Saving Seafood

NOAA marks second annual whale count

September 21, 2018 — Citizen scientists of all ages turned out on Sept. 15 to help NOAA Fisheries count endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales and learn more about the importance of healthy marine habitat.

The second annual beluga whales count drew over 2,000 people to 14 scientist-manned viewing stations along Cook Inlet from Homer to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley in the morning and the afternoon beluga festival at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage.

Both events were free and open to the public as part of NOAA Fisheries’ effort to increase public awareness and stewardship of Cook Inlet belugas, who were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2008.

Participating educators at the zoo included Rick Rowland, land and natural resources manager for the Tyonek Native Corp., who said the corporation’s presence there was to remind people that there is still an interest in subsistence hunting, but that won’t happen again until the beluga population increases. The tribe decided 14 years ago to cease those subsistence hunts because of the low population of whales, Rowland said. More research is needed to determine why the population is so low and what needs to be done to assure recovery, he said.

Read the full story at The Cordova Times

 

Alec Wilkinson: A Deadly Shark Attack at a Beach on Cape Cod That I Know Well

September 17, 2018 — I grew up spending summers in a house that my parents built for five thousand dollars, in 1952, on a hill above Newcomb Hollow, in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, where a young man died on Saturday from a shark bite. My father used to say that there were no sharks off the Cape, because the water was too cold. He was wrong, of course. The sharks were likely always there, but in deep water, following whales. The whales would occasionally die, for whatever reason, and fishermen would sometimes see sharks feeding on their carcasses. Now, however, the sharks are close to shore, because they prey on seals, which used to be scarce and are not any longer, a result of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, passed in 1972. The act is typical of our attempts to manage nature. In my childhood, I never saw seals, and it seemed desirable to protect them from being drowned in fishermen’s nets. Now there are so many that one of my nieces described them as an infestation. This summer, I started to think of them as sea rats.

Arthur Medici, the man who died, was twenty-six. He came to America two years ago from Brazil to go to college. In photographs, he is handsome, with dark eyes and a direct gaze. On Saturday, he broke a rule that is risky to break, by swimming at some distance from the crowd. Sharks patrol the shore for seals. They are white sharks, which were once called man-eaters; sometimes they are called “the men in gray suits,” since they are gray with white undersides. They are shaped like torpedoes with fins, a minimalist fish, and there is nothing fancy about their appearance, as if only two colors were necessary for a serious creature. On videos taken from airplanes, you see them moving lazily, unconcerned, since nothing threatens them. The planes tend to be working for Greg Skomal, of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, who, with the help of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, has been tagging white sharks for the last few years in order to determine how many visit the Cape—white sharks are not so much migratory as footloose; one of the surprises of tagging them has been learning that instead of following patterns or routes they seem to go wherever the hell they feel like. When Skomal stabs them with a tracking tag on the end of a harpoon, some of them don’t even react, although this summer, one of them leapt up beneath him as if to attack him as he stood on the bow pulpit with his harpoon.

Read the full opinion piece at The New Yorker

 

‘What extinction looks like’: A young orca’s presumed death cuts endangered whale population to 74

September 17, 2018 — Ever since birth, she had to fight to live.

The deep scratches along her back and dorsal fin not only earned her the nickname “Scarlet,” but may also indicate that the young female orca, J50, came into the world through harrowing means: Pulled out of her mother by other whales using their mouths.

Still, she survived, and for a while restored hope that she could help her pod — part of an embattled population of southern resident killer whales known to frequent the waters near Washington state — to rebuild their numbers.

But Thursday, researchers announced grim news.

“J50 is missing and now presumed dead,” according to a news release from the Center for Whale Research, a group based out of San Juan Island that has studied the southern resident killer whales for more than 40 years. The last known sighting of the 3-year-old orca was on Sept. 7, researchers said.

Without J50, the population is now down to 74 members — their numbers reached nearly 100 in 1995 — and many of its existing female members are nearing the age where they will no longer be able to reproduce, Ken Balcomb, founder and principal investigator of the Center for Whale Research, told The Washington Post in July. The pod has not produced viable offspring in three years.

Read the full story at The Washington Post 

Japan prevented from resuming commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean after failed IWC bid

September 17, 2018 — Japan will not be able to resume commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean after losing its bid at the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Overnight the commission held a meeting in Brazil where Japan’s proposal that would have opened the door to commercial whaling was defeated 41 to 27.

In response, Japan is threatening to quit the commission.

It has been arguing that whale stocks have recovered sufficiently for the ban to be lifted.

Japan’s Agriculture Minister Masaaki Taniai has warned his country will consider its options, if different positions and views cannot coexist.

“Then Japan will be pressed to undertake a fundamental reassessment of its position as a member of the IWC,” he said.

Read the full story at ABC News

New York’s Whales Love Bunker. So Do Fishing Boats. Conflict Ensues.

September 13, 2018 –It has been a bountiful summer for bunker in the waters off New York, and for local whale spotters. Bunker, a favorite food of many larger predators, including whales, are enjoying another year in a decade-long recovery.

But [Paul] Sieswerda, the founder of Gotham Whale, a research nonprofit that provides commentary during whale cruises, sees a shadow on the horizon far bigger than a whale. Industrial-scale fishing boats from a fish processor in Virginia called Omega Protein have ventured a bit farther north than their usual range this summer.

On Aug. 30, a boat from Omega Protein lowered a net nearly six city blocks long into the water, about 25 miles southeast of the Rockaways, and pulled up about 800,000 pounds of bunker, also known as menhaden. On Sept. 6, Omega returned to the vicinity and hauled out nearly 2 million pounds more.

The catches, in federal waters outside the three-mile state line, are perfectly legal. Omega, which grinds and refines the oily, bony fish into pet food and fish-oil capsules and employs 125 fishermen, is authorized to harvest about 500 million menhaden (or about 340 million pounds) this year — over 70 percent of the total menhaden catch, according to quotas set by regulators.

That does not mean they are welcome.

Tom Paladino, a former charter fishing boat captain who started running whale watches from the American Princess in 2010 as local whale sightings began to grow, did not mince words. “We have a major issue with a fishing fleet coming in and taking all the food from the whales,” he told his passengers.

Omega says it is doing nothing of the sort and is removing only a tiny fraction of the local menhaden that its spotter pilots have estimated to be in the tens of millions. “The best science shows that this is a completely sustainable fishery and the whale diet is not being impacted at all,” said an Omega spokesman, Ben Landry.

Omega’s fishermen are not the only ones after local menhaden. Bait fishermen who sell menhaden to the shellfishing trade and also sometimes use purse seine nets can catch three million pounds this year in New York State waters, where Omega doesn’t fish. A bill stalled in the State Legislature would prohibit purse seining of menhaden in New York.

The regional management body for the waters in question, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which has been gradually increasing the allowable catch for menhaden for five years, does not see an issue. This year’s 476-million-pound cap on the Atlantic menhaden catch “has zero percent chance of subjecting the resource to overfishing or causing it to be overfished,” said Toni Kerns, director of the commission’s Interstate Fisheries Management Program.

At the local level, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is not concerned, either. “There’s not been any alarm bells about them coming up here,” James Gilmore, the director of D.E.C.’s marine resources division, said of the Omega Protein boats.

Read the full story at the New York Times

 

Experts Prepare Plan to Capture Ill Orca as Last Alternative

September 13, 2018 — Federal biologists said Wednesday they are preparing a plan to capture and treat a sick, critically endangered orca if there is no other way to save her in the wild.

Officials said they will intervene and rescue the orca only if she becomes stranded or separated from the rest of her tightly knit group of whales.

They want the 4-year-old orca known as J50 to survive in the wild and contribute to the recovery of southern resident killer whales, without putting the rest of the orcas in her pod at risk.

“We don’t intend to intervene while she’s with her family. If we are presented with a situation where a rescue is the only viable alternative, we will rescue her,” Chris Yates, assistant regional administrator for NOAA’s protected resources division, told reporters during a call.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times

California crabbers manage fallout of whale entanglements

September 12, 2018 — The future of California’s iconic Dungeness crab fishery seemed uncertain after a three-year spike in the number of whales entangled in fishing gear from 2015 to 2017. A warm-water blob, domoic acid and a coinciding of whale migrations and fishing caused by the delayed start of the Dungeness crab season spurred a record number of whales and other marine animals to become twisted in crab gear.

Few fisheries were spared entanglement issues on the Pacific Coast, but California Dungeness crab fishermen came under fire for their lines snaring the largest number of whales. Negative publicity, threats of a federal shutdown and a lawsuit in federal court made California crabbers fear the worst.

But with ocean conditions returning in the direction of normal and state legislative effort looking to head off litigation, crab fishermen can breathe easier. Still, there’s no returning to the way things were.

A fisheries omnibus bill making its way through the California Legislature, (S.B. 1309) would give the director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife the ability to implement emergency closures in the Dungeness crab fishery when there’s a “significant risk” of entanglement in a specific area.

The new powers to close the fishery when there’s a threat to marine life would only be effective until November 2020 when the legislation calls for new regulations to be implemented based on the proposals of the California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group — consisting of commercial fishermen, state and federal biologists and NGO representatives.

The director of Fish and Wildlife would have to give 48 hours’ notice before any closure and would have to allow feedback from the crab gear working group.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Ocean Funding Will Benefit Right Whales, Sea Turtles, Salmon

September 11, 2018 — The National Marine Fisheries Service is sending more than $6 million to nearly 30 marine conservation projects as part of its Species Recovery Grant Program.

The grants are designed to help marine species that face threats in the wild. Four of the awards are going to the Maine Department of Marine Resources, which will do an assessment of how fishing impacts endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The Maine department is also getting grants designed to help the salmon population, which has been the focus of years of conservation efforts in the state.

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

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

 

Warming water drawing whales closer to shore

September 10, 2018 — Rising water temperatures have drawn whales closer to shore this year, experts say.

Several humpback whales, and some minke whales, have been seen close to shore, a paddelboarder caught on video just a few feet away from a humpback whale near Salisbury Beach, Mass., a week ago. A humpback was also caught in fishing gear in Rye a couple days before, and footage of close encounters with whales in New England have been posted all over social media and covered in news reports in recent months.

Tony LaCasse, spokesman for the New England Aquarium in Boston, said the higher water temperatures, believed to be brought on by climate change, have led to bait fish called menhaden, locally known as “pogies,” appearing closer to shore.

Pogies, he said, eat plankton that have been growing closer to shore because of the higher water temperatures, and several animals including the whales eat the pogies, following them near land. Drone footage of a whale feeding off the coast of Seabrook over Labor Day weekend went viral this week and made news headlines.

LaCasse said whales have been seen close to shore throughout the region this year with sightings in the mouth of the inner harbor in Boston. New England news stations showed footage recently of a whale in Beverly Harbor in Massachusetts lunge feeding, plowing through a school of fish to gulp a couple hundred pogies in its mouth while sending another hundred or so flying through the air, he said.

“They’re going to be close to shore so long as the menhaden are here,” LaCasse said.

He said the menhaden will migrate from the area when the temperature starts to drop.

Read the full story at Fosters.com