Saving Seafood

PFMC: Southern Resident Killer Whale Workgroup to hold online meeting June 1, 2020

May 6, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Pacific Fishery Management Council’s (Pacific Council)  Ad Hoc Southern Resident Killer Whale Workgroup (Workgroup) will meet via webinar, and this meeting will be open to the public.  The  webinar meeting will be held on Monday, June 1, 2020, from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, or until business for the day has been completed.

Please see the SRKW Workgroup online meeting notice on the Council’s website for participation details.

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff officer Robin Ehlke at 503-820-2410; toll-free 1-866-806-7204.

In another significant ruling for right whales, a federal judge rules that Massachusetts is violating the Endangered Species Act

May 4, 2020 — In another shot across the bow of the lobster industry, a federal judge ruled Thursday that state regulators have violated the Endangered Species Act by licensing lobstermen to use fishing gear that entangles North Atlantic right whales.

The ruling requires Massachusetts officials to obtain a permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service to license vertical buoy lines, the ropes that connect lobster traps on the seafloor to buoys at the surface.

Those lines are vital to the fishery but have been the leading cause of death of right whales over the past decade, accounting for more than half of all known causes. In the past three years, 30 right whales have died, reducing their population to around 400.

In her ruling, Judge Indira Talwani of the US District Court in Boston said the continued use of buoy lines was likely to cause further harm to right whales, which scientists say could become functionally extinct within the next 20 years.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobster season opens on time after right whales move out of Cape Cod bay

May 1, 2020 — Lobster season for the South Shore will begin as planned after endangered right whales, spotted in Cape Cod Bay, moved out of the area.

The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies estimated five whales, including two mother-and-calf pairs, were feeding in Cape Cod Bay, following an aerial survey on April 25. On Wednesday, another aerial inspection over the area found the whales had moved out of the bay and adjacent waters, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries said in an announcement Thursday afternoon.

The Division previously extended the opening of the season to May 8 because the whales were spotted, spokesman Craig Gilvarg said in a statement. North Atlantic right whales are an endangered species and vulnerable to buoy entanglement and getting hit by boats, because they feed near the surface.

“Everybody is anxious to go,” John Haviland, president of the South Shore Lobster Fishermen’s Association, said. “They’ve been standing around for three months, basically in quarantine.”

Read the full story at The Patriot Ledger

Washington lawsuit targets Alaska trollers

April 29, 2020 — Nearly 1,600 trollers who fish for king salmon in Southeast Alaska could be beached this summer over a lawsuit to protect killer whales — in Washington’s Puget Sound.

On April 16 the Wild Fish Conservancy filed an injunction against NMFS to block the summer king salmon season set to open July 1 until the lawsuit is resolved.

KCAW in Sitka reported the Conservancy claims NOAA has failed to allow enough king salmon to return to Puget Sound to feed endangered resident killer whales. Their lawsuit says that 97 percent of the kings caught in Southeast’s troll fishery are from British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. Alaska data show catches range from 30 to 80 percent, depending on the year.

Amy Daugherty, director of the Alaska Trollers Association, said her group is in shock and has intervened in the lawsuit.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

California Dungeness crabbers protest early shutdown

April 29, 2020 — California state officials are ordering an early end to the southern Dungeness crab season May 15 to protect migrating whales, a move fishing advocates say is out of proportion to the actual risk.

In an April 15 notice Charlton Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, announced the Dungeness season would close and all gear pulled by mid-May, two months early, south of the Mendocino-Sonoma County line.

The decision comes as the fishery is winding down, with the California fleet gearing up for a promising salmon season that opens May 1. But it cuts off a sector that is providing jobs and seafood in coastal communities hit hard by coronavirus restrictions and their economic impact, said Ben Platt, president of the California Coast Crab Association.

“They say that there’s ‘significant risk.’ But the whale working group determined there was low risk, as they have in all of the recommendations this season,” said Platt, referring to a stakeholder advisory group established in 2015 to assess seasonal risks of gear entanglement.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NOAA extends protection zone for rare whales off Cape Ann, Boston

April 29, 2020 — Federal ocean managers are asking mariners to continue slowing down east of Boston and Cape Ann because of sightings of rare right whales in the area.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it is asking mariners to go around the area or travel through it at 10 knots or less until May 9.

The group of whales was spotted on April 24. Right whales number only about 400 and are one of the rarest large ocean animals. Their population was decimated by whaling, which is now illegal. Their population remains in jeopardy because of recent high mortality and poor reproduction.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Silence is golden for whales as lockdown reduces ocean noise

April 28, 2020 — In cities, human lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic have offered some respite to the natural world, with clear skies and the return of wildlife to waterways. Now evidence of a drop in underwater noise pollution has led experts to predict the crisis may also be good news for whales and other sea mammals.

