Tag Archives: Fishing gear entanglement
‘This is our primary income’: Dungeness crab season delayed again
In the latest blow to North Bay commercial fishing, the start of the California Dungeness crab season has once again been delayed. This time, until the new year, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced. The postponement, which marks the seventh year in a row for such delays, is in response to continued concerns about humpback whale migration patterns and the protection of endangered marine life from being entangled in fishing gear. The previous year’s season opener was delayed until Jan. 18 — months after the most lucrative time for the season, said Dick Ogg, president of the Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Marketing Association. “This is our primary income,” Ogg said. “It would be like if somebody told you they won’t let you work for the next month and a half.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 16:51
Right whale population grows 4%, but extinction remains a threat
Conservationists are calling on the government, shipping and fishing industries to save the North Atlantic right whale from extinction despite an increase in its population. Researchers studying the whales said this week that the population increased to an estimated 372 in 2023. That’s an increase of about four percent from 2020, and “heartening news” after the whale’s population fell by about 25 percent from 2010 to 2020. The population of the right whale, which can weigh up to 150,000 pounds (68,039 kilograms) and lives off the East Coast, plummeted in the 2010s. Stressed by global warming and vulnerable to ship collisions and entanglement in fishing gear, their numbers fell to fewer than 360 by the early 2020s. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 12:29
Scientists review divisive whale risk reduction model
A panel of scientists gathered in Woods Hole, Mass., last week to evaluate a controversial “decision support tool” used by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service to design proposed rules aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales and other large marine mammals from entanglement with fishing gear. Last spring, the NOAA Fisheries Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team (TRT) recommended that the fisheries service adopt new rules that would, among other requirements, force Maine lobstermen to remove from the water 50 percent of the vertical lines used to connect traps on the bottom to marker buoys on the surface. >click to read< 11:07
Ropeless lobster fishing? Stakeholders get a progress report
The Ropeless Consortium, a group of scientists and other interested stakeholders hosted by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, met Nov. 6 to consider the prospects of ropeless fishing to reduce whale entanglements with lobster gear. “It was very cool to see how advanced the technology is and the many companies and groups working on development around the world,” Zack Klyver, lead naturalist for Bar Harbor Whale Watch, who attended the meeting, told the Mount Desert Islander. >click to read<10:30
