Saving Seafood

Two Virginia Whale Watch Companies Join Whale SENSE Atlantic

January 12, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Two Virginia Beach ocean tour operators, Rudee Tours and  Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, joined the voluntary responsible whale watching program, Whale SENSE, sponsored by NOAA Fisheries and Whale and Dolphin Conservation. 

Virginia’s whale watch season runs from January to March, when the humpback whales migrate through the mid-Atlantic from their northeast summer feeding grounds to their calving and nursery grounds located in the eastern Caribbean. By choosing a company with Whale SENSE, whale watchers can be assured that their exhilarating experiences with the whales are not interfering with the whales’ natural behaviors.

Rudee Tours offers winter wildlife cruises. Credit Kristin Rayfield, Rudee Tours.

The Whale SENSE program, which started seven years ago in the Atlantic region, now spans two coasts and boasts a total of 15 whale watch companies from Virginia to Maine, as well as 7 in Juneau, Alaska.”With the largest fleet of head boats in Virginia, and tens of thousands of people taking one of our tours each year, we feel it is important to serve as a role model for responsible and educational whale and dolphin watching,” says Kristen Rayfield, naturalist of Rudee Tours.

“Whale SENSE provides an opportunity for us to continue to showcase our dedication to the highest level of ethics and practices and provide an experience for our guests while keeping these incredible marine mammals safe in their habitat,” says Alexis Rabon, Boat Program Coordinator and Naturalist for Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center.

Humpback whale breaching off Virginia Beach. Credit: Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center

Whale SENSE participants follow viewing guidelines by reducing speeds, keeping a safe distance, and communicating with other vessels. They also pledge to advertise responsibly by captioning pictures to inform their passengers of how whales are protected.

“Seeing these majestic animals up close is an exhilarating experience, but we don’t want our enthusiasm to unintentionally cause them harm,” says John Bullard, NOAA Fisheries regional administrator for the Greater Atlantic Region. “Whale SENSE helps us ensure that companies know the laws and best methods for minimizing impacts to the whales, helping to protect and conserve these species for generations to come.”

In addition, Whale SENSE participants receive annual training on whale protection laws, and participate in environmental conservation projects, such as beach clean-ups or sponsoring internship programs. In the event that they see a marine animal in distress, they call it in to authorized responders, and when possible, stand by the animal until rescuers arrive.

“We are thrilled to have Rudee Tours and Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center join Whale SENSE this year,” says Monica Pepe of Whale and Dolphin Conservation. “These companies will act as stewards on the water, setting an example of how to watch whales responsibly in an area where whale sightings have been increasing in recent years.”

All whales in U.S. waters are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which makes it illegal to injure, kill or harass whales.

Having served more than 1 million passengers, Whale SENSE companies continue to be the SENSE-ible whale watching choice. To find out if a whale watch company participates in the program, check for the new Whale SENSE logo on participating vessels.

Visit Whale SENSE for participants in your area or like us on Facebook!

Read this press release online. High-res images available. 

The first venture capitalists: Fin-tech

January 2, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Few industries involve as much drama and risk as whaling did. The last voyage of the Essex, which inspired Herman Melville’s classic, “Moby Dick”, and is the subject of a new film, “In the Heart of The Sea”, gives a sense of the horrors involved. The ship left Nantucket in 1819 and sailed for over a year before being destroyed by a whale it was hunting. The 20 crew members survived the sinking, but found themselves adrift in the Pacific in three longboats, with little food and no water. Three opted to stay on a desert island, from which they were rescued three months later, on the verge of starvation. The others sailed on, hoping to reach South America but dying one by one. At first the survivors buried the dead at sea; then they resorted to eating the corpses of their crewmates. When they ran out of bodies, they drew lots to decide whom to shoot and eat. Only five of the 17 were eventually rescued. By then, they were so delirious that they did not understand what was happening.

The only reason that anyone could be induced to take part in such a dangerous business was the fabulous profit that could be made. Gideon Allen & Sons, a whaling syndicate based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, made returns of 60% a year during much of the 19th century by financing whaling voyages—perhaps the best performance of any firm in American history. It was the most successful of a very successful bunch. Overall returns in the whaling business in New Bedford between 1817 and 1892 averaged 14% a year—an impressive record by any standard.

