State and Local

North Atlantic right whales, the most endangered of New England’s whales, are making a modest comeback, according to New England Aquarium’s senior scientist Moira Brown. American efforts to protect the endangered species, however, appear to be less successful than Canada’s, Brown said last week in a speech sponsored by the Rhode Island Natural History Survey at the University of Rhode Island.

The current population of 450 North Atlantic right whales annually migrates from winter calving areas along the coast of Florida and Georgia to summer feeding areas near Cape Cod and Nova Scotia. The typical right whale is 50 to 60 feet long and weighs 60 to 70 tons.

Recovery of the species will be slow, Brown predicted, because female right whales do not give birth until they are nine years old – and then only produce one calf every three years under optimal conditions. In the 1980s, the closely observed species produced about 12 calves per year, Brown said, but that dropped to just one birth in 2000.

Since then, however, the whales have averaged 20 offspring a year, with a record 39 births in 2009.

“Something looks much better,” said Brown, who is also a senior scientist with the Canadian Whale Institute. Marine biologists have yet to pinpoint the cause of the baby boom, she added.

Read the complete story at The Jamestown Press.

It is seen from a research vessel lookout — a solitary V-shaped “blow” and then something dark on the water’s surface.

Often, the return of right whales to Georgia is as subtle as that. But this winter, thanks to a new ruling, more of these imperiled whales will have a better chance at making the annual journey safely.

In October 2008, the National Marine Fisheries Service established a rule that will implement speed restrictions for vessels 65 feet or longer. The restrictions call for a speed of no more than 10 knots during certain times of the year in areas designated as critical right whale habitat along the U.S. Atlantic seaboard. The rule went into effect last Dec. 9. While recognized during the 2008-09 calving season, this will be the first year the rule will be enforced by law enforcement.

Biologists with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are spreading the word about the rule while gearing up for the first sightings of these aquatic giants.

Read the complete story at Coastal Courier.

John Sackton’s November 18, 2009 Seafood.com news article entitled NE Council adjusts 3 year herring quota upward over objections of Pew contains several errors and misconceptions about the Pew Environment Group’s work to reform herring management in New England, and we would like to take this opportunity to correct these errors. To start, the Pew Environment Group leads the Herring Alliance (www.herringalliance.org), a broad coalition of local, regional, national and international conservation groups. The mission of the Herring Alliance is to reform the Atlantic herring fishery as follows:

-To establish ecosystem-based catch limits which leave sufficient herring in the ecosystem as forage for other marine predators.
-To spatially and temporally apportion herring trawling using buffer zones and time and area closures which both minimize bycatch and avoid localized depletion to ensure sufficient herring is present when and where they are needed as prey.
-To fully monitor and minimize bycatch of commercially and recreationally important fish stocks Ð including juvenile or spawning Atlantic herring and depleted river herring and groundfish Ð as well as whales, seals, dolphins and porpoises.

Mr. Sackton’s assertion that Pew, along with some inshore river herring fishermen, have been arguing that herring should essentially not be fished at all because it is a forage fish, and therefore should be reserved within the ecosystem for those other fish that eat it, such as cod etc. is wrong on two levels.

First, a wide and diverse group of people within the conservation community, as well as the recreational and commercial fishing industries, are working to limit industrial herring trawling and bring greater accountability to the Atlantic herring fishery. Long before Pew began its herring campaign in 2007, the CHOIR Coalition (www.choircoalition.org), which was formed in 2002 by commercial and recreational fishermen, such as the East Coast Tuna Association and the Recreational Fishing Alliance, was already working to change herring management and to keep midwater trawl ships out of inshore waters.

Second, Pew does support a herring fishery. We support New England’s traditional fixed gear and purse seine fisheries that provided bait to lobstermen and Maine canneries until they were displaced by industrial-scale trawlers from the West Coast and Europe. Our concern is with midwater trawl gear, which we believe to be of a scale that is inconsistent with the rebuilding of groundfish and the health of the Northwest Atlantic ecosystem. We have never said, advocated for, or written that there should be no herring fishery.

In his article, Mr. Sackton indicates that midwater trawlers can fish for herring in groundfish closed areas so long as they have observers. This is not correct. A quick check of the regulations reveals that midwater trawlers are only required to take observers in Closed Area 1, a regulation that has only been in effect since November 1, 2009, less than one month. Midwater trawl ships are not required to have observers in the Western Gulf of Maine closed area, the rolling closures, Closed Area 2, the Nantucket Light Ship Closed Area, or any other closed areas.

The article goes on to state that The irony is that the result of efforts by Pew to curtail herring fishing have fallen mainly on the smaller inshore fishermen and lobstermen in Maine. Most of the proposed changes in monitoring rules will impact purse seiners more than trawlers. This is simply not correct. In truth, the monitoring program currently being developed by the New England Fishery Management Council, known as Amendment 5, contains a wide range of options, none of which impact seiners more than trawlers.

The article argues that the idea of overall maintaining reduced catch levels was neither controversial nor contested. The view of the council standing strong against lobbyists and a rapacious industry is a fantasy useful to Pew. All sides, industry and scientists, agree on the need for reduced harvests. In fact, a different reality becomes clear when you read this excerpt from a letter written by herring industry lawyers to Council Chairman John Pappalardo on November 13, 2009:

The likely upper range of TACs [Total Allowable Catches] suggested by the SSC [Scientific and Statistical Committee] is likely to be 107,900 mt [metric tons]. In order to minimize adverse economic impacts, this should be considered a floor, not a cap.

This letter clearly states that the industry believes that the maximum level set by the council’s SSC should be a floor not a cap. A letter from a Massachusetts congressman on behalf of the industry had similar sentiments, requesting the status quo (145,000 mt) be approved until a new benchmark assessment can be done. In addition, herring industry lobbyists have been in Washington, D.C., at the National Marine Fisheries Service headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., and at Herring Advisory Panel and Herring Oversight Committee meetings with the same requests for the status quo at 145,000 mt until a new benchmark is done.

The actual situation unfolding here is that industry lawyers and lobbyists have fought and continue to fight to have the SSC’s recommendation for Allowable Biological Catch (ABC) act as a floor, thus making the Annual Catch Limit higher than the recommended ABC. The issue is not what we or others might think of this position. It is simply a fact, not a fantasy as Mr. Sackton claims.

Finally, the article refers to a major victory for herring operators and comments that the statement put out by Pew on herring appeared to describe a different meeting. So as not to leave room for any misunderstanding by Mr. Sackton regarding our position, we support using the recommendation for ABC from the council’s science committee. The SSC gave three options for ABC: 90,000 mt, 106,000 mt, and 108,000 mt. The council stayed within the recommendations of its SSC by choosing 106,000 mt. Because the council stayed within the SSC recommendation, Pew issued a press release praising their actions. In no way did we object to the council’s decision.

In closing, it bears mentioning again that Pew supports a herring fishery with comprehensive monitoring, science-based annual catch limits that take into consideration evolving predator needs, and gear types that are in scale with New England’s other fisheries. We hope that these clarifications result in more accurate reporting in the future.

Sincerely,

Peter Baker
Manager
New England Fisheries Campaigns
Pew Environment Group

When you think of the season in which animals bear young, chances are that many of you think of spring.

However, for animals such as whales, winter is a popular time for birthing.

During the winter, pregnant humpback whales that spend the summer feeding off our shores head south to the Caribbean to give birth.

Other types of East Coast whales also head south for the winter to give birth. Just like human "snowbirds," many North Atlantic right whales migrate south from the Gulf of Maine to the coasts of Georgia and Florida. Many right whales will give birth and spend the winter in these warm waters.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

A blood-orange blob the size of a small refrigerator emerged from the dark waters, its venomous tentacles trapped in a fishing net. Within minutes, hundreds more were being hauled up, a pulsating mass crowding out the catch of mackerel and sea bass.

The fishermen leaned into the nets, grunting and grumbling as they tossed the translucent jellyfish back into the bay, giants weighing up to 450 pounds, marine invaders that are putting the men’s livelihoods at risk.

The venom of the Nomura, the world’s largest jellyfish, a creature up to 6 feet in diameter, can ruin a whole day’s catch by tainting or killing fish stung when ensnared with them in the maze of nets here in Wakasa Bay in northwest Japan.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

Beneath the cold ocean waters off the coast of Maine, the nation’s lobster breadbasket, lie hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of old wire lobster "ghost traps." Lost over the years to storms, boats — even the knives of fishermen who’ve cut them from their buoys to settle scores — many of the traps continue catching lobsters.

Marine biologists say lost and abandoned lobster, crab and other fish traps plague coastal waters around the globe, putting pressure on a number of already-stressed fish populations. In U.S. waters alone, millions of dollars’ worth of marketable seafood is lost each year.

Lobstermen this winter will grapple up gear from selected spots in the first large-scale study of ghost traps along the Maine coast. Nationwide, other studies are focusing on lost traps off the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.