Saving Seafood

GEORGIA: State, local leaders request fishery disaster declaration

June 20, 2018 — Shrimping season is officially underway in Georgia and South Carolina.

As boaters are casting their nets, local and state leaders are calling on federal help to provide relief on the money lost due to winter weather. Chatham County Commission Chairman Al Scott and Congressman Buddy Carter have both sent letters to the U.S. Department of Commerce requesting a fishery declaration be declared for Coastal Georgia.

Winter was tough in the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry this year, affecting water temperature. Before Tuesday, state waters have been closed since Jan. 15 to harvesting of brown, pink and white shrimp. Federal waters closed to shrimping back on Jan. 24. Since the water closures, shrimpers have not been able to make money by harvesting those specified shrimp.

According to Carter’s letter, the seafood industry in Georgia has an economic impact of more than $1 billion.

“The financial hardship that they have suffered as a result of the waters being closed has been substantial, and they need this financial relief, and that’s why I sent to letter to the Secretary of Commerce,” he said.

We spoke to one fisherman Tuesday who says this is a necessary lifeline.

“We’ve got two months of our fishery that’s gone and we have a very short period of time that we’re able to shrimp,” said George Gale, shrimp harvester.

Read the full story at WTOC

The Ocean Is Getting More Acidic —What That Actually Means

June 18, 2018 — Grace Saba steadies herself on the back of a gently rocking boat as she and her crew slide a six-foot long yellow torpedo into the sea. A cheer erupts as the device surfaces, turns on its electronic signal, and begins a three-week journey along the New Jersey coast.

“It’s taken seven years to get this done,” said Saba, who has been working on this experiment since 2011. “I’m so happy, I think I might cry!”

Saba is an assistant professor of marine ecology at Rutgers University, where she is studying how fish, clams, and other creatures are reacting to rising levels of ocean acidity. Acidification is a byproduct of climate change; a slow but exorable real-life experiment in which industrial emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are absorbed and then undergo chemical reactions in the sea. Rising ocean acidity has already bleached Florida’s coral reefs and killed valuable oysters in the Pacific Northwest.

Now scientists like Saba want to know what might happen to animals that live in the Northeast, a region home to commercially important fishes, wild stocks of quahogs (clams), scallops, and surf clams that can’t swim away from growing acidic waters.

“They are just stuck there,” Saba said.

Saba’s torpedo-like instrument is actually an underwater drone, known as a Slocum glider, that is carrying an ocean acidity sensor. This is the first time that oceanographers have married the two technologies—glider and pH sensor—to get a big-picture view of changes underway in the commercially important fishing grounds of the Northeastern United States.

Read the full story at National Geographic

Climate Change May Be Creating A Seafood Trade War, Too

June 15, 2018 — One of the grand challenges that I find as a climate scientist is conveying to the public the “here and now” of climate change. For many people, it is still some “thing” that seems far off in time or distance from their daily lives of bills, illness, kids, and their jobs. Ironically, climate change touches each of those aspects, but the average person does not often make the connections. People eat seafood and fish, but most people will not make any connections between tonight’s dinner of flounder, lobster or mackerel to climate change as they squeeze that lemon or draw that butter.

A new Rugters University study caught my eye because it is a good example of a “here and now” impact. Climate changes is causing fish species to adjust their habitats at a more rapid pace than the how the world policy’s allocate fish stocks. Many species of flounder, lobster, mackerel and crab are migrating to find colder waters as oceans warm.  The study suggests that such shifts may lead to international conflict and reductions in fish supply. Seafood is a pawn in the trade chess game.

Researchers at Rutgers University say that an obsolete and out-dated regulatory system has not kept pace with how the ocean’s waters are warming and shifting fish populations. I actually wrote a few years ago in Forbes about how warming waters were shifting crab populations in the North Pacific and was affecting fishers as well as one of my favorite TV shows, The Deadliest Catch. This new study published in one of the top scientific journals in the world, Science, has provided new insight that has implications for our food supply and potential international conflict.

