Saving Seafood

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

JOHN SACKTON: We Need a New Magnuson Act to Deal with Climate Change Impacts on Fisheries

June 14, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — 50 years ago fisheries were in crisis.  The prevailing international law allowed no national control of ocean activities beyond 12 miles.  In New England, this meant giant Soviet factory trawlers practicing pulse fishing came in to devastate the abundant haddock stock, leaving US fishermen crumbs after they left.

Similar fishing situations were occurring around other coastal nations.  Chile and Peru were the first countries to declare a 200-mile exclusive economic zone.  Other countries such as the US and Iceland followed and by 1982, the UN recognized the right of countries to establish a 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

The implementing legislation in the US was the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Passed in 1976, the act not only restricted foreign fishing but much to the surprise of East Coast fishermen, it also implemented a system of fisheries management to set quotas and control overfishing.

The key features of Magnuson were to establish regional councils so as to promote local control over fisheries, to require management decisions be based on the best available science, and to involve all stakeholders in the council and decision-making process.

The results have been a fisheries management system that has preserved healthy stocks, as in Alaska, rebuilt overfished stocks (on the West Coast), and became the model for global sustainable fisheries management.  It is fair to say that the prosperity we see in the US seafood industry today would not exist without Magnuson.

But we are facing a new crisis every bit as profound as the lack of EEZ’s in the 1970s.  That is the crisis of global warming and ocean acidification, caused by the use of fossil fuels that have built up CO2in the atmosphere to dangerous levels.

CO2 induced warming is leading to movement of fish to different areas, increased acidification that is interfering with the use of calcium for shells, including for zooplankton, changes in ocean currents, loss of sea ice, and sea level rise that is reducing the area of coastal marshes.  Taken together, these changes challenge the very basis of our fisheries management system, which depends on predicting the changes in stocks in a stable environment.

Several recent reports have provided eye-opening data.  One is an excellent report produced by the Canadian DFO on the state of the North Atlantic Ocean.  Finally, the DFO is spending money on transparent science and providing a real public service by documenting in one place all aspects of the North Atlantic ecosystem.

The most significant factors in the report are the change in the quality of zooplankton due to mistiming of plankton blooms.   This impacts the entire marine food chain.  A second is the movement of fish to new habitats, exemplified by the lobster fishery which is currently booming off of Nova Scotia, but which is likely to crash as waters exceed a certain summer temperature.  We published a summary of this report this week.

Another recent report, issued in May,  was the UN report on the loss of biodiversity.  This report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), was approved and adopted by the UN, and says that around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history.

Sir Robert Watson, chair of the panel, said   “The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture.  The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

The seafood industry is complex because it is so varied, and regional differences abound.  This is partly why those of us in the industry love it so much. There is just nothing comparable to the interplay of natural productivity, human knowledge and skill, and highly diverse conditions and ecosystems.  Seafood distributors routinely carry over 100 items, even though most sales are from a smaller cluster of major species.

The commercial experience of the oyster farmer, a lobster fisherman in Nova Scotia, a salmon grower, a pollock captain in the Bering Sea, or a Dungeness fisherman out of Newport, Oregon are totally different, with each adapted to their particular resource and environment.

This complexity and localization make it very hard for people in particular fisheries to see the big picture.  Local communities can get dependent on a fishery that appears to be stable, and then have that stability pulled out from under them in an instant.

The common denominator for a new “Magnuson Act” should be the economic vitality and resilience of coastal communities.  This may not always come from fishing.

Wind power, tourism, marine protected areas, as well as fishing all can serve as an economic foundation as communities adapt to climate change and sea level rise.  Today proponents of most of these are in their own silos, in a war of all against all.

So fishermen oppose wind power developments, even though reducing fossil fuel emissions is the only possible path to prevent catastrophic increases in ocean temperatures. The temperature rise upends the productivity of most of the species on which they fish.

Fishermen also, by and large, oppose a massive increase in marine protected areas.  Yet a rethinking of habitat protection may be the only approach that would avoid a catastrophic loss of biodiversity.    We thrive on complex ocean ecosystems that offer changing opportunities.  If the price of maintaining that complexity means changing the way some ocean areas used for fishing, that is a price well worth paying.

Tourism is a bit more compatible with traditional fisheries.  In Astoria, Oregon, the Bornstein’s built their seafood processing plant in a way they could accommodate cruise ship visitors.  In our story about Nova Scotia lobstering, Lucien LeBlanc says he outfitted his new 50-foot lobster boat, the John Harold, to double as a tourist vessel and rely less on the fishery.  “Financially, I treat [every year]  like it’s my last year,” he says.

New Bedford, which on the one hand is the center of scallopers opposition to offshore wind power in New England, is, on the other hand, experiencing a dock and marine construction boom as the hub of offshore wind power.

The point is that these activities: fishing, power generation, tourism, and protecting biodiversity do not need to be in conflict with each other but could all contribute to the economic vitality needed to keep coastal communities intact.

This is where a new “Magnuson” type vision is needed.  We need a way to put forward an overarching vision of how to protect coastal communities in an era of climate crisis, not by watching individual ocean industries get destroyed but by developing a framework where they can all thrive together.

This not a Pollyanna puff piece about everyone working together.  The fact is that all these industries need support.  The fishing industry has benefitted massively from having the Magnuson Act as the foundation on which to build.  A new framework that focused on making coastal communities economically resilient around all ocean uses is not a zero-sum game.

By broadening our idea of what is necessary to keep fishing healthy for another 50 years, and by focusing on what will keep fishing communities healthy, we may find we get more support and better results if we look at the total picture of what we are facing, rather than just fighting over which 10 sq. mile grid to assign to wind, fishing, or protected areas.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

In hot water? Study says warming may reduce sea life by 17%

June 12, 2019 — The world’s oceans will likely lose about one-sixth of their fish and other marine life by the end of the century if climate change continues on its current path, a new study says.

Every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit that the world’s oceans warm, the total mass of sea animals is projected to drop by 5%, according to a comprehensive computer-based study by an international team of marine biologists. And that does not include effects of fishing.

If the world’s greenhouse gas emissions stay at the present rate, that means a 17% loss of biomass — the total weight of all the marine animal life — by the year 2100, according to Tuesday’s study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But if the world reduces carbon pollution, losses can be limited to only about 5%, the study said.

“We will see a large decrease in the biomass of the oceans,” if the world doesn’t slow climate change, said study co-author William Cheung, a marine ecologist at the University of British Columbia. “There are already changes that have been observed.”

While warmer water is the biggest factor, climate change also produces oceans that are more acidic and have less oxygen, which also harms sea life, Cheung said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times