Attorney General files law suit over fishing cuts to kill more cod

Credit: Doug Costa, Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary

Cod are Political Capital for Attorney General in Suit Against NOAA

May 30^th, Martha Coakley with lawmakers and fishermen by her side on Boston’s Fish Pier cast a wide net of accusations against NOAA, NMFS and the New England Fisheries Management Council.

Demonstrating an astounding lack of knowledge of how fisheries management is based on sound science for sustainable seafood, the AG stated: “Even if NOAA’s fish counts can be reversed in 2012 or 2013, that may prove far too late.” That’s not science, that’s politics.

How many mistakes can you find in the AG’s 1 minute video: http://bcove.me/7atdlpsb  I count five.

1. The government has failed in its responsibility in recognizing the devastating impact of its regulations on our families. The laws call on fisheries councils to manage a sustainable fishery and not to aid this year’s fishermen with overtaking of declining stocks. That would only hurt fishermen the next year.  Relaxing the catch quota in 2008 is hurting fishermen now when they can find very few cod.
2. It is not too much to ask if the science be credible and reliable, even if NOAA’s fish counts can be reversed in 2012 or 2013.  Government funding restricts the Science Center from surveying fish to every three years.  To reverse fish counts on years when fish were not counted is not science.
3. NOAA must take steps to mitigate that harm.  The science calls for a closure of the cod fishery until stocks are rebuilt.  However despite the science, NOAA did take steps to mitigate harm by permitting fishermen to fish for cod yet again.
4. “Built on, we believe, an imperfect science.” A “perfect science” is known to most of us as religion. Science is a process of experimentation, observation, questioning, recording and going ‘round the carousel again.  Science involves muddling through, trial and error, doing one’s best with incomplete knowledge.
5. NOAA’s regulations are a death penalty on the fishing industry of Massachusetts as we know it. NOAA’s regulation of cod rolls the quota numbers back to the 2003 level of take.  It has been many decades since cod was a major source of income for any one. Meanwhile the fisheries council has restored red fish, pollock and white hake.

The Fisheries Management Science Center counts fish stocks every three years.  There is no science for reversing counts made in the past year or months.  In 2008, one of seven fish trawls found an astounding number of cod feeding on sand lance above sandy bottoms.   This one finding led to an increase in the permitted cod take for the first time ever.  For three years fishermen could take more cod. However, try as they might, last year only 60% of the quota was caught.  In the 2011 survey, much fewer cod were found.  Sand lance breeds every six or seven years, so there was no reason for cod to school in one location convenient to the surveyors.

Despite calls for a more complete closure of the cod fishery by the Conservation Law Foundation, NOAA permitted fishermen to go to sea for cod by calling for a 78% reduction in take from the liberal 2008 quota numbers. This puts the cod limit back to the 2003 take – hardly the end of fishing, as we know it.  With the introduction of freezers on ships by Clarence Birdseye in the 1930s, fishermen have diversified their take to more than cod.  Redfish, white hake, and pollock are all being managed sustainably by the New England Fisheries Management Council in concert with NOAA.

Maggie Mooney-Seus, a spokesman for NOAA, summarized sentiments well in the Boston Herald article.  She acknowledged in a statement that the regulations this year are “severe”, but “necessary” because of the low levels of fish, including cod.

It is unfortunate that the Massachusetts Attorney General has decided to pursue this course of action, rather than working with us cooperatively to identify constructive solutions for helping fishermen, such as refocusing energies on healthy, abundant groundfish and other species,” she said. “It is time for us to look forward, not backward, if we are going to be able to help fishermen through this difficult transition.”

For the love of Cod – Tell the AG to move forwards, not backwards. Comment and sign ORI’s letter.

It takes a pride of individuals to save a dolphin

I am writing to thank the individuals who recently donated to our save the dolphins of Indian River Lagoon Florida campaign. Your thoughtful support has raised sufficient funds so that I may go to Florida early next week to meet with colleagues and experts.

