Saving Seafood

West Coast Salmon Vulnerable to Climate Change, but Some Show Resilience to Shifting Environment

July 26, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Several of the West Coast’s prime salmon runs are highly vulnerable to climate change, but intensified habitat restoration and other measures can help support their natural resilience and adaptability. The new NOAA Fisheries report, published this week in PLOS ONE, is the first comprehensive climate vulnerability assessment for West Coast salmon and steelhead.

Certain Chinook, coho, and sockeye salmon population groups are the most vulnerable to expected environmental shifts with climate change. These include more extreme high and low flows and hotter oceans and rivers. Steelhead, pink and chum salmon face less risk, either because they are more adaptable to varying conditions (steelhead) or spend less time in freshwater (pink and chum).

Species-specific results are available for each population group.

Authors noted that salmon have long thrived in the region, proving themselves resilient to past shifts in climate. However, climate is now changing at an unprecedented rate. Most populations now lack access to habitat that once provided refuge from climate extremes.

“Salmon have always adapted to change, and they have been very successful—otherwise they wouldn’t still be here,” said Lisa Crozier, a research scientist at NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center and lead author of the assessment. “What we are trying to understand is which populations may need the most help with anticipated future changes in temperature and water availability, and what steps we can take to support them.”

Read the full release here

California coasts recovering, but more marine heatwaves like ‘The Blob’ expected

July 26, 2019 — The effects of the marine heatwave off the California coast from 2014 to 2016, better known as The Blob, that led to a decrease in Chinook salmon and virtually shut down the Dungeness crab industry are finally starting to wear off.

The heatwave led to major shifts in the marine ecosystem, with species of fish migrating to different regions where the temperature was more favorable. It caused declines in certain species and increases in others. A type of algae that produces the neurotoxin domoic acid also outcompeted other forms of algae, leading to huge blooms that poisoned a variety of sea life, such as Dungeness crab.

“It wasn’t about (a lack of) abundance,” said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “It was about destabilized ecosystems.”

The ecosystem is still recovering from the marine heatwave, slowly cooling down, but conditions are improving enough to have led to a 12.3% increase in West Coast fishery revenues, primarily “driven by Pacific hake, Dungeness crab and market squid,” according to the 2019 California Current Ecosystem Status Report prepared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Jennifer Gilden, the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s staff officer for outreach, habitat and legislation, said the ocean conditions are improving, though the Chinook salmon population has yet to fully recover.

“This year won’t be great,” Gilden said, “but conditions will be improving over the next few years.”

Read the full story at Mercury News

$60 Million Loss in Revenue Expected in Pacific Islands Tuna Industry by 2050 Due to Climate Change

July 25, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Revenue from tuna caught within the Economic Exclusive Zones (EEZs) of Pacific Island Countries is expected to decline by 2050, according to Johann Bell, senior director of Pacific tuna fisheries at Conservation International.

He told PACNEWS climate change will affect revenue generated from the industry.

“What we’ve done with the recent modelling is actually look at how the biomass of tuna might change within the EEZ of Pacific Island countries and territories and how it might change in the high seas areas.

“And the modelling that we have now is indicating that by 2050 there is likely to be a 15 percent movement of the amount of tuna in the EEZ onto the high seas. So yes that will affect the revenue of several countries because if you make the assumption that the revenue is proportional to how much tuna we have in our waters, then that is likely to change and countries will get less revenue,” Bell told PACNEWS in Noumea at the end of the Pacific Community workshop for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030.

Bell said climate change will continue to increase the surface temperature of the ocean and this will cause skipjack and yellowfin tuna species to shift significantly to the East.

He told PACNEWS regional governments will receive less revenue because foreign fishing fleets will take more of their tuna catch from the high seas where they do not have to pay fishing license fees.

“There are some countries further to the East where the amount of tuna in their EEZ is likely to increase and they might expect to get greater catches.

“So if you look at the numbers at the moment, in 2016 license fees revenue for all the Pacific Island Countries and Territories was about US$465 million with 15 percent of the biomass of tuna moving from the EEZ onto the high seas. So we could be looking at a change in license revenue of about US$60 million, a loss of license revenue collectively across the region by 2050,” said Bell.

He said a promising way to cushion Pacific island economies against a loss of license revenue would be to explore how best to add value to tuna.

Bell said they are also exploring how best to help the region retain the rights to the tuna resources that currently occur within their EEZs, regardless of displacement of the fish by climate change.

This would mean that although some tuna would no longer physically be in the EEZs of a Pacific island nation, these tuna would still belong economically to that country, said Bell.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Pacific bigeye tuna fishery decline expected due to climate change

July 23, 2019 — A decline in Hawaii’s deep-set longline bigeye tuna fishery may be “inevitable” with climate change, according to a study by researchers in Hawaii and Australia.

