Saving Seafood

CALIFORNIA: Threat of El Niño has Pacific squid fleet on edge

August 7, 2018 –All eyes and ears were on water temperatures and foreign trade tariffs as seiners hit their strides in the West Coast squid season. Cooler ocean temperatures last fall fostered hopes that the environmental pendulum had begun swinging in favor of squid production. But as the summer of 2018 ensued, the threat that El Niño conditions may be returning set fishermen and processors on edge.

“We’re watching the inklings of an El Niño,” said Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, in Buellton. “It’s an interesting season. It started well, and it’s still going… better than when we were in the throes of El Nino.”

In late June, Oregon had posted healthy landings, and Pleschner-Steele said harvest numbers had begun picking up in California. The commercial squid season runs from April 1 to March 31 of the following year, and seiners fish on a quota of 118,000 short tons. Pleschner-Steele says the fleet hasn’t caught the quota in recent years, given oceanic conditions and other factors, and that the set quota is an optimal harvest number.

As of June 28, the seiners had landed 9,931 tons of squid.

On July 3, Pleschner-Steele said it was unlikely the fleet would catch the quota this year. The pending shortage in the harvest might be a good thing, in terms of curbing volumes headed to troubled markets in China.

The recent trade fracas between China and the United States predicated a stiff tariff on U.S. squid products shipped to China, one of the West Coast industry’s primary markets.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Warming seas are robbing some fish of their vital sense of smell

August 6, 2018 — There have been numerous wake-up calls about the effects of climate change on marine life. As ocean waters heat up, they are bleaching corals. Growing levels of carbon dioxide are acidifying seawater, which is degrading the shells and skeletons of sea organisms. The rising temperatures are prompting fish to migrate to colder waters, even causing them to shrink.

Now climate change is starting to affect their sense of smell, a phenomenon that will worsen in the coming years if global warming continues unabated, according to new research. A sense of smell is indispensable to fish. They use it to find food, detect imminent danger and elude predators, to find safe environments and spawning areas, even to recognize one another.

To lose it could threaten their very survival. If this happens, it also would mean big trouble for the fishing industry, tourism and, most importantly, global nutrition, since many of the world’s people — including its poorest — depend on fish for food.

“Future levels of carbon dioxide can have large negative effects on the sense of smell of fish, which can affect fish population numbers and entire ecosystems,” said Cosima Porteus, a researcher at the University of Exeter and author of the study, which appears in the journal Nature Climate Change.

“This can be prevented, but we must reduce carbon emissions now before it’s too late,” Porteus says.

Carbon dioxide combines with seawater to produce carbonic acid, which makes the water more acidic. Since the Industrial Revolution, oceanic CO2 has risen by 43 percent and is projected to be two and a half times current levels by the end of this century, according to the scientists.

Read the full story at Popular Science

Gloucester Times: So, be nice to your oceans

August 1, 2018 — This is why we can’t have nice things. Because we’re human and we tend, over time, to spoil most of the wondrous things we touch. You need only look at big league baseball, which, despite the historic season unfolding for the local nine, has become a soulless slog through the barren desert of analytics, home runs, strikeouts and pitching changes.

And then there are the oceans. We’ve really left our smudgy fingerprints all over them.

According to a new study that offers the most exhaustive mapping of the Earth’s ocean wilds, there is virtually no corner of the planet’s oceans that has not suffered human disruptions or the ill effects of human-created climate change.

“Nowhere is safe,” James Watson, an author on the study published in the journal, Current Biology, told The Washington Post via a video abstract of the study.

Perhaps more alarming, the study calculates that only 13 percent of the planet’s oceans could still be classified as “wilderness” because of the unceasing onslaught of humans trekking around the planet.

Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Times

 

ALASKA: The Big Thaw: Fishermen in Kodiak cope with record low cod numbers

July 25, 2018 — A hint of optimism creeps into Darius Kasprzak’s voice as he pilots his boat, the Marona, out of the harbor in Kodiak on a calm day in early May.

