Saving Seafood

Science Center for Marine Fisheries Funds Three New Projects at Fall Meeting

November 28, 2018 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

At its fall meeting in Middletown, Rhode Island, the Industry Advisory Board of the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFiS) awarded over $164,000 in grants for promising new marine science research.

The projects cover the impact of climate change on shellfish populations; how to properly determine the age of one of the ocean’s longest-lived species; and how offshore wind energy is likely to affect fisheries. All of the funded projects further the mission of the Center, which connects leading researchers and their partners in the industry to address critical marine science needs.

As part of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Program, SCeMFiS used this meeting to set the shared priorities of our researchers from around the country and the industry advisors from the shellfish and finfish fisheries who approved the research.

“We see this as a great opportunity to partner with the scientific community, and we are looking forward to continue working with SCeMFiS on projects that affect our fisheries,” said Meghan Lapp, the Fisheries Liaison for Seafreeze, one of SCeMFiS’ Rhode Island members.

A full description of the funded projects is included below:

  • “The influence of global warming on the Atlantic surfclam and the ocean quahog” – Dr. Eric Powell (University of Southern Mississippi) and Dr. Roger Mann (Virginia Institute of Marine Science) will lead the study, which will examine the extent to which the populations of surf clams and ocean quahogs have shifted offshore in response to changing ocean temperatures. The study will sample and date ocean quahog and surfclam shells to identify the likelihood of a continued future shift in the species’ range. ($56,197 in funding approved)

 

  • “Ocean quahog population dynamics: validation of estimation procedures for an age-at-length key – supplement” – Dr. Powell and Dr. Mann will follow up on previous SCeMFiS research on how to properly age ocean quahogs in the northwest Atlantic. Ocean quahogs can live to over 200 years old, but their growth rates vary considerably over time. The study would continue efforts to develop a reliable way to estimate ocean quahog ages at particular lengths, known as an age-at-length key. ($29,037 in funding approved)

 

  • “Oceanography special issue on the effects of wind energy development on fisheries and the ecology of the continental shelf” – Dr. Eileen Hofmann (Old Dominion University) and Dr. Powell will work to develop a special issue of the scientific journal Oceanography, that will include 10-12 peer-reviewed papers presenting an overview on the state of research related to offshore wind development. They will cover, among other topics, the challenges faced by offshore wind development and the effect it has on nearby fisheries, fish populations, and the broader ocean ecology. ($79,200 in funding approved)

About SCeMFiS

The SCeMFiS mission utilizes academic and fisheries resources to address urgent scientific problems limiting sustainable fisheries. SCeMFiS develops methods, analytical and survey tools, datasets, and analytical approaches to improve sustainability of fisheries and reduce uncertainty in biomass estimates. SCeMFiS university partners, University of Southern Mississippi (lead institution), and Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, are the academic sites. Collaborating scientists who provide specific expertise in finfish, shellfish, and marine mammal research, come from a wide range of academic institutions including Old Dominion University, Rutgers University, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, University of Maryland, and University of Washington.

The need for the diverse services that SCeMFiS can provide to industry continues to grow, which has prompted a steady increase in the number of fishing industry partners. These services include immediate access to science expertise for stock assessment issues, rapid response to research priorities, and representation on stock assessment working groups. Targeted research leading to improvements in data collection, survey design, analytical tools, assessment models, and other needs to reduce uncertainty in stock status and improve reference point goals.

Read the full release here

VIMS kicks off its annual juvenile striped bass seine survey

July 9, 2018 — On the bank of the James River beside the Lions Bridge in Newport News, field assistant Matthew Oliver waded chest-deep into the warm, lapping water Friday morning, hauling a seine net.

The net wasn’t tall, but it was long — 100 feet — with floats along the top edge and sinkers along the bottom, the better to keep little baby fish from scurrying underneath and swimming away.

Oliver moved heavily in a wide arc through the water, the better to scoop up whatever was swimming in the shallows.

This was just one sweep of select sites along the shores of the James, York and Rappahannock rivers as the monthslong Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey kicks off.

The survey is conducted by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) in Gloucester Point and is the second-longest continuous striped bass index in the country. It began in 1967 and, except for a five-year hiatus starting in 1973 for lack of funding, has been conducted every summer since.

The goal is to keep a weather eye on how this iconic sport fish is doing by counting the young-of-year that spawn early in the year and will, in just a few more years, become an official part of the region’s lucrative recreational and commercial fisheries.

“Knowing how many young striped bass are produced this year helps them understand what’s coming in the future,” said VIMS marine biologist Mary Fabrizio. “It helps us better manage the fishery.”

Read the full story at the Daily Press

Healthy fisheries and aquatic grasses fuel Chesapeake Bay recovery

June 19, 2018 — Booming aquatic grasses and bellwether fisheries are driving sustained progress in Chesapeake Bay health, which experts say is finally showing “significant” overall improvement.

The 2017 Chesapeake Bay Report Card issued by Virginia and Maryland rates the estuary a C for the third straight year as recovery holds steady or improves in five of seven indicators, the James River nails a B- for the first time and the fisheries index scores its first-ever A+.

Experts call their assessment “important evidence that the positive trend in ecosystem health is real” and that cleanup efforts across the watershed are working.

“It is the first time that the … scores are significantly trending in the right direction,” said Bill Dennison at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in a statement Friday. “We have seen individual regions improving before, but not the entire Chesapeake Bay.”

The UMCES compiled the report card along with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and other governmental agencies and academic groups both in this state and Maryland. This is the 12th year of its release.

The fisheries index is comprised of the average score for blue crab, striped bass and bay anchovy indicators. These species are considered ecologically, economically and socially important to the bay.

Last year’s fisheries index was 90 percent. This year, it rose to 95 percent, the highest ever recorded for the annual reports — the average of 100 percent for striped bass and blue crab, and 84 percent for bay anchovy.

Read the full story at the Daily Press

 

Researcher studies effects of microplastics on the ocean

June 12, 2018 — Anyone who has ever struggled with knowing which plastic items they can or cannot place in their recycling bin will appreciate the complex task facing Professor Rob Hale and his students at William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Hale began studying plastics in the 1990s after he and Marine Scientist Mark La Guardia discovered high levels of flame retardants in fishes from the James River. They quickly realized these compounds, added to household plastics to reduce their flammability, were somehow escaping their confines and entering the aquatic environment.

Subsequent groundbreaking research by Hale’s team and others revealed high levels of flame retardants in wastewater, e-waste sites, sewage sludges, soils, sediments, and indoor dust; as well as in minnows, earthworms, insects, birds of prey, deep-sea squid and other organisms. Related research—based on concerns that these chemicals persist in the environment and tend to accumulate up the food chain—revealed health impacts in both wildlife and people, and led to worldwide limitations on the use of the most troublesome flame-retardant compounds.

Hale’s early experience with plastics research has now poised his team for a leading role in addressing the most recent worry about plastics in the environment—the growing concern about the effects of microplastics in the ocean.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Dr. Bill DuPaul receives award from NEFMC

May 17, 2018 — Dr. Bill DuPaul, Professor Emeritus at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester Point, is the recipient of the 2018 Janice M. Plante Award from the New England Fishery Management Council.

DuPaul, a resident of Ware Neck, was a pioneer of cooperative research in the Atlantic sea scallop fishery, according to a release from NEFMC.

“Dr. DuPaul is a man of great integrity,” NEFMC chairman Dr. John Quinn said “He intuitively knew that solutions to hard problems would come only when people on all sides worked together. He proved that cooperative research can break through seemingly insurmountable barriers and help resolve even the most challenging issues.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal

 

Scallop RSA Program: NEFMC and NOAA Announce 15 Awards Selected for 2018-2019 funding

May 16, 2018 — The following was released by New England Fishery Management Council:

 

The New England Fishery Management Council and NOAA Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) are pleased to announce that 15 projects have been selected for 2018-2019 funding through the Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside (RSA) Program.

“The Scallop RSA Program truly has become one of the flagships of the scallop fishery,” said New England Council Chairman Dr. John Quinn. “The collaborative efforts that take place at sea between fishermen and researchers go a long way toward enhancing our understanding of what’s happening with the resource. The results of this RSA work funnel back to the Council and support stock assessments. Without a doubt, the RSA program helps us better manage our – Virginia Institute of Marine Science photo extremely valuable scallop fishery.”

