Saving Seafood

WHOI scientists tracking leatherbacks capitalize on moment

September 19th, 2016 — After a summer marked by boat repairs, a paucity of jellyfish and a presidential no-fly zone, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientists finally got what they wanted Saturday — an “epic” day of picture-perfect weather and leatherback turtles swimming off the coast of Nantucket.

It was the best possible outcome for engineer Amy Kukulya and biologist Kara Dodge, the duo behind last year’s TurtleCam crowdfunding project. They were able to tag and track a leatherback turtle for four hours and capture huge amounts of data and video of the creature’s feeding habits and behavior. And best of all, the TurtleCam — a modified REMUS-100 autonomous underwater vehicle equipped with video cameras — was able to hone in on the acoustic tag and follow the turtle, just as designed.

“Everything was just exactly how we wanted it to go,” said Dodge.

The TurtleCam project raised nearly $11,000 last summer through Project WHOI, the institution’s crowdfunding site, and a private donor chipped in another $20,000, Dodge said. That helped the team get a turtle tagged in 2015, but more importantly it allowed them to land a $240,000 National Marine Fisheries Service grant to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, their partners on the TurtleCam project. In all, the project is now funded for seven full days at sea, Dodge said.

This year, the acoustic tag attached to the leatherbacks has been upgraded with two suction cups and a video camera to get some turtle-eye views of the sea, Kukulya said. She and Dodge won’t review the footage until today, but Kukulya said she couldn’t resist a quick peek Sunday morning.

Read full story The Cape Cod Times

Contention Over New Marine Monument Off Georges Bank In New England

September 16, 2016 — President Obama announced the creation of the first national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument sits off Cape Cod. The newly protected marine environment that has been called an “underwater Yellowstone”.

It is almost 5,000 square miles, the size of Connecticut, a submerged ecosystem of oceanic canyons, vivid corals and teeming marine wildlife.

Obama created the monument by executive order. Oil and gas exploration and drilling are immediately banned in the area, as well as most commercial fishing. That is why many in the New England fishing industry are protesting Obama’s declaration.

Guest

Tim Shank, associate scientist with tenure at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, which tweets @WHOI. Shank is attending the sixth International Symposium on Deep-Sea Corals at the Long Wharf Marriott in Boston.

Jon Williams, president of the Atlantic Red Crab Company, based out of New Bedford, and president of the New England Red Crab Harvesters’ Association.

Listen to the full story at WBUR

MASSACHUSETTS: Local Organizations to Receive Fishing Grants

June 10, 2016 — BARNSTABLE, Mass.  – Several grants will be awarded to regional groups and projects through the Saltonstall-Kennedy grant program to assist the needs of fishing communities.

NOAA Fisheries announced 50 projects across the nation that will receive $11 million for projects that will support economic opportunities and build and maintain resilient and sustainable fisheries.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will receive more than $268,000 to model the impact of climate change on larval connectivity and the recruitment of the American lobster off of Southern New England.

Over $105,000 will go to the Aquacultural Research Corporation in Dennis to create commercial opportunities by piloting surf clam aquaculture techniques.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Woods Hole Researchers ‘Listen’ to the Ocean Floor

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.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Fishermen, Scientists Collaborate to Collect Climate Data

May 23, 2016 — Fishermen plying the waters off the southern New England coast have noticed significant changes in recent years.  Though generations of commercial fishermen have made their livings on these highly productive waters, now, they say, they are experiencing the impacts of climate change.

“The water is warming up, and we see different species around than we used to,” says Kevin Jones, captain of the F/V Heather Lynn, which operates out of Point Judith, Rhode Island.

To help understand the ongoing changes in their slice of the ocean, Jones and other fishermen in the region are now part of a fleet gathering much-needed climate data for scientists through a partnership with the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

“There has been a lack of consistent measurements in this region, particularly across the continental shelf south of Rhode Island,” says Glen Gawarkiewicz, a physical oceanographer at WHOI and principal investigator on the project. “In order to understand the changes in ocean conditions and how those changes impact ecosystems and the people who depend on them, we need to collect more data, more often.”

