Saving Seafood

Coastal governors oppose Trump’s offshore drilling plan

January 5, 2018 — Governors along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts are opposing the Trump administration’s proposal to open almost all U.S. waters to oil and natural gas drilling.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Thursday a draft proposal that would allow offshore drilling for crude oil and natural gas on the Atlantic Coast and in the Arctic, reversing the Obama’s administration’s block in those areas. It also permits drilling along the Pacific Coast as well as more possibilities in the Gulf of Mexico. Under the plan, spanning the years 2019 to 2024, more than 90 percent of the total acres on the Outer Continental Shelf would be made available for leasing.

Zinke said the Interior Department has identified 47 potential lease sales, including seven in the Pacific and nine off the Atlantic coast. That would mark a dramatic shift in policy, not just from the Obama era. The last offshore lease sale for the East Coast was in 1983 and for the West Coast in 1984.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican and ally of President Trump, quickly said no thanks to Zinke’s plan, citing drilling as a threat to the state’s tourism industry.

Read the full story at the Washington Examiner

 

MAFMC: NEFMC to Hold Mid-Atlantic Port Meetings to Gather Public Input for Independent Program Review

January 5, 2018 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council is currently undergoing an independent review to: (1) assess past performance; (2) gather feedback on strengths and weaknesses of the Council process and operations; and (3) identify potential areas for improvements. Twelve port meetings and one webinar meeting were held in November and December to gather public input.

Two additional port meetings have been scheduled in the Mid-Atlantic region:

  • Monday, January 8, Montauk, NY – Montauk Playhouse Community Center, 240 Edgemere Street, 5 p.m.
  • Tuesday, January 9, Cape May, NJ – Rutgers University, 1636 Delaware Ave., 5 p.m.

Stakeholders can also provide input through an online survey, which is available HERE.

More information can be found at Council Program Review.

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976.  The Council has primary responsibility for twelve species of fish and shellfish in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between 3 and 200 miles off the Mid-Atlantic coast.  Member states include New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.  Visit our website for more information.

 

States Schedule Public Hearings on Draft Addendum XXX Board Seeks Input on Regional Management Options for Black Sea Recreational Fisheries for 2018 and Beyond

December 22, 2017 — ARLINGTON, Va. — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Comission:

Atlantic states from Massachusetts through Virginia have scheduled their hearings to gather public comment on Draft Addendum XXX to the Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan. The details of those hearings follow:

Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries

January 9, 2018 at 6 PM

Bourne Community Center, Room 2

239 Main Street

Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts

Contact: Nichola Meserve at 617.626.1531

Rhode Island Division of Fish & Wildlife

January 17, 2018 at 6 PM

University of Rhode Island Bay Campus

Corless Auditorium, South Ferry Road

Narragansett, Rhode Island

Contact: Robert Ballou at 401.222.4700 ext. 4420

Connecticut Dept. of Energy and Environmental Protection

January 10, 2018 at 7 PM

Marine Headquarters

Boating Education Center (Rear Building)

333 Ferry Road

Old Lyme, Connecticut

Contact: Mark Alexander at 860.447.4322

New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation

January 11, 2018 at 6 PM

Division of Marine Resources

205 North Belle Mead Road, Suite 1

East Setauket, New York

Contact: John Maniscalco at 631.444.0437

New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife

January 4, 2018 at 6:30 PM

Galloway Township Branch of the Atlantic County Library

306 East Jimmie Leeds Road

Galloway, New Jersey

Contact: Peter Clarke at 609.748.2020

Delaware Dept. of Natural Resources & Environmental Control

January 3, 2018 at 6 PM*

DNREC Shoreline & Waterway Services Facility

901 Pilottown Road

Lewes, Delaware

Contact: John Clark at 302.739.9914

* Facility doors will not open until 5:30 PM

Maryland Department of Natural Resources

January 8, 2018 at 6 PM

Ocean Pines Library

11107 Cathell Road

Berlin, Maryland 21811

Contact: Steve Doctor at 410.213.1531

Virginia Marine Resources Commission

January 16, 2018 at 6 PM

2600 Washington Avenue

4th Floor Conference Room

Newport News, Virginia

Contact: Rob O’Reilly at 757.247.2248

Draft Addendum XXX was initiated to consider alternative regional management approaches for the recreational fishery, including options for regional allocation of the recreational harvest limit (RHL) based on historical harvest and exploitable biomass. The Draft Addendum also includes an option for coastwide management of black sea bass recreational fisheries should a regional approach not be approved for management.

In recent years, challenges in the black sea bass recreational fishery have centered on providing equitable access to the resource in the face of uncertain population size, structure, and distribution. Since 2012, the recreational fishery has been managed under an ad-hoc regional management approach, whereby the states of Massachusetts through New Jersey have individually crafted measures aimed at reducing harvest by the same percent, while the states of Delaware through North Carolina have set their regulations consistent with the federal waters measures. While this approach allowed the states flexibility in setting measures, some states expressed concerns about equity and accountability in constraining harvest to coastwide catch limits. Additionally, the 2016 Benchmark Stock Assessment provided information on the abundance and distribution of the resource along the coast that was not previously available to include in the management program.

Draft Addendum XXX proposes two approaches for regional allocation of the RHL in the black sea bass recreational fishery: (1) allocation based on a combination of stock biomass and harvest information, or (2) allocation based solely on historical harvest. The regional allocation options offer advantages over coastwide regulations by addressing geographic differences in the stock (size, abundance, and seasonality) while allowing for more uniformity in measures between neighboring states. The Draft Addendum also proposes an option for evaluating harvest and adjusting measures against the annual catch limit, which aims to reduce year to year changes in management measures.

Anglers and other interested groups are encouraged to provide input on Draft Addendum XXX either by attending state public hearings or providing written comment. The Draft Addendum is available at http://www.asmfc.org/files/PublicInput/BSBDraftAddendumXXX_PublicComment.pdf and can also be accessed on the Commission website (www.asmfc.org) under Public Input. To aid the submission of public comment, please refer to the decision tree found in Appendix III on PDF page 23, which outlines the management options being considered. Public comment will be accepted until 5:00 PM (EST) on January 22, 2018 and should be forwarded to Caitlin Starks, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, 1050 N. Highland St., Suite 200 A-N, Arlington, Virginia 22201; 703.842.0741 (fax) or at comments@asmfc.org (Subject line: Draft Addendum XXX).

Learn more about the ASMFC by visiting their site here.

 

Cooke closes Omega Protein deal

December 21, 2017 — Omega Protein’s stockholders have voted to go ahead with a deal which sees the parent company of Cooke Aquaculture acquire all outstanding shares for nearly $500 million.

The deal was first announced in October. The transaction price represents a premium of 32.5% to Omega Protein’s closing share price on Oct. 5, 2017, which was $16.60, giving a market capitalization of $372.90m. The agreement has been unanimously approved by the board of directors of each of Omega Protein and Cooke, according to a statement.

The transaction was subject to the approval of Omega Protein stockholders, certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. BMO Capital Markets is providing committed financing for the transaction.

Omega Protein operates seven manufacturing facilities located in the US, Canada and Europe. The company also operates more than 30 vessels to harvest menhaden, a fish abundantly found in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Cooke Aquaculture acquires Houston fishing company in $650M deal

December 20, 2017 — New Brunswick seafood giant Cooke Aquaculture got even bigger on Tuesday, with its acquisition of a Houston, Texas company and its workforce of 1,000 people.

Cooke Aquaculture acquired Omega Protein Corp. in a $500 million USD deal — approximately $650 million (Canadian) — in one of the single largest foreign investment deals a New Brunswick company has ever done in the United States.

“It’s the single largest acquisition [our] company has ever made,” said Joel Richardson, vice-president of communications for Cooke.

“When a New Brunswick company reaches beyond our borders and acquires a company outside our province, it helps strengthen jobs back here and at home.”

Omega Protein, founded in the early 1900s, is a fishing company that sources omega oils and specialty protein products for both nutritional supplements and animal feeds.

They operate over 30 boats off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, near Mississippi, Louisiana and Virginia, and catch a forage fish called menhaden, which is rich in omega fatty acids.

Read the full story at CBC News

 

Chesapeake Bay sees ‘near-record high’ water quality

December 18, 2017 — EASTON, Md. — Water quality in the Chesapeake Bay has reached a near-record high, according to estimates announced Thursday, Dec. 14, by the Chesapeake Bay Program.

According to preliminary data from the U.S. Geological Survey, almost 40 percent of the Bay and its tidal tributaries met clean water standards for clarity, oxygen and algae growth between 2014 and 2016, which represents a 2 percent increase from the previous assessment period, according to the Chesapeake Bay Program.

Scientists are reasoning it is due in large part to a rise in dissolved oxygen in the deep channel of the Bay.

“The improving trends in water quality standards attainment follow similar trends in other indicators that we track. The acreage of underwater grasses has increased to more than 50 percent of its goal,” Chesapeake Bay Program Director Nick DiPasquale said.

“In addition, we are seeing an increase in the diversity of grass species and the density of grass beds. We also are witnessing improvements in several fisheries, including blue crabs, oysters and rockfish,” DiPasquale said. “While these improving trends are encouraging, we must ramp up our efforts to implement pollution control measures to ensure progress toward 100 percent of the water quality standards is achieved throughout the Bay and its tidal waters.”

Read the full story at the Star Democrat

Elver trafficking sting yields more jail sentences, another guilty plea

December 15, 2017 — Operation Broken Glass, an interagency sting of a national elver trafficking ring based in Maine, has yielded two more jail sentences and a guilty plea this week.

Yarann Im, a 35-year-old Portland seafood dealer, was sentenced to six months in jail for illegally trafficking 480 pounds of elvers, which are also known as glass eels or juvenile American eels, following a hearing Thursday in federal district court in Portland. Im pleaded guilty in 2016 to buying more than $500,000 worth of eels, or almost a million individual elvers that had been illegally harvested in Virginia, North Carolina and Massachusetts, and selling them abroad.

Thomas Choi, a 76-year-old seafood dealer from Maryland, was sentenced Thursday to six months in prison with a $25,000 fine for trafficking in $1.26 million of elvers.

On Tuesday, Maine fisherman Albert Cray pleaded guilty to trafficking elvers, admitting to harvesting them illegally in New Jersey and selling them to a Maryland dealer, who then exported them from the United States to buyers in Asia. In 2013, Cray admitted to trafficking more than $250,000 worth of illegally harvested elvers, according to a statement of facts filed with Cray’s plea agreement.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Mid-Atlantic residents see ocean health as major economic issue

December 7, 2017 — Eight in 10 residents of Mid-Atlantic states believe the ocean and beaches are important to their economies, including 95 percent of those living in coastal communities. Eighty-three percent of residents living in coastal communities believe that climate change is real—13 percentage points higher than a national survey taken by Monmouth University in 2015. Support for offshore oil and gas drilling plummeted from 46 percent in 2009 to 22 percent now among residents living closest to the coast.

These are some of the findings from a pair of survey reports released today by the Monmouth University Polling Institute (MUPI) and Urban Coast Institute (UCI). The surveys present the first region-wide snapshot of public opinion on ocean issues since the 2016 elections and offer a glimpse at how views have changed since major storms like Sandy and Irene impacted the Mid-Atlantic coast.

A regionwide survey was conducted with residents from Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia to gauge opinion of a wide range of coastal issues and elements of the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Action Plan, which was adopted in December of 2016 by the six states, federal agencies, tribal entities and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. A second survey was conducted specifically with year-round residents of Mid-Atlantic coastal communities that asked the same questions regarding ocean issues as a 2009 MUPI-UCI poll in order to track how opinions have changed over time among those living closest to the coast.

Read the full story at PHYS

 

New Jersey Flounder Fishery Shut Down for Rest of Year

December 1, 2017 — BARNEGAT LIGHT, N.J. — Federal fishing regulators say they’ve closed a New Jersey fishery that targets a popular species of flatfish through the end of the year.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the summer flounder fishery in the state must close because fishermen have hit their quota. Regulators previously shut down the summer flounder fishery in Rhode Island.

The state of New Jersey has also shut down the flounder fishery. The state is one of the biggest producers of the fish, which is sold as food in restaurants, super markets and seafood markets.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

 

Menhaden catch limit raised along Atlantic coast, slashed in Bay

November 20, 2017 — East Coast fishery managers plan to increase the coastwide menhaden catch by 8 percent next year, while slashing the amount that can be harvested from the Chesapeake Bay.

But despite heavy pressure from environmental groups, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission balked at a proposal that would have required fishery managers to take into account the ecological role of the small, oily fish when setting future harvest levels.

By the end of their two-day meeting in mid-November, commissioners had succeeded in disappointing and pleasing environmentalists and industry officials alike — typically not at the same time — while setting up another big debate two years from now over how to account for the role menhaden play as a food source for other species.

In a statement after the meeting, Robert Ballou, of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and chair of the ASMFC Menhaden Board, acknowledged that many people were left disappointed by the decisions that will guide harvests for the next two years. But he said the commission’s actions demonstrated a “commitment to manage the menhaden resource in a way that balances menhaden’s ecological role with the needs of its stakeholders.”

It was the latest round in a decades-long struggle over how to manage the catch of Atlantic menhaden, a fish almost never eaten by humans that is an important food for a host of marine species. By weight, menhaden make up the largest catch in both the Chesapeake and along the East Coast, but by nearly all accounts their abundance is increasing, especially in New England. In fact, the ASMFC’s science advisers indicated that the current coastal catch limit of 200,000 metric tons could be increased by more than 50 percent with little chance of overfishing the species.

But conservation groups have long argued that such assessments do not fully account for the importance of menhaden as a food source for marine mammals, many birds, and a host of other fish, such as striped bass.

It is part of a larger, long-running debate between conservation groups and the fishing industry over how to treat forage fish, which include menhaden, anchovies and other small species that provide a critical link in the aquatic food chain by converting plankton into nourishment for larger predators.

Historically, conservationists contend that forage species have received less attention — and protection from overfishing — than the larger predators, such as striped bass. Prior to the meeting near Baltimore, conservationists had gathered a record-setting 157,599 comments urging the ASMFC to adopt new harvest guidelines, or reference points, that would take the ecological role of the fish into account when setting catch limits. If adopted, the guidelines would almost certainly have required a reduction in the current coastwide menhaden catch.

But critics — which included ASMFC’s own scientific advisers, as well as the commercial menhaden industry — said the reference points under consideration were based on studies of other species in other places and may not be applicable to menhaden.

Ultimately, the commission — a panel of state fishery managers that regulates catches of migratory fish along the coast — voted 13–5 to delay the adoption of ecological reference points until a panel of scientists it has assembled can make its own ecological recommendations, tailored specifically to menhaden. Those recommendations are not expected to be ready until 2019.

Dozens of activists attended the meeting, many holding bright yellow signs that said, “Little Fish Big Deal,” “Keep it Forage” or “Conserve Menhaden.” Many were surprised not only to be defeated after the huge volume of comments — more than 99 percent in favor of ecological reference points — but also by the lopsided vote.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal