Saving Seafood

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

Fish wars loom as climate change pushes lobster, cod, and other species north

June 22, 2018 — Over the past 50 years, as Atlantic waters have warmed, fish populations have headed north in search of colder temperatures. Lobsters have migrated 170 miles and the iconic cod about 65 miles, while mid-Atlantic species such as black sea bass have surged about 250 miles north, federal surveys show.

But fishing limits and other rules, by and large, haven’t shifted with them.

The rapid movement of fisheries, in New England and around the world, has outpaced regulations and exacerbated tensions between fishermen in competing regions and countries, threatening to spark conflicts that specialists fear could lead to overfishing.

“This is a global problem that’s going to be getting worse,” said Malin Pinsky, an assistant professor of ecology at Rutgers University, who led a recently released study on the movement of fisheries in the journal Science.

With climate change expected to accelerate in the coming years, new fisheries are likely to emerge in the waters of more than 70 countries and in many new regions, the study found.

Fishing quotas in the United States have been traditionally set by councils overseeing specific regions, based on the belief that fish don’t move much.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Climate Change Brought a Lobster Boom. Now It Could Cause a Bust.

June 21, 2018 — At 3:30 in the morning on a Friday in late May, the lobstermen ate breakfast. Outside, their boats bobbed in the labradorite water, lit only by the dull yellow of streetlamps across the bay. It was windy, too windy for fishing, but one by one the island’s fishermen showed up at the Surfside cafe anyway. Over pancakes and eggs, they grumbled about the season’s catch to date.

Some of the lobstermen said it was just too early in the season. Others feared that it was a sign of things to come. Since the early 1980s, climate change had warmed the Gulf of Maine’s cool waters to the ideal temperature for lobsters, which has helped grow Maine’s fishery fivefold to a half-billion-dollar industry, among the most valuable in the United States. But last year the state’s lobster landings dropped by 22 million pounds, to 111 million.

Now, scientists and some fishermen are worried that the waters might eventually warm too much for the lobsters, and are asking how much longer the boom can last.

“Climate change really helped us for the last 20 years,” said Dave Cousens, who stepped down as president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association in March. But, he added, “Climate change is going to kill us, in probably the next 30.”

Read the full story at the New York Times

Climate change moving fish north, threatening turf wars, study says

June 21, 2018 — World conflict is likely to increase over access to fisheries, as species move north in response to a warming ocean, according to a Rutgers University study published last week in the journal Science.

“Seventy or more countries will likely have to start sharing with their neighbors” in coming decades, said lead author Malin Pinsky, including the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The danger comes from overfishing when countries can’t cooperate, he said. Consumers and economies are harmed by overexploitation.

“If there’s a fish fight, you end up with less fish for everyone — less fish on every plate, fewer jobs for local economies and less profit for local businesses,” said Pinsky, 37, an assistant professor in Rutgers’ Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources who is soon to be an associate professor.

The right to harvest particular species of fish is usually decided by national and regional fishery management bodies, which assume species don’t move much, Pinsky said.

“Well, they’re moving now because climate change is warming ocean temperatures,” he said. Studies have estimated the oceans have absorbed about 93 percent of recent increases in global temperatures.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City

Climatic conflict: Is the Mackerel War a model for future trade disputes?

June 20, 2018 — What happens when a fish crosses the border? A new Rutgers University study presents evidence that as fish move with changing water temperatures, their tendency to cross borders will cause political conflicts among nations with varying fishery management authorities.

Fishery regulators write rules “based on the notion that particular fish species live in particular waters and don’t move much,” says Malin Pinsky, assistant professor of ecology, evolution and natural resources in Rutgers–New Brunswick’s School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. “Well, they’re moving now because climate change is warming ocean temperatures.”

“Consider flounder, which have already shifted their range 250 miles farther north,” Pinsky says. “Federal fisheries rules have allocated many of those fish to fishers in North Carolina, and now they have to steam hundreds of extra miles to catch their flounder.”

Because fish are typically more nimble than their management systems, this kind of movement will exacerbate international fisheries conflicts, Pinsky says.

“Avoiding fisheries conflicts and overfishing ultimately provides more fish, more food and more jobs for everyone,” says Pinsky. He and his co-authors cite the “mackerel war” between Iceland and the European Union as an example of the disruption of fisheries causing international disputes.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

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