Saving Seafood

November 13 Webinar on Estimating Shortfin Mako Shark Abundance and Productivity in the Atlantic Ocean

October 24, 2019 — The following was released by the Lenfest Ocean Program:

Join us on Wednesday, November 13 at 9:00 am EST/2:00 pm GMT for a webinar featuring Dr. Mark Bravington of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), where he will discuss his work to improve the information used to assess and manage shortfin mako sharks in the Atlantic Ocean.

For the past several months, Dr. Bravington has been examining the feasibility of a genetic method known as close-kin mark-recapture for estimating shortfin mako shark abundance in a way that avoids the limitations and biases associated with estimates collected through fishing activities. Such a tool could help fisheries scientists develop more accurate stock assessments to inform effective management strategies for this species, which is overfished in the North Atlantic.

Download the project fact sheet to learn more.

Scientist calls for more research into seismic surveys as they leave lobsters flat on their backs

July 26, 2019 — Research by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies in Hobart and Curtin University in Western Australia found lobsters exposed to the air guns used in seismic surveys had damaged statocysts, an organ similar to the human inner ear.

One of the researchers, Ryan Day, said this left the lobsters with an impaired ability to right themselves when flipped over.

“They really rely on this ability to right themselves and to control when they are escaping from a predator,” he said.

The lobsters received the equivalent of a full survey passing within 300–500 metres.

“In all experiments we didn’t detect any sign of recovery, even one year after,” Dr Day said.

The results have prompted a renewed call by Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson for the practice to be investigated.

Read the full story at ABC

These fish eggs aren’t hatching. The culprit? Light pollution.

July 10, 2019 — Bright orange clownfish, of Finding Nemo fame, face a slew of problems in the wild, from overharvesting for home aquaria, to bleaching of their coral and anemone homes by climate change-induced warming waters. And now there’s a third prong on this deadly trident: light pollution.

Published today in Biology Letters, a new study reveals that clownfish, which are dependent on coral reefs, can’t raise any young when exposed to artificial light.

The human-made light that is spewed over Earth endangers animals across ecosystems. Nighttime lights alter birds’ nocturnal migrations. Plants bloom earlier.Sea turtles avoid nesting on brightly-lit beaches. Songbirds start warbling earlier.

“But we don’t think about underwater marine systems being potentially impacted,” says Emily Fobert, a marine ecologist at Flinders University in Australia and lead author of the study.

“I wasn’t expecting the result [in the paper] to be that nothing hatched,” says Thomas Davies, a conservation ecologist from Bangor University in Wales. “It’s quite worrying…a really big result that speaks to how light pollution can have a really big impact on marine species.”

Read the full story at National Geographic

Predicting marine heatwaves can have economic implications

March 6, 2019 –The Gulf of Alaska is once again experiencing a marine heatwave. This follows the infamous warm-water event known as the “blob,” that formed back in 2014, which scientists have tied to seabird die-offs and declining Pacific cod stocks.

Scientists around the world are trying to predict these events, but there are economic implications to forecasting the future.

Scientists around the world are working to understand the impacts of marine heatwaves as they become more common. They also want to predict when and where the world’s oceans will heat up.

“If I gave you this information about the future, what would you possibly even do with it?” Alistair Hobday said. “And people’s first reaction is, ‘nothing, I don’t know what I would do.’”

Hobday is a research scientist with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Hobday said the predictive models for marine heatwaves are about 60 percent accurate currently, slightly better than a flip of a coin.

He wants to boost that number to 80 percent, and he said marine heatwave forecasts have practical applications.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

 

Ongoing China-U.S. Trade War Likely to Bring Changes to Global Seafood Industry

November 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Chinese seafood exports to America have grown this year, despite the trade war. However, the trade war with the U.S. could have global impacts, writer Amy Zhong reports from China.

Chinese seafood exports to the U.S. were US $3.22 billion during 2017, while the exports have risen by 5.75 percent to reach US $2.161 billion within the first eight months of this year compared with the same period last year. But things are starting to shift. The U.S. used to be the largest market for Chinese tilapia, but not any more.

Against this backdrop, a seafood processing seminar was hosted in Dalian in October and participants gathered to talk about issues like global seafood trading and brand building.

China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 created great opportunities for its aquatic processing industry but it has begun to shift attention to the domestic market with the recession of foreign markets, trade conflicts and increasingly great domestic demand. Thus, the Dalian seminar was of great importance in areas such as opportunities and threats the aquatic industry encounters in domestic and foreign markets.

The country used to rely on foreign buyers in its seafood sales from 1981 to 2005, Cui He, the president for China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance, was quoted as saying in a recent FishFirst article. Its export ballooned from 2005 to 2013, while its imports also grew between 2013 and 2017. The country’s seafood trading volume exceeded 10 million tons in 2017, which makes it a market larger than any other in the world, according to the story. That means an increasing number of aquatic suppliers have placed more importance on this market with great potential thanks to its steady export opportunities and rapid import increase. Countries like Norway, Canada and Australia have said in the past that China is the main target in their seafood promotions.

Japan, the U.S. and Europe are the three main buyers of China’s seafood, according to the country’s statistics, while other important buyers include South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Japan ranks first among all of China’s seafood buyers while the U.S. also is significant, buying a lot of China’s white shrimp and tilapia.

Although there seems to be no drastic change to the global seafood market at present, China has played a role of great importance in the processing industry. The trade war does take a toll on some export-oriented seafood companies in Dalian and Qingdao, but it also pushes them to upgrade their systems. In short, more seafood trading stimulates the development of China’s seafood processing sector.

China’s statistics have shown a reduction in China’s reliance on U.S. seafood buyers since 2014. The U.S. anti-dumping policies on shrimp and catfish have influenced China’s processors since the mid-2000s. Lately, the two countries have become competitors in sourcing such seafood as Ecuador’s white shrimp after 2014, with Ecuador selling more white shrimp to China recently. China also has purchased more basa from Vietnam than the U.S. as well.

Recently, the U.S. has removed cod, pink salmon and pollock from its import list that are subject to higher tariffs. Cod has been delivered to China for further processing before being re-exported to Europe, the article said. At the same time, tariffs are having less effect on China’s seafood purchases from the U.S. than its sales to the U.S. Tilapia sales have hurt the most: The U.S. was once the largest buyer, but due to the trade war, it is now looking to other countries for substitutes.

SeafoodNews reporter Amy Zhong also writes that Chinese trade journals say that the U.S.-China trade war could also change the global seafood industry. Seafood businesses worldwide are uncertain whether China can maintain its status as the seafood processing center, since some companies have been forced to relocate to other regions, like Africa. However, China has begun developing business in more countries included in its One Belt, One Road initiative, which in turn has encouraged China to upgrade its seafood industry.

Wang Zhanlu, the director for WTO Division of Agricultural Trade Promotion Center, was quoted as saying countries usually control the agricultural trade more strictly with higher tariffs, but China is comparatively open and is second only to the U.S. in terms of its agricultural imports. In 2017, seafood ranks first in the country’s agricultural exports and accounts for 27 percent of the country’s agricultural export total. Meanwhile, seafood imports account for about 17 percent of its imports.

Zhong writes that according to seafood trade expert Leng Chuanhui, Japan consumes about 8.4 million tons of seafood every year, while it produces around 4.7 million tons on its own. Most of Japan’s seafood are wild harvests, while some are raised in fresh- or saltwater aquaculture. The country buys about 3.7 million tons of seafood from other countries, while its main export markets are Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, while 14.2 percent of its seafood import is from China.

Professor Qin from Guangdong Ocean University was quoted as saying that oysters have also become more popular in China. Global production was only 5.32 million tons worldwide in 2017, while the trading volume was about 70,000 tons. But China’s production rose by 4.7 percent in 2017 compared with that of 2016 to reach 4.87 million tons. Its oyster market value grew by 25 percent to reach 25.4 billion yuan (~$3.7 billion USD) that year. Most of the Fujian, Guangdong and Shandong oysters are currently destined for barbecues, but likely will be more finely processed in the future.

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

 

Eating fish can help fight childhood asthma, finds new study

November 19, 2018 — A clinical trial led by researchers from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia has found that eating seafood species high in good fats such as salmon, trout, and sardines as part of a healthy diet can reduce the symptoms of asthma in children.

National body Seafood Industry Australia (SIA) has welcomed the new study, calling it a potential easy and effective treatment for asthma sufferers.

“Childhood asthma is the most common respiratory disorder worldwide. We know these species of fish are high in omega-3 fatty acids which have anti-inflammatory properties and have been shown to help in the reduction of symptoms for other inflammatory conditions like arthritis,” SIA CEO Jane Lovell said.“This new research shows that following a diet which is high in oily fish could be an easy, safe, and effective way to reduce the symptoms of asthma in children which is fantastic news.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Australian fisheries declared free from overfishing

October 1, 2018 — Commonwealth fisheries in Australia, the Southern Ocean and the south Pacific managed by Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) have been assessed as not subject to overfishing.

It is the fifth year in a row the fisheries, which include fisheries for southern bluefin tuna, toothfish, skipjack tuna, billfish, scale fish, squid and shark, have been been declared free from overfishing.

The assessments reported by Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) in its status reports 2018, assessed 95 species that are either solely or jointly managed by AFMA.

AFMA’s CEO, James Findlay, said the result is a credit to the Australian seafood industry, scientists and fisheries managers.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Climate Change Is Cooking The Oceans

August 16, 2018 — Heat waves aren’t just for land lubbers. Climate change has turned the oceans into cauldrons of scalding water, upending marine ecosystems around the world.

A new paper in Nature shows how marine heat waves have become more common and intense in recent decades, largely due to climate change. What’s worse, it shows that even if the world manages to limit warming to two degrees Celsius, the trend will continue and humans will ultimately be the main driving force for virtually every marine heat wave. If we let the world warm past that mark, the results could be catastrophic for the high seas.

The results point to the need to get marine life ready for a world of extreme heat and also take a greater focus on protecting the ocean wilderness we have left.

The role of human-caused climate change in intensifying land-based heat waves is now well-established. But less research has focused on the ocean, where extreme heat events in recent years have wiped out portions of the Great Barrier Reef, caused bull sharks to migrate further north, and left scientists scrambling to find ways to save coral. Individual events like the 2016 heat wave in the Great Barrier Reef have been tied to climate change (it made the heat wave 175 times more likely), but there hasn’t been a big picture look at the topic featuring projections into the future.

That’s what led a team of Swiss researchers used a mix of models and satellite measurements to get a handle on how marine heat waves have already changed and what the future holds for the globe. The satellite record, which runs from 1982-2016, helped ground truth the models they used to create a pre-industrial baseline—what the oceans looked like without all the extra heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions. They then used the models to understand how climate change is affecting the extent, duration, and intensity of marine heat waves as well as project future changes.

The findings show the number of marine heat wave days doubled between 1982 and 2016, while heat waves also increased in extent and intensity. Moreover, they show that 87 percent of marine heat waves can be attributed to climate change, meaning they would not have occurred without it.

Read the full story at Gizmodo

Sharp Fall in Australian Fish Stocks Stokes Fight Over Marine Reserves

June 19, 2018 — Australia’s management of its fisheries and marine ecosystems is widely considered among the best in the world. But the first independent peer-reviewed study of targeted fish stocks in Australian waters has found alarming population declines.

“Regardless of its reputation for sustainable fishery management, overfishing has apparently contributed to … declining biomass of large fishes on Australian reefs,” wrote Graham J. Edgar and Rick D. Stuart-Smith of the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, and Trevor J. Ward of the University of Technology Sydney, in a paper published in the journal Aquatic Conservation.

The study found a 36 percent decline over the past 10 years in the total biomass of fish 20cm (8in) or more in length in zones where fishing is unrestricted. Where fishing is regulated, the decline was 18 percent. No-fishing areas, in contrast, saw a 4 percent increase in biomass. To test whether the fall was a function of environmental pressures other than fishing, the scientists looked at species that are not fished and found their drop in biomass was “non-significant.”

“Populations of exploited fishes generally rose within marine reserves and declined outside the reserves, whereas unexploited species showed little difference in population trends within or outside reserves,” the researchers wrote.

They reached those conclusions by analyzing a decade’s worth of fish counts conducted by the Reef Life Survey, an independent visual census that does not rely on fisheries data or involvement. Australian fisheries authorities, on the other hand, evaluate fishery stocks by looking at “catch per unit effort.”

Read the full story at Oceans Deeply

Marine heatwaves are getting hotter, lasting longer and doing more damage

June 1, 2018 — On land, heatwaves can be deadly for humans and wildlife and can devastate crops and forests.

Unusually warm periods can also occur in the ocean. These can last for weeks or months, killing off kelp forests and corals, and producing other significant impacts on marine ecosystems, fishing and aquaculture industries.

Yet until recently, the formation, distribution and frequency of marine heatwaves had received little research attention.

Long-term change

Climate change is warming ocean waters and causing shifts in the distribution and abundance of seaweeds, corals, fish and other marine species. For example, tropical fish species are now commonly found in Sydney Harbour.

But these changes in ocean temperatures are not steady or even, and scientists have lacked the tools to define, synthesize and understand the global patterns of marine heatwaves and their biological impacts.

At a meeting in early 2015, we convened a group of scientists with expertise in atmospheric climatology, oceanography and ecology to form a marine heatwaves working group to develop a definition for the phenomenon: A prolonged period of unusually  at a particular location for that time of the year. Importantly, marine heatwaves can occur at any time of the year, summer or winter.

Read the full story at PHYS