Changes to bigeye tuna’s food supply, via changes to the plankton community, and temperature, will reduce yields because it will affect tuna’s fitness. This will impact tuna’s aerobic scope and ability to successfully forage, researchers from Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, and the Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania said.

Proactive fisheries management could be an effective tool for mitigating climate change, either by balancing or outweighing climate effects. “However, modeling these [climatic] stressors jointly shows that even large management changes cannot completely offset climate effects.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

New York awards offshore wind contracts as governor signs climate bill

July 19, 2019 — New York on Thursday awarded two major offshore wind contracts to Norway’s Equinor and a joint venture between Denmark’s Orsted and U.S. utility Eversource, procuring more of the renewable power than it had planned as part of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s ambitious plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Cuomo made the announcement at a New York City news conference just before signing into law a landmark climate bill to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. The law mandates reducing emissions by 85% from 1990 levels by 2050, and offsetting the remaining 15%, making the state carbon-neutral.

Offshore wind is expected to play a key role in reducing the state’s emissions, and the state has a goal of procuring 9,000 megawatts (MW) by 2035. The two contracts unveiled on Thursday add up to 1,700 MW of capacity, or enough to power 1 million homes, Cuomo said. The state’s first procurement had originally planned to be between 800 and 1,200 MW.

Instead, it awarded an 880-MW contract to Orsted and Eversource for the Sunrise Wind project off the eastern coast of Long Island and another 816-MW contract to Equinor for its Empire Wind farm that will supply New York City.

Read the full story at Reuters

Climate Change and its Effect on Our Coastal Ecosystem

July 16, 2019 — Climate change and rapidly warming water mean a major impact on our coastal ecosystem.

The North Atlantic shelf, which includes our Connecticut shoreline and extends all the way up to the coastal waters of Canada, is warming faster 99 percent faster than our global oceans. Scientists are concerned for what the future holds.

“There’s a lot of concern about what climate change can do. The Gulf of Maine which is an incredibly productive body of water which includes Cape Cod and parts North is warming at an alarming rate. And it will be interesting to see how that changes the distribution of both the predator and prey,” said Dr. Greg Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

In the case of great white sharks, climate change will likely affect the prey before the predator.

Read the full story at NBC Connecticut

Study examines how the Atlantic surfclam is successfully adapting to climate change

July 15, 2019 — Global climate change poses a severe threat to marine life, but scientists have found at least one species that appears to be successfully adapting to warmer ocean waters.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that, even without factoring in the impacts of fishing, global animal biomass in Earth’s oceans is expected to decrease by as much as 17 percent by 2100 under a “high emissions” scenario that leads to 3-4 degrees Celsius of warming. Even under a “low emissions” scenario, in which global warming is limited to just 2 degrees Celsius (the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement), the study found that marine life biomass would drop by 5 percent by 2100.

In addition to warmer waters, ocean acidification and oxygen depletion will take a toll on the wildlife that call Earth’s oceans home. On average, the research determined, we can expect a 5 percent decline in ocean life for every 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth’s average surface temperature.

However, a new study published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series shows that, as ocean temperatures rise, Atlantic surfclams, a large saltwater clam found mostly in the western Atlantic Ocean, are capably shifting their range into waters that would have previously been inhospitable to their survival.

According to the study’s authors, Jeremy Timbs and Eric Powell of the University of Southern Mississippi and Roger Mann of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the number of larvae produced by Atlantic surfclams is the key to the species’ adaptability. The clams employ a strategy of producing a massive amount of larvae that are widely distributed throughout the ocean, allowing them to reproduce despite the deleterious effects of predators, lack of food, and inhospitable temperatures on surfclam larvae numbers.

Read the full story at Mongabay

Maine Scientist: Climate Change Is Driving Corals To Cooler Waters. Will They Survive?

July 12, 2019 — Climate change is causing a significant shift in coral reef populations as warmer ocean waters drive them away from the equator, a new scientific study has found.

The study, published this month in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, found that young corals on tropical reefs have declined 85 percent over the past four decades, while they have doubled in subtropical waters.

Climate change is the “greatest global threat” to coral reefs as mass coral bleaching and disease outbreaks become more common as the ocean warms, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But as the coral reefs come under increasing pressure from climate change, they are finding new opportunities to thrive in a changing ocean environment.

“Climate change seems to be redistributing coral reefs, the same way it is shifting many other marine species,” said Nichole Price, a senior research scientist at Maine’s Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and the lead author of the paper. “The clarity in this trend is stunning, but we don’t yet know whether the new reefs can support the incredible diversity of tropical systems.”

Read the full story at Maine Public

Rep. Huffman Announces Healthy Oceans & Fisheries Listening Tour In Advance of Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Bill

July 11, 2019 — The following was released by The Office of Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA):

As Chair of the Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee, Representative Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) today announced that he will hold a series of roundtable discussions throughout the United States to engage diverse perspectives, interests, and needs of individuals who have a stake in management of our ocean and fisheries resources.

