Saving Seafood

Scientists Work to Save World’s Smallest Sea Turtle

January 9, 2020 — The combination of the curving shape of Cape Cod, the region’s strong winds and currents, and the rapid cooling of the ocean in October and November make for a deadly threat to the rarest and smallest sea turtle on Earth.

That’s the problem being addressed by a series of research projects conducted by an oceanographer at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass., and a doctoral student at the University of Rhode Island. The scientists used satellite-tracked oceanographic instruments called drifters to determine where Kemp’s ridley turtles that are late to return south in the fall are most likely to float ashore near death along the Cape Cod shoreline.

The critically endangered turtles lay their eggs on beaches on the Gulf Coast of Mexico in a mass nesting event called an arribada. After spending their first few years far offshore in the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda, many of the young turtles visit the waters of the Gulf of Maine to feed on crabs and other small marine creatures that live on the seafloor.

“There are little warm water bridges from the Gulf Stream that come up here, and we think some of the turtles are riding those into the area,” URI student Felicia Page said. “The problem comes when those little bridges close off and the water in Cape Cod Bay and the Gulf of Maine stay warm, which keeps the turtles here longer than they should instead of heading south in September.”

Read the full story at EcoRI

Trump administration sued over endangered Florida sea turtle protection from climate change

January 9, 2020 — Several environmental groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming agencies in the Trump administration have failed to protect green sea turtle habitat as required by the Endangered Species Act.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the turtles’ nesting beaches in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as their ocean habitat, face threats from sea level rise brought on by climate change and plastic pollution, according to a news release from the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs.

Other plaintiffs are the Sea Turtle Oversight Protection and the Turtle Island Restoration Network.

Read the full story at the Treasure Coast Newspaper

Little Relief in the Deep for Heat-Stressed Corals

January 8, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

A team of NOAA scientists recently examined more than a thousand hot water events on coral reefs across the Pacific Ocean. Combining on-site monitoring with satellite records, they found that corals in deeper waters are just as exposed to marine heatwaves as those in shallower waters. They published these findings in Nature Scientific Reports.

This is bad news for coral reefs. These unique ecosystems have already experienced the devastating effects of three global coral bleaching events from hotter-than-normal water. Climate models project that temperatures will continue to rise.

“Scientists primarily use satellite-derived sea surface temperatures to understand heat stress and predict coral bleaching,” said Dr. Scott Heron, an associate professor at James Cook University and partner of NOAA. “It’s immediately available, it’s convenient and it has global coverage. However, because the measurement is only at the very surface of the ocean, there is some uncertainty about how well it reflects what is actually happening on deeper reefs.” In fact, the data might be underestimating the stress caused by these higher temperatures.

Read the full release here

Fishermen adapt to environmental change in varied ways, UMaine study finds

January 7, 2020 — A study published in Ecology and Society by University of Maine researchers Kara Pellowe and Heather Leslie found that regulations and financial resources that influence how people fish have as great an effect on how they deal with change as where and how they fish.

The ecologists, based at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole, took a deep look at how fishermen adapt to environmental and economic change in Baja California Sur, Mexico.

The study includes research that Pellowe conducted as part of her UMaine Ph.D. dissertation in ecology and environmental science, which she completed in August.

Over the last six years, Pellowe has traveled from New England to Baja regularly, working closely with fishermen who harvest chocolate clams (Megapitaria squalida) near Loreto Bay National Park, on the gulf coast of the Baja peninsula.

“Alternatives matter,” says Pellowe. “Having different ways to respond to environmental and economic change is vital for individuals and communities to be able to thrive in changing conditions.”

Read the full story at the Boothbay Register

The Complicated Role of Iron in Ocean Health and Climate Change

January 6, 2020 — One brisk day in April 2013, as he drove with colleagues along the southern coast of Patagonia, Mike Kaplan spotted a geologist’s treasure trove—an active gravel pit with freshly exposed walls. He pulled over, grabbed the backpack full of digging tools stowed in the car trunk and walked into the large hole.

To Kaplan’s south lay the Southern Ocean, stretching toward Antarctica. Strewn around him was evidence of Earth’s most recent ice age: heaps of crushed rock and gravel released by one of the many glaciers that had once covered North and South America. Standing in the pit, Kaplan spotted what he was looking for: a layer of fine gray silt deposited by ice sheets roughly 20,000 years ago.

A geologist at Columbia University in New York, Kaplan has spent over a decade collecting the sediments that make dust, and studying how that dust, launched from earth to air to sea, influences Earth’s climate, past and present. Dozens of intriguing samples have made their way home with him, stowed in his suitcase or shipped in a duct-taped cardboard box. As he scraped the dark gray sediment into a plastic bag, he felt a rush of anticipation. Given the sample’s location, he thought that it might be just what he needed to test an aspect of a controversial idea known as the iron hypothesis.

Read the full story at the Smithsonian Magazine

Ocean acidification could cost the U.S. billions of dollars

January 6, 2020 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is warning that carbon dioxide emissions and ocean acidification are occurring at unprecedented rates and could cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars as fisheries from Alaska to Florida are threatened.

In a new report that draws on hundreds of studies detailing how NOAA will monitor the impact of ocean acidification on the U.S. over the next 10 years, the agency warns that it “will likely affect commercial, subsistence and recreational fishing, tourism and coral ecosystems.”

Ocean acidification has a significant impact on sea life crucial to thriving seafood industries, including Dungeness crab, Alaska king crab, New England Atlantic sea scallop and a myriad of other species including mussels, clams and oysters. It makes it difficult for organisms to build shells and skeletons.

The report says profitable commercial fisheries in California, Oregon and Washington are at risk, but U.S. regions particularly endangered are Alaska, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Read the full story at The Hill

PFMC and The Nature Conservancy to host 2-day Workshop January 22-23, 2020 in Garden Grove, CA

January 3, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) and The Nature Conservancy are co-sponsoring a two-day workshop: Developing Future Scenarios for Climate Change in the California Current Ecosystem, which is open to the public.  The workshop will be held on Wednesday, January 22 and Thursday, January 23, 2020, from 8 a.m. until the completion of business on each day.

Please see the Developing Future Scenarios for Climate Change in the California Current Ecosystem January 22-23, 2020 workshop notice on the Council’s website for full details.

For further information:

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

Ocean Acidification Threatens the U.S. Economy

January 3, 2020 — Ocean acidification threatens to cause billions of dollars in damage to the U.S. economy, harming everything from crabs in Alaska to coral reefs in Florida and the Caribbean, NOAA researchers said in a new report.

Carbon dioxide emissions and ocean acidification are occurring at an “unprecedented” rate, deteriorating valuable fisheries and tourist destinations across the United States and its territories, NOAA said in a draft research plan for ocean acidification.

“Commercial, subsistence and recreational fishing [and] tourism and coral ecosystems” will likely be damaged by ocean acidification, the plan said. Multibillion-dollar fisheries such as West Coast Dungeness crab, Alaska king crab and New England sea scallops are vulnerable. So are Florida’s coral reefs, an asset valued at $8.5 billion.

Implicating human activities such as burning fossil fuels, the plan said that ocean acidification “is driven by the growing amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide absorbed and dissolved in the upper ocean.” Ocean acidification makes it hard for some marine organisms such as lobsters, oysters and coral to build shells and skeletons.

Read the full story at Scientific American

Forecast calls for warmer oceans, fewer lobsters in Maine

January 2, 2020 — Maine lobster landings, which have been over 100 million pounds every year since 2011 seem to be in for a period of decline, and probably won’t get back to that 132.6 million in 2016 or 2018’s 119.6 million pounds, according to scientists, many of whom blame rising ocean temperatures.

The Gulf of Maine lobster fishery is in one of the more rapidly warming regions of the world’s oceans. Recently two scientific journal articles, both written by University of Maine scientists, look at the role of warming temperatures and differences in local bottom and oceanography conditions and their role in affecting lobster populations.

Read the full story from National Fisherman at Seafood Source

REP. CHELLIE PINGREE: Maine’s oceans affected by climate change

December 27, 2019 — The United Nation’s (UN) 25th annual Conference of the Parties (COP25) — a meeting of nearly 200 countries to discuss international action on climate change — took place in Madrid earlier this month. Around 25,000 people attended and focused, among other topics, their efforts on the role of oceans in the climate crisis.

Our oceans, including the Gulf of Maine, are already feeling the effects of climate change. Ocean acidification and sea level rise threaten Maine’s coastal communities and economy. A recent report by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy shows that, without action on climate change, we could see a major decline in fish and irreversible harm to our coral reefs. And September’s U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report showed that the climate crisis could lead to sea level rise of more than three feet by the end of the century, coastal homes and islands becoming uninhabitable, and a collapse in fisheries.

Despite these threats, there is reason for hope. Oceans make up two-thirds of Earth’s surface and have the potential to absorb and store more carbon dioxide than land. Increasing the amounts of this “blue carbon” that we capture could help address the climate crisis. Waves, tides, and offshore wind could all also be harnessed to generate “blue” electricity and power our homes and businesses.

As countries around the world are working to develop ambitious policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the health of our oceans is taking center stage. Chile, which is leading the work of COP25, is launching a platform of ocean solutions, like creating marine protected areas, promoting sustainable fisheries, enhancing recycling capabilities, and banning single-use plastics.

Read the full opinion piece at the Portland Press Herald