July 18 - Help Protect New England’s Cod Habitat - The public has until July 26th to submit comments on a proposed rule that would open nearly 3000 square miles of protected habitat to destructive commercial trawling. Click through to see an infographic for more information and to take action.

July 19 - Fish Talk in the News – Friday, July 19 - In this week’s Fish Talk in the News, the Senate Appropriations Bill includes $150 million in fisheries disaster funding; WCAI’s “Long Haul” series continues with five more articles on New England fishing; debate continues over NOAA’s move to open protected areas to commercial fishing; Massachusetts lifts its ban on the sale of lobster tails; NOAA proposes rules to reduce marine mammal entanglements in fishing gear; state lawmakers approve funding for the Newburyport Shellfish Purification Plant.

New England’s cod populations are at their lowest levels in history, thanks to decades of chronic overfishing and habitat destruction. Fisheries scientists agree that protecting vital fish habitat is key to restoring these once-plentiful fish species. How does the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) respond? Yesterday NOAA proposed to allow new bottom trawling and other forms of commercial fishing in areas of New England’s ocean that have been protected for almost twenty years. NOAA’s assessment, which did not include a full analysis of the impacts and benefits of removing this protection as required by federal law, actually concludes that, for three of the four areas, opening them to trawling and other forms of fishing is “likely to yield only small increases in net benefit.”  NOAA’s assessment also finds that, in one of the areas, the opening will result in a reduction in net benefits to offshore lobstering, which will not be allowed at times when groundfishing is permitted.

The trade-offs exchanged for this “small increase in net benefit” are many, and they include the value of almost two decades of ecological restoration. Protecting habitat promotes the recovery of Georges Bank haddock and has rejuvenated the valuable scallop stocks. If NOAA’s own environmental assessment concludes that these protected areas harbor larger, more productive fish, why is NOAA allowing access to kill fish that could help overfished stocks to rebound or healthy stocks to remain healthy?

Also at risk is any role that these areas might play in the long-term protection of fish habitat. For more than eight years, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) has been “developing” a grand plan, known as the Omnibus Habitat Amendment, designed to meet federal law requirements to protect fish habitat against the damaging impacts of fishing gear. A final decision on the Amendment is expected in ten months. Bizarrely, NOAA is proposing to open areas now that are under consideration for future protection. What will be the remaining value of this habitat after trawls have been allowed to ply them for months? Let’s face it, NOAA, any trawling will diminish this area’s habitat value and trawling for two months will eliminate it. The fact is that if NOAA’s proposal is completed it will effectively preempt the NEFMC’s assessment of these areas and remove them from inclusion in any future habitat protection plan without the fully required analysis.

If the benefit that these areas play in rebuilding and maintaining fish stocks and the fact that they are under consideration in a federally-mandated habitat protection plan was not enough to convince NOAA that opening these areas was a bad idea, the agency should have at least been convinced by the role that they play in buffering against climate change impacts. This is especially so given that NOAA’s strategy for helping fish adapt to climate change is to “conserve habitat to support healthy fish,” and one its means for achieving that is “to reduce negative impacts of capture practices and gear on important habitats for fish.” Sadly, this action could not be more diametrically opposed to these strategies.

NOAA’s proposal appropriately retains protection from trawling for places in the Gulf of Maine like Cashes Ledge, an underwater mountain range 80 miles off the coasts of Massachusetts that harbors the largest and deepest kelp forest on the eastern seaboard and shelters some of the most diverse habitat and wildlife in the region. The agency should extend its rational thinking beyond the Gulf of Maine and retain all existing protected areas until a full consideration of the functions, values and merits of new and existing protected areas has been completed as part of the Omnibus Habitat Amendment process.

The public has until July 26 to comment on NOAA’s proposal to open nearly 3,000 square miles of protected habitat to commercial trawling. Please take action here.

April 10 - 70,000 Citizens, 100 Scientists Want New England’s Waters Protected - More than a hundred prominent scientists are urging federal officials to prevent the return of damaging, bottom trawl fishing to waters that have protected fish habitat and spawning areas in New England for nearly two decades. The scientists aren’t the only ones speaking up. More than 70 thousand people sent comments opposing the proposal.

