State and Local

July 10, 2013 — A fish kill along the south shore of the Neuse River on Wednesday is one of those good news-bad news situations, according to Rick Dove.

The good news? As fish kills go, it was pretty small.

The bad news? It could be a harbinger of bigger things to come.

Dove, who is president of the Coastal Carolina River Watch, reported thousands of menhaden washed up along the river shore between the Flanners Beach area and Slocum Creek.

He noted the last major fish kill, which happened in October 2012, resulted in an estimated 200 million dead fish. He thinks the tiny menhaden, which are highly sensitive to changes in water quality, have not been able to fully recover from the previous event. He has been looking for the reappearance of schools of them and hadn’t seen many yet.

“They showed up yesterday and I was overjoyed,” he said. “But today they’re dead. They didn’t last a day.”

Read the full story at the New Bern, North Carolina Sun Journal

 

July 9, 2013 — Commercial fishers have sued the federal government, claiming that recreational anglers have been awarded a disproportionate amount of the annual red snapper harvest. The suit says that the National Marine Fishery Service has violated provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the law governing federal fisheries.

Under federal law, commercial fishers get 51 percent of the annual red-snapper take, while recreational anglers get 49 percent.

The suit alleges that the federal government's "failure to effectively manage the red snapper fishery has resulted in chronic over harvesting by the recreational sector," which "undermines the conservation goal of rebuilding the red snapper stock and harms all stakeholders in the fishery."

Commercially, red snapper are harvested under an individual fishing quota program that was established in 2007. As part of the IFQ process, fishers are awarded quotas each year, the size of which depends on how healthy the overall stock is.

Read the full story at the New Orleans Times-Picayune

 

SEABROOK, N.H. — July 11, 2013 — Local fishermen are watching ongoing conversations between Gloucester-based fishermen and an engineering firm set to do an underwater Sonar survey from Revere to Seabrook, as that plan could leave an impact on their lobster season, and therefore their finances.

Representatives from Tetra Tech, a technical engineering firm and New Hampshire Transmission, a developer exploring the possibility of running a 55-mile long underwater cable along that same route, was set to meet with Gloucester’s lobstermen and fixed-gear fishermen earlier this week. The purpose of that meeting was to listen to the concerns of Cape Ann’s commercial fishermen who feel the timing of the survey is terrible as it will disrupt their efforts in the middle of lobster season, for their fishing equipment would have to be cleared from the water while the survey is taking place.

But according to Matt Valle, president of New Hampshire Transmission at NextEra Energy, any change in time frame could impact future cable installation plans.

“If we don’t do it in the near term, we would have to put a proposal out where we haven’t investigated all the risks,” said Valle, whose parent NextEra owns and operates Seabrook nuclear power plant. “In terms of data collection and a time frame, it’s the ideal time.”

Valle said an underwater cable, which is under “serious consideration,” would help meet the electricity needs of the company as well as customers. The cable, which would run offshore from southern New Hampshire, around Cape Ann to just off Revere, is being designed to boost the New England power grid. The underwater cable would avoid the need to build more land-based, overhead power lines.

The cable, if installed, would connect two stations in different sections of New England, said Nick Welz, a senior marine scientist with Tetra Tech. Because of the population and usage between the two stations, Welz said, power tend to “bottleneck” in the area.

Read the full story at the Newburyport Daily News 

 

July 9, 2013 — After nearly two decades of lawsuits, appeals and international pressure, it was that unified voice of the Passamaquoddy, and the emerging science on the fish themselves, that finally broke the stalemate on the St. Croix. This spring Maine legislators voted nearly unanimously to re-open the gates to migrating alewives.

At the Milltown Dam in Southwestern New Brunswick, biologist Lee Sochasky stands knee-deep in splashing alewives, counting fish. The silvery, foot-long river herring are arriving by the thousands from the Bay of Fundy, a few miles downriver.

It’s a rite of spring here, but Sochasky says this year is different. Gates that had blocked a fishway upriver for more than two decades are now wide open, and alewives are free to return home to their ancestral spawning grounds.

“We’re expecting a big run this coming week,” Sochasky says. “This is the gateway to the St. Croix. From here, they’ll swim up to spawn for the first time in 23 years through the Grand Falls fishway to the upper lakes and flowages on the St. Croix.”

This fishway is in Canada, but the other side of the river is Maine. In most cases, political boundaries don’t mean much to free-swimming ocean fish. But alewives are anadromous, which means they live mostly at sea but spawn in rivers.

And Sochasky says this is an unusual river.

“The St. Croix is an international river,” she says, “the boundary between the United States and Canada. These fish don’t think of themselves as American or Canadian. And we have to manage them on an international basis also.”

Until recently, politicians in Maine disagreed. In 1995, a group of fishing guides convinced legislators there that alewives were outcompeting smallmouth bass, a fish popular with tourists in the St. Croix’s headwater lakes. The guides claimed the lucrative bass fishing economy was on the brink of collapse. So Maine passed a law that closed the fish ladder at Grand Falls Dam, 19 miles upstream from here.

Read the full story at the Global Perspectives for an American Audience 

 

 

 

July 6, 2013 — Commercial fishermen in Maine will remember 2012 as a year when normal fishing routines did not apply.

For elver fishermen in Maine, 2012 provided a substantial boost to their income as the demand and supply of the juvenile eels soared to historical highs. For lobstermen, it was more of a mixed bag as they cumulatively caught a record amount (126 million pounds) but on average earned only $2.69 per pound for their catch, the lowest price they’d gotten in nearly 20 years. And for fishermen who caught squid it was a complete surprise because, historically, squid have not been found along the Maine coast.

The reason for all these unexpected developments, according to scientists and fisheries officials, is that water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine last summer were several degrees higher than expected. This caused elvers to show up in large numbers early in the 10-week season, lobsters to appear in shallow waters and shed their shells weeks earlier than expected, and squid to swim north around Cape Cod into the gulf.

According to several scientists at University of Maine and Gulf of Maine Research Institute, there’s more where these surprise developments came from. Changes in climatological conditions are expected to continue to affect commercial fisheries as species follow their preferred temperature ranges north or change the timing of their seasonal characteristics or migrations.

Exactly how and when these changes might manifest in terms of individual species is unknown, which scientists say is why fisheries scientists and regulators should take steps to offer fishermen better predictions and more flexibility in reacting to the changes. In a paper recently published in the scientific publication Oceanography, they make recommendations on how to make fisheries management more adaptive and effective.

“In order to sustain marine ecosystems, scientists and fishery managers also need to be able to rapidly adjust in response to abrupt changes in climate,” Katherine Mills, one of the UMaine and GMRI scientists who authored the paper, said last week in a prepared statement.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

July 3, 2013 — The Maryland Department of Natural Resources plans to raise the cost of most commercial fishing and crabbing licenses to offset money spent by the state for fisheries management and law enforcement.

For watermen, especially ones who work on the water as a part-time job, the higher fees add to the escalating cost of bait, fuel and equipment.

But the increases are needed to maintain the level of management and to keep fisheries open, according to two statewide watermen’s associations that helped develop the new price structure with DNR officials.

“We have to increase all those licenses fees because they haven’t been increased for a number of years,” Mick Blackistone, executive director of the Maryland Watermen’s Association, said.

The Chesapeake Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Association, which splintered from the other state association several years ago, also helped draft the new price structure.

Gina Hunt, deputy director of DNR fishery service, said most or all of the fees associated with commercial licenses had not changed since 1994. “We didn’t have the dollars to continue to provide the services at the level we had been providing” to commercial fisheries, Hunt said.

Read the full story at the Maryland Independent

 

July 3, 2013 — The following was released by the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife:

The NJDEP Division of Fish and Wildlife is informing the public that recently signed legislation (A4036/S2726) has established new licensing and monitoring requirements for New Jersey's commercial Atlantic menhaden fishery in 2013. The significant changes in how menhaden will be managed this year result from the implementation of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's (ASMFC) Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden. As part of Amendment 2, New Jersey was allocated 11.19% of the newly established total coastwide quota for Atlantic menhaden. In 2013, this equates to an allocation for New Jersey's commercial Atlantic menhaden fishery of 18,924.42 metric tons (MT), equivalent to approximately 41.728 million pounds.

New Jersey has allocated its 2013 menhaden quota by gear type, with each gear type having qualifying criteria to obtain a recently established New Jersey Menhaden Landing License, a separate season, and mandatory electronic reporting requirements. Additionally, a New Jersey Menhaden Dealer License is also being established and all menhaden landed in New Jersey must be sold to a licensed menhaden dealer who must report landings electronically on a weekly basis. These licensing and reporting requirements are necessary to effectively and efficiently monitor the State's Atlantic menhaden quota since any overages occurring in 2013 will be deducted from the State's 2014 commercial menhaden quota.

The New Jersey Marine Fisheries Administration has recently mailed a notice to as many prospective Atlantic menhaden commercial fishery participants, as possible, informing them of the significant changes occurring within the State's menhaden management program this year. Prospective participants are requested to submit eligibility documents for the new landing license and prospective dealers are being requested to obtain their dealer license, as soon as possible. Timing is critical since all landings to date will be applied to the State's 2013 quota and subsequent landings this year will have to be closely monitored to prevent a quota overage.

The entire 5 page letter that was sent to Atlantic menhaden commercial fishery participants is available on the Division's website. The letter contains extensive details on who needs a landing license to participate in the menhaden fishery, the fees for such a license, eligibility criteria for obtaining a landing license for each gear type, the specifics of the dealer license and information on where/how to have specific questions answered.

View the letter to NJ Atlantic Menhaden Commercial Fishery Participants

View the menhaden License Application Form

Read the release from the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife

 

July 4, 2013 — In case you’ve been living under a rock – or shell, even – Barnegat Light’s Viking Village is home to one of the world’s most successful scalloping industries. Viking Fresh scallops are starting to pop up on menus as far south as Florida. For the last five years, the Larson family and the staff it takes to run the Village provide Viking Fresh seafood for an opening-to-summer festival in tribute to the many culinary delights that await in the local sea.

