June 28, 2016 — The sharks are circling!
A bumper crop of bunker fish churning along the coast is drawing the ocean’s greatest predator closer than ever to Brooklyn’s beaches, anglers and naturalists say.
“That population (bunker) is very high along our shore, and that is bringing sharks and whales much closer to shore, bringing the predators much closer to the beach,” said captain John Calamia of Whatta Catch.
June 23, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Federal regulators are considering a slight cut to commercial fishermen’s catch limit for Atlantic herring, a fish that is important both to the industry and the ocean’s food web.
The small fish gather in schools that can number in the millions, and are a critical food source for bigger fish, seals and whales. They also are important to humans as food and bait.
The National Marine Fisheries Service might reduce the herring catch limit by about 3 percent to slightly less than 105,000 metric tons. The limit was a little less than 108,000 metric tons for the 2013 to 2015 period; any new limit would apply to the years 2016 to 2018.
The proposal is up for public comment until July 21.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald
June 9, 2016 — Building on more than 30 years of scientific studies, including numerous reports released in the last decade and in the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, NOAA today announced a proposal to expand Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary to protect additional critical Gulf of Mexico habitat.
The plan lays out five expansion scenarios, ranging from no expansion of the 56-square-mile sanctuary, to one bringing it to a total of 935 square miles. In NOAA’s preferred scenario, the sanctuary would expand to 383 square miles to include 15 reefs and banks that provide habitat for recreationally and commercially important fish, as well as a home to 15 threatened or endangered species of whales, sea turtles, and corals.
“These habitats are the engines of sustainability for much of the Gulf of Mexico and are critical to fish such as red snapper, mackerel, grouper and wahoo, as well as other protected species,” said John Armor, acting director, NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. “The proposed expansion also advances NOAA’s mission to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources that help sustain local communities and America’s economy.”
May 27, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — With summer whale watching season fast approaching, conservation advocates and government agencies who want to protect whales say a mobile app designed to help mariners steer clear of the animals is helping keep them alive.
The Whale Alert app provides a real-time display of the ocean and the position of the mariner’s ship, along with information about where whales have been seen or heard recently. It also provides information on speed restrictions and restricted areas, and recommends routes shippers can take to avoid endangered species such as the blue whale and the North Atlantic right whale.
New England whale watching companies are gearing up for summer, and more than a quarter of the entire North Atlantic right whale population visited Cape Cod Bay this season. That means conditions are perfect to get more mariners and the public on board with protecting whales, said Patrick Ramage, whale program director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Andy Hammond, of Martha’s Vineyard, is one such mariner. He has used the tool aboard pilot boats to avoid whales in Boston Harbor.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Herald
May 25, 2016 — PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Nette Leverman was reading from a sheaf of papers she held in her hand, detailing the interactions between whales and fishermen in Greenland, where she is a population biologist.
Humpback, minke, fin and bowhead whales were getting caught in fishing line and nets in the waters off the country’s coast. It’s a familiar refrain, heard over and over Monday, the first day of a four-day international workshop on large whale entanglements.
“We’ve known for decades about this problem, yet solutions to it remain elusive,” said Tim Werner, a senior scientist at the New England Aquarium, and one of the workshop’s organizers.
Governments and fishermen around the world are feeling the strain from an increasing numbers of whales being snared in fishing gear as some whale species rebound and as the amount of gear in the water increases for fishing, aquaculture and other uses.
May 23, 2016 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — Listening to the noise of the deep sea.
That’s the intent as researchers with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, based at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, recently placed a handful of recording devices along the ocean floor from George’s Bank to New Jersey to listen to the sounds of whales, dolphins and other marine life.
It’s part of a national effort to establish a network to monitor long term changes in ocean noise.
May 20, 2016 — SCITUATE, Mass. — The weather is getting better and many people are thinking about getting out on the water. A few sail boats can be seen offshore in the brisk springtime wind and more than a few recreational fishing boats are at mooring in Scituate Harbor.
This is also the traditional time for the North Atlantic right whales to leave their wintertime home in Cape Cod Bay and head for the Great South Channel southeast of Nantucket. This year the right whales are acting differently and scatting more than their normal migration.
Dr. David (Dave) Wiley, research coordinator at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, suggests that the change in behavior is probably due to warmer than normal waters in the Gulf of Maine, a change that is having effects on many species.