New Bedford was not the only whaling port in America; nor was America the only whaling nation. Yet according to a study published in 1859, of the 900-odd active whaling ships around the world in 1850, 700 were American, and 70% of those came from New Bedford. The town’s whalers came to dominate the industry, and reap immense profits, thanks to a novel technology that remains relevant to this day. They did not invent a new type of ship, or a new means of tracking whales; instead, they developed a new business model that was extremely effective at marshalling capital and skilled workers despite the immense risks involved for both. Whaling all but disappeared as an industry after mineral oil supplanted whale oil as a fuel. But the business structures pioneered in New Bedford remain as relevant as they ever were. Without them, the tech booms of the 1990s and today would not have been possible.

Read the full story at The Economist

Inflatable vessel to help Maine improve disentanglement efforts

December 24, 2015 —  With recent funding from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, the Maine Department of Marine Resources has taken another step forward in its ability to lead whale disentanglement efforts.

The $20,000 grant will be used by the DMR to purchase a soft bottom inflatable boat that can maneuver more safely and effectively when Maine Marine Patrol, along with key DMR staff, respond to entangled whales.

“Often, responders have to pull alongside an entangled whale which might surface underneath the boat,” said DMR Scientist Erin Summers, who is coordinating the purchase. “A soft bottom boat will move and form to the body of the whale, making injury to the whale less likely. A hard bottom boat is also more likely to tip when hit from below, which could endanger the responders.”

Read the full story at Wiscasset Newspaper

 

Maine to acquire soft-bottom boat for whale entanglements

December 20, 2015 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — The Maine Department of Marine Resources is getting a $20,000 grant that it will use to help make it safer for its staff members to respond to whale entanglements along the coast.

The grant from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund will be used to purchase an inflatable, soft-bottom boat that will be used by Marine Patrol to help free whales from ropes in the ocean, the state agency announced in a prepared statement released this week.

The agency currently uses one or more boats with rigid, v-shaped hulls to deal with entanglements, but such boats can pose a hazard both to whales and the people in the boats if the whale should surface underneath the vessel, according to Department of Marine Resources staff. The hard bottom is more likely to injure the whale, which already could be sick or injured, than a soft-bottom boat. A hard-bottom boat also is more likely to tip or capsize if the whale pushes it up out of the water.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

 

How whaling logs from the 1800s might help us solve climate change

December 16, 2015 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Maritime historians, climate scientists and ordinary citizens are coming together on a project to study the logbooks of 19th-century whaling ships to better understand modern-day climate change and Arctic weather patterns.

Whaling ships kept meticulous daily logbooks of weather conditions during their often yearslong voyages searching the globe for whales, valued for their light-giving oil, said Michael Dyer, senior maritime historian at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, which is supplying much of the data.

Some logs include information about life on board, such as sailors falling overboard, or being disciplined for stealing or other transgressions, and of course, notations whenever whales are spotted. More important for this project, they include precise longitude and latitude measurements, weather conditions, the presence of icebergs and the edge of the ice shelf.

“If they’re cruising in the Bering Strait and there’s ice, there will be a notation in the logbook that ice fields are present,” Dyer said.

The project, called Old Weather: Whaling, is led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The whaling museum is transcribing and digitizing its own logbooks, as well as original data sources from the Nantucket Historical Association, Martha’s Vineyard Museum, Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, and the New Bedford Free Public Library.“If they’re cruising in the Bering Strait and there’s ice, there will be a notation in the logbook that ice fields are present,” Dyer said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New York Post

 

Study: Ropes that break more easily could save some whales

December 15, 2015 — BOSTON (AP) — A study published in a scientific journal says life-threatening whale entanglements could be reduced by using ropes that break more easily under the force of the enormous animals.

Whales become entangled in commercial fishing gear almost every week along the East Coast of the United States and Canada. A coastal study in conservation biology examined ropes retrieved from live and dead whales entangled in fishing gear from 1994 to 2010.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Gloucester Daily Times 

Activists and fishermen team up to address record whale entanglement

December 10, 2015 — Past efforts have pitted the wildlife experts and fishermen against each other and offered little additional protection for whales. This year, the two camps are trying something different: cooperation.

