July 22, 2021 — Almost four months after the U.S. Secretary of Commerce announced the additional allocation of $255 million in fisheries assistance funding through the CARES Act, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries is just starting the process of distributing the funds.
Massachusetts received the third largest amount in funding, having been allocated $23,632,530 for fisheries assistance.
July 21, 2021 — The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries mailed applications to seafood processers, wholesalers, commercial fishermen and aquaculture farmers on Tuesday — officially opening the state’s second round of CARES Act relief for fisheries.
The funds are intended to mitigate the financial impacts on marine fisheries participants that suffered more than a 35% loss of revenue due to the pandemic.
“Things are definitely recovering, we’re seeing high prices for many shellfish species, finfish, lobster, scallops,” said DMF Director Daniel McKiernan. “There’s a lot of demand for seafood right now so 2021 is looking like a really great year for the industry, but there’s still deficits from what happened last year that these funds will help mitigate.”
This may be the last chance for fisheries to get major COVID-19 relief funds. McKiernan said he wasn’t aware of any state or federal relief planned beyond this round.
July 20, 2021 — State regulators have closed down shellfish harvesting up and down much of the coastline “until further notice.”
In a notice distributed to shellfish constables, Division of Marine Fisheries Director Daniel McKiernan cited paralytic shellfish poison (PSP) as the cause of the closures. PSP is also known as red tide.
The affected towns are Amesbury, Beverly, Boston, Cohasset, Danvers, Duxbury, Essex, Gloucester, Hull, Ipswich, Lynn, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Marblehead, Marshfield, Nahant, Newbury, Newburyport, Peabody, Plymouth, Revere, Rockport, Rowley, Salem, Salisbury, Saugus, Scituate, Swampscott and Winthrop.
July 13, 2021 — While you’re enjoying the beach, something unexpected could be lurking close by.
“Just on the other side of here, I’ve encountered multiple sharks. [You have?] Yep, you know, eight to ten feet of water. [Like while you’re just out working?] Yep, the last one I encountered was in under eight feet of water off the beach just on the other side,” Capt. Kelly Zimmerman of the Got Stryper Fishing Charter tells us.
Kelly has been a captain for the Got Stryper Fishing Charter out of Chatham, Massachusetts on Cape Cod for six years now.
Early on, people who went fishing with Captain Kelly would catch big striped bass. Not so much now.
“The seal population has increased and the more seals that I see, the less of those big bass are sticking around,” Zimmerman explained.
He’s right. The seal population has increased noticeably, thanks in part to the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.
More seals comes more sharks, most notably great white sharks that average about fifteen feet in length.
July 7, 2021 — When the pandemic hit last winter, restaurants and fish markets were among the first businesses to shut down.
The combination hit the region’s fishing fleet really hard, said Seth Rolbein, director of the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust at the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance. May starts the new fishing year and summer is by far the industry’s busiest season.
“It took the legs out from under the fleet,” said Rolbein.
Additionally, fish processors in ports like New Bedford and Gloucester had the same issues as meat packing plants in the Midwest, Rolbein said. With employees working in close proximity, the fish processing plants weren’t built to contain the spread of the virus, said Rolbein, and they shut down too.
June 11, 2021 — Earlier this month, the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission unanimously approved a proposed plan for new buoy line marking rules for lobster and crab fishermen. The buoy line markings proposal was first introduced to the commission in January, which took recommendations from a public hearing in May.
According to Bob Glenn, a member of the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), these markings are important for the protection of the North Atlantic right whales in Massachusetts waters. In 2020, DMF provided comments to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) saying Massachusetts should have its fisheries, specifically lobster and crab fisheries, listed separately, based on its “very conservative” management program to protect the whales. The list is usually published in September or October, which is why the buoy line markings proposal is being pushed for this year. However, the NMFS was not willing to provide a separate designation, because the gear Massachusetts fishermen use was not different enough from other states in New England and the Mid-Atlantic.
The Center for Coastal Studies spotted 89 right whales in March in the Cape Cod Bay area. The whales had migrated elsewhere by May 13, allowing fisheries to open a little earlier than usual. Daniel McKiernan, director of the DMF, said these whales are routinely photographed via aerial surveys within a range from Plymouth to Provincetown. McKiernan said in the past 12 years, there have been only two nonlethal, off-season entanglement cases in Massachusetts. According to a risk reduction model DMF received from NMFS called a decision support tool, the estimates say DMF’s efforts since 2015 have helped reduce marine life mortality by 85 to 95 percent.
June 9, 2021 — Consider the full life of the American eel and what it takes for the wee critters to find their way from their birthing grounds in the Sargasso Sea to the town’s historic Mill Brook.
Once born, eel eggs float to the surface of the salt water spawning grounds northeast of the Bahamas and southwest of Bermuda. They hatch into transparent larvae. If they had thumbs, this is when they would stick them out. No appendages mean no thumbs. Still, they manage to hitch a ride.
Largely left to the whims of wind and currents, the larvae begin a year-long journey to fresh water portals. Some land as far south as the north coast of South America. Others travel as far north as Greenland.
And some hit the sweet spot, crossing the Atlantic Ocean to the Mill Brook and from there up into Rockport’s Mill Pond and Loop Pond, and perhaps as far away as Briar Swamp in Dogtown. In all, they swim more than 1,000 miles.
Waiting for them is Eric Hutchins and his merry band of volunteers, nature’s own census takers for the eels that have by now matured from larvae into translucent elver stretching roughly 2 to 4 inches.
May 20, 2021 — Gloucester remains the state’s second-most valuable commercial fishing port by landings despite the decline of its groundfisheries and the challenges facing its aging waterfront and fleet.
A new analysis of the Massachusetts commercial fishery ranked Gloucester second among Bay State commercial ports with $53.2 million — or 8.2% — of the $647 million in state seafood landings in 2018.
For that year, America’s oldest commercial seaport trailed only the scallop-fueled ex vessel dominance of New Bedford ($431 million, or 66.6%), while more than doubling the value of landings from No. 3 Chatham ($19 million).
But the analysis also warns of storm clouds on the horizon for Gloucester and the state’s other commercial fishing ports, particularly related to shrinking access to harbors and deteriorating waterfront infrastructure.
May 6, 2021 — The state Division of Marine Fisheries is reminding lobstermen and other trap fishermen that state waters north and east of Cape Cod remain closed to all commercial harvesting because of the continued presence of North Atlantic right whales.
DMF and the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies continue to fly aerial survey flights to gauge the scale of right whale presence in state waters as the imperiled stock continues its northward feeding migration.
The agency said its most recent flight, on April 28, 2021, observed 86 right whales in the waters of northern Cape Cod Bay, southern Massachusetts Bay, and Stellwagen Bank, a fishing ground located about 15 miles southeast of Gloucester to about six miles north of Provincetown.
“Additional surveillance flights are anticipated to occur over the next several days,” DMF stated. “DMF will reevaluate the status of this closure based on the presence or absence of whales. Should observational data demonstrate right whales have migrated out of Massachusetts waters, DMF may lift the trap gear closure prior to May 15.”
Also, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s Slocum underwater glider on Sunday acoustically detected the presence of North Atlantic right whales north of Cape Cod and NOAA Fisheries on Monday instituted a voluntary right whale slow zone north of Cape Cod until May 17.
April 23, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
Update from Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries
The Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) is closely monitoring the presence of North Atlantic Right Whales in Massachusetts coastal waters. From the period of April 6, 2021 through April 20, 2021 aerial and acoustic surveillance conducted by the NOAA Fisheries and the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (PCCS) has detected moderate to high densities of right whales in Massachusetts coastal waters including; Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts Bay, Stellwagen Bank, state waters on the backside of Cape Cod, and the nearshore federal waters south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
Trap fishermen in Lobster Management Area 1 and Outer Cape Cod are reminded that the state waters portion of these areas are closed to lobster trap fishing until May 15, 2021. NOAA Fisheries and PCCS are conducting routine aerial surveillance throughout Massachusetts’ coastal waters and adjacent federal waters multiple times per week. DMF will continue to monitor surveillance information and could open portions or all of state waters as early as May 1, 2021 if less than 3 right whales are detected in an area.
Mariners are reminded that there is a 10-knot small vessel (less than 65’ overall) speed limit in Cape Cod Bay to protect endangered right whales from the threat of ship strikes that remains in effect until April 30, 2021. During the late winter and early-spring, right whales migrate into and aggregate in Cape Cod Bay where they feed on zooplankton. As we move into the spring, these whales begin to feed closer to the surface and become more susceptible to ship strikes. Ship strikes are a significant source of mortality to these endangered whales. However, the lethality of ship strikes is greatly reduced when vessels are operating at less than 10-knots speed.
This small vessel speed limit— established in 2019—applies from March 1 – April 30 within those waters of Cape Cod Bay south of 42° 08’ north latitude, as well as those waters north of Cape Cod that are west of 70°10’ west longitude. A complementary federal speed limit applies to all vessels 65’ overall length and greater. DMF may extend or rescind this seasonal small vessel speed limit based on the continued presence or absence of whales. This small vessel speed limit does not apply to emergency and enforcement personnel, including federal whale disentanglement teams. Additionally, small vessel traffic operating within the inshore waters of Plymouth, Duxbury, Kingston, Barnstable and Wellfleet Harbors are exempt.
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