Saving Seafood

Warming water drawing whales closer to shore

September 10, 2018 — Rising water temperatures have drawn whales closer to shore this year, experts say.

Several humpback whales, and some minke whales, have been seen close to shore, a paddelboarder caught on video just a few feet away from a humpback whale near Salisbury Beach, Mass., a week ago. A humpback was also caught in fishing gear in Rye a couple days before, and footage of close encounters with whales in New England have been posted all over social media and covered in news reports in recent months.

Tony LaCasse, spokesman for the New England Aquarium in Boston, said the higher water temperatures, believed to be brought on by climate change, have led to bait fish called menhaden, locally known as “pogies,” appearing closer to shore.

Pogies, he said, eat plankton that have been growing closer to shore because of the higher water temperatures, and several animals including the whales eat the pogies, following them near land. Drone footage of a whale feeding off the coast of Seabrook over Labor Day weekend went viral this week and made news headlines.

LaCasse said whales have been seen close to shore throughout the region this year with sightings in the mouth of the inner harbor in Boston. New England news stations showed footage recently of a whale in Beverly Harbor in Massachusetts lunge feeding, plowing through a school of fish to gulp a couple hundred pogies in its mouth while sending another hundred or so flying through the air, he said.

“They’re going to be close to shore so long as the menhaden are here,” LaCasse said.

He said the menhaden will migrate from the area when the temperature starts to drop.

Read the full story at Fosters.com

Impossible Choices: The Complicated Task of Saving Both Orca and Salmon

September 10, 2018 — Decades of politics and foot-dragging have stymied the recovery of threatened and endangered Chinook salmon, while an iconic population of killer whales that depends on them veered toward extinction. Now, a last-ditch effort to save the whales may also be what thwarts the recovery of Chinook.

The Southern Resident killer whales are dying. An extended family of 75 orcas living year-round in the sea surrounding the San Juan Islands near Seattle, their numbers never fully rebounded since aquariums that later became SeaWorld captured a third of them in the late 1960s.

And there are other culprits.

Cargo ships and whale-watching boats zip through the Salish Sea, adding noise that interferes with the whales’ ability to locate each other and their prey. The water they live in is toxic. The Puget Sound outside Seattle is tainted with flame retardant, and PCBs and pollutants gush from nearby rivers into the sea.

The Chinook salmon they eat to live are contaminated with mercury, lead and organic compounds like PCBs. The Washington state Department of Health advises humans to limit their consumption of Chinook salmon to eight ounces per week. But Southern Residents eat dozens of the fish per day.

Not only is their food toxic, there’s also less of it than ever before. Five populations of Chinook the whales depend on are listed as threatened; a sixth is endangered. And they’re smaller, declining in size by 10 percent since the late 1970s, according to research published February in the scientific journal Fish & Fisheries.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Scientists get break finding elusive beaked whales

September 10, 2018 — Scientists have found a reliable gathering place east of Cape Cod for the elusive and little-known True’s beaked whales, following a month’s effort this summer.

“It was huge for us,” Danielle Cholewiak, research ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, said. Cholewiak was chief scientist for the trip east of Georges Bank, on the edge of the continental shelf.

Only a dozen sightings of True’s beaked whale had occurred since 1913 when Smithsonian Institution curator Frederick True first identified and named the species from an animal stranded on a North Carolina beach. But the dedicated study in July 200 miles east of Cape Cod yielded dozens of sightings, acoustic recordings, genetic samples and photographs, Cholewiak said.

The repeated sightings of whales during the trip allowed scientists to begin a tracking database. The whales now named Elvis and Trident are the “founding members” of the North Atlantic True’s beaked whale photo identification catalog. With over 300 acoustic detections from a hydrophone towed 24 hours a day across the research area the scientists were able to map out where the animals were living, Cholewiak said. The first-time use on a True’s beaked whale of a suction-cup digital recording tag, for 12 hours, is expected to reveal new information about their movements and acoustic behavior.

“This is a 5- or 6-meter whale that we didn’t know anything about until now,” said Dee Allen, research program officer for the Marine Mammal Commission, who was on the trip. In its oversight role of other federal agencies, the commission wants to make sure that the best available science is used for decision-making. There is great value in new or more information on a species that is little-known, Allen said.

“It shows that it can be done,” Allen said. “We can continue to learn more about beaked whales.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MAINE: Whale seen struggling in fishing net in Gulf of Maine ‘appears to be OK,’ expert says

September 7, 2018 — A whale caught in a fishing net last week appeared fine when seen swimming in the area over the weekend, said Dianna Schulte, research coordinator and co-founder of the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation.

Named “Owl,” the 32-year-old humpback whale “appears to be OK physically,” she elaborated.

Owl was entangled in the fishing net deployed off a “purse-seiner” vessel Aug. 30 off the Isles of Shoals, a small group of islands straddling the border between Maine and New Hampshire, according to multiple witnesses. The witnesses included 85 people aboard a Granite State Whale Watch tour, led by captain Peter Reynolds.

Reynolds said Friday that Owl was one of 12 humpback whales in the area at the time, that the fishing net was intentionally set in spite of them and he thought Owl was going to die while trapped and thrashing in the net for about 50 minutes. He said the fishing crew continued to try to haul the net while Owl was caught and “in obvious distress,” while his passengers watched and were “horrified.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Canada proposes more habitat protection for southern-resident orcas

September 6, 2018 — Canada is taking steps to expand habitat protection for killer whales to boost survival of the critically endangered southern-resident population.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced Wednesday the department is initiating a 60-day comment period on creating new areas of critical habitat for the whales. One area is off the coast of southwestern Vancouver Island, including Swiftsure and La Pérouse banks (important for both northern and southern residents). The other is in Dixon Entrance, along the north coast of Graham Island from Langara to Rose Spit (important for northern residents).

The move to expand habitat protection comes on top of a reduction by the department of chinook salmon harvest by up to 35 percent for the 2018 fishing season, with a full closure of commercial and recreational fish for chinook in three key foraging areas for the southern residents: the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Gulf Islands and the mouth of the Fraser River. These measures, enacted June 1, will continue until Sept. 30, and include increased monitoring to assess the effectiveness of the closures.

The critical-habitat designations could lead to further fishing reductions as well as restrictions on vessel traffic. The survival of southern-resident orcas — which are actually a large dolphin — is threatened because of underwater noise that disrupts their ability to hunt, as well as toxins and reduced availability of their primary prey, chinook salmon.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

SEAN HORGAN: Of whale poop and lobster claws

September 4, 2018 — Well, Happy Labor Day. We hope you are celebrating by lying in a hammock, dozing in the sun while listening to a ballgame on the radio, taking a swim and any and all activities completely separated from the concept of work. Take the day. You’ve earned it. Even if you haven’t, we won’t spill.

As an homage to the chill, we’re going to abridge the top of the column, providing another piece to your day that doesn’t require much intellectual or emotional heavy lifting. I’m telling you, this Labor Day thing is the cat’s whiskers.

To the items:

Whale of a story

It feels as if any time we write about whales, it’s with a certain hand-wringing about their imperiled status. But there is another side to the coin and that is that the great beasts have been a constant and immensely pleasurable presence near the Cape Ann coastline all summer.

Our waters have been filled with the largest mammals of the sea from mid-spring. There was an early appearance of a dozen or so northern right whales, followed by humpbacks, minke and fin whales. We even heard from one Rockport lobsterman, whose name is being withheld because of his continued ties to the radical Weather Underground, of pilot whales feeding on schools of pogeys in as little as 9 feet of water hereabouts.

Perhaps you saw the story in the pages of the Gloucester Daily Times and online at gloucestertimes.com, where our intrepid correspondent, along with photographer Paul Bilodeau, journeyed out aboard a whale watch boat to check out all the hubbub.

Now comes a different type of whale story: how the scientific community is mustering even more arguments for protecting whales because of the benefits of their, well, poop.

According to the piece in Scientific American, a 2010 study showed whale feces injects about 23,000 metric tons of nitrogen into Gulf of Maine waters each year and conceivably could help with climate change.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Another Whale Carcass Spotted in Massachusetts Has Scientists Alarmed for Population

August 30, 2018 — The second right whale death of 2018 has been recorded near Martha’s Vineyard.

North Atlantic right whales are one of the most endangered marine mammals with an estimated population of 450.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the young whale was first reported floating off Tom’s Neck Point, Martha’s Vineyard, on Sunday. The carcass of the 30-foot whale again was spotted Monday and the agency began planning to tow it to shore to perform a necropsy.

On Tuesday, however, the U.S. Coast Guard and two staff members of the NOAA Fisheries Woods Hole Laboratory sailed to the carcass and determined it was too decomposed to bring to shore. The crew attached a satellite tag and took tissue samples. If the whale carcass does make it to land, they will collect more samples.

Read the full story at NH1

NMFS, ENGOs Agree to Deadlines for Humpback Whale Habitat Designations off West Coast

August 29, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and Wishtoyo Foundation reached a settlement with the National Marine Fisheries Service last week to protect humpback whale habitat in the Pacific Ocean. the Center said the whales face threats from fisheries, ship strikes and oil spills.

The agreement, filed in federal district court in San Francisco, requires the National Marine Fisheries Service to follow the Endangered Species Act’s requirement to designate critical habitat by June 28, 2019, and finalize those boundaries a year later. Two Pacific Ocean humpback populations were listed as endangered, and a third as threatened, in September 2016.

“Today’s victory means Pacific humpback whales will be safer in their ocean home,” Center Attorney Catherine Kilduff said in a press release. “While delaying these protections, the Trump administration proposed opening the Pacific up to offshore oil drilling and let fishing gear tangle up dozens of humpbacks. This agreement ensures the whales will finally get the protections they need.”

One population of endangered humpback whales that feeds off California’s coast numbers around 400 individuals, meaning any death or injury from entanglement could hurt their recovery the Center said in the statement. Several whales were tangled in fishing lines from fixed gear fisheries in recent years, but many were also the victims of ship strikes.

Ship strikes and oil spills are the other major threats to West Coast humpback whales, according to the Center’s statement. A study found that an estimated 22 humpbacks off California, Oregon and Washington die each year after being hit by ships. That number could increase if additional offshore oil and gas drilling were allowed, as proposed by the Trump administration earlier this year. Additionally, potential oil spills increase the risk to whales and other marine life.

The three plaintiffs filed the suit in March.

The potential critical habitat areas will raise public awareness about what areas are essential for conservation, and provides substantive protections for the habitat from adverse modification by federal government activities, Kilduff said in an email. The habitat protections also will help safeguard ocean areas essential for migrating and feeding. Evidence shows that endangered or threatened species that have protected critical habitat are twice as likely to show signs of recovery as those without it, according to the three groups.

NMFS identified humpback whale populations that needed critical habitat designations in 2016. Those included the three that are, at times, in U.S. waters: the threatened Mexico population that feeds off the U.S. West Coast and Alaska and the endangered Central America population that feeds almost exclusively off California and Oregon. The agency revised the listing status of the humpback whale from a global population to 14 distinct population segments (DPS). However, NMFS also found that critical habitat for these three populations were not determinable when it identified the 14 humpback DPS.

According to the settlement, NMFS must pay $10,000 in attorney fees to the Center and the two other plaintiffs.

Meanwhile, the seafood industry remains concerned, awaiting the details. Fishermen and processors also are concerned about the Center’s lawsuit against the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, filed late last year, regarding whale entanglements.

Kilduff said this settlement will have no effect on the lawsuit against the state.

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

 

How Whale Poop Could Counter Calls to Resume Commercial Hunting

August 29, 2018 — Before whales dive into the darkness of the deep ocean they often come to the surface and release a huge plume of fecal matter—which can be the color of over-steeped green tea or a bright orange sunset. When Joe Roman, a conservation biologist at the University of Vermont, saw one of these spectacular dumps in the mid-1990s, he got to wondering: “Is it ecologically important? Or is it a fart in a hurricane?”

Roman and other researchers have since shown whale excrement provides key nutrients that fuel the marine food chain, and that it also contributes to the ocean carbon cycle. These important roles are now influencing scientific and economic arguments for protecting whales, at a time when calls for a resumption of whaling are growing. “The scientific community is coming to understand a new value of whales: their role in maintaining healthy and productive oceans,” says Sue Fisher, a marine wildlife consultant at the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute. “We are beginning to see governments use this rationale to justify measures to protect whales.” But as the International Whaling Commission (IWC) prepares for its biennial meeting next month, the ecological services whales provide are set to split the gathered countries—with an unknown outcome for the whales.

Whale poop’s importance is nothing to sniff at. In a 2010 study Roman’s team found whale defecation brings 23,000 metric tons of nitrogen to the surface each year in the Gulf of Maine—more than all the rivers that empty into the gulf combined. This nitrogen fertilizes the sea by sustaining microscopic plants that feed animal plankton, which in turn feeds fish and other animals including the whales themselves. Studies have found similar effects elsewhere, and with other nutrients found in whale feces. And when they migrate, whales also redistribute nutrients around the globe. By moving them from higher latitudes, Roman says, the giant mammals could be increasing productivity in some tropical waters by 15 percent.

By stimulating the growth of microscopic plants called phytoplankton, whale scat may also help limit climate change. These tiny aquatic plants remove carbon from the atmosphere and carry it deep into the ocean when they die. Research in the Southern Ocean showed the iron defecated each year by some 12,000 resident sperm whales feeds phytoplankton that store 240,000 more metric tons of carbon in the deep ocean than the whales exhale. This means that, on balance, whales help lock carbon away.

Read the full story at the Scientific American

 

BETH CASONI: Canada needs to do more to protect right whales

August 28, 2018 — For generations, Massachusetts lobstermen have been part of a revered tradition of marine coexistence that has sustained a proud New England fishing industry and protected an ecosystem for marine mammals. Now, that coexistence is threatened and international action is needed.

The North Atlantic right whale is critically endangered and faces extinction within our lifetime. For centuries, these enormous and majestic animals have migrated through New England waters, but largely due to unintentional human harm from ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear, today the right whale population is estimated to be down to as few as 435. And the last year has been especially disastrous, with 17 confirmed right whale mortalities and no new calves sighted in the most recent calving season.

Now is the time for cooperative international intervention to turn this situation around and head off the preventable tragedy of extinction of this species.

For decades, the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association has worked in concert with conservation organizations like the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the International Fund for Animal Welfare to be good stewards of the ocean and marine mammals. Facing serious concerns about how to make a living and keep businesses going, we work to find middle ground between our industry and the efforts of conservationists to advance the shared aims of all.

Over the years, regulators have imposed restrictions on U.S. Atlantic Coast fisheries in an effort to reduce harm to endangered species including the right whale. The MLA is proud of our history of adopting and complying with these requirements. To name a few: Vessels, aircraft or other approaches must be restricted within 500 yards of a right whale; and, all vessels 65 feet or longer must travel at 10 knots or less in certain locations along the East Coast of the United States at certain times of year to avoid collision with right whales.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times