State and Local

November 20, 2013 — The following was released by the Port of New Bedford:

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts in coordination with the port cities of Boston, New Bedford, Fall River, Gloucester, and Salem has prepared a strategic plan designed to capitalize on the resources of the seaports to boost economic development and create private sector jobs. The purpose of the Strategic Plan is to sustain and strengthen the vibrancy of the Commonwealth port system, study ports as a cohesive group, identify opportunities and targeted investments, and increase the competiveness of each port.

A public meeting will be held Monday, November 25th starting at 6:00 pm at the downtown New Bedford Public Library to review the draft recommendations for the Port of New Bedford/Fairhaven and the Port of Fall River.  Representatives of industry and the public are invited to attend to learn more, ask questions and give input. The strategic plan will make recommendations regarding the fishing industry, cargo operations, offshore wind development, recreational boating, passenger vessels and ferries, the management and repair of facilities, dredging and other key topics. Your attendance and opinions are greatly appreciated and we hope to see you there.

The draft recommendations and other important information can be found at:

http://www.portofnewbedford.org/

http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/planning/Main/StatewidePlans/PortsStrategicPlan.aspx

http://www.ebcne.org/fileadmin/pres/10-17_and_10-18/10-17-12_MASTER_Matt_Ciborowski.pdf

http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/pressreleases/2012/2012430-port-compact.html

November 18, 2013 — Virginia's oyster harvest hit 406,000 bushels for the 2012-2013 season, outpacing the previous year by nearly 60 percent and marking the largest harvest since 1987, officials say.

Gov. Bob McDonnell on Monday credited the increase to a state investment of $3 million in oyster restoration efforts during his administration.

"This is very gratifying news — even better than I'd hoped," McDonnell said in a prepared statement. "Good management has allowed us to put Virginia's exceptional oysters on dinner plates around the world."

The previous year's oyster harvest in Virginia was 257,000 bushels — 124,000 bushels from public oyster grounds and 133,000 bushels from aquaculture operations.

Officials at the Virginia Marine Resources Commission had been predicting a boost in harvest this year, with projections of up to 320,000 bushels. The new official numbers far surpass that.

Read the full story at the Daily Press

November 18, 2013 — The city will take the first step Friday in determining how to use a $75,000 state grant designed to help sustain Gloucester’s shore-side businesses until its commercial fishing industry can regain its economic footing.

The grant, secured in October, largely on the work of state Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, will help identify essential harbor resources that could be in danger of disappearing before a more comprehensive plan for rescuing or reinventing the fishing industry can be developed.

But in the eyes of the city, this initial grant can lay the groundwork for so much more, serving as a springboard to reignite the discussion that first began in earnest last spring with the development of the so-called “bridge plan” on how best to proceed with the recovery of the port, encompassing all of the complex economic and social issues.

Mayor Carolyn Kirk and other city officials on Friday will host a daylong, by-invitation fisheries workshop at The Gloucester House restaurant, bringing together fishing industry stakeholders including fishermen, shore-side processors and support services.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times 

 

 

November 17, 2013 — For the last several decades, most North Carolinians have been denied what was once a common sight: an Atlantic sturgeon leaping for the sky as it made its way to and from its spawning grounds high up inland rivers.

The large, ocean-going fish – a throwback to dinosaur days – was overfished to the point of near-extinction as its tasty roe supplied caviar factories along the coast in the 18th and 19th centuries

For those that survived, the way to much of their freshwater spawning area, the rocky fall line where the Piedmont meets the Coastal Plain, became blocked by dams.

Their numbers dwindled. Catching them became illegal in 1998, and they went on the endangered list last year.

People would encounter them occasionally,” said Joseph Hightower, U.S. Geological Survey biologist and N.C. State biology professor who is leading a sturgeon study.

Those who did remembered. “They just don’t look like anything else,” Hightower said.

“These hard structures along the sides, bony plates, give them an armored look,” said Joe Smith, research technician on the project.

They take prodigious leaps for no apparent reason. Smith once “saw the entire fish come out of the water. It was the coolest thing I had seen in a long, long time.”

Read the full story at the Charlotte Observer 

 

 

November 15, 2013 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

In an effort to continue rebuilding Maine’s scallop fishery, the Maine Department of Marine Resources has established management measures for the 2013-2014 harvesting season that feature limited access areas and targeted closures within three management zones.
 
The goal of this management approach is to continue rebuilding the resource while providing a reliable source of income for harvesters.
 
“Maine’s scallop fishery is vital to our state,” said Governor Paul R. LePage. “It provides jobs and much needed extra income for many who work in other fisheries. I commend the dedication by those in the industry to make the necessary sacrifices to restore a resource that fuels our coastal economy.”
 
The scallop fishery experienced an all-time low in 2005, landing just over 33,000 pounds of scallop meats (276,000 pounds of whole scallops including the shell and viscera) from Maine waters. In 2009, 20 percent of Maine waters were closed to scallop fishing to begin restoring the fishery.
 
In 2012, three scallop zones were put into place to ensure a targeted management approach. Limited access areas, in which harvesting is allowed one day per week and closed when a percentage of the available resource is removed, were also implemented, as were rotational closures, an approach similar to crop rotations used in agriculture, which promotes increased landings, resulting in higher economic yields from the resource.
 
In 2012, after three years of the rebuilding, the closure areas were reopened for fishing as limited access areas and Maine harvesters landed over 280,000 pounds of scallop meats (2.4 million pounds of whole scallops).
 
“The conservation measures put in place in 2009 are working, and we’re starting to see the benefits,” said DMR Resource Management Coordinator Trisha De Graaf. “Last year, not only did we see an increase in the landings, the limited access areas were producing more valuable, larger sized scallops.”
 
“The rebuilding of this fishery is the result of successful cooperation between industry and the state,” said Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher. “The new management approach  has been challenging for industry, but their commitment to make necessary sacrifices and to work with us is now paying off.”
 
This year, the season begins on December 2. The season will last 70 days in Zone 1, which extends from Kittery to Penobscot Bay, and in Zone 2, from Penobscot Bay to the Lubec-Campobello International Bridge. In Zone 3, Cobscook Bay, the season will last 50 days, six days more than last season.
 
The daily limit in Zones 1 and 2 was reduced from 20 gallons to 15 gallons, while it remains at 10 gallons in Zone 3. “We decided to reduce the daily limit in Zones 1 and 2 rather than reduce the length of the season to improve the likelihood of a reliable source of income and access to the resource for harvesters over the course of the season,” said De Graaf.
 
Limited access areas for draggers in both zones begin January 6 and are open Monday each week through March 17. Divers will be allowed to harvest from the limited access areas Wednesday each week beginning January 8 through March 19. Limited access areas will be monitored closely and closed to harvesting when 30 to 40 percent of the available resource has been removed from the area.
 
Targeted closures will also be in place during the season to protect areas that are rebuilding or have significant populations of sub-legal size or juvenile scallops.
 

For more information on Maine’s scallop season, visit http://www.maine.gov/dmr/rm/scallops/management/2013-14/index.htm or contact Trisha DeGraaf at (207) 624-6554 or by email attrisha.degraaf@maine.gov.

November 15, 2013 — As part of the state Coastal Conservancy's San Francisco Bay Living Shoreline Project, reefs were built and dropped about 600 feet into San Rafael Bay near Starkweather Park last July. A little more than a year later, more than 2 million Olympia oysters, and other associated creatures, have turned up.

"We are trying to figure out the best methods to restore oysters," said Marilyn Latta, project manager, as she looked out at the site during low tide this week. "If this is successful we can expand it to other parts of the bay. We want to see what works before we scale this up."

Restoring the native oysters is important, according to researchers.

The Olympia oyster, which measures no more than 1.5 inches in diameter when fully grown, once was plentiful in the bay, acting as a water purifier, as well as habitat and food for a variety of fish species.

One of its key functions is its ability to act as a mini-filter. Although small, they can take in large quantities of sea water — as much as 20 to 30 quarts an hour — and extract pollutants and algae-causing plankton.

Their reefs may also serve to protect shorelines from wave action and erosion; initial studies of the San Rafael site shows a 30 percent reduction in wave force.

