Tag: NOAA

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Sonoma Coast, WildlifeTags , , , , ,

California’s commercial Dungeness crab season to start in January, with restrictions

Mary Callahan, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The wait for fresh Dungeness crab is now only about two weeks away, following an announcement Friday that the commercial fleet can begin harvesting the tasty crustaceans off the Sonoma Coast and to the south beginning Jan. 5.

The season opener came with a caveat from the state: for the second straight year, boats operating south of the Sonoma-Mendocino County line will be permitted to do so with only half their allotted crab pots to reduce the risk of whale entanglement in a year that’s already seen a rise in marine mammal interactions.

“It’s a bummer,” said Dick Ogg, president of the Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Marketing Association. “We don’t like that we are restricted, but we understand what we need to do to protect the animals. Everybody has to compromise, and we are doing the best we can to still provide the resource to the public with what we were allocated.”

The decision to launch the season, delayed since the Nov. 15 statutory start for the seventh year in a row, comes despite the continuing presence of federally endangered humpback whales off the coast. There have been 14 whale entanglements already in 2024, though only four of them are confirmed to involve California commercial crabbing gear.

The other 10, the latest discovered Dec. 2, involve gear that is still unidentified but which is consistent with crabbing gear, state wildlife officials said.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/california-dungeness-crab-commercial-season/

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & EnergyTags , , , ,

EPA chief Scott Pruitt says CO2 not a primary contributor to warming

Tom DiChristopher, CNBC
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Thursday he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.
“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“But we don’t know that yet. … We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.”
The statement contradicts the public stance of the agency Pruitt leads. The EPA’s webpage on the causes of climate change states, “Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change.”
Pruitt’s view is also at odds with the conclusion of NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Read more at: EPA chief Scott Pruitt says CO2 not a primary contributor to warming

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Habitats, Water, WildlifeTags , , , , , ,

New multispecies plan provides roadmap to salmon and steelhead recovery

October 13, 2016, NOAA FISHERIES
NOAA Recovery Plan for Chinook and Steelhead
Millions of wild salmon and steelhead once returned to California’s north and central coastal watersheds. Development over the last 100 years and the conversion of forestlands to urban and agricultural use led to the decline of these populations. From 1997 to 2000, California Coastal Chinook salmon, Northern California steelhead, and Central California Coast steelhead were listed under the federal Endangered Species Act as species threatened with extinction.

chinook-in-eel-r_cathy-myers
Chinook salmon in the Eel River. Photo: Cathy Myers

Today, NOAA Fisheries released its final plan to recover these species by addressing the threats they face and restoring the ecosystem on which they depend. The recovery plan strategically targets restoration efforts to the needs of salmon and steelhead throughout each of their life stages, from their time as juveniles in freshwater habitat, through their maturation in the ocean, and their return to streams to spawn. Using this framework, the plan seeks to improve estuarine and riparian habitat conditions, restore floodplains and stream channels, enhance stream flows and improve fish passage across 8 million acres of California’s north and central coast.
With science at its foundation, the plan provides for the biological needs of fish. A technical team of scientists, led by NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, developed criteria that will ensure the species persists over the long-term. The criteria address such attributes as population size and reproductive success rates, as well as sufficient geographic distribution and genetic diversity. The idea is to target on-the-ground actions to the needs of fish throughout their life cycle to restore robust populations across the landscape.
Read more at: New multispecies plan provides roadmap to salmon and steelhead recovery :: NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region