Saving Seafood

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

 

NE Council Receives 2017 Scallop Survey Overview and Progress Report on 2018 Management Measures in Framework 29

October 2, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

During its late-September meeting in Gloucester, MA, the New England Fishery Management Council received a comprehensive overview of the “very successful” 2017 scallop survey season. The Council then reviewed the range of measures under development for Framework Adjustment 29 to the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan. These measures, once fully developed and approved, will apply to the 2018 scallop fishing year, which will begin on April 1 instead of March 1 as in previous years.

Five separate groups contributed to the 2017 scallop surveys:

  • The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) conducted dredge surveys in the Mid-Atlantic, Nantucket Lightship Area, and Closed Area II.
  • UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) conducted intensive surveys of Closed Area I, Closed Area II, and the Elephant Trunk Area, along with broadscale surveys of Georges Bank and the Mid-Atlantic and a drop camera survey of Stellwagen Bank in the Gulf of Maine.
  • The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), in partnership with Lund’s Fisheries, conducted a Habitat Camera Mapping System (HabCam) version 5 (v5) survey of the Northern Edge on Georges Bank.
  • Coonamessett Farm Foundation (CFF) conducted a HabCam v3 survey of the Nantucket Lightship Area, as well as a HabCam v3 survey on Stellwagen Bank and Jeffreys Ledge in the Gulf of Maine, along with six dredge tows on Stellwagen. And,
  • The Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) conducted a dredge survey on Georges Bank and a HabCam v4 survey of the Mid-Atlantic and Georges Bank.

Read the full release at the New England Fishery Management Council

MASSACHUSETTS: Climate change causes 4 degree rise in Buzzards Bay

January 22, 2016 — Climate change has caused a four-degree rise in water temperature and a decline in water quality over the past two decades in Buzzards Bay, according to a study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

“We have seen a widespread and rapid increase in water temperature from 1992 to 2013 and this agrees with other regional studies so we are fairly confident that this is related to climate change,” said Jenny Rheuban, a research associate at WHOI and lead author of the study.

The study — which involved data collected by more than 1,000 trained citizen scientists involved with the coalition over 22 years — also revealed an increase in algae growth, a cause of poor water quality.

“Algae like phytoplankton are the reason that when you go to the beach the water is murkier and not as clear as you’d like,” said Rachel Jakuba, science director for the Buzzards Bay Coalition and co-author of the study.

The levels of chlorophyll, an indicator of phytoplankton or algae, in the water nearly doubled, according to the study, despite the fact that nitrogen levels remained relatively constant.

Read the full story at New Bedford Standard- Times

 

Study uses information from shark strikes on underwater drone to understand behavior

January 11, 2016 — In 2012, when state shark scientist Greg Skomal and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution engineers Amy Kukulya and Roger Stokey first envisioned tracking and filming great whites underwater using a self-propelled torpedo, they worried about disturbing the natural movements and activities of these huge predators.

What they didn’t anticipate was that the REMUS, at about 6 feet long and weighing around 80 pounds, would become the prey, surviving nine attacks and four bumps by great whites weighing thousands of pounds during a week of research in 2013 off Guadalupe Island in Mexico.

Video: See up-close shark video from WHOI’s REMUS “SharkCam”

In a world where there is very little documented about the life of great white sharks, you take what you can get. While they weren’t what researchers anticipated, the attacks on the REMUS at around 160 feet below the surface mark the first time such predatory behavior has been filmed deep underwater.

In a paper recently published in the Journal of Biology, co-authors Skomal, Kukulya, Stokey and Mexican shark researcher Edgar Mauricio Hoyos-Padilla, described how the hunter got captured by the game, as the torpedo they hoped would document a predatory attack on a seal or other marine animal became an unintended lure that attracted great whites and then recorded the attack in a panoramic view on six high definition underwater cameras.

“I was extremely surprised by it,” Skomal said of the REMUS’ mysterious appeal as a potential meal for so many of these sharks.

Read the full story from the Cape Cod Times

 

A Handy New Use for Drones: Collecting Whale Snot

August 10, 2015 — A spouting whale is a majestic sight, spraying everything around it with minuscule droplets of whale snot. (Okay, so it’s not technically snot—it’s more like lung mucus.) But aside from being pretty, that spray, which scientists call “blow,” is a coveted substance in marine biology. Rich with DNA, hormones, viruses, and bacteria from the whale’s respiratory tract, the goo can give researchers clues about a whale’s stress levels and overall health. So, naturally, scientists decided they needed to try collecting the stuff with drones.

