Saving Seafood

NOAA announces $6.2 million in endangered species recovery grants

April 29, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA Communications:

NOAA Fisheries is proposing 12 new projects and the continuation of 13 multi-year projects under the Species Recovery Grants Program, with up to $6.2 million in new funding. The program supports management, research, monitoring and outreach activities that have direct conservation benefits for endangered species.

Up to $3.6 million in funding for new awards are proposed for projects in Alaska, California, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Florida, Maryland, Oregon, Puerto Rico and to the Makah Tribe. And up to $2.6 million in funding will continue to support 13 existing projects approved through prior grant cycles.

“States and tribes play an essential role in conserving and recovering species,” said Janet Coit, assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries, and acting assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy NOAA administrator. “NOAA is responsible for endangered species that may spend all or part of their lifecycle in state waters, and successful conservation depends on our cooperation with valued state and tribal partners.”

This year’s recommended projects support our state and tribal partners in a range of activities, such as:

• Assessing and monitoring endangered and threatened species, including evaluating abundance, spawning and foraging behaviors.

• Collecting demographic and genetic information to improve understanding of population distribution, habitat use and impacts from human threats.

• Assessing the impacts of climate change on species’ predator-prey interactions, and population distribution, abundance and recovery.

• Improving captive reproduction, health and survival of endangered species.

• Assisting with animal stranding responses.

• Assessing threats of specific prey populations to the diet of endangered species.

• Engaging the public in conservation of Endangered Species Act-listed species.

The Species Recovery Grant Program began in 2003 and is an example of how NOAA advances funding opportunities and partnerships towards recovering species while supporting our mission of preserving marine resources for future generations.

During this period of the selection process, the application approval and obligation of funds is not final. Each application is being “recommended” for funding. This is not an authorization to start the project and is not a guarantee of funding. A complete list of funded projects to states and tribes is available online. Awardees will be notified directly when applications are approved in the coming months. For more information about this year’s proposed projects, please visit the NOAA Fisheries website.

 

A Native Tribe Wants to Resume Whaling. Whale Defenders Are Divided.

December 10, 2019 — The hunters paddled frantically, closing in on their target. When they drew near, one of them stood in the cedar canoe and thrust a harpoon into the spine of the 30-foot gray whale.

With the help of fishing boats, the men towed their catch into a small cove in Neah Bay on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, where hundreds of fellow Makah tribal members greeted them like heroes. People hugged and cried. They celebrated what felt like the return of better days.

It was 1999, and the tribe’s first successful whale hunt in seven decades. It was also their last.

The Makah are the only Native Americans who have a treaty with the United States government that explicitly allows them to hunt whales. But they have not because of a protracted administrative and legal battle waged by conservationists and animal rights activists, who call the practice “barbaric” and have generated a wave of negative sentiment against the tribe.

The two-decade tussle could flare in the coming weeks over a proposal that would allow the Makah to resume whaling as early as next year. Tribal members say the struggle goes beyond their right to hunt, and see it as a fight over restoring Native identity, honoring indigenous treaty rights and respecting age-old traditions.

“People argue that you haven’t done it for 70 years, you don’t need to do it anymore,” said Patrick DePoe, 37, a member of the Makah tribal council. “They’re not Makah. They don’t understand what it means for us.”

An administrative law judge was scheduled to hear arguments Thursday on a proposal by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to exempt the Makah from the federal ban on whaling. The exemption would allow the tribe to catch as many as four Eastern North Pacific gray whales every two years for the next decade.

Read the full story at The New York Times

NOAA argues to allow Makah Tribe to hunt gray whales off Washington again

November 15, 2019 — More than two decades ago, Makah tribal members killed a 30-foot gray whale in the waters off the Olympic Peninsula amid bitter protests from animal-welfare activists.

The tribal hunt in May 1999 touched off a protracted legal battle that on Thursday took center stage inside a Seattle federal building.

The proceedings over the tribe’s treaty right to hunt gray whales are expected to last more than a week in the courtroomlike setting.

Opponents have raised concerns about the impacts of climate change on the eastern North Pacific gray population, while the tribe hopes Administrative Law Judge George Jordan will recommend a waiver to the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The Makah, whose lands are on the northwest tip of Washington, have the right to hunt whales through their 1855 treaty with the U.S. government. Tribal whaling advocates hailed the 1999 hunt as an important renewal of a tradition that helps define the Makah. But opponents have so far blocked, through court and regulatory challenges, the tribe from conducting more federally approved hunts.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Makah Tribe whaling hearing begins

November 14, 2019 — A federal agency’s April 4 recommendation to allow the Makah Tribe to resume whaling on grounds that killing the animals would not have a noticeable impact on the species’ population will be put to the test beginning Thursday, Nov. 14, in Seattle.

U.S. Coast Guard Administrative Law Judge George J. Jordan will begin reviewing arguments at 1 p.m. on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s decision to grant the tribe a waiver of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The hearing room is at the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building.

Jordan must make a recommendation “promptly” to Chris Oliver, assistant administrator of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, according to federal regulations, said Michael Milstein, NOAA spokesperson. The hearing is expected to last through Nov. 22.

An overflow room at the Jackson Building will be provided where onlookers can view today’s proceeding on a monitor, Milstein said.

A 2015 draft environmental impact statement on Makah whaling by the National Marine Fisheries Service generated 57,000 comments, most of which were form letters.

Read the full story at The Peninsula Daily News

Terms Extended for U.S. IPHC Commissioners While Commerce, State, and White House Weigh Appointments

March 30, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Yesterday Linda Behnken and Bob Alverson, current U.S. Commissioners on the International Pacific Halibut Commission, both received emails from the Department of State extending their current terms to August 31, 2018.

“This appointment is effective immediately and expires on August 31, 2018, or whenever another Alternate or presidentially-appointed Commissioner is appointed to fulfill the relevant duties, whichever occurs first,” wrote Judith Garber, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the State Department.

Although the appointment is a presidential decision, it’s not unusual for reappointments, or extensions of terms as in this case, to be made by the State Department, the agency that oversees international commissions.

Both Behnken and Alverson’s terms ended March 31, 2018. Both are preparing for a meeting with the Canadian commissioners in mid-April to work on issues within the Commission’s harvest policy that resulted in not reaching an agreement on catch limits at the group’s annual meeting in January.

The federal agencies are currently considering six names for the two seats. Besides Behnken’s and Alverson’s nominations, Andy Mezirow, Richard Yamada, and Duane Edelman were nominated for Behnken’s Alaska seat and Steve Joner was nominated for Alverson’s seat. Mezirow and Yamada are recreational charter operators, Edelman is a fisherman, and Joner is a fisheries manager for the Makah Tribe.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.