Saving Seafood

Dire drought warning: California says ‘nearly all’ salmon could die in Sacramento River

July 9, 2021 — The drought is making the Sacramento River so hot that “nearly all” of an endangered salmon species’ juveniles could be cooked to death this fall, California officials warned this week.

In a brief update on the perilous state of the river issued this week, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife made a dire prediction about the endangered winter-run Chinook salmon and its struggles against consistently hot weather in the Sacramento Valley.

“This persistent heat dome over the West Coast will likely result in earlier loss of ability to provide cool water and subsequently it is possible that nearly all in-river juveniles will not survive this season,” the department said.

Given that the salmon generally have a three-year life cycle, a near-total wipeout of one year’s run of juveniles “greatly increases the risk of extinction for the species,” said Doug Obegi, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The winter-run salmon endured two years of severe mortality during the last drought as well.

Read the full story at The Sacramento Bee

Dr. Derek Aday chosen to lead VIMS

July 8, 2021 — The following was released by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science:

William & Mary has named nationally renowned ecologist Dr. Derek Aday as its next dean of the School of Marine Science and director of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Aday, who will begin in this role at VIMS September 1, is head of the Department of Applied Ecology at North Carolina State University, university director of the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, a fellow of the American Fisheries Society, and editor-in-chief of the society’s flagship journal. His selection follows a national search to succeed Dr. John Wells, who is retiring after 17 years at the VIMS helm.

“William & Mary welcomes warmly Dr. Aday to the university community,” says President Katherine A. Rowe. “Following the exceptional leadership of Dr. Wells, VIMS and the School of Marine Science are positioned to expand the university’s reach globally in the coming decades. And for Virginia, VIMS is vital to ensuring the continued prosperity of the Commonwealth’s ecology, economy, and coastal communities. Derek Aday’s talents and experiences perfectly match these challenges and opportunities.”

For his part, Aday says he embraces leading VIMS into the future and the continued interdisciplinary work required to solve complex problems facing the waters of the Commonwealth, the nation, and the world.

“VIMS and William & Mary have incredible histories and traditions and I’m very much looking forward to becoming a part of the future of both organizations,” Aday says. “I’ve followed the great science and scientists at VIMS from afar for many years, and I’m humbled by the opportunity to join a community of talented scholars and educators that is making a real difference in the world.”

Provost Peggy Agouris says he’s been equally followed by VIMS scholars and students. Aday has written numerous articles in peer-reviewed publications on topics ranging from the ecology of fresh- and saltwater fishes to the impacts of mercury pollution on aquatic ecosystems.

“Dr. Aday is a remarkable scientist in marine science and ecology,” says Agouris, “and we are fortunate to have him lead VIMS and our School of Marine Science. He impresses on the academic and the leadership fronts, both of which are necessary to lead one of the most important and impactful marine science schools in the world. Under his leadership, I am confident that VIMS’s advisory, educational, and research arms will flourish.”

Aday’s 16-year career in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at NCSU has provided leadership experience in all three facets of VIMS’ mission of research, education, and advisory service. He said he looks forward “to the opportunity to lead a cutting-edge marine research institute with a strong tradition of student education and a vibrant connection to an outstanding university.” He also relishes the challenge of guiding VIMS in its role as a technical advisor to the Commonwealth of Virginia for coastal and marine issues, across what he called “an impressive scale and breadth of disciplines.”

Dr. Carl Friedrichs, Glucksman professor of Marine Science at VIMS and chair of the Dean & Director Search Committee, notes that Aday articulated an “inspiring vision for an innovative future for VIMS.”

“The search committee was struck by Derek’s proven leadership across a broad range of relevant roles,” Friedrichs says. “He cited ideas that built on, but also went beyond, our current strengths to enhance more ambitious, interdisciplinary research, advisory service, and educational initiatives on issues such as climate change and coastal resilience.”

An interdisciplinary worldview has been central to Aday’s success, both in research and administration. He currently chairs an academic department he described as “interdisciplinary at its core,” with researchers exploring many of the same topics studied at VIMS, including aquatic ecology, biodiversity, conservation biology, fishery science and aquaculture, applied toxicology, and global change.

Under his leadership, the department earned approximately $9 million in annual grant funding, created a unique outreach and engagement program and doubled the number of women and historically under-represented, tenure-track faculty members. He also played a leading role in strategic plans recently developed by both his department and college, an experience that will serve him well as VIMS initiated its latest strategic planning process just last year.

Aday also brings experience in managing the type of multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional partnerships that have long animated and strengthened the VIMS mission. As university director of the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, he led a consortium that included five academic institutions of higher education; federal collaborators from the U.S. Geological Survey; state climatologists and tribal partners from four nations. Aday’s leadership portfolio at VIMS will likewise include a wealth of institutional, state, and federal partners.

Read the full release here

How Fishing Communities Are Responding to Climate Change

July 8, 2021 — The following was released by Wellesley College:

What happens when climate change affects the abundance and distribution of fish? Fishers and fishing communities in the Northeast United States have adapted to those changes in three specific ways, according to new research published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

Becca Selden, Wellesley College assistant professor of biological sciences, and a team of colleagues examined how fishing communities have responded to documented shifts in the location of fluke and of red and silver hake. The team found that fishers made three distinct changes to their approaches: following the fish to a new location; fishing for a different kind of fish; and bringing their catch to shore at another port of landing.

Selden began this research as a postdoctoral scholar at Rutgers University in New Jersey with Eva Papaioannou, now a scientist at GEOMAR. They combined quantitative data on fish availability from surveys conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and a unique geographic information system database from fishing trip records developed for this project. The researchers then interviewed fishers in 10 ports from North Carolina to Maine.

They explored three dominant strategies, and found that fishers throughout the Northeast were more likely to shift their target species. In interviews, the researchers learned that targeting a mix of species is a critical option for adaptation. Doing so can be complicated, however, because in many cases regulations and markets (or the lack of a market) constrain fishers’ ability to take advantage of a changing mix of species in fishing grounds. For example, in Point Pleasant, N.J., fishers can’t capitalize on an increase in dogfish in the region because of strict conservation measures that have been in place since 1988, when the species was declared over-fished, and the resulting absence of a market for those fish.

Read the full release here

Pacific Northwest heat wave sets up ‘grim’ migration for salmon on Columbia, Snake rivers

June 30, 2021 — This is shaping up to be a dire summer for fish and trees.

Temperatures in the Columbia and Snake rivers are already within two degrees of the slaughter zone of 2015, when half the sockeye salmon run was lost because of high water temperatures. An estimated 250,000 sockeye died that year long before reaching their spawning grounds.

The sockeye run is at its peak right now just as temperatures hit record highs across Washington state and in Idaho. Spring and summer chinook and steelhead migrating in the rivers also are at risk.

Salmon are cold-water animals. Temperatures above 62 degrees make them more vulnerable to disease, and as temperatures climb higher, they will stop migrating altogether.

The risk of heat stress is present in the mainstem rivers, but also in fish ladders, where salmon will turn around and head back down river if the temperature is higher at the top of the ladder than where they entered it. Cooling water released at the top of the ladders can only do so much as air temperatures reach unprecedented highs.

Water temperatures are already at dangerous levels despite an earlier start to cold-water releases from deep in the Dworshak Dam, on the Clearwater River, upstream of Lower Granite Dam on the Lower Snake River. Nonetheless, temperatures in the tailrace at Lower Granite are still edging above safe levels for salmon and are even hotter downriver.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

JAMES POGUE: Salmon is an indicator species for California’s water crisis. It’s not looking good

June 30, 2021 — In mid-June, California’s State Water Resources Control Board wrote a tragic letter. The board, which has significant powers under California’s Constitution to manage water for the benefit of California’s people and ecosystems, wrote that it would approve a plan for water releases out of Lake Shasta that risk destroying the Sacramento River’s iconic winter-run Chinook salmon population forever.

The winter-run Chinook population has already declined by 99%, down to a few thousand fish that manage to run out of the San Francisco Bay and return to spawn below a dam near Redding. Baby salmon need cold water to hatch from their eggs and grow until they’re ready to migrate to the ocean. But in this drought year, the Federal Bureau of Reclamation has proposed drawing down the levels in Lake Shasta — California’s largest reservoir — to deliver water to irrigators in the Central Valley, allowing the diminished reservoir to heat up over the summer to temperatures that when released into the river “could increase the risk of extinction significantly,” as the board’s own letter put it.

The board, whose members are appointed by the governor, could have modified the plan. Even keeping a small fraction of the water sent for irrigation to be released later could have a dramatic impact on the survival rates of young salmon hatching later in the summer. But holding back water to save fish would have set up a conflict with powerful business interests in the Central Valley.

The board seems to have been more willing to risk the extinction of a salmon run than they were to risk angering landowners and lobbyists. To save even some of the Sacramento River’s salmon population, in a year where pumping water to farms has resulted in dangerously low water flows, California has had to resort to hauling millions of young fish raised in state-run hatcheries via tanker trucks to the Golden Gate. But trucking fish is a desperate measure, one that conceals a larger crisis that is likely to make the fate of fish into one of the key political issues of California’s drought-stricken future.

Read the full opinion piece at the Los Angeles Times

As Marine Fish Shift With Climate Change, Scientists Work Across Borders to Ensure Sustainability

June 23, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The cold waters of the eastern Bering Sea support some of the world’s largest and best-managed commercial fisheries. Sustainable management of these fisheries is founded on scientific information provided by Alaska Fisheries Science Center groundfish surveys. New collaborative research is providing information to ensure accurate local estimates of fish abundance in a changing Bering Sea.

Recent rapid, large-scale movements of fish driven by unprecedented warming in the Bering Sea have created a challenge for survey scientists. As fish populations track their preferred conditions, they are shifting northward and westward, likely beyond historical survey boundaries.

“To maintain sustainable fisheries, managers need to understand how climate is influencing how many fish there are and where they are. As fish populations shift in response to changing ocean conditions, we need to adapt and expand our surveys to provide accurate information that represents the entire population,” said Cecilia O’Leary, NOAA Fisheries biologist, Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

Read the full release here

Central Gulf of Alaska Marine Heatwave Watch

June 17, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Temperatures are above the long-term average, but remain below marine heatwave conditions. These conditions are wavering near conditions observed in 2017 and 2018 for this season. Recent warming has been sporadic in the region with warmer conditions in the western sector and cooler conditions near Kodiak Island and eastward.

Why monitor marine heatwaves in the Gulf of Alaska?

Climate change is impacting the ecosystem of the Gulf of Alaska and effects are expected to magnify as warming increases over the coming decades. Over the past 6 years, the Gulf of Alaska has been experiencing extended and severe marine heatwaves. From June 2014 to January 2017 the North Pacific, including the Gulf of Alaska, had increased temperatures over a region of approximately 2 million km2 with more than 2.5 °C warmer than the long-term mean (1982–2012). The 2014–2016 marine heatwave changed the ecology of the region with reduced phytoplankton production, a shift in zooplankton production from large lipid-rich (higher fat) copepods to small lipid-poor copepods, and reduced forage fish populations such as capelin (Mallotus villosus) and Pacific sand lance (Ammodytes hexapterus). Species at the top of the marine food chain experienced lower recruitment (reduced juvenile survival) and increased mortality in fishes, birds, and mammals.

We will provide monthly updates on marine heatwave conditions in the Gulf of Alaska via social media @NOAAFisheriesAK and via this webpage. We will share what we are learning about current conditions in the Gulf of Alaska this year.

Read the full release here

PFMC Climate and Communities Core Team to hold online meeting July 8, 2021

June 16, 2021 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Pacific Fishery Management Council’s (Pacific Council) Climate and Communities Core Team (CCCT) is holding an online meeting, which is open to the public. The online meeting will be held July 8, 2021, beginning at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time and continuing until 12:00 p.m. or until business is completed.

Please see the CCCT meeting notice on the Council’s website for details.

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff officer Dr. Kit Dahl at 503-820-2422; toll-free 1-866-806-7204.

MCCF hosts online Lunch & Learn ‘Inheriting Change: A Panel Discussion Featuring Youth Perspectives on Climate Change and Maine Fisheries’

June 15, 2021 — Please join Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries on Friday, June 25 at 12:30 p.m. for, “Inheriting Change: A Panel Discussion Featuring Youth Perspectives on Climate Change and Maine Fisheries.” This month’s webinar will feature perspectives from four members of a generation that will inherit the consequences of climate change on our local fishing communities. Hallie is a COA student and member of “Maine Youth for Climate Justice,” who thinks “we need to have a just transition to a livable future for everyone, including fishermen.” Elijah is a 19-year old fisherman from Eastport who is already diversifying his work to integrate kelp and mussel aquaculture with his lobster fishing and boat building. Rylee, who just graduated from Deer Isle Stonington High School as Salutatorian, and Sophie, from George Stevens Academy, have seen the stresses of the reaction to climate change on fishermen and their families. This one-hour discussion will be moderated by Parker Gassett, Marine Extension associate with Maine Sea Grant. Participants will be invited to join the discussion during.

To register, please visit https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MDwLe4L6Rse2p3CniY8Ntg.

Learn more about MCCF at http://www.coastalfisheries.org.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Is Maldivian tuna being penalized for being sustainable?

June 11, 2021 — In seafood circles, the Maldives is heralded as one of the world’s most-important tuna-fishing nations, an acknowledgement proudly welcomed by Maldivians. But what isn’t so apparent to most non-natives is just how vital tuna is to the island nation. Its 2,000-year history is literally built on catching these universally-prized fish. Moreover, it’s been doing this in pretty much the same way down through the centuries – one-by-one. Essentially, one fisher, using one fishing line, catching one fish at a time.

Its fisheries laws prohibit purse-seining, gillnets, trawl nets, or any other form of commercial fishing that uses a net. At the same time, the country’s exclusive economic zone isn’t leased to other nations and it has a strict policy of not licensing foreign fishing vessels.

Read the full story at Seafood Source