Saving Seafood

Are Gulf sharks really an ‘overwhelming problem’? It’s complicated, experts say

August 12, 2025 — Florida anglers say sharks are snatching their catches at unprecedented rates, calling it an “overwhelming problem” and blaming a boom in Gulf shark numbers.

But scientific research paints a more complicated picture.

Scientists who study sharks acknowledge that depredation — the act of fish being eaten by an underwater predator while on a fisherman’s line — is a growing concern in some areas, especially Florida. They cite several potential drivers of increased shark-human conflict, including climate change-related shifts in shark behavior and rebounding populations of some species.

But they note that changes in human behavior — such as more people fishing and heightened awareness of shark encounters through social media — may also play a role.

Now, researchers are working to learn when and why these encounters happen and how to prevent them.

Matt Ajemian, an associate research professor studying the issue at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, cautions against calling shark depredation a crisis, noting that historical accounts show similar encounters have long occurred.

“I don’t call it a problem,” he said. “I try to call it a challenge.”

Read the full article at the Bradenton Herald

The world’s longest marine heat wave upended ocean life across the Pacific

August 8, 2025 — More than a decade since the start of the longest ocean warming event ever recorded, scientists are still working to understand the extent of its impacts. This unprecedented heat wave, nicknamed “The Blob,” stretched thousands of kilometres over North America’s western coastal waters, affecting everything from the smallest plankton to the largest marine mammals.

Between 2014 and 2016, when this heat wave occurred, water temperatures soared between two to six degrees C above average.

One would be forgiven for thinking this is no big deal. After all, temperatures fluctuate more than this on land most days. But not so in the ocean, where temperatures are normally much more stable because of the enormous amount of energy it takes to change them.

Although the duration of this multi-year warming event made it the first of its kind, it offers a glimpse into a future with climate change, where heat waves like this will be more frequent.

Read the full article at the Conversation

Gulf of Maine sees rising pH, defying expectations of increasing ocean acidity

July 31, 2025 — The Gulf of Maine—home to commercial fisheries for oysters, clams and mussels—has unexpectedly avoided an increase in seawater acidity, helping to preserve the health of its fisheries.

“Contrary to expectation,” a team of scientists wrote in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, we … find that pH has increased (+ 0.2 pH units) over the past 40 years, despite concurrent rising atmospheric CO2.” (Determining the decades-long trend required measurements of boron isotopes within annual skeletal bands built by crustose coralline algae. More about that later.)

The Gulf’s acidity levels are unexpected because atmospheric levels of  continue to climb. And because carbon dioxide is absorbed faster and easier into , the frigid waters of the Gulf would be expected to take in more carbon. More carbon in water generally lowers pH and increases acidity.

“One goes down and the other goes up,” said Alan Wanamaker, an Iowa State University professor of earth, atmosphere, and climate and a paper co-author. “That’s what we’ve seen in the .”

Read the full article at PHYS.org

A record catch of krill near Antarctica could trigger an unprecedented end to fishing season

July 29, 2025 — Trawling near Antarctica for krill — a crustacean central to the diet of whales and a critical buffer to global warming — has surged to a record and is fast approaching a never before reached seasonal catch limit that would trigger the unprecedented early closure of the remote fishery, The Associated Press has learned.

The fishing boom follows the failure last year of the U.S., Russia, China and two dozen other governments to approve a new management plan that would have mandated spreading out the area in which krill can be caught and creating a California-sized reserve along the environmentally sensitive Antarctic Peninsula.

In the first seven months of the 2024-25 season, krill fishing in Antarctica reached 518,568 tons, about 84% of the 620,000-ton limit that, once reached, will force the fishery to automatically close. In one hot spot, the catch through June 30 was nearly 60% higher than all of last year’s haul, according to a report from the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, or CCAMLR, the international organization that manages the world’s southernmost fishery.

Read the full article at Associated Press

Warming oceans drive tuna from Pacific islands

July 28, 2025 — Kauaka Petaia guided his motorboat out of Tuvalu’s main lagoon at dawn and into the vast Pacific Ocean, where he and his nephew scanned the rolling horizon for signs of their country’s most precious resource: tuna.

They searched for more than two hours before finally spotting seagulls circling in the distance. Petaia threw open the throttle as his nephew, Ranol Smoliner, tossed a hooked line into the water. Soon, the younger man felt the tug of a 25-pound yellowfin, which he pulled up and bashed with a club. By morning’s end, the pair had caught eight tuna — a haul far smaller than when Petaia’s father taught him to fish 30 years earlier.

“We have to spend longer and go farther to get them,” the 48-year-old said as the fishermen unloaded their catch.

“I’m not sure there will be any tuna left by the time I’m my uncle’s age,” added Smoliner, 22.

Tuna is a pillar of life in the Pacific, where for centuries people have braved the ocean to bring back yellowfin, skipjack, bigeye and albacore for their families.

In recent decades, as global demand for tuna has soared, Pacific island nations including Tuvalu have propped up their struggling economies by selling licenses to allow international fishing companies to trawl their vast exclusive economic zones. These seas provide as much as one-third of the world’s tuna supply.