April 12 - Top Ten Reasons to Protect New England’s Closed Areas - Why should NOAA reject the plan to expand commercial fishing in 5,000 square miles of protected waters? Let us count the ways.

April 12 - Fish Talk in the News – Friday, April 12 - In this week’s Fish Talk in the News, communities react to the start of spring herring runs; Maine’s legislature approves a bill to open fishways on the St. Croix to alewives; other Maine bills would help out large vessels and allow groundfishermen to sell lobster bycatch; the elver fishery continues to draw crime and controversy; New Bedford processors diversify; healthy menhaden stocks support smallmouth bass; the disastrous Gulf of Maine shrimp season ends; debate on closed areas continues.

March 13 - A Conspiracy Afloat? - “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair. There appears to be a conspiracy in our midst. Or so, some would think. Saving Seafood, “a 501(c)(6) association organized as a non-profit corporation funded by the fishing industry,” appears to have become rather discomposed by uncovering the fact that some people in New England believe that the practice of ripping up the ocean floor with heavy bottom trawling fishing gear might have deleterious effects on ocean fish and wildlife and the habitat that these species depend upon.

March 15 - Fish Talk in the News – Friday, March 15 - In this week’s Fish Talk in the News, the northern shrimp season flounders; sharks granted additional protections by Cites; Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization hearings begin; scientists are concerned about ocean acidification in the Gulf of Maine; the Maine lobster fishery earns MSC certification; SMAST will conduct a review of New England groundfish stock assessments; NEFMC member Matt McKenzie discusses the decline of cod stocks; the groundfish committee resumes discussion on Amendment 18.

Flowers, a heart-shaped box of chocolates, a warm and tender love song, and a glittery card with completely over-the-top sugary sentiment…these are the tokens of affection we most recognize on Valentine’s Day. If you’re one of the lucky ones, that special someone will deliver a heartfelt token that makes your day even more meaningful.

It could be surprising to many people that in our complex and amazing world of ocean animals there are several creatures known for displaying the type of deep affection and commitment of which only romance novelists can dream. Tropical angelfish and at least one type of Australian seahorse are not strangers to life-long love beneath the waves. (And, by the way, is there any name more apropos to a day celebrating intimacy and devotion than that of the deep-sea sponge known as “Venus’s flower basket?”) There is even a small unglamorous freshwater fish known as the convict cichlid which pairs off into a crevasse made into a home to raise their children.

Without a doubt, our own Atlantic Wolffish exhibits the special bond of love suitable for Cupid’s attention. Male and female pairs (who reportedly mate for 3 to 6 hours at a time and practice internal fertilization, a rarity in fish) seek out their own special love nest under a craggy rock, or maybe down along the hull of a sunken wreck, just big enough to guard the egg mass laid by the female. The male wolffish, exhibiting no scientifically observed “commitment issues,” stands guard at his cave haven ensuring the protection of the growing larvae and juvenile offspring. The male is so devoted that he stops eating for as long as he is on guard, sometimes as long as four months. Not only is the wolffish pair committed to each other, they are highly loyal to their habitat.

Without a place to call their own, the wolffish love story could have an unhappy ending. With wolffish numbers having declined drastically in the last three decades, the connection between wolffish and their undisturbed habitat is even more important. Wolffish are still caught as bycatch in trawls and, possibly even more damaging to their long-term survival, their rocky habitat gets swept away by trawls and nesting areas can be buried in the sediment stirred up by trawling gear. Recreational anglers often catch wolffish, but it’s proven that the wolffish can be safely returned to the sea with the proper “catch and release” practice. (Wolffish do not have a swim bladder that “blows up” on the surface.) For both recreational and commercial fishermen in federal and state waters in New England it is illegal to possess or land Atlantic wolffish. If enforced properly, this can be a great step forward for wolffish conservation.

Now, it may be said that the Atlantic wolffish has a face that only its mother could truly love. But isn’t that the mystery of love itself – finding one’s counterpoint in the ocean of uncertainty can be anything but predictable.

