University of Rhode Island Archives - Page 5 of 5

New England’s Major Groundfish, Except Cod, Enter into MSC Assessment

July 7, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — New England has often been vilified as having some of the worst overfished species in US waters and has long had a contentious fight over fisheries management.

However, three stocks in New England are fully healthy: haddock, Pollock and redfish. Together the annual catch limit for these stocks totals more than 70,000 tons. Such a success in rebuilding fisheries is often lost in the attention paid to the failure of the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine cod stocks to recover.

Now a client group led by Atlantic Trawlers of Maine, which is owned by Jim Odlin, and Fishermen’s Wharf in Gloucester, led by Vito Giacalone, have completed the MSC pre-assessment indicating that the fisheries will be able to meet the criteria, and have started the full assessment process.

The certification is being done by Acoura of Scotland, and the individuals who will carry out the assessment are Dr. Joseph DeAlteris, who recently retired from the University of Rhode Island and has many years of both Certification body and stock assessment experience in New England.

The other reviewer is Dick Allen. Allen has 45 years of experience as a commercial fishermen in New England, a Masters in Marine Affairs, and has been intimately involved in New England fishery management for decades.

The assessment is on a timeline to be completed by December of 2017.

The MSC certification will help expand the supermarket redfish programs, as well as support more sales of haddock and Pollock.

Currently, the harvests in these healthy fisheries are constrained by choke species, including cod.

For example, only around 9% of the Georges Bank Haddock Allowable Catch 51,000 tons was caught in 2016, while the Gulf of Maine haddock with an ACL of 2400 tons saw a catch rate of around 66%.

For redfish, the ACL in 2016 was 9500 tons, with a 43% harvest rate, and Pollock was 17,700 tons, with a 16.7% harvest rate.

The MSC certification is a step forward in further utilizing these fisheries, enhancing their markets, and explaining to customers that some New England and Gulf of Maine stocks are healthy and managed to global standards.

Jim Odlin says that the certification will be available to all companies who wish to contribute equitably to the costs of acquiring and maintaining the certificate, as per MSC policy.

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

DENNIS NIXON: Cuts in grants, programs would hurt oceans

June 17, 2017 — On May 31, President Donald Trump proclaimed June 2017 “National Oceans Month,” in recognition of “the mighty oceans and their extraordinary resources.”

His declaration calls U.S. fisheries resources “among the most valuable in the world,” and calls for more fully exploring the ocean and developing its economy. He cites the importance of expanding offshore energy resources — traditional as well as renewable — and increasing seafood exports to reduce America’s $13 billion seafood trade deficit.

This announcement is stunning to those of us involved in marine research and education, coming as it does a week after the administration’s budget proposal to slash the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by 16 percent, or nearly $1 billion. NOAA, as its name implies, is responsible for the research, management, and support for the ocean exploration and economic development that the president calls for, and many of the areas specifically targeted for cuts would reduce U.S. capacity in offshore energy and seafood production.

Speaking from personal experience as the director of Rhode Island Sea Grant — which, as part of the NOAA budget, would be “terminated” along with the $73 million National Sea Grant College Program that encompasses 33 state programs — I can say that one such example is the development of the nation’s first offshore wind farm in the waters off Block Island.

At the behest of the state, and with partners at the Coastal Resources Management Council and with research and outreach efforts at the University of Rhode Island, Roger Williams University and beyond, Rhode Island Sea Grant and the URI Coastal Resources Center helped lead a team that amassed seafloor mapping, scientific and engineering studies and stakeholder input to determine the best location for the turbines.

Without programs like Sea Grant and the coastal council — also targeted for cuts — the nation’s ambitious proposals for offshore wind farms would still be in the blueprint stage, marred by controversies over siting and user conflicts.

In a recent House Appropriations Committee hearing, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross echoed the president’s concern regarding the seafood trade deficit. “The whole fishing scene is very intriguing to me in that I’m obsessed with the problem that we have a $13 billion trade deficit in fish and fish products. … With all the water surrounding us and all the lakes and rivers, it seems weird that we should have a deficit, so that’s one of the areas we’re going to be focusing very much on,” Ross said, according to a report in E&E News.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

‘If it’s caught in Rhode Island … eat it’

January 27, 2017 — KINGSTON, R.I. — In a packed auditorium at University of Rhode Island on Jan. 17, foodies of every variety converged at the Rhode Island Food System Summit to talk about food production, distribution, economic policies and more.

