TRURO — The Pamet is not just a tidal river but an entire estuarial system — albeit an altered one — that stretches the width of Truro. At its eastern limit is the barrier beach, and it emerges at Pamet Harbor, where its three branches join and flow into the bay through a tidal inlet. Its branches are mostly unseen as they flow beneath roadways and through undersized culverts that restrict the system’s tidal flow.
NOAA
ENVIRONMENT
Climate, Not Wind Farms, Is Called Threat to Whales
Scientists say turbine noise pales in comparison to ship strikes, entanglement, and loss of feeding grounds
PROVINCETOWN — The first turbine of the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project, eight miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, was successfully installed on Oct. 18.
![](https://provincetownindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/von-Herff-wind-whales-photo-NOAA-NEFSC-300x200.jpg)
Meanwhile, some who are working against this and other offshore wind energy developments claim that the noise created by the turbines will spell doom for right, humpback, and other endangered whales. Those claims, many of which originate from groups with ties to the fossil-fuel industry, according to multiple reports, and further disseminated by right-wing pundits, have some Cape Codders worried about the whales. Scientists say the assertions feeding the fears are not backed up by facts.
“It does not appear that noise is going to create a major problem,” said Charles “Stormy” Mayo III about the Vineyard Wind generators. Mayo is chair of the dept. of ecology at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown and an expert on North Atlantic right whale feeding. Based on what we know, he said, it would be “a stretch” to link offshore wind development with any damage to whale populations.
Christopher Clark, a retired senior scientist and graduate professor at Cornell University with expertise in marine acoustic ecology, echoed Mayo’s thoughts by calling concerns about offshore wind “misplaced.”
“Wind turbine noise is not going to kill a whale,” Clark said. He has been studying the effects of noise on whales since the 1970s and has also been advising the Vineyard Wind project as a senior scientist.
The belief that offshore wind development harms whales is rooted in fears that the noise from the installation of wind turbines and the sounds of their generators could disrupt whales’ communication and disorient them. Investigating concerns about sound “is not a totally useless exercise,” Mayo said.
To avoid harming whales, the Vineyard Wind project is undertaking measures to combat noise pollution. During installation, which involves driving the foundation into the sandy ocean bottom, they are using devices known as bubble curtains, according to the project description.
The apparatus consists of two concentric rings of tubing that release a curtain of air bubbles around the installation site that insulates the rest of the ocean from the noise of the pile driving. The company has agreed to pause turbine installation from January through April, when right whales are most likely to be in the area.
Once the turbines are up and running, Clark said, the noise level goes down dramatically. He noted that the biggest risk to whales during wind farm operation comes from the boats that will be servicing the turbines. According to Clark, the Vineyard Wind project plans on using aerial and acoustic surveying to monitor whales’ movements and ensure its boats do not interfere with marine mammal populations.
There is no way to completely eliminate noise from offshore wind development. Mayo said, however, that right whales are already feeding in Cape Cod Bay amidst noise that he said is “extremely intense.” The area is sometimes “overwhelmed by the noise of ships,” Mayo said. Still, more than half of the North Atlantic right whale population chooses to feed in the bay every year. “I can’t see, out of what we know, a clear indication that these whales cannot cope with noise,” Mayo said.
Clark, too, said that the loud shipping traffic that travels through Stellwagen Bank makes it an “industrialized, urbanized environment,” akin to Boylston Street in downtown Boston. Nonetheless, it remains a critical feeding area for humpback, fin, and right whales.
“If we get to a point where we want a silent ocean,” Mayo said, we’re going to have to eliminate noise “that is much greater than the hum produced by the generators.” It’s an admirable goal, he added.
Shipping is not the only problem. Both scientists pointed out that the tools used to find and drill for underwater oil, including seismic airguns and explosive charges, are much more extreme than the depth sounders used to scout the ocean floor during offshore wind construction. Mayo likened the depth sounders to the “fish finders” that fishermen use to locate schools of fish.
Both Mayo and Clark said that the environmental standards that offshore wind energy projects are held to are much higher than for many other offshore infrastructure projects. Mayo applauded the baseline surveying work done by the New England Aquarium for the Vineyard Wind project. He said he is concerned, however, about whether the project will maintain the same level of rigor in monitoring whale populations once the turbines are installed.
Vineyard Wind is not perfect, both Mayo and Clark said. Mayo said that he opposes industrialization of the ocean in principle but views offshore wind as a necessary concession because of the already emerging destructive effects of climate change. Clark said that installing a wind farm is not a trivial endeavor. “But we have to make the choice,” he said. “Are we going to invest in and support the development of renewable energy?”
The Real Fight
Much of the popular fear about the supposed danger wind energy poses for whales has been fueled by misinformation about a die-off of humpback whales in the mid-Atlantic last winter, according to multiple news reports and fact-checking organizations. Mayo, too, has followed the die-off. Mass mortalities, Mayo said, have “been going on for a long time,” and this one shows no apparent signs of being related to wind energy development.
The facts are these, according to NOAA: While necropsies are still ongoing, at least 40 percent of studied whale deaths off the East Coast of the U.S. since 2016 were tied to ship collisions or entanglement with fishing gear. None could be linked to wind development.
Prominent right-wing media figures, meanwhile, have used false conclusions about the die-off to discredit wind energy development in general. Former President Donald Trump said at a South Carolina rally that wind turbines are driving whales “a little batty” and “causing whales to die in numbers never seen before.” Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, too, decried offshore wind development in a segment titled “The Biden Whale Extinction.”
Clark calls for a focus on what we know. “We know that ships kill right whales,” he said. “We know that right whales are getting tangled. These are human activities that actually kill whales.”
The data back him up. According to NOAA, 85 percent of North Atlantic right whales have been entangled at some point in their lives. Since 2017, at least one-third of all recorded North Atlantic right whale deaths were caused by vehicle strikes, and a quarter were the result of entanglement. And on the West Coast, a 2017 study estimated that ship collisions are killing 18 blue, 22 humpback, and 43 fin whales every year — significant proportions of the populations of these endangered species.
“We’re too myopic in our whole perspective on this problem,” Clark said. Whales migrate thousands of miles each year, and before industrialization, whale songs could be heard across oceans. For whales, he said, the whole ocean is their home, and focusing on one area offers a “microscopic” perspective on a bigger story.
Clark called the decline of right whale populations “a symptom” of the destruction of the ocean ecosystem owing to multiple large-scale trends such as overfishing, pollution, overindustrialization, and climate change. The influence of the Vineyard Wind project, Clark said, is a “little dot” in comparison to other problems whales face, especially when it comes to climate change, which renewable energy sources can help mitigate.
Mayo also named climate change as the greatest existential threat to the whales. He said it is likely causing several right whale feeding grounds to collapse. The Great South Channel off Nantucket and the Outer Banks off Nova Scotia used to host significant whale concentrations, but the food supply has moved elsewhere, forcing whales to follow. Mayo believes that, based on current trends, the Cape Cod Bay right whale grounds may one day collapse, too.
The only way to save the ocean’s ecosystem as we know it, Mayo believes, involves shifting away from our dependence on fossil fuels quickly. Offshore wind, he said, will have to be a part of that.
“If we don’t figure something out,” Mayo said, “we’ve got a climate change issue that is going to wreak havoc on right whale populations.”
ECOLOGY
Comments Are Sought on Stellwagen Bank Plan
Soundscape and shipwrecks are upcoming action initiatives
PROVINCETOWN — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, which manages the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (SBNMS) — an 842-square-mile stretch of ocean three miles north of Provincetown — has drafted an extensive game plan for the next 10 years.
Since the last management plan was issued in 2010, “we’ve had advances in science and changes in environmental issues,” said Anne Smrcina, the education and outreach coordinator at the SBNMS.
![](https://provincetownindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lu-Stellwagen-Management-Map-Image-1-213x300.jpeg)
The new plan outlines 15 areas for action, including the development of a visitor center proposed for MacMillan Pier. “Provincetown is a key gateway to the offshore sanctuary,” said Pete DeCola, SBNMS’s superintendent. “Most of the whale watching trips head out from there, and we’re mindful of what the sanctuary can do to promote a healthy environment and a strong ‘blue economy.’ ”
SBNMS has invited public comment on the plan through Jan. 21. Smrcina said the sanctuary is hoping to hear from fishermen, biologists, U.S. Coast Guard members, and other stakeholders.
Other key areas include action on climate change, whale conservation, and shipwrecks. Climate change became a more urgent focus of sanctuary research after a 2015 study found that “sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Maine increased faster than 99 percent of the global ocean.”
The plan touches on familiar obstacles to whale conservation, like entanglements in fishing gear and ship strikes, but it also takes on a newly recognized threat: noise. In particular, the plan proposes to look at how humpbacks and North Atlantic right whales fare in the sanctuary’s noisy underwater environment.
Historic shipwrecks got their own section, too, since nearby scallop beds are set to reopen in April 2022. A concern is the possible effect of dredges and bottom trawls, which may very well chug right into those sunken schooners.
The Whales’ Soundscape
Large domestic and foreign-flagged vessels crisscross the waters of Stellwagen Bank, following designated shipping lanes to and from the Port of Boston. Tankers ferrying liquefied natural gas and oil also join the mix, along with barges, cruise liners, and container ships. Amid all this traffic, whales in the sanctuary are at risk of fatal ship strikes.
Over the past 10 years, NOAA has been trying to keep vessel operators abreast of nearby humpbacks and right whales. They’ve rolled out WhaleAlert, an app that offers the operators maps of whale management areas, recommended routes, and real-time warnings. The Right Whale Corporate Responsibility program also kicked off in 2010, recognizing top shipping companies who slow down to comply with speed regulations in management areas. And SBNMS has been promoting gear modifications to prevent entanglements.
SBNMS’s draft plan aims to tackle how noise disturbances degrade the sanctuary’s “acoustic habitat” and how that affects whales and other soniferous species — animals that depend on sound for communication, mating, and spawning, among others behaviors.
A NOAA and National Park Service study that began in 2016 compared sound levels in Stellwagen Bank and three other national sanctuaries: Gray’s Reef off Georgia, the Florida Keys, and Flower Garden Banks in the Gulf of Mexico. It found that Stellwagen Bank had the highest sound levels of the four.
Scallops and Shipwrecks
Ship strikes threaten not only humpbacks and right whales but also wrecked coal schooners, like the Palmer and the Crary.
In 1902, the Frank A. Palmer and the Louise B. Crary, each loaded with 3,000 tons of coal, departed from Newport News, Va. But as they neared Boston, they encountered a five-day nor’easter. The Crary rammed into the Palmer, and both ships sank to a depth of more than 300 feet, where they have lain for more than a century.
Stellwagen Bank is home to 47 shipwrecks — seven of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (both the Palmer and Crary made the list). “There could be more out there,” DeCola said. “We just haven’t found them yet.”
SBNMS’s management plan identifies these wrecks as “time capsules” of the region’s maritime heritage. But an “emerging issue” looms for this cultural resource, according to DeCola. Modern-day scallop dredges and bottom trawls could kick these sunken ships while they’re already hundreds of feet down.
About four years ago, scallops bloomed on Stellwagen Bank, and soon a derby-style commercial fishery converged on the area, surprising the sanctuary’s ecologists. “It hadn’t been on our radar,” said Alice Stratton, a sanctuary marine ecologist and permit coordinator, who helped put together the plan.
![](https://provincetownindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lu-Stellwagen-Management-whale-photo-2-300x169.jpeg)
“People were getting out and catching as many scallops as they could,” DeCola added. “That ended up being a free-for-all.”
Dredges dragged the bottom, raking up shellfish and also skimming close to the ships. “If a scallop dredge makes contact with a shipwreck, well, the shipwreck is going to lose about every time,” DeCola said.
The Stellwagen Bank scallop fishery has since cooled, after shellfish surveys detected a plunge in harvestable-size stock. After the initial bonanza, the New England Fishery Management Council closed the area from 2020 to 2021, to allow time for smaller scallops to grow.
That hiatus also allowed the sanctuary to develop a shipwreck avoidance program, which aims to notify fishing captains of the locations of wrecks relative to the scallop beds. SBNMS has also worked with groundfish sector managers such as the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, which issues permits, to give fishermen a heads up.
This year, the pilot program will be put to the test. The Stellwagen Bank scallop beds are slated to reopen on April 1, 2022, according to a NEFMC press release.
The public comment period on the new sanctuary management plan ends Jan. 21. The plan and instructions on how to comment can be found at https://stellwagen.noaa.gov/. Comments may also be sent by email to [email protected].
Caitlin Townsend contributed reporting for this article.
SPACES
As Stellwagen Visitor Center Takes Shape, Selects Take Notice
Board asks if enough public feedback has been heard
PROVINCETOWN — A sleeper project since 2016, the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary Visitor Center burst into the limelight on March 8 when the select board recommended a 9,500-square-foot building at the base of MacMillan Pier with public bathrooms, meeting space, and interpretive displays.
Conrad Ello of Oudens Ello Architecture of Boston, whose credits include the Eastham Public Library, will now refine the conceptual design and bring back to the town a cost estimate for the construction in about a month, according to project manager Anne-Marie Runfola, who works for one of the town’s partners on the project, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Board members expressed some surprise at the presentation by the project partners, NOAA’s Stellwagen Bank Marine Sanctuary, the nonprofit Center for Coastal Studies, and town staff. The building will have a big impact on the waterfront, said select board chair David Abramson. It also seemed to get to this point with little public input, he added.
“For something this big on the waterfront we need to get more feedback from the public,” said Abramson. “I wonder if we have not done enough outreach.”
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In fact, said Runfola, the pandemic did hamper the steering committee’s ability to reach the public. On Nov. 12, the Independent reported on a socially distanced outdoor kickoff event, but it was held on a rainy October day, said Runfola, and was not well attended.
The plans have been progressing slowly for years. In 2016, special town meeting voters raised $17,000 for a feasibility study for a visitor center. In 2017, voters raised another $25,000 for location and conceptual design work, which included hiring the architect. The Stellwagen Bank Sanctuary, which is one of 13 sanctuaries in the U.S., contributed an amount equal to the town’s for feasibility and design work, Runfola said.
“It is going to loom very large out there,” said Lise King of the select board.
The 39-foot height will include 6.5-foot risers, since it’s in the flood zone. The applicants will need a variance to exceed the town’s 33-foot height limit, said Ello. The building would eliminate 55 to 60 parking spaces, costing the town about $137,500 (based on average revenue per space of $2,500).
During the draft design phase, locations and renderings were seen by 100 people through presentations on the Center for Coastal Studies website, Runfola said. Four options were winnowed down to two: the one the select board favored and another, called “the pavilion,” which would be on the Ryder Street side of the MacMillan lot, by the current bus stop. The pavilion option would also transform the bus stop area into a park, Ello said. But the 100 who viewed earlier presentations and the select board preferred the more traditional architecture of the long, two-story building by MacMillan Pier.
Select board member Louise Venden, a member of the visitor’s center steering committee, said this is an exciting opportunity to present the wonders of Stellwagen Bank, an underwater plateau that is a smorgasbord for marine mammals and a vital fishing ground for all of New England.
“If we were able to get this visitor center it would be so fitting and so appropriate” said Rich Delaney, president and CEO of the Center for Coastal Studies. “It would serve as a catalyst to expand and add to the critical mass to bring Provincetown toward a center for excellence in research.”
Rex McKinsey, the town’s marine coordinator, said that, besides being a place for learning, the visitor center would replace the rundown public comfort station at the parking lot and offer electric car charging stations.
According to the feasibility study done in 2017, there would be no charge to enter the center, but revenue equaling 42 percent of the $593,000 operational budget is projected from renting out spaces to educational groups.
Ultimately, the town, the Center for Coastal Studies, and NOAA would share in the maintenance, staffing, and programming of the center through a memorandum of understanding, Runfola said. Typically, with visitor centers elsewhere, the host town owns the building itself, she said.
But just how exactly will the building be built and who will pay? Runfola said it is likely the town, the Center for Coastal Studies, and NOAA would all contribute, adding that a lot depends on a future federal budget.
PUBLIC SPACE
Making Stellwagen Bank More Than ‘a Line on the Map’
Spaces for community use are part of the visitor center plan
PROVINCETOWN — One of the Outer Cape’s greatest assets is its proximity to Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, a federally protected swath of ocean whose southernmost boundary is just three miles north of Provincetown. It harbors a thriving marine ecosystem that supports the local fishing and whale-watching industries.
Yet, to many people, it is little more than “a line on the map,” said Anne-Marie Runfola, program coordinator and visitor center project manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
NOAA, the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS), and the town are working to change the way people see Stellwagen Bank with a new waterfront visitor center to be tucked between the bus parking spots and pump station at the Commercial Street end of MacMillan Pier.
![](https://provincetownindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Sloan-Stellwagen-Bank-Photo-2-300x199.jpg)
First discovered in 1854, Stellwagen Bank is an 842-square-mile expanse of open ocean. This bank, said Runfola, “is not a financial institution.” It is, she explained, an underwater plateau left when the glaciers retreated more than 10,000 years ago.
It is also a rich feeding ground, supporting many marine species. That’s because “it has steep sides, but it’s also shallow on top,” said Runfola. “That allows for photosynthesis in the warmer water on the top, and then wind and waves help bring nutrients from the bottom back up to the surface.”
When Stellwagen Bank was designated a National Marine Sanctuary in 1992, NOAA took control of regulating what activities are allowed within the area. Despite federal protection, however, Stellwagen Bank is far from an economic dead zone.
“The term ‘sanctuary’ is a bit of a misnomer,” said Pete DeCola, the sanctuary’s superintendent.
It is, he said, part of the “blue economy,” producing a significant amount of economic activity for Provincetown and other coastal communities.
The sanctuary designation “doesn’t mean it’s hands-off and no one can go in there,” said Runfola. “We have marine transportation, whale watching, recreational fishing and boating, commercial fishing, science, research, conservation — you name it. It’s happening out there.”
