Protected Species and Marine Aquaculture Interactions

SPRING BAY SEAFOODS
Fishermen working
with mussel spat
with a specific focus on mussel culture and ESAlisted
whales and sea turtles in the northern Atlantic
Region. Members of the committee included personnel
from the NMFS Greater Atlantic Region’s
protected resources and aquaculture programs to
provide expertise on marine mammals and sea turtles,
and knowledge of regional aquaculture activity,
and the National Ocean Service (NOS) National
Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS)
Coastal Aquaculture Planning and Environmental
Sustainability (CAPES) program specializing in environmental
effects of marine aquaculture.
Information about aquaculture infrastructure and gear, and alternative farm
management options that could reduce negative interactions is vital. Because there is
little direct data, research or observation at open ocean mussel farms, the committee
broadened the scope of the assessment to include information about the effects of
other marine aquaculture sectors on protected species and other species of conservation
concern. Additionally, there was interest in examining possible similarities between
fishing gear and aquaculture gear because a great deal of research has focused
on fishery 1 gear impacts, and the efforts to redesign gear to be less harmful. Thus,
there may be lessons that can be learned and gear modifications that can be transferred
to aquaculture structures to decrease opportunities for negative interactions
and take of ESA listed species.
Methods
To ensure comprehensive coverage of all available information, we reviewed a range of
sources (Table 3). Beginning in Fall 2014, we collected scientific papers, government
reports, and books for this review through keyword searches of electronic databases,
primarily Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ProQuest, LLC) and Google
Scholar TM . To ensure comprehensive coverage, initial searches included broad keyword
combinations such as “mussel aquaculture + marine mammal” and “marine fish
farming + protected species,” which were then narrowed down by carefully reviewing
each abstract and full text for direct relevance. Colleagues and early reviewers provided
recommendations for additional relevant publications. Unpublished data from operational
commercial farms were obtained through direct personal communication.
A draft assessment was prepared and internally reviewed by the NOAA steering
committee preceding a workshop held in Gloucester, MA on 28– 29 September 2015
(NMFS 2016) that brought together local and national regulators, industry, researchers,
1
The term “fishery” in this document refers to wild harvest.
6 | ProtEctEd SPEciES and MarinE aquaculturE intEractionS