Conservation & Environment

March 17, 2015 — Starving sea lion pups and seabirds up and down the West Coast this year may be part of a large-scale shift of the Pacific Ocean to warmer and less productive conditions, according to a new federal fisheries report.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration presented the findings on the warming Pacific in an annual report on the state of the waters off California.

"We are in some ways entering a situation we haven't seen before," Cisco Werner, director of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California, said in a statement from NOAA. The situation demands that scientists consider the impact on ocean life as a whole, Werner said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

March 18, 2015 — The following was released by the Pew Charitable Trusts:

The Pew Charitable Trusts and the National Geographic Society praised action by the British government today to create the world's largest fully protected marine reserve around the Pitcairn Islands, an overseas territory in the South Pacific Ocean.

The 834,334-square-kilometre reserve (322,138 square miles) is roughly 3 ½ times the size of the United Kingdom. Home to at least 1,249 species of marine mammals, seabirds and fish, the new reserve protects some of the most near-pristine ocean habitat on Earth. In 2013, Pew and National Geographic joined the local elected body, the Pitcairn Island Council, in submitting a proposal calling for creation of a marine reserve to protect these spectacular waters.

"With this designation, the United Kingdom raises the bar for protection of our ocean and sets a new standard for others to follow," said Matt Rand, director of Global Ocean Legacy, a project of Pew and its partners that advocates for establishment of the world’s great marine parks. “The United Kingdom is the caretaker of more than 6 million square kilometres of ocean — the fifth-largest marine area of any country. Through this designation, British citizens are playing a vital role in ensuring the health of our seas."

"The Pitcairn Islands Marine Reserve will build a refuge of untouched ocean to protect and conserve a wealth of marine life," he added.

Read the full release from the Pew Charitable Trusts

March 11, 2015 — With millions of starfish dying all along the West Coast, Washington state Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives say it’s time for Congress to intervene and find out why.

The outbreak, first noticed in the state by rangers in Olympic National Park in June 2013, has hit 20 species of starfish, also known as sea stars.

After getting lesions on their bodies, the sea stars begin curling up and soon lose their legs, shriveling up and disintegrating into mush.

Researchers fear the epidemic may be the result of a virus caused by climate change, with the disease showing its fastest progression in warmer ocean waters.

“There has never been an outbreak of disease in natural populations of animals that I know that’s been this large,” said Drew Harvell, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University who’s been studying the starfish deaths on the San Juan Islands, in northwestern Washington state.

Read the full story from McClatchy DC

March 9, 2015 — Greenpeace on Monday launched its first-ever ranking of 14 U.S. canned tuna brands based on “fundamental sustainability standards,” and gave failing grades to eight, including the market’s top three brands: Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea and StarKist.

The group said it examined the impact of the brands’ sourcing practices on the environment, including fishing gear, illegal fishing practices like shark finning, traceability and even human rights practices in the fishing industry.

“Consumers should know that popular and trusted canned tuna brands are contributing to ocean destruction at an alarming rate,” said Graham Forbes, leader of Greenpeace’s seafood markets campaign. “While the biggest brands have thus far refused to offer sustainable tuna, the silver lining here is that other companies are stepping up to provide ocean safe options for their customers.”

Greenpeace contends that more than 80 percent of the tuna sold in the U.S. market comes from unsustainable, destructive sources. Greenpeace’s 2015 Canned Tuna Shopping Guide looked at 14 U.S. national and private label brands and concluded that most lack measures to address both sustainability and human welfare and labor issues. Companies that did not respond to Greenpeace's questionaires were downgraded for lacking transparency.

The rankings earned an immediate response from the National Fisheries Institute, which referred to the effort as a veiled fundraising exercise and criticized the scoring methodology as “totally arbitrary.”

Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com

March 6, 2015 — Researchers have identified more than 100 areas within U.S. waters that should be considered biologically important when making management and regulatory decisions about human activities that could affect whales, dolphins and porpoises.

The creation of Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) are described in a special issue of the journal Aquatic Mammals. Expert judgment was combined with published and unpublished data to identify 131 BIAs covering 24 species, stocks or populations in seven regions of the U.S. It is the first time so much information has been brought together for these species in one place and made available to scientists, managers, policymakers and the general public.

“The goal was to identify when and where cetaceans – whales, dolphins and porpoises – engage in activities that are important to the animal’s physical health and fitness, reproduction and ability to survive as a population,” said Sofie Van Parijs, who heads the passive acoustics group at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) and is guest editor of the special issue. “Scientists and managers can use the information provided about BIAs to help with planning, analyses and decisions regarding how to reduce adverse impacts on cetaceans resulting from human activities.”

BIAs are region, species and time specific and include reproductive and feeding areas, migratory corridors, and areas in which small and resident populations are concentrated. Each BIA includes a written narrative, a map, a list of references, and a table of data that details the type and quantity of information used to define the BIA.

Biologically Important Areas can also be used to identify information gaps and prioritize future research to better understand cetaceans, their habitats and ecosystems. The use of BIAs could also aid conservation and management efforts.

Offshore energy development, military testing and training, shipping, fishing, tourism, and coastal construction are among the human activities of concern for the conservation and management of marine species, especially cetaceans. For example, underwater noise, present at some level in almost every marine activity, can affect large areas over long periods of time.

“The BIAs are meant to be living documents that should be reviewed, revised and expanded as new information becomes available,” said Van Parijs, who is also an author on several regional sections. “They are not marine protected areas, and have no direct or immediate regulatory consequences. They represent the best available information about the times and areas in which species are likely to be engaged in biologically important activities. We encourage anyone planning an activity in the ocean to look at this information and take it into consideration to understand and reduce adverse impacts on marine species.”

The special issue includes an introduction and articles covering seven regions: the U.S. East Coast, Gulf of Mexico, West Coast, Hawaii, Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands and Bering Sea, and the Arctic.  BIAs were delineated for 24 cetacean species in these regions. The authors note that additional BIAs could not be identified at this time for many species because of insufficient, limited or conflicting information.

Read the full story from NOAA

March 7, 2015 — His experience reflects drastic changes in the chemistry of coastal waters, the result of increasing acidification, which have been setting off alarms among fishermen, climate scientists, and policy makers from Cape Cod to Casco Bay.

“Hatcheries are the canary in the coal mine for the shellfish industry,” he said. “Because of our level of control, we can see problems that others might not — and we were seeing really big problems.”

The problems stem from a surge of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from fossil fuels that has made oceans on average 30 percent more acidic at the surface since the Industrial Revolution, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA scientists predict they will become 150 percent more acidic by 2100 — more than at any point in the past 20 million years.

Acidification has also been exacerbated by the region’s increasing precipitation. Federal reports have shown that rain or snow from heavy storms have increased more than 70 percent over the past 50 years in New England. The fresh water that drains from land is significantly more acidic than seawater and frequently carries sewage, organic matter, and other nutrients that add carbon dioxide in coastal waters.

The Gulf of Maine, which extends from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, is especially vulnerable to acidification, because carbon dioxide is absorbed more easily in colder water, and much of the region’s economy relies on the sea life that is most likely to suffer.

Read the full story and watch the video at the Boston Globe

March 5, 2015 — Leading ocean scientists from the U.S. and around the world today urged President Obama to halt a planned oil and gas exploration program off the Atlantic coast involving millions of underwater sound blasts that would have “significant, long-lasting and widespread impacts on the reproduction and survival” of threatened whales and commercial fish populations.

In a letter to the President, the 75 scientists from Cornell, Duke, the New England Aquarium, Stanford, the University of North Carolina and other U.S. and international institutions say that the seismic blasts, from high-volume airguns that fire every 10-12 seconds, are nearly as loud as conventional explosives and have “an enormous environmental footprint.” Experts say airgun noise is loud enough to mask whale calls over thousands of miles.

The letter is the first time that a group of prominent scientists has said that the harm from seismic blasting will be significant and long-lasting for entire populations of marine life off the U.S. coasts.

Because whales depend on sound waves to communicate, feed, mate and travel, the blasting can disrupt the reproduction and feeding of blue whales and other endangered whales “over vast ocean areas,” the letter says. It expresses special concern for the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, of which only 500 remain.

The blasts also “could have potentially massive impacts on fish populations,” according to the letter. In some countries seismic testing has driven away commercial species, resulting in dramatic drops in catch rates. Studies also show the airguns could kill fish eggs and larvae, interfere with breeding and make some species more vulnerable to predators.

“People are rightly concerned about the dangers of offshore oil spills, but seismic blasting is likely to have a terrible impact on Atlantic sea life before the first well is even drilled,” said Michael Jasny, Director of NRDC’s Marine Mammal Protection Project.

Read the full story at the Moultrie News

March 3, 2015 — A coalition of U.S. governors pushing for more offshore oil and gas drilling turned heads in Maine last month when it announced that Gov. Paul LePage had become a member. But LePage’s participation doesn’t foreshadow oil rigs off the Maine coast – the latest federal research suggests that the Gulf of Maine lacks the right geology to hold commercial deposits of oil or natural gas.

The assessment by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, updated last year, trimmed the already modest estimates in the North Atlantic to levels that virtually eliminate the possibility of oil and gas drilling off New England.
 
In plain English, the geology doesn’t support commercial viability,” John Filostrat, a spokesman for the bureau, told the Portland Press Herald. “Based on the assessment of the data we have, there’s no resource potential in the Gulf of Maine.”

At the same time, the report greatly increased estimates for the amount of oil and gas that may be hidden under the seabed in the South Atlantic.

JOINING COALITION CREATES WAVES

The bureau’s Resource Evaluation Division identifies areas on the Outer Continental Shelf that seem most promising for oil and gas development. The work isn’t widely followed in Maine, but it’s noteworthy here now, in part because of LePage’s involvement in the coalition.

LePage is the first Northeast member of the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, which receives support from a Houston-based alliance that represents hundreds of corporate interests, including many oil and gas companies.

LePage’s office said the governor joined because he supports natural gas development as a way to help lower energy costs for Mainers. But his action was criticized by environmental groups that want to reduce New England’s growing dependence on gas, including the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

February 23, 2015 — Oysters, clams and scallops are going to cost a lot more at your favorite seafood market or restaurant, while fishing communities in southern New England, the Pacific Northwest, coastal Alaska and parts of Maine will likely take a big hit as shellfish start feeling the effects of rising ocean acidification, according to a new study by a team of marine scientists.

As climate-warming greenhouse gases are pumped into the earth’s atmosphere, the oceans are absorbing more carbon dioxide. This causes a chemical reaction that makes seawater more acidic, especially in colder regions. Higher levels of acidity are already destroying the larvae some species of shellfish.

“There’s not a lot of room for error,” said Mike Rice, professor of fisheries and aquaculture at the University of Rhode Island, who was not associated with the report. “The data seem to show the areas of biggest risk are the cooler water areas. Areas like Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts that have a fairly robust shellfish industry need to be worrying.”

The study’s authors reviewed data from multiple fields and published there findings today in the journal Nature Climate Change. It states that rising acidity has already cost the Oregon and Washington shellfish industries $110 million, and endangered 3,200 jobs. Those figures are likely to get worse in the coming decades, according to lead author Julia Ekstrom, director of the climate adaptation program at the University of California, Davis.

“We looked at all the coasts around the United States,” Ekstrom said. “There are more places vulnerable than we previously thought. “That said, every region has a unique set of factors that makes it vulnerable. Understanding what makes you vulnerable is useful to guide how you will adapt.”

Read the full story at Discovery News

February 22, 2015 — Officials say a 45-ton humpback whale entangled with fishing line in Hawaii waters for more than a week is finally free.

The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary said Saturday that its craft got within 10 feet of the mammal a day earlier and the crew used a pole equipped with a knife to saw the line free.

Ed Lyman of the sanctuary says several hundred feet of line was cut away.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WQOW