Saving Seafood

Climate change, sparse policies endanger right whale population

November 8, 2017 — North Atlantic right whales – a highly endangered species making modest population gains in the past decade – may be imperiled by warming waters and insufficient international protection, according to a new Cornell University analysis published in Global Change Biology.

North Atlantic right whales’ preferred cuisine is copepods that thrive in cool waters, such as the Gulf of Maine, said author Erin Meyer-Gutbrod, who conducted the work as a doctoral student and postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Charles Greene, professor of oceanography and co-author on the paper.

Scientists once relied on continuous plankton sampling to track the copepods, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations’ National Marine Fisheries Service discontinued the program, preventing researchers from observing ecosystem changes as they occur.

Read the full story at Science Codex

 

Whale research to highlight changes in gulf

November 2, 2017 — BAR HARBOR, Maine — Upcoming new research into the feeding habits of baleen whales in the Gulf of Maine – one of the fastest-warming bodies of water on the planet – could shed light on impacts of climate change on oceans worldwide.

The study of whale foraging ecology will be undertaken by members of College of the Atlantic’s Allied Whale marine mammal research program, in partnership with Cetos Research Organization, during a five-year project beginning in spring 2018.

Paired with data from a similar Allied Whale study done before temperatures began rising so dramatically in the gulf in 2004, this new research will give scientists their first broad picture of how the ocean’s top predators are adapting to a rapidly changing environment.

“The warming gulf has the potential to radically affect prey structure, and we have the control data from before the warming started to go by,” said Allied Whale Director Sean Todd, the Steven K. Katona Chair in Marine Science at COA and a principal investigator on the project.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

 

Under threat of lawsuit, Maine lobstermen say Canada is failing to protect right whales

November 1, 2017 — A record number of right whale killings this summer has put environmental groups on the offensive, potentially leading to stricter regulations for Maine lobstermen, even as most of the animals turn up dead in Canadian waters.

A group of environmental organizations has notified federal officials they intend to sue if regulatory agencies fail to better protect the endangered species, following what’s believed to be one of the deadliest summers for North Atlantic right whales in centuries.

Maine lobstermen fear that a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service could result in more costly restrictions on how they fish, even though none of the 16 right whale deaths have been directly linked to the American lobster fishery. Twelve of the whale deaths occurred in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence, where that country’s snow crab fishery has been cited by experts as a likely factor in several of the deaths.

The remaining four were found off Cape Cod.

With this year’s deaths, the total population of North Atlantic right whales is estimated at fewer than 450.

Early this month, the four environmental organizations sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Chris Oliver, head of the federal fisheries service, saying that federal regulators are violating the Endangered Species Act by not doing more to protect North Atlantic right whales. The groups specifically called on regulators to determine whether additional restrictions should be placed on the American lobster fishery in order to prevent whales from getting entangled in lobster gear.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Entangled: Making The Sea Safer For Whales

November 1, 2017 — More than 30 times this year, the federal government has received reports of whales tangled in fishing gear along the West Coast. Sometimes the whales manage to wriggle free. Other times you see heart-rending pictures on the news or a rescue mission.

The culprit often involves Dungeness crab pot lines. Now Oregon crabbers are working with marine scientists to make the seas safer for whales and to avoid a black mark on their brand.

Bob Eder has fished commercially out of Newport, Oregon for decades.

“Over 45 years of pulling crab pots—I think I’ve probably hauled in close to a million—I’ve never encountered an entangled whale,” he said.

‘We want to be proactive’

Eder often sees whales at sea and recognizes just one bad outcome blamed on fishing gear could be all it takes to cause a PR nightmare. Whale numbers are up, but so are sightings of humpback whales, gray whales and the odd blue whale entangled in fishing lines and buoys—especially in California.

“We want to get out ahead of it. We want to be proactive,” Eder said. “We don’t want to be sued by the Center for Biological Diversity. We want to see what we can do to mitigate the situation.”

The Center for Biological Diversity is an environmental group and it did just sue the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The group wants a federal judge to order the state regulator to make crab fishermen do more to avoid harm to endangered whales.

Crab traps themselves are not the problem, but rather the heavy-duty ropes stretching from the seafloor to one or more buoys at the surface. Whales can snag a fin or a tail and get all tangled up if there’s too much slack in the vertical line or excess floating on the surface.

“They normally don’t come in where our gear is,” Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission Executive Director Hugh Link said. “But when we get warmer water and the feed comes in closer to shore, then we have an issue.”

Link and Eder are two members of a work group of crabbers, marine biologists and government agency and nonprofit representatives. They’ve been meeting in Oregon since March.

A grant from NOAA Fisheries launched what is known as the Oregon Whale Entanglement Work Group, which is facilitated and now supported by Oregon Sea Grant. Washington state crabbers and other interested parties plan to meet in Montesano on November 8 to hear an update on whale entanglements and discuss whether the Washington-based/the local fleet should launch a proactive work group too.

The work group agreed to distribute a flyer to crab boat operators ahead of the season opener next month with best practices for setting and tending gear. Oregon and Washington also have programs to retrieve lost or derelict fishing gear. The work group next plans to survey the fleet about potential season modifications and area closures to keep whales away from gauntlets of ropes.

Read the full story at KUOW

 

Researchers want to know why beluga whales haven’t recovered

September 29, 2017 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska — New research aims to find out why highly endangered beluga whales in Alaska’s Cook Inlet have failed to recover despite protective measures.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded more than $1.3 million to the state for three years of research involving the white whales.

“While we know what we believe caused the initial decline, we’re not sure what’s causing the population to remain suppressed,” said Mandy Keogh, a wildlife physiologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

A population of 1,300 belugas dwindled steadily through the 1980s and early ‘90s.

The decline accelerated when Alaska Natives harvested nearly half the remaining 650 whales between 1994 and 1998. Subsistence hunting ended in 1999 but the population remains at only about 340 animals.

Cook Inlet belugas are one of five beluga populations in U.S. waters. Cook Inlet, named for British explorer Capt. James Cook, stretches 180 miles (290 kilometers) from Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Post

New Method to Estimate Abundance/Detect Trends in North Atlantic Right Whales Confirms Recent Population Decline

Study confirms need for urgent action

September 22, 2017 — NOAA Fisheries researchers and colleagues at the New England Aquarium have developed a new model to improve estimates of abundance and population trends of endangered North Atlantic right whales, which have declined in numbers and productivity in recent years.  The findings were published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

Between 1990 and 2010, the abundance of North Atlantic right whales increased just under three percent per year, from about 270 animals in 1990 to 482 in 2010. After relatively steady increases over that time, abundance has declined each year since 2010 to 458 animals in 2015.  The analysis shows that the probability that the population has declined since 2010 is estimated at 99.99 percent. Of particular concern is decline of adult females in the population, estimated at 200 in 2010 but 186 in 2015, the known deaths of 14 North Atlantic right whales this year, and the widening gap between numbers of males and females.

“Although our work directly reveals a relatively small decrease, the subtext is that this species is presently in dire straits,” said lead author Richard Pace.

Read the full story at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center

A new model for right whale estimates

New system confirms population decline as another death is reported in Canada.

September 21, 2017 — NEW BRUNSWICK, Canada — Another North Atlantic right whale death in Canadian waters has brought further attention to the threat of fishing gear to the endangered marine mammals.

“It’s considered a severe entanglement,” New England Aquarium spokesman Tony LaCasse said of the dead female, believed to be around 3 years old. Fishing rope and gear, including a snow crab pot, entangled the pale, deeply cut carcass, estimated to be 36 feet long.

The right whales, which frequent Cape Cod waters in late winter and early spring, are among the rarest whales in the world, with 524 estimated in 2015 in a report by the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium. The death brought the total fatalities this year to 14, representing about 3 percent of the population.

The carcass was spotted by airplane surveyors Friday off Miscou Island, New Brunswick. The dead whale was towed to the island Monday, and a necropsy was performed Tuesday.

“The key thing is that the animal was entangled,” said Tonya Wimmer of the Marine Animal Response Society in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

California crabbers use GPS to find whale-killing gear

September 14, 2017 — HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — Fisherman Jake Bunch leans over the side of the fishing boat “Sadie K,” spears his catch, and reels it aboard: an abandoned crab pot, dangling one limp lasagna noodle of kelp and dozens of feet of rope, just the kind of fishing gear that has been snaring an increasing number of whales off U.S. coasts.

Confirmed counts of humpbacks, blue and other endangered or threatened species of whale entangled by the ropes, buoys and anchors of fishing gear hit a record 50 on the East Coast last year, and tied the record on the West Coast at 48, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The accidental entanglements can gouge whales’ flesh and mouth, weaken the animals, drown them, or kill them painfully, over months.

This year, Bunch is one of a small number of commercial fishermen out of Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, and five other ports up and down California who headed to sea again after the West Coast’s Dungeness crab season ended this summer.

The California fishermen are part of a new effort using their cellphones’ GPS and new software pinpointing areas where lost or abandoned crabbing gear has been spotted. They retrieve the gear for a payment — at Half Moon Bay, it’s $65 per pot —before the fishing ropes can snag a whale.

Especially stormy weather this year has meant more wayward crabbing gear than usual, Bunch said recently on a gray late-summer morning at sea.

“Makes it all the more important to pick it up,” he says.

Read the full story at the News & Observer

Trump administration nears decision that sets stage for offshore drilling in the Atlantic

September 11, 2017 — Environmental groups are bracing for the Trump administration to approve controversial testing along the Eastern seaboard that would mark a significant step toward offshore drilling in waters off the coast of Florida all the way north to the Delaware Bay.

Five geophysical survey companies are seeking federal permission to shoot pressurized air blasts into the ocean every 10 to 12 seconds around the clock for weeks and months at a time, seeking fossil fuel deposits beneath the Atlantic Ocean floor.

The testing, which would cover 330,000 square miles of ocean, faces fierce opposition from environmental groups and local officials due to the possible economic and environmental effects.

Because the underwater blasts are louder than a Saturn V rocket launch and can be heard by monitoring devices more than 2,500 miles away, scientists fear long-term exposure to the noise could cause hearing loss and impair breeding, feeding, foraging and communication activity among dolphins, endangered whales, other marine mammals and sea turtles.

Some worry the blasts could cause mother whales and their calves to become separated. Commercial and recreational fisheries could also be affected if fish change their breeding and spawning habits to avoid the noise. Others fear disoriented marine life could collide with the vessels that tug the air guns or become entangled in their lines. Oceana, an international conservation group, estimates that 138,000 marine mammals could be injured in the testing process.

Seventy-five marine scientists asked the Obama administration in 2015 to reject seismic air gun testing in the Atlantic because of these threats. Twenty-eight marine biologists did the same in 2016 over concerns that testing would harm the estimated 500 endangered North Atlantic right whales.

“That’s the species we are most concerned about,” said Doug Nowacek, associate professor of conservation technology at the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina. “They are in decline. They live coastally along the U.S. They were hunted (by whalers) and they were slowly recovering. And now they’re starting to decline again.”

Read the full story from the McClatchy Company at the Miami Herald

An Alarming Number of California Whales Are Getting Caught In Fishing Lines

California has seen a record-breaking number of whale entanglements over the last three years. Now, the Center for Biological Diversity is suing the state for failing to protect its endangered species.

August 30, 2017 — Justin Viezbicke once saw a whale struggling to swim up the coast of California without a tail. Though it was a disturbing sight, Viezbicke wasn’t exactly shocked; he’d encountered similar circumstances before. Viezbicke, the California stranding network coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, surmised that this particular whale’s flukes had been severed off by fishing gear. He knew the animal wouldn’t make it far.

In the past, Viezbicke has come across whales that lost blood-flow to their tails due to rope lines tangled tightly around their bodies. Less severe entanglements than the one Viezbicke witnessed can still lead to deadly infections or otherwise interfere with the animal’s ability to feed or forage.

“These entanglements are long, drawn-out processes,” Viezbicke says. “They can last months, sometimes even longer depending on the nature of the entanglement, and the will of the animal.”

The number of whales entangled in fishing lines off the West Coast of the United States has been sharply rising in recent years. In 2016, 71 whales became entangled in fishing gear off the West Coast, breaking the entanglement record for the third consecutive year. “We’re lucky if we get some or all of the gear off of a half dozen to a dozen of the whales every year,” Viezbicke says.

Entanglements are not always fatal, but for some threatened species, even a small number of deaths could be enough to collapse an entire population. (One subpopulation of humpback whales that feeds off the coast of California, for example, now numbers a mere 400.) Twenty-one endangered or threatened whales and one leatherback sea turtle were entangled in Dungeness crab gear in the Pacific Ocean in 2016; typically, Dungeness crab traps consist of a pot used to collect crabs on the seafloor, attached to a line of rope that extends to a buoy on the ocean surface.

Read the full story at Pacific Standard