“We’re in the morning, we’re at the start of the flood tide,” Kasprzak said. “This is where you want to be.”

On the screen of Kasprzak’s echo sounder he sees a dense cluster of dots on the ocean bottom.

“Let’s drop on it,” Kasprzak said. “That looks pretty darn good.”

Kasprzak kills the engine, leaps onto the deck and lowers one of his fishing lines into the water.

And then… nothing.

For years, Alaska fishermen like Kasprzak have worried that climate change would threaten their livelihoods. Now, it has. The cod population in the Gulf of Alaska is at its lowest level on record. The culprit is a warm water mass called “the blob“ that churned in the Pacific Ocean between 2013 and 2017.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Front line of climate change: Black sea bass surge off R.I.

July 16, 2018 — Scientists tell us that some fish will be winners and others losers as oceans warm.

In Rhode Island, count lobster, silver hake and winter flounder among the losers, their numbers plummeting as climate change drives water temperatures higher. On the list of winners so far are squid, summer flounder, butterfish.

And black sea bass. The population of the dusky-colored fish with striking blue accents has historically been strongest off the mid-Atlantic Coast, but over the past decade or so its numbers have spiked off New England and it is becoming a more important catch for the region’s fishermen.

In a telling sign of black sea bass’s surge in Rhode Island, the state Department of Environmental Management last month loosened regulations governing the recreational fishery for the species, extending the season by 31 days and increasing the fall possession limit to seven fish per person per day, from five.

Read the full story at The Providence Journal

Shifting fish giving New Jersey an early global warming challenge

July 13, 2018 — The slow warming of the Earth someday will require difficult adaptations in many sectors of society, for example farming, energy and insurance.

One challenge already is here — fish. They are voting with their fins, moving northward out of warming ocean waters and into cooler temperatures they prefer. And that is disrupting fisheries management and quotas, which only recently had achieved stability and acceptance.

Earlier this year, a study led by a Rutgers University marine biologist predicted two-thirds of the 700 ocean species it analyzed would be forced to migrate — some more than 600 miles — in the worst warming scenarios.

A 2016 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study found half of the Northeast’s fish and shellfish were highly vulnerable to climate change. It warned that fisheries dependent on a single valuable species, such as New Jersey is on scallops, are at particular risk.

And global warming might shrink fish as well. A pair of University of British Columbia scientists last year reported the size of fish is likely to decrease by 20 to 30 percent for every 1 degree Celsius increase in water temperature, as their metabolisms speed up and the oxygen content of the water diminishes.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City

NOAA chief backs away from comments about climate change

July 3, 2018 — The acting head of the U.S. agency that oversees the country’s oceans policy is downplaying remarks he recently made about climate change.

Last week, The Hill reported that Tim Gallaudet, the acting administrator for NOAA, gave a presentation at a conference put together by the U.S. Commerce Department where he floated a new mission statement for the agency. Gallaudet, a retired Navy rear admiral who also serves as the assistant commerce secretary for oceans and atmosphere, reports to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Currently, NOAA’s mission statement begins with “To understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts.” In his presentation, Gallaudet offered an amended mission statement that read: “to observe, understand and predict atmospheric and ocean conditions.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists released the presentation to the public. After its release, Gallaudet issued a statement saying he intended his remarks to show how NOAA could find new ways to work with in the Commerce Department’s strategic plan. He said his presentation was not to be considered as a finished product, according to The Hill.

“Secretary Ross, the Department, and I support NOAA’s mission to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans and coasts; to share that knowledge and information with others; and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources,” Gallaudet said. “We are also fully aware of the congressional mandates and will continue to adhere to them.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

‘Storminess’ Could Make Fishing More Risky as Climate Warms

July 2, 2018 — Tens of thousands of people die every year trying to catch fish to eat or sell, and weather is one of the biggest hazards to lives and equipment. The International Red Cross estimates that 3,000–5,000 people, mainly fishers, are killed by intense thunderstorms on Africa’s Lake Victoria each year. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan destroyed some 30,000 fishing boats in the Philippines.

The dangers of fishing are no secret, but a warming planet could make the job even more risky. A team of researchers in England is calling for a closer look at how increasingly stormy weather will affect global fisheries.

In a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, they warn that nastier weather in the future will make fishing more dangerous for millions of fishers and, by reducing catches, could threaten the health and well-being of billions of people who eat seafood. The biggest challenge is that few have studied this question. Although there’s been plenty of research on how ocean warming could reduce fish catch in the next 50–100 years, they said, changing “storminess” could actually be a more immediate, catastrophic issue.

“We really want to encourage more research in this area, because we think it’s really critical for the future,” said lead author Nigel Sainsbury, a scientist at the University of Exeter’s Environment and Sustainability Institute.

Already, scientists have looked at how large storms can damage coral reefs, cause fish to evacuate large areas and flood estuaries with salty ocean water. Some storm systems may also benefit fish by strengthening ocean upwelling that allows phytoplankton and zooplankton – food at the base of the marine food chain – to thrive, according to research led by United States National Marine Fisheries Service scientists.

Read the full story at Oceans Deeply

NOAA’s Research Just Shifted from Climate Change to “Empowering the Economy” and “National Security”

June 26, 2018 — One of the country’s major federal science agencies seems to have been forced to abandon climate change research as a key organizational focus, the New York Times revealed this week. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization is responsible for managing the National Weather Service and using its network of satellites to forecast the effects of climate change. Rather than concentrate on resiliency efforts, NOAA is now charged with prioritizing “a safe, secure and growing economy empowered through accurate, reliable and timely environmental information,” according to a slideshow presented by the agency’s acting director at a Department of Commerce meeting.

The Times had the details of the policy shift, the latest under President Trump’s watch:

In the presentation, which included descriptions of the past and present missions for the agency, the past mission listed three items, starting with “to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans and coasts.” In contrast, for the present mission, the word “climate” was gone, and the first line was replaced with “to observe, understand and predict atmospheric and ocean conditions.”

The presentation also included a new emphasis: “To protect lives and property, empower the economy, and support homeland and national security.”

Read the full story at Mother Jones   

 

Ocean science agency chief floats removing ‘climate’ from mission statement and focusing on trade deficit

June 26, 2018 — A recent presentation by the acting head of the United States’ top weather and oceans agency suggested removing the study of “climate” from its official mission statement, focusing the agency’s work instead on economic goals and “homeland and national security.”

Critics say this would upend the mission of the $5.9 billion National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But the administration disputes that interpretation, saying the presentation did not intend to create a change of direction at a vast agency that tracks hurricanes and atmospheric carbon dioxide, operates weather satellites, manages marine reserves and protects endangered ocean species, among other functions.

NOAA’s mission, the agency says, is “to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts, to share that knowledge and information with others, and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.”

But in a presentation at a Commerce Department “Vision Setting Summit” this month, Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, the agency’s acting administrator, suggested a change to that mission statement, as well as a new emphasis on tripling the size of the U.S. aquaculture industry within a decade and moving to “reduce the seafood trade deficit.”

The new NOAA mission, the presentation said, would be “to observe, understand and predict atmospheric and ocean conditions, to share that knowledge and information with others, and to protect lives and property, empower the economy, and support homeland and national security.”

“This presentation is a simplified draft for discussion,” said Gallaudet, an oceanographer who has spoken in the past about climate change’s effects on the Arctic, in a statement provided by the agency. “It was not intended to create change in NOAA mission or policy from what it was before. Any interpretation to the contrary is simply inaccurate.”

But the proposed removal of language about studying the “climate” and about the managing of coastal and marine resources has aroused considerable ire and concern.

Read the full story at the Washington Post