Saving Seafood

Correction: Public Scoping Meetings for Modifications to Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan

August 13, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

We will be conducting eight scoping meetings this month in anticipation of preparing a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for modifications to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan.

We are requesting comments on management options particularly including information about operational challenges, time, and costs required to modify gear by changing configurations such as traps per trawl to reduce endline numbers, installing new line or sleeves and by expanding gear marking requirements.

Read the full release here

MASSACHUSETTS: NOAA to meet with public about possible new whale protection

August 12, 2019 — Federal officials will meet with fishermen and other members of the public in a series of meetings about possible changes to rules designed to protect vulnerable whales.

A federal team has called for gear modifications and a reduction of the vertical trap lines in the Gulf of Maine to reduce the risk of entanglement, injury and of death of North Atlantic right whales, which number about 400, by 60 percent.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it’s looking for comments on the new management options, which have been highly criticized by some lobster stakeholders and public officials, particularly in Maine.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Federal officials urge boaters to be cautious about right, humpback whales

August 9th, 2019 — Watch out for the whales.

The fisheries division of the NOAA for the New England region on Friday tweeted out that “Humpback #whales are showing up all along our coasts! Please keep everyone safe and follow the law by giving them space to behave naturally.”

The regulators urged boaters to keep their vessels at least 100 feet from the whales, or 600 feet “if other boats are around. Space prevents accidental collisions and helps you adhere to the law.”

North Atlantic right whales need even more room. “Please note: North Atlantic right whales require 500 yards of space,” the NOAA tweeted.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Watch as a response team helps partially untangle a right whale

August 8, 2019 — A right whale received some extra help off the coast of Cape Cod as a response team partially disentangled him Aug. 2.

“Despite a horrific entanglement, the whale was highly mobile,” according to the Center for Coastal Studies.

This particular whale, a male, was initially discovered July 4 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. He was spotted again July 19, and a team from the New England Aquarium was able to attach a telemetry buoy to the whale to track his movements, the center said.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MASSACHUSETTS: Young humpback whale sighted in Boston shipping lanes

August 7, 2019 — A young humpback whale has been reported swimming for the past three days in the shipping channel in Boston Harbor, according to a statement issued Tuesday by New England Aquarium.

The 30- to 33-foot whale was born in 2018 to the well-known humpback Whirlygig and would likely have been weaned by its mother last fall, the statement says. It has probably been on its own since early this year. The young whale has been seen feeding alongside one of the dredge barges that is deepening the channel.

“It actually isn’t a calf, but rather a yearling, meaning it was born last year and no longer with a mom,” humpback expert Jooke Robbins, with the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, said. “We just haven’t named it yet and so we are still referring to it as Whirlygig 18 calf. It really isn’t unusual for young whales to wander into nearshore habitats.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

CCS Team Frees Minke Whale from Entanglement, Shark

August 7, 2019 — The Center for Coastal Studies’ Marine Animal Entanglement Response Team freed an entangled minke whale last Thursday off Rockport and saved it from a great white shark.

The 18-foot whale was anchored by gear with rope through its mouth and around its tail.

The whale had a deep cut from the rope and minor bleeding had attracted a great white.

A video showing the extent of the entanglement can be viewed below.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

MASSACHUSETTS: Provincetown rescue team frees entangled right whale off Cape Cod coast

August 7, 2019 — On Friday, Aug. 2 the Marine Animal Entanglement Response team (MAER) from the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS), in collaboration with the Northeastern Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) partially disentangled a North Atlantic right whale, one of only about 400 individuals left, east of Cape Cod.

The entangled whale was initially discovered in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, on July 4, 2019 by Transport Canada. Despite a horrific entanglement, the whale was highly mobile. On July 19 it was spotted again by an aerial survey team from NEFSC and the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. A response team from New England Aquarium (NEAQ) was in the area and succeeded in attaching a telemetry buoy to the whale to track its movements for disentanglement.

Over the next two weeks the whale traveled east, out of the Gulf, then south, past Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. During that time Canadian disentanglement teams made several attempts to free the animal and were able to make some cuts to its entanglement.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Scientists Say More Right Whales Are Dying Off Canada As Climate Change Disrupts Food Sources

August 6, 2019 — For the past several years, including this one, endangered North Atlantic right whales appear to have been bypassing traditional feeding grounds off Maine’s coast, congregating instead off Canada in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where some are dying.

Scientists are working hard to understand that shift, while lobstermen here in Maine say it shows the whales’ risk of entanglement in their gear is overblown.

For decades, the North Atlantic right whales’ annual migration took them from the Florida coast up past Maine and into the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, where, from midsummer to fall, they would feast together on massive plumes of tiny crustaceans.

But these days, the whales are showing up far from their usual haunts.

Read the full story at Maine Public

NOAA seeks fishing industry comments on reducing risk of whale entanglement

August 5, 2019 — The Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office is holding meetings to solicit public comments on ways to reduce the risk of entanglement in trap and pot fisheries for right, humpback, and finback whales.

NOAA will be conducting eight scoping meetings this month, four of which will be in Maine.

This is being done in anticipation of preparing a draft Environmental Impact Statement for modifications to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan.

One of those meetings will take place in Waldoboro, on Wednesday, Aug. 14, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., at Medomak Valley High School.

NOAA is requesting comments on management options particularly including information about operational challenges, time, and costs required to modify gear by changing configurations such as traps per trawl to reduce endline numbers, installing new line or sleeves and by expanding gear marking requirements.

Written comments are also welcomed.

Electronic Submission: Submit all electronic public comments by sending an email to gar.ALWTRT2019@noaa.gov using the subject line “Comments on Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan Scoping.”

Read the full story at the Penobscot Bay Pilot

Two percent of the world’s North Atlantic right whales have died in the last two months

August 1, 2019 — A Canadian surveillance plane was scanning the waters of Gulf of St. Lawrence when it made a grisly discovery: The carcass of a North Atlantic right whale, one of some 400 remaining in the world, was drifting in the current, much of its skin sloughed off.

From there, the news would only get worse. The next day, another dead right whale was spotted in the same body of water. And an 18-year-old right whale was entangled in fishing gear near Quebec, with a rope cutting into its head and over its blowhole.

It’s been a devastating summer for the endangered marine mammal. Since the start of June, eight North Atlantic right whales — or 2 percent of the global population — have been found dead in Canadian waters, alarming scientists, conservationists and government officials who had believed they had begun to make progress in protecting the imperiled species.

“It’s a horrifying step toward extinction,” said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, the executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conservation USA. “They’re a quiet, understated superhero, and we’re losing them.”

Necropsy results are still pending for most of the whales, but preliminary findings for three of them suggest ship strikes.

Particularly troubling about this year’s deaths is that four of the whales were breeding females, of which fewer than 100 remain. Calving rates have dropped 40 percent since 2010, according to scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, making the deaths of the females a major blow.

“This is currently very clearly not sustainable,” said Philip Hamilton, a research scientist at the New England Aquarium in Boston. “At this rate, in 20 years, we’re going to have no more breeding females, and the population will be effectively extinct.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post