Saving Seafood

Annual fisheries meeting tackles lobster lawsuits, whale protections

August 3, 2022 — On Tuesday in Washington D.C., key players from Maine’s lobster fishery tackled what it considers its most pressing issues.

Lawsuits, protections for Atlantic right whales, and new sizing limits for lobsters were some of the issues discussed by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and lobster fishers.

The first issue was an update regarding Judge James Boasberg’s July ruling in the U.S. District Court case involving the Center for Biological Diversity versus Secretary Raimondo and the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

This case made the news in early July after Boasberg ruled regulators aren’t doing enough to protect the right whale.

Just days after, he sided with environmental groups in another lawsuit to allow Area 1 to close again to fishermen this coming fall and winter.

Read the full article at News Center Maine

NOAA wants stricter vessel speed limits to protect right whales

August 1, 2022 — Existing vessel speed limits are inadequate to protect endangered north Atlantic right whales from lethal collisions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is proposing to expand 10-knot speed limit zones.

NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service on Friday announced the new rule proposal, which would also extend speed restrictions, now on vessels over 65 feet, down to 35 feet. That would make many more fishing and recreational vessels subject to mandatory speed restrictions.

The move on smaller boats comes after a 2021 incident when a young right whale calf died after it was struck by a 54-foot sportfishing yacht inbound to a Florida inlet.

Proposing stricter speed limits comes as NMFS is under pressure to do more for the whales. In January 2021 an analysis by the agency found speed restrictions are often ignored, according to automatic identification system (AIS) ship tracking.

A similar July 2021 study by the environmental group Oceana found most vessel traffic by far has been exceeding speed limits declared by NMFS, by as much as 90 percent in some areas.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Ships must slow down more often to save whales, feds say

July 29, 2022 — Vessels off the East Coast must slow down more often to help save a vanishing species of whale from extinction, the federal government said Friday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration made the announcement via new proposed rules designed to prevent ships colliding with North Atlantic right whales. Vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are the two biggest threats to the giant animals, which number less than 340 and are falling in population.

Efforts to save the whales have long focused on fishing gear, especially that used by East Coast lobster fishermen. The proposed vessel speed rules signal that the government wants the shipping industry to take more responsibility.

The new rules would expand seasonal slow zones off the East Coast that require mariners to slow down to 10 knots (19 kilometers per hour). They would also require more vessels to comply with the rules by expanding the size classes that must slow down. The rules also state that NOAA would create a framework to implement mandatory speed restrictions when whales are known to be present outside the seasonal slow zones.

The whales were once numerous off the East Coast, but their populations plummeted due to commercial whaling generations ago. Although they’ve been protected under the Endangered Species Act for decades, they’ve been slow to recover.

More than 50 of the whales were struck by ships between spring 1999 and spring 2018, NOAA records state. Scientists have said in recent years that warming ocean temperatures are causing the whales to stray out of protected areas and into shipping lanes in search of food.

Members of New England’s lobster fishing industry have made the case that too many rules designed to save the whales focus on fishing and not on vessel strikes. Some characterized the new vessel speed rules as overdue.

Fishermen are unfairly being held accountable for whale deaths that occur due to vessel strikes, said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, which is the largest fishing industry association on the East Coast.

Read the full article at ABC

Court ruling again highlights need for better data about how lobster fishing impacts right whales

July 15, 2022 — A federal judge ruled last week that federal fisheries regulators are not doing enough to protect North Atlantic right whales, an endangered species, from fishing gear used by New England’s lobster and crab fisheries.

The ruling – and the changes that it might compel – are another blow to Maine’s lobster industry. But, more, it is a condemnation of the National Marine Fisheries Services plans to protect the whales, which are thought to number less than 400. The judge, James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, blasted the agency for approving a plan last year that allowed for continuing entanglements of whales in lobster and crab gear while gear changes were implemented to reduce these entanglements. For example, the plan allowed 2.6 entanglements in lobster and crab gear that could cause death or serious injury to right whales each year through 2025, although NMFS calculated that only 0.8 entanglements should be allowed in federal waters to preserve the whale population.

