Science

June 13, 2014 — On June 30 and July 1, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, in partnership with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology, and NOAA's Greater Atlantic Regional Office and Northeast Fisheries Science Center, will sponsor the "Northeast Federal Fishery Dependent Data Visioning Project Industry Workshop."

The workshop, which will take place at the Waypoint Events Center at the Fairfield Marriot in New Bedford, Massachusetts, will review how fisheries dependent data is collected in New England and Mid-Atlantic Fisheries, identify ways to improve the current data collection system, and examine how to get fisheries dependent data to best meet the requirements of fishery stakeholders. At the workshop, "attendees will work collaboratively to describe the characteristics of an ideal data system that will meet the needs of industry, science, and management most effectively."

Members of the public and industry are encouraged to attend the workshop. Those interested in attending can register online here, and should contact Patty Collins at 207-228-1625 or pcollins@gmri.org if they have any further questions.

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute has more information on the workshop and their Northeast Federal Fishery Dependent Data Visioning Project available here. The full agenda for the workshop is available here. 

June 11, 2014 — Few moments compare to the pressure-filled environments of hackathons, where the best developers from around the globe cram into a rented room with 24 hours to conceive, design, and create an app that wins a chance to present an idea, showcase talent, and gain invaluable exposure.

But this June, the coding community will volunteer to feel that pressure while answering a call to help solve one of the world’s greatest challenges. In conjunction with the U.S. Department of State’s “Our Ocean” Conference, the Secretary’s Office of Global Partnership brought us a new type of hackathon: the Fishackathon.

“Wait,” you must be thinking. “How does the State Department expect me to hack a fish in 24 hours? Everyone knows you need a holiday weekend for that.” The truth, it turns out, is not that funny.

One half of the fish caught for consumption comes from small-scale and artisanal fisheries, but they now face a growing list of emerging issues.

Overfishing, marine degradation, increasing fuel costs, competition from commercial vessels, and illegal fishing all confront the operations of small-scale fishermen across the globe. Worse yet, global food security and individual communities depend on the output of these fisheries for survival.

In order to address these challenges, the State Department announced its coordination of five Fishackathons on June 13 to create solutions for the sustainable management of fisheries. Applications developed during each Fishackathon will aim to help fishermen work smarter and more safely while allowing them to report catches, build the capacity for better management, and create networks to improve the monitoring of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

Read the full story here

NEW YORK, N.Y. — June 11, 2014 — New fossils are providing critical details about one of the earliest known fishes, and researchers say that helps show how jaws evolved in animals that have backbones.

The fish is called Metaspriggina (me-tuh-SPRIG'-ih-nuh). Researchers say it grew about 2 inches long and lived widely in North America some 515 million to 500 million years ago.

Read the full story from The Modesto Bee

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — June 10, 2014 — The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration says it will award $16.5 million to 14 organizations for research projects about Atlantic sea scallops.

NOAA'S Northeast Cooperative Research Program announced the grants Tuesday. The researchers are from Massachusetts, Maine, Delaware, and Virginia and will work on a total of 16 projects. The award winners include universities, nonprofit foundations, a fish hatchery, commercial fishing vessels, and a state fisheries agency.

Read the full story from NECN

June 10, 2014 — The following was released by NOAA:

Shearwater Excursions from Nantucket, Massachusetts has joined NOAA, Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC)  and 9 other commercial whale watching companies as a new Whale SENSE member. Through this collaborative educational effort, over 1 million people now know what it means to engage in “responsible whale watching.”

“We joined Whale SENSE because we strongly believe that marine mammals are intelligent animals that deserve the respect of the community that interacts with them and that universal viewing guidelines should be followed by that community,” said Rachael Perkins, owner, Shearwater Excursions. “Whale SENSE provides sensible protocols for observing these magnificent animals.”

Whale watching is an important industry for many coastal communities from Maine through Virginia. Currently one-third of the whale watching industry in this region is participating in this voluntary program, showing that whale watching can be conducted responsibly, respecting the whales’ natural behaviors, while also maximizing passenger enjoyment and educational experience.

Current whale watch partners include: Starflight Fleet in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey; Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center in Cape May, New Jersey; Dolphin Fleet in Provincetown, Massachusetts; Whale Watcher Cruises in Barnstable, Massachusetts; Whale Watch in Provincetown, Massachusetts; Bar Harbor Whale Watch in Bar Harbor, Maine; Sea Salt Charters in Provincetown, Massachusetts; Boston’s Best Cruises in Boston, Massachusetts; and Cape May Whale Watch in Cape May, New Jersey.

While public education is the cornerstone of this partnership, the whale watch industry also helps federal agencies and authorized organizations address a key threat to large whales — entanglement in fishing gear. Since the program began ten years ago, at least 17 whale entanglements have been reported by Whale SENSE boats.  In instances where Whale SENSE partners were standing by, rescuers were able to more quickly find and help distressed animals.

These companies also aid in ongoing efforts to help scientists better understand whales and other marine life.  For instance, companies gather important data on annual entanglements, vessel strikes, and collect images of satellite-tagged whales that record various biological and whale movement information.

All whales are protected under federal laws, including the Marine Mammal Protection Act, that safeguard them from being injured, killed, harassed, or having their natural behaviors interrupted. Companies participating in Whale SENSE agree to use responsible viewing practices to minimize the potential for harming whales, to provide customers with a high standard of education, and to promote ocean stewardship and conservation.

To become a Whale SENSE participant, company vessel operators and the naturalists who narrate tours attend annual trainings on whale watching guidelines and regulations, safe operations, and whale ecology. After completing the program, the whale watch company is granted full use of the Whale SENSE logo to promote its business and is listed on the Whale SENSE website.

To learn more about the Whale SENSE program, please visit our website www.whalesense.org or call us at 978-282-8462.

On the Web:

http://www.whalesense.org

http://www.wdcs.org – Whale and Dolphin Conservation

http://www.nero.noaa.gov – NOAA Fisheries/Northeast Regional Office

http://stellwagen.noaa.gov – NOAA Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary

WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, (formerly WDCS) is the leading global charity dedicated to the conservation and protection of whales and dolphins. We defend these remarkable creatures against the many threats they face through campaigns, advising governments, conservation projects, field research and rescue. WDC’s North American office is based in Plymouth, MA. WDC staff, volunteers and interns conduct research and work to protect whales from the threats they face.  Visit www.whales.org to learn more about how you can help as a volunteer, advocate, or donor.

Read the full release from NOAA

June 10, 2014 — Following a fish kill that left 450,000 Atlantic Menhaden dead in the Shark River, the American Littoral Society unveiled a new smartphone app — Marine Defenders — that allows citizen-scientists to report marine emergencies.

The app, which was announced May 28, was originally conceived and developed for reporting oil spills, according to a press release. However, the American Littoral Society expanded its purpose in response to pollution problems that were observed in regional waters.

It now allows for reporting on a broader variety of issues of concern along the coast, including algal blooms, jellyfish occurrences, fish kills, injured wildlife and marine debris.

“Our bays and coastal waters are facing a multitude of threats,” said Helen Henderson, program coordinator for the American Littoral Society. “We are putting this tool into the hands of thousands of people who will be eyes on the water, helping to protect and restore our bays and coast.”

Read the full story from Atlanticville

June 10, 2014 — Fishing research projects in New England and the Mid-Atlantic are expected to receive nearly $5.6 million in federal funding, NOAA Fisheries has announced.

This latest boost follows a $75-million allocation to a number of fishing disaster areas in the United States.

Under the Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Programme, which is administered by NOAA Fisheries, funding will be made available to provide financial assistance for research and development projects that benefit the US fishing industry.

Of these funds, $2.3 million would support projects to benefit the groundfish industry.

Funding will be made available to projects following review by NOAA’s Office of Acquisition and Grants, which is expected to be completed shortly.

John Bullard, administrator, NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, said: ‘This announcement is great news for fishing communities in the Greater Atlantic Region.

‘Many impressive proposals were submitted for these grants and the funds will support a wide-range of projects to help fishermen and the fishing industry.

‘I’m pleased that so many of the selected projects were from partnerships of fishermen and scientists from this region.’

Read the full story at FishUpdate.com

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — June 8, 2014 — A new study suggests that steelhead trout can have trouble using the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate if they were raised in a hatchery, where the field can be distorted by iron pipes.

Scientists at the Oregon Hatchery Research Center in Alsea raised two sets of fish: one outside the hatchery with a natural magnetic field, and one inside the hatchery, where instruments showed the field was distorted.

Fish raised outside the hatchery oriented themselves to changes in the magnetic field, but fish raised in the hatchery’s distorted magnetic field did not.

The scientists found that when a field was created simulating the intensity and inclination of a spot in the ocean off California in the southern part of the steelhead’s range, most of the fish from the first group pointed northwest and out to sea. When the field was changed to simulate a location off Alaska, the northern part of their ocean range, most of the fish turned to point southeast, toward home. Fish raised in the distorted magnetic field did not orient themselves in any particular direction.

“I would not go out and tell hatchery managers to pull out all the iron pipes and replace them with PVC or aluminum,” said lead author Nathan Putman, a researcher at Oregon State University at the time of the study who is now at NOAA Fisheries Service in Miami working on fish migration questions. “We know it has an effect. What is not clear is whether the fish can recalibrate their magnetic sense after leaving the hatchery, or whether they are confused for the rest of their lives.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Spokane Spokesman-Review

June 6, 2014 — Fisheries survey vessel Reuben Lasker, the newest member of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research fleet, was commissioned May 2 in San Diego, tasked with conducting research cruises in the California Current, the ocean region where Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, and NOAA operate the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations program.

“NOAA will once again be prominent in San Diego Bay,” said U.S. 53rd District Rep. Susan Davis, who helped secure American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for the construction of the $75-million Lasker. “The ship brings an important legacy to our research mission and to the blue economy.”

The vessel, which will dock at the 10th Avenue Terminal, will be the first NOAA ship home-ported in San Diego since David Starr Jordan was retired in 2009 after having logged 1.5 million miles in its 44-year tenure.

The Lasker's duties will routinely conduct research cruises in the California Current for the state fisheries investigations program with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Since 1949, the fisheries program has conducted regular cruises with the goal of managing living resources in an ocean region that supports a $250 million fishery.

Read the full story from the San Diego Community News Group

June 9, 2014 — The following was released by NOAA, announcing the selections for Scallop Research Set-Aside Awards for 2014-2015:

Thirty-one researchers from fourteen different organizations have been awarded 2014/2015 research grants focused on Atlantic sea scallops, the nation's highest-valued single species commercial fishery. The researchers will be working as principal and co-principal investigators on sixteen projects worth just over $16.5 million. These awards are funded entirely by proceeds from selling a portion of the annual sea scallop quota "set aside" for this purpose.

Award recipients are located in Massachusetts, Maine, Delaware, and Virginia and include universities, non-profit research and education foundations, a fish hatchery, commercial fishing vessels and businesses, and a state fisheries agency.

Research set-aside (RSA) programs are unique to federal fisheries in the northeast region, which includes the mid-Atlantic. Under RSAs, no federal funds are provided to support the research; rather, funding is provided by granting the awardees Set-Aside allocations for certain quota managed or days-at-sea (DAS) managed fisheries. The allocations are then harvested and sold or auctioned to provide funds for the research. Current RSAs include programs for Atlantic sea scallops, Atlantic herring, monkfish, and mid-Atlantic multispecies which include Atlantic mackerel, black sea bass, bluefish, butterfish, Illex squid, Loligo squid, scup, summer flounder, and tilefish.

Special committees of the regional federal fishery management councils set the research priorities and funds are competitively awarded.  NOAA Fisheries manages the competition, award, and reporting process but does not retain or use any research set-aside funds. The research results will be used to improve sea scallop recruitment and mortality, assess the impacts of future ocean acidification and warming on scallop shells and meat weights, assess the abundance and distribution of scallops in several areas, develop fishing gear that reduces bycatch of flatfish and sea turtles, and utilize new technologies for better sampling and monitoring of sea scallop populations and their habitats.

Researchers at the Coonamessett Farm Foundation (CFF) in East Falmouth, Mass. will continue their work testing gear to reduce flatfish bycatch, and test the energy efficiency of towing the frame to determine the economic impact of design changes. Researchers will also continue monitoring the enhanced scallop seedbed established in 2013 and transplant scallop seed from a recent high density bed to the experimental seed bed to demonstrate the feasibility of a seeding program to enhance and stabilize scallop recruitment on Georges Bank, while documenting the factors that affect seed survival.

Another project will use a remotely-operated vehicle, dredge-mounted cameras and a camera trolley to examine the dredge path of a 4.57-meter-wide Coonamessett Farm turtle deflector dredge; tows will be made on commercial scallop grounds in Georges Bank, Southern New England and Mid-Atlantic Bight regions to determine the quantity and condition of scallops left in the dredge path.

Building on the success of prior CFF turtle behavioral research, investigators will tag juvenile loggerhead turtles with water-activated satellite tags in an effort to understand the impacts of the sea scallop fishery on loggerhead sea turtles.

Northeastern University researchers will study the impacts of future carbon dioxide-induced ocean acidification and warming on the calcification rate, shell properties, and meat weight of Northwest Atlantic sea scallops through controlled laboratory experiments and targeted field studies. The research is intended to produce the first spatial resolution maps of seawater carbonate chemistry and temperature, revealing which areas of Georges Bank are most vulnerable to future ocean acidification and warming.

Researchers from the Maine Department of Marine Resources will work with University of Maine staff to assess sea scallop distribution and abundance in federal and adjacent state waters of the Gulf of Maine. They will test dredge-bag designs for a new low-profile scallop dredge frame and use the survey information to optimize a long-term fishery-independent monitoring program.

University of Delaware researchers will work with colleagues at the Virginia Institute for Marine Science and a commercial vessel to estimate the rate of incidental mortality of sea scallops exposed to commercial dredging.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth School of Marine Science & Technology (SMAST) will continue a project using the SMAST Bycatch Avoidance System, expand the system to open areas in Southern New England, and include windowpane flounder bycatch. Other projects will survey open areas of Georges Bank and a "sliver" of Closed Area 1 to produce biomass estimates for future management plans, and use visual observations of scallops at a seafood display auction and vessel captains' knowledge to identify gray meats in time and space. Laboratory experiments will test the ability of gray meat scallops to recover to white meat quality. The project will produce a map of gray meat outbreaks to provide fishermen with a product to avoid poor quality scallops, and provide management with information to assess the vulnerability of stocks and develop methods to manage the condition.

Scientists at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science will provide a detailed assessment of the abundance and distribution of both adult and pre-recruit sea scallops in the Long Island, Southern New England area. Linking this effort to an existing VIMS survey in the Mid-Atlantic area south of Hudson Canyon will provide managers with a comprehensive dredge survey of the entire region. A second project will estimate sea scallop discard mortality rate in the commercial dredge fishery.

For more information on individual project awards, RSAs, and the Northeast Cooperative Research Program, please visit our website at http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/coopresearch/