Saving Seafood

Feds Propose PNW Habitat Protections For Orcas And Humpback Whales

November 7, 2019 — Federal wildlife regulators are proposing to designate large swaths of the Pacific Ocean off Oregon, Washington and California as critical habitat for endangered humpback whales and orcas.

One of the habitat designations is specifically for Southern Resident Killer Whales, which spend about half the year in the Salish Sea north of Seattle. They feed on salmon. There are fewer than 80 of these orcas remaining.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is also proposing two critical habitat areas for two distinct groups of humpback whales that breed off the coast of Mexico and Central America. The new habitat designation covers the Pacific Northwest feeding grounds of the whales.

If finalized, the designation would provide an extra level of protection that would require any federally permitted project to consider impacts to the whale habitat.

“That’s anything from an Army Corps of Engineers permit for construction in water to a Navy sonar testing or training activity or NOAA doing a federal approval for a fishery,” said Lynne Barre, recovery coordinator for the NOAA Fisheries Southern Resident Killer Whale program.

Read the full story at OPB

Slower Lobster Season Means High Prices, Worried Fishermen

November 7, 2019 — A drop in the catch of lobsters off Maine has customers paying more and fishermen concerned about the future.

Maine’s harvest of lobsters was about 40% off last year’s pace through September, and while October and November tend to be months of heavy lobster catch, wholesale prices have soared amid the slower supply. Live 1.25-pound lobsters were wholesaling for nearly $10 per pound in the New England market Nov. 1, an increase of nearly 20 percent from a year ago.

The drag in catch has also contributed to an uptick in price at some retail fish markets. Some stores in Maine, which is the center of the U.S. lobster industry, are selling lobsters for $12 per pound. That is about 10% more than a year ago.

The price of lobster is impacted by numerous factors, including foreign demand, beyond just the size of the catch. But such a precipitous drop in supply is bound to create “tremendous upward price pressure,” said John Sackton, an industry analyst and publisher of SeafoodNews.com.

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

Stellwagen Bank NMS seeking advisory council applications – Due Nov 30

November 7, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary is seeking applicants for three primary and four alternate seats on its Sanctuary Advisory Council. The SAC ensures public participation in sanctuary management and provides advice to the sanctuary’s superintendent. The sanctuary is accepting applications for the following seats:

  • Business Industry (Alternate)
  • Conservation (Primary)
  • Education (Alternate)
  • Marine Transportation (Primary)
  • Marine Transportation (Alternate)
  • Recreational Fishing (Primary)
  • Whale Watch (Alternate)

Completed applications are due by November 30, 2019.

Applications received or postmarked after this date will not be considered.

Applicants accepted as advisory council members should expect to serve a 3-year term. The advisory council consists of 36 primary and alternate members representing a variety of public interest groups. It also includes seven seats representing other federal and state government agencies.

Download an application or contact Elizabeth Stokes (781-546-6004) for an application or more information.

Get more information about the Office of National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Councils.

Right whale named Snake Eyes died due to entanglement

November 7, 2019 — The probable cause of the death of a North Atlantic right whale found in September off Long Island is entanglement in fishing gear, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The 40-year-old male whale, known as No. 1226 and named “Snake Eyes,” died after being seen alive in July and August in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In September, researchers performed a necropsy at Jones Beach State Park to determine the cause of death.

Critically endangered right whales — which spend late winter and early spring in Cape Cod Bay and nearby waters — are experiencing what is called an unusual mortality event along the Atlantic coast, given the high number of deaths since 2017, which currently stand at 30, according to NOAA.

There are currently about 400 right whales remaining.

“His death is testament to a couple of important issues,” said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, who directs Whale and Dolphin Conservation in Plymouth. First, the habitats of right whales have shifted both in the United States and Canada and government managers who protect the animals must also shift the areas being managed, Asmutis-Silvia said. Second, fixed gear fisheries, such as commercial lobstering, are an unintentional but lethal threat to the species’ survival, and the faster gear modifications can be implemented the more likely it is that the species and fisheries can both thrive, she said.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

New drone, underwater footage of orcas stuns researchers, gives intimate look at killer whales’ family life

November 6, 2019 — Who knew orcas were so playful, so full of affection, so constantly touching one another?

New footage taken by drone as well as underwater stunned researchers who spent two days with the southern resident orca J pod off the British Columbia coast, including with the newest baby, and more time with northern resident killer whales in B.C.’s Johnstone Strait. The footage taken during three weeks in August and early September was filmed in collaboration with the Hakai Institute, a science research nonprofit.

“It took our breath away,” said Andrew Trites, professor at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries Department of Zoology and director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Trites is co-lead researcher on a study that over five years is taking a close look at resident killer whales and their prey.

The drone footage was gathered non-invasively, with the camera hundreds of feet above the whales, who did not seem to even know it was there, Trites said. Combined with underwater microphones, tracking devices used to follow adult chinook, and underwater footage, a spectacular new look into orcas and their day-to-day life in the wild is emerging.