At the same time, we’d encourage the lobster industry to move beyond messages that emphasize fighting regulations to highlight some of the many changes they have already made to reduce the threat to right whales. For example, many lobstermen in Maine are in the midst of replacing their trap lines with lines that will break away if hit by a whale. They are also marking their gear to better identify if rope from Maine is entangling right whales.

Judge Boasberg acknowledged this work, but essentially warned that it might not be enough. In his opinion, which is littered with marine metaphors, he also recognized the harm that more stringent restrictions could have on the lobster industry. That, he wrote, is why he asked the parties to work together to come up with more protective solutions.

As years of negotiations, rule changes and lawsuits have shown, this is no easy task. But, it is better than having draconian measures imposed by a court.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Maine politicians blast ‘unfair’ court decision targeting lobster gear

July 14, 2022 — A federal circuit court has reinstated a ban on lobster fishing gear in a nearly 1,000-square-mile area off New England to try to protect endangered whales.

The National Marine Fisheries Service issued new regulations last year that prohibited lobster fishing with vertical buoy lines in part of the fall and winter in the area, which is in federal waters off Maine’s coast. The ruling was intended to prevent North Atlantic right whales, which number less than 340, from becoming entangled in the lines.

The circuit court sent the case back to the district court level, but noted in its ruling that it does not think the lobster fishing groups that sued to stop the regulations are likely to succeed because Congress has clearly instructed the fisheries service to protect the whales.

Commercial fishing groups have filed lawsuits about new rules designed to protect the whales because of concerns that the regulations will make it impossible to sustain the lobster fishing industry. The industry, based mostly in Maine, is one of the most valuable in the U.S., worth more than $500 million at the docks in 2020, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Conservation groups have called for tighter laws. Tuesday’s ruling is “a lifesaving decision for these beautiful, vulnerable whales,” said Kristen Monsell, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity who argued the case at the circuit court.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Council Discusses Climate Change, Research Priorities, EBFM, Sturgeon, Right Whales, and Equity & Environmental Justice

July 14, 2022 — The New England Fishery Management Council met June 28-30, 2022 and received numerous updates over the course of its three-day hybrid meeting in Portland, Maine. Here are a few of the highlights.

CLIMATE CHANGE: The Council received a presentation from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center on the Draft Northeast Climate Regional Action Plan, which is out for public comment through July 29, 2022. Version 1 of the plan was in place from 2016 to 2021. The current draft – Version 2 – will be used by NOAA Fisheries to implement the agency’s Climate Science Strategy in 2022-2024. The document contains information on warming ocean temperatures (see graphic at right) and much more. The Council received input from its Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) on the draft action plan and will be submitting its own written comments in advance of the deadline.

The Council also received a progress report on the East Coast Climate Change Scenario Planning initiative. The overarching questions are:

• How might climate change affect stock availability and distribution, as well as other aspects of East Coast marine fisheries, over the next 20 years; and

• What does this mean for effective future governance and management across multiple jurisdictions? What tools are needed to provide flexible and robust management strategies to address uncertainty in an era of climate change?

The Core Team working on this initiative hosted a June 21-23, 2022 Scenario Creation Workshop where participants developed scenarios or stories describing eight alternative futures under climate change. Next, the Core Team will review and edit inputs from the workshop to create a draft set of scenarios for further discussion and feedback during three scenario deepening webinars in mid-August. These webinars will be open to the public. The Council will have an in-depth discussion of the scenarios during its September 27-29, 2022 meeting and provide feedback to the Core Team on next steps.

Read the full release here

MASSACHUSETTS: State weighs relief fund to buoy lobster industry

May 27, 2022 — Lawmakers want to create a new fund to help commercial lobstermen whose livelihoods are being impacted by state and federal regulations aimed at protecting critically endangered north Atlantic right whales.

An amendment added to the Senate version of the $49.7 billion state budget, approved Thursday, would set up a Lobstering Closure Mitigation Fund through the state’s unemployment system with at least $12 million in initial funding.

