Saving Seafood

Sharing the Tools of Sustainable Fishery Management

August 5, 2022 — The following was released by NOAA:

They say it takes a village. But sometimes it takes a multi-agency, Pacific-wide collaboration.

With help from NOAA Fisheries, the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force, and local partners, the U.S. territories of Guam and American Samoa are on their way to developing their first sustainable coral reef fishery management plans. Once completed, these plans will chart a path forward to ensure the islands’ marine resources are around for future generations to enjoy.

“The territories are taking a proactive approach in leading their efforts for sustainable coral reef fisheries management,” said Fatima Sauafea-Le’au, American Samoa coral reef fisheries liaison with NOAA Fisheries’ Pacific Islands Regional Office.

Importantly, added fisheries liaison Jonathan Brown, NOAA will have no ownership of the plans. “The resources that will be managed are within the local jurisdictions,” he said. “We are just in a support role, providing tools to help them develop the plans and helping them form partnerships with entities like The Nature Conservancy.”

One such tool is called FishPath. FishPath provides a suite of potential management options for a species based on answers to a lengthy questionnaire about the fishery. And it can be used in data-limited fisheries, like the coral reef fisheries in the Pacific Islands.

Brown and agency partners held a workshop for Guam’s management agencies in June 2022 to teach them how to use the tool to develop management options. These measures could then be incorporated into their sustainable fishery management plans.

Read the full release here

Sea life may downsize with ocean warming — bringing challenging impacts

August 4, 2022 — The future may be smaller for sea life, according to a new scientific model. Influenced by warming oceanic conditions, microbes and megafauna may not grow as large as they do now.

This shrinking effect, should it occur, could have wide repercussions: reduced food mass at the bottom of the food chain would affect fisheries, leaving less food for people, as well as mean less carbon sequestered in the sea, potentially making climate change worse.

Scientists say the ability to accurately predict these impacts could improve management of ocean resources. But researchers don’t agree on exactly why this sea life shrinkage is happening, and say a variety of factors may need to be considered to make accurate forecasts.

In the new study, researchers present a mathematical model that explains these size reductions as a response to lower oxygen levels in the ocean. Looking at rising temperature and reduced oxygen level forecasts for the next decades, researchers found that zooplankton and other microscopic species could be up to 30% smaller, with impacts reverberating higher up the food chain.

There is a “temperature-size rule,” that describes the tendency for ectotherms (animals whose body temperature regulation depends on external sources) to reach smaller adult sizes under warmer conditions. With climate change escalating, the implications for marine life — and humanity — could be dire.

But so far, direct experimental evidence for this rule mostly comes from organisms with a body mass of less than 1 gram, explained study lead author Curtis Deutsch, a climate scientist at Princeton University in the U.S.

“Our mechanistic model tries to quantify that effect and use it to understand how much smaller things might get in the future,” explained Deutsch, who collaborated with ocean biologists and a paleobiologist to formulate the model. The results “suggest that larger fish [further up the food chain] will also be subject to shrinkage.”

Read the full article at Mongabay

BOEM proposals to mitigate offshore wind fishing impact

August 4, 2022 — The federal Bureau of Offshore Energy Management is looking for fishermen’s comments until Aug. 22 on the agency’s latest ideas on how wind energy companies might mitigate the impacts from building offshore turbine arrays.

On June 23 BOEM released its draft guidance documents presenting the agency’s thinking on ensuring the new U.S. offshore wind industry can work with the nation’s long-established commercial and recreational fishing industries.

The guidance document focuses on four areas:

– Project siting, design, navigation, and access

– Safety

– Environmental monitoring

– Financial compensation

BOEM began soliciting input on mitigation policies in November 2021. That first call brought in 92 comments from individuals, state agencies, wind energy companies and, of course, fishing trade groups and associations.

In the ensuing draft document, financial compensation gets the most attention. Many fishermen, especially those who fish with towed mobile gear like trawl nets and dredges, insist they will be effectively shut out of areas after turbines are erected.

