Saving Seafood

Engaging Anglers to Improve Catch and Release Practices and Restore Reef Fish in the Gulf

June 14, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA’s Deepwater Horizon restoration partners at the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission selected three new partners to conduct studies on reef fish restoration in the Gulf of Mexico. They were chosen through a competitive process, and the awards total approximately $690,000.

These studies are contributing to a $30 million project to encourage anglers to use fish descending devices. These devices increase survival of reef fish experiencing barotrauma in the Gulf’s recreational fisheries approved by the Deepwater Horizon Open Ocean Trustees.

Barotrauma is damage caused by the rapid expansion of gases in fish that are caught in deeper water and quickly brought up to the surface. As the gases expand, they can damage the eyes, stomach, and other parts of the fish. This makes it difficult for them to swim back down and survive once released. Descending devices help fish by quickly releasing them at their normal depth, reducing the number of reef fish that die from catch and release fishing.

Read the full release here

Nearly $100 Million Proposed to Restore Gulf-wide Resources Impacted by Deepwater Horizon

March 23, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA and the Deepwater Horizon Regionwide Trustee Implementation Group is seeking public input on their first draft restoration plan (PDF, 346 pages). The group, exemplifying collaboration and coordination among the trustees, includes all four federal agencies and all five Gulf states restoring the environment after the 2010 oil spill. Wildlife and other natural resources affected by the spill often live and migrate across jurisdictional boundaries, which requires a region-wide approach to restoration. This approach also links projects across regional jurisdictions.

The plan proposes $99.6 million for 11 restoration projects across all five states bordering the Gulf of Mexico. It also targets specific locations in Mexico and on the Atlantic coast of Florida. Comments will be accepted through May 6, 2021 and the trustees are hosting two public webinars on April 15, 2021.

Proposed Project Alternatives

The draft restoration plan evaluates projects to restore natural resources injured by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It proposes a portfolio of projects restoring sea turtles, marine mammals, oysters, and birds. The 11 proposed projects include:

  • Four projects ($18.6 million) will restore sea turtles through projects focusing on nesting beaches, enhancing stranding and salvage networks, and collaborating with recreational and commercial fisheries to reduce bycatch and to gather information to inform potential future restoration projects
  • One of the sea turtle projects, the “Restore and Enhance Sea Turtle Nest Productivity” project, includes components located on key sea turtle nesting beaches on the Atlantic coast of Florida and in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico
  • Three projects ($7.2 million) will restore marine mammals through enhancing stranding and salvage networks and working with fisheries, including collaborating with shrimp fishing communities to reduce dolphin entanglements in gear, and hook-and-line fisheries to reduce dolphin injuries and deaths
  • One project ($35.8 million) will increase the resilience of and restore oyster reefs by linking brood reefs and sink reefs in each of the five Gulf of Mexico states
  • Two projects ($31 million) will restore birds through habitat restoration and nesting colony management
  • Additionally, one project ($7 million) will restore both sea turtles and birds through the removal of marine debris

The estimated combined cost of the proposed projects is $99.6 million. The broad geographic areas covered ensure restoration efforts are comprehensive and effective for the entire ecosystem. The proposed projects in the draft plan may also complement projects planned or underway in other restoration areas.

We appreciate the great response to our request for project ideas. We screened than 5,100 project ideas for consistency with priorities identified in the request and the Trustee Council’s Programmatic Restoration Plan.

Read the full release here

Study finds significant liver damage in Gulf of Mexico red snapper

March 17, 2021 — A study completed by researchers from the University of South Florida has revealed almost every red snapper studied in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill showed signs of liver damage.

Red snapper is the latest Gulf species studied by researchers at the USF College of Marine Science in the wake of the devastating 2010 oil spill. Erin Pulster, a USF researcher and lead author of the study, said the results give “early warning signs of a compromised ecosystem.” Pulster and her team recently had their findings published in Aquatic Toxicology.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Red Snapper in the Gulf show signs of stress after Gulf oil spill

March 12, 2021 — Nearly 100 percent of the red snapper sampled in the Gulf of Mexico over a six-year period by University of South Florida (USF) marine scientists showed evidence of liver damage, according to a study reported in Aquatic Toxicology.

The study is the first to correlate the concentration of crude oil found in the workhorses of the digestive system — the liver, gall bladder, and bile — with microscopic indicators of disease, such as inflammation, degenerative lesions, and the presence of parasites. The team sampled nearly 570 fish from 72 Gulf locations between 2011 to 2017 in the wake of the historic 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“The results add to the list of other species we’ve analyzed indicating early warning signs of a compromised ecosystem,” said Erin Pulster, PhD, first author of the study and researcher at the USF College of Marine Science.

Pulster and the team of researchers studying oil pollution in Gulf of Mexico fishes have previously reported high levels of oil exposure in yellowfin tuna, golden tilefish, and red drum as well.

The Gulf of Mexico not only experiences hundreds of annual oil spills with long-lasting effects such as the historic Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 but is routinely subject to intense shipping traffic and collects pollutants from faraway places that flow in from coastlines and rivers like the Mighty Mississippi and the Rio Grande.

In this study Pulster and the team looked specifically at the most toxic component of crude oil called polycyclic aromatic compounds, or PAHs. PAH sources include old oil and gas rigs, fuel from boats and airplanes, and natural oil seeps, which are fractures on the seafloor that can add millions of barrels of oil to the Gulf every year.

