Saving Seafood

What happens to fish and other sea creatures underwater during a hurricane

October 18, 2018 — Hurricanes can be just as deadly for marine life, sometimes stranding them on land or far out at sea. But sometimes marine life benefits or even thrives after these extreme weather events.

Normally when a hurricane is headed for us, we run the other way. But not Isla. She’s a leatherback turtle who was meandering off the coast of Virginia when she accidentally swam straight into Hurricane Florence. Scientists were worried she’d get caught up in the worst of the storm but Isla managed to survive by swimming toward deeper waters.

Turns out, there’s a part of hurricanes we don’t often think about: What happens under the surface. And Isla is just one example.

Far out at sea, fish that live near the surface might feel some turbulence as a storm passes. But most sea creatures — including dolphins, whales, and sharks — avoid the rough surface water and swim to calmer seas. But it’s a different story near shore.

Changes in water temperature and salinity can be catastrophic for marine life. Hurricanes can generate massive waves. Which mix warm surface water with colder, saltier water below generating currents that extend up to 91 meters below the surface. These currents are so strong that they can sweep manatees inland to canals and ponds or away from the coastal waters they prefer, and out into the open ocean. Where they can become disorientated, and even die.

Hurricanes also bring heavy rain, so freshwater often floods coastal regions. And because freshwater is less dense than salt water, it sits on top of the sea water like oil on vinegar. Where it can prevent oxygen from reaching the salty layer below. And disrupt the salinity levels, which can lead to sores, lesions, and ultimately death in whales, dolphins, and porpoises.

Hurricanes also kick up dirt and sand in shallow seas. Which can kill fish by clogging their gills. Experts think this is probably one of the factors that killed an estimated 9.4 million saltwater fish in 1992, during Hurricane Andrew. The dirty, murky water also blocks sunlight from reaching corals and seagrass. In fact, scientists found that coral cover in the Caribbean decreases by 17% in just one year after a hurricane strikes. And that’s in addition to the stress coral already face from human interference.

But it’s not always so bad for sea life. After Hurricane Katrina damaged or destroyed almost 90% of fishing boats in the Mississippi Sound scientists observed a huge increase in dolphin births. Without the fishing boats, dolphins suddenly found themselves with more available prey which helped their populations thrive.

Read the full story at Business Insider

First turbines in federal waters? Va.’s on the way

October 10, 2018 — Dominion Energy Inc.’s request to build a modestly sized — though less modestly priced — wind farm goes before regulators today, as evidentiary hearings begin on the two-turbine, $300 million Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

If all goes as planned, the project would come online in 2020, becoming the nation’s second offshore wind farm and the first to go up in federal waters.

Sited 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, the turbines would add 12 megawatts of capacity to the state’s grid. But Dominion, along with its industry allies and Virginia officials, see the demonstration as a steppingstone to the state’s new goal of developing 2 gigawatts by 2028.

“[T]he project needs to be built and studied to determine how the technology works and performs in the Atlantic Ocean 27 miles off the coast, and in potential hurricane force winds,” said David Botkins, a spokesman for the company, which is partnering with Denmark-based Ørsted Energy A/S on the project.

Andy Geissbuehler, advisory director at renewable consultancy BVG Associates, agreed.

“One of the basics in launching the offshore wind industry in the U.S. is transferring the experience from Europe,” he said. “But there are limitations to how much of that experience can be transferred.”

Signed, sealed, delivered?

This week’s hearings at the State Corporation Commission come after a preliminary session Thursday, when lawyers for environmentalists, Dominion and the attorney general’s office attempted to reassure the SCC’s three commissioners that they still enjoyed some semblance of authority over the project.

Read the full story at E&E News

 

1 Person Killed, 1 Injured in Attack Aboard Fishing Vessel Off Nantucket

September 24, 2018 — One person was killed and another injured when a crew member on board a fishing vessel off Nantucket attacked two of his shipmates on Sunday afternoon.

The Coast Guard said they received an emergency call on Sunday afternoon from the Captain Billy Haver, an 82-foot fishing vessel out of Virginia, saying that a member of its crew had attacked several other fishermen.

The Coast Guard would not confirm what weapons were used in the attack.

The fishing trawler was 60 miles east of Nantucket at the time of the incident.

Read the full story at NECN

ASMFC: Atlantic Menhaden Benchmark Stock Assessment Workshops Scheduled for October 9 – 12, in Arlington, VA

September 24, 2018 — ARLINGTON, Va. — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission: 

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Menhaden Stock Assessment Subcommittee (SAS) and Ecological Reference Points (ERP) Workgroup will be meeting October 9 – 12, 2018, at the Commission’s office, 1050 N. Highland Street, Suite 200A-N, Arlington, VA.  The SAS will meet October 9 – 10, while the ERP Workgroup will meet October 11 – 12. Both groups will focus on completing a thorough review of all data to be used in both the menhaden single-species and ecosystem-based benchmark assessments. The SAS will also begin to explore modeling approaches, while the ERP Workgroup will continue to explore various modeling approaches to evaluate the health of the stock and inform the management of the species in an ecological context. Both assessments will be peer-reviewed at the end of 2019.

The deadlines for the submission of data and alternate multispecies or ecosystem models have passed. The deadline for submission of alternate single-species models is Thursday, November 1, 2018. For alternate models to be considered, the model description, model input, and complete source code must be provided to Dr. Katie Drew, Stock Assessment Team Leader, at kdrew@asmfc.org by November 1, 2018. Any models submitted without complete, editable source code and input files will not be considered.

View the release in its entirety here

 

First offshore wind farm in federal waters inches closer

September 24, 2018 — What could be the first offshore wind farm in federal waters took a major step forward last month when Dominion Energy applied to the Virginia State Corporation Commission for approval to build two 6 MW wind turbines and the project’s grid infrastructure.

Called the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project (CVOW), it would located about 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach on 2,135 acres of federal waters leased by the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. The two 6 MW turbines will sit in about 80 feet of water and generate wind energy for customers starting in December 2020.

Denmark’s Ørsted has been hired by Dominion Energy to build CVOW. Just this past Sept. 6, Ørsted opened the Walney Extension, the world’s largest offshore wind farm with 87 wind turbines generating potentially 659 MW of power in the Irish Sea.

A demonstration project, CVOW would be the second offshore wind farm in the U.S., following the Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island, which began operating in 2015. More importantly perhaps is that CVOW will be the first offshore wind farm to go through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) approval process.

Read the full story at Marine Log

 

NEW JERSEY: Conflict boils over baitfish harvest off Sandy Hook

September 20, 2018 — A tug-of-war over menhaden baitfish has been playing out for the last half-dozen years in quiet library meeting rooms and hotel lobbies from Maine to Florida.

Now it’s taken to the high seas.

Twice in three weeks, a pair of industrial-size reduction boats from Reedsville, Virginia came within sight of Sandy Hook to net the bait, removing nearly 3 million pounds of the fish from the water on the two trips.

A sum equal to one-tenth of one percent of all the menhaden in the ocean.

The boats were within their legal right but a social media dust-up ensued with whale watchers and conservationists who homed their cameras in on the boats. See the above video.

They then blasted their pictures and videos on the web, clamoring the boats took the fish out of the mouths of hungry humpback whales.

“The simple sight of our vessels sets them off. They don’t say anything about the bait guys who take 70 million pounds of fish,” said Ben Landry, spokesman for Omega Protein, the company that owns the boats.

Omega Protein operates the lone fish reduction industry on the East Coast. The company’s name is a reference to menhaden’s rich source of Omega 3 fatty acids.

The company’s workforce is made up of multi-generational fishermen who have been harvesting the menhaden for years and raising their families on the fish.

But some want them to slow down, if not stop completely, and leave more menhaden in the water to feed big marine mammals like whales and game fish.

Menhaden, also known as bunker, play a vital role in the ecosystem as filter feeders that turn plankton into fat and protein.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

Virginia gets a year to comply with menhaden limits or face moratorium

September 10, 2018 — East Coast fishery managers have decided to give Virginia until next year to adopt regulations that limit catches of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay rather than seek an immediate moratorium on harvests.

Conservation groups and the fishing industry have been engaged in a long-running battle over how many menhaden can be caught without ecological consequences.

Humans don’t eat menhaden, but the small, oily fish are a critical food for a host of marine life from whales to striped bass. While the overall stock is considered healthy, conservationists have argued that such evaluations do not account for its role as forage for fish, birds and marine mammals.

Last fall, forage fish advocates persuaded the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to slash the maximum allowable harvest in the Bay — where much of the East Coast harvest takes place — from 87,216 metric tons to 51,000 metric tons a year, even as it increased the total allowable coastwide catch.

But the action angered Omega Protein, which operates a facility in Reedville, VA, that “reduces” large amounts of menhaden caught by its fishing fleet into other products, such as fish oil supplements and animal feed. Omega is by far the largest harvester of menhaden in the Chesapeake and the entire East Coast. The company has not exceeded the new limit for Bay waters in years because it has drawn more of its catch from the Atlantic, but officials said the lower number restricts their future options and has no scientific basis.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

 

Bountiful Bunker? Advocates Clash with Big Fish Oil in New York Harbor

September 10, 2018 — Advocacy groups are sounding the alarm on Virginia-based fishing fleets coming into the New York bight to harvest menhaden — a bait fish better known as “bunker” — but NOAA Fisheries says the species is not at risk of overfishing.

The boats work for Omega Protein, a company based in Reedville, Virginia, that runs the largest menhaden fishing operation on the east coast.

Menhaden are abundant now, but they’d been severely overfished in the past and advocacy groups like Menhaden Defenders and Gotham Whale are concerned about that happening again — especially since whales have returned to New York City waters. The cetaceans feed on menhaden, and fewer fish could mean fewer whale sightings, they say.

Advocates also worry about by-catch. The boats use huge purse seines that round up millions of fish at a time, and there’s concern that dolphins and other marine life could get caught up.

In a press release, Omega Protein charged that advocates are making “false statements” about their fleet, noting that there’s currently no concern about bunker overfishing and that their operations are completely legal. The company turns menhaden into commodities for fish oil supplements, dog food, fish meal, and other products.

Jennifer Goebel, a spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries, confirmed that there’s no current threat of overfishing for menhaden.

“There has been concern over the years from certain environmental groups regarding localized depletion in Chesapeake Bay, but studies have not found any evidence that localized depletion is occurring,” she said in an email. “The coastwide assessment shows the Atlantic menhaden stock is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring.”

She added that Omega Protein “follow[s] the schools and right now, if those schools are off New York, that’s where an industry vessel could be fishing.”

Read the full story at New York Media Boat

 

Our Coast’s History: NC’s Oyster War

August 29, 2018 — Late January 1891, the steamer Vesper, rented from the Wilmington Steamship Co. and mounted with a well-used howitzer and caisson borrowed from the state of Virginia, left Elizabeth City with militiamen of the Pasquotank Rifles. Their mission: To enforce “An Act to Promote and Protect the Oyster Interests of the State” that had been passed barely a week earlier.

After three years of growing tension between North Carolina oystermen and vessels drifting down from Chesapeake Bay to harvest oysters in Pamlico and Roanoke sounds, North Carolina’s legislature had acted, creating a list of draconian restrictions on the harvest that prohibited dredging and allowed only in-state residents to gather oysters.

Tasked with telling the oyster poachers — mostly from Maryland — of the new law, as conflicts go, the North Carolina oyster war wasn’t much of a war, the rhetoric far outstripping the action.

“As she (the Vesper) proceeds on the return trip if any dredgers are found continuing to ravish the oyster beds they will be arrested, even if their boats have to be blown out of the water and their crews killed,” the Wilmington Weekly Star wrote.

In the end, the Vesper made one arrest, with other boats heeding the warning and leaving North Carolina waters.

Although short-lived and bloodless, what occurred on the water was but a part of an intersection of changing priorities in northeastern North Carolina.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online 

 

Sportfishing Industry Applauds Bill to Help Enhance Fish Habitat Conservation

August 10, 2018 — The recreational fishing industry today expressed its appreciation to Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) for introducing H.R. 6660, the National Fish Habitat Conservation Through Partnerships Act. This legislation will authorize a national program to conserve, restore and enhance fish habitat across the country for the benefit of recreational fishing.

“America’s 49 million recreational anglers and the 800,000 jobs supported by recreational fishing depend on healthy fisheries resources,” said Mike Leonard, Conservation director for the American Sportfishing Association. “The sportfishing industry is grateful to Rep. Wittman for his continued commitment to fisheries conservation by introducing the National Fish Habitat Conservation Through Partnerships Act. This legislation will authorize and improve upon a successful partnership-based program that unites anglers, industry, state and federal agencies and other partners to help restore fish habitat in Virginia and throughout the nation.”

The foundation for the National Fish Habitat Conservation Through Partnerships Act is the National Fish Habitat Partnership, a voluntary, non-regulatory and locally-driven program housed within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The National Fish Habitat Partnership program is currently comprised of 20 individual Fish Habitat Partnerships that focus on specific regions or habitat types. These partnerships include representatives of federal, state and local agencies, conservation and sportsmen’s organizations, private landowners and the business sector. To date, more than 600 successful conservation projects have been carried out through these partnerships, benefitting fish habitat and anglers throughout the country.

Read the full story at Sporting Classics Daily