Saving Seafood

Endangered whales off US coast at center of fierce fight

November 16, 2021 — A judge ruled in favor of Maine’s multimillion-dollar lobster industry, pushing back on efforts to protect endangered species and limit how much fisherman can capture marine life.

The seafood industry is a huge part of Maine’s economy; in 2018 the state’s lobster fishery alone was valued at more than $400 million and brought in approximately 119 million pounds of lobster. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), American lobster was the most valuable single species harvested in the U.S.

But all that harvesting has affected marine life. The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium (NARWC) announced in October that the North Atlantic right whale population dropped to 336 in 2020, an 8 percent decrease from 2019. The group said 2020 was the lowest number for the species in nearly 20 years.

The federal government had attempted to protect endangered right whales, with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo authorizing a partial closure of a fishing zone along the Maine coast that would have prohibited the use of buoy lines that many marine life are hurt or killed by. It was intended to restrict commercial lobster fishing for four months and was the first step in a 10-year plan to protect North Atlantic right whales.

Read the full story at The Hill

Right whale population drops to lowest estimate in nearly 20 years

November 2, 2021 — Researchers last week said the North Atlantic right whale population dropped to 336 in 2020, an 8 percent decrease from the previous year. 

The latest population figure for the critically endangered species dipped from 366 individuals in 2019 and is the lowest population estimate in nearly 20 years, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium. The organization has been studying right whales since the 1980s and announced the estimate at its annual meeting last week.   

“We are obviously discouraged by this estimate, but quite frankly, not surprised,” said Heather Pettis, an associate scientist in the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life and the executive administrator for the consortium. “The right whale research and conservation communities know that while widespread efforts to change the trajectory of the species have been undertaken, they have not been enough.” 

The species, which migrates up and down the east coast, was generally rebounding until 2011, when the downward trend started. That prompted new regulations on Maine’s lobstermen and other fisheries. At that time, there were an estimated 481 whales, but since then the population has declined by 30 percent.  

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

The state of the whales: 4 takeaways from this year’s Right Whale Consortium meeting

October 28, 2021 — The annual meeting of the North Atlantic Right Whale consortium started with a gut punch: there are now only about 336 North Atlantic right whales left in the world, the lowest number in nearly 20 years.

And not many people know about it: A Pew survey released in April found that only 29% of people living along the east coast had ever heard of the North Atlantic right whale.

The two-day meeting gathered researchers, industry representatives, government officials and conservation managers to share updates on regulations, research, and efforts to educate the public. The goal: to reduce the dramatic decline in the whale population.

Read the full story at WBUR

New population estimate for right whales at its lowest in 20 years

October 26, 2021 — A new estimate of the number of endangered North Atlantic right whales left on the planet puts the population at 336, the lowest in nearly 20 years.

The figure, which represents the 2020 population, is down eight per cent from the previous estimate of 366 in 2019, and is far below the peak of 481 in 2011.

The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, a partnership of nearly 40 organizations with an interest in protecting the species, said the cause of the decline is clear.

“There is no question that human activities are driving this species toward extinction,” Scott Kraus, the chair of the consortium, said in a news release Monday morning.

Entanglements in fishing gear and vessel strikes are among the biggest threats to the survival of the North Atlantic right whale.

Read the full story at CBC

Endangered Whale Population Sinks Close to 20-Year Low

October 25, 2021 — A type of whale that is one of the rarest marine mammals in the world lost nearly 10% of its population last year, a group of scientists and ocean life advocates said on Monday.

The North Atlantic right whale numbered only 366 in 2019, and its population fell to 336 in 2020, the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium said. The estimate is the lowest number in nearly two decades.

Right whales were once abundant in the waters off New England, but were decimated during the commercial whaling era due to their high concentrations of oil. They have been listed as endangered by the U.S. government for more than half a century.

The whales have suffered high mortality and poor reproduction in some recent years. There were more than 480 of the animals as recently as 2011. They’re vulnerable to fatal entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with large ships, and even when they survive, they often emerge less fit and less able to feed and mate, said Scott Kraus, chair of the consortium.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at US News & World Report

Speeding ships in the Chesapeake Bay endanger rare right whales, environmentalists report

August 9, 2021 — Most ships moving through the Chesapeake Bay don’t slow down as required to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale, environmentalists said in a new report.

