Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Harbor porpoise bycatch near Point Barrow contributes to larger study on Bering Sea population

September 4, 2020 — When James Judkins began pulling up his fishing nets out near Point Barrow this month, the weight of the catch pulled back at him.

“Man, this is a really big fish,” Judkins thought. Then, he glimpsed the dorsal fin. Then another. “Dolphins?” he wondered.

Close. Harbor porpoises, a marine mammal resembling dolphins, but in the same family as whales, have made several appearances in Utqiaġvik recently.

In recent weeks, local fishermen have caught at least four porpoises in subsistence fishing nets near Point Barrow. Judkins recovered two, along with a seal, on Aug. 12 in Elson Lagoon. The other two were bycatches in Christian Stein and Charlie Sikvaguyak’s separate nets set in the same area. For some fishermen, it was their first time seeing the mammal.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Pink Salmon May Benefit as Pacific Arctic Warms

September 1, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Pacific Arctic is undergoing a rapid transformation. As temperatures rise and sea ice melts, some species will do better than others. A new study suggests that pink salmon may be one of those species.

“Our results suggest that warming is both increasing freshwater habitat and improving early marine survival of pink salmon in the northern Bering Sea,” said Ed Farley, NOAA Fisheries biologist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, who led the study.

The study provides insight into the response of pink salmon to climate change. The findings are valuable information for commercial and subsistence fisheries, and fishing communities, preparing for future changes.

“Subsistence harvesters would like to know what foods may be available to them now and into the future,” Farley said.

“The importance of fish in Arctic subsistence economies cannot be overstated; they are some of the most commonly eaten foods,” said coauthor Todd Sformo, biologist at the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management.

“In the past on the North Slope, salmon have been used for dog food and even considered nuisance fish when interfering with preferred species such as aanaakliq or broad whitefish in the inland rivers. Recently, there seems to be a change both qualitatively and quantitatively in the use of salmon as a main dish and for smoking.

“Participating in this study allowed me to present a subsistence perspective, learn how fellow researchers measure production dynamics, and better understand how pink salmon are responding to climate warming in the northern Bering Sea. While this research is further south than the waters surrounding the North Slope, it is a beginning of our attempt to account for potential change in subsistence fishing.”

Read the full release here

Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Seeking Rhode Island Climate Action

September 1, 2020 — Last week Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Melissa Darigan dismissed a complaint filed by Nature’s Trust Rhode Island against the Department of Environmental Management (DEM). On behalf of 13 young Rhode Islanders and the Sisters of Mercy Ecology, the group filed suit after DEM had rejected an attempt that would have forced the state to address, systematically and meaningfully, the climate crisis and to take responsibility for its share of greenhouse-gas emissions.

Peter Nightingale, president of the Nature’s Trust Rhode Island board, said the judge’s recent ruling “makes it clear that the Rhode Island courts shirk their responsibility to protect the environment.”

The University of Rhode Island physics professor pointed to House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello’s statement at the beginning of this year that “there’s nothing Rhode Island can do to address climate change in a way that is real or impactful” as perhaps the most vivid example of political negligence.

Read the full story at ecoRI

Ocean acidification causing coral ‘osteoporosis’ on iconic reefs

August 28, 2020 — In a paper published Aug. 27, 2020, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers show a significant reduction in the density of coral skeleton along much of the Great Barrier Reef — the world’s largest coral reef system — and also on two reefs in the South China Sea, which they attribute largely to the increasing acidity of the waters surrounding these reefs since 1950.

“This is the first unambiguous detection and attribution of ocean acidification’s impact on coral growth,” says lead author and WHOI scientist Weifu Guo. “Our study presents strong evidence that 20th century ocean acidification, exacerbated by reef biogeochemical processes, had measurable effects on the growth of a keystone reef-building coral species across the Great Barrier Reef and in the South China Sea. These effects will likely accelerate as ocean acidification progresses over the next several decades.”

Roughly a third of global carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the ocean, causing an average 0.1 unit decline in seawater pH since the pre-industrial era. This phenomenon, known as ocean acidification, has led to a 20 percent decrease in the concentration of carbonate ions in seawater. Animals that rely on calcium carbonate to create their skeletons, such as corals, are at risk as ocean pH continues to decline. Ocean acidification targets the density of the skeleton, silently whittling away at the coral’s strength, much like osteoporosis weakens bones in humans.

“The corals aren’t able to tell us what they’re feeling, but we can see it in their skeletons,” said Anne Cohen, a WHOI scientist and co-author of the study. “The problem is that corals really need the strength they get from their density, because that’s what keeps reefs from breaking apart. The compounding effects of temperature, local stressors, and now ocean acidification will be devastating for many reefs.”

Read the full story at Science Daily

GREENBIZ: With a rush to mine the ocean floor, we need policy to prevent permanent damage

August 26, 2020 — Mining the ocean floor for submerged minerals is a little-known, experimental industry. But soon it will take place on the deep seabed, which belongs to everyone, according to international law.

Seabed mining for valuable materials such as copper, zinc and lithium already takes place within countries’ marine territories. As soon as 2025, larger projects could start in international waters — areas more than 200 nautical miles from shore, beyond national jurisdictions.

We study ocean policy, marine resource management, international ocean governance and environmental regimes, and are researching political processes that govern deep seabed mining. Our main interests are the environmental impacts of seabed mining, ways of sharing marine resources equitably and the use of tools such as marine protected areas to protect rare, vulnerable and fragile species and ecosystems.

Today countries are working together on rules for seabed mining. In our opinion, there is still time to develop a framework that will enable nations to share resources and prevent permanent damage to the deep sea. But that will happen only if countries are willing to cooperate and make sacrifices for the greater good.

Read the full story at GreenBiz

UNCW Researchers Spawn Endangered Coral

August 25, 2020 — A University of North Carolina at Wilmington laboratory made history this month by spawning in captivity an endangered coral that once thrived in shallow reefs in the Caribbean.

Researchers at the university’s Center for Marine Science are the first to spawn two species of coral, including Orbicella faveolata, also known as mountainous star coral, in a laboratory.

Their success at reproducing the coral stems from a groundbreaking discovery just a few years ago in the United Kingdom, where a then-doctorate student collaborated with Neptune Systems, a company that makes aquarium controller systems, to electronically mimic environmental settings coral rely on in the wild to spawn.

“Ever since then other institutions and other laboratories have been able to do so,” said Nicole Fogarty, the assistant professor who headed the research in the lab referred to as the Spawning and Experimentation of Anthropogenic Stressors, or SEAS facility. “This has just been a big game-changer in trying to spawn corals in technology.”

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online

Seafood Could Account for 25% of Animal Protein Needed to Meet Increase in Demand in Coming Years

August 24, 2020 — Policy reforms and technological improvements could drive seafood production upward by as much as 75% over the next three decades, research by Oregon State University and an international collaboration suggests.

The findings, published recently in Nature, are important because by 2050 the Earth will have an estimated 9.8 billion human mouths to feed, a 2 billion increase in population from 2020. Seafood has the potential to meet much of the increased need for protein and nutrients, researchers say.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Alaska’s salmon are shrinking, and climate change may be to blame

August 21, 2020 — Alaska’s highly prized salmon – a favorite of seafood lovers the world over – are getting smaller, and climate change is a suspected culprit, a new study reported, documenting a trend that may pose a risk to a valuable fishery, indigenous people and wildlife.

The study, led by University of Alaska at Fairbanks (UAF) scientists, found that four of Alaska’s five wild salmon species have shrunk in average fish size over the past six decades, with stunted growth becoming more pronounced since 2010.

Hardest hit is Alaska’s official state fish, the Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon.

Chinooks on average are 8 percent smaller than they were before 1990, according to the study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications. Also shrinking are Alaska’s sockeye, coho and chum salmon, the report said. The findings are based on data from 12.5 million samples collected over six decades.

Read the full story at Reuters

Mass Die-Offs of Marine Mammals Are on the Rise

August 19, 2020 — The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is a reminder of the devastation disease outbreaks can cause. But such disasters do not only affect humans. New research led by Claire Sanderson, a wildlife epidemiologist and immunologist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, shows that disease outbreaks among marine mammals have quietly been on the rise. Between 1955 and 2018, a sixth of marine mammal species have suffered a mass die-off caused by an infectious disease.

Reports of disease-induced mass die-offs in marine mammals have been increasing since at least 1996. This could be due in part to increased surveillance. However, it’s also likely that scientists are still underestimating the true numbers of outbreaks in these populations. Marine mammals travel great distances in remote parts of the oceans, and often the only indication that something has gone wrong is when carcasses start washing up on shore.

Disease dynamics in marine systems are relatively unexplored compared to those on land. To address this, Sanderson combed through decades of published work documenting the occurrence of disease-driven mass deaths. The majority of outbreaks, she found, were caused by viruses such as influenza A and strains of Morbillivirus—viruses that cause pandemic flus and measles in humans, respectively.

Bacteria are the next most common causes of mass die-offs, but these die-offs tend to be less severe. On average, a viral outbreak causes roughly 7,000 marine mammal deaths, while a bacteria-induced mass mortality event causes 350 deaths. Compared with death tolls from the largest outbreaks in human populations these may appear small, but for already threatened animals such as Mediterranean sperm whales and pilot whales, even the loss of a few animals endangers the population’s long-term survival.

Read the full story at the Smithsonian Magazine