Saving Seafood

Webinar Invite: New Research to Identify Climate-vulnerable Stock Assessments

January 26, 2021 — The following was released by Lenfest Ocean Program:

Please join us on Friday, January 29, at 1pm ET for a webinar on “New Research to Identify Climate-vulnerable Stock Assessments”. The webinar will be recorded. Please do forward this invite to other colleagues who may be interested. Webinar registration and project details are below.

Project Background

Regional Fisheries Management Councils rely on stock assessments to help set catch limits. However, climate change can impact the ability to accurately assess a fish stock. For example, it can change a fish stock’s recruitment and natural mortality rates, a species’ range and distribution, and overall stock productivity. In order to support long-term sustainable fisheries management, there is a need to understand which stock assessments are at greatest risk from climate change and how to integrate risk into the stock assessment process. The Lenfest Ocean Program is supporting Dr. Olaf Jensen, University of Wisconsin, to lead a team of researchers to identify and prioritize fish and invertebrate populations that are at greatest risk of stock assessment failure due to climate change.

This project is an outcome of the Lenfest Ocean Program Ideas Lab, a workshop held in October 2019 to identify research priorities for shifting marine species. Learn more here.

Register for the webinar here.

Learn more about the project on our website.

Research Team

  • Olaf Jensen, University of Wisconsin- Madison
  • John Weidenmann, Rutgers University
  • Chip Collier, South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council
  • Roger Mann, Virginia Institute of Marine Science
  • Kathy Mills, Gulf of Maine Research Institute
  • Vince Saba, NOAA Fisheries
  • Rujia Bi, University of Wisconsin

Study documents ‘climate shock’ to Dungeness crab fishery

January 8, 2021 — The North Pacific marine heat wave of 2014 to 2016 and subsequent algae bloom severely tested California fishing communities dependent on Dungeness crab – and demonstrated how they could adapt to sudden climate changes, according to a new study by West Coast scientists.

The bloom produced high levels of the biotoxin domoic acid, forcing a delay in the 2015-2016 crab season when “roughly two-thirds of all vessels stopped fishing temporarily while others switched to different fisheries or moved to more favorable locations,” according to a summary from Oregon State University, where researchers worked with colleagues at the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center.

The study used network analysis to examine impacts from the season delays across fisheries, and understand how seven affected fishing communities responded, according to James Watson, one of the study’s co-authors and an assistant professor at OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Dungeness Crab Fishing Industry Response to Climate Shock

January 5, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Fishermen contend with regulations, natural disasters, and the ups and downs of the stocks they fish, along with many other changes. As a result, fishing communities are quite resilient. That is, they can withstand, recover from, and adapt to change.

But how much pressure can they stand? The 2014–2016 North Pacific marine heatwave, known as the Blob, led to a harmful algal bloom of unprecedented scale. It necessitated substantial delays in the opening of the 2015–16 U.S. West Coast Dungeness crab fishery. The fishery is vital to West Coast communities. It produces around 26 percent of all annual fishing revenue and supports more than 30 percent of all commercial fishing vessels.

Understanding Impacts from Climate Shocks

Previous studies have documented the devastating economic impacts from the 2015–16 event on Dungeness crab fishermen. Members of affected coastal communities attest that these socioeconomic effects rippled through associated industries and coastal communities. But can changes in fishing practices in response to this significant climate shock be quantified?

“We wanted to examine the extent to which the Dungeness crab fishery delays affected participation in other fisheries, and the duration of those changes,” said Mary Fisher, a doctoral student at the University of Washington. Fisher did the work as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Internship Program Fellow at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center.

Fisher and her colleagues at NOAA Fisheries, University of Washington, and Oregon State University studied the impacts on more than 2,500 vessels across seven California fishing communities. The researchers wanted to see how a climate-related shock (like the heatwave and associated harmful algal bloom) can impact communities’ use of ocean resources.

Read the full release here

Directly and Indirectly, Humans Contributing to Most Orca Deaths

December 3, 2020 — New research shows that humans are taking a greater toll on killer whale populations than previously believed. Between pollution, overfishing and impacts with vessels — it doesn’t look good for the majestic, endangered creatures.

The most common human-related causes of death include infectious disease, malnutrition, congenital defects induced by chemical pollution, blunt force trauma from boat strikes and ingested fish hooks. These cases represent otherwise preventable deaths that can likely be reduced through further research and effort.

Researchers looked at blubber thickness and body length to determine an orca’s overall body condition. Not surprisingly, mature orcas tended to be healthiest prior to death and most often died from bacterial infections, emaciation and injuries caused by boat strikes, whereas calves were more likely to die from infectious disease, malnutrition or congenital defects and were typically healthy before their deaths. Understanding these interactions with humans is critical to ongoing management and conservation efforts for over 55,000 orcas worldwide.

Lead author Dr. Stephen Raverty from Canada’s Ministry of Agriculture and his team looked at pathology reports for 53 individuals stranded between 2001 and 2017, which revealed human activity to be a significant cause of death for orcas across every age group. The researchers published their findings Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

The simple food that fights climate change

December 3, 2020 — Simmering in pots around the world is a food that could spark a revolution. Most of us have probably eaten it at some point, but it’s an overlooked part of our diet. This natural source of protein is laden with essential nutrients that could fulfil the dietary needs of nearly one billion people in the most vulnerable populations on the planet. It could be a viable alternative to intensively-farmed meats such as beef. And it comes with smorgasbord of environmental and sociological gains.

The animals that are the source of this food require no feeding, need no antibiotics or agrochemicals to farm. And they actively sequester carbon. They can even protect fragile ecosystems by cleaning the water they live in. Welcome to the remarkable and unglamorous world of the bivalve.

This biological corner of our oceanic ecology is not as attention-grabbing as fish or mesmerising as a deep-sea octopus. Instead it includes the evolutionarily simpler family of shell-dwelling creatures consisting of mussels, clams, oysters and scallops. These hinge shelled molluscs have quietly embraced the lower reaches of the food chain as filter feeders, sustaining themselves on microscopic organic matter present in the waters of their immediate environment.

Their lowly status, however, perhaps means their potential has been largely overlooked. But as the world attempts to find ways of feeding a growing population with less environmental impact, many experts believe we may need to make these shellfish a larger part of our diet.

“Bivalves have the remarkable potential to provide people with food that is not only environmentally sustainable but also nutrient dense,” says David Willer, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge in the UK.

Read the full story at BBC

‘Salmon’ author pans Patagonia’s anti-fish farm activism

December 1, 2020 — Mark Kurlansky, the New York Times bestselling author of “Salmon”, is urging anti-fish farm activists to work with salmon farmers and boost the production of affordable and sustainable seafood from the oceans.

In an interview with SeaWestNews, Kurlansky said replacing sea farms with land-based operations, as the activists are demanding in British Columbia, is not a good idea because it will exacerbate climate change and substantially increase Greenhouse Gas (GhG) emissions.

“Land based farming greatly increases energy use and the carbon footprint…I do not think that is a good idea,” said Kurlansky, who spent five years researching his book, which was published by Patagonia, the outdoor clothing conglomerate, which ironically supports activism to stop ocean-based fish farming.

“Farming salmon in the oceans has almost no carbon footprint…almost all of the energy used, apart from packaging the food, is provided by the natural force of the ocean…so you will be taking a low energy industry and turning it into a high energy industry,” he said.

“I would certainly not want to see all fish farms move on land, and I also would not want to see all ocean fish farming stopped, because I think it has a good contribution and it is a supply of affordable protein. That is not something to turn your back on.”

Read the full story at SeaWest News

Biotech firm close to scaling up fishmeal alternative made from industrial emissions

November 23, 2020 — Having secured EUR 2.5 million (USD 3 million) from EU Horizon 2020 – European Innovation Council (EIC) accelerator funding – young U.K.-based carbon recycling biotechnology company Deep Branch is scaling up the development of new proteins for the aqua- and agri-feed sectors, produced from carbon dioxide (CO2) captured from industrial emissions.

Deep Branch’s new “Proton” single-cell protein is created through a fermentation process that uses microbes to convert CO2 into protein. The result is a low carbon feed ingredient with a nutritional profile comparable to fishmeal, which can be produced year-round, and at a price that’s on par with the traditional but finite marine ingredient market, but sporting a lower carbon footprint.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Russian and American Scientists say warming water is pushing Bering Sea pollock into new territory

November 20, 2020 — In a new study, scientists have linked warming Arctic temperatures, changing wind patterns and shifting currents to movement of commercially valuable Alaska pollock in the Bering Sea.

The Bering Sea has seen the loss of a summer cold water barrier in recent years, which used to keep pollock from spreading out and moving north.

But while scientists are seeing drastic shifts in pollock movement patterns, further research needs to be conducted to know what the changes mean for communities like Unalaska and Dutch Harbor and the billion-dollar pollock industry.

“This research is really critical because pollock are a key ecological component of the Bering Sea shelf food web supporting the largest commercial fishery in the U.S. by biomass,” said Robert Foy, NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center director. “To get an accurate assessment of pollock abundance so that resource managers can set sustainable catch limits, we have to be able to understand pollock distribution, which certainly looks different under a warm water regime.”

Read the full story at KTOO

Coalition of seafood industry members oppose new Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act

November 17, 2020 — A coalition of more than 800 members of the U.S. seafood industry have signed a letter opposing a new bill that they say will undermine the nation’s “world-class system of fisheries management.”

The bill, the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act, was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in late October. The 300-page-long bill was co-authored by U.S. Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Arizona) and U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Florida) and contains sweeping rule-making that touches on fisheries sectors.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Late-season Arctic research cruise reveals warm ocean temperatures, active ecosystem

November 12, 2020 — Arctic researchers Jacqueline Grebmeier and Lee Cooper have been visiting the Bering and Chukchi seas off Alaska for nearly 30 years, collecting information about the biological diversity of the watery world under the sea ice to understand how marine ecosystems are responding to environmental changes. This year, a late-season research cruise in October revealed a surprise. At a time of year when an ice-breaking ship is usually required to get them to some of the data-gathering outposts, scientists found nothing but open water and an unusually active ecosystem.

“The water and air temperatures were warmer, and we had ecosystem activity that normally doesn’t occur late in the season,” said University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Research Professor Jacqueline Grebmeier, chief scientist on the research cruise and a national and international leader in Arctic research.

Grebmeier and Cooper were part of a small team of researchers from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Clark University that completed an unusual late-season Arctic research cruise due travel challenges presented by COVID-19 pandemic. They found an ecosystem—expected to be powering down to low-level winter activity with sea ice forming—to be still active, likely due to unseasonably warm ocean temperatures. Sea ice formation was still a number of weeks away.

“2020 turned out to be the second lowest minimum sea ice extent, meaning that sea ice retreated back closer to the North Pole,” Grebmeier said. “We had warming water up to 3 degrees Celsius higher than typical all the way through . That means you can’t cool it down that quickly to build ice.”

Read the full story at PHYS.org