Read the full story at Science Daily

Red Snapper in the Gulf show signs of stress

March 11, 2021 — Nearly 100 percent of the red snapper sampled in the Gulf of Mexico over a six-year period by University of South Florida (USF) marine scientists showed evidence of liver damage, according to a study reported in Aquatic Toxicology.

The study is the first to correlate the concentration of crude oil found in the workhorses of the digestive system—the liver, gall bladder, and bile—with microscopic indicators of disease, such as inflammation, degenerative lesions, and the presence of parasites. The team sampled nearly 570 fish from 72 Gulf locations between 2011 to 2017 in the wake of the historic 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“The results add to the list of other species we’ve analyzed indicating early warning signs of a compromised ecosystem,” said Erin Pulster, Ph.D., first author of the study and researcher at the USF College of Marine Science.

Pulster and the team of researchers studying  in Gulf of Mexico fishes have previously reported high levels of oil exposure in yellowfin tuna, golden tilefish, and red drum as well.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Suit: Feds ignore risk of huge spills to endangered species

October 22, 2020 — Environmental groups asked a federal court Wednesday to throw out the Trump administration’s assessment of oil and gas activity’s likely effects on endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico, saying it dismisses the chance of another disastrous blowout like the BP spill of 2010.

The National Marine Fisheries Service’s 700-page analysis greatly underestimates both the likely number and size of oil spills, according to the suit filed by Earthjustice for the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Turtle Island Restoration Network.

Even though the study was prompted by the 2010 spill, it “essentially pretends the Deepwater Horizon spill never happened — that there was nothing to learn from that disaster,” Earthjustice attorney Chris Eaton said in an interview Tuesday.

Read the full story at The Post and Courier

Coast Shrimpers Cling to Legacy Through the Industry’s Choppy Waters

May 4, 2020 — Danny Ross, an Ocean Springs shrimper, has been on a boat for as long as he could walk. He remembers driving the family vessel as a kid, having to climb onto the dashboard to see over the steering wheel. “Two spokes to the left,” his dad would direct. He remembers, back on land, getting bad grades in art class because he would only draw one thing.

“I’d draw a pretty good boat too,” he said. “Me and my brothers were always on the boat. The rigging, the pipes – that was our jungle gym. And our swimming pool? The boat would be shrimping and we’d be diving off the bow, catching ropes on the outrivers.”

Ross, 55, recently tied up his boat after a disappointing season that saw fresh water kill 56 percent of Mississippi’s shrimp. The plummeting price of shrimp has made it difficult for Ross to find crew members, and instead he’s gone to work on another captain’s boat. After following five generations of fishermen into the business, he’s worried about the direction the industry is headed in.

“All these people, they came over here as immigrants, and they built fishing boats. Now, there’s nobody left to step into my shoes,” Ross said.

Read the full story at the Pulitzer Center

The Deepwater Horizon Disaster Fueled a Gulf Science Bonanza

April 23, 2020 — After the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded a decade ago this month, killing 11 workers and spewing a massive black curtain of crude oil across the Gulf of Mexico, thousands of first responders and cleanup workers arrived on the scene. So too did an army of scientists. Aboard seagoing research vessels and wading along beaches and marshes, they came to assess the catastrophe and track it over time. British Petroleum, owner of the rig, agreed to fund a scientific stimulus package of $500 million just a few weeks after the April 20, 2010, blowout.

The 134 million gallons of oil devastated wildlife from Texas to Florida, killing thousands of marine mammals, such as dolphins and sea turtles, according to federal officials, and destroying shoreline and underwater habitats for commercially important fish, crabs, shrimp, and oysters. More than 25,000 fishermen and seafood industry workers were suddenly out of work, with a 10-year price tag of $4.5 billion in total economic losses, according to a 2019 study by a trio of researchers funded in part by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Read the full story at Wired

10 years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, oil pollution found in thousands of fish, study says

April 21, 2020 — Oil pollution has been detected in thousands of fish in the Gulf of Mexico, including higher levels in popular seafood choices like yellowfin tuna, tilefish and red drum, according to a new study.

The research was carried out between 2011 and 2018, sampling more than 2,500 individual fish that belonged to 91 species living in 359 different locations in the Gulf. All of them contained oil exposure.

When the Deepwater Horizon explosion occurred 10 years ago, millions of gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico’s waters over 87 days. The BP oil spill became the largest accidental oil spill in US history.

After the explosion, researchers, like those at the University of South Florida, raced to study the spill and its environmental effects in real time.

Weeks later, BP made a 10-year, $500 million commitment to fund research. While the funding comes to a close this year, research done over the last 10 years is being released.

Read the full story at CNN

Sparkling waters hide some lasting harm from 2010 oil spill

April 20, 2020 — Ten years after a well blew wild under a BP platform in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 men and touching off the nation’s worst offshore oil spill, gulf waters sparkle in the sunlight, its fish are safe to eat, and thick, black oil no longer visibly stains the beaches and estuaries. Brown pelicans, a symbol of the spill’s ecological damage because so many dived after fish and came up coated with oil, are doing well.

But scientists who spent the decade studying the Deepwater Horizon spill still worry about its effects on dolphins, whales, sea turtles, small fish vital to the food chain, and ancient corals in the cold, dark depths.

The gulf’s ecosystem is so complex and interconnected that it’s impossible to take any single part as a measure of its overall health, said Rita Colwell, who has led the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post