Saving Seafood

Fish in California estuaries are evolving as climate change alters their habitat

November 21, 2019 — The threespine stickleback, a small fish found throughout the coastal areas of the Northern Hemisphere, is famously variable in appearance from one location to another, making it an ideal subject for studying how species adapt to different environments. A new study shows that stickleback populations in estuaries along the coast of California have evolved over the past 40 years as climate change has altered their coastal habitats.

The study, published November 21 in Global Change Biology, looked at variation in the armoring that protects the  from predators, specifically the number of bony plates along their sides (called lateral plates). Previous research showed that populations in northern California have a more complete set of this armoring than populations in southern California, corresponding to differences in their habitats.

“There’s a gradient from drier systems in the south, where the estuaries are more pond-like, with more vegetation, to increasingly more open, river-like systems as you go north,” explained coauthor Eric Palkovacs, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz.

The new study found that threespine stickleback in some California estuaries are evolving to have fewer lateral plates as their habitats become more pond-like due to a warmer, drier climate. Stickleback populations at some central California sites are now looking more like the low-plated populations typical of southern California.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Warming waters spell more bad news for Maine’s shrimpers

November 21, 2019 — New England shrimp are still in bad shape despite a fishing shutdown that is unlikely to end soon, new data show.

The region’s shrimp fishing industry, long based mostly in Maine, has been shut down since 2013 because of concerns about the health of the population. Recent surveys off Maine and New Hampshire say signs are still poor, scientists with the regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission said.

A big part of the problem is that the shrimp thrive in cold water and the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than most of the world’s oceans. The mean average summer sea bottom temperature was about 42 degrees Fahrenheit from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, and it rose to 45 degrees this year, said Dustin Colson Leaning, a fishery management plan coordinator for the Atlantic States.

That small difference makes it harder for young shrimp to thrive and join the population, he said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News

Louisiana fishing industry suffers USD 258 million in losses

November 20, 2019 — The Louisiana fishing industry suffered an estimated USD 258 million (EUR 233 million) in losses due to historic flooding this year and the opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway, a new analysis said.

The fisheries disaster economic impact analysis, conducted by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, was submitted to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to help the state qualify for its portion of the USD 165 million (EUR 149 million) in fisheries disaster assistance available from the federal government.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Biologists suspect New York bay scallops are latest victim of warmer waters

November 20, 2019 — The famed bay scallops of eastern Long Island came back after their near-death experience of brown tides only after years of a dedicated restoration effort. Now biologists are worried the fishery may be at risk with increasing water temperatures.

New York baymen are seeing the worst Peconic Bays scallop season in years, after summer 2019 water temperatures that reached a sustained July peak of 84 degrees in some places.

The scallops were devastated by severe brown tides for more than a decade starting in 1984 and were nurtured back with many years of work by scientists, baymen, aquaculture experts and volunteers. The shellfish face other threats like being eaten by cownose rays and other predators. But biologists think this situation is different.

“I do believe this one in dues to high water temperatures and low dissolved oxygen that may have coincided with spawning,” Long Island University professor Steve Tettlebach who works with the Cornell Cooperative Extension told National Fisherman. “So, the combination of these stressors is the most plausible explanation for the die-off of adults.”

The damage became evident during the Cornell fall scallop survey when workers found thousands of empty shells, and baymen came home largely empty-handed from the fall season.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Northern Bering Sea trawl survey shows fisheries in flux

November 19, 2019 — Norton Sound red king crab are moving, Arctic cod numbers have dropped significantly and Pacific cod are continuing to increase as the Northern Bering Sea ecosystem undergoes drastic change. That’s all according to preliminary results from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration trawl survey this summer in the Northern Bering Sea (NBS).

Before Lyle Britt even began leading the NOAA Fisheries’ study of the NBS in September, he anticipated seeing more warm water fish in a region that stretches from Nunivak Island north to the Bering Strait.

“We can tell that the ecosystem is very much in flux up here,” Britt said. “We’re seeing expansion of ranges of some fish and invertebrates, and we’re seeing the retraction of others. Now how permanent or ephemeral those are, I think is still in question.”

As an example of a species that’s expanding its range based on what was discovered in the 2010 baseline survey of the Northern Bering Sea, Britt points to Pacific cod.

“Between 2010 and 2017 there was about a 900% increase in the amount of Pacific cod we saw in the Northern Bering Sea region, based on that biomass or total weight estimate,” he said. “That number sounds really dramatic in part because there were so few in 2010 and now there are some. That number increased between 2017 and 2019 by about 30%, so it’s continued to go up.”

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

UMaine Launches Initiative To Help Mainers Understand How State Is Affected By Arctic Climate

November 18, 2019 — The University of Maine is launching an initiative designed to help Mainers better understand how the state is affected by Arctic climate.

Called “UMaine Arctic,” the project explores how the changing climate will impact the state’s fisheries, native populations and coastal communities.

“The Arctic has a huge impact on life in Maine,” says Christopher Gerbi with UMaine’s College of Natural Sciences, Forestry and Agriculture. He says the Gulf of Maine is fed by waters from the arctic regions of Canada and Greenland.

