Conservation & Environment

Doug Rader, chief ocean scientist at Environmental Defense Fund, conceded Monday his organization's 2008 policy paper predicting a jellyfish-dominated oceanic catastrophe oversimplified the problem.

"Oceans of Abundance," which was underwritten by the Walton Family Foundation and co-authored by NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, then an EDF official, foresaw "the collapse of global fisheries in our lifetimes," to be replaced by "massive swarms of jellyfish" — unless the wild stocks were immediately privatized and commodified for "catch share" trading in the global investment market.

EDF's Rader was responding to a Monday Times story about the publication in the February issue of BioScience on research that found no evidence of a trend toward an explosion of the jellyfish — or "gelatinous zooplankton" — filling the void left by the removal of more complex fishes.

The "jellyfish thesis" had become a lightning rod due to Lubchenco's status as a distinguished scientist when she came to office. At the same time, she has presided over rapid expansion of catch share regimens, including into the New England groundfishery, based on shaky claims and fierce industry and congressional resistance.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Reuters) – The world's oceans are turning acidic at what could be the fastest pace of any time in the past 300 million years, even more rapidly than during a monster emission of planet-warming carbon 56 million years ago, scientists said on Thursday.

Looking back at that bygone warm period in Earth's history could offer help in forecasting the impact of human-spurred climate change, researchers said of a review of hundreds of studies of ancient climate records published in the journal Science.

Quickly acidifying seawater eats away at coral reefs, which provide habitat for other animals and plants, and makes it harder for mussels and oysters to form protective shells. It can also interfere with small organisms that feed commercial fish like salmon.

Read the complete story by Reuters.

 

 

 

 

 

U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, the ranking Democrat on the House’s Natural Resources Committee, raised the issue of Atlantic sturgeon being put on the federal government’s list of threatened species in letters he sent Monday to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Markey asked that the relicensing of Entergy Corp.’s 40-year-old power plant be put on hold until the agencies can address how the plant would affect the Atlantic sturgeon and river herring, which is now up for consideration for the threatened species list.

Markey points out that the NRC’s environmental impact report in 2007 predated the new concerns. The report, Markey says, needs to be updated to address this new information.

Read the complete story from The Patriot Ledger.

 

 

 

 

 

U.S. officials say they’ll protect key fishing areas off the Rhode Island coast from future wind energy projects.

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed said Friday that the decision will help ensure that future offshore wind turbines are located in areas where they will have minimum impact on fishermen and boaters.

Read the complete story from The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

Covered in bony plates, the Atlantic sturgeon once thrived in New Hampshire waterways such as the Piscataqua River, but the prehistoric fish has virtually disappeared from the state's inland rivers, a result of overfishing and industrial development.

The Atlantic sturgeon hasn't been wiped out entirely in the northeast; researchers have documented stable populations at the mouth of the Merrimack River and in Maine. But in New Hampshire, the state Fish and Game Department has recorded only half a dozen encounters between humans and Atlantic sturgeon in the last three decades.

"It's one of America's classic environmental stories," said Bolster, who spotted his first Atlantic sturgeon in the Saint John River in New Brunswick, Canada several years ago.

It was, therefore, surprising when, in August 2007, Bolster and a group of UNH students inadvertently captured an Atlantic sturgeon in a fishing net near the Isles of Shoals. The group was riding a chartered fishing boat out of Hampton Harbor, and was halfway between the Port of Seabrook and the Isles, when they snagged a live sturgeon in a gill net. They quickly snapped a few photos before releasing it back into the water.

Read the complete story from Foster's Daily Democrat.

 

 

 

 

 

NEW BEDFORD — Dire stock assessments for Gulf of Maine cod this week prompted the Conservation Law Foundation to ask Commerce Secretary John Bryson for disaster relief for the fishing industry.

CLF Vice President Peter Shelley also told Bryson his group believes catch levels for the year that begins May 1 should be dramatically lower than the lowest recommendation of the New England Fishery Management Council. The council's lowest figure is 6,700 metric tons. CLF wants it set at 4,000 metric tons.

At that level, CLF estimates a $4.7 million revenue loss in the Gulf of Maine cod fishery.

Shelley told Bryson the CLF is joining Gov. Deval Patrick in asking for the state of emergency; Patrick had no luck with his request last year.

Read the complete story from The Standard-Times.

Read the letter from the Conservation Law Foundation.                

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bar Harbor — The Maine Lobstermen’s Association has scheduled a series of meetings — one in each of the state’s seven lobster zones — to discuss current research on interactions between lobster gear and endangered whales.

The meetings will include an overview on reverse engineering techniques, scar data and experimental rope research that has been conducted by the Consortium for Wildlife Bycatch Reduction, in conjunction with the MLA. In addition, the MLA — in collaboration with Woods Hole (Mass.) Oceanographic Institute — is seeking feedback on a new computer modeling tool designed to forecast the risk of Maine lobster gear entangling right whales.

Locally, the meeting will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 28 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Bar Harbor Town Office auditorium. (For more information, contact Heather Tetreault at 659-3443).

Read the complete story from Village Soup.

 

 

 

 

 

AquaBounty Technologies, a Waltham company that has created a genetically engineered Atlantic salmon, is treading water while it waits for the Food and Drug Administration to decide whether it can sell its fast-growing fish to the public.

The already lengthy federal approval process has grown longer and more complicated in the face of strong opposition to the AquAdvantage salmon, the nation’s first genetically engineered food fish, by environmental groups, consumer advocates, and some lawmakers.

But these efforts are shortsighted, said the company’s president and chief executive, Ronald L. Stotish.

“If anti-[genetically engineered] food activists succeed, the unintended consequence is that we will still one day be eating [genetically engineered] animal food – it will be produced elsewhere,’’ he said in a statement.

Read the complete story from The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As Rick Bellitti walked along the Charles River Locks this month, he spotted a looming figure in the water below. Probably a piece of driftwood, he figured. Until he saw it swimming slowly toward him.

“He was right there on the surface,’’ Bellitti, a 36-year-old accountant, recalled recently. “A prehistoric, floating dinosaur. Covered in armor.’’

Turns out, Bellitti had happened upon an Atlantic sturgeon, an ancient, endangered species that had not been spotted around the Charles River for as long as anyone could remember.

Read the complete story from The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROVINCETOWN, Mass.—A marine mammal rescue team has successfully freed an endangered North Atlantic right whale from the fishing line entangled around its head and mouth.

The director of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies entanglement response team says rescuers used a 30-foot pole and hook-shaped knife on Wednesday to cut the fishing line that had been around the young male whale for about a month.

The same whale was disentangled in 2009 about a mile away from Wednesday's location off the coast of Cape Cod.

The center says 320 of the world's roughly 475 remaining right whales were documented in Cape Cod Bay in 2011.

Read the complete Associated Press story in The Boston Globe