October 14, 2022 — The North Atlantic right whale is currently one of the most endangered whale species, listed as Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Woods Hole Partnership Examines Possible Sea-Level Rise
October 10, 2022 — A local partnership presented their plans for helping Woods Hole adapt to rising sea levels at a recent meeting of the Falmouth Select Board.
Resilient Woods Hole is a private-public collaboration to prepare the village for sea-level rise, flooding, and shoreline loss.
The initiative is led by a partnership between Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) and NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center.
Project Manager Leslie-Ann McGee said local businesses, community groups, and other stakeholders are all part of Resilient Woods Hole’s steering committee.
The group received a grant from the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management for recent community outreach including adaptation workshops and stakeholder surveys.
The surveys involved presenting residents with different options for adaptations like constructing hard structures or taking a more natural approach. The forms also asked if people wanted to retreat or live with water.
NOAA Sea Grant announces $2.1M to support aquaculture research and extension in Maine
October 10, 2022 — NOAA Sea Grant has announced $2.1 million to fund four projects that advance aquaculture research and extension to support sustainable aquaculture in Maine. The projects are part of a larger $14 million NOAA Sea Grant investment to strengthen aquaculture across the United States.
Investigators from the University of Maine Aquaculture Research Institute, Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, UMaine Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research, and Maine Sea Grant will lead projects to develop feed for finfish, improve Atlantic sea scallop hatchery techniques, diversify lumpfish broodstock, and advance the work of the Maine Aquaculture Hub, respectively.
“Innovation and diversification in Maine’s aquaculture industry have created new jobs and economic opportunities in our state. We welcome this investment from NOAA, which will support the ongoing, cutting-edge research by UMaine scientists and students. These projects will help to increase the sustainability and economic viability of aquaculture in coastal communities here in Maine and across the country,” said U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King in a joint statement.
“Year after year, the Sea Grant program protects thousands of acres of coastal ecosystems, generates hundreds of millions of dollars in economic development, and creates thousands of jobs across the country,” said Rep. Chellie Pingree in a press release. “As a longtime supporter of the Sea Grant program and an advocate for it through my role on the House Appropriations Committee, I’m thrilled aquaculture projects in Maine are being invested in. This funding is yet another example of how Sea Grant is fostering innovation and entrepreneurship to support Maine’s working waterfront and coastal communities.”
‘Forever chemicals’ in deer, fish challenge Maine and other states
October 7, 2022 — Wildlife agencies in the U.S. are finding elevated levels of a class of toxic chemicals in game animals such as deer – and that’s prompting health advisories in some places where hunting and fishing are ways of life and key pieces of the economy.
Authorities have detected the high levels of PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in deer in several states, including Michigan and Maine, where legions of hunters seek to bag a buck every fall. Sometimes called “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment, PFAS are industrial compounds used in numerous products, such as nonstick cookware and clothing.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched an effort last year to limit pollution from the chemicals, which are linked to health problems including cancer and low birth weight.
But discovery of the chemicals in wild animals hunted for sport and food represents a new challenge that some states have started to confront by issuing “do not eat” advisories for deer and fish and expanding testing for PFAS in them.
“The fact there is an additional threat to the wildlife – the game that people are going out to hunt and fish – is a threat to those industries, and how people think about hunting and fishing,” said Jennifer Hill, associate director of the Great Lakes Regional Center for the National Wildlife Federation.
PFAS chemicals are an increasing focus of public health and environmental agencies, in part because they don’t degrade or do so slowly in the environment and can remain in a person’s bloodstream for life.
The chemicals get into the environment through production of consumer goods and waste. They also have been used in firefighting foam and in agriculture. PFAS-tainted sewage sludge has long been applied to fields as fertilizer and compost.
Sustainable Seafood? It’s A Question Of Data
October 3, 2022 — The following was taken from an transcript from NPR:
AARON SCOTT, HOST:
Do you remember as a kid what you wanted to be when you grew up? Maybe an astronaut, soccer star, veterinarian, the president? Well, Alfredo Giron – he remembers.
ALFREDO GIRON: When I was 7, in second grade, my mom got for me a book about marine mammals. And it was about seals, sea lions and walruses. And I just was in love with it. I was like, I’m going to be a marine biologist.
SCOTT: But as he grew up in Mexico City, he grew out of that childhood dream.