On August 21st, the Thai based energy company PTTEP announced that a “crude oil gas leak incident occurred” in the Timor Sea about 155 miles northwest of Western Australia.  The energy company’s press released continued that “the size of the spill is not known.  Aproximately 40 barrels of oil were discharged from the wellhead in the initial incident.”  In the ensuing month, it has become clear that this oil spill is much more serious than initially thought:

Aerial Photo of the oil spill from the drilling platform in the Timor Sea (Source: SkyTruth)

1. As of September 25th, photos from NASA satellites document that the oil slicks and sheen from the spill covered 9,870 square miles, an area even bigger than the state of Vermont.  Part of the oil sheen has been moving perilously close to the Cartier Island Marine Reserve.
2. According to conservative estimates by the World Wildlife Fund, the rig has been leaking 400 barrels a day — over 14,000 barrels since late August.  That equates to about 600,000 gallons of oil.
3. When the spill was first reported, the government of Australia predicted it would take 7 weeks to clean up.   Already, it has been 5 weeks and the spill isn’t contained.

This devastating spill may be a world away but US ocean waters, including Georges Bank and the rest of the Gulf of Maine, are also at risk because they no longer are protected from the devastating impacts of oil and gas extraction. As a parting gift before leaving office, President Bush lifted the Presidential Moratorium on drilling for oil and natural gas on the Outer Continental Shelf that had been in place since 1990.  On September 30, 2008, Congress followed suit and lifted a longstanding legislative ban on offshore oil and gas leasing as part of a large government operations appropriations bill.  As a result, important habitat in the Gulf of Maine, including Georges Bank — one of the world’s premier fishing grounds — is at risk of industrial scale fossil fuel energy development.

As the Saudi oil fields are tapped out, there is increased pressure to drill in remote areas of the ocean.  For example, at the beginning of September, BP announced a “giant oil discovery” 35,055 feet below the Gulf of Mexico seafloor, which itself is already 4,132 feet below the surface of the ocean.  In an ironic twist of fate, just as the ocean is beginning to bear the brunt of the impacts of climate change (see my earlier blog post on ocean acidification), oil companies are stepping up efforts to locate and drill for oil and gas under the seafloor.

Clearly we need energy — but how do we design a sustainable, climate neutral ocean energy solution that will not put important marine wildlife, habitat and ecosystems at risk? As Greg Watson, then a VP at the Mass Technology Collaborative, noted, New England (and Massachusetts in particular) is “the ‘Saudi Arabia of Wind.’” Of course, we need to responsibly tap this renewable resource — we can’t build wind farms wholesale across the region just because there is a lot of wind on the ocean.  Rather, we need to engage in a thorough marine spatial planning process whereby different human uses and ecological resources are identified and mapped and responsible renewable energy development is sited in a way that doesn’t create unreasonable impacts on those activities or natural resources.  Massachusetts is in the process of doing just that — and has released the first in the nation Draft Ocean Management Plan.  In Maine, the governor appointed an Ocean Energy Task Force to evaluate how to develop offshore renewable energy.  Rhode Island is working on an Ocean Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) in part to promote offshore renewable energy development.  Finally, at the federal level, President Obama issued an Executive Memorandum calling for a national ocean policy and marine spatial planning  framework.  CLF is working on all of these issues.

Imagine if all of Vermont were covered in an oil spill.  Well it has been over a month and an equally large spill in the Timor Sea hasn’t been contained.  Oil and gas drilling is still a risky business and, thanks to former President Bush and Congress, these projects are allowable in US ocean waters.  A concerted effort is needed to make oil and gas drilling old news.  We need to usher in a new era of responsible, climate friendly, renewable ocean energy development.  Help CLF make this a reality!

What can you do to help promote responsible marine renewable energy Development?

1. Sign the CLF Ocean Petition
2. Learn more about the Massachusetts Draft Ocean Management Plan, Maine Ocean Energy Task Force, Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan and the National Ocean Policy and Marine Spatial Framework.
3. Learn more about the Timor Sea Spill

Satellite Image of the oil spill in the Timor Sea. Northwest Australia is in the lower right hand corner of the photo (Source: SkyTruth)