Saving Seafood

NPFMC October Meeting Information/Call for Nominations

July 1, 2019 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The October Council meeting will be in Homer, AK at the Land’s End Hotel, September 30th to October 9th.  For planning purposes, we are releasing a preliminary agenda and schedule which will be finalized in early September.  Please be aware the Advisory Panel will start on TUESDAY OCTOBER 1, and the Council will begin on THURSDAY OCTOBER 3.  Because of logistics, changes may occur with the scheduling of agenda items.  Please call (907) 271-2809 if you have questions.

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
The Council is seeking nominations for membership for two taskforces to work on two Action Modules, or projects, that implement the Council’s Bering Sea Fishery Ecosystem Plan (FEP). The two initiated Action Modules are the following:

  • Climate Change Action Module: Evaluate short- and long-term effects of climate change on fish, fisheries, and the Bering Sea ecosystem, and develop management considerations.
  • LK/TK/Subsistence Action Module: Develop protocols for using local knowledge (LK) and traditional knowledge (TK) in management, and understanding impacts of Council decisions on subsistence use.

More information on the nominations HERE.

New England Coastal Waters Warming More Than Anywhere Else In U.S.

June 27, 2019 — Waters off the coast of New England have warmed up more than any other coastal areas in the United States — up to 3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1901. That’s according to a new analysis of recently collected federal ocean data by the independent research nonprofit Climate Central.

Their report also notes that fresh and salt waters across the United States are warming 40% faster than expected.

In New England, this means changes for the fishing industry: Cold water fish are moving to deeper waters, and species from warmer climates are moving in, according to research fishery biologist Vincent Saba of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

“We’ve seen dramatic shifts in where fishermen are catching species today, versus where they were being caught say 15 or 20 years ago,” Saba says.

Read the full story at WBUR

Helping New England fishing communities adapt

June 26, 2019 — New England fishing communities must adapt or fail. That’s the advice published in a new study co-authored by UMass Dartmouth scientist Dr. Robert Griffin.

Climate change is altering ocean temperatures, as researchers have previously documented, and entire fish populations are migrating further north or into deeper waters in search of cooler environments. For fishing communities, that means the slow disappearance of species that may be integral to the area’s identity.

For example, lobster in southern New England is migrating out, while black sea bass and Jonah crab have become more abundant.

“[Fishermen] all seemed to understand that this is happening,” Griffin said. “They go out and try to continue to catch the fish they’ve been trying to since they started, but it’s much harder.”

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Warmer waters mess with the Northeast’s cod-given right to fish

June 24, 2019 — Fishing has been the economic and cultural pillar for many coastal towns along the Northeast coast for generations. But a warmer climate threatens the abundance and distribution of key species like haddock and Atlantic cod. And that will spell trouble for these fishing towns, according to new research.

“Fishermen need to travel farther from port to fill their nets, reflecting shifts in the location of their target species,” quantitative ecologist Lauren A. Rogers, who co-authored the study, explained.

A warmer climate makes species migrate north; the timing of species to arrive into fishing areas is shifting as well. This complicates fishermen’s jobs as they may not see a species during a time when regulations allow them to fish for it.

“Fishermen are on the frontlines of climate change,” Monique Coombs, director of marine programs at the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, told Grist. “Clam harvesters see the shells of the intertidal species softening because of ocean acidification. Changing weather patterns inhibits fishers’ safety because they are no longer able to depend on weather forecasts.”

Read the full story at Grist

A ‘long, creeping change’: As climate warms, Virginia fisheries struggle to adapt

June 24, 2019 — George Washington had few dietary preferences, save one: he was “excessively fond” of fish.

Luckily for the president, his perch at Mount Vernon afforded him an easy opportunity to indulge.

The Potomac, he recorded in 1793, was “well-stocked with various kinds of fish in all Seasons of the year, and in the Spring with Shad, Herring, Bass, Carp, Perch, Sturgeon, etc. in great abundance. … The whole shore, in fact, is one entire fishery.”

Today, Mount Vernon still overlooks the Potomac, but the species that call Virginia waters home are increasingly different due to something Washington couldn’t have foreseen: climate change.

“It’s hard to manage fisheries to begin with, [and] in the past we’ve always considered the climate stable,” said Patrick Geer, deputy chief of fisheries management for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. “But now that theory of a stable climate and environment has been taken out.”

As global air temperatures warm, so too do global waters. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the temperature of the ocean’s surface has risen an average of 0.13 degrees Fahrenheit every decade since the beginning of the 20th century. And the Chesapeake Bay is estimated to be warming even faster, at an average rate of 1.2 degrees every decade since the 1980s.

Increasingly, that is making environments inhospitable for fish. In reaction, populations on the East Coast are shifting northward and eastward, leaving commercial fishermen and states who have long relied on their presence with lighter nets — and fears of lighter coffers.

Some of those fears are justified. The classic cautionary tale is that of New England’s northern shrimp fishery, which crashed precipitously around 2012 and was closed in 2014 by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the governmental body that oversees the management of fisheries in state waters from Maine to Florida. In February 2018, the ASMFC extended the moratorium to 2021 in an announcement that linked the collapse to warming ocean temperatures and broached the possibility of a future in which “the stock has no ability to recover.”

Such regional collapses may become more frequent in coming years, while at the same creating more favorable environments for other species.

“In any one region, some species will experience improving environmental conditions that may result in increased available habitat and increased species productivity, while other species will experience the opposite and perhaps decline in abundance,” the National Marine Fisheries Service declared in its 2015 Climate Science Strategy.

Or, as Geer put it, “For any given area and for any given species, there will be winners and losers.”

Read the full story at The Virginia Mercury

New Study Finds Surfclams Uniquely Resilient in Face of Climate Change

June 20, 2019 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing the future of marine life, affecting everything from habitats, to migration, to spawning patterns. But new research shows that at least one species has unique features that have allowed it to adapt well to a warming ocean.

The study, published in Marine Ecology Progress Series, finds that surfclams are able to shift their range into previously inhospitable waters as the surrounding oceans temperatures rise. This information will be essential for fisheries managers struggling to effectively manage species in the face of climate change.

The key to this adaptability, according to authors Drs. Jeremy Timbs and Eric Powell, of the University of Southern Mississippi, and Dr. Roger Mann of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, is the number of larvae that surfclams produce. Ordinarily, surfclams produce a massive amount of larvae, which end up distributed across a wide range of the ocean. Most of these larvae will die from predators, lack of food, or inhospitable temperatures. But the study found that, as ocean temperatures shift, the range of acceptable habitat shifts along with it. Larvae that would have died under cooler conditions now survive, gradually changing where surfclams are located.

“For a sedentary species, surfclams are remarkably adaptable to ocean changes that would cause problems for other shellfish,” says Dr. Powell. “This is especially important for fishermen who depend on surfclams, and who are trying to adapt with the rest of the industry to the challenges posed by climate change.”

The study, which examined 30 years worth of surfclam data, was funded through the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFiS). A collaborative project funded through a National Science Foundation grant and support from the fishing industry, SCeMFiS funds groundbreaking research around pressing scientific issues identified by our industry partners.

“Studies like this confirm what we have been seeing since the 1990s, and help us predict the industry’s future,” said Guy Simmons, of SeaWatch International, which is one of the largest harvesters of clams in the country. “We need to work with our partners in the scientific community as we continue to adapt to a changing ocean.”

Climate change threatens commercial fishers from Maine to North Carolina

June 18, 2019 — Most fishing communities from North Carolina to Maine are projected to face declining fishing options unless they adapt to climate change by catching different species or fishing in different areas, according to a study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Some Maine fishing communities were at greatest risk of losing their current fishing options, according to the study by Rutgers and other scientists.

“Some communities like Portland, Maine, are on track to lose out, while others like Mattituck, New York, or Sandwich, Massachusetts, may do better as waters warm,” said senior author Malin Pinsky, an associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “Adapting to climate change for many communities will require fundamentally new approaches to fishing. Change has become the new normal.”

Fishing has been the economic and cultural lifeblood for many coastal towns and cities along the Northeast coast, in some cases for hundreds of years, Pinsky said. But climate change is expected to have a major impact on the distribution, abundance and diversity of marine species worldwide, the study notes.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

G-20 urges ‘voluntary action’ on marine plastic crisis but fails to agree on common approach

June 18, 2019 — Environment ministers from the Group of 20 on Sunday recognized an urgent need to tackle the marine plastic litter that’s choking the world’s oceans, but failed to agree on concrete measures or targets to phase out single-use plastics.

More than 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the world’s oceans every year, equivalent to a garbage truck’s worth every minute, and by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans by weight than fish, scientists predict.

But agreeing on a common approach to the problem has proved problematic, with the United States blocking demands to set a global target to significantly reduce or phase out single-use plastics.

“Marine litter and especially marine plastic litter and microplastics, is a matter requiring urgent attention given its adverse impacts on marine ecosystems, livelihoods and industries including fisheries, tourism and shipping, and potentially on human health,” environment ministers from the G-20 said on Sunday.

The ministers said they were “determined to drive measures to resolve this issue,” while also noting that “plastics play an important role in our economies and daily lives.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Boaty McBoatface makes major climate change discovery on maiden outing

June 18, 2019 — Boaty McBoatface’s maiden outing has made a major discovery about how climate change is causing rising sea levels. Scientists say that data collected from the yellow submarines’s first expedition will help them build more accurate predictions in order to combat the problem.

The mission has uncovered a key process linking increasing Antarctic winds to higher sea temperatures, which in turn is fuelling increasing levels.

Researchers found that the increasing winds are cooling water on the bottom of the ocean, forcing it to travel faster, creating turbulance as it mixed with warmer waters above.

Experts said the mechanism has not been factored into current models for predicting the impact of increasing global temperatures on our oceans, meaning forecasts should be altered.

Boaty McBoatface – the publicly named robotic submersible carried on the research vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough – took its first expedition in April 2017, studying the bottom of the Southern Ocean.

Read the full story at The Telegraph

The Coastal Squeeze: Changing Tactics for Dealing with Climate Change

June 17, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Protecting Essential Fish Habitat

One of the things we do in the Habitat Conservation Division is consult with other agencies who are doing projects that might affect fish species and their habitats. If, for example, the Army Corps wants to give the state of New York a permit to dredge a river or build a bridge, they consult with us to determine how they can minimize the effects on the most important fish spawning, nursery, and feeding areas that are deemed “essential fish habitat.” Without essential fish habitat, of course, we lose fish.

Climate Change is Happening Fast in the Northeast

We’ve been seeing the signs of climate change for decades. Sea levels and sea-surface temperatures have risen throughout the world. But, here in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, we are seeing surprisingly fast changes compared to other parts of the world.

  • The average sea-surface temperature on the Northeast Shelf has increased by about 2.3°F since 1854, with about half of this change occurring in the last few decades.
  • In particular, the waters of the Gulf of Maine are warming dramatically in recent years– faster than 99 percent of the global ocean between 2004 and 2013.

Read the full release here