The big standout so far is just how much the orcas touch one another, something not as visible from a boat.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Maine says data will prove lobstermen aren’t to blame in right whale deaths

November 6, 2019 — Calling a state proposal to reduce the amount of rope lobstermen use “a line in the sand,” Maine’s top fisheries official said Monday that he hoped the state plan generates data that absolves Maine’s lobster fishery from blame in right whale deaths.

Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, told a group of fishermen Monday in Ellsworth that the state’s proposal for reducing the risk to whales of getting tangled in lobster fishing gear does not meet federal regulators’ goal of cutting the number of vertical buoy lines in the water by half. But he said the state’s plan focuses its fishing line reductions in deeper waters offshore, where whales are more likely to come into contact with fishing gear.

“The further offshore you go, the higher the [risk] goes up,” Keliher told roughly 100 people, most of them lobstermen, at The Grand Auditorium. “The way I look at it, this is Maine’s line in the sand.”

Monday’s meeting was the first of three the state is holding about its response to expected new federal regulations that would require lobstermen to use less fishing line and weaker rope from which entangled whales could more easily break free.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine proposes targeted exemptions to help lobster industry weather whale crisis

November 6, 2019 — The state is proposing a modified plan to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale while creating less hardship for the lobster fishing industry than a proposed federal plan.

Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher presented the proposal in Ellsworth Monday night, at the first of three meetings being held this week by the agency.

Maine’s lobster industry, many said, was being unfairly targeted.

“We’ve seen bad science against lobster fishermen in the state of Maine,” said Rocky Alley, president of the Maine Lobstering Union and a Jonesport lobsterman. “When will they come up with new science that makes sense? How many whales have we killed?”

“In the last decade, directly, with Maine gear on them? None,” responded Keliher.

But, he added, “as long as we’re 64% of all endlines on the East Coast, and 90% within all the lobster management areas, we’ll continue to have a bull’s-eye on our back.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

MAINE: Lobstermen at Ellsworth whale meeting ask state to resist federal pressure

November 5, 2019 — A growing number of Maine lobstermen are asking the state to resist federal pressure to change how they fish to protect the endangered right whale and called for state legal action to protect the $565 million a year fishery.

At a hearing in Ellsworth on Monday night, lobstermen chimed in on a state whale protection proposal that calls for a combination of weak rope, gear marking and more traps on offshore buoy lines to reduce the risk to right whales by about 58 percent.

It’s better than earlier plans, which called for the elimination of 50 percent of buoy lines, but it’s still dangerous for Maine fishermen who will be mired waist-deep in rope on deck, and won’t do anything to help the whales, they argued.

“It’s not going to work, there’s got to be a different way,” said Jim Hanscom, a Bar Harbor lobsterman who spoke out against adding more traps to weaker rope. “You’ve got to just buck up and say we can’t do this. it’s just not going to work.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

D.C. court rules fisheries remain closed to help right whales

November 5, 2019 — For all the work going into North Atlantic right whale conservation in Georgia and Florida ahead of another calving season, a political and legal battle continues where the whales live and feed most of the year — off the coast of New England. Thursday, a federal district judge ruled two lobster fisheries can remain closed to protect the lives of right whales moving through the area.

The case began nearly two years ago as a set of environmental groups — the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation, Defenders of Wildlife and the Humane Society of the United States — filed a complaint against the federal government because they disputed the finding of “no jeopardy” to right whales in the lobster fisheries, despite the finding that an average of 3.25 right whales a year would die through gillnet fishing operations.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, also known as NOAA Fisheries, is working on new rules that NMFS states will provide additional protections to North Atlantic right whales in lobster fisheries, and that the rulemaking should be complete by around the middle of 2020. As such, the agency filed a motion to stay the case, which Judge James Boasberg denied.

Read the full story at The Brunswick News

MAINE: Lobster industry braces for right whale changes amid turbulent times

November 4, 2019 — Maine lobstermen have had a lot to juggle this year, with hugely fluctuating bait bills and a dismal start to the season, but nothing has caused as much anxiety for Maine’s most valuable fishery as the changes coming to protect the endangered right whale.

“Right now, we’re all fishing hard, so it’s taking our mind off it some, but it feels like we’ve been waiting and worrying about what whales might do to us for so long now,” said Jake Thompson, a Vinalhaven lobsterman. “We can manage the rest of it, but whales? Everybody’s worried about whales.”

Lobstermen will have a chance to weigh in on Maine’s plan to protect the endangered right whale from buoy line entanglements at Maine Department of Marine Resources meetings in Ellsworth, Waldoboro and South Portland this week. The state’s final plan will go to federal regulators later this month.

The proposal would require lobstermen to add more traps to buoy lines set farther from shore, use rope that whales can break free from if entangled, report where and how they fish on each trip out, and mark their gear purple and green so it can be identified as Maine lobster gear if it is found on a whale.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald