Saving Seafood

California Congressman Makes New Push For Marine Sanctuary Off Central Coast

June 8, 2018 — Even though the Trump Administration is proposing to open parts of the California coastline to new oil exploration, a Santa Barbara congressman is pushing for more protections.

Democratic Congressman Salud Carbajal is urging Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to follow up on a proposal to create the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.

It would be created on the Central Coast between the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The designation could preserve submerged Chumash cultural sites and protect marine resources.

Read the full story at KCLU

Smart Software Helps Fishermen Catch the Fish They Want, Not Endangered Species

June 6, 2018 — In the ocean, everything moves. Waves push around vast swaths of saltwater, tides ebb and flow, and over time tectonic rumblings transform the seafloor. With all that movement, marine life travels as well—making the oceans one of the most dynamic ecosystems on Earth. This constant shuffling can make it hard to predict where a particular marine species might be on any given day. But that is exactly what Elliott Hazen, a fisheries scientist from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association (NOAA), is trying to do through new modeling software.

Hazen and a team of other fisheries scientists developed EcoCast in an effort to reduce the unintended bycatch of protected marine species while supporting sustainable fisheries; their results were published last week in Science Advances. EcoCast is already being used to allow fishermen exemptions to fish in certain protected areas in California, and NOAA is working on a smartphone app that will give fishermen this dynamic data in real-time.

The team focused on the California Drift Gillnet (DGN) fishery, which targets broadbill swordfish along the U.S. West Coast. The fishery, which has declined in recent years, only brought in 176 metric tons of swordfish in 2017—down from a historical high of 2,198 metric tons in 1985. DGN fishermen use mesh nets that float vertically in the water to catch the swordfish, but the nets often trap additional species—a phenomenon known as bycatch—including the critically endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtle, blue sharks, and California sea lions.

It’s not just an issue of protecting endangered species, explains Gary Burke, a fisherman in California and a member of the Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara. “Fishermen don’t want bycatch. It breaks our gear and it’s expensive. So, we like to avoid it.”

EcoCast takes an array of oceanographic variables into account to generate a fluid map that highlights areas where fishermen are likely to find high concentrations of their target species and not the protected species they don’t want to catch.

Read the full story at Smithsonian.com

Hawaii: Whales entangled in debris in Hawaii get help from team of drones

June 1, 2018 — Federal rescue teams in Hawaii are now using small DJI drones to help free humpback whales caught in tangles of debris.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary has partnered with Oceans Unmanned of California to use drone technology to assist with whale entanglement response efforts off of Maui.

Oceans Unmanned, a nonprofit founded by former NOAA sanctuary manager Matt Pickett in California, released a video Wednesday offering more details on the program.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Star Advertiser

 

Aniello Guglielmo: Fishermen know the truth about sardines

May 29, 2018 — Listen to what fishermen know about sardines

Reporter Anne Roth quoted me in her article “When will sardines return? Not any time soon say scientists.” But she misunderstood what I said.

I’m one of the fishermen Diane Pleschner-Steele quoted in her comment, “Fishermen are seeing more sardines, not less.” I’ve been fishing for 60 years, and I’ve seen sardines come, go and come back again. But the government surveys that assess the biomass don’t come into coastal waters where the fish are now. In fact, we began seeing an abundance of small sardines right before the 2015 El Niño.

The government now admits they’re missing fish in their stock assessments. We know they’re missing a lot of fish, and we’ve offered to help document the abundance inshore of their surveys. But that’s going to take time, and the bureaucracy moves slowly. When I said, “Unless something drastic happens, I don’t think, I’ll ever fish sardines again,” I also explained that it may take years for government surveys to account for sardines in the nearshore area where sardines are, and I only have a few years of fishing left. But I hope I do fish sardines again in my lifetime.

Fishermen know better than scientists how many fish are in the ocean. It’s time they start listening to us.

