Conservation & Environment

Wildlife officials in Alaska have released a shocking video documenting the effects of fishing gear and other marine debris on a species of seas lions facing extinction.

The heartbreaking footage includes scenes of the animals with their necks tightly bound by packing bands used to secure bait boxes and other containers aboard fishing boats.

The thick plastic bands cut deep grooves into the sea lions' necks, causing strangulation in some cases.

In other shots, seals who have swallowed fishing hooks can be seen with large metal flashers – used to attract salmon and other fish – dangling from their mouths.

Read the complete story from the New York Daily News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New Jersey Senate Democrats issued the following news release:

The Senate today unanimously approved legislation sponsored by Senators Paul A. Sarlo and Bob Smith that would allow for businesses and nonprofit organizations to adopt a piece of the Barnegat Bay and be responsible for clean-up and maintenance of stormwater basins in the Bay's watershed.

"There are more than 2,000 storm water basins in the Barnegat Bay watershed that are failing and in desperate need of repair," said Senator Sarlo (D-Bergen, Passaic). "These repairs are critically important to ensure improved water quality for New Jersey's residents within the watershed. This legislation is a great way to create public-private partnerships with organizations and corporations throughout the state and to make it simple for them to contribute to repairs essential to the environmental health of their communities."

"The 'Adopt a Barnegat Bay Stormwater Basin Act' is a great way for corporations, businesses and nonprofit organizations to give back to a community and the Bay that provides them with economic resources and a large consumer base with both the region's year-round inhabitants as well as the millions of tourists who head to the shore each summer," said Senator Smith, D-Middlesex, Chairman of the Senate Environment and Energy Committee. "This program is a win-win for participating organizations who will not only receive recognition for their efforts in reinvigorating Barnegat Bay, but also a tax credit for the amount they spend on maintenance, repairs and construction of rainwater basins."

Read the complete story on WaterWorld.com

 

 

 

 

 

BRIGANTINE, N.J. (AP) – Experts still don't know if the recent deaths of 3 dolphins found in waters off southern New Jersey are related.

Officials with the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine were notified Sunday afternoon about a common dolphin that was trapped between the rungs of a ladder underneath a dock in the Ocean City lagoon.

Center Director Bob Schoelkopf tells The Press of Atlantic City that it appears the dolphin got caught in the ladder and panicked. It was found around 4 p.m., roughly the same time another common dolphin was found on the beach in the Villas section of Lower Township.

Another common dolphin died Monday, shortly after it was found stranded but alive in the Barnegat Bay in Stafford.

Read the complete Associated Press story in The New Jersey Herald

 

 

 

 

 

A huge seal population is preventing cod stocks from rebounding off Nova Scotia, two former directors of science at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography say.

The work of Bob O'Boyle and Mike Sinclair backs what fishermen have argued for years.

"We conclude that indeed the seals are responsible for the lack of recovery of the cod," Sinclair told CBC News.

Sinclair retired as director of science at BIO in Dartmouth, N.S. He took over the job when O'Boyle left.

Read the complete story from CBC News

 

 

 

 

 

CAMBRIDGE—"Sturgie" is biding his time, waiting to be introduced to the right female.

Caught off Hooper's Island five years ago, the hulking six-foot Atlantic sturgeon passes his days lolling about in a large tank at the University of Maryland's Horn Point Environmental Laboratory near Cambridge. Scientists have been experimenting with him and dozens of other sturgeon here, trying to unlock the secrets of breeding them in captivity and ultimately restore a big, ancient fish that's virtually vanished from Maryland waters.

It's been slow going, in part because Atlantic sturgeon, which have been around for 120 million years or so, take more than a decade to reach sexual maturity, and they don't spawn every year. There have been only two chances so far, but no young fish.

"We knew coming in it was going to be a very long-term commitment," said Erin Markin, a faculty research assistant who oversees the lab's sturgeon work.

Read the complete story from The Baltimore Sun

 

 

 

 

 

BARNEGAT LIGHT — Commercial fishermen are worried an endangered species listing for the Atlantic sturgeon, announced last week by the National Marine Fisheries Service and set to take effect in April, could have a major impact on their operations.

Atlantic sturgeon, a prehistoric fish that once made South Jersey the caviar capital of the world, would be the first ocean fish in the region to win endangered species protection. A smaller sturgeon, the short-nosed sturgeon, which lives in rivers, already is protected but it doesn’t end up in the nets of ocean fishermen. The nearest fish with such protections is the Atlantic salmon in New England.

“You remember the spotted owl? That’s all I have to relate it to,” said local net fisherman Kevin Wark.

Wark said the Endangered Species Act makes it illegal to land a sturgeon but he said it’s almost impossible to avoid them.

Read the complete story from The Press of Atlantic City

 

 

 

 

 

The GOM cod spawning stock biomass was estimated to be at 11,868mt in 2010. The SSC has stated that if the SSB that falls below 7,300mt, the lowest SSB ever recorded (1999), the situation would represent “a state never encountered and therefore in the SSC’s judgment presents a significant risk.” The fundamental goal in the near term should be to minimize risk of further SSB or B declines while mitigating short-term economic/social consequences on the most affected fishermen.

The 6,700mt to 7,500mt ACL range proposed by the NEFMC carries with it an estimated 33% chance that SSB could go below 7,300mt and therefore place the fishery at significant risk. It also appears to guarantee that ACLs would be so low in FY2013 that even by-catch fisheries on GOM cod might have to close. The Council recommendation of opening additional closed areas without any analysis of GOM cod (or GB cod) impacts and with complete disregard for the 8 years of work undertaken by the NEFMC Habitat Committee is incomprehensible. The recommendation also fails to provide any compensation for the differential economic and social impacts of managing this emergency through ACLs alone. The net present value (NPV) analysis available to managers of this and other ACL scenarios does not factor in any of the known risks of further SSB declines. Those are simply unacceptable management actions given current information before the agency; they put inshore fish populations, fisheries, and the smaller fishing communities at significant long-term and perhaps irreversible risk.

The 2012 & 2013 ACLs, management measures, and emergency relief should be structured with a goal of minimizing the risk of further SSB declines; protecting the small vessel, inshore fleet from collapse; reducing the potential revenue differential between the FY 2012 and FY2013 ACLs; and providing emergency financial assistance during the bridge period. This could be done with an tolerable reduction of 5-year NPVs for the fleet and with a distributed economic impact across the groundfish fleet.

The management strategy should not and does not need to be based on an approach that either assumes that the near-term assessment science will significantly change the GOM cod biomass estimates or that there will have to be a full or close to full closure in FY2013. Available GOM cod ACLs should be targeted toward small inshore boats to reduce the disproportionate impacts of ACL reductions on this sector of the fleet. See text and Tables 1 and 2 attached below. See also National Standards 4, 6 & 8.

Read the complete position paper from The Conservation Law Foundation

 

 

 

 

 

PLEASANTON, Calif., Feb. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Safeway Inc., a recognized leader in embracing sustainable seafood practices, builds on its leadership today by announcing that its Safeway brand skipjack (chunk-light) canned tuna will be responsibly caught using free-school purse-seine methods. The company will transition to the purse-seine method by the end of the year. Free-school tuna is caught by purse-seiners using traditional methods of spotting schools of fish using radar and sonar, while captains employ powerful binoculars to spot birds attracted by schools of tuna.

Joe Ennen, Senior Vice President of Consumer Brands, said the new sourcing policy is an important step in addressing the consumer demand for a more sustainably sourced product without compromising quality.

"We are committed to building a brand portfolio that is innovative and gives consumers what they want. We have always felt that the Safeway brand is the best tasting canned tuna product. Now we're excited to offer that same superior quality from a source that is more sustainable and eco-friendly," Ennen said.

Safeway is implementing these new specifications at a time when the tuna fishing industry is finding better ways to address the significant negative ecosystem impacts associated with purse-seine netted tuna fishing, a method that employs fish aggregating devices (FADs). Safeway's move to eliminate FAD-caught tuna is part of the effort to make its branded tuna across the shelf stable category more responsibly sourced and to also enhance the company's "Dolphin Safe" tuna commitments made years ago to Earth Island Institute. Safeway is in the process of instituting additional specifications for responsibly sourced albacore tuna caught on longline vessels with improved fishing techniques. Safeway brand "responsibly caught" tuna is the first brand in North America to make this important move.

Read the complete press release on Market Watch

 

 

 

 

 

In a letter sent Monday to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, the Jones River Watershed Association argued that federal agencies have not consulted with each other on the effects of the nuclear plant's operations on North Atlantic right whales, river herring and several other species, as required by law, and that a biological assessment of the plant's impacts was inadequate.

While the Kingston environmental group is not anti-nuclear per se, members have concerns about the effects of the plant drawing more than 500 million gallons of water each day from Cape Cod Bay for cooling, said Margaret Sheehan, an attorney who volunteers for the group.

The 40-year-old plant's license expires June 8. Entergy Nuclear, which owns it, is seeking to extend the license for an additional 20 years.

Concerns over the effect of Pilgrim's operations on the environment are not new. The possible listing of river herring as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, however, makes for a potential showdown akin to what occurred between environmentalists and logging companies in the Northwest over the listing of the northern spotted owl.

Read the complete story from Cape Cod Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The BOEM Call for Information and Nominations (Call) for Commercial Leasing for Wind Power on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Offshore Massachusetts is available for public inspection as of  February 3, 2011 and can be found at: http://www.ofr.gov/inspection.aspx. The Call was published in the Federal Register on February 6, 2011 under Docket ID: BOEM-2011-0097.
 
A map of the Call area is available on the BOEM website at: http://www.boem.gov/Renewable-Energy-Program/State-Activities/Massachusetts.aspx.
 
In addition, a Notice of Intent (NOI) to Prepare an Environmental Assessment for Commercial Wind Leasing and Site Assessment Activities on the Atlantic OCS Offshore Massachusetts is available for public inspection as of  February 3, 2011 and can be found at: http://www.ofr.gov/inspection.aspx.   The NOI was published in the Federal Register on February 6, 2011 under Docket ID: BOEM-2011-0116.
 
BOEM plans to conduct public information sessions in Massachusetts to explain the commercial leasing process and provide additional opportunities for public input on the scope of the EA.  The meetings will be held on Monday, February 13 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, 54 Spring Street, Vineyard Haven and on Tuesday, February 14 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm at the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, 2nd floor, 100 Cambridge Street, Boston.