”

Read the full story at The Public’s Radio

Vineyard Wind paying UMass scientists to survey ocean area it’s leasing

May 24, 2021 — The company that intends to build a $2.8 billion offshore wind project south of Martha’s Vineyard is paying the UMass Dartmouth and the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association about $2 million a year to survey the sea floor before, during and after construction and see what impact the project has on the ocean.

Vineyard Wind has contracted with the School for Marine Science and Technology to send scientists out on local lobster and fishing vessels to measure, tag and count the lobsters and fish they catch before releasing them back into the ocean. The data they collect will establish a baseline of what sea life inhabits the 167,000 acres of ocean that the company is leasing, as well as an adjacent area for comparison.

“We have a strong interest in using local mariners with local knowledge as much as possible,” said Andrew Doba, a Vineyard Wind spokesman.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald

UMass Dartmouth and Farm to Institution New England Host Virtual Sea Summit

December 3, 2020 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

How can New England institutions better leverage their influence to support local seafood and seafood producers? With the nation’s top dollar fishing port in New Bedford, why do we not see more local fish on the menu at colleges and other institutions? Can our institutional supply chains take advantage of underutilized species to help address these issues?

UMass Dartmouth and Farm to Institution New England welcome you to attend an online Sea Summit focused on these questions. Join us for an engaging panel and stakeholder dialogue, where speakers will share how a team of colleges and supply chain partners tackled these issues through a 2018 New England Food Vision Prize from the Henry P. Kendall Foundation. Learn more about the challenges and opportunities of producing and sourcing farmed kelp and underutilized fish species in New England. Speakers will also share how they worked to bring underutilized species into community and university dining programs, even with the added challenges presented by a global pandemic.

The goal of the Sea Summit is to educate and unite anyone who is interested in: local and sustainable purchasing, procurement, food service operations, supply chains, and sustainable seafood. This event will highlight the importance of local food initiatives, and encourage restaurants, hospitals, schools, colleges, and universities to help our region produce at least 50% of our food by 2060.

About the New England Food Vision Prize

The New England Food Vision Prize was designed by the Henry P. Kendall Foundation to accelerate progress towards the New England Food Vision, a bold vision that calls for our region to produce at least 50% of our food by 2060, while supporting healthy food for all, sustainable farming and fishing, and thriving communities.

Registration details coming soon.

Questions? Contact Kirby Roberts, kroberts1@umassd.edu.

How many sea scallops are there and why does it matter?

November 3, 2020 — The following was released by UMass Dartmouth School of Marine Science & Technology:

A study conducted by Dr. Kevin Stokesbury is featured as the cover story in the November 2020 issue of the Ecological Society of America’s Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment journal (Volume 18, Issue 9). The study, titled “How many sea scallops are there and why does it matter?” focuses on the effects of climate change, oceanic conditions along the Atlantic Coast of North America that are changing, as well as surface water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, which have increased faster than 99% of the global oceans. The research examines the role of the sea scallop as a baseline sentinel species that can be used to measure the impacts of environmental change and anthropogenic developments.

“In Canada and the US, the Atlantic sea scallop (Placopecten magellanicus) supports lucrative fisheries, which are founded on an extensive scientific framework focusing on stock assessment,” explains Dr. Stokesbury, professor of Fisheries Oceanography at UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science & Technology. “The sea scallop is an ideal sentinel species, as it is highly sensitive to changes in marine conditions. We used a drop camera system to estimate the number and size of scallops, as well as the distribution of their reproductive potential, over 70,000 km2 of the continental shelf in 2016–2018, an area that nearly covers the entire range of this species. In total, we estimated that there were 34 billion individual scallops (95% confidence limits: 22–46 billion) within the species’ range.”

Highlights:

  • Estimates of the number of individuals of an abundant marine species are both unusual and scarce
  • A drop camera system was used to approximate the number and size of Atlantic sea scallops (Placopecten magellanicus) over an area that encompassed virtually the species’ entire range
  • Photographic quadrats allow for estimation of the sea scallop’s spatial distribution at scales ranging from centimeters to thousands of kilometers, as well as its habitat productivity
  • The sea scallop is an ideal sentinel species to track ocean health and climate change impacts

Dr. N. David Bethoney, executive director of the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation, collaborated with Dr. Stokesbury on this survey, which was made possible by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) awards through the Scallop Research set-aside program, and the sea scallop fishery and supporting industries of Canada and the United States.

Read the full release here

UMass Dartmouth scientists to help guide offshore wind growth

May 27, 2020 — The Baker-Polito Administration announced UMass Dartmouth as one of four institutions selected as part of a Southern New England pilot regional fisheries studies project worth $1.1 million, according to an administration press release..

Scientists at UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science & Technology (SMAST) have been awarded $278,592 to conduct fisheries surveys as part of the Bureau of Ocean Science Energy Management’s (BOEM’s) Regional Fisheries Studies to Guide Offshore Wind Development.

The Baker-Polito Administration, in partnership with the State of Rhode Island and the BOEM, announced grants worth $1.1 million to four institutions to support regional fisheries studies that will collect data vital to the ongoing development of the offshore wind industry in North America, according to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs press release.

“Collaborating with our state and federal partners to support these studies will help us better manage fisheries and natural habitats while positioning the offshore wind industry to stimulate economic development and deliver clean, affordable energy to Massachusetts,” said Governor Charlie Baker.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Scallops sales to fund ocean research on East Coast

May 10, 2019 — The federal government says a program that sells scallops to pay for marine science will include a study of how shellfish harvesting impacts sea turtles in this year’s projects.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the Atlantic Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside will help pay for 13 projects in 2019 and 2020. Regulators use the program to set aside more than a million pounds of scallops, which generates millions of dollars for the science projects.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times

SMAST studies on wind and fisheries poised to begin

April 8, 2019 — Fisheries scientists at the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology will begin a series of studies this spring to evaluate the effects of large-scale offshore wind farms on fish populations and habitat.

As part of an agreement with a wind farm developer, Vineyard Wind, SMAST scientists will monitor commercially fished species during construction of the company’s 84-turbine project south of Martha’s Vineyard. The school will also launch longer-term research to evaluate the regional fishery implications of offshore wind.

The research will begin later this spring, according to Vineyard Wind. SMAST has already conducted a Vineyard Wind-funded trial of video trawling in the wind energy area.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

JACK SPILLANE: A rogue agency gets set to shut down another New Bedford fishery

December 10, 2018 — Scott Lang has been around fisheries issues for a long time.

Both when he was mayor and afterwards.

In 2013, Lang helped organize the Center for Sustainable Fisheries as a grassroots lobbying group to try to make sure New Bedford fishermen were not totally forgotten by NOAA. He’s worked for the industry for a long time and seen a lot of arguments from both sides back-and-forth over the years.

But until last week, he said he had never seen NOAA make a decision to close a fishery with no science behind it. Not even questionable science, as for years NOAA has used for New England groundfishing limits in the opinion of many.

NOAA’s decision to close the Rose and Crown Zone and Zone D to surf clammers is based on anecdotal evidence related to UMass Dartmouth scientist Kevin Stokesbury’s research for the scallop industry, first done almost two decades ago.

The camera net device Stokesbury invented was for measuring scallop habitats but NOAA has used his science to measure clam beds. It’s not the same, Stokesbury told The Standard-Times. The images his survey produces are of the ocean floor about a kilometer apart and clammers often dredge in much shorter distances.

The clammers have offered to do surveys that will be more applicable to clam beds in the areas of Nantucket Shoals in question. They would need about three years to do that but they would have to keep fishing in the closed areas in order to pay for it.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times