Saving Seafood

Biodiversity makes reef fish more resilient in the face of climate change, research confirms

May 17, 2016 — New research confirms that biodiversity can help reef fish weather the impacts of global warming.

Reef systems with greater numbers of fish species are not just more productive but also more resilient to rising sea-surface temperatures and the temperature swings associated with climate change, according to a new study led by researchers with the Smithsonian’s Tennenbaum Marine Observatories Network.

After analyzing data from more than 4,500 fish surveys of reefs around the world to compare the effects of biodiversity and other environmental factors on global reef fish biomass, the authors of the study found that biodiversity, measured by the number of species (species diversity) and the variety of functional traits (functional diversity) within a reef system, was one of the strongest predictors of fish biomass, second only to mean sea-surface temperature.

A direct impact of the carbon emissions that continue to concentrate in Earth’s atmosphere is warmer, more acidic ocean waters, which has contributed to the bleaching of reefs around the world. Just last month, scientists announced that 99 percent of coral reefs surveyed in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have been hit by the global bleaching event that has already taken a toll on reefs at the Pacific islands of Hawaii, Vanuatu, American Samoa, and Fiji, as well as parts of the Caribbean, the Florida Keys, and the Indian Ocean.

Read the full story at Mongabay

Carpageddon Is Australia’s Plan to Wipe Out Fish Species by Releasing Herpes Into Water

May 4, 2016 — No, carpageddon is not a bad remake of Armageddon, where a giant carp replaces an Earth-driven asteroid. Rather, it’s an Australian government program to eradicate invasive carp, led by prime minister Barnaby Joyce, that went into effect on Monday, CNN reported.

The fish species was first introduced in Australia in 1859 and really became an ecological problem in the 1960s, CNN reported. Now, it’s estimated that they cost the country $400 million a year.  

The plan behind Carpageddon would also make for a strange sci-fi plot too. To wipe out the carp species, the Australian government will release a form of herpes, cyprinid herpesvirus, into its waterways by 2018.

Read the full story on Mic

Fisheries scientists to address flaws in past forage fish research

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) – May 2, 2016 – Dr. Ray Hilborn, a marine biologist and fisheries scientist at the University of Washington, has launched a new initiative aimed at addressing key issues surrounding forage fish science and the impacts of forage fishing on predator species. Dr. Hilborn’s Forage Fish Project is one of several scientific efforts occurring in the next few months to expand the existing body of scientific research on forage fish.

Comprised of 14 renowned fisheries scientists from around the globe, the Forage Fish Project held its inaugural conference last month in Hobart, Australia, where it identified shortcomings in the existing forage fish research. Specifically, it found several issues with work produced by the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force, whose April 2012 report, “Little Fish, Big Impact,” concluded forage fish are vulnerable to overfishing, among other findings.

The Forage Fish Project, which includes two members of the Lenfest Task Force, began work to address these flaws, with the goal of producing an accompanying study later this year.

In Hobart, Project members found that most of the models used in previous forage fish studies, like the Lenfest Task Force report, left out factors such as the natural variability of forage fish stocks, and the extent of size overlap between fisheries and predators. The group also found multiple indications that the Lenfest study greatly overstated the negative impact of forage fishing on predator species.

“Most [food web] models were not built with the explicit intention of evaluating forage fish fisheries, so unsurprisingly many models did not include features of forage fish population biology or food web structure that are relevant for evaluating all fishery impacts,” according to minutes from the Hobart meeting.

Two upcoming fishery management workshops will also evaluate forage species on the East and West Coasts of the U.S., the first organized by the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and the Pacific Fishery Management Council. The workshop, which will be held in La Jolla, Calif., from May 2-5, will focus on how to improve stock assessment methods for northern anchovy and other coastal pelagic species. Attendees will evaluate model-based assessment approaches based on routinely assessed pelagic species from around the world, consider non-assessment approaches to estimate fish stocks, and develop recommendations for how the SWFSC should evaluate coastal pelagic fish stocks in the future.

A similar forage fish workshop will be held May 16-17 in Portland, Maine. This workshop will focus on Atlantic herring, with the goal of establishing a rule to specify its acceptable biological catch (ABC), the recommended catch level for any given fish species. An effective ABC rule will consider the role of Atlantic herring in the ecosystem, stabilize the fishery at a level that will achieve optimum yield, and address localized depletion in inshore waters.

Ultimately, these various forage fish workshops and projects are striving to use the best available science to update previous research and determine sound management practices for forage species.

Read the full minutes from the Forage Fish Project conference in Hobart, Australia

Learn more about the upcoming coastal pelagic species workshop in La Jolla, Calif.

