Saving Seafood

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

August 9, 2021 โ€” Most ships moving through the Chesapeake Bay donโ€™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 donโ€™t comply with speed rules designed to allow boat drivers to see and veer around the whales susceptible to strikes โ€” 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 โ€œright whaleโ€ to kill during the whaling era, said Whitney Webber, Oceanaโ€™s campaign director. They were easy to pursue and their thick layer of blubber โ€” used for oil โ€” kept them afloat after killing, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

US Representative Don Young, industry groups โ€œwelcomeโ€ bill to reauthorize Magnuson-Stevens Act

July 27, 2021 โ€” In the moments on Monday, 26 July, after U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman officially announced the filing of a bill to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act, statements supporting the legislation started to flow out from the press offices of seafood and fishing interest groups and environmental non-governmental organizations.

Conservation groups lauded H.R. 4690, sponsored by the California Democrat and U.S. Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii). In particular, those organizations appreciated the recognition of climate change as a factor in fishing.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Poll finds public supports right whale protections, as another study shows ships still ignoring them

July 26, 2021 โ€” A new poll performed by The Pew Charitable Trusts has shown the majority of residents on the U.S. East Coast support additional protections for the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale, even as a new report by Oceana indicates that voluntary ship speed limits intended to protect the whales from vessel strikes are largely ignored.

The Pew poll found that as many as 88 percent of those polled said that it is important that the federal government protect right whales, and more than half โ€“ 53 percent โ€“ said it is very important. The poll also indicated the those polled prefer fishermen use gear that doesnโ€™t harm whales, and that they want the government to help pay for the gear.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US Representative Jared Huffman files bill to reauthorize Magnuson-Stevens Act

July 26, 2021 โ€” U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) announced on Monday 26 July, 2021, that he introduced a reauthorization bill for the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the federal law that oversees fishery management in the United States.

In a statement, Huffman said itโ€™s time for a new reauthorization of the landmark legislation because of changes within the industry and the challenges it faces.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Large vessels failing to obey speed limits to protect endangered whales, report finds

July 22, 2021 โ€” Nearly 90 percent of large vessels traveling in some conservation areas along the East Coast violated mandatory speed limits established to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales, according to a new report.

The findings raised questions about the need for stricter enforcement of federal rules to protect right whales, whose numbers have fallen by about 25 percent over the past decade to roughly 360. Vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear have been the primary cause of death and serious injuries.

โ€œVessels are speeding, North Atlantic right whales are dying, and thereโ€™s not enough accountability,โ€ said Whitney Webber, a campaign director at Oceana, an advocacy group, which released the report on Wednesday. โ€œOceanaโ€™s analysis shows that speeding vessels are rampant throughout North Atlantic right whalesโ€™ migration route, all along the East Coast, and in both mandatory and voluntary speed zones.โ€

Between 2017 and 2020, the report found that nearly 90 percent of vessels 65 feet or larger failed to reduce their speeds to 10 knots or less in the required speed zones along the coast from Wilmington, N.C., to Brunswick, Ga., near the whalesโ€™ calving grounds. Nearly 80 percent of the vessels also failed to comply with speed limits along the coasts of New York and New Jersey, while more than half of large vessels failed to comply near the entrance of Delaware Bay.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Report: Many boats fail to brake for endangered whales

July 21, 2021 โ€” Many boats arenโ€™t complying with federal speed restrictions designed to protect an endangered species of whale, an environmental advocacy group said Wednesday.

The federal government uses voluntary and mandatory speed reduction zones to protect North Atlantic right whales, which number only about 360 and are vulnerable to ship strikes. Oceanaโ€™s analysis concluded noncompliance was as high as nearly 90% in the voluntary zones, and wasnโ€™t much better in the mandatory zones.

The group said it analyzed vessel speeds from 2017 to 2020. The analysis found that noncompliance in mandatory areas was generally worse in more southern zones. The Cape Cod Bay zone had a noncompliance rate around 45% in the most recent year, while protection zones off southeastern states were above 69%, the report said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times

Oceana sues NMFS over California sardine management

July 20, 2021 โ€” Alleging that West Coast fisheries managers are repeating mistakes of the past half-century, the environmental group Oceana is suing NMFS over its approval of the latest sardine management plan and demanding more action to rebuild the stock.

โ€œDespite these hard lessons, NMFS repeats these management failures in Amendment 18,โ€ states the groupโ€™s complaint, filed by the legal group Earthjustice July 14 in the U.S. District Court for northern California, naming Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, NOAA and the fisheries agency.

Oceana says NMFS should not have approved the Pacific Fishery Management Councilโ€™s amendment to the coastal pelagic species management plan, allowing managers to โ€œchose a suite of already disproven, status quo management measures that will keep this population at levels too low to support either the ecosystem or the primary fishery that relies on sardine for half a century or more.โ€

Managers recognize that the sardine stock size is primarily driven by environmental factors, and that there is inadequacy of surveys used in assessments, said Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association.

โ€œOceana just refuses to acknowledge the reality,โ€ said Pleschner-Steele. โ€œWeโ€™ve been arguing for years that the surveys donโ€™t capture the (accurate number) of fish.โ€

The accusation of โ€œstatus quo is misrepresenting management,โ€ said Pleschner-Steele. The council and NMFS need flexibility to improve surveys and assessments, monitor environmental factors and consider the fishing community needs with โ€œthe only reasonable rebuilding plan,โ€ she said.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Billions in fishing subsidies finance social, ecological harm, report finds

July 7, 2021 โ€” A new report shows that the worldโ€™s top fishing nations are using subsidies worth billions of dollars to exploit the high seas and the waters of other nations, including some of the worldโ€™s least-developed countries.

Published by researchers at the University of British Columbia and supported by the NGO Oceana, the report takes a shrewd look at โ€œharmful fishing subsidies,โ€ payments made by governments that allow fishing fleets to operate beyond their normal capacity. The researchers found that 10 countries โ€” China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, the U.S.A., Thailand, Taiwan, Spain, Indonesia and Norway โ€” spent more than $15.3 billion on harmful fishing subsidies in 2018, which has likely contributed to a number of social, economic and ecological issues.

About 60% ($9.2 billion) of these harmful fishing subsidies used by these 10 nations were spent on domestic fishing, while 35% ($5.4 billion) was spent on traveling long distances to fish in the waters of 116 other nations. The remaining 5% ($800 million) was spent on fishing in the high seas, which are parts of the ocean beyond any nationโ€™s jurisdiction.

China was found to be the top provider of harmful fishing subsidies, worth about $5.9 billion, followed by Japan at $2.1 billion and the European Union at $2 billion.

Kathryn Matthews, chief scientist at Oceana, says the report shows the scale and magnitude of harmful fishing subsidies, which can transfer the risk of overfishing from one place to another.

Read the full story at Mongabay

MAINE: New coral protections set for areas off MDI

June 28, 2021 โ€” A new rule from federal regulators last week creates thousands of miles of โ€œdeep sea coral protection areasโ€ in the Gulf of Maine, including two off Mount Desert Island and on Georges Bank.

The new rule designates a coral protection area in an 8-square-mile area southwest of Mount Desert Rock โ€“ a small, rocky island about 20 nautical miles south of Mount Desert Island. Vessels are prohibited from fishing with bottom-tending mobile gear in the area, though vessels will still be able to fish for lobsters using trap gear.

The Outer Schoodic Ridge Coral Protection Area will be a 31-square-mile protected zone about 25 miles southeast of the island, with the same restrictions as Mount Desert Rock.

The new rule also establishes a protection area of 25,000 square miles on the Georges Bank outer continental shelf, south of Cape Cod.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander