Saving Seafood

‘Climate shocks’ reducing fish stocks in New England, and Atlantic Canada could be next

December 11, 2019 — A new study says “climate shocks” are reducing fish populations in the North Atlantic region, leading to fewer jobs and lower wages in New England’s fishing sector.

Fishing communities along the northeastern U.S. seaboard have long struggled with warming waters, dwindling fish stocks and rising unemployment.

The research published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is the first to directly link climate change with declining fishing jobs.

It found that climate fluctuations caused a 16 per cent drop in fisheries employment in New England from 1996 to 2017.

The findings suggest Atlantic Canada’s fisheries could also potentially experience increasing variability in fish stocks, revenue and employment due to climate change in the coming years.

Read the full story at The Chronicle Herald

New England fishermen losing jobs due to climate fluctuations

December 11, 2019 — For decades the biggest threat to the industry has been overfishing, but it is no longer the only threat. According to new research at the University of Delaware, fluctuations in the climate have already cost some New England fishermen their jobs.

UD’s Kimberly Oremus, assistant professor of marine policy, makes the direct link, for the first time, between large-scale climate variability and fishing job losses in a study published Dec. 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

By correlating the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) — New England’s dominant climate signal — with labor numbers, Oremus determined that New England’s coastal counties have, on average, lost 16% of their fishing jobs due to climate variation from 1996 to 2017.

This specific effect of climate is distinct from the overall job losses and gains caused by other factors, such as changes in market demand, regulatory changes to curb overfishing, and broader economic trends. Currently, 34,000 commercial marine fishermen are employed in New England’s industry.

“As we see more warm winters off the New England coast, historic fisheries decline and fewer fishermen stay in business,” Oremus said. “This has important implications for fisheries management in New England, which employs 20% of U.S. commercial harvesters.”

Read the full story at Science Daily

Warren releases ‘Blue New Deal,’ a plan to help ailing oceans

December 10, 2019 — Senator Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday released an addendum to her vision for a Green New Deal: the Blue New Deal.

The new plan seeks to address how climate change is affecting oceans and other waters, while ensuring a vibrant marine economy, she said.

“While the ocean is severely threatened, it can also be a major part of the climate solution,” she wrote in a nine-page summary of the plan. “That is why I believe that a Blue New Deal must be an essential part of any Green New Deal.”

“Not being consulted on this isn’t a good start to the relationship,” said Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney for the Fisheries Survival Fund in Washington, D.C., which represents the scallop industry. “We expected something more well-thought-out from her.”

Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a coalition of fishing industry associations and companies, said that “any large industrial project in the ocean will have significant impacts to the sustainability of established activities and the marine environment.”

“To me, it seems like it was written by staff, and they did a lot of Googling,” said Robert Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, a Washington-based group that represents commercial fishermen. “It’s disappointing, because we know Senator Warren has a more sophisticated understanding of fisheries.”

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Runaway warming could sink fishing and reef tourism, researchers warn

December 9, 2019 — Countries from Egypt to Mexico could lose 95% of their income from coral reef tourism, and parts of West Africa could see their ocean fisheries decline by 85% by the turn of the century if planet-warming emissions continue to rise, oceans experts warned Friday.

“Action in reducing emissions really needs to be taken, or we will be facing very important impacts” on oceans and people, said Elena Ojea, one of the authors of a new paper looking at the potential impacts of climate change on ocean economies.

The study, released at the U.N. climate negotiations in Madrid, was commissioned by the leaders of 14 countries with ocean-dependent economies, and looked at ocean fisheries and seafood cultivation industries, and coral reef tourism.

It found that reef tourism, a nearly $36-billion-a-year industry today, could see more than 90% losses globally by 2100 under a high-emissions scenario.

Countries particularly dependent on coral reef tourism – Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand and Australia – could see income cut by 95%, the paper noted.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, an ocean expert at Australia’s University of Queensland and one of paper’s authors, said his country’s Great Barrier Reef tourism industry – worth billions a year a year – was already seeing losses as corals bleached and died.

Read the full story at Reuters

Pacific nations call on WCPFC for climate change action plan

December 9, 2019 — Pacific fisheries officials are calling on members of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) to band together and commit to an action plan that takes climate change’s impacts on its fisheries into account.

