Public Input Sought on New State Plan to Improve Shellfish Resources

Public Input Sought on New State Plan to Improve Shellfish Resources

Plan topics include research, shellfish restoration, and industry supported activities

The public is invited to review a draft of Rhode Island’s first comprehensive set of management recommendations for shellfish resources, both wild harvest and aquaculture, located in state ocean waters, and provide comments. The review process is a key topic of the SMP Stakeholder Public Meeting scheduled for tonight, Monday, September 29, 5-7pm, Corless Auditorium, URI Graduate School of Oceanography, Narragansett, RI. Other topics include SMP progress and actions over the last year, chapter overviews, future steps, and summer highlights from industry leaders and state agencies. Find the preliminary version of the Rhode Island Shellfish Management Plan (SMP) and comment form at http://www.rismp.org/the-plan/.

Comments will be accepted through November 1. “We encourage anyone who cares about the future of all things shellfish in Rhode Island – from the shellfish resources themselves to the industries that depend on them to the recommendations for how we can work together to improve shellfishing – to come out for this meeting,” said Azure Cygler, project manager for the SMP, of the URI (Graduate School of Oceanography) Coastal Resources Center (CRC), who also represents the Rhode Island Sea Grant College Program.

The SMP process began in 2013 to provide comprehensive policy guidance regarding management and protection measures for shellfish, such as quahogs and oysters, located in state marine waters, with the full plan expected to be completed this fall. Throughout the process, stakeholders – including representatives of the wild harvest, aquaculture and restoration communities — have been closely involved in identifying policies and practices to restore shellfish resources and enhance the economic vitality of the shellfishing industry. The plan will be updated as new research and information becomes available. A special celebration to honor the creation of the plan is being developed. For more information on the SMP, contact Cygler at (401) 874-6197 or azure@crc.uri.edu.

The SMP contains recommendations which have been crafted by technical teams and facilitated by CRC and the Rhode Island Sea Grant College Program for use by two key state agencies: the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RI DEM). Key partners are URI College of Environmental Sciences (URI-CELS), Roger Williams University and the URI Coastal Institute. Funders are the Prospect Hill Foundation, the Rhode Island Foundation, the van Beuren Charitable Foundation, and the Sharpe Family Foundation/Henry and Peggy Sharpe. Input throughout has been provided generously by leaders in the industry, including the Rhode Island Shellfishermen’s Association and the Ocean State Aquaculture Association.

Harvesters Help Find Quahogs

From Rhode Island Sea Grant

Dale Leavitt, a researcher and faculty member at Roger Williams University, has calibrated bullrakes used by commercial clam harvesters to compare assessments made by hydraulic dredges used by RI Department of Environmental Management to assess population.

This is the first part of research to better understand where quahogs in the Bay come from and travel to manage potential spawning and settlement areas.

“We wanted to look at assessment tools to take advantage of the commercial fishing fleet and see if there was an alternative for stock assessment,” said Leavitt in a presentation at the Shellfish Management Plan stakeholder meeting in April. “But we needed to see if a bullrake could be used to give accurate measurements.”

The trick, Leavitt said, is knowing how much of the bottom was sampled by a bullrake to make accurate comparisons with a hydraulic dredge used by RI DEM. In order to do that, Leavitt has found a way to “calibrate” harvesters so their data seamlessly meshed with those of RI DEM.

This new methodology allows commercial quahoggers to collect scientifically valid population assessment data and present that for use in official state stock assessments.

Research will continue this summer and will also look at circulation patters to predict quahog dispersal.

This project is supported by RI Sea Grant, the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF) and the Southern New England Collaborative Research Initiative (SNECRI).

Following up: Use Conflicts in Narragansett Bay

This article is a follow-up to the May 15th SMP Stakeholder Meeting Presentation:
Room Enough for Everyone? Understanding Human Uses & Interactions in RI Coastal Waters
Tracey Dalton (Associate Professor, URI Marine Affairs)
Robert Thompson (Associate Professor & Chair, URI Marine Affairs)
Download the presentation (pdf).
View the presentation on Slideshare.

By Tracey Dalton

Thanks for giving us an opportunity to talk about human uses and interactions at the SMP stakeholder meeting in May.  We hope that our presentation provided some insights and generated more discussion on social carrying capacity.  Like social carrying capacity, many of the key issues raised so far in the SMP process relate to people and how they think and what they do in Rhode Island’s waters.  For those of us who devote a lot of time to studying people who work, live and spend time in coastal areas, this presents a great opportunity to help address important issues right here in RI.  We appreciate this chance to follow-up on your questions.  While we’re trying to keep things brief here, we are willing to talk more about any of these issues—feel free to contact Rob or me directly (see contact information below).

First, there were some follow-up questions on our Bayscape project that mapped human uses in the upper Narragansett Bay.  Rob and I didn’t spend too much time in our talk going over the details of that project, so we wanted to fill you in on it a bit more.  We received some funding from the RI Sea Grant to map human activities in the upper Narragansett Bay (from Conimicut point into the Seekonk River) during the summers of 2006 and 2007.  For that project, Rob, myself, and several undergraduate and graduate students traveled up and down the upper Bay on twenty-five randomly selected days each summer.  With the use of some high-tech equipment, we were able to record all activities going on on-the-water (such as quahogging, shipping, sailing, and many others) and along the shoreline (such as biking or recreational fishing).  We created maps of the activities and analyzed if any particular features (such as weather conditions, availability of parking near access points, days of the week) were influencing what people were doing.  Our study showed that this type of observational approach can provide useful insights about the levels and types of activities going on in an area, but its results are pretty specific to the upper Bay during the time of our study.  That is why we are interested in extending this earlier work to other areas in Rhode Island and applying it to specific management issues, like shellfish planning and management.  Right now, we are writing proposals to conduct some follow-up studies, and we’d be interested in hearing from you about ways to make them as useful as possible.  Feel free to send us an email or give us a call.

Second, there were some questions that related to social science more generally.  It seems that many SMP participants are more familiar with–and probably more comfortable with–the tools of natural science than those of social science.  That isn’t too surprising.  Just think, when you hear “scientist”, you probably conjure up an image of someone wearing  a white lab coat and swirling a test tube or someone trekking through a salt marsh collecting specimens.  Not many of us would think of someone sitting on a dock listening to the observations, stories, and reflections of fishermen.  But what many people don’t realize is that all three of these individuals could be doing science.  Like chemists, ecologists and other natural scientists, social scientists such as anthropologists, economists, and political scientists use systematic methods to collect data and rigorous analytical techniques to make sense of it.  Our data just happen to be on people—how they think, act, and manage their behaviors—rather than on the natural environment.  Luckily for us, there are many well-established social science techniques that we can use to collect and analyze these types of data.

Finally, the question was raised about how social science can be used to inform coastal planning and management.  This is not an easy question to answer.  In fact, there are social scientists and other researchers who specialize in this very topic–trying to understand how to effectively integrate sound science (from natural & social sciences) into resource management decisions.   Most of these researchers agree that science and management should not be thought of as two separate processes, where a study is first conducted by a scientist and then the results are used by decision makers to solve a problem.  Instead, scientists and other participants in the decision making process have to work together throughout the process to shape the science and how it might be used to solve problems.  The good news is that interactions between scientists and SMP participants have been happening throughout the SMP process.  Early discussions of SMP participants identified a number of important issues, including user conflict, social carrying capacity, compliance & enforcement, and agency coordination, that could be better understood through the use of social science tools.  Ideally, social scientists and other SMP participants will continue to interact as projects are developed, data gets collected & analyzed, and findings become part of the broader discussions on RI shellfish planning and management.

Thanks again for this chance to follow-up on our talk.  If you have questions, comments or general feedback, please contact us by email or phone:

Tracey Dalton, URI Department of Marine Affairs, dalton@uri.edu or 401-874-2434
Robert Thompson, URI Department of Marine Affairs, rob@uri.edu or 401-874-4485

Reminder: SMP Stakeholder Meeting Wednesday, May 15th

May Stakeholder Meeting and Seminar Series Lecture

Please join us on Wednesday, May 15th from 5 – 7pm, in Corless Auditorium, URI-GSO Narragansett Bay Campus for the third RI Shellfish Management Plan (SMP) Stakeholder Meeting.

The purpose of the meeting will be to provide an update of the SMP, including the plan’s progress, on-going projects, and proposed next steps. In addition, we will host the 3rd Seminar in our SMP Seminar Series entitled: “Room Enough For Everyone? Addressing User Conflicts in Narragansett Bay and the Coastal Ponds.” Our panelists will speak about the myriad of marine activities and audiences present in the Bay and ponds, many of them competing for the same spaces. How do we balance uses, needs, and future growth? Panelists will speak about the concept of “social carrying capacity” and possible strategies to minimize conflicts on the water. Your questions and discussion are highly encouraged. We hope you will join us and send this invitation to others you think would be interested in this topic.

For space considerations, please RSVP to smp@etal.uri.edu and be sure to include the meeting date.

Stakeholder Meeting and Seminar Series Lecture
When: Wednesday, May 15, 5 – 7 p.m.
Where: Corless Auditorium, Watkins Building URI Graduate School of Oceanography, Narragansett Bay Campus Directions to the Bay Campus. Watkins Building is number 27 on the map.

May 15th Stakeholder Meeting and Seminar Series Lecture: Time Changed

May Stakeholder Meeting and Seminar Series Lecture
May 15th, 5pm to 7pm
May 15th

Please join us on Wednesday, May 15th from 5 – 7pm, in Corless Auditorium, URI-GSO Narragansett Bay Campus for the third RI Shellfish Management Plan (SMP) Stakeholder Meeting.

The purpose of the meeting will be to provide an update of the SMP, including the plan’s progress, on-going projects, and proposed next steps. In addition, we will host the 3rd Seminar in our SMP Seminar Series entitled: “Room Enough For Everyone? Addressing User Conflicts in Narragansett Bay and the Coastal Ponds.” Our panelists will speak about the myriad of marine activities and audiences present in the Bay and ponds, many of them competing for the same spaces. How do we balance uses, needs, and future growth? Panelists will speak about the concept of “social carrying capacity” and possible strategies to minimize conflicts on the water. Your questions and discussion are highly encouraged. We hope you will join us and send this invitation to others you think would be interested in this topic.

For space considerations, please RSVP to smp@etal.uri.edu and be sure to include the meeting date.

Date: Wednesday, May 15
Time: 5 – 7 p.m.
Place: Corless Auditorium, Watkins Building
URI Graduate School of Oceanography, Narragansett Bay Campus
Directions to the Bay Campus. Watkins Building is number 27 on the map.

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