Saving Seafood

Scientists have more evidence to explain why billions of crabs vanished around Alaska

August 21, 2024 — Fishermen and scientists were alarmed when billions of crabs vanished from the Bering Sea near Alaska in 2022. It wasn’t overfishing, scientists explained — it was likely the shockingly warm water that sent the crabs’ metabolism into overdrive and starved them to death.

But their horrific demise appears to be just one impact of the massive transition unfolding in the region, scientists reported in a new study released Wednesday: Parts of the Bering Sea are literally becoming less Arctic.

Read the full article at CNN

Cape Cod scientists delay controversial climate change project after feds raise concern

August 19, 2024 — Cape Cod scientists are delaying a geoengineering project that looks to dump more than 60,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide into the ocean and has caught federal concerns around potential impacts on the ecosystem.

Scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth have pushed back the project from mid-September to next summer because they say a fully-equipped research vessel is no longer available.

Woods Hole’s decision to delay became public two days after the National Marine Fisheries published a warning last Monday that the project could “adversely affect federally-managed species and other NOAA trust resources.”

The experiment, consisting of two phases, would dump sodium hydroxide and freshwater into the Atlantic, temporarily changing the water’s chemistry – increasing carbon dioxide levels that the ocean absorbs.

Scientists say it’s an effort that could be a way to slow climate change in the long run.

The first phase of the so-called LOC-NESS project, short for “Locking away Ocean Carbon in the Northeast Shelf and Slope,” would release 6,600 gallons of sodium hydroxide solution roughly 10 miles south of Normans Land, an island off of Martha’s Vineyard.

The release of the solution would occur over two to three hours to “create a patch of alkalinity on the ocean surface and then monitored for up to 5 days by an on-site scientific research team,” according to project documents.

In the second phase, pushed back to 2026, scientists would dump up to 66,000 gallons into the Wilkinson Basin, nearly 40 miles northeast of Provincetown.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

Ocean geoengineering experiment south of Martha’s Vineyard, designed to suck carbon from atmosphere, is delayed

August 15, 2024 — A controversial geoengineering experiment planned for an area of open ocean water southwest of Martha’s Vineyard will be delayed until 2025, the research institution leading the project announced Wednesday. It had been set to begin this September.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a private marine research nonprofit organization, had planned to release a 6,600-gallon mixture of sodium hydroxide solution and freshwater into the Atlantic in a first-of-its-kind experiment. The intent is to learn whether the method — known as “ocean alkalinity enhancement” — can temporarily change the chemistry of the water, thereby raising the amount of carbon dioxide that is absorbed by the ocean and helping to fight climate change.

However, after scheduling delays related to the federal permitting process, the research institution said that the research vessel needed for the experiment was no longer available.

Read the full article at The Boston Globe

Scientists and Fishermen Agree About Uncertainty of Offshore Wind’s Impact

August 15, 2024 — Newport’s Energy and Environ­ment Commission hosted a panel discussion on Aug. 8, “The Effect of Climate Change and Offshore Wind on Fisheries and Ocean Ecosys­tems,” where representatives from NOAA, the URI Graduate School of Oceanography, The Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island, and the Kingston -based Commer­cial Fisheries Research Foundation responded to a series of prompts posed by commission Vice Chair Emily Conklin.

A Q&A session followed, with about 60 people gathered at City Hall to participate. Many in atten­dance brought strong opinions both for and against the large- scale offshore wind development projects being built off the coast of Newport and Little Compton.

During the public Q&A, mul­tiple people voiced skepticism about the quality of research being conducted by URI and other local institutions due to the fact that offshore wind companies have funded some of the studies. Jeremy Collie, a professor of ocean­ography at URI, pushed back on the notion that research funded by the offshore wind developers is in­herently biased or untrustworthy .

Read the full article at Newport This Week

Warming rivers and over-fishing leave native Alaskans facing ‘salmon scarcity’

August 13, 2024 — As the Earth’s rivers warm, salmon must either struggle to survive in a degraded habitat or move to cooler waters – but native Alaskan fishing practices are helping protect them.

Ocean heatwaves have been well documented in recent years. Now, scientists say river temperatures, too, are soaring – leaving Alaska’s world-famous salmon to navigate increasingly challenging waters as they struggle to complete their migratory cycle. When circumstances deteriorate, migrating fish are often forced to keep moving until they find cooler water. Now, changes in salmon populations are already affecting the culture and lifestyle of many coastal native tribes, a connection that goes back thousands of years.

Salmon are anadromous fish, meaning they spend parts of their lives in different habitats. Alaska’s rivers are home to all five species of Pacific salmon; pink (humpy), chinook (king), coho (silver), sockeye (red) and chum (dog). Although there are differences between them, they are all born in freshwater and spend some time there before heading to the ocean, which has better resources for them to eat and grow. When ready, they return to the same stream they were born in, to reproduce and then die.

Salmon go back to their home river because it usually gives them the best chance of survival, says Peter Westley, associate professor of fisheries at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “Different rivers have different factors, like temperature and how much water is in it, and how big the rocks are – all kinds of stuff. So, the fish that were born there and survived there have traits that allow them to do well there.”

Read the full article at BBC News

What is “upwelling,” and why is it making Atlantic Ocean temperatures in New Jersey colder?

August 7, 2024 — Families heading to the Jersey Shore this week are facing unusually cold ocean temperatures.

Professor Anna Pfeiffer-Herbert, who chairs Stockton University’s Marine Science Program, said in the past week, the water temperature has plummeted from the low-to-mid-70s to the low-to-mid-50s around Atlantic City and shore towns to the south. She added those temperatures are “unusually cold for this time of late July, early August.”

This weather phenomenon is known as “upwelling,” which, Pfeiffer-Herbert explained, is caused specifically by winds from the south pushing water away from the shore.

Read the full article at CBS News

NOAA confirms above-average Gulf of Mexico dead zone

August 6, 2024 — Following NOAA predictions earlier this summer that the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico would be larger than average, scientists have now confirmed that those predictions have come true.

Created by excess nutrient pollution along the Mississippi-Atchafalaya watershed, the dead zone in the gulf is a hypoxic area roughly the size of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The low oxygen levels within the area are deadly to fish.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Good news: Overfishing is at an all-time low. Bad news: Fish species face new threats.

August 5, 2024 — Most fisheries in South Carolina are doing well. Their populations are mostly healthy, thanks to effective government oversight and the caution of fishermen. But some species still are struggling, and officials suspect warming waters have something to do with it.

In the South Atlantic Fishery, which extends from North Carolina to Florida, red porgy and red grouper are overfished. Red snapper, snowy grouper and gag are overfished and subject to overfishing, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries’ latest assessment of federally managed fish species.

When a stock is subject to overfishing, it means too many fish are being taken. When a stock is overfished, it means the fish population is too low and needs to be rebuilt, said Kelly Denit, director of NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Sustainable Fisheries.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, first passed in 1976 and reauthorized in 2007, requires the regional fishery management council to take immediate action once an assessment reveals overfishing, said Kerry Marhefka, co-owner of Abundant Seafood and member of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

“We can’t manage the fish,” Marhefka said. “What we’re managing are the fishermen.”

This means changing the annual catch limits for recreational and commercial fishermen, or implementing area closures to give those stocks a chance to rebuild, she said.

Read the full article at The Post and Courier 

Map Reveals Fish-Killing ‘Dead Zone’ Size of New Jersey in Gulf of Mexico

August 5, 2024 — Scientists have announced that the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone”—where there is so little oxygen that the ocean becomes unsurvivable—is now the size of New Jersey.

Around 6,705 square miles of potential habitat has been wiped out from fish, sea plants, and other ocean life due to water being “hypoxic.” This makes it the 12th largest dead zone recorded in the past 38 years of record-keeping.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says its size is larger than predicted for 2024. NOAA and its partners monitor the area annually to track its size and impact, informing mitigation efforts.

“It’s critical that we measure this region’s hypoxia as an indicator of ocean health, particularly under a changing climate and potential intensification of storms and increases in precipitation and runoff,” said Nicole LeBoeuf, assistant administrator of NOAA’s National Ocean Service in a statement.

Read the full article at Newsweek

Public can help fight climate change with new grants for citizen science projects

August 5, 2024 — The public can now help even more in the ongoing climate change battle after the Biden-Harris Administration and NOAA unveiled hundreds of thousands of dollars available in grants for citizen science projects.

On Monday, the Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced $600,000 in grants is being made available to members of the public to conduct science experiments that help fisheries and fishing communities prepare for climate change.

NOAA Fisheries will offer funding between $75,000 and $200,000 for three to eight projects during 2025/2026 chosen from applications that are now open to the public. The deadline to apply is Nov. 4, 2024.

NOAA says they are seeking proposals for citizen science projects in an effort to find gaps in data on the health of marine fish stocks and/or how fisheries and fishing communities could be impacted by changing environmental conditions.

Read the full article at Sustainable San Diego