In a statement ahead of the week-long tuna commission meeting – taking place in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, between 5 and 11 December – the 17-member Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) are “therefore calling on the WCPFC to collectively take stronger action on climate change.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska’s northern rock sole another climate change winner

December 3, 2019 — Count Alaska’s northern rock sole among the fish species that appear to have more promise as water temperatures continue to increase as a result of climate change, Alaska TV station KTUU reports.

Using biomass data collected from 1982 through 2014 as well as wind and temperature data, Dan Cooper, a fish biologist with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and his team have determined that the flatfish species has higher reproductive success in warmer years, according to the NBC affiliate.

Though its females grow to a size of up to 27 inches in length and males up to 19 inches, northern rock sole is harvested significantly less than pollock and Pacific cod, in Alaska. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council set the acceptable biological catch for the fish in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands at 143,000 metric tons for 2020, yet in 2018 only 60% of the total allowable catch was harvested, the news service noted.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Webinar to discuss state of northern shrimp in US Gulf of Maine

December 3, 2019 — A panel within the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is scheduled to hold a two-hour webinar beginning at 1 p.m. on Friday (Dec. 6) to discuss the state of northern shrimp in the New England region of the US, the Associated Press reports.

The shrimp fishery has been shut down since 2013, and is in the middle of a moratorium that is scheduled to last until 2021, the wire service noted. The webinar is expected to deliver a stock assessment but not recommend any drastic changes, because the shrimp population is still suffering, a problem blamed in particular on warming Gulf of Maine waters.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Studies: Warming waters, local conditions contribute to Maine’s lobster stock changes

December 3, 2019 — Two new studies published by University of Maine scientists point to the role of a warming ocean and local oceanographic differences in the rise and fall of lobster populations along the coast from southern New England to Atlantic Canada.

Maine’s lobster catch was valued at $484.5 million last year, according to the state Department of Marine Resources. It is the state’s largest fishery by far, accounting for 76% of the $637 million fishing industry — making the findings that much more significant.

One study suggests the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery may be entering a period of decline, as a  “cresting wave” of lobster abundance heads northward in response to the region’s changing climate.

Published in the scientific journal “Ecological Applications,” the study was led by Noah Oppenheim, who completed his research as a UMaine graduate student in 2016, with co-authors Richard Wahle, Damian Brady and Andrew Goode from UMaine’s School of Marine Sciences, and Andrew Pershing from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Warming Waters, Moving Fish: How Climate Change Is Reshaping Iceland

December 2, 2019 — Before it became a “Game of Thrones” location, before Justin Bieber stalked the trails of Fjadrargljufur, and before hordes of tourists descended upon this small island nation, there were the fish.

“Fish,” said Gisli Palsson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Iceland, “made us rich.” The money Iceland earned from commercial fishing helped the island, which is about the size of Kentucky, become independent from Denmark in 1944.

But warming waters associated with climate change are causing some fish to seek cooler waters elsewhere, beyond the reach of Icelandic fishermen. Ocean temperatures around Iceland have increased between 1.8 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years. For the past two seasons, Icelanders have not been able to harvest capelin, a type of smelt, as their numbers plummeted. The warmer waters mean that as some fish leave, causing financial disruption, other fish species arrive, triggering geopolitical conflicts.

Worldwide, research shows the oceans are simmering. Since the middle of last century, the oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions. To beat the heat, fish are moving toward cooler waters nearer the planet’s two poles.

Read the full story from The New York Times at The Seattle Times

Lobster Catch Headed for Decline, Not Crash, Scientists Say

December 2, 2019 — A pair of studies by Maine-based scientists suggest the U.S. lobster industry is headed for a period of decline, but likely not a crash.

Lobster fishermen have brought in record hauls this decade, a period in which Maine catches that previously rarely topped 70 million pounds (32 million kilograms) have routinely soared above 120 million pounds (54 million kilograms). The new studies, both published with University of Maine scientists as lead authors, show a fishery in which warming waters off Maine have changed the dynamics of the lobster population.

Noah Oppenheim, author of one of the studies, said his model projects the lobster catch in the Gulf of Maine “will return to previous historical levels.” That means tens of millions fewer pounds of lobster per year, but still enough lobsters to support a robust business and supply hungry seafood lovers.

Oppenheim and colleagues base their opinion on a finding that temperature and the number of young lobsters populating shallow coastal areas allow scientists to predict what lobster catches will look like in four to six years. They published their study in the scientific journal Ecological Applications.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times