Saving Seafood

Pacific Heat Wave Known As ‘The Blob’ Appears To Be In Retreat

March 16, 2018 — Ocean conditions off the Pacific Northwest seem to be returning to normal after a three-year spike in water temperature.

It’s promising long-term news for fishermen who are looking ahead in the short term to yet another year of low salmon returns.

A report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) outlined the latest ocean observations for the organization that sets salmon catch limits off the West Coast. The Pacific Fishery Management Council will set those limits in early April.

The extended marine heatwave of the past few years has been nicknamed “the Blob.”

“The high pressure system over the North Pacific basically got stalled out and stuck there. And so the ocean warmed up about 6 degrees Fahrenheit,” NOAA’s Toby Garfield said.

Then a strong El Niño came through that reinforced these conditions.

“There have been a number of these events, these marine heat waves, that have occurred in the North Pacific. But the one we had in ’13, ’14, ’15 was the by far the largest in the record going back 45 years,” Garfield said.

And the effect on sea life was serious. Whales, sea lions and seabirds starved because the warm water didn’t support tiny nutrition-rich plankton called copepods at the base of the food chain.

Within the past year, the El Niño effect has dissipated, and other longer-term climate cycles are shifting back toward a more average level.

Read the full story at OPB

 

Lawsuit aimed at protecting humpback whales filed against Trump administration

March 16, 2018 — Several conservation groups have joined together to file a lawsuit that claims the Trump administration has failed to protect humpback whales from fishing gear, ship strikes and oil spills.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and Wishtoyo Foundation announced Thursday they have sued the Trump Administration for “failing to protect humpback whale habitat in the Pacific Ocean.” The lawsuit was filed in the federal district court in San Francisco.

The nonprofit groups hope the lawsuit will force the National Marine Fisheries Service to follow the Endangered Species Act’s requirement to designate critical habitat within one year of listing a species as threatened or endangered, and not authorize actions that would damage that habitat, according to a release.

Two Pacific Ocean humpback populations were listed as endangered and a third as threatened in September 2016.

“The federal government needs to protect critical humpback habitat that’s prone to oil spills and dangerously dense with fishing gear and ship traffic,” Catherine Kilduff, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “These whales need urgent action, not more delays.”

Read the full story at the Orange County Register

 

Not Too Late To Save Critically Endangered Orcas Say State Leaders And Feds

March 15, 2018 — The Pacific Northwest’s beloved orcas will not survive unless humans do more to ensure adequate food and cleaner, quieter waters. That was one of the messages at a crowded signing ceremony in Seattle convened by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

The population of genetically-distinct resident orcas has dwindled to a critically low level. Deaths outpace births. Only 76 remain as of the last count.

“This is a dangerously low number for a species that is already endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act,” Jeff Parsons of the Puget Sound Partnership said at a legislative hearing in Olympia earlier this month.

”We’re at a critical juncture with orcas and we need to act now if we’re to save the species,” added Bruce Wishart, a Sierra Club lobbyist.

The resident killer whales face three main threats topped by lack of prey. Their favorite food is Chinook salmon, which is also dwindling. Then there’s disturbance from vessels and underwater noise. A third threat is toxic pollution in the water and marine food chain.

“If they’re not getting enough food, they’re going to use their blubber where contaminants can often be stored,” said Lynne Barre, the federal orca recovery coordinator at NOAA Fisheries. . “But once they’re using that blubber and they circulate, it can cause immune dysfunction and that may be affecting reproduction as well.”

So is this dwindling population doomed?

“I don’t think it’s doomed,” Barre said. “We have seen the whales be at an even lower level in the past but that was following removals for public display and aquariums. So following those removals and low numbers we’ve seen in the past, we have seen this population be resilient and be able to grow—and even at a pretty high rate of two percent or more per year.”

That’s what Barre is hoping happens again now that the federal and state governments have complementary recovery plans. Inslee on Wednesday signed an executive order directing seven state agencies to take a wide variety of short and long-term actions.

Read the full story at NW News Network

 

Low Numbers of Endangered Whales Sparks Debate About Whether Lobster Industry Threatens Species

March 9, 2018 — The population of the endangered North Atlantic right whale took a big hit last year with a record number found dead in Canadian waters from ship strikes and entanglements. With this year’s calving season ending and no new births observed, an ongoing debate over whether Maine’s lobster industry poses a mortal threat to the species is gaining new urgency.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist Mark Baumgartner says that to help the whales survive much longer, the ropes Maine lobstermen use to tend their traps have to be modified or even eliminated. And it’s not just for the whales’ sake.

“I feel the industry is in jeopardy,” Baumgartner says.

Baumgartner was at the Fishermen’s Forum in Rockland late last week to detail the whale’s plight. If the lobster industry doesn’t respond effectively, he says, the federal government will step in.

“As the population continues to decline and pressure is put on the government to do something about it, then they’re going to turn to closures, because that’s all they’ll have,” he says.

There were about 450 North Atlantic right whales estimated to be alive in 2016. There were only five calves born last year, and a record 17 deaths caused by entanglement or ship strikes.

Read the full story at Maine Public

 

Climate change threatens coastal life as we know it

March 9, 2018 — The Gulf of Maine is getting warm — quick. From 2004–2013, sea temperatures there rose faster than almost any other location on Earth.

Why it matters: The Gulf is home to a number of endangered species, and the fisheries there bring in several billion dollars per year to the U.S. and Canada, but the Gulf’s future hangs in the balance. Researchers are scrambling to understand what the warming water means for the people and animals who rely on the ecosystem, particularly as the changes there provide a glimpse into the future of coastlines around the world.

Why it’s warming

The Gulf of Maine lies at the intersection of several major ocean currents, including the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, which moves dense, cold water down and toward the equator. Fresh water from melting sea ice seems to be weakening this current, which could be causing the Gulf to warm faster than other regions.

A combination of cold winters, warm summers, and dramatic tides make the Gulf one of the most productive ecosystems in the ocean. It’s a critical habitat for right whales, seabirds like puffins, humpback whales, bluefin tuna and other species.

Read the full story at Axios

 

Gear is in wrong place for right whales, scientists say

March 7, 2018 — ROCKPORT, Maine — Last summer, at least 17 endangered North Atlantic right whales died during their northwards migration from their spawning grounds off the coast of Florida and Georgia. Of those, 12 were found dead in Canadian waters, while five were found off the coast of the United States.

Besides the whales that died last year, several more were found entangled in fishing gear, and at least one more whale died in January of this year.

Now scientists and fisheries regulators are working to find ways to reduce the risk of entanglement. They may implement changes in fishing rules that have an enormous impact on Maine’s lobster industry.

The NOAA Fisheries Large Whale Take Reduction Team recently established separate working groups to study two proposals to reduce the risk of entanglement: splicing several 1,700-pound breaking strength “weak link” sleeves into vertical lines such as those that connect lobster buoys to traps; and removing those ropes altogether by requiring the use “ropeless” fishing gear.

Those working groups will focus on whether either solution is technologically feasible, whether it will actually work for fishermen, and whether it can be cost effective for fishermen.

According to scientists from NOAA Fisheries and the New England Aquarium in Boston, the evidence suggests that the already tiny right whale population is declining.

Read the full story the Mount Desert Islander

 

Future for Right Whales Grows Even More Bleak

March 2, 2018 — After a year of rising concern about North Atlantic right whales, which scientists say could go extinct in the next 20 years, researchers have yet to document a single newborn whale during the calving season that is coming to an end.

Bad news about the calving season follows a year with 17 documented unnatural right whale deaths in the United States and Canada, an alarming number for a species with a population of about 450 animals.

Scientists said this week that it’s too early to say with certainty that no calves were born this year, but things are not looking good. The official number won’t be known until around July, according to biologist Peter Corkeron, who leads the large whale team of the protected species branch at NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

“I don’t want to downplay how bad this is, but we don’t yet know zero,” he told the Gazette this week. “If there were 20 calves born somewhere else, I think we’d know about. While it’s too early yet to say zero, it’s not too early yet to say — well this isn’t looking very good, is it.”