We are lucky to have a variety of whales that make their home in the Gulf of Maine or are seasonal visitors. Watching a whale breach or play with other whales is a truly amazing experience that many of us can enjoy simply by boarding a private vessel in Scituate Harbor. Along with the joy and excitement of observing the whales comes responsibility.
May 17, 2016 — Many of the surveys would be redundant, bombarding the same areas again and again. Companies have applied to shoot about 90,000 miles of trackline the first year alone — enough to circle the globe more than three times. With no lease sales allowed at least through 2022, it makes no sense to approve years of deafening underwater pounding now.
Seismic exploration drowns out the symphony of sounds that whales, dolphins and many other marine populations make to find mates, forage, avoid predators, and communicate with each other. For some marine species, this disruption is a “death of thousand cuts.” The Obama administration itself estimates that, over the next six years, seismic exploration would disrupt feeding, calving, breeding, and other essential activities in Atlantic marine mammals more than 13.5 million times—an astronomical number that biologists have characterized as an underestimate.
Especially at risk is the North Atlantic right whale. Only about 500 of these magnificent, iconic animals exist. They rank among the most endangered whales on the planet, with new evidence indicating that their numbers are declining. Last month, in a letter to the President, twenty-eight leading experts on the right whale wrote: “The additional stress of widespread seismic airgun surveys may well represent a tipping point for the survival of this endangered whale, contributing significantly to a decline toward extinction.”
Whales and other marine mammals are not the only species at risk. Studies in Norway have shown reduced catch rates of cod and haddock over thousands of square kilometers radiating from a single seismic airgun array. The Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Council warned that seismic surveys during spring spawning season could disperse black sea bass and hurt their ability to reproduce. “At the very least,” the Council said in a letter to BOEM, “dispersal of fish aggregations by seismic surveys is likely to disrupt fishing activities (due to fish dispersal) which could have negative economic consequences for commercial and recreational fisheries” throughout the region.
Read the full story at The Post & Courier
May 3, 2016 — Heather Goldstone, of NPR affiliates WGBH and WCAI, discusses bycatch reduction in fisheries on a recent episode of “Living Lab.” Her guests were veteran gear designer Ron Smolowitz of the Coonamessett Farm Foundation, who has worked with the southern New England scallop industry; Steve Eayrs, a research scientist at Gulf of Maine Research Institute, who has worked with groundfishermen in Maine; and Tim Werner, a senior scientist with the New England Aquarium, who put acoustic pingers on gill nets to warn away dolphins. An excerpt from the segment is reproduced below:
It’s the holy grail of commercial fishing: catch just the right amount of just the right size of just the right species, without damage to the physical environment. It’s a tall order, and few fisheries are there yet.
Leaving aside the issue of straight up over-fishing, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that, each year, fishermen around the world accidentally catch more than seven million tons of marine life – everything from whales and turtles, to sea cucumbers – that they weren’t even after. Such by-catch, as it’s known, is essentially collateral damage.
And fishing has other environmental impacts. In some parts of the ocean, the scars left by trawls dragged across the sea floor can be seen for years.
But, it doesn’t have to be that way. Over the past decade or so, a lot of effort has gone into designing fishing gear and related equipment that allows fishermen to catch more of what they do want, and less of what they don’t, while also minimizing damage to the environment. For example:
April 28, 2016 — When New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key announced the establishment of one of the world’s largest marine reserves at the United Nations last year, it was met with near unanimous praise. The proposal got the nod from big conservation groups and scientists, and media coverage was generally flattering.
The 620,000 square kilometer sanctuary in the Kermadec region, northeast of New Zealand, is one of the most pristine and biodiverse on Earth, home to 35 species of whales and dolphins, 150 types of fish, and three of the world’s seven sea turtle species. Under the plan, fishing, oil, gas, and mineral exploration would be banned.
But seven months later the sanctuary is at the center of a legal dispute and claims that “foreign” NGOs — most notably the Pew Charitable Trusts — were instrumental in a decision that will see New Zealand’s indigenous people stripped of constitutional rights.
Jamie Tuuta, the director of New Zealand’s peak indigenous fishing body, Te Ohu Kaimoana, said lobbying of the New Zealand government by the Pew Charitable Trusts had directly resulted in the removal of fishing rights granted to Maori in the Kermadec region.
“We are not saying it is unreasonable for Pew Trust or other environmental NGOs to advocate for what they consider to be appropriate marine environment protection,” Tuuta said. “What we do take issue with is where the consequences are that that advocacy cuts across and abrogates Treaty [of Waitangi] rights protected and guaranteed to Maori.”