Conservation & Environment

A new NOAA report of data collected in 2005 will help the agency’s scientists better monitor progress in reducing bycatch – the non-target fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds caught incidentally in fishing.

Bycatch costs fishermen time and money, harms endangered and threatened species, affects marine and coastal ecosystems, and makes it more difficult for scientists to measure the effect of fishing on the stock's population, and for managers to set sustainable levels for fishing. Preventing and reducing bycatch is an important part of ensuring sustainable living marine resources and coastal communities. The 2006 reauthorization of the Magnuson Stevens Act, the nation’s principal law for living marine resources, made bycatch reduction a priority, leading NOAA to establish a bycatch reduction program to develop technological devices and other conservation engineering solutions.

While the National Bycatch Report does not represent an estimate of current bycatch rates, it is the first to compile collect regional data about U.S. commercial fisheries into one nationwide report. It found that 17 percent of fish caught commercially were harvested unintentionally. The report also details the numbers of marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds caught incidentally during fishing operations in 2005. The retrospective report provides a baseline for measuring bycatch reduction and establishes a consistent, comprehensive methodology for future studies.

“Fisheries managers, the fishing industry, and the environmental community share the goal of preventing and reducing bycatch, which is an important part of ending overfishing and ensuring sustainable marine resources,” said Richard Merrick, Ph.D., NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service chief scientist. “This report helps us understand the extent of bycatch in the U.S. and the quality of our data about bycatch. As we update this report, we will see improvements in data quality and will measure the progress we believe management measures and technologies are having in reducing bycatch.”

Since 2005, important steps have been taken to address bycatch in fisheries across the country. NOAA’s Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program, which began in 2008, supports scientists working side-by-side with fishermen to test gear and fishing modifications which are often inspired by fishermen. The program has helped generate changes in fishing practices and technological solutions like “weak hooks,” which bend under pressure to allow the heavier bluefin tuna to free themselves from longline fishing hooks meant for yellowfin tuna and swordfish.

Cooperative research with fishermen across the country has helped design and test fishing gear to avoid bycatch, allow nontargeted species to escape nets or lines, and reduce harm to those species incidentally caught and released. NOAA’s law enforcement personnel routinely assist fishermen through outreach and education programs to ensure proper use of required bycatch-avoidance gear, like turtle excluder devices.

The report provides baseline bycatch estimates for 481 species, including marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds, and fish. It also presents bycatch estimates for 81 fisheries, which are defined by a combination of area, species, and fishing gear. A fishery can be made up of more than one fish species.

The report showed large differences between regions and fisheries in 2005. In some regions, such as the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, where fishermen can more easily catch fish without interacting with nontargeted species, unintended catch of fish amounted to seven percent in 2005. In other regions, where multispecies fisheries are more common, fishermen may find it much more difficult to avoid nontargeted species.

The report also evaluated the quality of bycatch data from the period for 152 federal fisheries or fisheries with federal data collection programs, finding that 46 percent had high-quality data in 2005. NOAA is working to improve the quality of bycatch data through regional fisheries observer programs and developing best practices for estimating bycatch. The report also includes recommendations on how bycatch data can be improved.

To complete the report, NOAA examined a variety of sources, including data from at-sea fisheries observers, commercial fishing logbooks, and production reports. NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service scientists from each regional office, science center, and headquarters office were involved in developing the estimates and the report, including scientists who undertake stock assessments for fish and protected species.

Actions by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, stakeholder groups, and the regional fishery management councils have also reduced bycatch. In the southwest region, bycatch of whales, dolphins and porpoises has been reduced by half since 1997, when fishermen in the California drift gillnet fishery were required to use acoustic pingers, underwater sound-emitting devices that alert animals to the net, decreasing the probability of entanglement. In Hawaii, longline vessels reduced seabird interactions with fishermen by 92 to 95 percent by thawing and dying fish bait blue to make it less visible to the birds. Catch shares and industry-managed cooperatives have changed fleet behavior in Alaska and the Northwest, reducing economic discards, or the disposal of target fish that are of undesirable size, sex or quality.

The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that NOAA’s conservation and management measures minimize bycatch to the extent practicable. Bycatch data are important information used by managers in setting annual catch limits and scientists in producing stock assessments for fish and protected species. Conservation and management measures are developed through a public process by the eight regional fishery management councils, which include members who represent commercial fishing, recreational fishing, environmental interests, and academia. Improved data on the scope of the problem and how bycatch reduction measures are working will help councils and fishermen increasingly avoid the costly and wasteful problem of bycatch.

NOAA’s National Bycatch Report is available online. The agency continues to collect data on bycatch in preparation for the next edition of the national bycatch report, scheduled for 2013. Future editions in the report will be used to monitor changes and trends in bycatch, including as a result of new regulations, bycatch reduction devices, changes in fishing patterns, and population fluctuations in both targeted and bycatch species.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re reading TalkingFish.org, you probably already know how important it is to make sure that the seafood you purchase is from a healthy fishery and was caught in a sustainable manner. But did you know that it’s now easier than ever to buy this sustainable fish at your local supermarket along with your regular grocery shopping?

Earlier this month, Shaw’s Supermarkets announced that it would be working with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI) to develop a new sustainable seafood sourcing program. Seafood products certified by the MSC will include various wild salmons and other Alaskan, Pacific, and Canadian fish. The MSC is a well-known sustainable seafood certification and ecolabelling program that certifies fisheries across the globe – you’ve probably seen their logo on seafood in stores or read about them in the news. MSC certification is not a perfect process but it is more reliable than no MSC certification.

If you want an even better certification for New Englanders, look for the GMRI label. GMRI is a regional nonprofit organization that uses science, education, and community to catalyze solutions to the complex challenges of ocean stewardship and economic growth in the Gulf of Maine bioregion.  Their Gulf of Maine Responsibly Harvested branding program identifies locally caught products that have met their rigorous criteria for responsible harvest.

Read the complete story from Talking Fish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just as twilight advances into the day, stripers work their way back into Cape Ann's shallower waters after dodging the dog days of summer laying low, literally, in deep holes, and chasing the plentiful schools of mackerel, mostly.

But even now, memories of the 2011 striper season hereabouts are forming to create big and little pictures.

It comes as no surprise that Al Williams won the big prize — a trophy and $1,000 cash — for weighing the biggest bass entered in Winchester Fishing Co.'s 2011 Bluefish and Striped bass Tournament.

Williams' winner weighed 46.9 pounds. One can't be certain, but it is likely that Williams also caught the first striper of the year, a schoolie, back at the start of May in the Little River where the new arrivals seem to head once they get funneled into the Blynman Canal on high tides, after sprinting up the coast from primarily Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay and the Hudson River.

Read the complete story by Richard Gaines in The Gloucester Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON – 19 Sept. 2011 – The Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary advisory committee last week voted for a 39 page proposal to set up an "ecological research area" that would halt trawling in 39 percent of the sanctuary and fishing of all kinds, including hook-and-line from private boats in 14 percent.  But the plan which had been kept secret by its author, sanctuary Superintendent Craig MacDonald, until after he completed his presentation to the committee, had already been shelved by Obama administration officials at the Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This proposal would establish a proposed Sanctuary Ecological Research Area (proposed SERA) within Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. As the first step, the proposal is submitted to the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) for inclusion in its Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) Amendment process, under provisions of the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan, pursuant to authorization under the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MFCMA). In addition, the proposal similarly may need to be reviewed by other fishery management authorities to ensure comprehensive management.

Read the complete document from NOAA

 

 

 

 

 

The swordfish industry has been vilified for years.

They’ve been painted as a fleet of fishermen determined to troll the oceans with their “curtains of death,” or gill nets, in order to capture the magnificent fish at the deathly expense of migrating turtles, dolphins and whales.

But government officials and one very powerful and influential environmental group say that picture is inaccurate. They want the government to consider expanding, or at least reevaluating, the West Coast fishery.

“We’d like to help the public understand that while we want to protect turtles, it may be a time to take a broader or more holistic view” of the fishery, said Chuck Cook, director of the coastal and marine program with The Nature Conservancy in California.

The Nature Conservancy does not have an official position on the issue.

Read the complete story from California Watch

 

 

 

 

 

Warming waters around Martha’s Vineyard have discouraged what once were abundant fish. Top fisheries scientists with the National Marine Fisheries Service recently released a report citing the dramatic influence changing climate has had on at least one of the fish that used to spend a lot of time in these waters: Atlantic mackerel.

Atlantic mackerel have shifted away from the Vineyard and now are found more east and northeast, according to the report.

Atlantic mackerel once were hugely abundant around the Vineyard. A few anglers still remember jigging for tinker mackerel in Menemsha Channel and bigger fish in Menemsha Bight in the late spring and summer. Others can remember when the fish was caught all around the Island. In more recent years, Atlantic mackerel are only seen in this area in spring, for about two weeks off Aquinnah.

Overfishing has often been the easy explanation for their decline in these waters. Not so, according to the report coauthored by Jon A. Hare, of the National Marine Fisheries Service. The fish have moved away and are now abundant somewhere else.

Read the complete story from The Vineyard Gazette

 

 

 

 

 

On Florida’s Gulf Coast, consistent, back-to-back summers of excellent grouper fishing have many longtime anglers recalling the robust catches of bygone days.

Gulf of Mexico red grouper were heavily exploited by commercial fleets from the 1950s through the 1970s. The passage of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in 1976 granted the stocks a momentary reprieve, by restricting foreign vessels to beyond 200 miles of U.S. shores. Even then, maintaining acceptable stock levels wouldn’t be easy. In subsequent years, red grouper stocks suffered from fish traps and longlines, apparent flaws in stock assessment data, misappropriation of quotas, and numerous red tide events.