On Saturday, the Jazzy Scallop and Seafood Festival drew record numbers, according to Sharon McKenna, the education and special events coordinator for the festival. A dozen restaurants were given Viking Village seafood fresh off the boat and used it to craft bite-sized culinary delicacies to entice patrons who paid the $25-$30 entrance fee, while the restaurants competed for a People’s Choice Award.

At least $4,500 is expected to go toward scholarships for marine science or music students attending either Southern Regional High School or the Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science. Several mayors of nearby towns attended this year, including John Spodofora of Stafford Township, Robert Keeler of Beach Haven, Joseph Mancini of Long Beach Township and Kirk Larson of Barnegat Light.

“It was great because for the first time we really reached out to all the Island mayors to come up – so they could know more about what’s going on in the upper portion of the Island,” said McKenna. “After everything that happened with Superstorm Sandy, we’re more closely knit.”

Read the full story at the Surf City SandPaper

 

BOSTON– July 3, 2013 — The following was released by the office of Massachusetts Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr:

The $34 billion Fiscal Year 2014 State Budget approved by the legislature Monday, July 1st contains valuable measures to boost the Commonwealth’s commercial fisheries that were secured through the efforts of Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) and State Representative Ann-Margaret Ferrante (D-Gloucester) with several key legislative colleagues.

Among the measures contained in the budget sent to Governor Patrick this week is an important change to state laws that would allow Massachusetts dealers to process and sell shell-on lobster tails, a practice currently prohibited and putting the Massachusetts lobster industry at a severe competitive disadvantage.  Senator Tarr joined with Senator Dan Wolf (D-Harwich) in amending the Senate Ways and Means version of the FY’14 State Budget to expand the Commonwealth’s lobster industry. Changing the law will allow the state’s harvesters, processors, and dealers to capture markets now being lost to competitors from places like Maine and the Canadian maritime.

“Opening the door to the global market for lobster tails will give the Massachusetts lobster industry a level playing field with major competitors, and create a major opportunity for those who depend on this important fishery,” said Senator Tarr.

“This is an important step that can benefit lobstermen keeping them competitive in the global economy,” said Representative Ferrante, who supported a similar lobster tail proposal offered by Representative William Strauss (D- Mattapoisett) and Representative Sarah Peake (D-Provincetown) during the House budget debate in April.

A second important amendment secured by Tarr and Ferrante in the budget provides funding for critical research to identify, sequence, and catalog the genome for cod fish by Gloucester Genomics Initiative.  Understanding the genetic code of individual species of cod and other groundfish will allow better science to be developed to regulate those species, and to combat crushing federal regulations that are devastating the New England groundfish industry.

“This genomic research has the power to transform fisheries science and to replace uncertainty and speculation with facts and a common understanding.  That understanding will cause reasonable regulations to be developed to ensure that stocks are rebuilt and the industry can survive,” said Senator Tarr.

“This research has the potential to answer an important question to fisheries management: whether the stocks, such as Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank cod, are interrelated or all one species. The answers to this question could greatly impact the future of fisheries management,” said Representative Ferrante.

Another measure sponsored by Senator Tarr and Representative Ferrante creates a plan to use sonar and other advanced technologies to accurately measure the biomass of stocks such as cod and Yellowtail Flounder, which are being used as barometer stocks in the newest federal fishing regulations that took effect on May 1 and call for reductions in catch of as much as 77%.  The state budget funds the implementation of the plan at $75,000.

“Putting sonar technology to work will provide us with a clear picture of the size and location of the groundfish stocks that our commercial fishing industry depends on, and thus drive better, more practical and productive regulations to manage those stocks,” said Senator Tarr.

“It’s about time we include cutting edge technology to enhance arcane technology in measuring fish stocks. My hope is that NOAA science will work with the Commonwealth to provide the best information for small businesses affected by their regulations and decisions,” said Ferrante.

Read a PDF version of the press release here 

 

June 30, 2013 — Here in the shadow of the Grand Falls Dam power house, the fish ladder is clear for alewives to climb, the boards that once prevented their passage having been taken away.

From the top of the ladder, the schooling fish have access to a staggering expanse of spawning, nursing, and feeding habitat: more than 65,000 acres of river, stream, and lake bottom straddling the Maine-New Brunswick border.

Those who fought to persuade Maine lawmakers to let the fish over the dam have high hopes that the species will kick-start the recovery of living systems laid low by past overfishing, dam building and water pollution.

"The alewife is the fish that feeds all," says Newell Lewey, a member of the Passamaquoddy tribal council, which supported free passage for the fish. "They are going to be beneficial for groundfish in Passamaquoddy Bay and for species inland, because they are food for others."

Now — despite weeks of heavy rain impeding their travels — thousands of fish are on the move up the St. Croix River system, thanks to a change of heart by the Maine Legislature, which just a few years ago had banned them from the river.

"I am pleased that the political atmosphere was in favor of the alewives," says Newell's tribal council colleague Ed Bassett, who traveled to Augusta to ask legislators to let the fish pass. "This time the facts won out and fiction lost."

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald