Commercial Fisheries News

Surrounding a tagged turtle, from left, Matt Weeks, CFF; Henry Milliken, NEFSC; Heather Haas, NEFSC; Eric Matzen, NEFSC; and Ron Smolowitz, CFF. (NEFSC photo)

BARNEGAT LIGHT, NJ – For the third year in a row, commercial scallopers will be teaming up with research crews to find and satellite-tag loggerhead turtles in the Mid-Atlantic.

The first expedition – a pilot project of sorts – took place in August 2009. Researchers from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and Coonamessett Farm Foundation (CFF), with the help of the 91’ scalloper Kathy Ann and her crew, successfully captured and tagged two juvenile loggerheads in the very southwest portion of the scallop Hudson Canyon Access Area.

In 2010, again on the Kathy Ann, the research team tagged 14 turtles, mostly in the Elephant Trunk Access Area.

And now, preparations are underway for round three, the biggest year yet. The team’s goal is to capture and tag 25 loggerheads, which is no small undertaking.

The 65’ Ms Manya, captained by Peter Dolan, has joined the project. Like the Kathy Ann, which is captained by Mike Francis, the Ms Manya works out of Viking Village in Barnegat Light. The boats are scheduled to set sail June 1 from the Viking Village Dock for their first week-long 2011 turtle tagging cruise. Between the two, they’ll be carrying 10 researchers.

According to CFF’s Ron Smolowitz, the plan is to tag as many juvenile loggerheads as possible during the first week of June and then return to the dock. If necessary, the boats will resupply, switch-out team members, and head back to sea midmonth to finish the work.

Jim Gutowski of Viking Village Fisheries, an industry partner in the project, is overseeing vessel operations. He said the two boats will be “ready to roll” right on schedule for both cruises.

“The industry has been very supportive of this work,” Gutowski said.

According to CFF Research Director Matt Weeks, the Kathy Ann and Ms Manya are ideal boats for spotting turtles. They both have crow’s nests, giving spotters a high perch and 360° view of the water.

“It greatly expands our search area,” he said.

Also, each vessel is equipped with a 15’ inflatable, ready to be launched to capture turtles once they’ve been located.

The Kathy Ann and Ms Manya are expected to stay within range of each other, and all hands on board will help look for turtles. Once a turtle is

Scallopers, scientists team-up to tag turtles

spotted, one of the inflatables with two crewmembers will be launched to retrieve it.

Sometimes an inflatable can sneak up on a turtle, which makes for an easy net-capture, especially on calm, sunny days when the turtles seem lulled by the warmth, said Weeks. But other times, turtles may dive beyond reach or be hard to net in rough seas, leaving the team fraught with frustration.

Oftentimes, two or three turtles will be spotted in the same vicinity, so having a second inflatable on hand this year will be a real bonus, Weeks said.

Blood work, taggingAlthough the Ms Manya will be

involved in all turtle spotting and capture operations, the Kathy Ann will serve as the designated platform for tagging and turtle health assessments.

As it turns out, it’s hard to tell if juvenile turtles are male or female. So this year, scientists will draw blood from captured turtles to help determine each animal’s sex, reproductive status, and overall health. They’ll also take routine size measurements and, when possible, occasional samples of various body fluids and external parasites.

Coonamessett Farm Foundation photo

Tagged juvenile loggerhead ready for release.

Coonamessett Farm Foundation photo

A ROV follows a loggerhead.

Scallopers, scientists team-up to tag turtles

“Basic health assessments can help indicate whether individuals are likely to survive and reproduce,” said Mike Simpkins, chief of the Protected Species Branch at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

He also said that information collected on male/female sex ratios and reproductive status – juveniles vs. adults – is extremely useful to scientists who study turtle population trends.

After each health assessment, the turtle will be tagged with a $5,000 Satellite Relay Data Logger that uses Argos Fastloc GPS data transmission technology.

The tags record location, temperature, and depth at one-minute intervals, at least for the first several months, and then at longer intervals to extend battery life. The data is transmitted via satellite when the turtles surface.