Researchers examining real-time underwater sound signals from seabed observatories run by Ocean Networks Canada near the port of Vancouver found a significant drop in low-frequency sound associated with ships.

David Barclay, assistant professor of oceanography at Dalhousie University, the lead author of a paper reviewing the phenomena, examined sound power – a way of measuring “loudness” – in the 100 Hz range from two sites, one inland and one farther offshore. He found a significant drop in noise from both.

Generally, we know underwater noise at this frequency has effects on marine mammals,” Barclay said.

“There has been a consistent drop in noise since 1 January, which has amounted to a change of four or five decibels in the period up to 1 April,” he said. Economic data from the port showed a drop of around 20% in exports and imports over the same period, he said.

The deep ocean site, around 60km from the shipping lanes and in 3,000 metres of water, also showed a drop in average weekly noise of 1.5 decibels, or around a 15% decrease in power, Barclay said. “This gives us an idea of the scale over which this reduction in noise can be observed.”

The reduction in ship traffic in the ocean, which Barclay compares to a “giant human experiment”, has had scientists racing to find out the effect on marine life.

Read the full story at The Guardian

CAROL SMITH: Maine lobstermen are not a threat to right whales

April 27, 2020 — U.S. District Court Judge James Boasburg’s recent ruling is the latest blow to Maine’s billion-dollar industry. Boasburg’s decision that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration violated the Endangered Species Act by authorizing the American lobster fishery despite its potential to harm the North Atlantic right whale population comes on the heels of new regulations imposed on fishermen last year. With many fishermen just starting to mark their fishing gear according to the new regulations, Boasburg’s ruling has left them in a state of uncertainty. Will this be the end of the industry as they know it?

Maine’s lobster industry provides an estimated 5,500 jobs throughout the state, according to a study conducted by Colby College and Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association in 2016. In a state with a population of 1.3 million, 5,500 jobs may seem expendable. However, the fishermen themselves are often the main source of income for their households. In Washington County, where unemployment is the highest in the state, households dependent on lobster fishermen rely on the fishery for an average of 77 percent of household income, according to a 2012 study by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. The death of the fishery would throw many into poverty, and others would be forced to leave their coastal homes to find work.

To add insult to injury, Boasburg’s ruling represents a mere stripe in a pattern of striking injustice. Since June 2017, right whale mortalities have been on the rise, a pattern that has been declared an Unusual Mortality Event by NOAA. However, according to current statistics from NOAA Fisheries, 21 of the 30 dead stranded whales for the UME were found in Canada. Of the nine found in the U.S., only five were confirmed or suspected of entanglement, and not a single one was found in Maine waters. Furthermore, NOAA has only documented Maine lobster gear on three live entangled whales, most recently in 2004. None has been documented on a dead right whale.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News

North Atlantic right whales are in much poorer condition than their Southern counterparts

April 27, 2020 — The following was released by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution:

A new study by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists and their colleagues reveals that endangered North Atlantic right whales are in much poorer body condition than their counterparts in the southern hemisphere. The international research team, led by Fredrik Christiansen from Aarhus University in Denmark, published their findings April 23, 2020, in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.

Using drones and a method called aerial photogrammetry to measure the body length and width of individual right whales in four regions around the world, the team compared body condition of individual North Atlantic right whales with individuals from three increasing populations of Southern right whales: off Argentina, Australia and New Zealand.

From aerial photographs, the researchers estimated the body volume of individual whales, which they then used to derive an index of body condition or relative fatness. The analyses revealed that individual North Atlantic right whales—juveniles, adults and mothers—were all in poorer body condition than individual whales from the three populations of Southern right whales.

“For North Atlantic right whales as individuals, and as a species, things are going terribly wrong,” says WHOI researcher Michael Moore, a coauthor of the paper. “This comparison with their southern hemisphere relatives shows that most individual North Atlantic right whales are in much worse condition than they should be.”

Read the full release here

California crab fishery to close in May to protect whales

April 27, 2020 — Commercial fishermen are protesting an order by California wildlife authorities to close the Dungeness crab fishery in mid-May to protect whales and sea turtles from becoming entangled in fishing gear.

There have been no confirmed interactions between commercial Dungeness crab gear and any whales during the current crab season, which began in December, Ben Platt, president of the Crescent City-based California Coast Crab Association, said in a statement.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton H. Bonham on Wednesday ordered the fishery to close on May 15 for the remainder of the season south of the Sonoma-Mendocino county line, which is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of San Francisco.

Acknowledging challenges facing the commercial fishing industry during the coronavirus pandemic, the department said the decision “provides additional time on the water while balancing the need to protect whales and turtles.”

Read the full story at The North Bay Business Journal