About 64% of vessels in the area don’t comply with speed rules designed to allow boat drivers to see and veer around the whales susceptible to strikes — sometimes going up to four times the required speed, according to the report released recently by conservation nonprofit Oceana. Cargo ships were the worst offenders.

There are fewer than 400 North Atlantic right whales left, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, making them one of the most endangered marine mammals on the planet.

They were named for being the “right whale” to kill during the whaling era, said Whitney Webber, Oceana’s campaign director. They were easy to pursue and their thick layer of blubber — used for oil — kept them afloat after killing, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

Right whale population downgrade ratchets pressure for decisive NMFS action

October 28, 2020 — The North Atlantic right whale population likely numbered just 366 animals with 94 breeding females in early 2019, a substantial downgrade from earlier estimates and a signal the extremely endangered species is in even more dire straits, NMFS officials warned Monday.

The warning came in an email to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team, an advisory panel that confers with NMFS experts on how to reduce accidental injuries and deaths of whales, the biggest threats being ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. Previous estimates, based on biologists’ modeling, experts’ surveys and cataloging of surviving right whales, had pegged the population that migrates between Canada and Florida at 412 animals in January 2018. That’s one source of the rounded-off “about 400” population number common in reports about the species in recent years.

The news came out one day before the annual meeting of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, a group dedicated to researching and reducing threats to the species. The U.S.- and Canada-based group, which includes academic, government, and shipping and fishing industries representation, opened its two-day virtual conference Tuesday with the latest population data.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

North Atlantic right whales listed as ‘critically endangered’ — one step below extinction

July 16, 2020 — North Atlantic right whales are now listed as “critically endangered,” with approximately only 400 remaining, data from the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium states. Given this striking plummet in population, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) relisted the species as “critically endangered” from its previous “endangered.”

The Smithsonian Magazine reports that the majority of right whale deaths over the past three years have been a result of encountering boats and fishing endeavors along the coastal U.S. and Canada. Right whales reportedly swim with their mouths open to eat, and are often fatally entangled in nets and lines cast for lobsters and fish.

“We are running out of time to save these magnificent yet very vulnerable animals,” said Vikki N. Spruill, the New England Aquarium’s president and CEO, in a prepared statement. “Whaling nearly killed right whales in the early 1900s. Science tells us that we need to take immediate and urgent steps to prevent that from happening now.”

The right whales have been suffering population declines since 2017, when there was a total of 17 confirmed dead whales between U.S. and Canadian waters. While numbers in 2018 and 2019 were not that large, an additional 13 deaths were recorded cumulatively, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries data.

Read the full story at The Hill

Scientists meeting in Portland say right whales on the way to extinction

November 18, 2019 — The future continues to grow ever darker for the highly endangered right whale, a species that has been in decline every year since 2010 and is at the heart of regulatory protection efforts threatening to upend Maine’s valuable lobster fishery.

The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium estimates only 409 whales survived 2018, down from about 428 in 2017 and 457 in 2016. With seven births and 10 documented deaths in 2019 factored in, that tally is now probably about 406. Three of those are about to succumb to injuries.

“We are in yet another year of decline for the right whales,” said Mark Baumgartner, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and chairman of the consortium, which kicked off its annual right whale meeting Thursday in Portland. “This is extremely concerning.”

The meeting attracted hundreds of scientists, policymakers, animal rights advocates and several dozen curious fishermen. Topics ranged from new developments in how to safely tag a right whale to a review of right whale deaths in 2019 to the impact of whale-related fishery closures in Canada.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Group Discusses Potential Gear Restrictions At North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium

November 15, 2019 — An international group of scientists, conservationists, fisheries managers and others are gathered in Portland this week for the annual meeting of what’s called the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.

Federal regulators told the group that they are looking at a wide slate of measures to protect the endangered whales from entanglement in fishing gear. Some measures include reductions in the amount of lobster-trap rope allowed in the water and in the strength of that rope. The feds say they are also considering having a part of Cape Cod Bay that is now closed February to April closed to endlines but open to ropeless gear in the future.

Read the full story at Maine Public