Conservation & Environment

August 15, 2013 — The bluefin tuna season is in full swing, and the early returns are a mixed study, with good news regarding the size of the available fish against lower numbers of actual fish landed.

Scientists at the University of Massachusetts’ Gloucester-based marine research center and at least one local tuna seller agree that the anecdotal and statistical realities so far in the 2013 season indicate lower catch rates than in years past.

The good news, however, is that those lower catch rates seem to be offset by larger fish swimming in larger schools than the industry has seen in the past few years.

“The availability of really big fish seems to be higher than the last couple years,” said Molly Lutcavage, director and research professor at UMass’ Large Pelagics Research Center at Hodgkins Cove. “That’s confirmed by the fact that one of the purse seines made their first multiple set since probably 2004.”

Lutcavage said spotter-plane pilots also have reported seeing “much larger schools of large fish” than they have in years.

“That perspective is from multiple pilots flying over larger areas,” Lutcavage said.

The evidence that this year’s stock includes larger fish also was strengthened by the fact that one local tuna captain recently hauled in a bluefin that weighed 920 pounds, as confirmed in an earlier email to The Times from P.J. Mead, owner of Compass Seafood in Gloucester, a primary grader, processor and seller of tuna.

That prized fish was hauled in on a charter trip by Capt. Kevin Leonowert, whose boat The Huntress is part of the “Wicked Tuna” fleet featured on National Geographic TV’s acclaimed reality series.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

August 14, 2013 — Chinese community representatives and advocates trying to reverse a culturally controversial California law banning shark fin possession and sales are diving into a hearing today with backing from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled today to review the community groups' appeal of the U.S. District Court's denial of a preliminary injunction, along with an amicus brief filed by the Justice Department in support of the appeal.

The Chinatown Neighborhood Association and Asian Americans for Political Advancement sued the state in 2012 to stop the ban from being implemented. The community groups allege the ban, which took full effect July 1, infringes on the Chinese tradition of eating shark fin soup in celebrations that dates back to the Han Dynasty that began in 206 B.C.

The Justice Department's brief late last month states that California's new law "obstructs the use of fishery resources lawfully obtained in federal waters." Federal acts, including the Shark Finning Prohibition Act in 2000 and Shark Conservation Act in 2010, sought to protect the endangered species without sinking the commercial fishing industry.

Read the full story at the San Francisco Examiner

August 11, 2013 — For years we've been freaking out about the Asian carp making their way up the Illinois River while another insidious scourge was invading our fresh water supply. Who knew the Great Lakes were being threatened by exfoliating facial scrubs?

Plastic microbeads — some of them fractions of a millimeter long — have been found in water samples from lakes Superior, Huron and Erie. The California researchers who collected them plan to troll lakes Michigan and Ontario next.

The beads are abrasive particles found in everything from toothpaste to liquid hand soaps to industrial cleaners. Lather up, and they provide an invigorating scrub that unclogs pores, removes dead cells and reveals a sparkling new you.

But the beads don't dissolve. They're designed to wash down the drain — after which they make their way into the water treatment system and eventually to our lakes or oceans, where they remain for who knows how long. Worse, they absorb and retain chemical contaminants.

Fish and other water creatures ingest them, either because they look like food or because they're so small they just get sucked in with the plankton or whatever else is for lunch. The pellets — and the contaminants — get passed up the food chain until they land on our plates disguised as pecan-crusted walleye.

Read the full editorial at the Chicago Tribune

August 10, 2013 — The steady, ominous rise of ocean temperatures is bringing fish species more common off the Carolina coast and Florida into local waters, scientists and observers said.

Mike Thomas, owner of M&D Bait and Tackle in Wareham for almost three decades, said: "I've seen cobia. I know of three in 28 years of business and I already know of four this year. We had a couple of bonefish this year, a couple of kingfish."

Also showing up with increased frequency are red drum, Atlantic croaker, inshore lizardfish and jack crevalle.

"These are all pretty much southern fish," Thomas said. "They just hitch a ride on the Gulf Stream and come up."

And they're likely to keep coming, in greater numbers and joined by other subtropical species.

"We have a trawl survey every spring and fall and southern species are more and more common all the time," Armstrong said. "They're finding their preferred temperature. They're cold-blooded so they really depend on hanging out where the temperature is optimal for growth."

As the subtropical fish follow warmer water north, species formerly common to southern New England are also heading north and to deeper water, seeking cooler temperatures.