Read the full story at Forbes

Climate Change May Spark Global ‘Fish Wars’

June 15, 2018 –Warming seas are driving commercial seafood poleward into waters controlled by other countries, setting up international conflicts.

Atlantic mackerel, a fatty schooling fish, for years has been caught by fleets in parts of Europe and sold around the world—where it gets pickled, grilled, smoked, and fried. It is among the United Kingdom’s key exports.

But a decade ago, warming temperatures began driving this popular fish north, into seas controlled by Iceland. Almost overnight, this seafood gold began shredding relations between some of the world’s most stable governments. It led to unsustainable fishing, trade embargoes, and boat blockades. It even helped convince Iceland to drop its bid to join the EU. And that was among friendly nations.

Welcome to the climate-change food threat you may not have considered.

In many parts of the world overfishing is already draining the ocean of important sea life. But a paper published today in the journal Science suggests potentially explosive ocean fish wars are likely to simmer across the world as warming temperatures drive commercial fish species poleward into territories controlled by other nations, setting up conflicts with sometimes hostile neighbors that are suddenly forced to share. That could lead to far fewer fish, economic declines and, in some areas, serious threats to food security.

Read the full story at National Geographic

JAMES D. HERBERT:Climate change affords Maine opportunities to lead in ‘New North’

June 13, 2018 — As the northeasternmost state in the U.S., Maine is geographically positioned as America’s gateway to the Arctic and North Atlantic – regions becoming increasingly important to global commerce and culture. We must cast aside our notion of Maine as a back door to the world and reimagine it as a front door, devoting the full force of our human and economic capital to making Maine a leader in the “New North.”

Geographer Mia Bennett has characterized Maine as the next “near-Arctic state,” and in 2015, Maine’s Angus King partnered with Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to form the Senate Arctic Caucus. The Arctic and the North Atlantic region have become increasingly geopolitically relevant. Characterized by political stability and celebrated for achievements in public health, education, civil rights and other important features of civil society, several North Atlantic countries have become global models. This has resulted in steadily increasing economic activity, trade and tourism.

At the same time, climate change continues to reshape our world’s geography and waters. And while we must do all we can as a global community to minimize the progression and effects of climate change, we must also be realists. As the North thaws, new shipping routes open, valuable temperate-zone fisheries move north, more land becomes available for cultivation and new opportunities for collaboration arise.

Read the full story at the Kennebec Journal

Fish will migrate as temperatures warm, putting fisheries at risk

June 5, 2017 — Morley et al. 2018, a paper published May 16, 2018 in PLOS one (open access) projects how warming ocean temperatures will affect the geographic distribution of 686 commercially important species around North America. We already know that species across the globe are migrating due to climate change: organisms that require cooler environments are moving towards the poles while species that tolerate warmer conditions find themselves with more space to live.

Species migration and shifting home ranges have serious implications for natural resource management, particularly fisheries. Fishing boats may have to travel further to find fish, using more time & fuel; fishing communities and livelihoods could be lost as fish move away; or fish in one country’s jurisdiction (EEZ), may move to another country’s. The key management issue is the uncertainty. Fishers need to know how fish will be distributed in the future to adapt to warming temperatures and preserve their income and livelihoods.

The recent study should help fishery managers, fishers, and other stakeholders prepare for the future as it contains the most comprehensive projection of fisheries migration under climate change to date. Using over a hundred thousand data points from U.S. and Canadian fishery surveys over the past 50 years, researchers examined the relationship between temperature, depth, and habitat to establish home ranges for 686 species on the North American continental shelf; then used several climate models to see how home ranges would change under different emissions scenarios (representative concentration pathways—or RCPs).

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

Marine heatwaves are getting hotter, lasting longer and doing more damage

June 1, 2018 — On land, heatwaves can be deadly for humans and wildlife and can devastate crops and forests.

Unusually warm periods can also occur in the ocean. These can last for weeks or months, killing off kelp forests and corals, and producing other significant impacts on marine ecosystems, fishing and aquaculture industries.

Yet until recently, the formation, distribution and frequency of marine heatwaves had received little research attention.

Long-term change

Climate change is warming ocean waters and causing shifts in the distribution and abundance of seaweeds, corals, fish and other marine species. For example, tropical fish species are now commonly found in Sydney Harbour.

But these changes in ocean temperatures are not steady or even, and scientists have lacked the tools to define, synthesize and understand the global patterns of marine heatwaves and their biological impacts.

At a meeting in early 2015, we convened a group of scientists with expertise in atmospheric climatology, oceanography and ecology to form a marine heatwaves working group to develop a definition for the phenomenon: A prolonged period of unusually  at a particular location for that time of the year. Importantly, marine heatwaves can occur at any time of the year, summer or winter.

Read the full story at PHYS

 

Your dinner might be swimming North thanks to climate change, Rutgers study says

May 18, 2018 — Climate change is making oceans warmer and the fish are taking flight.

And that could have a big impact on New Jersey’s $7.9 billion fishing industry according to a new Rutgers-led study published Wednesday.

Aquatic life has a narrow tolerance for temperature range, so as the water heats up species populations are shifting northward to find suitable habitat according to Malin Pinksy, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor in Rutgers’ Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources.

By 2100, the Atlantic’s temperature off the Jersey Shore could rise to levels currently seen in Virginia. That could lead to species like black sea bass and summer flounder, both staples of New Jersey’s fishing industry, leaving the area and being replaced by more southern species like Atlantic Croaker.

Pinsky said the most dramatic example of a shifting fishery is the Atlantic Cod. The species could lose 90 percent of its habitat in U.S. waters by 2100 in a worst case scenario.

Read the full story at NJ

 

Warming Waters Push Fish To Cooler Climates, Out Of Some Fishermen’s Reach

May 17, 2018 — The oceans are getting warmer and fish are noticing. Many that live along U.S. coastlines are moving to cooler water. New research predicts that will continue, with potentially serious consequences for the fishing industry.

Fish can be as picky about their water temperature as Goldilocks was about her porridge. Ecologist Malin Pinsky of Rutgers University says a warming climate is heating up their coastal habitats. “Here in North American waters,” he says, “that means fish and other marine animals, their habitat is shifting further north quite rapidly.”

Pinsky studied 686 marine species ranging from bass and flounder to crab and lobster. He projected how much warmer oceans would get over the next 80 years, using various scenarios for emissions of greenhouse gases and the rate of global warming. Then he projected how fish species would probably react to that based on what they’ve been doing already. “And [with] about 450 of those,” he says, “we have high certainty in terms of how far they are going to shift in the future.”

Read the full story at NPR

 

Warming seas may scramble North America’s fishing industry

May 17, 2018 — Get ready, seafood lovers: Climate change may complicate efforts to net your catch of the day. That’s because warming seas will force many of North America’s most valuable fish and shellfish stocks north in coming decades, a major new modeling study finds, potentially creating headaches for the fishing industry and government regulators. Some species could see their ranges shrink by half, whereas others are poised to expand into vast new territories more than 1000 kilometers north of their current homes.

“Basically, climate change is forcing species to move, jumbling up ecosystems,” says ecologist Malin Pinsky of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, who led the study with postdoctoral researcher James Morley, now at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. “That’s not necessarily bad news. But we’ve already seen that even much smaller shifts in the distribution of marine species can cause real economic disruption, political friction, and challenges to fisheries managers. And here we are talking about potentially big shifts.”

Researchers have already shown that on land and in the sea, plants and animals are shifting their ranges in response to rising global temperatures. Trees that thrive in warmer climates, for example, are spreading into areas where frigid winters once made survival impossible. And species that need cooler weather are retreating from areas that have become too warm.

Read the full story at Science Magazine