The 350-person gathering was part of Gov. Gina Raimondo’s development of the state’s first comprehensive food strategy to support the local food economy. The strategy is a five-year action plan that will leverage key components of Rhode Island’s food system: agriculture and fisheries, economic development, and health and access.

As part of the governor’s plan, Sue AnderBois was hired as the state’s first director of food strategy in June 2016. Her job responsibilities include creating policy for every aspect of the state’s food system — from farm to market to table. Her position will be funded for two years by grants from the Henry P. Kendall Foundation, the John Merck Fund and Main Street Resources.

The plan’s goals also include alleviating food insecurity and hunger among state residents, making food production more accessible, creating and growing markets for Rhode Island food products, prioritizing environmental and economic sustainability and creating a positive economic climate for food-related businesses.

Read the full story at the Westerly Sun

RHODE ISLAND: Fishing Report: Hearing on menhaden set for Dec. 19 at URI

December 8, 2016 — Atlantic menhaden are an important forage fish for striped bass, bluefish, tuna and other species. Recreational anglers claim that fishing for these game fish is off when the quantity of forage fish is down. Additionally, Atlantic menhaden are filter feeders with each fish processing thousands of gallons of water filtering out plankton to help prevent algae blooms.

So if you want to impact regulations pertaining to this species, now is the time to become active. There will be an Atlantic menhaden public hearing to talk about important Fishery Management Plan issues on Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Corless Auditorium at the URI Bay Campus, Narragansett. The hearing will address a new Public Information Document that is a predecessor to Amendment 3 to the Atlantic menhaden Fishery Management Plan that will be developed later this year.

NOAA’s website says Atlantic menhaden “play an important role in the ecosystem as both a forage fish for striped bass, weakfish, bluefish, and predatory birds such as osprey and eagles as well as serving as a filter feeder because they feed on phytoplankton and zooplankton at various life stages.”

So rather than just managing Atlantic menhaden to ensure they remain sustainable as a species, the PID aims to include ecosystem-based management measures to ensure that enough Atlantic menhaden are left in the water for other species to eat as forage fish as well as enough to fulfill their ecological role.

Atlantic menhaden are plentiful. A 2015 stock assessment for the resource relates they are in good condition, not overfished nor experiencing overfishing. The PID can be found on the ASMFC website at www.asmfc.org. Public comments can be made at the hearing and will also be accepted in writing until 5 p.m. on Jan. 4, 2017. Comments can also be emailed to comments@asmmfc.org (subject line: Menhaden PID).

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund Data Proves Anglers’ Concerns

November 28, 2016 — The results of a recent collaborative study between researchers at Rutgers University and Stockton University of New Jersey, the University of Rhode Island, and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County, NY and Cornell University may hold the key to bold new management changes in the summer flounder fishery.

The research project, Sex and Length of Summer Flounder Discards in the Recreational Fishery, NJ to RI, spanned the 2016 summer flounder recreational season beginning May 23 and continuing through September 16. Samples were collected aboard for-hire recreational fishing vessels from selected ports in New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island, and were supplemented by a series of back bay, shallow water trips.

Samples were collected from stations ranging in depth from 5 to 95 feet and spanning a latitudinal range from just off the coast of Delaware to coastal Rhode Island. According to the survey results, sex-at-length data was collected for a total of 2,243 discard-sized fish and 842 legal-sized fish.

Researchers say lab analysis findings confirm prior observations that female summer flounder dominate the recreational catch, although it was also demonstrated that this does not hold below the legal size limit where fish smaller than the legal limit were predominately male. On average, across all ports, dates and depths, the sex ratio approximates 50:50 at 15.35 inches in length, with males dominant in the size classes less than that mark and females dominant above the 15.35-inch (39 cm) mark.

Read the full story at The Fisherman

RHODE ISLAND: More Tropical Fish Arriving in Narragansett Bay Earlier

August 18, 2016 — When a tropical fish called a crevalle jack turned up this summer in the Narragansett Bay trawl survey, which the University of Rhode Island conducts weekly, it was the first time the species was detected in the more than 50 years that the survey has taken place.

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s seine survey of fish in Rhode Island waters also captured a crevalle jack this year for the first time.

