Saving Seafood

Whales are dying along East Coast—and scientists are racing to understand why

March 14, 2019 — On a blustery winter afternoon off the coast of Virginia Beach, people are pressing forward on the bow of the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center’s whale watching boat as a dorsal fin breaks the surface. Cameras click in staccato for a second or two before the humpback whale dives to feed again.

The relatively small dorsal fin belies the humpback’s size. Calves weigh about a ton. Adults can grow heavier than a yellow school bus loaded with kindergarten students. Few things that swim in the sea can break their bones.

A mile to the north, however, by the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, a massive cargo ship is pushing south toward the whales. On this Saturday in late January, these humpbacks are swimming in traffic in the shipping channel that leads vessels to and from some of America’s busiest ports. These shipping vessels are one of the few true physical threats to humpback whales.

“Those big ships, they’re churning up the water and the fish are coming through and that’s what the whales are going for,” says Mark Sedaca, captain of the 65-foot Atlantic Explorer on this whale watching trip.

Read the full story at National Geographic

Navy to limit sonar to protect whales

November 5, 2018 — So, tomorrow’s Election Day and here’s hoping our democratic process has provided you with some suitable candidates worthy of your vote. If not, you can always write in the FishOn staff, based solely on our simple dual campaign promises:

“If nominated, we will hide. If elected, we will demand a recount.”

We think it’s what our Founding Fathers and Mothers had in mind all along – self-imposed term limits.

We also have our own method for choosing candidates: They should be strong advocates of the commercial fishing industry, fans of baseball and they should have sent us presents on our birthday and Christmas.

Shuffling through the pile last weekend, and gotta say: It’s not looking great for this crop of cheapskates.

But that’s us. Y’all should head out and vote. If nothing else, it’s an hour away from work. Unless you live in Chicago, where you can turn it into a full-time occupation.

The new Navy slogan should be “Shhhhhhh”

The U.S. Navy last December adopted the 10th slogan in the storied history of the military service (and its a collected advertising agencies). The slogan is “America’s Navy, Forged by the Sea.” Thank God the French Navy already had taken “We Surrender, Take Our Ship” out of the running.

Our Navy made some news last week when it announced it will expand areas in which it limits its use of sonar and explosives off the East Coast as a means of helping protect the imperiled right whales. It’s doing the same in the Gulf of Mexico to help protect the Bryde’s whale.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

New Whale Species, and New Ways to Study Them All

February 8, 2016 — In just a few decades, we’ve gone from hunting whales to protecting them. But many are still endangered, and they face a barrage of potential threats. Now, researchers are developing new ways to study these animals, from facial recognition software to help track whales’ movements, and using baleen to trace the history of stress in whales’ lives.

1. Facial Recognition for Whales: There are only about five hundred North Atlantic right whales in existence. Christin Khan, a research fishery biologist (a.k.a. whale spotter) at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, spends a lot of her time photographing whales so that the health and movements of each individual can be closely tracked. But actually identifying the whale(s) in a photograph can be time-consuming and frustrating. Khan found herself wondering if it was a job a computer could do for her.

“It started with this idea that this technology is becoming more and more prevalent,” she said.
“We thought, how great would it be if we could apply this technology to right whales?”

Last August, Khan launched a competition to develop the equivalent of facial recognition software for right whales. The winning algorithm correctly identified eighty-seven percent of the whales on which it was tested, but not using their faces, exactly. Rather, it recognizes the colosity patterns on right whales’ heads, which is the pattern of rough, white skin that forms on right whales as they reach adulthood.

Read the full story at WCAI

NMFS Moves to Add Marine Mammal Rules Similar to Turtle Excluder Laws; May Ban Some Seafood Imports

SEAFOODNEWS.COM by John Sackton — August 11, 2015 — NOAA Fisheries has published a notice in the Federal Register today about rules for foreign seafood exporters regarding marine mammals.

Although there is a five year window for implementation, the new rules would require certification for any export fishery that interacts with marine mammals. Unless the foreign country had a program certified as effective by NMFS for reducing marine mammal bycatch mortality, exports from that fishery would be prohibited into the US.

The operation of the program appears similar to the Turtle Excluder Laws, which require tropical shrimp producing countries to certify the use of turtle excluders for wild shrimp, if they intend to export such shrimp to the US.

Over the years, exports have been suspended from some countries for failure to comply, with the most recent being Mexico whose wild shrimp exports were suspended for a year.

Fisheries that interact with marine mammals include yellowfin tuna in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, where dolphins are at risk, many longline fisheries that have marine mammal bycatch; large scale driftnet fisheries, and even potentially pot fisheries like lobster.

In the US, lobster gear has been modified to reduce whale interactions, and entanglement is recognized as the leading cause for marine mammal bycatch globally.

In order to export to the US, once the rule is fully in effect, a foreign country would have to meet the following qualifying conditions before a fishery that interacts with marine mammals could export to the US:

1. Marine mammal stock assessments that estimate population abundance for marine mammal stocks in waters under its jurisdiction that are incidentally killed or seriously injured in the export fishery;

2. An export fishery register containing a list of all vessels participating in an export fishery under the jurisdiction of the harvesting nation, including the number of vessels participating, information on gear type, target species, fishing season, and fishing area for each export fishery;

3. Regulatory requirements (e. g., including copies of relevant laws, decrees, and implementing regulations or measures) that include:

(a) A requirement for the owner or operator of vessels participating in the fishery to report all intentional and incidental mortality and injury of marine mammals in the course of commercial fishing operations; and

(b) A requirement to implement measures in export fisheries designed to reduce the total incidental mortality and serious injury of a marine mammal stock below the bycatch limit. Such measures may include: Bycatch reduction devices; incidental mortality and serious injury limits; careful release and safe-handling of marine mammals and gear removal; gear marking; bycatch avoidance gear (e. g., pingers) ; gear modifications or restrictions; or time- area closures.

4. Implementation of monitoring procedures in export fisheries designed to estimate incidental mortality and serious injury of marine mammals in each export fishery under its jurisdiction, as well as estimates of cumulative incidental mortality and serious injury for marine mammal stocks in waters under its jurisdiction that are incidentally killed or seriously injured in the export fishery and other export fisheries with the same marine mammal stock, including an indication of the statistical reliability of those estimates;

5. Calculation of bycatch limits for marine mammal stocks in waters under its jurisdiction that are incidentally killed or seriously injured in an export fishery;

6. Comparison of the incidental mortality and serious injury of each marine mammal stock or stocks that interact with the export fishery in relation to the bycatch limit for each stock; and comparison of the cumulative incidental mortality and serious injury of each marine mammal stock or stocks that interact with the export fishery and any other export fisheries of the harvesting nation showing that these export fisheries: (a) Does not exceed the bycatch limit for that stock or stocks; or

(b) Exceeds the bycatch limit for that stock or stocks, but the portion of incidental marine mammal mortality or serious injury for which the exporting fishery is responsible is at a level that, if the other export fisheries interacting with the same marine mammal stock or stocks were at the same level, would not result in cumulative incidental mortality and serious injury in excess of the bycatch limit for that stock or stocks.

The next step will be a formal comment period, after which NOAA will issue the final rule.

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