Fishermen have long been at odds with wildlife experts who claim lobster and crab traps are killing whales. And unusually warm waters off the coast of California this year have already caused 60 whales to become entangled in offshore fishing gear.

In response to a 400 percent increase in whale entanglements this year, whale advocates and fishermen teaming up to find solutions that protect both whales and area fishermen whose livelihoods depend on traps in the sea.

Prevention strategies over the last twenty years haven’t done much to help whales and only served to bankrupt the fisherman, says Geoff Shester, California campaign director for Oceana. This time around, wildlife advocates and fishermen are trying a new strategy: cooperation.

“We’ve got pots in the water, we’ve got ropes in the water and we’ve got whales in the water,” crabber Jim Anderson told the Associated Press. “What can we do to make this a safe place for everybody?”

Read the full story at The Christian Science Monitor

Arctic Nations Seek to Prevent Exploitation of Fisheries in Opening Northern Waters

November 24, 2015 — Ruth Teichroeb, the communications officer for Oceans North: Protecting Life in the Arctic, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, sent a note this evening about new steps related to an issue I’ve covered here before – the rare and welcome proactive work by Arctic nations to ban fishing in the central Arctic Ocean ahead of the “big melt” as summer sea ice retreats more in summers in a human-heated climate.

Given how little is known about the Arctic Ocean’s ecology and dynamics, this is a vital and appropriate step.

Here’s her note about an important meeting in Washington in early December, which will likely be obscured as the climate treaty negotiations in Paris enter their final week at the same time:

The United States is hosting negotiations for an international Arctic fisheries agreement to protect the Central Arctic Ocean in Washington, D.C., on December 1 to 3. The five Arctic countries will meet for the first time with non-Arctic fishing nations to work on a binding international accord. This follows the declaration of intent signed in July by the Arctic countries.

The big question for this meeting is whether China, Japan, Korea and the European Union will attend and cooperate on a precautionary agreement to prevent overfishing given the dramatic impact of climate change in the Arctic.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Concerns over anchovy numbers prompt plan for new stock assessment

November 16, 2015 — SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Amid concerns that the anchovy population along the West Coast might have “collapsed” due to environmental factors, regulators committed Monday to update a 20-year-old stock assessment for the fish, but not to enact stricter harvest rules as some groups had hoped.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council, a 19-member policy making group consisting of fishery representatives from Western states, laid out a plan to assess the anchovy stock by next fall, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hasn’t done since 1995.

At the council meeting, federal scientists reported that while surveys have found very low numbers of anchovy adults and eggs, they’ve also detected high numbers of young anchovy. It is unclear, though, what that means for the population’s sustainability.

Because of a lack of comprehensive information, the anchovy stock has been subject to speculation. Like sardines, anchovy numbers often fluctuate. Conservationists, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and Monterey Bay whale watching tour companies still worry that the current fishing quotas could be too high and affecting other animals, such as whales, birds and sea lions.

“This is a victory because we’ve been asking for an assessment for three years now,” said Geoff Shester, the California program manager for the conservation group Oceana. “That said, the council ignored the warning signs and impacts on wildlife, and they’re still basing their regulations on a 20-year-old population estimate.”

Read the full story at Santa Cruz Sentinel

 

CALIFORNIA: Plentiful anchovies far from collapse

November 10, 2015 — I’ve been fishing for more than 50 years up and down the West Coast and I’m shocked at all the hysterical claims I’ve read in the media recently about the anchovy “collapse.” Much of the hype stemmed from an anchovy study still in peer review, but the truth of the matter is that its conclusions are disastrously wrong!

I’m one of a handful of fishermen who fish anchovy in Monterey. I’m on the water nearly every day and I’ve seen a big surge in the anchovy population in recent years. Anchovies now stretch from the “pinheads” fishermen see in Southern California all the way up the coast past Half Moon Bay, where a large group of whales was recently spotted feeding on anchovies.

Read the full story at Monterey Herald