GIRON: I started thinking, no, maybe engineering in something. And eventually, I settled down for engineering, bioengineering. I was lucky enough to get into a lab where they allowed me to do all sorts of techniques that bioengineering professionals will do. And it was not my thing.
SCOTT: But the college admissions clock was ticking, and he needed to decide where to apply.
GIRON: And suddenly this ray of light illuminated that old book in the bookshelf. I opened it, and I was like, you know what? I wanted to be a marine biologist. And I remember I loved it. So I looked up online, where can I study this in Mexico, and when is the deadline to do it? The deadline was, like, one week away.
GIRON: So I just jumped for it.
SCOTT: Alfredo went on to get a Ph.D. at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Since then, he’s focused on using data and science to make fishing more sustainable. He’s co-founded a science-based conservation initiative called dataMares and an early career oceans professionals program at the U.N.
And he now works at the World Economic Forum, an organization that cultivates leaders to influence political objectives. There, he leads the Ocean Action Agenda, with the goal of making sure the world’s fish populations thrive for years to come. It’s a huge task considering the state of the ocean and its fisheries.
GIRON: When we think about the ocean, there’s two big things to highlight. The first one is there’s a lot of degradation that has happened over the last several decades. We can see that in fisheries in some populations literally collapsing, some species shrinking over time.
SCOTT: So not just shrinking in population, but literally, the fish are getting smaller over time?
GIRON: Yes. Yes because you select for the larger ones, and they are basically removed from the population, and you keep the smaller ones but also because as you run out of big ones, you start fishing them before they can grow that big. We have also seen a lot of plastic pollution. We have seen a lot of impacts from climate change in many different ways – increased storms, coral bleaching…
SCOTT: But Alfredo sees hope, too.
GIRON: But let me stop there with the doom and gloom. Some countries have been very successful in replenishing their fish populations. We have seen an increase in the number of countries that are pledging to protect their oceans and actually, also an increase in action. We have seen a lot of companies making commitments to make sure that their supply chains are actually free of illegal activities, free of forced labor, which, surprisingly, is still an issue in this century.
SCOTT: So today on the show, finding hope in the ocean despite all of the challenges. We track Alfredo and his collaborators’ ongoing efforts to conserve the global fish population in a tale of ingenuity on the high seas. I’m Aaron Scott, and you’re listening to SHORT WAVE, the daily science podcast from NPR.
SCOTT: Alfredo, I want to start with a basic question. What makes a fishery sustainable? How do you determine the right level of fishing so that the population will continue to thrive?
GIRON: There’s a concept known as the maximum sustainable yield. Basically, how much can you extract of a population without reducing it for future catch? And this concept is based on the idea that when you have a number of fish, you expect them to reproduce at a certain level.
It’s very difficult to implement in reality because, of course, environmental variability plays a big role in how many of those newborns are successful and can join the population. Different countries, different agencies use different exact methods to estimate these things. But in the end, this is about extracting without decreasing the total number of the population.
SCOTT: Which is complicated almost beyond comprehension. I mean, we’re talking the entire ocean here, which means all the countries and the companies and the individual boats have to basically work together to make sure they’re not fishing beyond that maximum sustainable yield you mentioned. And so one of your main focuses right now is on illegal, unregulated and unreported catch, which is a whole basket of things from boats fishing in protected areas to fishing without authorization to taking more fish than they report – things that potentially mean they’re catching beyond the sustainable limits. Would you give us a sense of what sort of problem this is globally?
The Utterly Engrossing Search for the Origin of Eels
September 27, 2022 — Every three years, Reinhold Hanel boards a research ship and voyages to the only sea in the world that’s located in the middle of an ocean. The Sargasso, bounded by currents instead of land, is an egg-shaped expanse that takes up about two-thirds of the North Atlantic, looping around Bermuda and stretching east more than 1,000 kilometers. Dubbed the “golden floating rainforest” thanks to the thick tangles of ocher-colored seaweed that blanket the water’s surface, the Sargasso is a slowly swirling sanctuary for over 270 marine species. And each year, the eels arrive.
The European eel and the American eel—both considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature—make this extraordinary migration. The Sargasso is the only place on Earth where they breed. The slithery creatures, some as long as 1.5 meters, arrive from Europe, North America, including parts of the Caribbean, and North Africa, including the Mediterranean Sea. Hanel, a fish biologist and director of the Thünen Institute of Fisheries Ecology in Bremerhaven, Germany, makes his own month-long migration here alongside a rotating cast of researchers, some of whom hope to solve mysteries that have long flummoxed marine biologists, anatomists, philosophers, and conservationists: What happens when these eels spawn in the wild? And what can be done to help the species recover from the impacts of habitat loss, pollution, overfishing, and hydropower? Scientists say that the answers could improve conservation. But, thus far, eels have kept most of their secrets to themselves.
The idea that eels have sex at all is a fairly modern notion. Ancient Egyptians associated eels with the sun god Atum and believed they sprang to life when the sun warmed the Nile. In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle proclaimed that eels spontaneously generated within “the entrails of the earth” and that they didn’t have genitals.
The no-genital theory held for generations. Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder asserted that eels rubbed against rocks and their dead skin “scrapings come to life.” Others credited eel provenance to everything from horses’ tails to dew drops on riverbanks. In medieval Europe, this presumed asexuality had real economic consequences and helped make the European eel a culturally important species, according to John Wyatt Greenlee, a medieval cartographic historian who wrote part of his dissertation on the subject. Frequent Christian holidays at the time required followers to adhere to church-sanctioned diets for much of the year. These prohibited adherents from eating “unclean” animals or meat that came from carnal acts, which could incite, as Thomas Aquinas put it, “an incentive to lust.” Fish were the exception, Greenlee says, and eels, given their abundance and “the fact that they just sort of appear and that nobody can find their reproductive organs at all,” appealed to anyone trying to avoid a sexy meal.
WPRFMC Scientists Concerned with Lack of Data to Support Marine Monument Expansion
September 21, 2022 — Like strong fishing regulations, successful closed areas should rely on solid science.
But scientists for the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council are questioning the information supporting a proposed monument expansion in remote waters.
The Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee last week heard a presentation by Bob Richmond, University of Hawai‘i professor and coauthor on the proposal to expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. Richmond provided information related to the scientific merits of the proposed expansion.
However, SSC members noted in their discussion the overwhelming lack of data to support theorized benefits and an analytical framework to assemble data in the proposal evaluation.
NOAA Enlists Hawaiʻi Fishermen for Mahimahi Diet Study
September 21, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA:
To fishermen in Hawaiʻi, Pacific mahimahi stomachs hold no particular value and are typically discarded. To NOAA scientists researching mahimahi diet, however, each stomach tells a unique story about where and what an individual fish ate.
Mahimahi is a federally managed fish popular among recreational and commercial fishermen in Hawaiʻi. And it’s a fish we still have much to learn about—especially when it comes to their diet and role in marine ecosystems. That’s where local fishermen come in!
NOAA Fisheries scientists and fishery managers are enlisting the help of local fishermen to collect mahimahi stomachs for research.
The stomach contents will help NOAA scientists better understand what these predatory fish are eating. They’ll also reveal how much of the fish’s diet comes from pelagic (open-ocean) life stages of coral reef animals.
“Collaborating with the fishing community is an important component of this work,” said Keith Kamikawa, fishery management specialist, NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Regional Office. “We’re conducting science while getting Hawaiʻi fishermen and anglers involved.”
Essential Habitat for Mahimahi
Under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, NOAA Fisheries must prevent overfishing of federally managed fish and rebuild overfished stocks. Part of this work involves protecting their essential fish habitat—the habitat fish require to thrive throughout every life stage.
With this in mind, one has to wonder: why does it matter what mahimahi are eating? And how do inshore coral reef habitats impact the open-ocean-dwelling mahimahi?
“While coral reef fish live their adult lives near shore, when they mature and spawn, their larvae drift out to sea and develop in the open ocean,” Kamikawa explained. “There they grow from tiny plankton to pelagic juveniles just a couple of inches long.”
These juvenile reef fish may become prey of mahimahi (and other pelagic predators) while on their way back to the reef to grow into adults.
If these reef-associated species are an important part of mahimahi diet, protecting coral reef habitats where they mature and spawn could play a significant role in maintaining populations of mahimahi around the islands. As mahimahi supports many local, small commercial, and recreational fishermen in Hawaiʻi, it is important to understand their life history—by diving into their stomachs.
Benefits for Fishermen and Science
NOAA scientists studying mahimahi diet rely on stomach samples donated from recreational, subsistence, and charter fishermen. The number of stomachs obtained by collaborating local fishermen is significantly larger than what NOAA researchers could collect alone.
