Saving Seafood

Researchers study whales and the food they eat

April 24, 2017 — North Atlantic right whales need a lot of food each day — the caloric equivalent of 3,000 Big Macs — and right now there’s plenty of it in Cape Cod Bay, in the form of a tiny crustacean.

“The food resource is the thickest we have seen in 32 years,” Charles “Stormy” Mayo, head of the right whale ecology program at the Center for Coastal Studies, said of the zooplankton that whales consume.

In years past, the center’s water sampling in the bay has shown total zooplankton densities usually less than 5,000 organisms per cubic meter. While the individual zooplankton are measured in millimeters, the whales that eat them are among the largest animals on earth, reaching lengths of more than 50 feet and weighing up to 79 tons.

But on April 14, for example, the densities reached well over 40,000 organisms per cubic meter across most of the bay, according to Christy Hudak, the center’s associate scientist. Some areas west of Great Island in Wellfleet reached 72,000 organisms per cubic meter.

On that same day, more than 40 percent of the total population of right whales left in the world, 217 out of 524, were spotted in the bay.

“It might be that the food resource is particularly strong this year, and if it continues that will bode well for right whales,” biologist Mark Baumgartner of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said. “Alternatively, food in other habitats at other times of the year may be poor, leading to right whales concentrating in fewer places and fewer times, such as Cape Cod Bay in early spring.”

Scientists are looking at possible connections between the high concentration of right whales in the early spring in Cape Cod Bay and low calving rates.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

UN official visits Woods Hole to recruit scientist advocates

April 11, 2017 — Standing in a high-ceilinged work bay on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Quissett Campus, United Nations General Assembly President Peter Thomson was surrounded by sophisticated ocean sensors, robot gliders and moorings that towered overhead, bristling with technology.

“As a young boy in Fiji, I read my National Geographic, and saw the photos of Woods Hole and bathyscaphe sailing out of here, and this has always been a place where I thought, at least there’s some place where the good science is going on,” Thomson told scientists and media Friday at a briefing held during his tour of the institution’s facilities.

Thomson said he came to WHOI to ask that the organization send scientists to the upcoming UN Ocean Conference, which will be held June 5-9 in New York City.

“I’m an advocate, I’m not a scientist,” Thomson said. “It’s very important to me if I can seduce these guys at Woods Hole to come down and play an active role.”

WHOI Director Mark Abbott embraced Thomson’s request.

“It is a recommitment of a lot of things we do and we will be an active participant,” Abbott said.

WHOI is already involved in international research and projects, and had a program that sponsored scientists from around the world doing research at the institution, he said.

Thomson is a career civil servant and diplomat, has been his country’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York since 2010, and served as the Fijian Ambassador to Cuba until he was selected as President of the General Assembly this year.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Troubling signs for right whale population

April 10, 2017 — The quickly fading population of vaquitas sets a worrisome example for those trying to save North Atlantic right whales.

“It has me slightly terrified,” said Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution biologist Mark Baumgartner, who heads up the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, at the annual U.S. Marine Mammal Commission meeting, held last week at the Sea Creat Beach Hotel in North Falmouth.

In 1997, scientists first counted 567 of the small porpoises in the Bay of California in Mexico, but in 20 years that has dropped precipitously — to 30 — as the vaquitas drown when caught underwater in gillnets.

The North Atlantic right whale population, at 524 animals, is currently on a downward trend, too, members of the consortium announced in November. This year’s low calving rate —only 3 right whale calves were documented — is one thing, Baumgartner said.

But a low calving rate coupled with increasing deaths due to fishing gear entanglement spells trouble.

“What could we expect in the next 5 to 10 years?” he said.

At the annual commission meeting, scientists delivered the sobering news that, starting in October, several vaquitas would be captured in the wild and placed in a conservation area for safekeeping and breeding. A recent and intense market in China for the swim bladder of totoaba, which is caught illegally in the bay using gillnets, “caught everybody by surprise,” said Peter Thomas, Marine Mammal Commission International and Policy Program Director. The vaquitas get caught in the gillnets and drown; their corpses are then brought up with the fish and are discarded by the fishermen.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Long-term study planned in ocean south of Martha’s Vineyard

March 13, 2017 — A group of scientists is taking a deep dive into the salty waters and the food web south of Martha’s Vineyard.

Heidi Sosik, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, will use submersible robotic microscopes she helped design and build, as well as an array of other sophisticated scientific gadgets to gain a fuller understanding of the ecosystem on part of the continental shelf stretching from just south of the Vineyard to an area where coastal waters meet the open ocean.

The study, which will involve a group of scientists and researchers led by Sosik, is being funded with $6 million from the National Science Foundation.

“The goal is that these ecosystems will be studied indefinitely,” Sosik said.

The team of experts will scrutinize the very foundation of the marine food chain: tiny plankton invisible to the eye but which can be seen with the aid of powerful underwater microscopes. The goal is to determine patterns in the ocean’s food web and how and why they change over time, so better management practices can be developed.