While it’s unusual that both institutions would capture a fish they had never recorded in the bay before, it’s not unusual that fish from the tropics are finding their way to the Ocean State. In fact, fish from Florida, the Bahamas and the Caribbean have been known to turn up in local waters in late summer every year for decades. But lately they’ve been showing up earlier in the season and in larger numbers, which is raising questions among those who pay attention to such things.

“There’s been a lot of speculation about how they get here,” said Jeremy Collie, the URI oceanography professor who manages the weekly trawl survey. “Most of them aren’t particularly good swimmers, so they probably didn’t swim here. They don’t say, ‘It’s August, so let’s go on vacation to New England.’ They’re not capable of long migrations.”

Instead, fish eggs and larvae and occasionally adult fish are believed to arrive in late summer on eddies of warm water that break from the Gulf Stream. Collie said they “probably hitch a ride” on sargassum weed or other bits of seaweed that the currents carry toward Narragansett Bay.

Most of these tropical species, including spotfin butterflyfish, damselfish, short bigeye, burrfish and several varieties of grouper, don’t survive long in the region. When the water begins to get cold in November, almost all perish.

Read the full story at ecoRI

Ocean acidification poses threat to lobsters

December 18, 2015 — PROVIDENCE — Lobsters are already slowly moving out of southern New England as waters warm, but the iconic crustacean faces another future threat as the climate changes.

As oceans absorb more carbon and become increasingly acidic, juvenile lobsters likely will have a harder time growing and forming strong shells to protect them from predators, according to a recent University of Rhode Island study.

“I’m not sure yet what the mechanism is that is affecting their growth,” URI doctoral student Erin McLean, who led the research, said. “But it takes energy for them to regulate the increased acidity, which is energy they cannot then put toward growth.”

And it’s not just lobsters that could be harmed by the oceans’ changing pH levels. Shellfish populations in Rhode Island and Massachusetts in general are among the most vulnerable in the United States to ocean acidification, according to a recent study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The study identified the two states among 15 at-risk areas in the nation because colder, northern waters, such as Narragansett Bay, Buzzards Bay and Nantucket Sound, are absorbing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and acidifying faster than warmer waters.

Other more localized factors are also playing a part, including nutrient pollution from fertilizers and sewage systems that can add more carbon to the water and the flow of fresh water from poorly buffered rivers, such as the Blackstone in Rhode Island or the many waterways that drain into the Gulf of Maine, which lack minerals to mitigate the effects of acid. Shallow coastal waters also are more susceptible to changes in the ocean’s chemistry.

About a quarter of all carbon emissions from power plants, cars and other sources are absorbed by the oceans, making them more acidic and reducing carbonate levels. Shellfish use carbonates to make their shells, and when fewer of the compounds are available, organisms must expend more energy to build shells and less on eating and survival, researchers say.

Read the full story at Providence Journal

URI researchers to study climate change effect on fisheries

December 19, 2015 — PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Researchers at the University of Rhode Island have been awarded a federal grant to study the effects of climate change on Atlantic fisheries.

The state’s congressional delegation says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is giving the researchers $227,850.

Jeremy Collie, at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography, is leading the team. Scientists are participating from NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Narragansett Laboratory, located on URI’s Bay Campus.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC6 News

Vetlesen Distinguished Lecture Series: Size-based methods to understand marine ecosystems, fisheries potential and impacts

October 5, 2015 — The following was released by the University of Rhode Island:

Size-based methods to understand marine ecosystems, fisheries potential and impacts

by Simon Jennings, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft, UK

Friday 9 October at Noon in the Coastal Institute Auditorium Narragansett Bay Campus

Abstract: Body-size-based methods provide insights into marine systems and fisheries impacts that complement those from more complex species-based analyses. These methods are applicable to many systems since they have relatively low parameter demands and are based on established ecological principles. However, they may omit structures, processes and outliers that “matter” to science or fishery managers. Drawing on examples from highly abstracted system models through to tactical models being considered for fisheries management, I review the strengths and weaknesses of size-based methods and challenge them with data. Having highlighted and sought to address some of the uncertainties, I examine what size-based methods can contribute to predicting global fish production, biomass and catch potential, biodiversity, fish contributions to biogeochemical cycles, climate change effects and tradeoffs between fisheries yields and impacts.