Gulf of Maine seals - fisheries interactions and integrated research : final report

Funding was provided by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Marine Mammal Center andthe Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies

Meeting held: October 28, 2011, Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, MA. Sponsored by the Marine Mammal Center at the Woods Hole OceanographicInstitution and the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies

The 2011 meeting, “Gulf of Maine Seals: Fisheries Interactions and Integrated Research”, held atthe Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (PCCS), featured posters and oral presentations aswell as a series of discussion groups. This meeting was a follow up to the 2009 meeting, “Gulfof Maine Seals - Populations, Problems and Priorities”, held at the Woods Hole OceanographicInstitution (WHOI) (Bogomolni et al. 2010). At the conclusion of the 2009 meeting, attendeesemphasized the need to improve communication, to obtain funding for long term research, tocontinue meeting on a regular basis, to increase data and data sharing, and to support crosscutting research between the meeting’s three primary topic areas: disease and health; human andfishery interactions; and population biology. The overarching goals of the 2011 meeting were to discuss and share work to date, present someof the tools developed since the 2009 meeting, and outline goals for future integrated research.One of the tools presented within the framework of cross-cutting research areas and integrativeresearch was the development of a sightings database and website for uniquely identifiable(unique pelage, scars, lesions, tagged, branded, marked, etc.) animals. The practicality of thistool as a means to increase communication was discussed.Additionally, seal/fisheries interactions throughout the Gulf of Maine, Cape Cod and waters offof the northeast U.S. have continued to concern stakeholders since the 2009 meeting. Theurgency of documenting, understanding and mitigating these interactions has become moreapparent. Therefore, the focus of the 2011 Provincetown meeting was on fisheries interactionand related topics raised at the last 2009 workshop and in the meetings with Cape Cod fishermendescribed below. For the purposes of this report, 'fisheries interaction' can be direct/operational(e.g. depredation, when seals remove fish from gear; or entanglement/bycatch, when seals areunintentionally captured), or indirect/ecological (competition, displacement or other large-scaleinteractions between seals and fisheries). Stakeholder concerns about fisheries interactions and recent increases in local seal abundancewere rising prior to the 2009 meeting. In December of 2006, the Chatham-based Cape CodCommercial Hook Fishermen’s Association (CCCHFA) took the lead in organizing a meetingentitled, “Structuring a Novel Research Team to Define and Assess the Impact of Human/SealInteractions on Cape Cod/Gulf of Maine through Ecosystem-Based Analysis”. Participantsincluded fishermen, policy makers, environmental organizations and researchers aiming todevelop a unique partnership to study the New England seal population. The goal of thismeeting was to create a research team that would define the ecological role of seals in Cape Codwaters by studying population dynamics, behavior, and health. This meeting resulted in asuccessful partnership, financially aided by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW),between fishermen and seal researchers. A cost-effective cooperative research agreement wasreached whereby seal researchers were provided boat transport around the Chatham andMonomoy areas by local fishermen. This agreement allowed students and researchers to gainaccess to areas off of Chatham that would otherwise not have been accessible. It also supporteda collaborative effort to increase understanding and communication between stakeholders. In addition to the CCCHFA-led meeting in 2006, a series of informal meetings have been heldon Cape Cod between commercial and recreational fishermen and marine scientists. This workwas initially funded by the Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank Charitable Foundation. OwenNichols and Lisa Sette (PCCS) have held individual meetings with commercial fishermen inChatham, Orleans, and Provincetown, and recreational fishermen, outfitters, and associationsthroughout the Outer Cape. These individual meetings were followed by larger group meetingsin Eastham and Chatham in 2010 and 2011, and more are planned for 2012. Attendees includedcommercial and recreational fishermen and scientists, and discussion topics included observedseal/fishery interactions and potential collaborative research projects. The goal of the meetingsis to develop a working group composed of members of the fishing and scientific communitieswith expertise in marine mammal and fisheries ecology.The above meetings laid the foundation for the 2011 meeting, during which members of thescientific and fishing communities gathered to focus on fisheries interactions and integratedresearch techniques to quantify and mitigate interactions. Several invited presentations weregiven, some of which were scheduled (Appendix A) with selected abstracts provided (AppendixB), and some of which were delivered on an ad hoc basis upon request from organizers orattendees (see Appendix F for edited transcripts of presentations). In order to ensure that thefishing community had a distinct voice, a forum was included in the agenda, during whichfishermen were encouraged to share their observations, experiences and concerns. Separately,moderated discussion groups focused specifically on fisheries interactions, tagging and tracking,and management issues. All four sessions, despite their specific foci, shared common themessuch as the need for collaborative research involving both the scientific and fishing communities.Recommendations from the discussion groups and summaries from each session are listed on thefollowing pages.