Read the full letter to the editor at the Monterey Herald

 

Oregon: Sea lions continue to eat endangered fish

May 29, 2018 — All the time, money and sacrifice to improve salmon and steelhead passage in the Willamette River won’t mean a thing unless wildlife managers can get rid of sea lions feasting on the fish at Willamette Falls.

That was the message Tuesday from Shaun Clements, senior policy adviser for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, who met at the falls with Liz Hamilton, executive director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, and Suzanne Kunse, district director for U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore.

The group watched as several sea lions patrolled the waterfalls and nearby fish ladders. Clements said there could be as many as 50-60 sea lions in the area on any given day in April or early May, and the animals are responsible for eating roughly 20 percent of this year’s already paltry winter steelhead run.

As of May 22, ODFW has counted just 2,086 winter steelhead at Willamette Falls. That’s less than half of the 10-year average and 22 percent of the 50-year average.

ODFW applied in October 2017 to kill sea lions from Willamette Falls under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, though Clements said he does not expect a decision from the National Marine Fisheries Service until the end of the year. The department also tried relocating 10 California sea lions to a beach south of Newport earlier this year, only to see the animals return in just six days.

Read the full story at the Capital Press

 

New study reveals cost of 2017 salmon fisheries closure

May 7, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Last year’s closure of the commercial ocean salmon troll fishery off the West Coast is estimated to have cost $5.8 million to $8.9 million in lost income for fishermen, with the loss of 200 to 330 jobs, according to a new model that determines the cost of fisheries closures based on the choices fishermen make.

Scientists hope the model, described for the first time this week in Marine Policy, will help policy makers anticipate the economic toll of fisheries closures. Such foresight may be especially useful as conditions in the California Current off the West Coast grow increasingly variable, leading to more potential closures, said lead author Kate Richerson, a marine ecologist with NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center and the University of Washington.

“We’re probably only going to see more of these closures in the future,” she said, “so being able to predict their effects and fallout for coastal communities puts us ahead of the curve in terms of considering those impacts in planning and management decisions.”

The new model estimates the future losses associated with fisheries closures based on the way fishermen reacted to previous closures. It anticipates, for instance, that many fishermen will simply quit fishing rather than shift their efforts to another fishery instead. In this way, the model accounts for the difficulty fishermen face in entering other fisheries with limited permits, Richerson said.

The research is the first attempt to predict the effect of fisheries closures before they happen, said Dan Holland, an economist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center and coauthor of the study. The model, developed prior to the 2017 closure, also can help identify the most affected communities.

For example, Coos Bay and Brookings, Oregon, and Eureka, California, were among the hardest hit by the 2017 salmon closures because they are geographically located in the center of the closure that stretched from Northern California to Oregon. The closure led to the estimated loss of about 50 percent of fisheries-related employment in Coos Bay and about 35 percent declines in fishing-related income and sales. Predicted percentage declines in overall fishing-related income are lower than declines in salmon income, since many fishermen were predicted to continue to participate in other fisheries.

The study estimated that the closure led to a loss of $12.8 million to $19.6 million in sales. Richerson noted that the model estimates only the economic consequences of the closure to the commercial ocean salmon fishery and does not include the toll on recreational fisheries or in-river fisheries, which would make the total losses even higher.

The closure recommended by the Pacific Fishery Management Council and adopted by NOAA Fisheries was designed to protect low returns of salmon to the Klamath River in Northern California.

Learn more about NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center here.

 

California: Offshore wind farms coming to California — but the Navy says no to large sections of the coast

May 7, 2018 — Fans of renewable energy anticipate a bonanza blowing off the coast of California.

But a map released by the U.S. Navy puts large swaths of the state off limits to future offshore wind farms — including all of San Diego and Los Angeles, extending up to the Central Coast.

The military does not have the final say in the matter, as federal and state officials — as well as wind energy companies and at least one member of Congress — are working with the U.S. Department of Defense to develop a more flexible plan.

But the back-and-forth adds an extra layer of complexity to the nascent industry on the West Coast, where geographic features make it harder to construct wind farms in the Pacific than those on the East Coast.

“There’s a lot at stake here” for California to meet its ambitious clean energy goals, said Robert Collier, a policy analyst at the Green Energy Program at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. “California is going to need a lot more renewable energy from all sources. Offshore wind is not the only potential solution, but it is part of a multi-pronged strategy.”

Why offshore wind must float on the West Coast

The sight of wind turbines anchored into the ground, their blades turning like giant pinwheels, has become more common in recent years.

But it’s rare to see a wind farm looming over open water — at least in the United States. European companies with projects in places like Denmark and Scotland have taken the early lead in offshore wind energy.

Read the full story at the San Diego Union-Tribune

 

Senators Feinstein, Harris introduce bill to ban drift nets in California

April 30, 2018 — A bipartisan bill to ban controversial drift net fishing off California’s coast was introduced Thursday by Democratic California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, along with West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito.

The nets, which can be more than a mile long, are intended to catch swordfish but end up trapping dolphins, sea lions and a host of other marine life, many of which die.

“The use of drift nets to target swordfish harms too many endangered or protected marine animals and should be phased out,” Feinstein said in an emailed statement. “It’s unacceptable that a single California fishery that uses this type of drift net is killing more dolphins and porpoises than the rest of the West Coast combined.”

Large mesh drift nets are already banned in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, as well as off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Hawaii, according to Feinstein. Additionally, the United States is a signatory to international agreements that ban large drift nets in international waters.

Read the full story at the Orange County Register

 

Monterey Bay fishermen working round the clock to pull in plentiful catch

April 26, 2018 — MONTEREY, Calif. — Below the surface of Monterey Bay, opalescent market squid are busily creating a new generation, laying eggs in clusters on the seafloor. And at the water’s surface, a fleet of fishing boats are ready to scoop those squid up, continuing a fishing tradition that’s well over a hundred years old.

In Monterey Harbor, a collection of at least eleven boats have been fishing for squid not far from shore since April 1, their lights visible off the coast at night. When the fishing is good, said Joe Russo, second captain and deckhand on the fishing vessel King Philip, it’s not uncommon for them to spend 24 hours a day netting tens of thousands of pounds of slippery squid with each return to shore. They continue through the spring, summer, and into early fall, if they don’t exceed the quota set by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“From noon on Sunday until noon Friday, as long as there’s fishing you might not sleep for two days,” he said, looking remarkably awake. The crew on his boat, including his father Anthony Russo (captain of the King Philip), rushed to pump the squid out of their hold on Wednesday and into big yellow tubs, each of which holds around 1,500 pounds of catch. As soon as their boat was completely unloaded, they planned to head right back out to the squid. In the meantime the elder Russo ducked inside to catch an hour-long nap.

Market squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) is in many years the most productive and valuable fishery in California. This year, with cold water and plenty of food available, plentiful squid are coming into Monterey Bay. But in some years the squid catch plummets — researchers believe that changes in water temperature and food availability associated with El Niño years keep squid populations down. The animals live for less than a year and die after one reproductive effort, which means their population can be wildly variable with yearly conditions.

Read the full story at the Monterey Herald

 

Sharks, Dolphins, and Turtles are Turning Up in Strange Places Because of Climate Change

April 20, 2018 — Luke Halpin couldn’t believe his eyes. In the early morning hours from his spot on a research ship in the Pacific Ocean, he was seeing bottlenose dolphins. If Halpin had been on a ship off the coast of California, this wouldn’t be remarkable. But he was on a Canadian research vessel floating about 100 miles northwest of Vancouver. These dolphins had never been seen alive north of the waters off the coast of Washington state.

“My initial reaction was one of disbelief,” he told Newsweek. “But they’re an unmistakable species. They’re easy to identify.”

Halpin’s next reaction was to start counting and pull out his camera. In total, he spotted about 200 dolphins and 70 false killer whales—a very large group—that came within a few hundred feet of the ship. He and his colleagues published their observations in Marine Biodiversity Records on Thursday.

Read the full story at Newsweek