The problem we are challenged to solve –nitrogen pollution of the ocean- is so complex and fraught with misinformation shrapnel put up by the industry that it takes a pride of individuals to save a dolphin and to save an ecosystem of unsurpassed wildlife diversity. Fortunately there are a good number of excellent experts and advocates in the communities of Indian River Lagoon.

Leesa Souto, Ph.D. is first on my list because she recently became Executive Director of the Marine Resources Council (MRC). MRC has been combining good science with local volunteers to restore the Indian River Lagoon for 27 years. With ten scientists and over 800 volunteers who are active every week, MRC restores over eight million square feet of fish habitat and plants over fifty thousand native plants every year. MRC works to create a consensus with the local community and businesses and has stopped the discharge of billions of gallons of sewage and industrial wastewater into the Lagoon and raised millions of dollars to preserve sensitive fish nursery habitats.

Leesa comes to the Marine Resources Council with a Ph.D. in stormwater management and pollution abatement from the University of Central Florida. Leesa was Director of Public Education at the University of Central Florida Stormwater Management Academy and served on the Brevard County Natural Resources Council. Last summer fewer dolphins died in Indian River Lagoon. However, much of the seagrass died during the hot sunny summer months. Loss of the base of the lagoon’s food pyramid has got everyone concerned and researchers at the Marine Resources Council are looking for answers to perplexing questions that relate back to surface run-off and pollution.

As of September 2012, Marty Baum is the Indian Riverkeeper. Marty is deeply connected to Indian River Lagoon. Marty writes: “My family has been living along its shores, trading and fishing upon its waters since 1866. The Indian River gives to us all. The estimated annual economic value of the Indian River Lagoon is $3,725,900,000. That is a staggering economic impact that affects both the communities and economies from Titusville all the way down to Jupiter. Everyone along Indian River Lagoon is directly dependent upon the health and vigor of the ecosystem. We must demand clean water. Every single one of us via our property values, wages, tax bases, services, recreation or our direct livelihoods, benefits from our association with the Lagoon. Essentially, everything about our way of life here is enhanced and given greater value due to the influence of the Indian River Lagoon.”

I will also meet with Captain Nan Beaver of Sunshine Wildlife in Stuart. Capt Nan first introduced me to the wonders of Indian River wildlife taking me out on her education boat into the lagoon. A certified Coastal Master Naturalist by Florida Atlantic University, Nan has been directing on-water education programs since 2000 on the natural history of bottlenose dolphins, manatees, turtles, wood storks, ibises and magnificent frigate birds of the Indian River Lagoon. You may listen to my conversation with Nan on Moir’s Environmental Dialogues.

Your donation to the Ocean River Institute makes it possible for me to listen and learn from the people of this place. Your support enables ORI to get their words out, “surface truth” what is happening to Indian River Lagoon and what we may do to improve conditions for wildlife and people, and to restore clean waters by stopping nitrogen pollution. You may also reduce nitrogen pollution by forwarding this blog to others. Thank you for helping out.

“We’re overfished; we’re overfishing. … If we don’t do something, it’s likely the long-term viability of [the menhaden] fishery is going to go away,” said Louis Daniel, North Carolina’s fisheries director and chairman of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Friday, at a hotel in South Baltimore, Daniel masterfully maintained order. Only once was there cause for him to say the room would be cleared if the 360 plus spectators did not behave respectfully of the commissioners. The Commission agreed to manage the menhaden fisheries by a vote of 13 to 3. The Commission made a historic decision to manage the fishery under a quota-based management system for the first time ever – harvest will from now forward be managed by an annual Total Allowable Catch (TAC). They took the vital step of correcting its biomass reference points so they are now consistent with the mortality reference points and make it even clearer that this stock is overfished.

The menhaden catch will be immediately reduced by 25% from last year’s catch through a catch history-based quota setting approach based on 80% of the average of the past three year’s catch; this is not enough of a reduction (we asked for 50%), but it is a substantial step in the right direction. And, fishing practices and menhaden stocks will be reassessed in two years.

The total available coastwide catch for menhaden for 2013 will be 170,800 metric tons, a 25 percent cut from 2011. That catch will be shared between a commercial menhaden reduction fleet, commercial bait fishermen and recreational fishermen. Approximately 100 million individual menhaden fish were saved by Friday’s action of the Commission. The number of fish saved is approximate dependent on the same year class of menhaden being fished next year as last with 80% going to processing and 20% going to bait to support anglers and other fishermen.

Capt. Paul Eidman, a New Jersey recreational fishing guide who depends on healthy menhaden stocks, said the meeting was attended by hundreds of anglers from Maine to Florida who were against the exploitation from Maine to Florida. “Clearly the ASMFC took notice of us today,” Eidman said.

The fishery had never been subject to catch limits along the entire Atlantic coast — a rarity in contemporary fishery management — allowing fleets to harvest virtually unlimited amounts from the ocean (reported by the New York Times).

“The Wild West fishery that’s been going on with menhaden — to have a fishery that’s essentially been unregulated, it’s unheard of,” said Darren Saletta, the executive director of the Massachusetts Commercial Striped Bass Association.

“When we first started fishing for menhaden in Chatham, it was not a problem to go out with just a grappling hook and catch 20 in 20 minutes,” said Capt. Dale Tripp, who has operated commercial and charter boats in Cape Cod since 1973. “Now, you can’t go out with a gill net and catch 20 in two hours.”
Many blame the “reduction fishery,” which harvests about 80 percent of the menhaden that come out of the sea each year. It is for the most part operated by a single company, Omega Protein, which grinds up the fish for use in fish-oil dietary supplements, fertilizer and animal feed.

“It is absolutely crumbling, what’s happening to the fish,” said Chuck Howard, a longtime striped-bass fisherman from Rockville, Md. “Anybody who thinks it’s a better use to grind them up and send them to China, rather than have them swimming in the Chesapeake Bay and filtering our water, has to explain to me why that’s a good idea.”

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, meeting before a packed ballroom of partisans in a Southeast Baltimore hotel, ended years of debate over whether the fish were in trouble and voted overwhelmingly for the first-ever coastwide limit on the ecologically and economically important species. The lopsided 13-3 vote represented a compromise between appeals for a much steeper cutback in the catch and pleas to go easy until further study could determine how big a cut is needed. (Baltimore Sun)

The commission’s action comes two years after its scientific advisers warned that the coastal menhaden population had declined to 8 percent of historic levels and had suffered from overfishing over most of the past half-century.

While conservationists and anglers had argued for cuts of 25 percent or 50 percent or even for a moratorium, commercial fishing interests questioned the commission’s science and urged that cuts be delayed or at least minimized until more study could be done to verify the condition of the fishery. Fortunately for menhaden and for sustainable fisheries, the Commission acted decisively and will commence the practice of responsible stewardship.

View the Video: Help Save Menhaden: Quite Possibly, the Most Important Fish in the Sea   Click here for video

Peter Baker has a few words on the importance of ASMFC decision today.

Mighty Green Massachusetts
The hour that the ship comes in

“And the words that are used for to get the ship confused will not be understood as they’re spoken. For the chains of the sea will have busted in the night and be buried at the bottom of the ocean.

A song will lift as the mainsail shifts. And the boat drifts out to the shoreline. And the sun will respect every face on the deck the hour that the ship comes in.” excerpt from: When The Ship Comes In by Bob Dylan ©1963, 1964 Warner Bros Music.

On Nov 6th the choice is clear. Mighty Green Massachusetts,

On Beacon Hill one third of the Democrats and two thirds of the Republicans acted to advance responsible environmental legislation in 2012.  We can do better.  Sixteen green legislators and candidates are being challenged. Vote for responsible stewardship.

For Senate:  Mike Barrett (Lexington) and Jamie Eldridge (Acton),

For the House: Denise Andrews (Orange), Josh Cutler (Duxbury), Carolyn Dykema (Holliston), Patrick Ellis (Sandwich), Anne Gobi (Spencer), Kate Hogan (Stow), Kay Khan (Newton), Jason Lewis (Winchester), Barbara L’Italien (Andover), James O’Day (Worcester), Angelo Puppolo (Springfield), David Rogers (Belmont), Tom Sannicandro (Ashland), and Carl Sciortino (Medford).

We understand that ours is not just a fight to save the Commonwealth’s natural resources; these are fights to save the neighborhoods where we live, the open spaces where we recreate, the waterways, coasts and ocean where we work and play, and the health of citizens suffering from pollutants.

We all drink the same water and enjoy the same rivers.  The Sustainable Water Resources Bill establishes a process to develop science-based stream flow standards to document groundwater input and to ensure that fisheries and other fresh water species are sustained while meeting water supply needs for public health and safety.

The Dam Safety Removal and Repair Bill will increase opportunities to remove unneeded dams and help restore rivers to a more resilient, natural condition reducing the risks of flooding and enabling aquatic animals to survive.

We believe protecting the wild is part of our responsibility to future generations.  A new Endangered Species Act will address community concerns about managing development in a sustainable way to protect state listed species as well as places special to people.

The Old Growth Forest Permanent Protection Bill protects old-growth forests for the purpose of protecting exemplary forest habitats, maintaining biodiversity and establishing ecological benchmarks for assessing the health of forests statewide that includes a system of permanent old-growth forest reserves.

We believe that common sense stewardship of America’s resources is everyone’s responsibility.  The Expanded Bottle Bill will extend the state’s bottle bill beyond a refundable nickel deposit on carbonated beverage bottles to include containers that hold water, ice tea and other non-carbonated beverages, and to benefit bottle redemption businesses.

For ourselves and for our children’s children we believe in eliminating pollution and reducing toxic chemicals that bioaccumulate in our bodies over time and can be passed to our children.  The Safer Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals Bill will curb the use and proliferation of toxic chemicals by mandating when there is a safer alternative it must be used. Entrepreneurs who develop safer chemical alternatives are assured of sales in Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters endorses candidates for State Senate and the House of Representatives who have worked together to advance environmental legislation in keeping with the Commonwealth’s conservation legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles Eliot, James J. and Helen Osborne Storrow.  Only by acting locally with responsible stewardship and sustainability do we become global in our conservation of the planet.

How green is your Beacon Hill legislator?

For the complete list of MLEV endorsed candidates and Senators: http://www.oceanriver.org/MightyGreenMA-Senate2012.php

Complete list endorsed by MLEV with district description: 
http://www.oceanriver.org/GreenBeaconHillLegislators2012.php

Black Guillemots stand by polar bear proof nesting boxes.

A population of black seabirds, later called “guillemots,” survived the last Ice Age near the North Pole by fishing the cracks that opened and closed in the ice.  Throughout the year, these birds dove for arctic cod beneath the ice.  Today, black guillemots are challenged by shrinking pack ice reduced due to global warming.  With retreating ice, birds must fly further for arctic cod to carry back to feed burgeoning chicks and fledglings on land.  Parental birds must spend more time away searching for a forage fish that is also the primary food source for narwhal, belugas, ringed seals, arctic char, Greenland halibut, and Atlantic salmon.  Russian fishing boats taking Arctic cod as by-catch in the capelin fishery have made the search more difficult.

A wisp of a barrier beach island, Cooper Island, lies in the Beaufort Sea twenty five miles east  of America’s northern most point of land, Plover Point, above Barrow Alaska.  The island is so exposed that the tallest land plants are wildflowers that shelter amidst the pebbles.  Spartina salt marsh grass grows taller in patches on the island’s backside away from the crash of Arctic Ocean.  Yellow-billed loons ride easy on gray water downwind of the island’s salt marsh.  The loons look supersized as if wearing survival suits because they are larger than the common loon.  The yellowish or ivory-white upturned bill, body length of 35 inches and wingspread of 55 inches makes this high Arctic loon unmistakable for anyone who has seen common loons.

Crossing ice-strewn seas beneath a leaden sky to a pea-stone gravel Cooper Island beach, I met George Divoky late one unremittingly bright mid-summer night.  We walked up the beach to the top of the island, about 50 feet above sea level.  George’s solo shelter consisted of a small wooden structure which would have looked more in place over an ice fishing hole.  Beyond was the Arctic Ocean stretching east and west.  The sea lapped over marble-sized stones that shifted, crunched and tumbled with the role of each wave.   The shore was littered with gray wooden munitions box tops.  Nails sticking straight out told of how the boxes had been blown apart by the government when they closed the military station, once on alert for Russian missiles.

Black guillemots are known to breed on rocky islands or the talus slopes of headlands.  In 1970 George Divoky found the same bird species nesting on gravel shores beneath weathered grey wood on Cooper Island.   Guillemots are duck like in size, complete with bright red webbed feet.  However, standing sentry around large bits of grey wood, the black birds with white wing patches are more upright then any duck and sport black pointed bills.  Guillemots are closely related to puffins.  Like puffins, they swim underwater easily propelled by partially opened wings.  Unlike puffins, guillemots are strong swift flyers and depend on the fish the live beneath the ice.

Supported by the Friends of Coopers Island, George Divoky has returned to the birds of Cooper Island every year since 1974 to measure, observe and record life in 200 wooden nest boxes.   Each bird has distinguishing leg bands.  Some of the older birds have returned to Cooper every year for thirty years.  The Cooper Island bird colony has provided dramatic evidence of the deleterious effects of rapid decreases in snow and ice cover.  The retreat of ice and the turning of snow to rain is the result of global warming caused by increasing amounts of carbon molecules in the atmosphere and corresponding increases in atmospheric temperatures.  George lifted the corner of one box to reveal a new phenomenon, a horned puffin sitting a on a shallow nest.  Puffins, open water feeders from the Berring Sea, have begun to replace the ice birds in their nesting boxes.

A greater disruption for the nesting birds has been the arrival of wayward polar bears.  Polar bears, forced to swim to land after major reductions of Arctic sea ice cover, came ashore to devastate the guillemot colony.  Bears destroyed guillemot nest boxes, ate eggs and nestlings.  The result was reduced breeding success on Cooper Island to near zero by 2009.  Meals that were more fluff than substance, allayed hunger for a very short time.

After that plundered year, George came up with a solution to protect breeding birds and their chicks. By modifying hard plastic cases, George created “bear-proof” nest sites. Nanuk Protective Cases, a company appropriately named after the mythological Inuit master of polar bears, provided some cases. Guillemots have moved into their new homes with great success.  However, more “bear-proof”  Nanuk case nest sites are needed to restore the ice bird population to its pre-polar bear level.  Meanwhile, some guillemots are changing their food from ice-bound fish to more readily available open water marine life.

We invite you to join with Friends of Cooper Island in sponsoring ice bird nesting boxes and assisting George Divoky with his continuing research of the black guillemot colony. By acting together we can make a village for nesting ice birds. We can make a difference to preserve wildlife during a period of unprecedented environmental change and development in the Arctic.

Sponsorship of a Nanuk case nesting box provides you with a real connection to the Arctic and an epic study monitoring the consequences of too much carbon in the atmosphere.  You will receive benefits that include periodic emails informing you of the background of the banded pair of birds breeding in your specific nest sites.  Follow status reports of guillemot eggs and nestlings.  View images of your nest sites, parents and nestlings.

Adopting an ice bird nest box is an excellent educational aid for a school class or individual child.  We may assist in the survival of Arctic wildlife.  With your sponsorships comes the positive feeling from knowing you are helping breeding birds and fledglings to live in a landscape suffering from carbon-loading of the atmosphere.

The 2012 ice bird breeding season is beginning.  Please sponsor a nest box today. An annual sponsorship for a minimum $100 tax-deductible donation, the cost of one box, can be made through Friends of Cooper Island’s website (www.cooperisland.org).  George would also welcome any question or comments.