Learn more about the upcoming Atlantic herring workshop in Portland, Maine

What’s the Deal with Trawling in Australian Waters?

February 29, 2016 — The following originally appeared on CFOOD:

Trawling in Australian waters has been an environmental issue for the last few years. In December 2014, Australia banned “Supertrawlers” a designation of fishing boat larger than 130m.

A petition in favor of the ban said, “Supertrawlers are part of a global problem that has led to the devastation of the world’s fisheries, marine life and local livelihoods, and we don’t want that kind of fishing in Australia.”

A controversial point of the ban is the definition of “supertrawler”, which currently does not consider processing capacity, just the size of the vessel.

One year later, than specific ban is still in place. However environmentalists are now calling for a further ban on all “large” trawlers from Australian waters.

Adding to the controversy was the recent “all-clear to fish again” given to the Geelong Star, a “large” vessel (although it is less than 130m in length). This factory trawler caused seven albatross deaths a few months ago when they accidentally got caught in its sonar gear. Environmental organizations argue it shouldn’t have been there in the first place because ships of this size can cause harm to sensitive species (like these albatross) regardless of where they fish or how careful they are. After effectively banning “supertrawlers” environmental NGOs now seek to ban all “large vessels” from Australian waters.

Comment by Robert Kearney, University of Canberra

The fundamental objectives of fisheries management are to ensure that what is removed is sustainable and that the effect of the methods used for its removal is compatible with society’s expectations for ethical behaviour, animal rights and ecosystem sustainability, including interactions with the broad marine food-chain.

In this regard Australia has achieved tremendous success in the conservative management of fish stocks in recent years (from approximately 40% of species in Commonwealth managed fisheries being assessed as overfished in 2004 to none being subjected to overfishing in 2014). This success has been based on commitment to three fundamental principles; first, appreciation that sustainability of fishing activities and the underlying resource base is paramount and achievable, second, elimination of truly destructive fishing practices and strict control of fishing that causes even localized damage to underlying ecosystems and third, strict control of catches, including of by-catch and incidentally impacted species. But Australia has a very poor record in developing new fisheries and reducing our reliance on imports from countries with less conservatively managed resource use.

With this premise of effective fisheries management in mind, consider the following comparisons between a fishery with many small trawl vessels and a fishery with fewer, larger trawlers.

Bycatch and discards would be easier to monitor and process on a smaller number of large trawlers. All forms of trawling are minimally selective, regardless of vessel size. The advantage of individual larger trawl vessel is that these facilities are more likely to have the capacity to separate, process and store bycatch species to make them available for sale upon landing. Additionally these larger vessels are equipped with better data collection technology to properly count and assess bycatch rates for better policy making. Indeed all forms of data collection and research are facilitated on larger vessels.

Larger vessels are also better suited for high seas fishing, which could have two major advantages over a small-vessel fleet. First, it could diminish fishing effort in in-shore areas where marine protected mammals are disproportionately concentrated. Second, it would allow Australian fishing effort to exploit underutilized stocks in the more off-shore areas of the EEZ and into the high seas. This could bolster food security and serve to address the lopsided trade imbalance in seafood that currently exists. If Australians hope to eat 40% more seafood, as is prescribed by the NHMRC, new harvest practices must be adopted: a large vessel fleet is better equipped to bring greater amounts of high quality seafood to market.

The larger the fishing vessel the more stable the onboard workspace. Smaller fishing vessels are inherently more dangerous than larger counterparts that can offer more stability during harvests in poor weather conditions.

On the matter of recreational fishers in opposition of large trawlers, there is little evidence for this claim. Larger commercial vessels would not be any more disruptive to important food supplies of major sport species, such as bluefin tuna, than greater numbers of small commercial vessels. In fact fewer large vessels would be less likely to overlap with important sport fishing territory and would be easier to relocate to offshore areas if a conflict arose. Most importantly though, it is not food supply that has driven southern bluefin populations down, it is commercial and recreational fishing effort for them. To point the finger at “supertrawlers” for impacting southern bluefin tuna distribution and food supply is illogical and not supported by the scientific evidence.

When referencing the scientific input in Australia it is important to note that Commonwealth fisheries scientists – those that are responsible for the science and rationale behind large trawlers – have, largely because of their government positions, been regrettably absent from most debates on this issue. Sensationalism from uniformed advocacy groups has thus been allowed to dominate the airwaves.

Perhaps most compelling for the development of a rational approach to “supertrawlers” is the simple fact that a fishery with fewer, more data sensitive vessels, despite being larger in size, would be far easier to ensure compliance with conservative regulations than many smaller vessels with questionable data collection capacities. Australia’s advances in fisheries management have been reliant on effective compliance efforts and unjustified restriction of “supertrawlers” is in direct conflict with that successful methodology. It is also contrary to the logical objective for Australia to be at the forefront of technological development and implementation, which has been recently confirmed by the Australian Prime Minister.Robert Kearney is a professor emeritus at the University of Canberra. Read some of his writing here.

 

Acidic Ocean Leads to Warped Skeletons for Young Coral

February 19, 2016 — Rising emissions of carbon dioxide create twin threats for coral in oceans around the world: warmer temperatures, which can cause mass bleachings, and ocean acidification, which can hinder the animals’ ability to build reefs.

But a new study published on Friday in the journal Science Advances suggests that ocean acidification may be the bigger worry in some waters.

Studying a chain of remote Australian islands in the Indian Ocean, researchers found that more acidic waters (those that have absorbed more atmospheric carbon dioxide) cause serious skeletal deformities in juvenile coral in subtropical waters.

Using 3-D imaging techniques, they saw that young coral from the Houtman Abrolhos islands developed skeletons that were missing sections or had very porous and fragile surfaces.

Other studies have shown similar effects of ocean acidification, but the researchers also discovered something that had not been seen in earlier studies of tropical coral development — higher temperatures didn’t have a negative effect on coral skeleton formation.

Read the full story at the New York Times

Daniel Pauly Feeds Media the Wrong Story About Global Fisheries Decline; Other Scientists Object

SEAFOODNEWS.COM by John Sackton – January 25, 2016 — Last week the media was full of a new round of global fishery disaster stories, prompted by an article in Nature Communications by Daniel Pauly & Dirk Zeller affiliated with the Sea Around Us project.

Pauly and Zeller state that FAO global fisheries data has underestimated prior catch, and that therefore if this is taken into account, the decline in fish catch from the peak in the late 1990’s is not 400,000 tons per year, but 1.2 million tons per year.

“Our results indicate that the decline is very strong and is not due to countries fishing less. It is due to countries having fished too much and having exhausted one fishery after another,” said Pauly to the Guardian newspaper.  As a result, a new round of handwringing ensued about global overfishing.

But, the facts don’t support Pauly’s interpretation.  Catch rates are simply not a suitable measure of fisheries abundance.  In fact, declines in catch rates often are due to improvement in fisheries management, not declines in abundance.

Over at cfood, a number of scientists specifically rebutted the premise of Pauly’s article.

Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington says:

This paper tells us nothing fundamentally new about world catch, and absolutely nothing new about the status of fish stocks.

It has long been recognized that by-catch, illegal catch and artisanal catch were underrepresented in the FAO catch database, and that by-catch has declined dramatically.

What the authors claim, and the numerous media have taken up, is the cry that their results show that world fish stocks are in worse shape than we thought. This is absolutely wrong. We know that fish stocks are stable in some places, increasing in others and declining in yet others.

Most of the major fish stocks of the world, constituting 40% of the total catch are scientifically assessed using a mixture of data sources including data on the trends in abundance of the fish stocks, size and age data of the fish caught and other information as available. This paper really adds nothing to our understanding of these major fish stocks.

Another group of stocks, constituting about 20% of global catch, are assessed using expert knowledge by the FAO. These experts use their personal knowledge of these fish stocks to provide an assessment of their status. Estimating the historical unreported catch for these stocks adds nothing to our understanding of these stocks.

For many of the most important stocks that are not assessed by scientific organizations or by expert opinion, we often know a lot about their status. For example; abundance of fish throughout almost all of South and Southeast Asia has declined significantly. This is based on the catch per unit of fishing effort and the size of the individuals being caught. Estimating the amount of other unreported catches does not change our perspective on the status of these stocks.

In the remaining fisheries where we know little about their status, does the fact that catches have declined at a faster rate than reported in the FAO catch data tell us that global fisheries are in worse shape than we thought? The answer is not really. We would have to believe that the catch is a good index of the abundance.

Figure 1 of the Pauly and Zeller paper shows that a number of major fishing regions have not seen declines in catch in the last 10 years. These areas include the Mediterranean and Black Sea, the Eastern Central Atlantic, the Eastern Indian Ocean, the Northwest Pacific and the Western Indian Ocean. Does this mean that the stocks in these areas are in good shape, while areas that have seen significant declines in catch like the Northeast Atlantic, and the Northeast Pacific are in worse shape?

We know from scientific assessments that stocks in the Mediterranean and Eastern Central Atlantic are often heavily overfished – yet catches have not declined.

We know that stocks in the Northeast Pacific are abundant, stable and not overfished, and in the Northeast Atlantic are increasing in abundance. Yet their catch has declined.

