Saving Seafood

Earth’s oceans may be way hotter than scientists realized — here’s how worried you should be

November 2, 2018 — The oceans are the world’s thankless, built-in air purifiers.

Over the past couple hundred years, as humans have burned coal, cleared forests, put gas-powered cars and trucks on the road, and run air conditioners and refrigerators, the oceans have been quietly gathering up most of the carbon emissions those activities spew into the air. They’ve also absorbed most of the excess heat that those gases have trapped on the planet.

Previous estimates suggested that the world’s oceans have collectively taken in more than 90% of the excess heat energy that our carbon emissions have kept on Earth.

But a new report published in the journal Nature on Wednesday suggests it’s worse than that. The research shows that scientists have been measuring the amount of heat in the oceans incorrectly, so the waters have actually absorbed far more heat than previously thought.

“If we think the ocean is warming more than we thought, it means the Earth is warming more than we thought, and that means the Earth is more sensitive to our emissions,” lead study author Laure Resplandy, an assistant professor of geosciences at Princeton, told Business Insider.

Scientists have long warned that we have to curb our reliance on fossil fuels to avoid a future of regular, catastrophic climate disasters. But Resplandy said the new findings in her report show that avoiding a future “Hothouse Earth” scenario will be even harder than anticipated. Specifically, that means it will be more challenging to avoid flooding from sea level rise in coastal cities, violent hurricanes, and the death of nearly all of Earth’s coral reefs.

Read the full story at MSN

 

The Invasice Venomous Lionfish is Killing Atlantic Reefs. So Please Eat It.

October 24, 2018 — KEY LARGO, Fla. — What do you do with an invasive fish, covered from head to fin with venomous spines as sharp as hypodermic needles; a fish that can’t be caught with a rod or in a trawling net as it multiplies rapidly, deep in our oceans, flummoxing fishermen and scientists alike?

Conservationists are hoping you eat it.

The Indo-Pacific native lionfish arrived in the Atlantic about a decade ago, the product of well-meaning aquarium owners who released their charges into the ocean, not realizing they reproduce at an alarming rate, prey on more than 70 species of fish and hasten the dying-off of any coral reef they alight on. Scientists describe their invasion into Florida’s waters in the same words noted Key West fisherman Ernest Hemingway used to describe the onset of bankruptcy: slowly, and then all at once. Now estimated to number as many as 1,000 fish per acre, lionfish also have no known predators — except humans.

Read the full story at Vice News

 

Expanded protection of coral reefs in Gulf of Mexico may not be ready for approval until 2020

September 13, 2018 — A plan to expand the network of federally protected coral reef systems in the Gulf of Mexico may not be ready for approval by the Trump administration until early 2020, officials said Wednesday.

That means about five years will have passed since officials first began discussing in 2015 expanding the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, located about 100 miles off the coast of Galveston.

The sanctuary designation, which prevents over fishing and harassment of marine life in the area, currently stretches across 56 square miles, or three banks. In May, the sanctuary’s advisory council approved a proposal that would expand that area to 206 square miles, or 17 banks.

But officials have identified some potential tweaks. For example, the new plan actually would eliminate some of the protected area around Stetson Bank, one of the three current banks.

“There has not been a final decision how proceed,” sanctuary Superintendent G.P. Schmahl said during a Wednesday advisory council meeting, adding that officials likely would adjust the Stetson Bank boundaries.

According to the Flower Garden Banks website, there are several more steps to go in the process. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the 13 federally designated national marine sanctuaries, still must ask the Department of Interior to analyse the plan to understand how it will impact energy and mineral resource development.

Read the full story at the Houston Chronicle

‘Storminess’ Could Make Fishing More Risky as Climate Warms

July 2, 2018 — Tens of thousands of people die every year trying to catch fish to eat or sell, and weather is one of the biggest hazards to lives and equipment. The International Red Cross estimates that 3,000–5,000 people, mainly fishers, are killed by intense thunderstorms on Africa’s Lake Victoria each year. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan destroyed some 30,000 fishing boats in the Philippines.

The dangers of fishing are no secret, but a warming planet could make the job even more risky. A team of researchers in England is calling for a closer look at how increasingly stormy weather will affect global fisheries.

In a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, they warn that nastier weather in the future will make fishing more dangerous for millions of fishers and, by reducing catches, could threaten the health and well-being of billions of people who eat seafood. The biggest challenge is that few have studied this question. Although there’s been plenty of research on how ocean warming could reduce fish catch in the next 50–100 years, they said, changing “storminess” could actually be a more immediate, catastrophic issue.

“We really want to encourage more research in this area, because we think it’s really critical for the future,” said lead author Nigel Sainsbury, a scientist at the University of Exeter’s Environment and Sustainability Institute.

Already, scientists have looked at how large storms can damage coral reefs, cause fish to evacuate large areas and flood estuaries with salty ocean water. Some storm systems may also benefit fish by strengthening ocean upwelling that allows phytoplankton and zooplankton – food at the base of the marine food chain – to thrive, according to research led by United States National Marine Fisheries Service scientists.

Read the full story at Oceans Deeply

The Ocean Is Getting More Acidic —What That Actually Means

June 18, 2018 — Grace Saba steadies herself on the back of a gently rocking boat as she and her crew slide a six-foot long yellow torpedo into the sea. A cheer erupts as the device surfaces, turns on its electronic signal, and begins a three-week journey along the New Jersey coast.

“It’s taken seven years to get this done,” said Saba, who has been working on this experiment since 2011. “I’m so happy, I think I might cry!”

Saba is an assistant professor of marine ecology at Rutgers University, where she is studying how fish, clams, and other creatures are reacting to rising levels of ocean acidity. Acidification is a byproduct of climate change; a slow but exorable real-life experiment in which industrial emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are absorbed and then undergo chemical reactions in the sea. Rising ocean acidity has already bleached Florida’s coral reefs and killed valuable oysters in the Pacific Northwest.

Now scientists like Saba want to know what might happen to animals that live in the Northeast, a region home to commercially important fishes, wild stocks of quahogs (clams), scallops, and surf clams that can’t swim away from growing acidic waters.

“They are just stuck there,” Saba said.

Saba’s torpedo-like instrument is actually an underwater drone, known as a Slocum glider, that is carrying an ocean acidity sensor. This is the first time that oceanographers have married the two technologies—glider and pH sensor—to get a big-picture view of changes underway in the commercially important fishing grounds of the Northeastern United States.

Read the full story at National Geographic

In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

June 18, 2018 — Nothing beats dynamite fishing for sheer efficiency.

A fisherman in this scattering of islands in the central Philippines balanced on a narrow outrigger boat and launched a bottle bomb into the sea with the ease of a quarterback. It exploded in a violent burst, rocking the bottom of our boat and filling the air with an acrid smell. Fish bobbed onto the surface, dead or gasping their last breaths.

Under the water, coral shattered into rubble.

The blast ruptured the internal organs of reef fish, fractured their spines or tore at their flesh with coral shrapnel. From microscopic plankton to sea horses, anemones and sharks, little survives inside the 30- to 100-foot radius of an explosion.

With 10,500 square miles of coral reef, the Philippines is a global center for marine biodiversity, which the country has struggled to protect in the face of human activity and institutional inaction. But as the effects of climate change on oceans become more acute, stopping dynamite and other illegal fishing has taken on a new urgency.

Read the full story at the New York Times

Large, Open Ocean MPAs Distract from More Pressing Ocean Issues

May 15, 2018 — Effective conservation requires thoughtful decision-making to successfully navigate complex issues involving food, livelihood, and preservation. Fishery management is conservation in practice as it tries to ensure that fish for food and enjoyment persist indefinitely. However, the tools chosen for the job have implications for the environment and the people using it. There are limited resources to devote to a myriad of issues, and most decisions have winners and losers. With any conservation objective, each potential management tool should be critically evaluated to consider externalities and alternatives. No-take MPAs that restrict all fishing can be the right tool for conservation and management, but not always.

Recently, many global conservation leaders have called for a dramatic increase in the amount of no-take MPA coverage worldwide, mainly through large, open-ocean marine protected areas (LOOMPAs). Touting these immense MPAs as the pinnacle of ocean protection is popular right now, but fails to acknowledge the social and biological shortcomings of LOOMPAs and, crucially, is a poor use of political capital. Understanding and accounting for the critiques of LOOMPAs will make fisheries and ocean conservation better.

Prudent, coastal MPAs are good

MPAs function by restricting fishing in an area of the ocean. If well enforced, they are an effective management tool for specific coastal habitats, like coral reefs, which need healthy fish populations to function properly. Coral reefs are also extremely delicate; preventing harmful fishing practices can greatly benefit the ecosystem. Fortunately, commercial fishing is less reliant on coral reefs than other ocean habitats.

MPAs that protect seagrass meadows and kelp forests along the coast can also work to mitigate climate change and ocean acidification as seagrasses and kelp are the oceans’ greatest carbon sinks, sequestering more carbon per acre than terrestrial forests. Proper protection would restrict damaging fishing gear to keep the underwater forests and meadows intact.

Large, Open Ocean MPAs are contentious, biologically.

Large, open ocean MPAs (LOOMPAs) are designed to protect huge swaths of open ocean, but are a poor choice for efficiently and effectively managing fisheries. The idea is that by restricting fishing in such a large area, highly migratory fish that travel across the open ocean (like tuna) will have better opportunities to grow and reproduce. However, highly migratory fish are just that—highly migratory. Tuna populations move thousands of miles; in and out of LOOMPAs, EEZs, and the high seas.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

 

Study: Marine Protected Areas Won’t Matter

May 10, 2018 — New research from the University of North Carolina concludes that most marine life in marine protected areas will not be able to tolerate warming ocean temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

There are 8,236 marine protected areas around the world covering about four percent of the surface of the ocean. They have been established as a haven to protect threatened marine life, like polar bears, penguins and coral reefs, from the effects of fishing and other activities such as oil and gas extraction.

The study found that with continued “business-as-usual” emissions, the protections currently in place won’t matter, because by 2100, warming and reduced oxygen concentration will make marine protected areas uninhabitable by most species currently residing in those areas.

The study predicts that under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 emissions scenario, better known as the “business as usual scenario,” marine protected areas will warm by 2.8 degrees Celsius (or 5 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. Mean sea-surface temperatures within marine protected areas are projected to increase 0.034 degrees Celsius (or 0.061 degrees Fahrenheit) per year.

Read the full story at the Maritime Executive

 

MSC discusses future of certification program during conference at Seafood Expo Global

April 26, 2018 — A panel of key industry members, NGOs, and Marine Stewardship Council officials met on 25 April to discuss what the future has in store for the MSC.

MSC CEO Rupert Howes was on hand to discuss the future of the program and the challenges it will need to face – and is already facing – after over 20 years of existence. Key to the discussion was the United Nation’s framework known as Sustainable Development Goals, and how MSC has had to adapt to a changing climate. Warming oceans have led to challenges for the environment, and in turn for fisheries that have seen drastic changes in the patterns of fish they harvest.

“Are our oceans in trouble? I think they are. You look at the impacts of acidification and climate change devastating coral reefs,” Howes said. “A number of MSC fisheries have lost their certificate as fish change their migration patterns.”

A theme throughout the discussion was the idea of striking a balance between pushing sustainability in response to new science and environmental challenges, without raising the bar so high that industry leaders decide the cost isn’t worth it.

Read the full story at the Seafood Source

 

Oil impairs ability of coral reef fish to find homes and evade predators

July 18, 2017 — Just as one too many cocktails can lead a person to make bad choices, a few drops of oil can cause coral reef fish to make poor decisions, according to a paper published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution. A team of fisheries biologists led by Jacob Johansen and Andrew Esbaugh of The University of Texas Marine Science Institute have discovered that oil impacts the higher-order thinking of coral reef fish in a way that could prove dangerous for them—and for the coral reefs where they make their home.

Examining six different species of , Johansen and the team found that exposure to oil consistently affected behavior in ways that put the  at risk.

During several weeks when coral  fish go through their juvenile stages of development, they are especially vulnerable. Even in healthy populations of reef fish, typically less than 10 percent of embryos and larvae reach adulthood. Those who survive must learn to identify friend from foe and adopt protective behaviors, such as traveling in groups, minimizing movement in open waters and swimming away quickly from danger.

In experiments, the scientists found that juvenile fish exposed to oil struggled on all these counts.

“In several different experiments, the fish exposed to oil exhibited very risky behavior, even in the presence of a predator,” said Esbaugh, an assistant professor of .

The scientists also found that oil exposure negatively affected the fishes’ growth, survival and settlement behaviors (their ability to find a suitable habitat).

Oil concentrations are found in oceans worldwide, but until now little has been known about the impact of oil exposure on coral reef fish. Earlier research that explored how oil affects the physiology of fishes has demonstrated developmental heart deformities and associated cardiac functions, but this is the first study to demonstrate that oil exposure affects behavior in a way that increases predation and reduces settlement success.

Read the full story at Phys.org