The amendment was co-sponsored by Sens. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, and Patrick O’Connor, R-Weymouth, who say the move will provide “much needed relief” for the lobster industry.

“It is absolutely critical that we provide relief to the people in this industry which is so important to the commonwealth,” Tarr said. “As the second largest provider of lobster in the nation these workers are needed for another day, another year, and another generation.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

Court Ruling Gives Lobster Industry A Reprieve — And A Deadline

August 21, 2020 — A federal judge has ordered fishery managers to reanalyze the impact of the American lobster industry on endangered North Atlantic right whales, and issue a new rule for protecting the whales by May 31, 2021.

The judge did not, however, ban lobster fishing with vertical buoy lines in a right whale feeding area, as environmental advocates requested.

Part of Cape Cod Bay is already closed to lobster fishing in the late winter and early spring to protect right whales from getting tangled in fishing gear. But environmental groups — The Humane Society of the United States, Defenders of Wildlife, Conservation Law Foundation and the Center for Biological Diversity — wanted an additional area in southern New England closed immediately as well.

U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg, who ruled on the matter this week, said a sudden closure “would disrupt fishermen’s current operations and their near-term plans.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic has gutted the market for lobster, cutting the price in half and pushing fishermen, most of whom are self-employed, to the economic brink,” Boasberg wrote in his ruling.

Read the full story at WBUR

Canada announces changes to protect right whales

January 24, 2018 — NEW BRUNSWICK, Canada — Canadian officials announced new restrictions Tuesday on the amount of rope that snow crab fishermen can use in an ongoing effort to reduce the effect of fishing on the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale.

“We don’t want meters and meters of rope floating on the surface of the water,” Fisheries and Oceans Canada Minister Dominic LeBlanc said.

With 450 or fewer right whales remaining, after the death last year of 16 in Canadian and U.S. waters, and a possible 17th death still under review, pressure is increasing on two ways that humans cause right whale deaths: fishing gear entanglement and ship strikes. Last week, U.S. conservation groups sued the National Marine Fisheries Service to tighten restrictions on lobster fishing to protect the whales.

A roundtable on right whales, convened by LeBlanc last November, with fishing and marine business people, environmental groups, indigenous community members, scientists and Canadian and U.S. government officials, led to a more thorough understanding of the situation, according to a statement from the Fisheries Service and Oceans Canada.

LeBlanc’s announcement Tuesday was about four initial changes in snow crab fishing policy and practices to better protect right whales, 12 of which were documented as being found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. More initiatives to limit entanglement and ship strikes are likely to come, he said.

Conservation groups sue to force greater protection for North Atlantic right whale

January 19, 2018 — Three national organizations went to court Thursday in an effort to force the federal government to provide greater protections for the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

The plaintiffs allege that the federal government has failed to manage the fishing industry by not enforcing the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Scientists say right whales are facing extinction largely because the animals die after becoming entangled in lobster trap lines and commercial fishing gear.

The civil suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce was filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., by the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Humane Society of the United States.

During a meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in October, scientists said the species is doomed to extinction by 2040 if humans don’t make substantive changes to protect them. A total of 17 right whales were found dead last summer and fall in the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off Cape Cod.

Dave Cousens, president of the Maine Lobsterman’s Association and a lobsterman who fishes out of South Thomaston, said he wasn’t surprised by the lawsuit after last year’s die-off.

“A lot of whales died,” Cousens said. “We have done a lot (to avoid entanglements) in Maine, and I have to say I don’t think Maine has been the cause of any of the deaths.”

Cousens said he fully expected that conservation organizations would demand that additional steps be taken to avoid entanglements with fishing gear.

In the suit, plaintiffs sharply criticize the NMFS for supporting a 2014 biological opinion that found commercial fisheries are likely to kill or seriously injure more than three North Atlantic right whales a year, but also led the federal agency to conclude “that the fishery is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of North Atlantic right whales.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald