Saving Seafood

Advisory group grapples with right whale protection measures

October 15, 2018 — A week of meetings about how commercial fishermen could reduce harm to the imperiled North Atlantic right whales ended Friday with an immediate focus on exploring more temporary area closures with possible testing of new technologies, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries biologist Colleen Coogan, an organizer of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team.

“There was extremes on both ends,” Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association president Arthur Sawyer said of pitches made at the monthly take reduction team meeting in Providence, Rhode Island.

Interest seemed to land on the possibilities of weaker rope, with 1,700 pounds as maximum breaking strength. That could allow right whales to break free of entanglements more easily, Sawyer said. “That was kind of middle of the road,” he said, and might be able to be put in place in the near future, although it might not be useful in deep water.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Ropes are latest flashpoint in tug of war over endangered right whales

October 15, 2018 — The lobster industry is willing to consider switching to weaker rope to protect the endangered right whale from deadly entanglements, but whale defenders say that doesn’t go far enough to help a species that can’t bear even one more death.

A team of scientists, regulators, animal rights groups and fishermen met this week in Providence to review proposals to help a species that has dwindled to about 450 individuals after coming back from the brink of extinction.

The team is advising the National Marine Fisheries Service on how to prevent whales from getting entangled in fishing gear as they migrate, feed and mate as they travel back and forth along the East Coast of the United States and Canada.

The team agreed on a lot of measures that could help them understand why the whales are dying, like putting distinctive marks on all fishing gear so regulators can know which fisheries pose the biggest threat, but not on how to actually stop entanglement deaths.

Led by Maine regulators and fishermen, the lobster industry agreed Friday to explore weaker vertical lines – the rope that links seabed traps to a surface buoy – in areas where whales gather in numbers or eat, an act that puts them at greater risk of a fatal entanglement.

Rope strength limits would represent “a giant step forward,” lobster industry officials said.

“We pushed ourselves way beyond our comfort zones to present this idea with a bow on it,” said Patrice McCarron, director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “Let’s get the low-hanging fruit and find gear that we could actually fish and get in the water.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Whale protection, trawl limits entangle Maine lobstermen

October 10, 2018 — DEER ISLE, Maine — October is a peak month, according to the state Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, for feistiness in Maine’s population of hornets and wasps. Lobstermen too, judging by last week’s meeting of the Zone C Lobster Management Council at Deer Isle-Stonington High School.

The principal irritant is the still-simmering conflict over a rule adopted by DMR at the beginning of August establishing a five-trap maximum trawl limit for a 60-square-mile rectangle centered, more or less, on Mount Desert Rock.

The trawl limit was proposed by the Zone B management council last winter. The problem is that much of the western part of that area is fished by lobstermen based in Zone C — primarily Stonington and Deer Isle — who bitterly opposed adoption of a rule that Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher called “one of the more difficult decisions that I have made.”

Last week, the Zone C council reviewed a proposed rule change that would eliminate the five-trap maximum in a large area west of Mount Desert Rock. While that might improve the situation for some Zone C lobstermen, the underlying problem reflects unhappiness on the part of lobstermen from Zone B, with limited entry for new fishermen, over the number of lobstermen from Zone C who fish across the zone line in waters they fished before the zones were ever established.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

 

In Changing Climate, Endangered Right Whales Find New Feeding Grounds

October 10, 2018 — Amy Knowlton pilots the 29-foot research vessel Nereid out of Lubec harbor and into the waters of the Bay of Fundy, off of easternmost Maine. A scientist with the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life Knowlton points to harbor porpoises chasing fish in the wind-swept waters on a recent morning.

Then something much larger appears off the stern.

“Whale behind us,” Knowlton says, steering closer. “It’s probably a humpback or fin whale, we’ll get a better look.”

It turns out to be two humpback whales — a cool sighting, but not the kind she is after.

Knowlton is hoping to find the endangered North Atlantic right whales that she and her colleagues have been studying in these waters since 1980.

Right whales are large cetaceans, with big heads and no dorsal fins. Researchers used to count as many as 200 foraging here in late summer. But the whales became scarce starting in 2010, and their range shifted dramatically. Many more are now summering hundreds of miles north, off Canadian shores in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. More than 130 have been spotted there in recent months.

Marianna Hagbloom, a research assistant on Knowlton’s team, surveyed that area in August and said it was nothing like the Bay of Fundy.

“We had days where we were seeing about 50 individuals,” Hagbloom says. “Just right whales popping up left and right. It’s a beautiful thing to see.”

Read the full story at NPR

MAINE: Groups Say There’s Little Evidence That Lobster Industry Is Harming Right Whales

October 9, 2018 — Maine Department of Marine Resources commissioner Patrick Keliher has sent a letter to NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, refuting a recent memo which suggests that the lobster industry may be playing a role in the decline of the North Atlantic Right Whale.

“This publication, this technical memo as written, really creates a challenge for folks who want to have a conversation that’s based on really sound science,” says Jeff Nichols, spokesperson for Maine DMR.

Nichols says, as an example, there’s little evidence to support the notion that lobstermen are using “tougher rope” than they did prior to 2015, contributing to entanglements. And he says the memo attempts to link whale entanglement risk to the amount of lobster being landed.

“To say that because Maine landings are on the increase, the risk is also on the increase is not borne out by the data,” Nichols says.

Executive Director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, Patrice McCarron, has also questioned the data and its relevance, as none of the 17 North Atlantic Right Whale deaths recorded last year occurred in Maine, where the bulk of lobstering takes place.

Nichols says the department does have “lingering questions” about what role an emerging Canadian snow crab industry may be playing.

The letter reiterates concerns that have emerged from the industry since the report was released.

Read the full story at Maine Public

MAINE: Gubernatorial candidates vow to back lobster industry in upcoming fight

October 9, 2018 — All four candidates for governor pledged to defend Maine’s $434 million-a-year lobster industry a week before regulators consider new rules that could severely affect the industry.

Specifically, the candidates addressed aggressive right whale protections that environmental groups are seeking in court from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, proposals such as moving from a rope-based industry to a ropeless fishery, seasonal closures of western Gulf of Maine lobster fishing in April, and cutting in half the number of traps or vertical lines that could entangle whales.

Independent Alan Caron, Democrat Janet Mills, Republican Shawn Moody and independent Terry Hayes took turns answering some questions, dodging others and hailing the importance of Maine fisheries on Thursday at a forum on the seafood industry in Rockland attended by about 150 people and watched live online by more than 1,000 others.

Moody, a self-made millionaire from Gorham, called the concept of ropeless fishing a joke, something “you can’t even say with a straight face,” which pleased all the lobstermen in the audience. Caron, a political strategist, said NOAA doesn’t understand the whale problem well enough yet to take drastic actions against the fishery that could hurt the Maine economy and put people out of work.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Measures to protect North Atlantic right whales have been effective, official says

October 9, 2018 — Representatives of the fishing industry and Fisheries and Oceans Canada met in Moncton over the weekend to look at the impact protection measures were having on the North Atlantic right whale — and to help decide what should happen next year.

The 2018 fishing season has been controversial, with fishermen in the Acadian Peninsula protesting the new federal measures that were put in place to protect the North Atlantic right whale.

Some of those measures included closing several fisheries where whales were present in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, speed restrictions for boats and increased surveillance.

“I think it was huge this year, the collaboration. The fishermen were very good at monitoring the management measures,” said Serge Doucet, regional director of Fisheries and Oceans Canada for the Gulf of St. Lawrence, speaking in French.

Doucet noted that no North Atlantic right whales died in Canadian waters this year from entanglements or collisions with fishing boats.

And although there have been some interactions with whales this year, the department believes that measures to protect right whales have been effective so far.

“There were challenges, it was not easy for all fishermen,” he said. “But their commitment to protect whales is there.”

Read the full story at CBC News

Lobster industry blasts proposed regulations intended to protect whales

October 5, 2018 — Maine officials and members of the state’s lobster industry are blasting a new federal report on the endangered right whale, claiming it uses old science to unfairly target the fishery for restrictions.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources, the agency that regulates the $434 million lobster fishery, and the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, the trade group representing Maine’s 4,500 active commercial lobstermen, question the scientific merits of the report from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, which was issued in advance of next week’s meeting of a federal right whale protection advisory team.

“They’re painting a big target on the back of the Maine lobster industry, but the picture isn’t based on the best available science,” DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher said Thursday. “If we use the wrong starting point, and that’s what this report is, the wrong starting point, what kind of regulations will we end up with? Ones that could end up hurting the lobster industry for no reason and won’t do much to help the right whales. That is unfair.”

Read the full story at Portland Press Herald

 

HAWAII: Kauai counters seeing fewer whales, too

October 4, 2018 — Annual February humpback whale counts from Kauai have dipped to less than half the number they were in 2014, keeping in rhythm with recent statewide research.

Every year the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary holds three counts during the time the whales are in Hawaii — once in January, once in February and the last in March.

Humpback whales are generally in Hawaiian waters from November to May, with peak season being January through March, to breed and have their young.

The 2017 season on Kauai kicked off early, with the one of the first sightings reported Oct. 18, from a Blue Dolphin Adventures tour.

The counts occur simultaneously throughout the islands, with volunteers recording whale sightings during 15-minute periods and on Kauai, data is accumulated from 15 sites.

In March 2015, Kauai and the Big Island averaged two whales every 15 minutes, and Oahu averaged three every 15 minutes.

March 2014 yielded an average of three whales every 15 minutes on Kauai and Oahu, and two per every 15-minute time period on the Big Island.

Kauai reported four whale sightings every 15 minutes in March 2013, and Hawaii and Oahu calculated an average of three. That year, Kauai averaged two whale sightings from all sites.

Researchers have recorded a decline in the number of whale sightings, but also the number of songs and sightings of mother and calf pairs.

Read the full story at The Garden Island

Defenders of endangered right whales pursue limits on aquaculture

October 4, 2018 — Right whale defenders are now taking aim at aquaculture as they try to protect the highly endangered species from deadly fishing gear entanglements.

Advocates usually focus on the lobster industry, which is estimated to account for a million surface-to-seabed trap lines in East Coast waters, when talking about entanglement risks faced by the North Atlantic right whale, whose numbers have now dwindled to fewer than 450. But animal rights groups asking for federal intervention to avoid extinction of the whales are now asking regulators to reduce the threat of aquaculture entanglement, too.

Researchers from Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a U.K.-based nonprofit that advocates for marine animals, want regulators to reduce surface-to-seabed lines in all Gulf of Maine fisheries, not just lobstering. They name aquaculture and gill net as rope-based fishing methods that are known to entrap, injure and kill both humpback and right whales. They say it’s not fair for regulators, who are meeting next week, to seek rope reduction from lobstermen while issuing permits for other fisheries that use similar rope.

The proposal does not say how to implement this aquaculture reduction, or if it should apply to in-shore, near-shore or offshore operations. Maine has a small but rapidly growing aquaculture industry, accounting for about a quarter of Maine’s documented $6.5 million-a-year shellfish harvest. But consultants believe the value of Maine’s farmed oysters, mussels and scallops will more than quadruple in value over 15 years.

A market analysis prepared for the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in 2016 predicts Maine’s shellfish aquaculture industry will grow to $30 million by 2030.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald