Saving Seafood

Fishing-gear entanglements of whales increased in Alaska, NOAA report says

June 30, 2022 — Alaska was the only U.S. coastal region to have an increase in the confirmed cases of large whales entangled in fishing gear in 2020, a contrast to a national trend of declining cases over the past six to eight years, according to a report issued Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Of the 53 cases of large whales entangled in fishing gear nationally in 2020, 11 occurred in Alaska, according to the report, from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. The previous year, there were 75 confirmed cases of whale entanglements nationwide, with nine of them occurring in Alaska, according to a separate report for 2019 also released Tuesday by the fisheries service.

The vast majority of confirmed Alaska whale entanglements — and the vast majority of entanglements nationally — involved humpback whales. In 2020, 10 of the Alaska cases involved live whales, and eight of those involved humpback whales. All but one of the confirmed Alaska entanglements of live large whales in 2020 occurred in waters of Southeast Alaska, according to the report.

Humpback whales are relatively plentiful among the large whale species, the report for 2020 notes. “Humpback whales are found in all the world’s oceans and several populations have rebounded in recent years, so the frequency of entanglements seen in this species could be due to many factors, such as the increasing number of whales, a high degree of overlap in distribution of whales, growing coastal communities, and fishing effort, or a combination of these or additional factors,” it said.

Read the full story at KTOO

River Traps Chew at Huge Ocean Plastics Problem

June 16, 2022 — Floating fences in India. Whimsical water- and solar-driven conveyor belts with googly eyes in Baltimore. Rechargeable aquatic drones and a bubble barrier in The Netherlands.

These are some of the sophisticated and at times low-tech inventions being deployed to capture plastic trash in rivers and streams before it can pollute the world’s oceans.

The devices are fledgling attempts to dent an estimated 8.8 million tons (8 metric tons) of plastic that gets into the ocean every year. Once there, it maims or kills marine plants and animals including whales,dolphins, and seabirds and accumulates in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and other vast swirls of currents.

Trash-gobbling traps on rivers and other waterways won’t eliminate ocean plastic but can help reduce it, say officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

 

Study says whales adapting to climate change; so too must mariners and fishermen

June 15, 2022 — A review of 20 years of data tracking the highly endangered north Atlantic right whale shows the population has shifted its feeding and migration patterns significantly, as sea temperatures in the Gulf of Maine warm with climate change.

The findings show that government-enforced protections for right whales – already requiring restrictions on vessel speed limits and fishermen’s lobster and fish trap lines and buoys – will need to be adjusted as the whales shift their movements and habitats.

After two decades of warming waters in the Gulf of Maine, right whales – a population now estimated at just 336 animals at risk from ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear – are relying much more on Cape Cod Bay as their food supply has changed.

“The time of year when we are most likely to see right and humpback whales in Cape Cod Bay has changed considerably, and right whales are using the habitat much more heavily than they did 20 years ago,” said Dan Pendleton, a research scientist at the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, in a summary issued by the aquarium. Pendleton is lead author of the study and its team of whale scientists in the U.S. and Canada.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

WPFMC trying to tackle suite of issues, criticizes lack of NOAA support

April 8, 2022 — The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (WPFMC) is trying to tackle multiple problems faced in its jurisdiction, including ineffective whale bycatch solutions, U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) consultations, creating more-equitable fisheries, and issues regarding fishery rights in American Samoa.

The council has been working to tackle how to handle false killer whale bycatch in the region’s tuna fisheries – mainly in Hawai’i and American Samoa. In 2013, a plan to use weaker circle hooks that are 4.5 millimeters or less in diameter was created. The weaker hooks were supposed straighten and release whales caught while still remaining strong enough to hook bigeye tuna and other marketable fish species.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

MAINE: House advances bill to support lobster fishing industry

March 28, 2022 — The Maine House delivered a strong bipartisan vote Thursday to advance a measure sponsored by Rep. Holly Stover, D-Boothbay, that would provide direct relief funds to Maine’s lobster fishermen impacted by recent federal regulatory changes. The vote was 116-18.

Following the closure of approximately 1,000 square miles of federal waters off the coast of Maine, LD 1898 would establish the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Impact Fund to provide compensation for the immediate financial losses felt by lobster fishermen.

Read the full story at the Boothbay Register

 

Lawmakers eye grants to fund innovation to save right whales

February 22, 2022 — Lawmakers from Massachusetts and New Jersey want to set up a new grant program to help develop technology that assists in saving a rare species of whale from extinction.

The North Atlantic right whale numbers less than 340 and faces threats from collisions with large ships and entanglement in fishing gear. They are the subject of numerous new fishing rules designed to improve their chances of survival.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

 

Alaska fisherman’s photos could be first visual evidence of North Pacific right whales in the Bering Sea in winter

February 17, 2022 — Josh Trosvig is the captain of the Cerulean, a 58-foot boat currently fishing for cod in the Bering Sea, about 80 miles northeast of Unalaska.

On a sunny day earlier this month, while he was waiting for the tide to change, he said he spotted something that looked like a large tote bobbing on the surface of the water, about 300 feet from his boat.

It turned out to be a group of whales.

But not just any whales.

“I’ve seen a lot of whales — thousands, tens of thousands in my 35 years of fishing out here,” Trosvig said. “But this was unique. I’ve never seen whales feed like that.”

Trosvig didn’t know it at the time, but the whales he was watching were North Pacific right whales. They’re critically endangered. And scientists say Trosvig is likely the first person to take photos and video of the whales feeding in the Bering Sea in the winter.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Right whales giving birth a cause for excitement, but not enough to save endangered species

February 7, 2022 — Each of the 13 calves born so far this winter have been greeted with joy, the news shared along the whales’ migration route from the waters off New England and Canada to the calving grounds off Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

But with an estimated population at 336 and falling, there’s no escaping the math, or the impact of human activities on the world’s most endangered large whale.

An estimated 30 whales die each year, according to federal officials. Vessel traffic, commercial fishing gear and a warming climate all threaten the whales.

An average of 11 calves were born each season over the past decade. It would take four times that many over a number of years to bring the whales back to a sustainable population, said Barb Zoodsma, large whale recovery coordinator for the Southeast for the National Marine Fisheries Service. “We’ve never seen that many calves.”

Read the full story from USA Today

Suit: Agencies fail to protect marine species from oil

January 27, 2022 — A conservation group says in a lawsuit that the U.S. government failed to protect endangered whales and other animals by underestimating the potential for an oil spill like a recent crude pipeline leak off California’s coast.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday saying Interior Department agencies and the National Marine Fisheries Service didn’t ensure offshore oil and gas production wouldn’t jeopardize endangered and threatened species in accordance with U.S. law.

The lawsuit says the Service found in a 2017 analysis that oil and gas production wouldn’t likely have an adverse effect on threatened marine life off California’s coast, there was a low likelihood of an offshore oil spill and if one occurred, it would likely involve no more than 8,400 gallons (31,800 liters). The suit asks the court to vacate the analysis and bar new oil activity unless government agencies comply with the law protecting endangered species.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

 

Climate Extreme Intensifies Conflict Between People and Whales

December 2, 2021 — New research looks at how a climate extreme intensifies tensions between ocean life and people, and what can be done about it. The study was recently published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B.

Researchers show that many strategies are insufficient during prolonged, anomalous warm water events called marine heatwaves. Instead, they recommend combining several approaches, including improved forecast systems, technological innovations, and understanding human behavior.

Over the past few years, marine heatwaves have dramatically affected natural resources along the U.S. West Coast, including economically valuable fisheries. Still, we know very little about how and when management actions can dampen their impacts on marine life and the people who rely on the ocean for their livelihoods.

An ecological pileup of recent unprecedented changes in the ocean off the West Coast led to record numbers of reported entanglements of humpback and other whales. These conditions put California’s Dungeness crab fishery, the region’s most valuable commercial fishery, at odds with the conservation of several at-risk whale species.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries