Swordfish Driftnets Gone off CA – Will Longlines Follow?
West Coast highly migratory species (HMS) issues now focus on what fisheries will follow the large mesh drift gillnet fishery for swordfish. The process has begun by the Pacific Fishery Management Council to decide, with public input, what fisheries can essentially replace the driftnet fishery to provide fresh swordfish to local markets. The search for […]
76th Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute Recap
TBF back presenting at GCFI In November of this year, three members of TBF traveled to Nassau, The Bahamas for the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute’s (GCFI) 76th Annual Conference. Peter Chaibongsai, Addie Spain, and Racine Prinzo attended the conference to present their research findings and to share ideas and perspectives on emerging fisheries science […]
NOAA Fisheries Denies Petition to Establish a Mandatory Speed Limit in Gulf of Mexico
A huge win for the recreational community occurred on Friday, October 27th, 2023 when the petition to establish a mandatory, 10.5-knot speed limit in the Gulf of Mexico was denied by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The speed limit, among other vessel-related mitigation measures, was proposed in an attempt to reduce vessel collisions with […]
NOAA Announces $82 Million in Funding for North Atlantic Right Whale
NOAA earmarked a $82 million fund dedicated to the conservation and recovery of the North Atlantic right whales. With this announcement, we again want to champion an innovative idea. NOAA’s antiquated approach (and proposed measure) of imposing ineffective, widespread speed restrictions across vast regions hasn’t worked. Such measures not only lack high compliance rates but […]
NOAA Announces $82 million in Funding for North Atlantic Right Whales
NOAA recently earmarked a $82 million fund dedicated to the conservation and recovery of the North Atlantic right whales. With this announcement, we again want to champion an innovative idea. NOAA’s antiquated approach (and proposed measure) of imposing ineffective, widespread speed restrictions across vast regions hasn’t worked. Such measures not only lack high compliance rates […]
Proposed Rule to Designate Critical Habitat for Endangered Rice’s Whales
NOAA announced a proposed rule to designate critical habitat for the endangered Rice’s whale under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) even though a decision on the vessel speed in the Gulf of Mexico has not been finalized. The proposed critical habitat designation and the Rice’s whale vessel speed petition are unrelated actions. Critical habitat is designated under the ESA, and the requirement to designate critical habitat for the Rice’s whale was triggered by its 2019 listing as an endangered species. The proposed critical habitat includes Gulf of Mexico waters between 100 and 400 meters depth and this critical habitat would guide federal agencies
US BOEM to seek fisheries funds for Gulf of Mexico wind leases
The first offshore wind power lease auction in the Gulf of Mexico will offer a 10 percent credit to developers who contribute to a fisheries compensation fund for commercial and charter fishermen. The August 2023 auction by the BOEM will offer a 102,480-acre area offshore Lake Charles, LA and two areas off Galveston, TX, one comprising 102,480 acres and the other 96,786 acres. If developed to full potential, the lease areas could hold turbine arrays with nameplate ratings totaling 3.7 gigawatts of electricity. In planning the Gulf wind energy areas, BOEM excluded highly productive fishing areas after consultations
Update on Speed Restricted Zones
Speed Reduction Zones – TBF opposes the two recently issued proposals by NMFS and NOAA to apply extreme vessel speed reductions (10.5 mph) along the East Coast to all vessels 35 feet and longer when transiting Slowdown Zones. The goal of the first proposal aims to reduce vessel strikes of whales, yet documentation of whale strikes by vessels of 35 to 64 feet was not even included in the proposal. The Northern Right Whale has been listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) since 1970, yet populations continue to decline. Failure by large container vessels (25% compliance) to comply
Draft Amendment 15 Looks to Open Closed Zones
After 23 years of defending the Closed Zones off the U.S. East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) just shared its options in Amendment 15 to open the Zones again to pelagic longline fishing. It was pelagic longline fishing that brought about the Closed Zones for at the time the U.S. vessels were killing the largest quantity of juvenile swordfish among all nations fishing for the Atlantic species. If the swordfish nursery areas are in open zones, stock declines will likely follow, as will anglers’ hook-up rates for billfish, tunas, swordfish
Wind lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico
The proposed sale is part of the leasing project announced by the DOI in 2021 to meet the Biden administration’s goal to deploy thirty gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030. BOEM began identifying areas in the Gulf of Mexico in late 2021, following findings from government studies that show the Gulf of Mexico’s shallow waters and proximity to oil and gas infrastructure make it promising for the expansion of a new offshore industry. According to their studies, these areas presented the fewest apparent environmental and user conflicts identified as Wind Energy Areas (WEA). On February 23