Last month in Stellwagen Bank, Massachusetts, scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and NOAA used a hexacopter to collect blow samples and snap photos of 36 humpback whales, gathering data to compare the pod to their brethren in more pristine Antarctic waters. And that’s just one of the conservation research groups that’s decided to capitalize on drones. Ocean Alliance, a nonprofit in Gloucester, Mass., recently launched a Kickstarter for their “Snotbot,” which proposes to collect data from whales off the coasts of Patagonia, Mexico, and Alaska.

These multi-coptered machines are driving a small renaissance in biology and conservation research, allowing researchers—marine scientists especially—to study subjects and places they can’t typically reach. Drones are getting better at carrying scientifically useful payloads: things like more complex sputum samplers, and heavier, better-quality cameras. And as those high-quality drones get cheaper and easier to outfit, they’re helping to answer ecological questions that scientists couldn’t even begin to ask before.

Read the full story at Wired

 

Woods Hole Science Stroll Sunday, August 9 Offers Free Family Science Activities

August 6, 2015 — Interested in touring a research vessel, seeing the submersible ALVIN and other ocean robots, or learning about research on whales and sea turtles, squid, plastics in the ocean, and climate change?

These activities are just a few of the many exhibits, demonstrations and displays to be featured by Woods Hole science organizations during the Woods Hole Science Stroll.

The free public event will be held Sunday, August 9 from 11 am to 3 pm on Water Street in Woods Hole. 

The NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow will be open for tours at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) dock, with the submersible ALVIN and other WHOI ocean robots on display nearby. The WHOI Ocean Science Exhibit Center, featuring interactive ocean exhibits, will be open on School Street. Visitors can see squid and other aquatic organisms in research tanks at the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Marine Resources Center, and learn about biology, biomedicine, and environmental science research at their Visitors Center on Water Street.

Get all the details about the day’s events or get directions and more information.

Questions? 

Contact Shelley Dawicki, Northeast Fisheries Science Center, at 508-289-2252 or Shelley.Dawicki@noaa.gov.

Northeast Consortium and NEFMC Announce Funding for New Collaborative Research Projects

NEWBURYPORT, Mass. — July 8, 2015 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The Northeast Consortium, a University of New Hampshire-based institution established in 1999 to foster collaborative research, under contract to the New England Fishery Management Council, announces funding for three new research projects that will focus on spawning groundfish in waters off the New England coast.

Awards totaling over $335,000 will support a mapping study examining the distribution of spawning cod on Georges Bank, an acoustic and trawl survey of winter-spawning cod in Ipswich Bay, an inshore area off the coast of MA, and work on winter flounder spawning activities offshore in the Gulf of Maine.

The result of a supplemental request for proposals issued last February, projects were required to articulate collaborations between commercial fishermen and scientists, and could include, among other approaches, research that enables the Council to improve groundfish spawning protection by increasing the understanding of groundfish spawning activity or aggregations of spawning groundfish.

Here are more project details.

Project Title: Mapping the distribution of Atlantic cod spawning on Georges Bank using fishermen’s ecological knowledge and scientific data
Lead Institution: University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth, School for Marine Science and Technology; Co-Principal Investigators: Steven X. Cadrin, Gregory DeCelles, and Douglas Zemeckis

Purpose: To map the spatial and temporal distribution of cod spawning on Georges Bank using existing scientific information and data acquired from interviews with current and retired fishermen who fish for cod on Georges Bank. The information is needed to better understand cod population structure and essential fish habitat in this region.

Project Title: Synoptic acoustic and trawl survey of winter-spawning cod in Ipswich Bay, western Gulf of Maine Lead Institution: Gulf of Maine Research Institute; Project Leader: Graham Sherwood
Purpose: To expand our knowledge of the winter-spawning component of Atlantic cod by conducting a synoptic acoustic and trawl survey of Ipswich Bay. Improved knowledge of spawning dynamics in this area will lead to more fine-scale (in both time and space) management options.

Project Title: Identifying offshore spawning grounds of Gulf of Maine winter flounder
Lead Institution: University of New Hampshire; Project Leader: Elizabeth A. Fairchild
Purpose: To determine where winter flounder in the Gulf of Maine are spawning offshore and when, by studying their populations during the spawning season at offshore sites identified by commercial fishermen as locations where large numbers of adult winter flounder are seen during the spawning season.

 NEC/NEFMC – Cooperative Research Projects Funded 

These awards represent a continuation of the 2014 partnership established between the Consortium (NEC) and the Council. The NEC has representation from four research institutions: the University of New Hampshire, University of Maine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with Dr. Chris Glass at the University of New Hampshire, in the lead as its Director.

The Council is a group of 18 fishery officials that includes representatives from each New England coastal state, the federal government, and appointees from the region, all of whom are charged with managing the groundfish complex (cod, haddock, pollock and several species of flounder), in addition to other regional fish stocks. Funding collaborative research is fully consistent with its interest in understanding and improving this resource.

Read the release here