Total catch, and declines in catch, are not a good index of the trends in fish stock abundance.

Michael Kaiser of Bangor University commented:

Catch and stock status are two distinct measurement tools for evaluating a fishery, and suggesting inconsistent catch data is a definitive gauge of fishery health is an unreasonable indictment of the stock assessment process. Pauly and Zeller surmise that declining catches since 1996 could be a sign of fishery collapse. While they do acknowledge management changes as another possible factor, the context is misleading and important management efforts are not represented. The moratorium on cod landings is a good example – zero cod landings in the Northwest Atlantic does not mean there are zero cod in the water. Such distinctions are not apparent in the analysis.

Also David Agnew, director of standards for the Marine Stewardship Council, said:

It is noteworthy that the peak of the industrial catches – in the late 1990s/early 2000s – coincidentally aligns with the start of the recovery of many well managed stocks. This point of recovery has been documented previously and particularly relates to the recovery of large numbers of stocks in the north Pacific, the north Atlantic and around Australia and New Zealand, and mostly to stocks that are assessed by analytical models. For stocks that need to begin recovery plans to achieve sustainability, this most often entails an overall reduction in fishing effort, which would be reflected in the reductions in catches seen here. So, one could attribute some of the decline in industrial catch in these regions to a correct management response to rebuild stocks to a sustainable status, although I have not directly analyzed the evidence for this. This is therefore a positive outcome worth reporting.

This opinion piece originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It has been reprinted with permission.

 

Tuna-Fishing Deal Dispute Keeps U.S. Boats Out of Pacific Waters

January 12, 2016 — U.S. boats are set to be locked out of the world’s best tuna-fishing waters after reneging on a deal with 17 Pacific states, amid a slump in prices for the fish sold in cans in supermarkets all over the country.

The standoff means U.S. boats cannot access seas where around half of the world’s skipjack tuna are caught each year. It is also endangering a vital revenue stream for some of the world’s poorest nations.

A group of Pacific island states—which includes small islands and atolls such as Tuvalu, Tokelau and the Marshall Islands—along with New Zealand and Australia are refusing to issue fishing licenses to around 36 U.S. vessels to trawl in their waters after their owners, typically tuna-supply companies or individuals, refused to meet payments agreed in August last year.

“These are the most attractive fisheries in the world and there are boats dying to fish in these waters right now but they can’t go and fish,” said Transform Aqorau, chief executive officer of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement, a grouping of eight of the islands which control most of the regions’ best fishing grounds.

Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal

 

Research finds trawling not as devastating as often portrayed

November 23, 2015 — An ongoing two-year independent study on trawling and its effect on benthic sea life — species that live on sea floors where trawling occurs – has found that the practice may not be as devastating as it is portrayed by some NGOs.

The study called, ‘Trawling: Finding Common Ground on the Scientific Knowledge Regarding Best Practices’, is being funded by the Walton Foundation and the Packard Foundation in partnership with the National Fisheries Institute, and is being done by a group of international scientists who are collecting and assessing data of global sea floors where trawling occurs.

The major data collection and analysis for the project has been completed, including assessments of mobile bottom contact gear in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa and most of the US, making it six times more extensive than and previous compilations.

According to Ricardo Amoroso of the University of Washington, who presented the data at this year’s Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle, public perception of trawling is often negative. Common public beliefs include the equivalent of 10 football fields are trawled every four seconds and that trawling is turning the seafloor into a desert.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Bill targeting pirate fishing worldwide heads for presidential signature

October 22, 2015 — WASHINGTON — A bill aimed at taking down “pirate” fishing by keeping illegally caught fish out of U.S. ports is headed for President Barack Obama’s signature.

The Senate late Wednesday passed a bill aimed at giving the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Coast Guard greater enforcement capabilities to combat illegal and unregulated fishing, a multibillion-dollar problem for Alaska and the U.S. fishing industry.

The bill, which brings together such unlikely bedfellows as Republican lawmakers and Greenpeace, passed the Senate by a unanimous vote. The House passed the same legislation in July.

The bill has the backing of the White House, which determined in 2014 that new legislation was needed to implement a port agreement requiring member countries to reject ships that have illegal product onboard. The European Union, Australia, Chile and New Zealand have signed on, among other countries. Ten more are needed to reach the 25 required before the agreement takes effect, according to environmental group Oceana.

“This important legislation, which imposes added sanctions on countries whose vessels engage in IUU fishing, would provide our authorities the tools they need to fight back against these global criminals and ensure millions of pounds of illegally caught product never reach market,” said Alaska Rep. Don Young, a Republican who co-sponsored the House version of the bill.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News