Saving Seafood

Hawaii coral recovery efforts progress as Trump pulls support from Paris accord

June 5, 2017 — President Donald Trump’s decision Thursday to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord will hamper efforts to stem global warming throughout the world — the primary cause of rising ocean temperatures that pose the single greatest threat to Hawaii’s marine ecosystems.

Responsible for more CO2 emissions than any country save for China, the United States’ exit from the Paris agreement was met with dissension not only from some within Trump’s own administration but also from environmental activists, business leaders across the country and political leaders across globe.

Scientists in Hawaii also balked at Trump’s move, saying the state will not escape the subsequent ripple effect as it works to mitigate environmental impact to coral reefs on the heels of back-to-back years of coral bleaching in 2014 and 2015, the latter of which was part of the third global bleaching event in history.

“If we don’t solve the global emissions (problem) … everything that we do on reefs is substantially harder,” said Thomas Oliver, ocean acidification program manager with the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. “The Paris accord so far represents the best international response we’ve ever had to deal with the problem.”

Dr. Bill Walsh, West Hawaii aquatic biologist for the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources, said concerns extend beyond a departure from the Paris agreement to the administration’s general attitude toward climate change and the federal agencies tasked with combating it.

“Even apart from the Paris accord, if the withdrawal or rather the attack of the administration on scientific organizations (like) NOAA or the Environmental Protection Agency — we work hand in hand with them,” he said. “A lot of our ability to effectively monitor the reefs over these years has been due to money the state gets directly from NOAA. We’re all sort of intertwined here.”

Walsh and Oliver each helped develop the Coral Bleaching Recovery Plan, a detailed report synthesizing input from international and local experts along with relevant scientific literature on the problem.

Released in March after roughly a year of work, the strategies the report recommends revolve around establishing networks of no-take Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and Herbivore Fishery Management Areas (HFMAs).

Strategies also include spatial management of coral reef areas with inherent resiliency to bleaching or a high potential for recovery from bleaching. The final recommendation involves increased enforcement.

Read the full story at West Hawaii Today

At Meeting, Maine Lobstermen Say They Aren’t Harming Threatened Coral Beds

May 30, 2017 — The fragile deep-sea corals that populate the canyon walls and basins in the Gulf of Maine provide habitat for many species of fish as well as baby lobster, crabs and squid. But the New England Fisheries Management Council has concluded that the northeast coral beds are threatened when they are disturbed by commercial fishing operations and is weighing new restrictions that could affect Maine.

The council held a public hearing in Ellsworth Thursday night, where lobstermen spoke in support of a plan that protects coral colonies while still allowing them to haul their traps.

Most of the lobstermen who spoke agree that the coral beds in the Gulf of Maine play an important role in the overall health of the marine ecosystem. And most, such as Cranberry Isles fisherman Jack Merrill, think that Maine lobstermen and the coral beds have been getting along well for decades.

“It is evident to me that the marine corals in these zones appear to be thriving, which means that they are successfully coexisting with the trap fishery that has been there for many years,” he says.

The major coral beds are located off the Georges Banks. There are two areas about 25 miles off the Maine coast that have been identified as coral protection zones: the Outer Schoodic Ridge off the southeast Hancock County coast and Mount Desert Rock off Mount Desert Island.

The area is regularly fished, and Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Pat Keliher says he supports an alternative plan that would prohibit trawlers from working the ocean bottom in the two targeted regions, but would also allow lobster trap fishing in the regions.

“Lobster fishing is the economic backbone of the Down East coastal communities, and each of these proposed coral protection areas represents an important fishing ground for over 50 vessels from approximately 15 communities, and many of these vessels fish these areas throughout the majority of the year,” he says.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Maine lobstermen worry about possible closure to protect coral

May 25, 2017 — Charles Kelley began fishing for lobster on Outer Schoodic Ridge about 20 years ago, preferring the solitude of deep waters to the crowded inshore fishery.

The Steuben resident and preacher was willing to sail two hours for the freedom to drop his 30-trap trawls anywhere he wanted along that ridge, which sits about 25 nautical miles southeast of Mount Desert Island. The area is more crowded now, and Kelley’s trawls are shorter, but in the winter the 54-year-old is still dropping most of his traps in these waters. He says he earns about 40 percent of his yearly profits here, too.

“It’s my bread and butter,” Kelley said of the ridge. “I really don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t fish there. Have to move someplace else, I guess, but that would just be taking bread off someone else’s table, from those I’ve known and worked beside all my life. It would cause untold hardship not just for me, but for all the fishermen up and down this stretch of coast, from Winter Harbor all the way to Jonesport.”

Kelley is worried that he could lose his winter fishing territory if interstate regulators decide to ban all fishing in a 31-square-mile area at the ridge and an 18-square-mile area southwest of Mount Desert Rock to protect deep-water coral gardens found in those waters. The rare, slow-growing gardens of sea whips, fans and pens provide essential habitat for cod, silver hake, pollock and larval redfish.

The New England Fishery Management Council voted last month to exempt lobstering from the coral fishing ban it is considering, but the proposal won’t be finalized until June. Until then, the council is holding a series of public hearings on the proposal, including one Thursday in Ellsworth. State officials hope lobstermen show up in large numbers to lobby the council to keep the lobster exemption in its final plan.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Series of Coral Protection Hearings Planned for New England

May 1, 2017 — Federal fishery managers will hold a host of public hearings in New England and New York about a plan to protect corals in key East Coast fishing areas.

The New England Fishery Management Council is hosting seven public hearings about alternatives it is considering about the protection of corals in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank.

The hearings will take place from May 22 to 25 in Montauk, New York; Narragansett, Rhode Island; New Bedford, Massachusetts; Gloucester, Massachusetts; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Ellsworth, Maine.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CapeCod.com

What Makes Healthy Reefs ‘Smell’ Good to Fish?

March 21, 2017 —  The following was released by the Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute:

What makes fish feel at home around healthy coral reefs and avoid degraded ones? Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) Director Tony MacDonald has joined a research team dedicated to understanding the chemical cues that influence how fishes, corals and other organisms select a reef habitat.

The project is being led by the University of Delaware’s Danielle Dixson with the support of a $1 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Additional collaborators include Valerie Paul, a natural products chemist and lead scientist at the Smithsonian Marine Station and director of the Carrie Bow Cay field station in Belize; and Jay Odell, Mid-Atlantic marine program director at The Nature Conservancy in Virginia. 

Previous research by Dixson demonstrated that fish can tell the difference between healthy and degraded reefs, and that degraded reefs produce a chemical cue that repels fishes and corals.

The researchers will conduct surveys during high recruitment periods at the Smithsonian Institution’s Carrie Bow Cay research station in Belize and record the composition of the benthic communities (coral, algae, sand), as well as what fish and other reef creatures — and their predators — recruit to these communities. The data will provide a picture of what is different on high recruitment reefs and low recruitment reefs. Armed with this information, the researchers will perform chemical tests to determine the source of positive or negative cues.

MacDonald and Odell will focus on how the chemical cues data could potentially be incorporated in digital mapping tools that will help inform reef conservation management decisions and ocean planning. They will work with the researchers to determine how their work may be transferred to other regions, particularly in the Mid-Atlantic region. The UCI is currently leading the development of the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal (portal.midatlanticocean.org), a free, state-of-the-art mapping and information site focused on ocean areas from New York through Virginia. Odell serves as the technical lead on the Portal project, and was recognized by the UCI with a Regional Champion of the Ocean award in 2015.

“This is an exciting opportunity to work with a team of innovative scientists on research that could impact coral preservation around the world,” MacDonald said. “The data gathered through this project will be used to develop more effective marine management and ocean planning strategies.”

Research at the Carrie Bow Cay facility will take place beginning this summer. The project is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2019.

Maine wants help from lobstermen affected by coral rules

March 6, 2017 — Maine marine authorities are looking for input from lobstermen about how they might be impacted by federal regulations designed to protect corals off New England.

The regulatory New England Fishery Management Council is considering protecting corals in the Gulf of Maine. Two of the proposed protection areas are Outer Schoodic Ridge and the area southwest of Mount Desert Rock.

The state Department of Marine Resources says one of the proposed management options is a complete ban on fishing. The department has proposed exempting the lobster and crab fisheries in the two areas.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Southern Business Journal 

To protect coral, bottom fishing gear banned near Delaware’s coast

December 16th, 2016 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency is banning commercial fishing gear that could drag along the seafloor in part of the Atlantic Ocean – including a portion 66 miles off the Delaware coast.

Deep-sea coral can live for hundreds to thousands of years, but once they are damaged, they can take decades or even centuries to re-grow.

To ensure these corals can live undisturbed, a section of the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Virginia – about the size of Virginia – has been designated as “protected”. The protected area is about 66 miles from Delaware’s shore and covers a portion of the Baltimore Canyon. Joseph Gordon, Pew Charitable Trust’s manager of U.S. northeast oceans, said that means fishing gear that reaches down to the depths that deep-sea coral inhabit would not be allowed to operate there.

“They’ve lived a long time but they live in an environment that is cold, with huge pressure, without light,” Gordon said, about the coral. “And so fishing technology could damage them in a way that could take centuries to recover from.”

Some bottom-fishing technologies include rockhoppers and canyon-busters. They are designed to roll over boulders and canyons, and according to Oceana, they can weigh at least several hundred pounds. NOAA authorizes the gear that fishermen can use for commercial fishing, and documented almost 1,000 bottom-fishing technologies in use in the Mid-Atlantic region in 2016. That is up from 630 documented in 2013.

Read the full story at Delaware Public Media 

5,000-year-old corals are now threatened

December 1, 2016 — Coral genotypes can survive for thousands of years, possibly making them the longest-living animals in the world.

Researchers have determined the ages of elkhorn corals, Acropora palmata, in Florida and the Caribbean and estimated the oldest genotypes to be more than 5,000 years old. The results are useful for understanding how corals will respond to current and future environmental change.

“Our study shows, on the one hand, that some Acropora palmata genotypes have been around for a long time and have survived many environmental changes, including sea-level changes, storms, sedimentation events, and so on,” says Iliana Baums, associate professor of biology at Penn State.

“This is good news because it indicates that they can be very resilient. On the other hand, the species we studied is now listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act because it has suffered such sharp population declines, indicating that there are limits to how much change even these very resilient corals can handle.”

Many people mistake corals for plants or even non-living rocks, but corals actually consist of colonies of individual invertebrate animals living symbiotically with photosynthetic algae.

Read the full story at Futurity

Coral reefs need fish urine to thrive

August 17, 2016 — SEATTLE — Coral reefs offer many fish species camouflage and a variety of nooks and crannies in which to hide. In return, fish offer their urine.

It’s not exactly a symbiotic relationship, but it’s a pretty good deal for both parties. When they pee, fish release phosphorous, a vital nutrient. They also excrete nitrogen in the form of ammonium through their gills, another important food for coral.

New research suggests a lack of fish pee explains the lack of nutrients surrounding coral in waters where commercial fishing is common.

The research was published this week in the journal Nature Communications.

“Part of the reason coral reefs work is because animals play a big role in moving nutrients around,” lead study author Jacob Allgeier, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, explained in a news release.

“Fish hold a large proportion, if not most of the nutrients in a coral reef in their tissue, and they’re also in charge of recycling them,” Allgeier said. “If you take the big fish out, you’re removing all of those nutrients from the ecosystem.”

Read the full story at UPI

Discover the Deep-Sea Corals of Maine

April 28, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA:

Scientists with NOAA Fisheries discover deep-sea coral gardens close to shore (25 miles) and shallow (700 feet). Unknown until 2014, these Gulf of Maine spots abound with corals, cod, and a snapping goosefish. Look out!