As a premier whale-watching destination, Stellwagen Bank gets consistent tourist traffic. So, one priority for NOAA is to bring the experience of the place to people on land. In partnership with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, NOAA recently took 360-degree images of a number of the sanctuary’s shipwrecks and is putting together “virtual dives” to allow non-divers to experience these sites for themselves.
NOAA is also working on a project to find descendants of those who died in the sinking of the Steamship Portland — known as the “Titanic of New England” — in order to show them images of the wreck and collect family stories.
Those efforts will, Runfola hopes, help people connect to Stellwagen Bank emotionally. Without that, she said, “it’s really hard for them to want to get to learn more, to get involved, and to want to protect the resources.”
The proposed site for the visitor center is near the pier’s whale-watching charters, so it can give people a chance to learn about the marine ecosystem before seeing it for themselves. The plan is for the visitor center to serve as a community space. Architects have included multipurpose performance and exhibition spaces in their initial mockups.
“It’s a great opportunity for Provincetown to have another space that it can utilize for its own programs and activities,” said Provincetown Town Planner Thaddeus Soule. “It’s also an opportunity to refresh our outdated comfort stations.”
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In fact, the need to update the public restrooms near MacMillan Pier was one of the factors that got the project off the ground. When updating the restrooms was proposed a few years ago, CCS and NOAA saw an opportunity.
On Oct. 28, representatives from NOAA, CCS, the town, and architectural firm Oudens Ello held a forum on the proposed site. Community members had suggestions, including making room for green space onsite, having multi-use rooms for rotating exhibits, and adding classrooms for schools to use. The project partners will be hosting a webinar after Thanksgiving, though the date for it remains to be set.
“We’re in the fact-gathering mode now, and we’re excited to figure out the feedback,” said Conrad Ello, founding principal at Oudens Ello. Designers will be considering public feedback through the rest of this month. “This project is so much about the public and for the public,” he said, adding, “Provincetown is a community that seems to have a lot of engagement.”
ENVIRONMENT
Opening of Marine Sanctuary Confounds Scientists and Fishermen
Trump will be sued over a move critics called a ‘photo op’
President Trump announced on Friday, June 5 that he would allow commercial fishing in a conservation area 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod. Scientists and fisheries advocates here agree the move may be meant to have political appeal, especially for Maine fishermen, but does not reflect any real assessment of what would be good either for the environment or for fishermen.
The move is likely also to be illegal. “We’re going to take him to court and stop him,” said Peter Shelley, senior council at the Conservation Law Foundation, which worked for several years to establish the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.
Shelley explained that the Obama administration created the monument under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows presidents to protect land and marine regions from adverse human impacts. Although Congress gives the executive branch the power to create these monuments, Shelley said Trump’s move is “illegal,” arguing presidents do not have the unilateral power to diminish the size of or disestablish national monuments.
“In our view, the law is clear,” he said. “Congress gave him the power to create, but any elimination of a monument or reduction in its scope needs to go to Congress.” He said this question is currently being decided in the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, which Trump reduced in size in 2017.
![USFWS](https://provincetownindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/A6-Ruehr-Marine-Sanctuary-Photo-1-Whales-USFWS.jpeg)
But Is It Good for the Fishermen?
Trump signed the decree with lobster traps and buoys set up in front of his desk. But his move doesn’t do much economically for fishermen.
Before the monument was created, very few fishermen actually used the area beyond Georges Bank to fish. They were allowed to continue to do so under a grandfather clause, permitting phased out access over several years.
Cape Cod Fisheries Trust director Seth Rolbein told the Independent that the monument “doesn’t impact our fishing community at all, and never really has. It’s not something that’s high on our radar.” He believes only a handful of boats out of southern Maine use the region for lobstering.
And it turns out opening up even more areas to lobstering — especially distant regions offshore — makes little sense from a scientific perspective. A new study from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that the lobster industry would actually benefit from a shorter season with less gear. With longer seasonal closures, lobster stocks rebound, and catch increases.
Shelley pointed out that Trump’s trade wars with China and the E.U. have wreaked much more damage to the lobster industry, on which the Independent reported on Nov. 11.
A Special Ecosystem
![sea coral](https://provincetownindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/A6-Ruehr-Marine-Sanctuary-Photo-2-Coral-USFWS.jpeg)
The monument spans just under 5,000 square miles (about the size of Connecticut) and contains three underwater canyons, deeper than the Grand Canyon, and four seamounts, the tallest of which rises 8,202 feet from the sea floor. It is the only national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website, its steep walls cause ocean currents to spiral upwards from below, allowing nutrient-rich deep water to rise into zones where sunlight penetrates. This process allows 54 species of deep-sea corals to grow at depths of 3,900 meters below the surface. Sponges and anemones also provide shelter to baby fish and a wide variety of life deep in the ocean.
Scientists still have a lot to learn about the monument’s ecosystems, which is why Stormy Mayo, a scientist at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, said that the area needs protecting. “We don’t know what we need to know about the canyons area from a scientific point of view,” he said. “It’s clearly a very special ecosystem. The biggest issue is our lack of knowledge.”
He pointed out that humans have often caused extensive environmental damage simply because we don’t see the effects of our actions until it is too late.
As far as what human actions might now be taken there, the area does not have any known deposits of oil or gas. Fishing could cause damage to the fragile ecosystems, especially with traps that crush coral. But the monument’s deep waters are likely best for pot and lobster fishing, according to Mayo.
![Marine Sanctuary](https://provincetownindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/A6-Ruehr-Marine-Sanctuary-Photo-3-Fish-USFWS.jpeg)
The problem, Mayo said, is that the type of deep-water gear that would be used there is typically very heavy and therefore animals that become tangled in it have “very little chance” of surviving. Unlike in Cape Cod Bay, where whale entanglements are easier to spot, the monument’s remote location makes it difficult for scientists to keep track of animals in crisis.
Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website describing the monument area includes pictures of whales feeding there, Mayo said the area has not been extensively monitored for whales. “With a lot of the issues of management and conservation, the rule ‘out of sight, out of mind’ applies,” he said. “If we don’t see them because we’re not there, we think it’s not a problem.”
When the Independent asked to speak with a scientist at the NOAA Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, which manages the monument, a press officer replied that “we’ve been instructed to send all press inquiries to the White House.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Getting Away With It
Shelley, of the Conservation Law Foundation, said the setup was a “photo op for the president.”
The monument was created by President Obama in 2016. The way Shelley sees it, the current president’s reversal is “just another opportunity for him to rant against President Obama’s legacy — his highest priority is reversing whatever the last president did.”
But Trump’s move still has national implications. “If he can get away with it here,” Shelley said, “he can get away with it anywhere.”
ENVIRONMENT
Herring to Be Protected From Big Trawlers
Local fishermen are hopeful about new NOAA rule
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) moved to protect herring on Nov. 19 when it approved a new rule restricting the operation of trawlers.
![Mid-water trawlers](https://provincetownindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Ruehr-Herring-Trawlers-Photo-2-Hills-12.5.19-300x263.jpeg)
Amendment 8 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan, developed by the New England Fishery Management Council over the past several years, prohibits the use of mid-water trawl gear year-round within 12 miles of the shore from Maine to Rhode Island and within 20 miles off the Cape. The amendment also proposes biological catch rules that account for herring’s role in the ecosystem and scientific uncertainty about stocks.
NOAA Greater Atlantic Region Communications Team supervisor Allison Ferreira told the Independent that the new rule will likely be published by the end of this year, and that restrictions, including buffer zones, will be implemented sometime early next year.
Cape Cod Fisheries Trust director Seth Rolbein said he is thrilled with the news. “This is the biggest, most important thing to happen from a regulatory point of view in a long time,” he said. “It’s a profound help to our small boat fleet and herring runs.”
Fisherman Kurt Martin of Orleans is also optimistic and said that the ruling will prevent overfishing. “It’s a huge win for small boat fisheries and everything that feeds on herring,” he said.
![Fisherman Kurt Martin](https://provincetownindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Ruehr-Herring-Fisherman-Martin-Photo-1-Alliance-12.5.19-225x300.jpeg)
Cape Cod fishermen have noticed a decrease in herring stocks over the past two decades. During this same period, an increasing number of mid-water trawlers from Gloucester and New Bedford have been fishing off the Cape’s east and southeast shores. Advocates for tighter regulation argue that mid-water trawlers, with their large quantity of bycatch, are to blame for the collapse of herring stocks.
Rolbein hopes the amendment will result in their recovery, with economic benefits to the fishing industry. “We’re hoping to see a rebuilding of an ecosystem, which supported a small boat commercial fleet for generations,” he said. Rolbein thinks the return of the river herring run could draw tourists, too.
The ruling comes after 15 years of effort by fishermen and environmental advocates.
Rolbein said that two key factors pushed the amendment toward approval this year. First, communities across New England came together to support it. “Every town in Barnstable County endorsed it,” Rolbein said. Support came, too, from environmental groups and conservation trusts, he said. Amendment 8 received 275 public comments, the vast majority of them supportive.
Second, recent scientific reports painted a more dire picture of herring stocks than previously imagined. “Once it became clear that the stocks had crashed and that we had reached a crisis moment, everyone coalesced around the idea that we had to do something,” Rolbein said.
Indiscriminate Trawling
Mid-water trawlers work in pairs, dragging between them a net the size of a football field that sweeps up everything in its path. Although the net is supposed to stay in the middle of the water column — neither fishing at the surface nor scraping the bottom –– Rolbein said that nets often drift up and down. A pair of mid-water trawlers working together for many hours a day can cover a lot of territory, and, Rolbein said, “wipe everything out.”
On the other hand, fishermen working on small boats can be more selective and bycatch typically survives. “It’s a very different kind of fishing that doesn’t do much damage to the stock or to the bottom,” Rolbein said.
Trawlers are not new to the Cape. In the 1960s and ’70s, foreign vessels overfished Cape Cod’s waters, threatening herring stocks. But the exclusive economic zone was established under President Reagan in 1982, preventing foreign vessels from fishing within 200 miles of the U.S. coastline. Soon herring stocks recovered and the larger fish that fed on them became plentiful again.
Martin fished out of Provincetown in the late 1980s and still remembers the abundance of herring. “We saw so much herring every day,” he said. “It was crazy how much there was just off of Race Point.”
But the bounty also lured American mid-water trawlers to the Cape. Beginning in the 1990s, the big boats arrived to take advantage of the plentiful stocks here.
Martin has seen a marked decrease in herring stocks since the mid-trawlers came back. “Now, you hardly see any herring close to shore,” he said.
Mid-water trawlers often net river herring as bycatch. Rolbein pointed out that, while the state and towns were enforcing bans on catching river herring, trawlers were hauling in millions of pounds of river herring every year. River herring do not typically survive after being caught.
While the amendment is promising for local fishermen, it is not good news for operators of the big trawlers based mostly in New Bedford and Gloucester, Rolbein said. Amendment 8 itself acknowledges that mid-water trawlers’ total revenue is expected to take a 30-percent hit.
Maine lobstermen who count on herring as bait may also be affected by the legislation. But according to Rolbein, most are switching to other bait. Cape Cod lobstermen stopped using herring as bait years ago.
Although he is glad about the amendment, Martin expressed concern that a 20-mile limit may not be far enough out to sufficiently protect Cape Cod’s stocks. Mid-water trawlers could still catch herring by the millions farther offshore. Although herring stocks have recovered in the past, 200 miles — the limit set in the 1980s when foreign trawlers were the problem — is a much greater protective barrier than 20 miles.
environment
A Battle for Whales Against Rope
Cape Cod lobstermen are frustrated by Maine’s withdrawal from rescue effort
![Entangled right whale](https://provincetownindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/EgNo-3125-080219-inflatable-and-baleen-CCS-NOAA-permit-18786-03-300x233.jpg)
Maine lobstermen have withdrawn their support for an agreement made last April to protect whales by limiting the amount of rope they use, and Cape Cod lobstermen are not happy.
Severely endangered right whales are thought to become tangled in the ropes connecting buoys to lobster traps set on the ocean floor, leading to increased mortality. But Maine lobstermen claim that the science at the basis of the agreement doesn’t add up.
Mass. Lobstermen’s Association Executive Director Beth Casoni said that lobstermen on Cape Cod are frustrated by Maine’s withdrawal. Cape lobstermen have taken action on right whale conservation by refraining from winter lobstering and by experimenting with innovative techniques to limit rope use. But their efforts go to waste when the whales end up entangled farther north, Casoni said.
“This discussion makes a lot of fishing industry people upset,” said Scott Landry of Provincetown’s Center for Coastal Studies. “But in our minds this is not an attack on a fishery. It’s a battle against rope.” Landry directs the center’s Marine Animal Entanglement Response program.
Right whales visit Cape Cod Bay in winter. In 2014 an annual closure was adopted, banning trap fishing in Cape Cod’s coastal waters for three months each winter.
Since the rule was put in place, Landry said, the number of right whales entangled in fishing gear from Cape Cod Bay has dropped. Entangled right whales have shown up in Cape Cod Bay, but researchers believe the rope involved likely comes from elsewhere.
The closure has affected the livelihoods of Cape lobstermen. “People’s earnings have been restricted to nine months instead of twelve, when they could have gone out in February, March, and April,” Casoni said. “At that time of year, the price is high because there’s not a big supply.”
She said that Cape Cod lobstermen have been willing to adapt and compromise. “We usually work well with Maine, but now they’re saying, ‘It’s not our problem.’ It’s not that they can’t. They just don’t want to. It’s very disheartening.”
Questioning the science
In April of this year the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team, with representatives of the sciences, fisheries industry, and government, agreed to reduce the amount of rope used in fishing along the East Coast to curtail right whale deaths.
The group also decided to improve rope markings, so that when an animal is found wrapped in ropes and nets the gear’s origin can be identified. Currently about 70 percent of the rope entangling right whales cannot be identified.
But Maine contests the conclusion that lobster rope is leading to right whale deaths.
Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) Executive Director Patrice McCarron did an independent analysis of right whale mortality data.
“MLA’s analysis found that gillnet and netting gear … were the least prevalent in right whale entanglements from known causes. This finding means the conservation target … is unsupported by the best available data,” McCarron wrote.
McCarron also argued that right whale entanglements in lobster gear have been decreasing in recent years, suggesting that current strategies are working and new regulation is not required.
Maine’s congressional delegation is involved as well. In a July letter to President Trump, Senators Susan Collins and Angus King Jr., along with members of the House, argued that the connection between Maine’s $1 billion lobster industry and right whale deaths has not been sufficiently proved to justify regulation.
“Your administration has made a point of targeting regulations that you believe are ill-conceived or overly burdensome,” the letter states. “NOAA is pushing forward with the development of new regulations that will force significant economic hardship on Maine lobstermen without clear evidence that these regulations will have a positive impact on whale conservation efforts.” The letter also points out that many whale deaths have taken place in Canada.
Both letters highlight uncertainties in right whale entanglement scientific studies.
There are two main issues obscuring a clear picture of why whales get entangled. The first is that right whales have a large range.
“Whales can carry gear from Canada to Florida,” Landry said, adding that the location of death does not necessarily relate to the site of entanglement. A whale found dead in Canada may have been entangled initially in Maine or farther south.
Second, most gear found on whales is unmarked, making it difficult to identify where the whale was initially entangled.
But some things are certain.
A recent study suggests that, despite mitigation efforts, right whale deaths due to entanglement continue to rise. The researchers found that the most common known cause of right whale death is entanglements, which have increased from 21 percent of right whale mortalities in 1970-2002 to 51 percent in 2003-2018. In total, 70 right whales have died in the past 20 years.
Although there are some uncertainties, Landry thinks the science is convincing. On an even more basic level, “If you believe the entanglement problem is a mix of whales and rope, if there is no rope, there cannot be an entanglement problem,” Landry said.
![Wolverine whale](https://provincetownindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/20150416_CCS-A_Egno4023-Wolverine-CCS-NOAA-permit-14603-300x239.jpg)
Why all the fuss about right whales?
Landry said that rope entanglements are killing endangered right whales each year at a rate much higher than is acceptable for the species’ dwindling population. While the population of right whales has increased since 1997, when there were only 295 whales, they are seriously threatened with extinction, with fewer than 400 individuals today.
Even one right whale killing a year by humans is too many. To maintain the population, fewer than 0.6 kills per year is permitted.
The numbers have remained high, though; 10 have already died this year. Although the number may seem small, it’s a large percentage of the total population.
Whales and other animals, like sea turtles and seals, often become entangled in rope or other fishing gear while swimming through coastal waters. Due to their large size (right whales weigh up to 50 tons), whales often don’t drown when first entangled. Instead, they carry the rope with them.
Dying by entanglement is a slow, painful death. The rope and netting slowly cut into the animal, “sawing into the whale’s body, opening it up to infection, keeping it from feeding, so it slowly declines in health,” Landry said. “It’s horrible way to die.”
Right whales are important for their ecosystems. Brian Sharp, marine mammal rescue and research director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said that beyond the intrinsic value of species diversity, whales act as “nitrogen pumps. After they feed and come up to the surface, they defecate, which fertilizes the ocean for plankton,” the basis of the food chain, Sharp said.
Massachusetts lobstermen are experimenting with ropeless fishing techniques, like floats that deploy when a ship sends down an acoustic signal to a trap, or ropes that break more easily, Sharp said. Although they haven’t been wildly successful, these attempts, along with the annual closure, point to a general desire in the community to preserve the species.
Casoni noted that the lobster industry is slowly returning to its roots. “Before, [lobstermen] would use small boats and skiffs and cotton twine,” she said. “They were out there with their rag ropes.”
These days, lobstermen use steel and plastic ropes. “It’s almost like we came to the highest point of efficiency, then we realized we need to back off a bit,” Casoni said. “Now we’re going back.”