The Shelf Research Fleet Project began in 2014 with that goal in mind. The fleet is made up of commercial fishing vessels that are fishing in or transiting through the study area throughout the year.

Read and watch the full story at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

“Sustaining Sea Scallops” Documentary Highlights Cooperative Research

March 8, 2016 — The following was released by the Coonamessett Farm Foundation:

The scallop industry and its scientific partners have been hard at work producing a movie about Cooperative Research and its role in “Sustaining Sea Scallops”

The sea scallop fishery is one of the most lucrative wild-harvest fisheries in the United States. But just 15 short years ago this key fishery was facing closures and on the verge of bankruptcy. SUSTAINING SEA SCALLOPS chronicles the dramatic rebound of the Atlantic sea scallop fishery highlighting the unique partnership that supports this sustainable fishery.

You can find the link for the movie trailer at www.cfarm.org and a list of venues where the full movie can be viewed. The 35-minute documentary follows fishermen and researchers from New Bedford, Massachusetts to Seaford, Virginia, as they collaborate on studies of gear design, deep sea habitats, and threatened sea turtles. Capturing in-depth footage of the offshore and onshore processes involved in the scalloping industry. Including unprecedented footage of the marine environment using new underwater technologies that provides a breathtaking mosaic of sea scallops on the ocean floor and a close-up of a loggerhead sea turtle feeding on scallops.

With input from researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and Coonamessett Farm Foundation the film explores a new method of fisheries management that focuses on gear innovations and improved survey strategies to maintain a healthy fishery.

A rare tale of renewal, SUSTAINING SEA SCALLOPS, illuminates a message of hope for other beleaguered fisheries offering cooperative research as a new model for sustainable fisheries.

Watch the video from the Coonamessett Farm Foundation and their partners

A new formula for whale preservation

February 17, 2016 — WOODS HOLE — From 750 feet above Northeast ocean waters, right whale researchers can easily pick out “Ruffian” for his many scars or “Baldy” for her lack of rough skin patches. Other right whales, though, may take hours to identify.

A new “face recognition” algorithm for right whales, however, announced recently by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, could lead to development of time- and money-saving software and eventually to greater preservation of a species whose global population is 520, right whale experts say.

The new algorithm, created in an international competition sponsored by NOAA Fisheries and the Natick software developer MathWorks, can identify right whale “faces,” or tissue patterns on the top of their heads, with 87 percent accuracy, according to Christin Khan, a NOAA Fisheries biologist and right whale aerial surveyor. Khan, who works in Woods Hole, pursued the idea of facial recognition software for the right whales, and researched how to get the algorithm built, through an online competition that began in August and ended in January.

The winning team, out of 364 entries, was from the software company deepsense.io, with offices in the United States and Poland.

The new algorithm is a first step to developing software for day-to-day use, Khan said. The algorithm, in its initial form, is for aerial photos only, not for photos taken from a boat, Khan said. But the potential is great and part of the growing use of technology to protect whales, several right whale experts said.

“Right now we’re living in the golden age of whale research in terms of technology,” Dave Wiley, research coordinator for Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, said. “The things we’re doing now I couldn’t even have imagined 20 years ago. This Cape Cod area is probably at the forefront of all this stuff.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

An hour with: The Woods Hole Science Aquarium

February 1, 2016 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — The cart of food wouldn’t look totally out of place at an upscale sushi restaurant: capelin and herring, both whole and neatly chopped, mysis shrimp and cubes of gelatin packed with ground fish, broccoli, carrots and spinach.

But these restaurant-grade meals aren’t for fine dining; they’re for the fish and other marine animals that call the Woods Hole Science Aquarium home.

The free aquarium is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service and is open five days a week. But fish need to eat even on weekends or federal holidays. So every morning, usually before the doors open at 11 a.m., one of the three staff members or five regular volunteers comes to dole out a specific mix of edibles to the critters in each tank, clean the tanks or perform other behind-the-scenes maintenance at the nation’s oldest public aquarium at 166 Water St.

Alison Brodet, a marine biologist who volunteers at the aquarium once a week, briefly conferred with senior biologist Kristy Owen about the morning’s feeding. Some usually ravenous fish were being slower to the food today, but Owen wasn’t worried. The bigger fish will eat more than once a day, but the smaller fish may eat only once a day or less, depending on their temperament.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times

 

Auto-aquaculture? Conference in Woods Hole explores possible uses for robots and automation to reduce costs

January 12, 2016 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — Yogesh Girdhar wowed the room with a video of what looked like a small shoebox awkwardly paddling underwater.

What Girdhar, a post-doctoral scholar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, called a “curious robot” had none of the cachet of the sleek autonomously operated torpedoes, high-tech miniaturized laboratories, or parasite-zapping lasers that had already been displayed at a conference held Monday at the institution’s Quissett Campus to explore the role of robots and automation in aquaculture.

But his clumsy looking creation filled a need in the minds of many at the conference. As it paddled along, its software played the favorite childhood learning game — one of these things is not like the others — picking out a small coral head sticking up from the sand and zeroing in on it. The program, Girdhar said, would help a free-swimming vehicle, patrolling inside a fish cage far out to sea, recognize and investigate anomalies such as dead fish, a hole in the net, even evidence of disease. It could then notify its owners that something was wrong, prompting additional investigation.

It’s the kind of innovation conference organizers hope will make offshore aquaculture more cost effective.

“Open-ocean aquaculture is a high-cost way of producing fish that hasn’t really taken hold yet,” said Hauke Kite-Powell, a WHOI researcher in marine policy. “The challenge is to make it cost-competitive with near-shore aquaculture.”

With the world population projected to climb from 7 billion in 2011 to 9 billion by 2040, the demand for food, especially protein, will also soar. A diminishing water supply, droughts and less arable land are squeezing agriculture and land-based meat production.

Unfortunately, the one resource people once believed was limitless, wild fish, has proven to be all too finite. Mismanagement, overfishing, climate change and other factors have depleted fish stocks worldwide.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times

Statement from Paul Doremus, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Operations at NOAA Fisheries on Recent Press Regarding Relocation of NOAA Fisheries Woods Hole Laboratory

December 24, 2015 — The following was released from NOAA Fisheries:

On December 23, 2015, the Falmouth Enterprise published a story that NOAA “is exploring the possibility of relocating the Northeast Fisheries Science Center to a new facility outside of Woods Hole.” While the story suggests that relocation may be imminent, we are in fact very early in the process of considering how best to update the buildings and associated operations of the 54-year-old Woods Hole complex. The Enterprise story also contains statements from a Science Center employee that do not represent the views of the agency. At this point, NOAA has not made a decision to relocate the laboratory and will only pursue a recapitalization option after extensive analysis and consultations with the Administration and Congress.

Right now, NOAA is conducting a large-scale study that will evaluate all of our options for upgrading the Woods Hole complex. Studies like this are a normal business practice for long-term planning. This type of study requires the agency to evaluate multiple options to inform the overall decision-making process.

While NOAA Fisheries is fully committed to maintaining its scientific capabilities in the Northeast, the condition of that laboratory, built in 1961, will make it increasingly difficult for NOAA to continue its tradition of world-class fisheries science in the region into the future.

The current study will be completed sometime in the spring. Starting with this study, Fisheries will continue to work with NOAA and the Department of Commerce to ensure they have everything they need to evaluate our options, including information on potential community impacts, costs and benefits to our mission, and the ability for our Agency to continue to do our scientific work in the Woods Hole area.

We look forward to working further with the Administration, with Congress, and with all of our partners in the region as we evaluate our options for upgrading our facilities and providing the best long-term support for our scientific work in the Northeast.