Projects will address research priorities established by the Council, with a particular focus on resource surveys. The awards are expected to generate more than $12 million: $3 million to fund research; and $9 million to compensate industry partners who harvest set-aside quota

“We are excited to be able to work with the New England Fishery Management Council, industry, and scientists to fund sea scallop science through the Research Set-Aside Program,” said NEFSC Science and Research Director Dr. Jon Hare. “The projects funded support surveys, bycatch mitigation, and biological studies, all with the purpose of improving the information used in the management of the sea scallop resource.”

The New England Council established the Sea Scallop RSA Program to address research questions that support management of the scallop resource. The Council sets the research priorities and researchers compete for funding through a federal grant competition managed by NOAA Fisheries.

No federal funds are provided to support the research. Instead, projects are awarded pounds of scallops, which have been “set aside” from the annual fishery quota for this purpose. Successful applicants partner with the fishing industry to harvest their set-aside award to generate funds for the research. There are active research set-aside programs for Atlantic sea scallops, Atlantic herring, and monkfish.

2018-2019 Scallop RSA Award Summary

The awards fall into three categories: scallop surveys (dredge, drop camera, and HabCam); bycatch mitigation; and sea scallop biology.

Scallop Surveys

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) received new awards to conduct dredge surveys in Closed Area I, Closed Area II, and the Nantucket Lightship. Under an existing award from last year, VIMS also will conduct a dredge survey of the Mid-Atlantic Bight. As part of ongoing efforts to better understand scallop survey dredge performance, VIMS investigators received an award to evaluate the hydrodynamic characteristics of both lined and unlined survey dredges in the largest flume tank in the world, located in St. John’s, Newfoundland at Memorial University’s Marine Institute.

The University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) received three awards to conduct surveys using a drop-camera array. Through these awards, researchers plan to conduct high-resolution surveys of the Nantucket Lightship, Closed Area I, Great South Channel, and select portions of the Northern Gulf of Maine Scallop Management Area.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will conduct Habitat Camera Mapping System (HabCam) optical surveys throughout the Mid-Atlantic Bight and on the northern flank of Georges Bank. In addition to these surveys, researchers will continue to evaluate dredge effects on habitat and habitat recovery in the Closed Area II Habitat Area of Particular Concern. Coonamessett Farm Foundation will conduct a HabCam survey of the Nantucket Lightship and Southern Flank of Georges Bank.

Bycatch Mitigation

Coonamessett Farm Foundation will continue its seasonal survey on Georges Bank, collecting information on bycatch rates for yellowtail flounder and other species relative to scallop meat yield. These data also will be used to evaluate sea scallop health and meat quality, biological questions about several flounder species, and to examine lobsters for shell disease.

Coonamessett Farm Foundation will continue its loggerhead sea turtle tagging program, receiving funds to tag up to 20 loggerheads with water activated tags. Tag data will be used to evaluate spatial and temporal overlap between loggerhead sea turtles and the scallop fishery.

Coonamessett Farm Foundation also will be testing a dredge twine-top cover net in an attempt to quantify dredge selectivity characteristics.

Sea Scallop Biology

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science will investigate sea scallop density-dependence factors that may be affecting growth, mortality, and reproduction of scallops in the Nantucket Lightship and Elephant Trunk areas. In addition, VIMS will conduct a pilot study to extend the current stock assessment model to better account for sea scallop ages with a particular focus on the Mid-Atlantic Bight and Nantucket Lightship areas.

WHOI will receive support to determine if a gonadosomatic index (GSI) can be calculated from Light Field 3D images of shucked scallops collected during fishing operations. The GSI is used to assess maturity and spawning events in many species of fish and shellfish, including scallops. If successful, this could improve the ability to collect and quantify scallop maturation and spawning data during the course of routine fishery sampling procedures.

The 2018-2019 award listings can be found on the Northeast Fisheries Science Center website at: https://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/coopresearch/news/scallop-rsa-2018-2019/.

RSA award announcements and answers to “frequently asked questions” also are available at https://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/coopresearch/rsa_program.html.

Visit the New England Council’s scallop webpage: https://www.nefmc.org/management-plans/scallops.

View the release in its entirety here.

 

Scientists: Record abundance of underwater grasses shows Chesapeake Bay initiatives are working

April 25, 2018 — Underwater grasses that provide vital places for fish and crabs to live and hide from predators covered more than 100,000 acres of the Chesapeake Bay in 2017 — the most ever recorded in a 34-year-old aerial survey, scientists said Tuesday.

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science found 104,843 acres of grasses across the estuary, the first time since it began its survey in 1984 that vegetative coverage surpassed the 100,000-acre threshold.

It was a third straight year that grass acreage grew, gaining by 5 percent from 2016 to 2017.

The Patapsco River was among the areas with the strongest grass growth. Acreage jumped more than three times, from 3 acres in 2016 to 14 acres in 2017.

Officials with the Chesapeake Bay Program, the federal office that released the data, said the survey results show that its work with bay watershed states to limit pollution is working. The federal-state partnership adopted a “blueprint” in 2010 to reverse decades of environmental degradation and restore the bay’s health by 2025.

Read the full story at the Baltimore Sun

 

NEFMC Presents 2018 Award for Excellence to Dr. Bill DuPaul

April 18, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:   

The New England Fishery Management Council today presented its 2018 Janice M. Plante Award for Excellence to Dr. Bill DuPaul, a highly respected scientist and pioneer of cooperative research in the Atlantic sea scallop fishery. His early work on scallop dredge ring size helped revolutionize the fishery’s primary gear-type, leading to enhanced selectivity of large scallops and the release of smaller ones. He forged and nurtured partnerships with fishermen from the very start of his career, earning industry’s trust and willingness to participate in a wide range of studies that greatly advanced management of the resource and the fishery.

Council Chairman Dr. John Quinn, who presented the award, said, “Dr. DuPaul is a man of great integrity. He intuitively knew that solutions to hard problems would come only when people on all sides worked together. He proved that cooperative research can break through seemingly insurmountable barriers and help resolve even the most challenging issues.”

Dr. DuPaul is an emeritus professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary. His research included extensive work on the relationship between scallop meat weight and shell height, and he consistently strove to improve dredge efficiency, enhance scallop quality, and reduce bycatch, especially of yellowtail flounder.

He is a strong supporter of the industry-funded Scallop Research Set-Aside (RSA) Program. He has spent countless hours at sea with fishermen conducting gear research, biological studies, and annual surveys that have helped gauge abundance and distribution of scallops both on Georges Bank and throughout the Mid-Atlantic. The annual surveys also helped document incoming recruitment, enabling fishery managers to identify and close areas with large beds of seed scallops for additional grow-out. This practice is a bedrock of the current rotational area management program – and one that Dr. DuPaul was in on from the beginning. He is a staunch advocate of Scallop RSA Share Days where industry members and scientists gather to openly discuss their research results and exchange ideas about emerging issues.

In 1991, the New England Council established the Scallop Plan Development Team (PDT). Dr. DuPaul was an inaugural member of the team and to this day continues to provide valuable guidance. He is the PDT’s longest serving member. He also has been heavily involved with the Council’s Research Steering Committee and, from 2007-2010, served on the former Scallop Survey Advisory Panel.

Dr. DuPaul remains active in the scientific world. He currently is a member of the Scallop Stock Assessment Working Group, which is doing the legwork for the upcoming scallop benchmark stock assessment. As an esteemed veteran of the field, his voice is routinely sought after as wise counsel on a multitude of scallop issues.

View the release in its entirety here.

 

NEFMC Initiates Skate Framework Adjustment 6; Discusses Industry-Funded Monitoring and Research Steering

January 31, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council today initiated Framework Adjustment 6 to the Northeast Skate Complex Fishery Management Plan to consider alternatives for prolonging the skate wing fishery. The intent of this action is to better utilize total allowable landings and keep the fishery open as long as possible. The Council agreed to take this step at the request of industry. Many skate fishermen approached the Council during its December 2017 meeting asking that the framework be a 2018 priority.

The Skate Plan Development Team – with considerable input and guidance from the Skate Committee and Advisory Panel – will work over the next few months to analyze possession limit alternatives and other approaches that would help meet the framework’s goals and objectives. The Council will receive a progress report at its April meeting in Mystic, CT. Final action will occur either in April or June with the intent of having new measures in place during the second half of the 2018 fishing year, which ends April 30, 2019.

Industry-Funded Monitoring

The Council also received an update from the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO) on an electronic Skates captured during a cooperative research trip. – Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) photo monitoring (EM) project that GARFO and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) conducted from August 2016 to January 2018 aboard 11 midwater trawl vessels participating in the Atlantic herring and mackerel fisheries. An estimated 1,000 hours of EM footage was collected on 126 herring trips, and 32 of those trips also were monitored by at-sea observers. The project was designed to evaluate whether or not electronic monitoring is an effective tool for tracking catch, discards, and slippage events on midwater trawl vessels involved in these fisheries.

In April 2017, the Council took final action on an Omnibus Industry-Funded Monitoring (IFM) Amendment that contains alternatives for potentially allowing EM and portside sampling as monitoring options for the Atlantic herring midwater trawl fishery. Mackerel is managed by the Mid-Atlantic Council, which has not acted yet on this amendment. The proposed rule for the New England Council’s action is being developed by NMFS and has a target implementation date of fall 2018.

Once the amendment is in place, herring fishermen will need to pay a substantial portion of the costs associated with monitoring the fishery, as implied in the term “industry-funded monitoring.” NMFS’s final report and recommendations resulting from the EM project will be presented to the Council at its April 17- 19 meeting.

Herring industry members also are interested in learning whether or not these new tools can be more cost effective than at-sea monitoring.

Setting Research Priorities

Based on recommendations from its Research Steering Committee (RSC), the Council endorsed several improvements to its research priority-setting process. It also provided guidance on improving the format for listing and tracking the priorities.

  • The Council agreed that plan development teams should continue to have the lead in developing and updating research needs. The RSC and Scientific and Statistical Committee will review research priorities before the Council is asked to approve them. The RSC will take the lead in tracking whether or not research needs are being met.
  • The Council, as a first step, also supported using a spreadsheet rather than a Word document to list research priorities. However, it directed the Research Steering Committee to explore the feasibility of developing a searchable database as a longer-term goal.
  • The Council endorsed the use of a more informative labeling system to describe research priorities that includes:
    • A description/rationale for the work;
    • A priority category label such as near-term, long-term/strategic, or urgent/immediate;
    • An indication of the fishery management plan and/or species the work applies to;
    • An indication of whether or not the priority is included on other lists such as the research setaside program or stock assessment data collection; and
    • The research status, indicating whether or not the work is underway or has been completed.

In related actions, the Council agreed to: (1) ask the Council Coordination Committee to urge NMFS to require anyone applying for national research program funding to indicate if and how their proposals would meet a regional fishery management council research priority in addition to national priorities; and (2) add, as a Council research priority, a more thorough evaluation of methods to reduce seabed impacts by ground cables used in trawl fisheries.

The Council also received a short briefing from its Research Steering Committee on the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Northeast Cooperative Research Program activities, as well as and an overview of recent management reviews conducted for three completed projects. These were:

(1) the Seasonal Scallop Bycatch Survey;

(2) the River Herring Bycatch Avoidance project; and

(3) Effects of Fishing on Herring Aggregations.

View the release in its entirety by clicking here.

 

Another country has banned boiling live lobsters. Some scientists wonder why.

January 16, 2018 — Poached, grilled, or baked with brie.

Served on a roll, or in mac ‘n cheese.

Lobsters may be one of the most popular crustaceans in the culinary arts. But when it comes to killing them, there’s a long and unresolved debate about how to do it humanely, and whether that extra consideration is even necessary.

The Swiss Federal Council issued an order this week banning cooks in Switzerland from placing live lobsters into pots of boiling water — joining a few other jurisdictions that have protections for the decapod crustaceans. Switzerland’s new measure stipulates that beginning March 1, lobsters must be knocked out — either by electric shock or “mechanical destruction” of the brain — before boiling them, according to Swiss public broadcaster RTS.

The announcement reignited a long-running debate: Can lobsters even feel pain?

“They can sense their environment,” said Bob Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine’s Lobster Institute, “but they probably don’t have the ability to process pain.”

Boiling lobsters alive is already illegal in some places, including New Zealand and Reggio Emilia, a city in northern Italy, according to the animal rights group Viva.

A Swiss government spokeswoman said the law there was driven by the animal rights argument.

“There are more animal friendly methods than boiling alive, that can be applied when killing a lobster,” Eva van Beek of the Federal Office of Food Safety and Veterinary Affairs said in an email.

Read the full story at the Washington Post