Saving Seafood

Rare Right Whale Sightings Reported Along New England Shoreline

May 24, 2022 — Several people have reported rare sightings of North Atlantic Right Whales this month along the New England coastline from Provincetown to Portsmouth.

“It is pretty rare to see them that close to shore,” Heather Pettis of the New England Aquarium said.

With its bristle-like baleen plates and distinctive callosities decorating its head to its massive size and characteristic tail flukes, the North Atlantic Right Whale has been entertaining New Englanders this spring with some shoreline shows.

“Sure enough, there was a right whale skim feeding right off of Route 1A,” Pettis said. “This time of year whales sort of leave Cape Cod Bay, where they’ve been feeding over the winter. They disperse and we have these opportunistic sightings pop up.”

Read the full story at NBC Connecticut

MASSACHUSETTS: NPS provides $368k to Coastal Studies

September 8, 2021 — The Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) in Provincetown has received $386,000 from the National Park Service and $75,000 the state of Massachusetts to establish a new Shark Ecology Research Program.

The foundation of the program is an ongoing study conducted by Bryan Legare, a seascape ecologist in the Center’s Marine Geology department.

Legare is examining the relationship between white shark behavior and habitat use in the shallow nearshore waters off the Cape Cod National Seashore to understand how sharks use the environment.

For the last three summers, Legare has deployed a dense array of acoustic receivers in a study area at Head of the Meadow beach in North Truro; he added a second array off Nauset Beach in 2020.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

 

GoFundMe raises over $83K for fishermen presumed lost at sea

November 30, 2020 — Four fishermen lost at sea last week when their fishing vessel, the Emmy Rose, sank off the Massachusetts coast, were “honorable men” who loved their families and the sea, according to a GoFundMe page organized for their grieving families.

“These four men were the best out there. They will be deeply missed, but they will never be forgotten,” the organizer of the page wrote.

The Coast Guard on Tuesday night suspended the search for the four men whose boat sank in eight-foot waves off Provincetown. Crews searched more than 2,000 square miles for 38 hours.

The page, created Wednesday, had raised nearly $83,000 of its $100,000 goal as of Saturday morning. The money funds will go to the families of the Emmy Rose crew who held a candlelight vigil Wednesday night that included about 100 people.

Read the full story at the New York Post

Coast Guard suspends search for missing fishing vessel crew

November 25, 2020 — The Coast Guard said Tuesday it called off the search for the four-member crew of a Maine fishing boat that sank off Massachusetts.

The Coast Guard searched an area of approximately 2,066 square miles for more than 38 hours, Capt. Wesley Hester said in a release.

“The decision to suspend a search is never an easy one,” Hester said. “We extend our condolences to the friends and loved ones of these fishermen during this trying time.”

The 82-foot (25-meter) Emmy Rose, based in Portland, Maine, went down about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of Provincetown, Massachusetts, around 1:30 a.m. Monday. It was heading for Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Read the full story at ABC News

Coast Guard searches for four fishermen whose boat sank off Provincetown

November 24, 2020 — The Coast Guard was searching early Tuesday for four fishermen whose boat sank off the coast of Massachusetts, authorities said.

The hunt for signs of the fishermen from the Emmy Rose, an 82-foot commercial fishing vessel that sank early Monday roughly 20 miles off the coast of Provincetown, restarted Tuesday “at first light” by sea and air, Coast Guard officials tweeted.

A crew on USCG Cutter Vigorous searched for the fishermen throughout the night Monday and an aircraft was launched just after dawn Tuesday to continue the search, authorities said.

The Coast Guard in Boston was alerted by the ship’s radio beacon at about 1 a.m. Monday as it sank northeast of Provincetown. The owner of the vessel said four people were on board and calls to the fishing boat’s satellite phone were not answered, Coast Guard officials said in a statement.

Read the full story at the NY Post

Endangered right whale experiencing mini-baby boom off New England

April 15, 2019 — The critically endangered North Atlantic right whale is experiencing a mini-baby boom in New England waters, researchers on Cape Cod have said.

The right whale is one of the rarest species of whale on the planet, numbering only about 411.

But the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Mass., said Friday its aerial survey team spotted two mom-and-calf pairs in Cape Cod Bay a day earlier. That brings the number seen in New England waters alone this year to three.

That’s big news because the right whale population has been falling, and no calves were seen last year. In all, seven right whale calves have been seen so far this year.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CBC

MASSACHUSETTS: As shutdown’s effects worsen, locals say ‘It’s wrong’

January 18, 2019 — On the Outer Cape there are 23 U.S. Coast Guard members, at least eight Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees and around 60 Cape Cod National Seashore workers not receiving paychecks due to the partial shutdown of the federal government.

And it’s not just federal employees who are missing their paychecks. Contract workers, like those who are rebuilding Herring Cove’s north parking lot in Provincetown, are also affected.

“It’s wrong,” said Arthur “Butch” Lisenby, the Provincetown Municipal Airport manager, of the TSA employees who, because they are deemed “essential,” are now working without compensation. “They are trying to do their jobs and not getting paid. That’s not fair. They have a nice attitude. I’m kind of surprised. I don’t know if I could do the same thing. They are doing their job and dealing with it the best they can.”

The TSA employees themselves were not allowed to speak to the press, according to an employee at the Provincetown airport.

Read the full story at Wicked Local Wellfleet

 

Canadians Implement New Crab Fishing Rules to Protect Endangered Right Whales

January 29, 2018 — HYANNIS, Mass. — Canadian Fisheries officials recently announced a handful of new rules for snow crab fishermen to protect critical endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglement.

The regulations include reducing the amount of rope allowed to float on the surface.

The new rules are a result of at least 17 right whale deaths last year, many of which were in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Right whales are the most endangered marine mammal in the world with an estimated population around 450.

Charles “Stormy” Mayo with the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown gave kudos to the Canadian officials for being proactive this year.

“It’s a shame we didn’t know where the whales were last year so they could have taken action earlier,” Mayo said.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

 

Another right whale found dead

August 18, 2017 — There doesn’t seem to be an end to the bad news on right whales this summer. With a dozen found dead this year, most of them in a flurry of deaths since June, the Coast Guard reported right whale death number 13 Monday, 145 miles east of Cape Cod.

On Thursday, the whale was identified by matching the pattern of hardened patches of gray skin with photos found in a database at the New England Aquarium. The right whale Couplet was a frequent visitor to the Cape, arriving here first as a yearling in 1992, and seen in Cape Cod Bay mostly in April to feed on abundant plankton blooms for 15 of the 26 years of her life. The last time she was sighted here was in 2015, and she brought her last of her five calves to Cape Cod in 2014.

“We study this unique animal and it is hard not to get attached to it,” said Amy James, aerial survey coordinator for the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown. “You get used to seeing the same ones come back year after year.”

The loss of females is especially tragic, James said.

The Northwest Atlantic right whales are among the most endangered whale populations on earth with around 500 individuals and less than 100 breeding females.

“All of her future calves, the ones she could have gone on to create, that opportunity has been lost,” James said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Right whales return to Cape Cod Bay

January 24, 2017 — Two rare and critically endangered North Atlantic right whales were spotted in Cape Cod Bay, the first of the year seen in the area, according to the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown.

The center’s research vessel Shearwater spotted the two whales in the bay five miles south of Provincetown Harbor on Jan. 17. On Thursday, center officials say they saw five right whales in the same area.

There are only an estimated 524 right whales in the world, according to the center. They come to the bay every winter due to the high concentrations of microscopic zooplankton there, which is a food source for the whales.

The whales’ presence in the bay warrants caution, according to the center.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times