Just how big those future losses may be developed within a separate ‘Appendix A’ in the document that presents BOEM’s ideas for calculating “revenue exposure estimates. Such calculations could determine fair payments to fishermen because of income lost to wind projects.

Estimating fishing effort, catches and value that come from wind lease areas has been intensely debated for years. BOEM’s earliest attempts using federal and state landings reports were hotly disputed by fishing advocates, who collected vessel tracking records to show where proposed wind development sites included heavily used fishing areas.

Since then, BOEM has worked closely with the National Marine Fisheries Service to develop better systems, mapping out the most intensely used and valuable fishing grounds.

The mitigation strategy methodology is built around using federal fisheries catch and revenue data as a starting point. NMFS and its Northeast regional office are the primary source for revenue calculations in that region. The first U.S. wind projects are to be built there, and mitigation measures could be adapted to fisheries on the Southeast, Gulf of Mexico and Pacific coasts.

Read the full article at The National Fisherman

NOAA Fisheries’ new proposal: a ‘roadmap’ for use of ropeless gear

August 2, 2022 — NOAA Fisheries released its draft Ropeless Roadmap: A Strategy to Develop On-Demand Fishing, as it also announced proposed changes to vessel speed regulations to protect North Atlantic right whales.

The Roadmap now released is an important step in a series of actions NOAA Fisheries is taking to protect and conserve North Atlantic right whales. NOAA Fisheries and its partners are dedicated to conserving and rebuilding the North Atlantic right whale population and those efforts can be followed through the North Atlantic Right Whale Road to Recovery plan, which describes NOAA Fisheries’ actions to halt the current population decline and recover the species.

NOAA is now seeking input on the draft on ropeless roadmap to help protect the North Atlantic right whales.

According to NOAA Fisheries, “endangered North Atlantic right whales are approaching extinction. The latest preliminary estimate indicates there are fewer than 350 individuals remaining and less than 100 breeding females. Primary threats to the species are entanglement in fishing gear and vessel strikes.

“Climate change is also affecting every aspect of their survival—changing their ocean habitat, their migratory patterns, the location and availability of their prey, and even their risk of becoming entangled in fishing gear or struck by vessels.”

The proposed changes announced by NOAA Fisheries will introduce, as National Fisherman reported, new vessel speed regulations to further protect North Atlantic right whales from death and serious injuries resulting from collisions — part of a multifaceted approach to stabilize and recover this endangered population. The changes would expand the current mandatory seasonal speed restrictions of 10 knots or less and broaden the spatial boundaries and timing of the seasonal speed restriction areas along the East Coast of the United States, incorporating most vessels measuring 35 to 65 feet in length.

Read the full article at The National Fisherman

Climate change impacting Atlantic shellfish, and scientists predict it will only get worse

July 25, 2022 —  A team of researchers form the Science Center for Marine Fisheries, an organization with a number of partners and collaborating scientists from universities like the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, is examining how warmer waters will impact shellfish species harvested in the United States.

The research, centering on ocean quahogs and surfclams, is examining how the two species will begin to interact as changing ocean conditions cause the species to shift habitats. Ocean quahog are one of the longest-lived marine species in the world and inhabit cold waters in the Mid-Atlantic, while surfclams typically inhabit warmer areas.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Southern New England commercial fishing industry response to Biden climate speech: Climate action must support ocean ecosystems and resource-dependent communities

July 25, 2022 — The following was released by the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership, Massachusetts Seafood Collaborative, and Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island:

Speaking from a podium at the former Brayton Point power plant in Somerset on Wednesday, President Biden appropriately described climate change as a clear and present danger that puts the health of U.S. citizens and communities at stake. But his proposed slate of solutions, largely focused on further expansion of offshore wind energy on the continental shelf, fell short of the ambition needed to address the problem and may actually endanger coastal communities more than climate change alone would do.