“As the water changes temperature, that changes the temperature in the Gulf of Maine, which has a huge impact on all our fisheries, the lobster industry,” he says.

And on all of the industries that rely on those industries, such as marine suppliers, restaurants and coffee shops in coastal communities, says Gerbi.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Top climate hawk bashes first big offshore wind project

November 15, 2019 — For the past seven years, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has given a weekly address about the dangers of climate change. Increasingly, some greens wonder if he is full of hot air.

The Rhode Island Democrat, one of the Senate’s top climate hawks, has emerged as a leading critic of Vineyard Wind, an 84-turbine offshore wind project proposed in federal waters 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Whitehouse has questioned the federal government’s review of the project, the first large-scale development of its kind in the United States, and criticized Vineyard Wind for failing to adequately consult fishermen.

His barbs have raised eyebrows in climate circles and in Massachusetts, where Vineyard Wind has the enthusiastic backing of the state’s political establishment, and comes as the Trump administration weighs the future of the project.

In August, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt called for an additional round of environmental review of the project (Climatewire, Aug. 12). A division of Interior, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, is currently conducting a cumulative impact study of other offshore wind projects proposed for the area.

In an interview, Whitehouse said he was simply pushing for improvements to BOEM’s permitting process to better accommodate the concerns of fishermen and other ocean users.

He argued that Vineyard Wind had already settled on the design of its project with investors before taking input from fishermen. And he cited the Block Island wind farm, a five-turbine project built by Rhode Island-based Deepwater Wind, as an example of how wind developers should approach fishermen’s concerns.

Keating said he appreciates the difficulty Whitehouse faces in balancing the concerns of fishermen next to the economic potential of offshore wind. He represents New Bedford, Mass., America’s largest commercial fishing port, and has heard similar concerns about offshore wind from some constituents. But he added: “I really feel an urgency and I feel an imperative that we have to go forward on this. This is gonna be great for our economy.”

Read the full story at E&E News

Food security starts at sea

November 13, 2019 — By 2050, global food production must increase by 70 percent to keep up with population growth. The pressure to grow, harvest and create more protein from America’s resources will be immense. Yet, America owns vast wealth in and near our coastal communities that permeates across state lines. This wealth must be protected for businesses, community survival and our nation’s food security.

Every summer, the wealth of our fisheries is seen coast to coast. Wild salmon return to pristine Alaskan waters, striped bass reappear near New England’s shores, and red snapper congregate in the Gulf of Mexico. As leaders of the Seafood Harvesters of America and lifelong fishermen, we shared stories like these — the story of the American fisherman — during the summer’s Capitol Hill Ocean Week.

Like any robust American resource, fisheries connect businesses, communities and families across the nation around hard work and resiliency. Renewable and sustainably managed, it has the capacity to help feed us in perpetuity.
But does it?

In 2017, U.S. commercial fishermen landed an astounding 9.9 billion pounds of seafood. Americans love the idea of eating American seafood. We celebrate it on menus and grocery store banners, devour dramatic fishing documentaries, and honor its heritage in our coastal towns. As a nation we’ve prioritized sustainability through laws like the Magnuson Stevens Act, which is why 91 percent of America’s fishery stocks are not overfished today — and that number is only improving.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Save Our Seas 2.0 tackles global marine debris crisis

November 12, 2019 — We may have plenty of political differences, but we come from coastal states. That means we have a front-row seat to the peril of plastic waste and marine debris flowing into our oceans at the rate of around 8 million metric tons per year. We understand what it will mean for our fishing and tourism industries when the weight of plastic in our oceans equals the weight of fish in the sea — something projected to happen by mid-century. We don’t have a moment to lose in confronting this problem.

That’s why we built a coalition in Congress and gathered input from environmental and industry stakeholders alike. Despite a divided Washington, that work resulted in a bill that won broad, bipartisan support. When the Save Our Seas Act became law last October, it was a moment of bipartisan progress on a vital issue — one to be celebrated.

Before the president’s ink on Save Our Seas was dry, our bipartisan trio of senators began developing the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act. We sought to harness the momentum behind the first bill to up the ante on combatting the global marine debris crisis. Marine debris requires multifaceted, multisector solutions with a global reach, and the United States ought to be driving these solutions.

Read the full story at Roll Call

The climate chain reaction that threatens the heart of the Pacific

November 13, 2019 — Lined up along the side of their boat, the fishermen hauled a huge, heavy net up from swelling waves. At first, a few small jellyfish emerged, then a piece of plastic. Then net, and more net. Finally, all the way at the bottom: a small thrashing mass of silvery salmon.

It was just after dawn at the height of the autumn fishing season, but something was wrong.

“When are the fish coming?” boat captain Teruhiko Miura asked himself.

The salmon catch is collapsing off Japan’s northern coast, plummeting by about 70 percent in the past 15 years. The disappearance of the fish coincides with another striking development: the loss of a unique blanket of sea ice that dips far below the Arctic to reach this shore.

The twin impacts — less ice, fewer salmon — are the products of rapid warming in the Sea of Okhotsk, wedged between Siberia and Japan. The area has warmed in some places by as much as 3 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times, making it one of the fastest-warming spots in the world, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the nonprofit organization Berkeley Earth.

Read the full story at The Washington Post