Saving Seafood

Climate Change Likely to Reshape West Coast Fisheries by Sending Fish Farther Offshore

August 21, 2023 — Shifting ocean conditions associated with climate change will likely send high-value sablefish into deeper waters off the West Coast, new research shows. That could make the fish tougher to catch and force fishing crews to follow them or shift to other, more accessible species.

The research led by scientists at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center provides a glimpse of West Coast fisheries with climate change. Fishing crews must always balance the value of different commercial species against the distances involved in catching them, but climate change could alter that equation in new ways.

Scientists studied how four species of West Coast groundfish commonly caught together may respond to climate change. The four species accounted for 53 percent of bottom-trawl groundfish revenue off the Pacific Coast over the last decade. They include sablefish, the most valuable groundfish species, as well as Dover sole; shortspine thornyhead; and longspine thornyhead.

“Together, these are a large proportion of the groundfish caught off the West Coast, so they provide some indication of how things may change and the choices those changes present for the fishing community,” said Owen Liu, a research scientist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. “This may not be good news for the fisheries, but it hopefully provides some foresight into how distributions may shift and gives fisheries and managers time to consider how to adapt to these changes.”

The research published in Science Advances can help the commercial fishing fleet and fisheries managers prepare for changes climate change may bring to the ecosystem, researchers said. Climate models predict warming temperatures and declining oxygen levels in waters off the West Coast, which is dominated by the California Current. Temperatures and oxygen levels are known to affect the distribution of fish species.

Offshore Shift Goes Deep

The forecasts anticipate declines in the abundance of sablefish and shortspine thornyhead and increases in longspine thornyhead, with mixed forecasts of the abundance of Dover sole. All the species except longspine thornyhead are expected to move farther offshore into deeper waters. The steep offshore drop beyond the continental shelf, which on the West Coast is 20 or more miles offshore, can lead to substantial increases in depth for groundfish species that inhabit the sea floor.

As the species shift farther offshore, the increased depths and distances mean that fishing vessels must travel farther to reach their target species. They may also find that standard bottom trawl gear becomes less efficient at catching fish at such depths. Greater proportions of sablefish and shortspine thornyhead may also descend below 700 fathoms, depths where the groundfish management plan that governs fishing off the West Coast currently prohibits fishing.

The findings also highlight the challenge fisheries managers may face in keeping fishing sustainable even as conditions change and species move.  That may mean rethinking regulations so fishing can continue while protecting enough fish and habitat so species can maintain themselves long-term.

“If a significant proportion of target species moves deeper, as our results suggest for some species, there may be an incentive for industry and management to overcome technical and policy challenges to enable fishing at greater depths to follow target species to their new habitats,” the researchers concluded.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

Warmer Seas Grow Hardships For US Commercial Fishing Industry

August 21, 2023 — Climate change is forcing shifts in the American fishing industry as animals, fishermen and policymakers adjust to rising sea temperatures.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association said in a release earlier this week that July was the fourth-consecutive month of record-setting ocean surface temperatures. The month was also the first time the average July temperature was greater than 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit above the long-term average.

“Globally, July 2023 set a record for the highest monthly sea surface temperature anomaly … of any month in NOAA’s climate record,” the agency’s release said.

Shifting ocean temperatures force changes big and small for U.S. fishery. Some species benefit from warmer ocean temperatures while others suffer. While the catch isn’t significantly changing, the livelihoods of the men and women employed by the fishing industry and those in their communities are changing rapidly.

Read the full story at the International Business Times

Rising ocean temperatures could threaten sharks, tuna and other predators: Study

August 17, 2023 — By the year 2100, the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico could experience a rise in temperature that could impact sharks, tuna and other predators, according to a study led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), San Diego State University and NOAA Fisheries.

”What we’re seeing is this rise, a linear increase in ocean temperature,” Rebecca Lewison, a biology professor at San Diego State University, and co-author of the study, told NBC 7 Wednesday.

Using three decades of satellite and oceanographic modeling, researchers found that temperatures across these oceans could be 1-6 degrees Celsius warmer by 2100 because of climate change-driven shifts. The study, funded by NASA, has taken a deeper dive into what the future might look like in these oceans.

“By combining satellite data, like NASA’s satellite data, that we use with the information that we have on animals in the ocean, we know so much about the changes that are happening, so we don’t want to create a sort of one-size-fits-all approach,” Lewison said. “The science is really there to support dynamic management in all oceans.”

Read the full article at NBC

The ocean is shattering heat records. Here’s what that means for fisheries.

August 14, 2023 — Scientists first spotted the Blob in late 2013. The sprawling patch of unusually tepid water in the Gulf of Alaska grew, and grew some more, until it covered an area about the size of the continental United States. Over the course of two years, 1 million seabirds died, kelp forests withered, and sea lion pups got stranded.

But you could have easily missed it. A heat wave in the ocean is not like one on land. What happens on the 70 percent of the planet covered by saltwater is mostly out of sight. There’s no melting asphalt, no straining electrical grids, no sweating through shirts. Just a deep-red splotch on a scientist’s map telling everyone it’s hot out there, and perhaps a photo of birds washed up on a faraway beach to prove it.

Yet marine heat waves can “inject a lot of chaos,” said Chris Free, a fisheries scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It’s not just gulls and sea snails that suffer. Some 100 million Pacific cod, commonly used in fish and chips, vanished in the Gulf of Alaska during the Blob. In British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, salmon runs – and the fishing industry that depends on them – floundered. The acute warming also triggered a toxic algal bloom that disrupted the West Coast’s lucrative Dungeness crab business.

Read the full article at the Grist

LOUISIANA: A billion-dollar coastal project begins in Louisiana. Will it work as sea levels rise?

August 10, 2023 — Nearly $3 billion in settlement money from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster that devastated the Gulf Coast and killed hundreds of thousands of marine animals is now funding a massive ecosystem restoration in southeastern Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish.

The flat, sparsely populated land divided by the Mississippi River delta is marbled by bayous and bays. Farms, fishing camps and shrimp boats share the region with oil rig supply vessels and industrial storage. And it’s about to host a vast undertaking meant to mimic Mother Nature: Enormous gates will soon be incorporated into a flood protection levee.

The aim is to divert some of the river’s sediment-laden water into a new channel and guide it into the Barataria Basin southeast of New Orleans.

If it works, the sediment will settle out in the basin and gradually restore land that has been steadily disappearing for decades. State coastal officials call it a first-of-its-kind project they are certain will work, even as climate change-induced rising sea levels threaten the disappearing coast.

Read the full article at Associated Press

Predatory fish could lose 40 percent of habitat by 2100, with Northwest Atlantic a hot spot, study finds

August 11, 2023 — It’s been a record year for ocean warming, with a months-long marine heat wave in the Gulf of Mexico and another heat wave that just arrived off the West Coast.

But ocean warming is not without consequences, especially for the marine life beneath the surface.

A new study has found that highly migratory fish predators in the rapidly warming Northwest Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico could lose around 40 percent of their suitable habitat — nearly 70 percent for some — by the end of the century.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

OREGON: Significant marine heatwave brewing off Oregon coast

August 8, 2023 — Oceans around the world are hotter than ever before in the record-keeping era – and those high temps have now reached the Pacific Northwest.

Colin McCarthy, an atmospheric scientist and extreme weather influencer tweeted that “[o]ne of the most intense marine heatwaves on Earth has developed off the West Coast of the US, with water temperatures peaking nearly 5°C (9°F) above normal.”

The marine heatwave off the coasts of Oregon and Washington has reached “extreme” levels, an event that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ranks a Category 4 on a scale of 5.

Average ocean temperatures around the world reached 70 degrees in spring of 2023, the highest ever recorded.

In July, the Associated Press reported that sea surface temperatures rose above 100 degrees Fahrenheit at a spot off Florida’s southern tip.

Warming oceans cause stronger storms, rising sea levels and the loss of coral reefs and other marine life, according to according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information as reported by the AP.

Read the full article at Oregon Live

Global seafood industry faces growing risks from human activity

August 8, 2023 — The global seafood industry is not adapting fast enough to the bevy of threats it faces due to climate change, a Blue Food Assessment study has found.

Climate change is the biggest problem barreling down on the industry, but pollution and overfishing also loom large, according to “Vulnerability of Blue Foods to Human-induced Environmental Change,” published 26 June in Nature Sustainability. It is one of seven scientific papers being authored by the Blue Food Assessment, an effort led by Stanford University’s Center for Ocean Solutions and Center on Food Security and the Environment; the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University; and EAT, a nonprofit dedicated to food-system transformation, pushing to better understand the role of so-called “blue foods” in global food systems.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The Ocean’s Dire Message

August 4, 2023 — Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, and yet the vast majority have not been mapped or explored.

But there are two things we can say with certainty: Oceans are the hottest they have been in recorded history, by a wide margin. And man-made climate change is to blame.

From the North Atlantic to Florida to Antarctica, record water temperatures are forcing scientists to grapple with how climate change is warming the oceans, often in unpredictable and extreme ways, with implications for the entire planet. In today’s newsletter we’ll take a deep dive into what’s happening, with help from our colleagues.

Read the full release at The New York Times

Here’s how hot and extreme the summer has been, and it’s only halfway over

August 1, 2023 — At about summer’s halfway point, the record-breaking heat and weather extremes are both unprecedented and unsurprising, hellish yet boring in some ways, scientists say.

Killer heat. Deadly floods. Smoke from wildfires that chokes.

And there’s no relief in sight.

Expect a hotter than normal August and September, American and European forecast centers predict.

“We are seeing unprecedented changes all over the world,” said NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. “The heat waves that we’re seeing in the U.S. and in Europe, in China are demolishing records left, right and center. This is not a surprise.”

Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto said examining what’s causing heat waves is “boring” in a way since it keeps happening. Yet she added that it matters “because it shows again just how much climate change plays a role in what we are currently experiencing.”

“This story, these impacts, are going to continue,” Schmidt said. “We’re going to be seeing this pretty much this year and into next year” with a natural El Nino warming of the Pacific adding to the overwhelming influence of human-caused climate change largely from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

Here’s a rundown of the summer of Earth’s discontent.

RECORD-SHATTERING HEAT

Globally, June this year was the hottest June on record — and scientists say July has been so hot that even before the month was over they could say it was the hottest month on record. But it’s individual places where people live that the heat has stuck around and killed.

Read the full article at ABC News