Read the full story at the Marin Independent Journal 

 

November 15, 2013 — Even after a juvenile humpback whale was cut free from a fishing line about two nautical miles east of Manasquan, it didn't realize it was free, said an official who led a rescue effort on Friday.

"It didn't realize it wasn't tangled anymore, it had to be coaxed" to swim away, said Scott Landry, Center for Coastal Studies, Director, Marine Animal Entanglement Response Program, during a media conference call Friday afternoon.

Landry and a colleague in a small, inflatable boat gently used the boat to coax the whale away and when it realized it was free, it swam away at a high rate of speed in a southeast direction, Landry said.

“I think this whale is likely going to be fine,” said Landry “The prognosis for this whale is quite good. We're optimistic."

The line that had been kept the juvenile whale, about 30 to 35 feet long, tangled up for at least 24 hours was slashed with one cut and the animal was free, Landry said.

Read the full story at the Galloway Patch 

 

 

ELLSWORTH, Maine — November 18, 2013 — Green crabs have been found in coastal waters off Maine for around a hundred years, but it’s only in the past few that they’ve drawn the ire and attention of fishermen and scientists in the state.

Officials have been receiving reports from fishermen that the coastal population of the crabs, which migrated to North America from Europe with shipping traffic in the late 1800s, has shot up, according to Kohl Kanwit of the Maine Department of Marine Resources — and eelgrass beds and soft-shell crabs have been paying the price.

That’s why, in late August, DMR organized a one-day, coast-wide survey to try to get a handle on exactly how many green crabs might be skittering around the shallow waters off Maine’s beaches and marshlands.

Kanwit said only preliminary results from the survey are available, but even when all the information is in, it will be hard to put into context. The department has not done a green crab survey for at least 20 years, and the survey methods used back then may not be the same as those used in August, when lobster traps and some specifically designed for green crabs were used. But she said that anecdotally, there is consensus among fishermen and marine researchers that “green crabs have increased appreciably in the last two years” between Biddeford and Frenchman Bay.

“One of the objectives of the study was increasing awareness of the issue of green crabs coast-wide, and that was achieved,” Kanwit said in an email.

Preliminary results from the survey indicate that 94 percent of the 221 traps deployed between Biddeford and Lubec on Aug. 28 had at least one crab in them. Seventy-five percent had at least 20 crabs. One trap caught 575 green crabs while the highest catch rate was in Searsport, which had an average of 191 crabs per trap.

Kanwit said DMR hopes to release the complete data from the survey at a Dec. 16 conference at University of Maine in Orono. The conference is free and open to the public but preregistration is required.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News 

November 16, 2013 — About a decade after Maine’s salmon-farming industry tanked, the aquaculture industry is continuing to rebound and has become more diverse than it was when it consisted solely of Atlantic salmon.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said last week that the state’s salmon-heavy aquaculture industry is second in Maine only to lobster in terms of the fishery’s total value.

According to NOAA Fisheries, Maine’s aquaculture had a value last year of $81 million, said spokeswoman Maggie Mooney-Seus. That’s more than double the $38 million value of elvers. Of course, both pale in comparison to Maine’s lobster catch, valued last year at a record $341 million.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

November 1, 2013 — On the first day of this year's Dungeness crab season, expectations among Monterey Bay area fishermen are already high because of a record-setting haul last year.

On Saturday, recreational and sports fishermen get the chance to set up their crab pots, traps and hoop nets before commercial crab fishing begins Nov. 15.

Chris Arcoleo of Chris's Fishing Trips and Whale Watching in Monterey said his chartered fishing trips were already booked full this weekend.

"Crab in Monterey has been outstanding and the outlook for the crab this year looks good," Arcoleo said. "We're booked (Saturday) and Sunday. It's real popular all the way through Christmas."

Tory Lucido of Randy's Fishing & Whale Watching Trips shares the optimism.

"There was a lot of crab last year," Lucido said. "It should be a good year, expectations are high."

Their optimism stems from two straight years of record-setting crab catches in the south central region of California, which stretches from Monterey to Morro Bay. Last year, commercial crab fishing in the region brought in a record 1.148 million pounds, an increase of nearly 38 percent from the season before.

Read the full story at the Monterey Herald