"Cape Cod forms a barrier for a lot of fish," said Kevin Blinkoff, executive editor of On the Water, a magazine for northeastern fishermen. "It's been the northernmost limit for a lot of species. In recent years, though, there are fish such as black sea bass and scup and, to a lesser degree, fluke that were thought of as a more southern New England fish that are appearing in Boston Harbor and along the North Shore."

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

August 7, 2013 — Through a program called “Fishing for Energy,” commercial fishermen are provided with no-cost opportunities to dispose of old and unused fishing gear that can clutter docks and boat decks. They can get rid of the gear without digging into their pockets to pay disposal costs.

On July 29, a container truck pulled into the Covanta plant in Ward Hill and dropped off load of gear that included damaged nets, broken lobster traps and buoys, rope and other fishing equipment that was no longer usable.

“This is the kind of stuff that was beyond repair,” said Covanta spokeswoman Meg Morris.

She said that in the past, fishermen had to pay to dispose of old gear, but under this program Covanta picks up the discarded gear and brings it to the Haverhill plant, where it is converted into clean energy that is fed into the power grid.

Morris said fishermen load unusable fishing gear into bins that are provided to fishing ports that request them. When the bins are full they are picked up by a truck and delivered to the Haverhill facility, she said.

Read the full story at the North Andover, Massachusetts Eagle Tribune

August 5, 2013 — Unusually hot, dry weather in Alaska is wreaking havoc on fisheries, as thousands of fish perish in overheated waters. Last month, 1,100 king salmon died on their way up to the Crystal Lake hatchery due to water temperatures around 80 degrees Fahrenheit and lack of oxygen. That’s the bulk of the 1,800 adult salmon that were expected to return to the hatchery this season.

Earlier in the summer, another hatchery lost hundreds of grayling and rainbow trout in a Fairbanks lake where water temperatures reached 76 degrees. Alaska’s heat wave broke records last week, with 14 days straight above 70 degrees in Anchorage and 31 days of 80 degrees in Fairbanks.

Officials cited a number of factors affecting the fish, but observed that the die-off coincided with the hottest weather of the season. While die-offs are not uncommon, Doug Fleming, a sportfish biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, suggested the magnitude of the die-off was surprising.

“And so, getting through till Wednesday which appeared to be the hottest day, then on Thursday I was conducting an aerial survey just to get a grip on how many fish may have been killed by the warm water, not expecting to see a large die-off but some, and I was shocked to see the numbers of fish that we lost,” he told the Associated Press.

Read the full story at the Center for American Progress

August 2, 2013 — Dozens of dead or sick Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have washed ashore along beaches from Virginia north to New York, including several baby dolphins in Delaware, since early June.

Federal fisheries officials, along with state resources and marine mammal stranding organizations, are trying to figure out why.

“We’re still collecting data,” said Marjorie Mooney-Seus, a spokeswoman for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, based in New England.

What federal officials know so far is that the highest number of reported dolphin deaths have come from Virginia and New Jersey. In July alone, there were 42 dead bottlenose dolphins reported in Virginia, 20 in New Jersey, 15 in New York, seven in Maryland and one in Delaware, she said.

Most of Delaware’s baby dolphin deaths — animals that were just a few weeks old — occurred between late May and June, said Suzanne Thurman, executive director of the MERR Institute, Delaware’s marine mammal stranding organization.

Read the full story at DelawareOnline.com

PORTLAND, Maine — August 2, 2013 — John Bullard, northeast regional administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, sees climate change as not just a cause for immediate alarm, but also an opportunity.

“A crisis is a horrible thing to waste. It looks like a normal day out there, but it’s not — it’s not normal,” Bullard said Thursday during the second day of the two-day first-ever Climate of Change conference, organized by the Rockland-based Island Institute, on the Portland waterfront.

Following the previous day’s discussion of diversifying Maine’s fishing industry, Thursday’s focus was adapting policy and research methods to respond to an environment affected by climate change.

The group, a mix of academics, scientists, lawmakers and fishermen, largely agreed that the need for a dialogue between commercial fisherman, policymakers and the scientific community is pressing.

A central theme from the morning discussion was obvious — change is close, and it’s necessary.

Participants all seemed to agree that many of the current research and policy methods are not flexible or nimble enough to keep up with the rate of change in the climate. The migration of cold-water fish to the north, among other factors, makes data collection and lawmaking complicated.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

July 31, 2013 — The effort to get Alaska’s commercially caught salmon recertified under the Marine Stewardship Council’s label of sustainability took a major step forward Wednesday with the release of a draft report. KDLG’s Mike Mason has the story.

Listen to the story from KDLG