But climate change is warming the world’s oceans at an accelerating rate, threatening livelihoods.

Scientists predict that climate change will push tuna away from Pacific island nations and toward the high seas, where wealthier countries with large fishing fleets – China, Japan, South Korea and the United States – will catch them without paying license.

Read the full article at the Washington Post

Satellite data reveals 2023 was record-breaking for marine heatwaves — are we at a ‘climate tipping point?’

July 25, 2025 — A recent study that tapped into satellite data has revealed that 2023 marked an unprecedented year for marine heatwaves, with record-breaking levels of duration, reach and intensity observed across the world’s oceans.

The study’s scientists say tackling this growing climate threat will require better forecasting tools, smarter adaptation strategies, and faster action toward curbing climate change, which is primarily driven by human activities like burning coal for cheap power.

“The North Atlantic [marine heatwave], lasting 525 days, revealed the scale of persistent ocean warming,” wrote the research team in the paper published in the journal Science, “whereas the Southwest Pacific [heatwave] surpassed previous records with its extensive spatial coverage and prolonged persistence. In the Tropical Eastern Pacific, [marine heatwaves] peaked at 1.63°C during El Niño development, and the North Pacific sustained an ongoing anomaly over 4 years.”

Read the full article at Space.com

How a marine heatwave transformed life along the Pacific coast

July 24, 2025 — Between 2014 and 2016, something very unsettling happened off the west coast of North America. For over two years, ocean waters from California to Alaska were unusually warm – 3.6°F to 10.8°F hotter than normal.

This wasn’t a one-off fluke or a seasonal shift. It was the longest and most intense marine heatwave ever recorded in the region.

The heat lingered, spreading across thousands of miles of ocean. This event reshaped life in the water in devastating ways.

Kelp forests collapsed and entire food chains were thrown off balance. Animals appeared in places they had never been spotted before, and many of them died.

An ongoing coastal crisis

The warm water pushed marine life out of their comfort zones – literally. According to newly published research, 240 species were found far beyond their usual ranges during the heatwave, many of them showing up more than 600 miles farther north than normal.

Northern right whale dolphins and small sea slugs like Placida cremoniana were spotted well outside their typical territory. For some species, the shift was temporary. For others, it hinted at a more permanent change.

As ocean waters heat up, many organisms are following the temperature they’re adapted to – heading toward cooler, northern waters in a bid to survive. But during the historic heatwave in the Pacific, some animals could not move fast enough.

Read the full article at Earth.com

NOAA designates critical habitat for Indo-Pacific coral species

July 22, 2025 — NOAA has placed new environmental restrictions on more than 58,000 acres of ocean bottom in the western Pacific to further protect endangered coral reefs whose habitats have been degraded by a warming climate and ocean acidification.

Critical habitat designations for five coral species will encompass parts of four marine national monuments and one marine sanctuary, according to NOAA. The areas include atolls off American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marinara Islands, northwestern Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific Remote Islands Area.

“The final designations support the recovery of these reef-building coral by protecting the areas containing the habitat characteristics the corals need to reproduce, spread, settle, and mature,” NOAA said of the habitat designations, which come 11 years after the corals received Endangered Species Act protection.

Read the full article at E&E News

Senate budget would shrink NOAA Fisheries’ budget slightly, despite Trump administration’s demand for steep cuts

July 21, 2025 — The Republican controlled U.S. Senate is set up to reject many of U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to NOAA Fisheries, proposing a slight decrease for the agency instead.

NOAA has been one of the agencies targeted by the Trump administration for cuts; during the first several months of Trump’s second term, the government has laid off hundreds of NOAA employees and rescinded much of the agency’s climate-related funding. Trump is seeking even deeper cuts, however, to NOAA Fisheries.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Protecting Coral Habitat May Prove Vital As Ocean Becomes More Acidic

July 18, 2025 — Concerning news for coral reefs came out this week in University of Hawaiʻi research, while on the same day long-awaited protections for critical habitats offered some hope.

A paper published Monday in the Journal of Geophysical Research found the oceans around Hawai’i will become significantly more acidic throughout the 21st century, based on climate modeling.

That could do enormous harm to ocean organisms that form hard shells and skeletons, such as shellfish and coral, adding another layer of stress for already struggling species. And the scenarios UH researchers used for their models show to what extent carbon emission-driven climate change will make matters worse.

“Until about 2050, it doesn’t matter which scenario we’re on; we are on a path that has been built up over the last 100-plus years,” said Brian Powell, one of the four UH physicists who worked on the paper.

After 2050, however, he said the global carbon output will determine which scenario becomes reality.

“We don’t have to be on the business-as-usual track,” Powell said. “We can try to do better.”

On Monday, the National Marine Fisheries Service also announced protections for habitats around the world critical to endangered coral species, including in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. The announcement came over a decade after the islands’ initial endangered designation.

David Derrick, one of the lawyers with the Center for Biological Diversity who sued to provide those protections, said that the Endangered Species Act played a vital role in their work. According to him, the law “gives groups leverage to hold the (government’s) … feet to the fire.”

Read the full article at Civil Beat