Today, anglers are seeing what may be a glimpse of a brighter future. Employing a mix of old-school and new-school tactics, we’re finding more and more red grouper on the shallow, near-coastal, intermediate and distant offshore waters. Four veteran grouper-diggers revealed their insights.

Famed more for the color silver than red, the nearshore waters of Southwest Florida now feature a thriving red grouper fishery.

Read the complete story from the Florida Sportman

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW ORLEANS—Loggerhead turtles found along the West Coast are near extinction while those along East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico aren't in much worse shape than they were decades ago, and remain listed as threatened by federal wildlife agencies.

But both the East and West coasts will be studied for areas so essential to loggerhead sea turtles that new restrictions are needed to protect the huge nomadic reptiles, a fisheries official said Friday.

Such areas are likely on the East Coast, where loggerheads nest, but there might not be any in Southern California, where juveniles swim offshore, said Jim Lecky, director of the office of protected resources for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The North Pacific population nests in Japan and migrates mainly to Mexico. What can be done to protect them in U.S. waters, such as requiring hooks less likely to snag turtles on the miles of line dropped to catch tuna and swordfish, is being done, Lecky said.

Read the complete story from The Boston Globe

 

 

 

 

 

There are plenty of fish in the sea, right? Wrong.

 According to experts at the Monteray Bay Aquarium in California, the global catch of wild fish leveled off more than 20 years ago, and 70 percent of the world’s fisheries are being harvested at capacity or are in decline.

The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife combats problems such as overfishing, illegal fishing and habitat damage — all of which contribute to the decline in the fish population — with strict regulations.

“Regulations are a lot more serious than you’d think,” said Jodee Distasio, an employee at Jody’s Fishery in Neptune.

Distasio, son of store owner Jody Distasio, captain of the XTC Sportfishing boat, explained that agents for the Fish and Wildlife Council oversee fishing both on and off the boat.

“When I lived in Avon, agents walked into my backyard and went through peoples’ coolers, fining them for any fish against regulations,” Distasio said. “The other day, my dad was coming back from a day of fishing and three game wardens were waiting to inspect his boat.”

One way that fish are regulated is by their length. For example, a certain fish might be against regulation if it is less than 10 inches long.

“The longer the fish, the older they are, which means they’ve had a chance to reproduce,” Distasio explained.

Read the full article at the Asbury Park Press.

 Analysis:

As the article notes, globally fish stocks are unable to keep up with demand. The Food and Agriculture Organization, in a recent report, concluded both that global fish consumption is at an all-time high, and that nearly 32% of global fish stocks could be characterized as “overexploited, depleted, or recovering.” It also concluded that 15% of global stocks were either moderately or underexploited.

In contrast to the global trend, US seafood consumption has declined the past several years, from an average of 16.3 pounds per person in 2007 to 15.8 pounds per person in 2009. However, despite the decline in seafood consumption in recent years, a significant percentage of US seafood remains imported; currently 84 percent of US seafood comes from sources outside the US. Out of the total amount of seafood consumed in the US, aquaculture makes up about 10 percent of the total. However, it makes up an increasingly large percentage of global seafood prodction, meting around half of global demand.

 

 

DEDHAM, MA — Without reading it, the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary advisory committee Wednesday voted for a 39 page proposal to set up an "ecological research area" that would halt trawling in 39 percent of the sanctuary and fishing of all kinds, including hook-and-line from private boats in 14 percent.

But the plan which had been kept secret by its author, sanctuary Superintendent Craig MacDonald, until after he completed his morning Powerpoint presentation at a hotel here, had already been shelved by a high level consensus of Obama administration officials at the Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The proposed closing, which under any circumstances was months off and needed approval by the New England Fishery Management Council, "put 123 jobs at stake," said one Obama administration official.

"It's really unfortunate to try to sell this plan as insignificant," Vito Giacalone, the policy director for the coalition and a member of the ad hoc subcommittee of the advisory committee, said. "I'm appalled."

He went on to propose an alternative plan that would have shifted most of the no fishing zone into the 900 nautical square miles of the Western Gulf of Maine Closed area, a long thin rectangle that overlaps Stellwagen, creating a "sliver" inside the sanctuary where commercial fishing has been banned for 13 years but recreational is allowed.

Giacalone said his idea had the benefit of providing a 13-year history free from commercial fishing that is ignored in the plan put forward by MacDonald, but the advisory council rejected the alterative option by a similar, 9-5, to the 9-4-1 vote for MacDonald's plan.

"If NOAA drags its heels," said Priscilla Brooks, an advisory committee member and vice president of ocean conservation at Conservation Law Foundation, "this will never be considered. I'm very frustrated."

Les Kaufman, a Boston University biologist and longtime participant in the management of Stellwagen, was one observer of the meeting who was not frustrated. He said he understood the thinking in Washington to put the SERA proposal in the freezer for a while, out of political discretion, and added that he also saw reason for hope in the commercial fishing industry's agreeability — reflected in Giacalone's counter proposal to shift the no fishing zone out of Stellwagen, but still have one.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times