The science center’s Henry Milliken, who has been involved in all of the Mid-Atlantic turtle tagging work to date,

Coonamessett Farm Foundation photo

An ROV records turtles demonstrating social behavior underwater.

said that depth recordings obtained from the past two years of satellite tag signals already have led to a far better appreciation of turtle behavior.

“These tags provide information about

the movement of turtles in the water column,” he said. “That’s a big improvement in our understanding.”

The two tags affixed to juvenile loggerheads in 2009 reached the end of their battery life roughly a year after they were attached and stopped transmitting.

But between August 2009 and September 2010, they provided an extraordinary wealth of data about turtle migration patterns, diving patterns, time spent on the seafloor, and other activities.

Milliken, Smolowitz, and Weeks all noted one particular phenomenon. Both turtles, clearly riding currents, traveled enormous distances, including one long sweep well outside of the US Exclusive Economic Zone. Nonetheless, they both ended up a year later in roughly the same place at the same time of year they were tagged (see chart page 15 for Turtle 1 and Turtle 2 track-line plots).

Many of the tags placed on the 14 Mid-Atlantic juvenile loggerheads in 2010 are

still transmitting data. Their track-lines are posted online at <www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index.shtml?project_id=537>.

Milliken gave people in the fishing industry considerable credit for their willingness to play such a significant role in the tagging work.

“Here we are with an industry that’s being really proactive,” he said. “It’s been a very nice collaboration.”

The 2010 tagging work was incorporated into a much bigger project coordinated by the Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS).

AMAPPS is a large, multi-agency initiative developed to provide comprehensive assessments of marine mammals, turtles, and sea birds in the US portion of the western North Atlantic.

ROV videosThe satellite tagging work is

fascinating by itself, but when coupled with underwater turtle images taken by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), it’s especially powerful.

Smolowitz began following turtles with ROVs in 2007, first under his own Coonamessett Farm umbrella and then under CFF, all with help from the industry-funded scallop research set-aside program and grants from the National Marine Fisheries Service. Here, too, industry and the science center were partners in the work.

Steven Kennedy photo

Barnegat Light, NJ-based scallopers Kathy Ann and Ms Manya are scheduled to set sail June 1 from the Viking Village Dock on a week-long turtle tagging cruise.

Coonamessett Farm Foundation photo

An ROV records a loggerhead turtle walking on bottom.

In addition to a video camera, the ROV is equipped with sonar and a time/depth/temperature sensor to record behaviors associated with breathing, feeding, swimming, and location in the water column. All told, the ROV work has produced on the order of 100 hours of often-mesmerizing turtle-tracking footage.

“When we first went out there, we were told that turtles were solitary, but we’re finding there’s a tremendous amount of social behavior going on,” said Smolowitz.

The ROV has followed loggerheads in pairs or groups of three and documented rarely seen behaviors, including flipper flapping on the surface, turtles biting and pushing each other, and turtles whirling together in the water column.

Maybe most importantly, however, the ROV has provided proof that loggerhead turtles not only go all the way down to the seafloor, but that they actually forage there.

“Honestly, I didn’t think the turtles were on the seafloor,” said Smolowitz. “We have video of a turtle at 67 meters (220’). If you read the literature, it says we have seafloor temperatures in the Mid-Atlantic in June of 7°Celsius (45°Fahrenheit). In July it’s 8° and in August it’s 9°.

“The literature says that turtles become lethargic at 15°, they stop feeding at 10°, and they die at 6°,” said Smolowitz. “Not true.”

Between the ROV images and satellite tag returns, researchers have been able to develop vertical profiles of where the turtles spend their days.

“We now know how much time these turtles spend on the surface and in the midwater and on the seafloor,” Smolowitz said.

The ROV also has been invaluable for documenting turtle feeding behavior – both in the water column, where turtles clearly like to eat jellyfish, and on the bottom, where they seem to feast, despite the cold water, on crabs, scallops, and other species.

Matt Weeks said the ROV footage also has shown that loggerhead turtles become negatively buoyant down around 30 meters, which is just short of 100’ below the surface. They actively swim down to that point and then “glide like an airplane” to the seafloor and “walk along the bottom,” he said.

In what will come as no surprise to fishermen, the ROV has filmed turtles trailing scallop vessels, dining on viscera discarded during shucking operations.

CFF now owns its own ROV and will be bringing it along on the 2011 tagging trips.

Cold pool feedingAdding further depth to their work,

CFF, the science center, and industry teamed up with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 2010 to collect oceanographic data. The research partners wanted to create maps showing water temperature, salinity, density, velocity, and chlorophyll concentrations to see how they matched up with spotter plane turtle sightings and satellite tag transmissions.

According to Smolowitz, the team found that turtles in the Mid-Atlantic stayed primarily within a “cold pool” of water bordered by a chlorophyll gradient inshore and a salinity gradient offshore.

“We know the turtles are quite capable of going through those gradients, so we think prey species are being confined by the oceanography and the loggerheads stay with their prey,” he said.

Prior to this work, the only correlation between turtles and oceanography was surface temperature. But there were problems with the correlation. For one, any given temperature range often covered an area far greater than where the turtles were seen.

“Common sense says that foraging turtles should be where their prey species hang out, but we really had no solid idea of what these juvenile loggerheads were eating,” Smolowitz said.

The ROV work changed all that. Researchers now know that turtles eat jellyfish – it’s on film – and jellyfish often

can be found in specific types of water. The turtles, in all likelihood, are sticking close to jellyfish concentrations or other food sources.

So, it’s now become vividly clear that all of this collective ROV/tagging/oceanographic research has greatly broadened everyone’s understanding of loggerhead turtles – where they are, why they’re there, what they eat, and how they behave.

“We are starting to put the pieces together,” said Smolowitz.

Having a better grip on turtle locations and behavior is essential for the scallop industry, which has been working for years now to modify gear and avoid turtle interactions as required by the Endangered Species Act.

Back in Barnegat Light, Jim Gutowski said industry was well aware of the need to reduce turtle interactions and was intrigued by the findings gained through cooperative research.

“It’s amazing the information they’re gathering, especially about where the turtles are in the water column,” he said.

According to Gutowski, scallopers, like everyone else, want to know what’s really going on with turtles, as well as other issues that impact their fishery.

That’s why industry remains so involved in – and deeply committed to – cooperative research, he said.

“We want the truth,” Gutowski said. “We can make decisions and develop solutions to problems, but first we need accurate science. When you’re involved, you can contribute. That’s where industry is coming from.”

Janice M. Plante

NEFSC photo

Henry Milliken, left, and Matt Weeks capture a juvenile loggerhead turtle in 2010 for satellite tagging.

Track a turtle: It’s a fascinating far-flung journeyThey are known as Turtle 1 and

Turtle 2. Both juvenile loggerheads were captured on Aug. 24, 2009 in the southwestern portion of the Hudson Canyon Access Area in the Mid-Atlantic Bight. Both were outfitted with satellite-linked tracking tags and released. (See chart at right.)

On Oct. 9, 2009, Turtle 1 left the Mid-Atlantic’s most productive scallop fishing grounds at 3:40 pm via the southwest corner of the Delmarva Access Area. Turtle 2, following a similar trajectory, left at 8:32 pm the very same day.

Both headed south and did a U-turn in February 2010. Turtle 2, however, went on an offshore journey into international waters that far outdistanced Turtle 1’s offshore waters trek.

Then, remarkably, Turtle 1 and Turtle 2 returned “home” on May 13, 2010, crossing the middle of the eastern boundary of the Delmarva area at 1:56 pm and 12:20 am respectively. In July, almost a full year after they were tagged and released, the loggerheads were back within miles of their original capture spot.

Turtle 1’s satellite tag stopped transmitting Sept. 27, 2010 at 3:07 pm. Turtle 2’s tag shut down July 26, 2010 at 7:12 pm.

Coonamessett Farm Foundation (CFF), the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and Viking Village Fisheries were partners in the 2009 tagging work. The scallop industry as a whole advanced this work through research set-aside program contributions.

The partners tagged 14 turtles in 2010.

To view track-line plots from the 2010 juvenile loggerheads, visit the SeaTurtle.org website at <www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index.shtml?project_id=537>.

More turtle tagging and tracking information can be found on the CFF site at <www.coonamessettfarmfoundation.

org/> or the science center’s site at <www.nefsc.noaa.gov/psb/turtles/index.html>.

To view turtle YouTube videos taken during tagging and ROV cooperative research cruises, go straight to <www.youtube.com/user/CoonamessettFarm>. /cfn/

Coonamessett Farm Foundation graphic

The source.Read. Respected. Real.The source.

Read. Respected. Real.

WOODS HOLE, MA – In what many hope will be a significant turning point in the ongoing debate over turtle protection, scientists now have a preliminary abundance estimate for loggerheads based on at-sea data.

Last summer, the Northeast and Southeast Fisheries Science Centers conducted line-transect aerial surveys of turtles as part of a larger, multi-agency project coordinated by the Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species.

The new aerial survey data, coupled with information collected from satellite-tagged turtles, gave scientists what they needed to develop a summer 2010 preliminary abundance estimate for larger juvenile and adult loggerheads from Cape Canaveral, FL to the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada.

The preliminary abundance estimate, which scientists said accounted for “perception and availability bias” and was based solely on “positively identified loggerhead sightings,” was 588,000 individuals.

The estimate rose to 801,000 individuals when based on “positively identified loggerheads and a portion of the unidentified turtle sightings.”

The results were published in an April 2011 paper produced by the two science centers called “Preliminary Summer 2010 Regional Abundance Estimate of Loggerhead Turtles (Caretta caretta) in Northwestern Atlantic Ocean Continental Shelf Waters.”

According to Henry Milliken of the Northeast science center, the new preliminary estimates were especially significant because, for the first time ever, researchers were able to factor in loggerhead turtles that were not at the surface during over-flights. That was possible because satellite tagging data documented the amount of time that tagged turtles were at the surface, and the information was used to help fine-tune the aerial-survey-based abundance estimates.

Furthermore, previous loggerhead estimates were largely based on turtle nesting beach surveys, which, naturally, only record mature, nesting

females. Therefore, the 2010 sea survey represents a notable advancement in the way researchers gauge turtle abundance, Milliken explained.

“Scientists and managers are still discussing what these numbers mean in regards to the health of the loggerhead population, but now we have a scientifically defendable regional population estimate,” he said.

ESA proposalGear researcher Ron Smolowitz of

Coonamessett Farm Foundation said the preliminary 2010 estimate would become critically important in the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) final decision on whether or not to change the status of loggerhead turtles from “threatened” to “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

NMFS received two petitions from environmental groups in 2007 calling for such an “up-listing” and determined that the requests “may be warranted.” The agency then conducted a formal status

Scientists develop 2010 at-sealoggerhead abundance estimate

NEFSC photo

Matt Weeks, left, and Ron Smolowitz, right, of Coonamessett Farm Foundation with Mike Francis, center, captain of the Barnegat Light, NJ-based scalloper Kathy Ann.

review of loggerheads in 2009.On March 16, 2010, NMFS published

a proposed rule calling for the creation of nine “distinct population segments” for loggerheads and, among other things, proposed up-listing the Northwest Atlantic loggerhead population from threatened to endangered (see CFN April 2010 for details).

In March 2011, the agency extended the comment period for the proposed rule to April 11 and announced it would make a final determination “no later than Sept. 16, 2011.” The US Fish and Wildlife Service is involved in the decision-making process.

An up-listing could have serous ramifications for commercial fishermen, but Smolowitz said industry hoped the new 2010 abundance estimate, along with other recent information gained from ROV, oceanographic, and satellite tagging work, would convince NMFS to change its mind and not go forward with the ESA status-change.

Janice M. Plante