The Rhode Island and Massachusetts fishing families and seafood businesses that our organizations represent are experiencing the effects of warming waters and increased storminess firsthand, and there is no doubt that robust climate action is needed to sustain local marine ecosystems, shore up our combined states’ $3.7 billion in annual seafood sales, safeguard our 81,000 fishing-dependent jobs, and preserve our members’ ability to supply the public with fresh, high-quality wild fish and shellfish. But although our organizations are broadly supportive of meaningful action to avoid the worst effects of climate change, we are dismayed at the president’s narrow focus on fast-tracking and scaling up industrial offshore wind, which is one of the most ecologically invasive forms of renewable energy available.

Since taking office, the Biden administration has willfully ignored the concerns of fishermen and fisheries managers about industrial offshore wind development, and the President’s recent speech perpetuates a delusion that offshore wind energy is environmentally benign. For example, while showcasing the Brayton Point location’s conversion from a coal-fired power plant to an offshore wind manufacturing and staging facility, the President cheerfully described the miles of subsea cable and the 2,500-ton steel foundations that will be produced at locations like this one. But he made no mention of the electromagnetic fields that these cables will emit once they are placed underwater, the massive amounts of copper that will need to be mined in order to manufacture these cables, or the disruptive underwater noise and vibrations that will be created by pounding thousands of these foundations into the seafloor.

Similarly, the President’s speech touted new jobs that will be created by the wind industry but said nothing of the existing fishing jobs that will be put at risk by displacement from fishing grounds, increased safety risks and insurance costs, and uncertainty about the future of fishery resources.

Across the U.S., fishing communities have called for stronger environmental review of offshore wind proposals, including thorough programmatic environmental impact statements to be carried out prior to any wind farm leasing or permitting in an area. Unfortunately, President Biden’s recent remarks suggest that these concerns continue to fall on deaf ears.

Announcing that “the ocean is open for the clean energy of our future,” the President vowed to “clear every federal hurdle and streamline federal permitting that brings these clean energy projects online right now and right away.” In our view, federal permitting processes for industrial development on the continental shelf should be made more stringent, not easier to clear, and the timeline for development should not be sped up but slowed down, in order to allow for comprehensive impacts assessment and adaptive management. The unknowable dangers that ocean industrialization poses not only to commercially valuable fish but also to marine mammals, physical oceanography, avian species, and the entire marine food web are serious and must be confronted before development can proceed.

In the next few weeks, President Biden is expected to roll out a series of executive actions aiming to fill the gap left by Congress’ failure to enact much-needed climate legislation. As he prepares these actions, we call upon the President to redirect the emphasis of his proposals towards the vast array of available fishery friendly climate solutions that are available and to prioritize those that: provide environmental co-benefits by sequestering carbon along the coastline, support small-scale energy production that puts dollars back into local communities instead of shipping it offshore, avoid industrial sprawl by leveraging the already-built environment, and prioritize energy efficiency and demand reduction to diminish the total amount of energy production required. Meanwhile, we insist that any offshore wind development that does take place must be consistent with the stepwise harm reduction approach embodied in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which guides developers to (1) avoid, (2) minimize, (3) rectify, (4) reduce, and (5) compensate those affected for any impacts, in that order, with full transparency and participation by affected fishing interests.

In closing, we comment that the Brayton Point power plant site is deeply symbolic of the environmental short-sightedness that often accompanies energy development. From the 1960s to the 2000s, heated discharge water from this plant containing chlorine and other deadly chemicals decimated the winter flounder resource that once supported year-round fisheries in Mount Hope Bay and Narragansett Bay. As happens all too frequently, fishermen’s concerns about the plant’s environmental impacts were ignored until it was too late.

Future energy development must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. We call upon elected leaders to address the climate crisis hand-in-hand with affected communities in ways that work for local environments and existing industries, not at their expense.

Climate Change Creating New Conflicts for Surfclam, Ocean Quahog Fisheries as Warming Forces Habitat Shifts

July 21, 2022 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

Climate change is now affecting long-standing patterns for marine life, with warmer waters pushing species out of their traditional habitats and into newer areas. As these changes become increasingly common, they will create challenges for fishermen, scientists, and regulators. A team at the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) is examining the extent of the problem on two key shellfish species: surfclams and ocean quahogs.

 

Ocean quahogs, one of the longest-lived marine species on Earth, inhabit cold waters in the Mid-Atlantic; surfclams, in contrast, have traditionally inhabited warmer areas. With climate change, surfclams’ traditional habitats have become some of the fastest-warming waters in the region, forcing them to move north into the colder waters traditionally occupied by quahogs.

“The area of overlap is getting potentially larger and larger as the Middle Atlantic warms, because one species is moving in, and the other one hasn’t quite got the message and moved out yet,” said Dr. Roger Mann of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, one of the lead scientists on the survey.

In the fall of 2021, a team from SCEMFIS partnered with an industry fishing vessel, the F/V Pursuit, to document the extent of this habitat overlap. They took samples in several areas, working through surfclam and ocean quahog habitats, as well as areas of intermingling in between. The team documented what was caught, its species, size, age, and location.

After analyzing the data, the team found significant habitat overlap and intermixing between surfclams and ocean quahogs, much more than was expected at the start of the survey.

“One of the surprises though was just how extensive the overlap is now,” said Dr. Eric Powell, of the University of Southern Mississippi, another one of the survey’s lead scientists. “This is a major community shift on the continental shelf and it’s something that the management agencies and the fishery are going to have to get their arms around and deal with.”

Intermixing of ocean quahogs and surfclams is just the latest example of how climate change is creating new problems for fishermen. Under current rules, fishermen are not allowed to harvest clams and quahogs at the same time. In an environment where these species inhabited separate parts of the ocean, these rules were easy for fishermen to comply with. But climate-influenced migration is making harvesting these species much more challenging, a problem that will only increase in importance as trends continue.

“As bad as it is, it’s going to be much worse in five years, in my opinion,” said Dr. Powell. “The challenge, both to the fishery and management, is to figure out how to revise the regulations so both of these species can be landed without causing a problem with the inherent stability of the fishery and management.”

“The information that we get is vitally important to us staying not only a sustainable fishery, but also a fishery in good stead with enforcement,” said Guy Simmons, Senior Vice President at Sea Watch International, which harvests clams and is a member of the SCEMFIS Industry Advisory Board.

Study: Climate impacts to disproportionately hurt tropical fishers, farmers

July 18, 2022 — Coastal communities in the tropics that rely heavily on both agriculture and fisheries are most vulnerable to the losses caused by high global carbon emissions, a new study says.

It looked at coastal communities in five countries within the Indo-Pacific region and found that most may face significant losses of agricultural and fisheries products — two key food sources — simultaneously in the event of the worst-case impacts of climate change. These potential losses may be coupled with other drivers of change, such as overfishing or soil erosion, which have already caused a decline in productivity, according to the study published July 5 in the journal Nature Communications. When looked at separately, the potential losses for the fisheries sector would be greater than for agriculture, the research showed.

But if carbon emissions can be effectively managed to a minimum, the study’s authors said, fewer communities would experience losses in both the agriculture and fisheries sectors.

The authors called on the governments of the countries examined in the study — Indonesia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Tanzania — to improve and expand their climate mitigation efforts, and also to prepare alternative livelihood programs outside the fisheries and agriculture sectors.

But they also noted that alternative jobs often failed and were not a viable substitute for mitigating climate change for the around 6 million coral reef fishers globally as they can’t provide specific social and psychological satisfaction from working in agriculture or fisheries.

Read the full article at Mongabay

Fishing Communities Step Up As World Hunger Threatens

July 15, 2022 — Today, motivated by a love of country, a connection with the ocean and those who live from it, Vasquez advocates for the fishing communities of Central America with nonprofit global environmental organization, “Rare.” The mid-sized NGO (FY2022 budget $32 million) is based in Arlington, Virginia. Grants from governments and foundations as well as contributions from individuals support Rare’s global staff of 178 with their environmental work, on both land and sea. This includes not only the time-tested work of grass roots organization, but also the scientific gathering and sharing of data about the state of waters, the creatures that live in them, and the families dependent upon a robust catch to provide food to their families and beyond.

All over Honduras, communities now need to mobilize to hold on to their coastal livelihoods in the face of not only climate pressures but also the impact of overfishing, great and small – from big commercial trawlers to local fishermen. Vasquez has been helping community groups there to organize and work with their government to produce outcomes that preserve their unique way of life, born of the link between ocean and culture.

he challenge is not peculiar to just Honduras or even just Central America. The U.N. this summer advanced its global “Blue Transformation” endeavor, to, as it says, “enhance the potential of food systems underwater and feed the world’s growing population sustainably.”

Rare says almost three billion people around the world rely on fish as a major source of protein. Indeed, the ascendance of fish as a significant food source is of critical importance, the World Food Programme reporting this month that global hunger is on the rise, with an estimated 828 million people in a state of hunger in 2021. In fact, the U.N.’s WFP has raised a red alert on rising global hunger due to the war in Ukraine, climate change, and pandemic and economic stresses.

Marine ecologist and nature photographer George Stoyle is the digital architect of Rare’s Fish Forever data pipeline of widely available aggregated data about ecosystems health, climate change resilience, fisheries production, household surveys, and, most contemporary, the impact of the Covid pandemic.

In England, a team of University of Cambridge scientists this summer identified what they see as fifteen of the top challenges to marine biodiversity. Enumerated in the Journal “Nature Ecology and Evolution,” they range from the impact of wildfires, resource exploitation, overfishing, ocean mining of several types, and of course rampant pollution.

On the immediate receiving end of these stresses are the constituents of Rare – buffeted in hurricanes, suffering through extreme heat and drought, casting lines in depleted waters. By extension, though, so are we all.

Read the full article at Forbes

 

Council Discusses Climate Change, Research Priorities, EBFM, Sturgeon, Right Whales, and Equity & Environmental Justice

July 14, 2022 — The New England Fishery Management Council met June 28-30, 2022 and received numerous updates over the course of its three-day hybrid meeting in Portland, Maine. Here are a few of the highlights.

CLIMATE CHANGE: The Council received a presentation from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center on the Draft Northeast Climate Regional Action Plan, which is out for public comment through July 29, 2022. Version 1 of the plan was in place from 2016 to 2021. The current draft – Version 2 – will be used by NOAA Fisheries to implement the agency’s Climate Science Strategy in 2022-2024. The document contains information on warming ocean temperatures (see graphic at right) and much more. The Council received input from its Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) on the draft action plan and will be submitting its own written comments in advance of the deadline.

The Council also received a progress report on the East Coast Climate Change Scenario Planning initiative. The overarching questions are:

• How might climate change affect stock availability and distribution, as well as other aspects of East Coast marine fisheries, over the next 20 years; and

• What does this mean for effective future governance and management across multiple jurisdictions? What tools are needed to provide flexible and robust management strategies to address uncertainty in an era of climate change?

The Core Team working on this initiative hosted a June 21-23, 2022 Scenario Creation Workshop where participants developed scenarios or stories describing eight alternative futures under climate change. Next, the Core Team will review and edit inputs from the workshop to create a draft set of scenarios for further discussion and feedback during three scenario deepening webinars in mid-August. These webinars will be open to the public. The Council will have an in-depth discussion of the scenarios during its September 27-29, 2022 meeting and provide feedback to the Core Team on next steps.

Read the full release here