Mark Baumgartner, a biologist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and leader of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, agreed. “It’s not

looking like this is a boom year, that’s for sure,” he said. “If I were to guess I would think it would just be maybe one or two calves. We’re not looking for a stash of 10 calves.”

North Atlantic right whales generally give birth in the winter in the ocean off northern Florida and southern Georgia. Mr. Baumgartner said whales have had calves in the Gulf of Maine “once in a blue moon.”

Aerial surveys over southern waters during calving months are on the lookout for female whales and their calves. Because the whales are so small, scientists have documented each individual and have a good idea about the number of females who are of calving age and due to give birth. Mr. Baumgartner said historically there has been a three-year interval between when female right whales have calves. As of last year, the average interval was 10 years.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

 

Are North Atlantic Right Whales Becoming Extinct? Experts Warn About Declining Fertility

February 27, 2018 — The North Atlantic right whales may soon become extinct as no new births have been recorded, experts have warned.

According to a report in the Guardian, the scientists who observed a whale community off the U.S. coast have not recorded any new births in the right whale population. The report also stated that a huge number of right whale deaths were recorded in 2017.

Scientists have, therefore, said that a blend of the rising mortality rate and the declining fertility rate is resulting in the extinction of the right whales. They predicted that at this rate, the whales would become extinct by 2040.

“At the rate, we are killing them off, this 100 females will be gone in 20 years,” Mark Baumgartner, a marine ecologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts said adding that the North Atlantic right whales will be functionally extinct by 2040 if no action is undertaken to protect them.

Speaking of North Atlantic whales, Baumgartner said the population of these whales was quite healthy about seven years ago. However, it soon began to decline after lobster fishermen began fishing in the waters.

Read the full story at the International Business Times

 

Climate change draws invasive species to the Arctic

February 27, 2018 — The Arctic is changing. Temperatures are increasing twice as fast as the global average and sea ice is retreating quicker than predicted.

It is now just a question of time before the Arctic becomes ice free in summer.

But while we humans react slowly to the problem at hand, evidence suggests that animals are on the move- on land, sea, and in the air. And in the cold Arctic, invasive species are drawn to regions where they could not previously have survived.

But invasive species pose a big problem for native animals, whose numbers can decline to the point of collapse. They also pose a threat to fisheries, with economic consequences on both a local and global scale.

In fact, our recent study showed that blue mussels have become much more common in the Arctic in recent years, just like other exotic species of bluefin tuna and killer whales.

Read the full story at Phys.org

 

Maine: 43rd Fishermen’s Forum opens on Thursday

February 27, 2018 — ROCKPORT, Maine — The weathermen may be predicting snow for the weekend but Maine fishermen, or at least the Maine Fishermen’s Forum, say that spring is nearly upon us.

The 43rd annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum gets under way on Thursday at the Samoset Resort in Rockport.

The event features three days of seminars and workshops that bring fishermen from the along the entire New England coast together with: state and federal fisheries scientists, regulators and managers; political incumbents and hopefuls; and maritime enterprises hawking everything from new lobster boats and giant diesel engines to lobster traps, marine electronics, refrigeration systems and foul weather gear.

“This is our biggest trade show ever,” forum Coordinator Chiloa Young said Monday.

The forum also draws a variety of nonprofit organizations involved in fisheries research and conservation, preservation of working waterfronts and similar marine-related causes.

There is also no shortage of social opportunities, including an opening day seafood reception Thursday evening, the fresh fish dinner on Friday and the final banquet and dinner dance Saturday.

Thursday is Shellfish Day, with programs relating to the economics and business innovation in the shellfish industry.

On Friday, the forum will host programs relating, among other topics, to new herring fishing rules, electronic monitoring of fishing vessels and the increasingly fraught issue of the coexistence of the lobster fishery and endangered right whales. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association will hold its 64th Annual Meeting, and mark the retirement of David Cousens after 27 years as the organization’s president.

Friday is also the day for political visitors. According to Young, U.S. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) will be on hand between 9:30 and 11 a.m., Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) will visit during the morning and Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine) is planning to attend the fresh fish dinner in the evening.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American