This listening tour, which kicks off this Fall, is a part of Huffman’s broader work as Chair of the Water, Oceans, and Wildlife subcommittee to foster a more transparent, deliberative, and science-based process for developing natural resources legislation than the backroom deals and partisan power plays that have frustrated good policymaking in recent years. The input Huffman receives from this listening tour, and from other stakeholder outreach that is already underway, will inform his introduction of a Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization bill next Spring. Through this comprehensive and inclusive approach, Huffman hopes to restore the historically bipartisan character of marine fisheries policies including prior successful Magnuson-Stevens reauthorizations.

“From coast to coast, American families and communities depend on healthy oceans and productive fisheries to sustain jobs, businesses, and recreational enjoyment,” said Rep. Huffman. “As Chair of the Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee, I want to hear from you on how Congress can help manage our oceans and fisheries to be as environmentally and economically resilient as possible. This public process will inform and improve future marine policy to meet the challenges our oceans and fisheries face in the 21st century, such as climate change, the need to utilize advances in science and technology, to support coastal economies, and to protect ocean and fishery resources to keep faith with future generations.”

The nation’s main fisheries law, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, is proof that an emphasis on science and sustainability works. Through its science-based annual catch limits and other provisions, overfishing has been reduced and more than 45 fish stocks have been rebuilt since 2000.

Rep. Huffman’s goal for this listening tour is to assess whether improvements to the Magnuson-Stevens Act are needed and if so, what they should be. Topics covered in the roundtables will include, but are not limited to:

  • Climate change impacts on fisheries and whether managers have the tools and resources they need to ensure resilient fish populations and stability to fishing communities;
  • Challenges of modernizing and improving our data collection systems;
  • Supporting working waterfronts, coastal communities, and subsistence fishing, such as improving the fisheries disaster relief system and mitigating the harmful impacts of trade wars and unfair, illegal fishing practices;
  • Examining how current fisheries management practices are maintaining ecosystem roles and functions, protecting important habitats, and minimizing bycatch;
  • Challenges associated with stocks that are still unhealthy or experiencing overfishing; and
  • Ensuring equitable access to resources and a sustainable future for seafood.

Rep. Huffman is committed to holding at least one public forum in each of the regions managed by Fishery Management Councils under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and to introducing a draft Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization bill, informed by this public process, by next Spring. Huffman believes the lack of transparency, limited stakeholder engagement, and partisan nature of recent Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization efforts contributed to their demise; and that this new approach will not only produce better legislation, but also a broader, non-partisan base of political support to improve the bill’s chances of passage.

Specific dates and locations will be announced soon so that stakeholders around the country can determine how best to participate in shaping next year’s Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization bill.

Read the full release here

High Stakes for China as WTO Fishing Subsidies Cap Looms

July 8, 2019 — As the World Trade Organisation confronts a deadline this year to reach an agreement to eliminate subsidies that are decimating global fish populations, perhaps no nation faces higher stakes than China.

China operates the planet’s largest fishing fleet, catches the most seafood and hands out the most money in fuel subsidies and other support that enables industrial trawlers to travel to the furthest reaches of the ocean. As a result of the expansion of global fishing fleets to meet rising demand, 33% of fish populations are being harvested at biologically unsustainable levels while 90% are fully exploited, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Researchers in 2016 pegged total annual fishing subsidies at US$35 billion (in 2009 dollars). They categorised US$20 billion of those incentives as harmful with as much as 85% of that money going to industrial fishing operations. A 2018 study found that in the absence of US$4.2 billion in subsidies, more than half of high seas fishing would be unprofitable. Furthermore, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Spain account for 80% of fishing outside territorial waters. Researchers estimate that China alone was responsible for 21% of high seas fishing in 2014 and nearly 19% of global fish catch averaged between 2014 and 2016.

In 2001, the WTO formally recognised the need to reform fishing subsidies and member nations four years later called for the abolition of incentives that contribute to overfishing. Negotiations languished for a decade but took on new urgency in 2015 after the UN adopted a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Among them was SDG 14.6, which calls for the prohibition by 2020 of subsidies that contribute to overcapacity, overfishing and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Still, WTO’s last biennial meeting in December 2017 ended without an agreement on fishing subsidies. However, the 164 WTO member states, which must approve decisions by consensus, did agree to redouble efforts to reach an agreement by the end of 2019.

This year, negotiators have been meeting monthly at WTO headquarters in Geneva to try to break the stalemate. An agreement to ban fishing subsidies would have a profound impact on ocean health and national economies. Unlike other international agreements, such as the Paris accord on climate change, WTO actions are binding and carry the weight of law.

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive