A key element of the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act now making its way through Congress would allow motorized vehicles and equipment into wilderness areas, undermine 1964’s Wilderness Act which expressly bans motor vehicles on these last wild vestiges of untrammeled American land. (Comstock)

A new bill making its way through Congress, the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act (H.R. 2834), aims to make federally managed public lands across millions of acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management property more accessible to hunters and anglers. And a key element of the bill calls for allowing motorized vehicles and equipment—as long as they are used for hunting or fishing—into these areas. Leading green groups are outraged because this would undermine 1964’s Wilderness Act which expressly bans motor vehicles on these last wild vestiges of untrammeled American land.

According to the non-profit Wilderness Society, the motorized vehicles provision “would result in the destruction of the very wilderness values that millions of American hunters and anglers cherish.”

“The practical effect could be to open all designated wilderness areas to all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, motorbikes, motorboats, chainsaws and other motorized vehicles and equipment…” warns Wilderness Society president William Meadows in a letter to Congress. He adds that buildings, towers and temporary roads could even be built in currently pristine stretches of wilderness if the proposed bill becomes law.

But what’s most troubling to Meadows and others is language in the bill saying that “any requirements imposed by [the Wilderness Act] shall be implemented only insofar as they facilitate or enhance the original primary purpose or purposes for which the federal public lands or land unit was established and do not materially interfere with or hinder such purpose or purposes.” Meadows fears this could be construed to allow road building, timber cutting, mining, oil and gas drilling and other development in our remaining wilderness areas.

Another beef environmentalists have with the bill is that it would exempt decisions made or actions taken with regard to hunting and fishing on federal lands from federal environmental review and public disclosure regulations established under 1969’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The Wilderness Society reports that this part of H.R. 2834 would keep the public and concerned parties out of decisions to compromise the integrity of wilderness but also other types of protected lands.

First introduced in the house last September by Michigan Republican Dan Benishek (with 45 bi-partisan co-sponsors), H.R. 2834 made it through the House Natural Resources Committee within three months and is poised for a full House vote later this spring. If it passes there, the Senate will take up a companion version, S. 2066, sponsored by Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski and West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin. Depending on how it plays out, the bill could be on the President’s desk by the summer.

“Recreational fishing and hunting are important and vital recreational activities on our federal public lands,” concludes the Wilderness Society, “but the anti-Wilderness provisions of H.R. 2834 should not be allowed to become law.”

CONTACTS: H.R. 2834, www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr2834; Wilderness Society, www.wilderness.org.

Once mercury gets into the marine food chain, mostly from human industrial sources such as coal-fired electricity generation, smelting and the incineration of waste, it “bioaccumulates” in the larger ocean predators. That’s why larger fish -- like the bluefin tuna pictured here -- are generally riskier to eat than smaller ones. (Thinkstock)

Mercury in the fish we like to eat is a big problem in the United States and increasingly around the world. Mercury itself is a naturally occurring element that is present throughout the environment and in plants and animals. But human industrial activity (such as coal-fired electricity generation, smelting and the incineration of waste) ratchets up the amount of airborne mercury which eventually finds its way into lakes, rivers and the ocean, where it is gobbled up by unsuspecting fish and other marine life.

Once this mercury gets into the marine food chain, it “bioaccumulates” in the larger predators. That’s why larger fish are generally riskier to eat than smaller ones. Those of us who eat too much mercury-laden fish can suffer from a range of health maladies including reproductive troubles and nervous system disorders. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that human fetuses exposed to mercury before birth “may be at an increased risk of poor performance on neurobehavioral tasks, such as those measuring attention, fine motor function, language skills, visual-spatial abilities and verbal memory.” Up to 10 percent of American women of childbearing age carry enough mercury in their bloodstreams to put their developing children at increased risk for developmental problems.

In partnership with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the EPA issues determinations periodically in regard to how much mercury is safe for consumers to ingest from eating fish. State and tribal environmental authorities and/or health departments issue fish consumption advisories for water bodies in their respective jurisdictions based on federal guidelines. The EPA consolidates these local and regional advisories on its website, where concerned consumers and fisher folk can click on a map of the states to find out which advisories may be in effect in their area.

As for which fish to avoid, the non-profit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which runs the handy Seafood Selector website, reports that people with mercury concerns should steer clear of bluefin tuna, walleye, king mackerel and marlin. Bluefish, shark, swordfish, wild sturgeon, opah and bigeye tuna carry a proportionately large mercury burden as well. Also of concern, but to a slightly lesser extent, are orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, blue crab, lingcod, Spanish mackerel, spotted seatrout, wahoo, grouper, snapper, halibut, tile fish, rock fish and sable fish, as well as blackfin, albacore and yellowfin tuna.

Beyond what individuals can do to avoid mercury, the U.S. government and states have begun working together to reduce mercury emissions from power plants. Earlier this year the EPA proposed new “Mercury and Air Toxics Standards” regulating mercury emissions from utilities across the country, with the goal of reducing the amount of mercury emitted by coal burning by 91 percent by 2016. Elsewhere, representatives from 140 countries signed on to reduce global mercury pollution at a 2009 United Nations Environment Program’s Governing Council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. The agreement commits signatory countries—including the U.S.—to cutting back on the use and emission of mercury. A legally binding treaty mandating just how much each country will have to cut back mercury emissions takes hold in 2013.

CONTACTS: EPA Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, www.epa.gov/airquality/powerplanttoxics/; EDF Seafood Selector, apps.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1521.

The practice of shark finning to make shark fin soup, a delicacy mostly in Asian cultures, has taken a serious toll on shark populations worldwide. Besides being inhumane to sharks, consumption of shark fin poses a serious threat to human health since they contain an extremely high concentration of mercury and other toxins now omnipresent in our oceans. (Media credit/Nicholas Wang via Flickr)

Shark finning is the practice of catching sharks, hacking off their fins, and returning them to the ocean (maimed and unable to swim or circulate oxygen through their systems) where they starve to death, suffocate or get eaten by other predators. Fishermen sell the fins, typically on the black market, for use in shark fin soup, a delicacy throughout Asia and increasingly in other areas of the world with large Asian populations. Analysts value the worldwide market for shark fins at upwards of $1.2 billion annually.

“As a result of China’s expanding economy and rising affluence, an increasing number of people can now afford the soup, priced at up to $100 per bowl, and demand has risen dramatically,” reports the non-profit WildAid. “Though shark fin soup represents status in Asian culture, the fin itself adds no flavor, nutritional or medicinal value.” The group adds that the consumption of shark fin poses a serious threat to human health since they contain an extremely high concentration of mercury and other toxins now omnipresent in our oceans.

Besides being inhumane, shark finning is taking a heavy toll on shark populations. According to the non-profit Animal Welfare Institute, upwards of 73 million sharks are killed each year for their fins alone. Another 50 million die annually as “bycatch” when they become entwined in fishing nets targeting other seafood (some fishermen do make use of this bycatch by selling off what fins, cartilage, liver oil and meat they can). As a result of these multiple threats, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that a third of all shark species are nearing extinction, with some species declining by more than 80 percent in recent decades.

In October 2011, California became the fourth U.S. state (after Hawaii, Oregon and Washington) to ban shark finning and the importation of shark fins. Also in October, Toronto, Ontario, Canada’s largest shark fin market, became the fourth Canadian city to ban shark fins, joining Brantford, Oakville and Mississauga, all also in Ontario, that had bans in place already. Campaigns are underway in both the U.S. and Canada to ban shark fins and shark finning outright coast-to-coast. Mexico has had such a nationwide ban in place since 2007, although enforcement there has been weak. The European Union banned shark finning in 2003 and recently beefed up significantly its own enforcement.

Concerned consumers can be part of the solution by not eating shark fin soup, and by encouraging restaurants not to offer it. The Animal Welfare Institute regularly updates a list of restaurants in major metropolitan areas of the U.S. that still serve shark fin soup, and encourages consumers to contact them if they encounter a restaurant serving shark fin soup that is not yet on their list—and to stop dining there. Whether or not such personal actions, added to the various bans in place, will make a dent in the international shark fin trade remains to be seen, especially given the delicacy’s increasing popularity and affordability.

CONTACTS: Animal Welfare Institute, www.awionline.org; WildAid, www.wildaid.org; IUCN, www.iucn.org.

Scientists speculate that some 10 million different species may inhabit the deep sea. Pictured: a ghostly grenadier on the Davidson Seamount, an undersea mountain 75 miles off the coast of Central California. The seamount is 7,480 feet tall, yet its summit is still 4,101 feet below the sea surface. (NOAA)

It may already be too late for some of the deep sea’s undiscovered life forms.

Advances in so-called “bottom trawling” technology in recent years has meant that fishing boats now have unprecedented access to deep ocean habitats and the sea floor itself where untold numbers of unknown species have been making a living for eons. Scientists speculate that upwards of 10 million different species may inhabit the deep sea. This is biodiversity comparable to the world’s richest tropical rainforests.

The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), a group of more than 50 environmental and other groups dedicated to protecting cold-water corals and vulnerable deep-sea ecosystems, reports that trawlers today are capable of fishing deep sea canyons and rough seafloors that were once avoided for fear of damaging nets. “To capture one or two target commercial species, deep-sea bottom trawl fishing vessels drag huge nets armed with steel plates and heavy rollers across the seabed, plowing up and pulverizing everything in their path,” the coalition reports. In addition, adds DSCC, large quantities of coral and unwanted fish species are hauled up only to be thrown back dead or dying. Indeed, the result of a few hours of trawling can be the destruction of fragile deep-sea habitats, such as delicate coral and sponge communities, that may have taken centuries to grow and thrive.

Bottom trawling also stirs up the sediment at the bottom of the sea. The resulting undersea plumes of “suspended solids” can drift with the current for tens of miles from the source of the trawling, introducing turbidity throughout the water that inhibits the transfer of light down to the depths where it is needed for photosynthesis in plankton, sea kelp and other undersea plants that serve as the basis for the marine food chain. Also, ocean sediments serve as natural safe resting places for many persistent organic pollutants (such as DDT and PCBs). Dredging these sediments up effectively reintroduces such toxins into the water where they are unwittingly absorbed and consumed by the fish we eat and other marine life already trying to cope with otherwise compromised undersea habitats. The sediment plumes also reintroduce nutrient solids from agricultural and other practices, increasing demand for oxygen in the water (causing algae blooms) and contributing to the outbreak of ocean “dead zones” devoid of marine life.

What can be done? For its part, the United States has banned bottom trawling in its offshore jurisdictions, but the practice continues mostly unabated throughout Europe and out on the world’s high seas. DSCC has gotten upwards of 1,400 marine scientists from 69 different countries to sign onto a statement expressing profound concern “that human activities, particularly bottom trawling, are causing unprecedented damage to the deep-sea coral and sponge communities on continental plateaus and slopes, and on seamounts and mid-ocean ridges.” The statement calls on governments and the United Nations to adopt a short-term global moratorium on deep sea bottom trawling to try to provide immediate protection to the mostly undiscovered biodiversity of deep sea ecosystems while governments hash out longer term conservation and management regimes. In the meantime, bottom trawling continues unabated in sensitive areas of the North Atlantic and elsewhere, harvesting now for us what our grandchildren may never know.

Dear EarthTalk: What is being done to enable ocean fish populations to rebound after being so over-fished? Are nations coming together on this in any way? – Deborah Kay, Milford, CT

Although 75 percent of the world’s fisheries are now either overexploited, fully exploited, significantly depleted or recovering from overexploitation, many governments continue to provide huge subsidies -- about $20 billion annually --­ to their fishing sectors. Pictured: A fisherman hauls in a catch in the North Sea. (Thinkstock)

There is no overarching international agreement to limit overfishing globally, but a few governments have been able to implement and enforce restrictions at regional levels that have resulted in rebounding fish stocks. The success of these isolated examples gives environmentalists and marine biologists hope that protecting marine hotspots from overfishing can save the biodiversity of the world’s oceans.

The results of an extensive four-year study released in 2006 by leading fisheries expert Boris Worm of Canada’s Dalhousie University and colleagues showed that overfishing would put every single commercial fishery in the world out of business by 2048, with the oceans potentially never recovering. But University of Washington fisheries scientist Ray Hilborn challenged Worm’s frightening conclusion, offering evidence that several fisheries in parts of the U.S., Iceland and New Zealand were recovering. So the two men decided to team up on a new, even more comprehensive survey of fisheries around the world.

The results the second time around, published in 2010 in the peer-reviewed journal, Science, provided ocean advocates with somewhat more encouraging results. In half of the 10 fisheries studied by Worm, Hilborn and their researchers, closing some fisheries, creating protected areas, setting catch limits and modernizing equipment did result in lower exploitation rates and some fish are indeed on the rebound.

“This is a watershed,” Worm told reporters. The new study “shows clearly what can be done not only to avoid further fisheries collapse but to actually rebuild fish stocks” and provides a baseline which scientists and managers can use to gauge progress. “It’s only a start, but it gives me hope that we have the ability to bring overfishing under control,” he added.

Of course, a little bit of good news hardly means we’ve solved the overfishing problem. Environmentalists were particularly disappointed last year when the European Union (EU) announced it would set quotas for deep-sea fisheries even higher than expected. According to Uta Bellion, director of the European Marine Programme for the non-profit Pew Environment Group, the EU’s decision “will give fleets from France, Spain and Portugal the opportunity to continue plundering these stocks.” She adds that the new quotas go against a 2009 United Nations General Assembly resolution that commits the EU to implement a set of measures to ensure the long-term sustainability of deep-sea fish and the rebuilding of depleted stocks.

Meanwhile, some groups are trying to end the government subsidies that effectively bankroll overfishing, legal or otherwise. The nonprofit Oceana, for instance, led an ill-fated 2010 effort to persuade the World Trade Organization to ban subsidies that encourage the depletion of fish and other marine resources. “Although 75 percent of the world’s fisheries are now either overexploited, fully exploited, significantly depleted or recovering from overexploitation, many governments continue to provide huge subsidies—about $20 billion annually—to their fishing sectors,” says Andy Sharpless, Oceana’s CEO. “The fleets are fishing at a level that’s as much as 2.5 times more than what’s required for sustainable catch levels.”

CONTACTS: Pew Environment Group, www.pewtrusts.org; Oceana, www.oceana.org; Boris Worm’s Lab, wormlab.biology.dal.ca; Ray Hilborn, www.fish.washington.edu/people/rayh.

Dear EarthTalk: What’s being done to “green up” professional sports? I know that the last two Olympic Games both made some effort, but are there others? — Rob Avandic, Chicago, IL

The last two Olympics were indeed greener than any before, but environmental awareness isn’t limited to the realm of international amateur competition. In fact, in just the last few years all of the major professional North American sports leagues have made strides in greening their operations.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has helped blaze the trail through its “Greening the Games” initiative. Since 2003, when the National Football League’s (NFL) Philadelphia Eagles turned to NRDC for help saving energy and reducing waste, NRDC has helped dozens of pro teams evaluate their environmental impacts and make changes. Today the Eagles obtain all of their energy at Lincoln Field from wind power, pour fans’ beverages in biodegradable corn-based plastic cups, power their scoreboard with solar panels and have reduced electricity use overall by a third. The NFL itself has also jumped on the bandwagon, implementing various green initiatives at the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl and other big events.
In 2008, NRDC teamed up with Major League Baseball (MLB) to first green the All Star Game and, the following year, the World Series. Subsequently, NRDC assessed each team’s environmental footprint and made recommendations for improving it. Several teams have gone on to build or refurbish their stadiums with sustainability in mind. Boston’s Fenway Park, Atlanta’s Turner Field, Washington, DC’s Nationals Park, and San Francisco’s AT&T Park all get high marks for pro-environment features and operations.

In 2008, NRDC began working with the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) to green its signature event, the U.S. Open. For one, this led to a move to 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper for tournament programs. And an environmental review of all operations at the National Tennis Center in Queens, New York led to a number of green improvements, including the switch to 90 percent post-consumer recycled paper for some 2.4 million napkins and a move to wind turbines for the tournament’s electricity.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) jumped on the NRDC sports bandwagon in 2009, working with the group to organize its first annual Green Week in early April whereby the entire league works in concert to generate environmental awareness and funding for related causes. As part of the festivities, which took place in 2010 as well and will happen again in April 2011, each NBA team hosted community service events including tree plantings, recycling drives and park clean-up days.

NRDC got the National Hockey League (NHL) in on the act as well, helping to green the Stanley Cup Finals and working with individual teams as it did with baseball and football. In announcing the launch of the NHL Green program, league commissioner Gary Bettman commented that it’s only fitting for professional ice hockey to care about staving off global warming: “Most of our players learned to skate on outdoor rinks. For that magnificent tradition to continue through future generations we need winter weather—and as a league we are uniquely positioned to promote that message.”

CONTACTS: NRDC, www.nrdc.org/greenbusiness/guides/sports/; MLB Team Greening Program, mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/community/team_greening.jsp; NBA Green, www.nba.com/green; NHL Green, www.nhl.com/ice/eventhome.htm?location=/nhlgreen; USTA, www.usta.com.

Dear EarthTalk:  Are Atlantic bluefin tuna really about to go extinct? What are the contributing factors and what is being done to try to head off this tragedy? – Edward Jeffries, Norwalk, CT

Atlantic bluefin tuna, popular as sushi, are in danger of going extinct within a decade if the governments of the world cannot come together to ban catching and/or selling the lucrative species. (Yusuke Kawasaki via Flickr)

According to many marine biologists, Atlantic bluefin tuna, one of three closely related bluefin tuna species, are in danger of going extinct within a decade if the governments of the world can’t come together to ban catching and/or selling the lucrative species. The non-profit International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which maintains an international “Red List” of threatened species, considers the Atlantic bluefin “Critically Endangered” given that its population numbers have declined by upwards of 80 percent since the 1970s. Even recently instituted stricter restrictions on allowable catch levels may be too little too late for the huge migratory fish.

The trouble began in the 1960s when fishing boats using purse seines and long lines to pull in fish for the canned tuna market harvested huge numbers of juvenile Atlantic bluefin. This highly efficient method of fishing decimated generations of Atlantic bluefin, constraining their reproductive capacity accordingly.

Today catch limits for Atlantic bluefin—even more in demand worldwide for sushi—are implemented and enforced by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), a multinational group of fisheries regulators charged with maintaining sustainable levels of tuna throughout the Atlantic and neighboring waters. In 2007, ICCAT set the international annual catch limit for Atlantic bluefin at 30,000 tons; double what the commission’s own scientists recommended. More recently, ICCAT’s scientists recommended lowering the limit to 7,500 tons; ICCAT compromised with fishing interests and settled on a 13,500 ton limit. But despite these rules, analysts estimate that the fishing industry is actually still harvesting around 60,000 tons of Atlantic bluefin annually. ICCAT says that if stocks have not rebounded by 2022 it would consider closing down some tuna fishing areas.

With ICCAT’s limits having little effect on the animal’s decline, environmentalists took their case to the United Nations’ Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in hopes of getting an international ban on the harvesting and sale of Atlantic bluefin. But in March 2010, 68 nations voted down the proposal; 20 countries, including the U.S., voted for it, while 30 others abstained. The leading opponent of the ban, Japan—which consumes three-quarters of all bluefin tuna caught around the world—argued that ICCAT was the proper regulatory body to sustain Atlantic bluefin population numbers.

As for what concerned individuals can do, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program recommends avoiding bluefin tuna—sometimes called hon maguro or toro (tuna belly) at the supermarket and at restaurants—altogether. And that would not only be a good environmental move but good for your health, too: The non-profit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a leading environmental group, recently issued a health advisory recommending that people avoid eating Atlantic bluefin due to elevated levels of neurotoxins including mercury and PCBs that can be found in the fish’s tissue. It seems the only way we can continue to live with bluefin tuna and so many other at-risk marine wildlife species is to live without them on our dinner plates.

CONTACTS: IUCN, www.iucn.org; ICCAT, www.iccat.int; CITES, www.cites.org; Seafood Watch, www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx; EDF, www.edf.org.

Dear EarthTalk: Why did 34 million wild sockeye salmon return to the Fraser River in British Columbia this year? The run had been declining for 20 years before now. – David B., Seattle, WA

The miraculous sockeye salmon run in western Canada’s Fraser River watershed in the summer and fall of 2010—indeed the biggest run in 97 years—still has fishers, researchers and fishery managers baffled. Just a year earlier only one million fish returned to spawn. No one seems to be able to say for sure what caused the massive 2010 run, but most agree that it probably had to do with the very favorable water conditions that were present in 2008 when the sockeyes were juveniles. “They’re very vulnerable at that stage of their life,” reports John Reynolds, a salmon conservation expert at Canada’s Simon Fraser University.

Roberta Hamme, a researcher with Canada’s University of Victoria, suggests in a recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters that the ash fall from the eruption of Alaska’s Kasatochi volcano in 2008 may be one reason for the huge 2010 run. Iron in the ash, which was spewed far and wide by the erupting volcano and then dispersed further by turbulent weather, served as a fertilizer throughout the North Pacific. The result was huge algae blooms that dramatically improved the fish’s food supply. A similar large Fraser River salmon run in 1958 was likewise preceded by a huge volcanic eruption in Alaska.

What was particularly striking about 2010’s mammoth run was the contrast against 2009, when the Fraser River sockeye run was a disaster by all accounts. It capped 20 years of decline and was so much worse than anyone had expected that the Canadian government formed a commission to investigate possible causes, reported Daniel Jack Chasan on the Pacific Northwest news website, Crosscut.

The situation was terrible in 2008, as well, so much so that on the U.S. side of the border, then-Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez declared the Fraser salmon fishery a disaster and allocated $2 million to U.S. tribes and commercial fishermen to make up for their loss of income. But strangely enough, just as the Canadian commission began investigating the paltry 2009 run, said Chasan, commercial fishermen “started hauling in more Fraser River sockeye than any of them had ever seen.”

Generally speaking, scientists and environmentalists are well aware of why wild West Coast salmon runs have been declining over the past century: namely pollution at almost every inch along the thousand mile river-to-sea-and-back underwater journey, overfishing in both rivers and the ocean, and man-made obstructions to fish passage. But environmentalists are now optimistic that the huge 2010 sockeye run is a sign of better times ahead. Perhaps improved logging practices, a resurgence in organic farming, new protections for upstream habitat or restrained commercial fishing catch limits—or some combination thereof—has begun to make a difference in salmon survival.

In any event, the salmon runs typically peak every fourth year—2010 was supposed to be a peak year but substantially exceeded expectations. Only time will tell if the masses of sockeyes in the Fraser in 2010 were a fluke or foreshadow better days ahead for the environment—and for the fish and people in it.

CONTACTS: John Reynolds, www.sfu.ca/biology/faculty/reynolds/The_Reynolds_Lab; Geophysical Research Letters, www.agu.org/journals/gl; Crosscut, www.crosscut.com.

The Coast Guard suspended around noontime Sunday its search for the crewman who fell overboard from the fishing vessel Lindsey II on Saturday.

The Coast Guard Cutter Vigorous searched throughout the night, and a HU-25 Falcon jet searched Sunday morning at first light. But neither were able to locate the victim.

The Coast Guard searched 800 square miles of water during the 24-hour search.

“It is always difficult to suspend a search,” said Lieutenant Junior Grade Marie Haywood, command duty officer at Coast Guard Sector Boston. “Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of the crewman who fell overboard.”

When the crew of the 270-foot Coast Guard Cutter Legare boarded a fishing vessel 150 miles east of Cape Cod for a safety inspection, we’re sure they expected some facet of working safety equipment on board.

That wasn’t the case.

The Coast Guard prematurely ended the fishing voyage of the vessel Hot Tuna after the crew discovered the boat did not have a life ring, its flares had expired before 2007, the hydrostatic release on the emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) expired in 2005, and the battery of the EPIRB failed when tested.

The boat’s life raft also expired last year.

“All of this equipment is essential for the safety of the crew,” said Petty Officer 1st Class James Bayer, the search and rescue controller at the First Coast Guard District Command Center in Boston. “This gear can save your life if you find yourself in distress and to not have it on board your vessel can put you and your crew in a dangerous and potentially deadly situation.”

The two-person crew of the Hot Tuna, based in Harwich, was directed to return to port and was restricted from getting underway until the discrepancies are corrected and verified by Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England personnel.

The boat will stop in Nantucket where it will fall under escort by the Cutter Vigorous, a 210-foot medium endurance cutter, en route to Great Round Shoal. The vessels will arrive Thursday morning.

“With temperatures dropping it’s more important than ever that mariners ensure they have the proper, required gear on board their vessel and make sure it’s in good, working order,” said Bayer. “We are boarding vessels to ensure they meet the requirements in hopes that this gear would save their life if they were in the position to need it.”

Andy Cohen, the former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agent in charge of the embattled Northeast fishery enforcement office, announced he will retire, the Associated Press reported.

Cohen has more than 30 years of service with NOAA and told the AP that his retirement was in the works for some time now.

Cohen was not a popular figure among New England fishermen, who feel NOAA’s fines and punishments as they enforce fishing regulations are way too stiff and prohibitive of conducting business.

Cohen stepped away from his position as agent-in-charge in August and has been out of the spotlight since.

In the AP report, Cohen said he was proud of his work and defended his record, saying he helped protect honest fishermen.

Here in New England, we’re a fishing people, and nothing epitomizes that more than the sight of lobsters coming up in the traps set by so many big and small fishing outfits.

One of those outfits is the father/son combo of Wayne and Mike Marshall out of the village Brant Rock, which opens up into Cape Cod Bay from Marshfield.

Wayne and Mike were pulling traps on Thursday when they caught glimpse of something very special — a rare blue lobster.

“I have heard of blue lobsters but never caught one. It was quite a surprise to see it,” Wayne said.

As you can see above, the lobster only has one claw, which is not too uncommon. But it’s color is. One one in every two million lobsters is blue. The coloring is caused by a genetic mutation that makes the lobster produce an excessive amount of a certain protein.

There are other rare colored lobsters out there. On August 1, 2006, a Maine lobsterman caught a yellow lobster near the mouth of the Kennebec River. The odds of finding a yellow one are about 1 in 30 million. Also in 2006, another Maine fisherman caught a half and half lobster — with two colors perfectly covering the halves of the lobster’s shell. The odds of finding one of those are one in 50 million.

Wayne said he’s been fishing out of Brant Rock for more than 30 years, mostly catching lobsters. Him and his son operate the 30-foot wooden, Maine-built lobster boat “The Necessity.” They usually haul traps four times a week and sell the catch on the pier.

A couple years ago, the Marshalls caught a rare half yellow lobster.

Their blue lobster is currently being held at the Brand Rock Fish Market, but don’t worry, it’s not destined to become a meal. The Marshalls are looking for a home for it and will be contacting the New England Acquarium this week.

Wayne and Mike also run a t-shirt printing business called Brant Rock Ink, where they print up themed t-shirts for the local fishermen and some fire departments.