A Sustainable Catch

Black sea bass is a species of ray-finned fish related to groupers: North Atlantic Right Whales are mammals, not fish. Adult black sea bass weigh between one and three pounds, are protygonous hermaphrodites (meaning they change sex with size), and produce 30,000 to 500,000 eggs per spawn; mature Right Whales weigh up to 70 tons, eat zooplankton, krill, and other small crustaceans, and give birth to one calf about every three years.

How these two sea creatures - one hovering about the ocean's surface, the other congregating in large schools around reefs and shipwrecks - could have anything to do with one another reveals an unobvious connection, a relationship that involves a tale of commercial interests, complex regulations, and the threat of extinction.

Also known as blackfish, Rock Bass, and tallywag, Black Sea Bass has been a commercially important fish in the Southeast since as far back as 1886. Back then, Black Sea Bass was sold for ten cents alongside red snappers, yellowtail, flounder, amberjack, mullet, and oysters. The fish would fetch a higher price in the Northeast, where it was more popular or desirable as a rare dish. Today, it still makes an appearance on the menus of the occasional restaurant or in the cases of specialty seafood retailers, but its popularity and the public's familiarity with the fish have plummeted.

Traditionally, fisherman caught black sea bass using a hook and line or with nets. The bass were famously easy to catch in large numbers, with Colonel Jake Dart claiming to have caught "500 blackfish before noon several times." All one had to do was find a reef or a wreck and drop a line with multiple hooks and it would "come up with a fish on every hook."

Soon, commercial fishers realized that the best way to catch black sea bass was not with hook and line, which was limited and demanded more attention, or with nets, which was an indiscriminate approach that resulted in a large quantity of bycatch. Rather, they turned to the pot traps they were using to catch crab and lobster. Pot traps are a more efficient and discerning method of catching black sea bass because they can be tailored to a specific species or size of fish. They are designed so that fish can get in but have a hard time getting out, and they keep the catch alive, so any bycatch can be released. Fishermen weigh down the traps so they sink to the seafloor and it to a rope. At the other end of the rope they attach a buoy that acts as a marker to find and retrieve the trap at a later time. And this was the advantage of pot traps above all else: They could be left unattended.

Pot traps are still the most common method for catch black sea bass. Though they are modernized in design, the principles of pot trap fishing are unchanged. What has more so revolutionized fishing practices is the advent of modern technologies like GPS and depth finders, which allow fishers to catch more fish with less effort.

The mechanics of pot fishing pose an inherent hazard to other marine life. The fact that there could be a long time between when traps are placed and retrieved means that the rope that connects the buoy to the trap is left dangling in the water column. Whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and a number of other creatures may then become entangled in the rope.

When a sea creature becomes entangled, it drags not only the rope but the traps attached to it. The enduring strain harms the animal, and it may eventually lead to death. The rope may cause pain, infection, and starvation or drowning if it restricts ability to breath or feed.

While there has not been any documented evidence of a Right Whale ever being entangled by a Black Sea Bass pot trap rope, but the potential risk for entanglement was the reason for the fisheries closure. In order to reduce the threat of entanglement for right whales, regulations were enacted to establish temporary annual closures to the black sea bass fisheries in the South Atlantic. Commercial fishing closures for the black sea bass fisheries occur between November and April. The closure area is larger from December to March, but in places like coastal Georgia the difference is minimal. For fishers, this effectively means losing 15,000 square miles of prime habitat during the most abundant time of year for fishing.

The North Atlantic Right Whale is a critically endangered species, with less than 360 individuals remaining. With so few whales alive, the species is in a perilous state that could soon lead to extinction.

It is, however, not the first time in history that the North Atlantic Right Whale has come dangerously close to perishing forever. Right Whales have been hunted at least since the 9th century, eventually becoming the preferred catch for whalers due to the species' docility, high blubber content, tendency to stick close to the coast, and its slow skimming behavior near the surface of the water. Even its name comes from whaling's insider knowledge that it was the "right" whale to hunt. By the early 1900s, whaling had just about eradicated this vulnerable cetacean.

Thanks to an international agreement in 1935 banning the hunting of all right whales, the small population of right whales left was spared. Pods along the West Atlantic coast had virtually disappeared, but a number of right whales survived in the East Atlantic, where the species is exclusively found today along the coasts of the United States and Canada. Steadily the right whales recouped their numbers during the mid-century, but a secure future for the species is all but certain.

North Atlantic Right Whales have been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act since 1970. Top threats to the whales continue to be related to human activity, including death from vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglements. Entanglements are the second known leading cause of death and the most common cause of injury.

In 2017, an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) was declared for North Atlantic Right Whales that persists today. An Unusual Mortality Event is an unusual die-off of a significant percentage of the population that demands immediate response. The North Atlantic Right Whale UME also describes injuries and morbidity in addition to cases of death. The whales included in the UME are sick, injured, and deceased individuals that make up more than 20% of the population, an extremely large share for an endangered species.

Regulators, scientists, and commercial fishers are working hard to address vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglements that are the leading causes of injury and death for right whales. In the South Atlantic, where the black sea bass fishery is closed during the whales' calving season, a novel fishing technology to reduce the risk of entanglements is being tested by local fishermen.

In 2021, Georgia Sea Grant, Sustainable Seas Technology, and Georgia Conservancy embarked on a scientific and educational project in the South Atlantic fisheries to evaluate the efficacy and reliability of Subsea Buoy Retrieval Systems (SBRS), alternatively known as "ropeless" and "on-demand" fishing gear. The researchers worked to spread awareness of this technology and ran real-world trials with local fisherman across the Georgia coast.

SBRS's are mechanisms that allow fishers to retrieve traps without hanging a permanent rope and buoy. Instead of leaving the rope and buoy for the duration the trap is in the water, a remote-controlled or time-release mechanism deploys the buoy to the surface at the time fishers are ready to retrieve the trap. There are many different types of SBRS's available, though not all are equally suited to the black sea bass fishery.

SBRS's have the potential to become a preferred substitute to conventional traps, but more testing and greater familiarity with the technology are needed. The more fishermen are introduced to SBRS's and how to operate them, the more likely the technology will become an industry standard.

"Georgia is the Black Sea Bass Capital of the World"

One crucial need remains for the black sea bass fishery to thrive - a robust market that demands its product. While fishers have angled for black sea bass for over a century, the fish is unfamiliar to the average seafood consumer. On-demand, whale-safe fishing gear may convince regulators to lift or shorten closures of the southeast fishery, but year-round license to fish for black sea bass won't benefit fishers if there's no product recognition to fuel demand.

To overcome this challenge, the project team collaborated with a design studio at the Savannah College of Art and Design to generate a strategy that would bring black sea bass into the mainstream market. The team of students capitalized on the strong trend for sustainable seafood as a jumping-off point to conceptualize how more chefs, suppliers, and shoppers could be introduced to the fish.

The design studio held co-creation workshops, which sought feedback on the following topics:

1. Gauge client interests and brainstorm actions to build a black sea bass market
2. Engage consumers with education sessions to introduce them to the fish, and learn about their best and worst seafood experiences in general
3. Recruit restaurant industry owners to share ideas on how to popularize black sea bass with consumers

The studio synthesized the inputs from these activities to make their final recommendations.

The design studio finalized four key recommendations to create a stronger black sea bass market. The team conceptualized the recommendations using an "idea box" exercise, which facilitates ideation of strategies by forming unique combinations of several parameters and variations.

The four main recommendations that arose from the design studio were:

• A Hyperlocal Sea Bass Dish: Emphasize the local quality of black sea bass, promoting its freshness and connection to the local economy of the Georgia coast.
• Culinary Classes with Children: Host culinary classes to introduce younger generations to Black Sea Bass in fun and engaging settings. This topic includes a related recommendations to plan competitive events and workshops for experienced chefs that center on using black sea bass as a main ingredient.
• Chef and Fisher Meetups: Encourage information exchange by connecting chefs with fishers and foster mutual respect between culinary experts and product providers. Other ideas within this recommendation include building awareness of the ecology of black sea bass and their habitats, creating opportunities for chefs to make custom produce requests, and composing curated menu options and a black sea bass recipe book.
• Black Sea Bass Food Festival: Host a food festival centered around local seafood products that prominently features black sea bass, or tie into existing, well-recognized festivals in coastal Georgia. Black sea bass culinary offerings could be directly tied to information booths about the North Atlantic Right Whale, strengthening awareness that black sea bass caught with SBRS's is a "whale-safe" food.