Saving Seafood

Industry, agencies working to avoid whale entanglements

November 14, 2018 — LONG BEACH, Calif. — Whale entanglements off the West Coast and potential solutions to the escalating problem are the focus of a new report including the presentations and observations of fishermen, biologists and fisheries managers who gathered at an August workshop.

In recent years, growing populations of humpback and gray whales, changing ocean conditions and prey locations, and later crab season openings have led to more whales getting entangled in fishing gear, such as the ropes and floats that mark the location of crab pots. In 2017 there were 31 confirmed entanglements off the West Coast, including two humpbacks and a gray whale off the Washington coast, according to a press release from NOAA Fisheries. While NOAA concedes these entanglements are still proportionally rare, they sometimes lead to the deaths of entangled whales, so both fishermen and fisheries managers are seeking solutions.

To understand how and where rope and other gear entangles whales and to find ways to address the problem, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC) and NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region convened a two-day workshop in Long Beach, California, in August. This “forensic workshop” was also supported by The Marine Mammal Commission, Oregon Sea Grant, and the Aquarium of the Pacific. The report from the workshop is now available at tinyurl.com/whale-entanglement-report.

The report provides the notes and presentations from the 31 California, Oregon, and Washington experts who attended. Participating were Dungeness crab fishermen; gear specialists; marine mammal biologists and disentanglement specialists; conservation groups; and federal, tribal and state agency representatives.

Read the full story at the Chinook Observer

 

Scientists get break finding elusive beaked whales

September 10, 2018 — Scientists have found a reliable gathering place east of Cape Cod for the elusive and little-known True’s beaked whales, following a month’s effort this summer.

“It was huge for us,” Danielle Cholewiak, research ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, said. Cholewiak was chief scientist for the trip east of Georges Bank, on the edge of the continental shelf.

Only a dozen sightings of True’s beaked whale had occurred since 1913 when Smithsonian Institution curator Frederick True first identified and named the species from an animal stranded on a North Carolina beach. But the dedicated study in July 200 miles east of Cape Cod yielded dozens of sightings, acoustic recordings, genetic samples and photographs, Cholewiak said.

The repeated sightings of whales during the trip allowed scientists to begin a tracking database. The whales now named Elvis and Trident are the “founding members” of the North Atlantic True’s beaked whale photo identification catalog. With over 300 acoustic detections from a hydrophone towed 24 hours a day across the research area the scientists were able to map out where the animals were living, Cholewiak said. The first-time use on a True’s beaked whale of a suction-cup digital recording tag, for 12 hours, is expected to reveal new information about their movements and acoustic behavior.

“This is a 5- or 6-meter whale that we didn’t know anything about until now,” said Dee Allen, research program officer for the Marine Mammal Commission, who was on the trip. In its oversight role of other federal agencies, the commission wants to make sure that the best available science is used for decision-making. There is great value in new or more information on a species that is little-known, Allen said.

“It shows that it can be done,” Allen said. “We can continue to learn more about beaked whales.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Zero Dollars for Marine Mammals?

February 27, 2018 — The future of marine mammals is at risk in U.S. waters. President Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2019 would eliminate the Marine Mammal Commission. With an annual operating budget of $3.4 million, which comes to just over one penny per American per year, the Marine Mammal Commission has for 45 years been assiduously developing science and policy to protect seals, sea lions, dolphins, whales, dugongs and walruses. Through the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), Congress charged the commission with providing independent oversight of marine mammal conservation policies and programs being carried out by federal regulatory agencies. Obviously, with a proposed budget of zero dollars, it would be impossible to execute the federally mandated objectives of fostering sustainable fisheries (through the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act [MSA]) and protecting endangered species (through the Endangered Species Act [ESA]).

Marine mammals are more than just lovable creatures. They are important components of productive marine and coastal ecosystems that overall generate $97 billion of the gross domestic product. Whales function as ecosystem engineers by cycling vital nutrients between deeper and surface waters in the oceans. Without this nutrient cycling, oceans would produce less plankton and phytoplankton, which would eventually mean less fish. Also, through complex food-web interactions, marine mammals help to regulate fish populations. For example, marine-mammal–eating killer whales (often called “transient” killer whales) will eat seals, a common predator of pelagic fish—enabling fish populations to stay high. This kind of interaction is called a trophic cascade and is very common in marine ecosystems.

Serving as an independent oversight body, the commission has the critical task of assessing the scientific validity and effectiveness of research conducted to meet the federal mandates of the MMPA, ESA and MSA. If we as a country can’t even protect the charismatic species, I worry for all the less adorable parts of nature. So we need to draw a line in the sand. In this era of “fake news,” maintaining this entity to guard against encroachments to science-based policymaking on is more valuable than ever.

Read the full story at the Scientific American

 

Susan Larsen: What’s causing right whale decline?

January 30, 2018 — There is no argument that the North Atlantic Right Whale is in dire straits. Dr. Mark Baumgartner, a biologist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, gave a compelling presentation on “The Plight of the Right Whale” this past Tuesday evening, Jan. 23, at the Vineyard Gazette office. Since it was advertised, it was well attended.

One point of interest was that the right whales were making a healthy comeback, a two-decade period of modest annual growth; the population rebounded from 270 living whales in 1992 to 483 in 2010. From 2010, the numbers began to decline rapidly, with 2017 being a particularly devastating year, a loss of 17 whales. Dr. Baumgartner stressed the main focus was on whale entanglements with snow crab and lobster gear, and the urgent measures needed to be taken immediately within the fishery. Massachusetts fishermen are leading the way with break away links at the base of surface buoys (to 600lbs in 2001), sink rope (mandated in 2003), gear reductions and seasonal gear restrictions in Cape Cod Bay. He also touched on ship strikes as being a cause of death. However, the Marine Mammal Commission stated on their website, “other potential threats include spills of hazardous substances from ships or other sources, and noise from ships and industrial activities.”

But what Dr. Baumgartner could not explain was the scarcity of food that these leviathans need to feed on and their low birth rate. He showed the audience slides on the Calanus finmarchicus, known as copepods and remarked that this type plankton, sought after by these whales, are basically comprised of fat, or as Dr. Baumgartner called them “buttersticks.” Each adult whale needs to consume between 1,000-2,000 a day to remain healthy. The birth rate has dropped 40 percent from 2010-2016 and all five calves that were born in 2017 were to older mothers. “Since about 2011, we’re not seeing those sub-adults and juveniles in Florida and the question is, well, where are they?” asks Jim Hain, senior scientist at Associated Scientist at Woods Hole. Scott Kraus, a marine mammalogist from the New England Aquarium in Boston says, “Females are having young just every 9 years or more, compared with every 3 years in the 1980’s.”

Perhaps the decline is linked to the environmental disaster on April 20, 2010, the Deep Water Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. From April 20, 2010, to July 15, 2010, more than 200 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf followed by another one million gallons of Corexit, a dispersant mixture of solvents and surfactants that break down the oil into tiny droplets. It is documented that for 3 months, marine microorganisms have ingested these toxins, which are carried along the Gulf Stream, a strong underwater current that flows through the Gulf of Mexico, skirts around Florida, flowing between Cuba and up the Eastern seaboard. Since the right whale gives birth off the coasts of Georgia and Florida, could these toxic chemicals be part of their decline?  “The chemicals in the oil product that move up through the food web are a great concern for us,” said Teri Rowles, coordinator of NOAA’s marine-mammal health and stranding response program. It is also documented that female mammals including humans who have been in contact with these toxins have suffered from irregular menstrual cycles, infertility, miscarriages and stillborns, along with premature aging and other debilitating side effects. John Pierce Wise Sr., co-author of the 2014 study and head of the Wise laboratory of Environment and Genetic Toxicology at the University of Southern Maine says, “To put it simply, after a sudden insult like an oil spill, once it’s over, it takes a long time for the population effects to fully show themselves.” This same article states “research has shown that the calves of other baleen whales (other than Bryde’s whale) may be particularly vulnerable to toxins that build in their tissues.”

A letter dated Aug. 17, 2017, from the office of the Massachusetts Attorney General in “Reference for information and comments of the 2019-2024 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program,” refers to the Deepwater Horizon disaster and its “harm to coastal communities and marine environment” and “long ranging impacts on marine mammals. The impacts on sea turtles could span the Atlantic.” The letter also states, “from 2010 through September 2016, there were 43 significant oil spills.”

In an article dated Dec. 5, 2017, ecologist Peter Corkeron of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Center in Woods Hole at the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium’s annual meeting, “They’re (female right whales) dying too young, and they’re not having calves often enough.” This study found the females are struggling to reproduce. Dr. Baumgartner is the president of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.

Read the full letter at the Martha’s Vineyard-Times 

 

Scientists eye new tools for whale safety

April 10, 2017 — There are still limitations to the technology, but scientists hope the expanded use of unmanned listening devices and whale call recordings will help better protect whales by using the sounds they make.

“There are a lot of potential applications,” said Brian Sharp, International Fund for Animal Welfare’s manager of marine mammal rescue and research. “We’re just scratching the surface.”

At the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, researchers have analyzed underwater recordings of North Atlantic right whale calls from 2006 through 2014 to try and address a question that has emerged in recent years: Why are the endangered animals not showing up as predictably in their seasonal haunts.

“One of the things that’s really been discussed is how they’re shifting their distribution patterns,” Genevieve Davis, a research analyst at the science center, said at the annual Marine Mammal Commission meeting held at the Sea Crest Beach Hotel.

For the 2006-2014 time period, the scientists ended up with 2,500 days that showed — by recorded sound — the presence of right whales from Iceland to Florida. In looking at the data, they learned that the whales are spending their winters all along the Atlantic coastline rather than in specific areas at specific times of the year. Also, from New England through the mid-Atlantic area, the analysis showed that there are right whales present “pretty much year-round,” Davis said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Troubling signs for right whale population

April 10, 2017 — The quickly fading population of vaquitas sets a worrisome example for those trying to save North Atlantic right whales.

“It has me slightly terrified,” said Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution biologist Mark Baumgartner, who heads up the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, at the annual U.S. Marine Mammal Commission meeting, held last week at the Sea Creat Beach Hotel in North Falmouth.

In 1997, scientists first counted 567 of the small porpoises in the Bay of California in Mexico, but in 20 years that has dropped precipitously — to 30 — as the vaquitas drown when caught underwater in gillnets.

The North Atlantic right whale population, at 524 animals, is currently on a downward trend, too, members of the consortium announced in November. This year’s low calving rate —only 3 right whale calves were documented — is one thing, Baumgartner said.

But a low calving rate coupled with increasing deaths due to fishing gear entanglement spells trouble.

“What could we expect in the next 5 to 10 years?” he said.

At the annual commission meeting, scientists delivered the sobering news that, starting in October, several vaquitas would be captured in the wild and placed in a conservation area for safekeeping and breeding. A recent and intense market in China for the swim bladder of totoaba, which is caught illegally in the bay using gillnets, “caught everybody by surprise,” said Peter Thomas, Marine Mammal Commission International and Policy Program Director. The vaquitas get caught in the gillnets and drown; their corpses are then brought up with the fish and are discarded by the fishermen.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Cape gray seal population estimated at up to 50K

April 7, 2017 — While the first day of the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission’s annual meeting, held for the first time on Cape Cod, dealt with threats to a tiny Mexican porpoise and massive Arctic polar bears, Thursday’s sessions brought the focus home with a profoundly local subject: gray seals.

“These animals are reassuming their ecological roles,” said David Johnston, an assistant professor at Duke University. “And people freak out.”

Seals are back in force, with between 30,000 and 50,000 living in the waters of Southeastern Massachusetts, primarily on and around Cape Cod, according to a new estimate produced by Johnston to be published in an upcoming report. Feelings about their return, however, are decidedly mixed.

After seal hunts and bounties exterminated gray seals from New England by the mid to late 60s, few imagined they would come back, certainly not to the point where tens of thousands now inhabit the Cape and surrounding waters.

Fishermen complain about seals taking their catch, boats run into them, some question their effect on water quality or their potential to spread disease, and raise concerns about the threat of a rapidly expanding great white shark population, visiting Cape waters to dine on blubber.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times