Waters off the Northeast coast are rich in fish, which depend on plankton to survive and in turn support the vigorous regional fishing industry that’s existed there for centuries.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Bird’s eye view: Scientist visits students, talks researching oceans with drones

November 28, 2016 — “Using Drones and Robotic Boats to Study Coastlines.” What kid wouldn’t be interested in this? Newburyport public school students were enthralled when Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution research scientist Dr. Peter Traykovski visited their classrooms.

A pioneer in using drones for mapping and data collection in order to increase understanding of how coastal processes work, Traykovski showed students how hobby grade robotics have the potential to revolutionize studying and monitoring coastal processes with examples and pictures from aerial imaging drones and robotic boats.

Traykovski has used off the shelf drones and software to produce 3-D profiles of eroding beaches on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard.

“The exciting part for us was the drone work he has been doing,” said Elizabeth Kinzly, PreK-8 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) coordinator for the Newburyport Public Schools. “Even our youngest kid is totally motivated when you talk about drones.”

Traykovski was invited to Newburyport by Storm Surge, a group of citizens from Amesbury, Newburyport, Ipswich, Rowley, Merrimac, Salisbury, Newbury, and West Newbury concerned with the impacts of sea level rise, extreme weather events and other effects of long-term climate change in the Greater Newburyport area. He made a presentation at City Hall on Nov. 2 and visited the schools the following day.

“Our purpose is to provide awareness and foster preparedness,” said Sheila Taintor, one of the founders of Storm Surge in 2013. “Our purpose is not action, but education. We have had a speaker series since 2013, and Peter Traykovski was our most recent speaker. We sponsored his visit, but he received no stipend. I’m always amazed how generous scientists are with their time.”

Read the full story at Wicked Local Newburyport

NEW YORK: Acoustic buoy now detecting rare, endangered whales in New York Bight

November 17, 2016 — An acoustic buoy recently deployed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and WCS’s (Wildlife Conservation Society) New York Aquarium is making its first near real-time detections of two rare great whale species in the New York Bight, including the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale.

On November 14th, the hi-tech buoy named “Melville” detected the telltale “up call” of the North Atlantic right whale, one of the world’s highly endangered whale species that numbers only 500 individual animals. It is the second detection of a North Atlantic right whale made by the buoy since October 26th. The acoustic buoy made another rare find on October 31st with the detection of a sei whale, a species that grows up to 65 feet in length and is rarely observed in New York waters.

North Atlantic right whales are particularly vulnerable to getting hit by ships, so any information on the whereabouts of these animals along the coast is important. Researchers from WCS and WHOI report that the North Atlantic right whale detected on October 26th was outside of the New York Harbor Seasonal Management Area (SMA), one of a series of zones along the eastern seaboard established to protect the slow-swimming whales with boat speed restrictions during their migration periods. Vessel speed restrictions for the mid-Atlantic seasonal management areas—including the SMA in New York Bight—runs between November 1st and April 30th.

“Having the ability to detect North Atlantic right whales and other species rarely seen in New York waters is extremely important given their endangered status,” said Dr. Howard Rosenbaum of WCS’s Ocean Giants Program and co-lead of the WCS New York Aquarium-WHOI project. “In particular, our ability to detect North Atlantic right whales in this area near the shipping lanes but outside these seasonal management areas will hopefully help with efforts to safeguard this highly endangered species in the New York Bight.

Read the full story at Phys.org

New Lobster Trap Technology Could Reduce Whale Entanglements

November 14, 2016 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — More and more whales are becoming snarled in fishing gear, often dying slow, painful deaths.

Two Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) engineers have invented a lobster trap device that they say could help whales avert entanglements and, at the same time, might allow currently restricted waters to be safely reopened for lobster fishing.

In New England’s offshore lobster fishery, long vertical ropes or “lines” connect the traps on the bottom to floats on the water’s surface, so fishermen can locate their trawls and drag them back up.

The new device is called the “on-call” buoy and floats near the bottom attached to lobster traps.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Falmouth researchers discover new information about whale songs

November 7, 2016 — A group of Falmouth-based researchers has gained new insight into the songs of the humpback whale.

When a whale sings, physical vibrations can be felt around the animal. A team of researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that these vibrations, known as particle velocity, can be felt much farther away than originally thought.

“Particle velocity is kind of the long bass that you feel when a car is approaching you. You can hear the sound far away, but you can also feel the vibration,” said Aran Mooney, a Woods Hole biologist. “But sound doesn’t travel as well in air as it does in water.”

In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters, the Woods Hole team detailed their findings from studying a group of humpback whales off the coast of Maui. Mooney said they measured vibrations from about 200 meters away from the whales, but believe they could be felt as far as one kilometer away.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

NEFMC to Screen Sustaining Sea Scallop Doc on September 21

September 19th, 2016 — The following was released by Coonamessett Farm Foundation: 

On Wednesday, September 21st at 5:30 pm there will be a reception followed by a showing of the short movie “Sustaining Sea Scallops”. The reception will begin at the end of the New England Fishery Management Council’s meeting that day at the DoubleTree Hilton in Danvers, MA and is hosted by the Fisheries Survival Fund. The Fisheries Survival Fund (“FSF”) is an organization whose participants include the bulk of the full-time, limited access scallop fleet located from Virginia to Massachusetts.

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.

This 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 movie trailer here

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