Fishermen are going to mahimahi areas within the main Hawaiian Islands more consistently than a fleet of NOAA small boats could. They can provide scientists with stomach samples year-round.
To encourage participation, NOAA is piloting a “punch card” program to obtain stomachs from recently caught mahimahi. Along with the fish stomachs, fishermen must share the catch location, type of bait used, and size of the fish, among other catch-related information.
Fishermen will receive one point for every stomach donated with a full set of data. For every 10 points, they will get a $50 gift card to a local fishing supply store. So far, fishermen have donated more than 300 stomachs, with more to come!
“We’re really getting a great look into mahimahi diets in Hawaiʻi,” said Nan Himmelsbach, a research associate for the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, who works at the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. “Preliminary results using DNA barcoding techniques have revealed that the majority of prey items found in mahimahi stomachs are juvenile stages of reef-associated animals, such as goatfish and surgeonfish.”
NOAA scientists use genetics to identify digested prey that would typically be unidentifiable. The top prey species discovered so far are: malu (sidespot goatfish), moano (manybar goatfish), nūnū (flat needlefish), snake mackerel, and gilded triggerfish.
Getting a clearer picture of mahimahi diet across seasons and years is critical to understanding their feeding habits and how those habits may shift in a changing climate. Contributions from and collaborations with fishermen make this happen. So far, scientists have identified more than 500 prey items from the stomachs they’ve processed. The results will be shared with the fishing community, especially those who provided samples for the project. Fishermen can verify patterns found in the lab with what they see out on the water, and adjust the bait or lure color they are using.
“It’s a win-win—NOAA fulfills its mandates, and the fishing community can participate and learn more about this magnificent fish they catch and eat,” Kamikawa said. “The project is a great example of the scientific, management, and fishing communities working together on quality research that supports our collective understanding and sound management of this awesome fish.”
Northeast fishermen, scientists test ‘restrictor rope’ for bottom trawl surveys
September 20, 2022 — Scientists and fishermen have worked together over many years to develop bottom trawl survey gear that performs consistently, ensuring accurate and reliable data for U.S. fisheries management.
This summer they have been evaluating a potential way to better standardize survey gear – a ‘restrictor rope’ that helps keep the distance between trawl doors consistent while trawling in different conditions, depths, warp lengths, and gear configurations.
A summary of the project from the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center describes experiments in spring and summer 2022 at sea with scientists and fishermen with long experience in cooperative survey work.
Their main platform was the F/V Darana R, with Captain Jimmy Ruhle, his son Bobby Ruhle and their crew. Homeported at Wanchese, N.C., the Darana R has for years supported the bi-annual Northeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program bottom trawl survey, led by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at Gloucester Point, Va.
The NEAMAP program facilitates the collection of fishery-independent information in the Northeast, and standardizes survey procedures to improve data quality and accessibility.
Expanding offshore wind energy development off southern New England will force changes on bottom trawl surveys in just the next few years. The Vineyard Wind, South Fork Wind and Revolution Wind turbine arrays will be built between Martha’s Vineyard and Long Island’s East End.
“Existing surveys will need to adapt to operate in and around offshore wind farm areas,” according to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. “Researchers will also need to develop new surveys to fill data gaps created when pre-existing survey locations can’t be accessed. A standardized gear configuration will need to be used so data collected during existing and new surveys can be used, and compared.”
For help with that redesign, the science center went to the Northeast Trawl Advisory Panel, a joint advisory panel composed of Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery Management Council members, as well as fishing industry, academic, government and non-government fisheries experts. It identified the use of a restrictor rope as a possible way to standardize all Northeast bottom trawl surveys in the region. None have used restrictor ropes yet.
Now Soliciting Proposals for 2023-2024 Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside Program
September 19, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
NOAA Fisheries, in coordination with the New England Fishery Management Council, is soliciting proposals for the 2023-2024 Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside Program.
Successful applicants are awarded pounds of scallops that have been “set aside” to pay for research expenses; no federal funds are provided. Researchers and fishermen partner to harvest awarded scallops, and the proceeds are used to fund the research and compensate fishing industry partners.
The New England Fishery Management Council develops the research priorities, and NOAA Fisheries administers the competition, oversees awarded projects, and oversees set-aside harvest activities.
The research set-aside programs are designed to inform resource management decisions and improve stock assessments. Proposals are evaluated for scientific merit and for relevance to scallop fishery management.
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