Saving Seafood

Scientists Warn About Effects Of Seismic Blasting Off Of East Coast

June 8, 2017 — Scientists are concerned about a proposal to search for oil and gas below the Atlantic Ocean floor. The proposal comes after President Donald Trump’s executive order to roll back a 5-year ban on drilling for oil off the East Coast.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is looking to authorize seismic air-gun surveys. That means explosions go off in the ocean looking for signs that oil may be available underneath.

The explosions would happen every ten seconds. Senior Science Advisor at the New England Aquarium Scott Kraus said adding sound in the water would be a problem for marine mammals like whales, who depend on sound for survival.

“So they use acoustics for finding food, finding mates, maintain social cohesion, they use sound for migration, they use sound for everything that is critical for their lives,” said Kraus.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio

Lawmakers move to protect funding for climate change research

June 8, 2017 — A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging appropriators not to cut funding from one of the federal government’s climate change research accounts.

In a letter penned by Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.), the members told appropriators to preserve the $25.3 million in funding for the National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers.

The program, established in 2008 during the George W. Bush administration, provides climate-related research to fish and wildlife managers as a way to help them “prepare for, respond to, and reduce the negative consequences of climate extremes,” according to the letter.

The Trump administration has requested $17.3 million for the program in 2018, a $7.9 million cut from current levels.

In a letter to Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) and Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), the chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee’s Interior and Environment panel, the members said the program has “helped natural and cultural resource managers assess climate-related vulnerabilities in their local jurisdictions as a first step in enhancing preparedness.”

“We support the reputable and important work of the [Department of Interior’s] National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers,” they wrote. “We understand that their return-on-investment is large and we encourage continued stable support and full funding for the program.”

The Trump administration proposed slashing funding for several science research accounts in its 2018 budget request, which lawmakers are beginning to consider this week.

Read the full story at The Hill

Maine senators say Congress should save Sea Grant program

June 8, 2017 — Maine’s U.S. senators are signing on to a request to keep the National Sea Grant College Program funded at least at its current level.

President Trump has proposed to eliminate the program, which funds science that’s beneficial to commercial fisheries, conservation and coastal businesses. It has existed for about a half-century.

Maine Sens. Susan Collins, a Republican, and Angus King, an independent, are joining an effort led by Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy to save the program. The group is sending a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the commerce appropriations subcommittee to stress the importance of Sea Grant.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

UN chief warns oceans are ‘under threat as never before’

June 7, 2017 — UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the first-ever U.N. conference on oceans Monday with a warning that the seas are “under threat as never before,” with one recent study warning that discarded plastic garbage could outweigh fish by 2050 if nothing is done.

The U.N. chief told presidents, ministers, diplomats and environmental activists from nearly 200 countries that oceans — “the lifeblood of our planet” — are being severely damaged by pollution, overfishing and the effects of climate change as well as refuse.

The five-day conference, which began on World Environment Day, is the first major event to focus on climate since President Donald Trump announced last Thursday that the United States will withdraw from the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Agreement — a decision criticized by Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and other speakers.

Guterres said the aim of the conference is “to turn the tide” and solve the problems that “we created.”

He said competing interests over territory and natural resources have blocked progress for far too long in cleaning up and restoring to health the world’s oceans, which cover two-thirds of the planet.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Sen. King tells researchers that data is the key to protecting lobster industry

June 6, 2017 — Calling proposed cuts in federal science funding “unacceptable,” U.S. Sen. Angus King told lobster researchers Monday that data is the key to protecting Maine’s most valuable fishery.

Maine’s independent senator asked the 250 biologists, oceanographers and fishery managers at a global conference on lobster biology in Portland this week to give him data on the impact of the changing sea environment on lobster, including temperature, salinity and acidification, and whether that is prompting a migration of Maine’s $533.1 million a year fishery to Canada.

“If lobsters are moving toward Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, that’s a serious practical issue that will get the attention of politicians,” he said. “It’s when you start seeing jobs go away that politicians start saying ‘Gee, we’d better do something about this.’ Are they moving, if they are why, and if they are, what’s the timing? Is it five years? Twenty years? A hundred years?”

But federal funding for scientific research is under fire. President Trump’s budget calls for a 17 percent cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the national fisheries programs and funded almost a fifth of Maine Department of Marine Resources’ annual budget. It would eliminate the Sea Grant program, which funds research by the University of Maine’s Rick Wahle, conference co-chairman, among others.

“The lobster industry in New England is valued at close to $500 million and yet we know very little about how ocean acidification may affect this species,” Libby Jewett, NOAA’s ocean acidification director, said last fall when awarding Wahle’s team a $200,000 grant for lobster research. “These projects should help move the needle forward in our understanding and, as a result, enable broader resilience in the region.”

King said it is unlikely that Trump’s budget, containing what he considers drastic cuts in scientific funding, will pass Congress.

“The last thing we should be doing on a federal level is cutting research funding,” King said. “That is one of the most important functions of the federal government, whether it is climate change or cancer. It’s how we solve problems. To cut research, and particularly to cut research when you get the feeling that the motivation is that we don’t want to know, is unacceptable. … Congress understands this.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Trump admin proposes seismic surveys for Atlantic drilling

June 6, 2017 — The Trump administration is seeking permission to use seismic air guns to find oil and gas formations deep underneath the Atlantic Ocean floor, a reversal from the Obama administration that is outraging environmental groups and some East Coast lawmakers.

The National Marine Fisheries Service said Monday it is seeking permits under the Marine Mammal Protection Act for five companies to use air guns for seismic surveys in the mid-Atlantic, from Delaware to central Florida.

The air guns are so loud they can disturb or injure endangered whales and other marine mammals and increase the risk of calves being separated from their mothers. Environmental groups and many East Coast lawmakers oppose the surveys, complaining that air-gun noise can injure marine life and harm commercial fishing and tourism.

The oil and gas industry has pushed for the surveys, which would map potential drilling sites from Delaware to central Florida. No surveys have been conducted in the region for at least 30 years.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April aimed at expanding drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, part of his promise to unleash the nation’s energy reserves in an effort to reduce imports of foreign oil.

Under Trump’s order, the Interior Department is reviewing applications by five energy companies that were rejected by the Obama administration.

Read the full story at The Washington Post 

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

Trump calls out US seafood trade imbalance

June 5, 2017 — U.S.  President Donald Trump’s declaration that June is National Ocean Month – and his stated desire to grow the country’s seafood exports – was praised by seafood industry groups.

“The fisheries resources of the United States are among the most valuable in the world. Growing global demand for seafood presents tremendous opportunities for expansion of our seafood exports, which can reduce our more than US 13 billion (EIR 11.6 billion) seafood trade deficit,” he said.

The American Shrimp Processors Association welcomed President Trump’s call-out of the domestic seafood industry, the organization’s executive director, C. David Veal, told SeafoodSource.

“The American Shrimp Processors Association welcomes any recognition from the Trump administration of the significant problems caused by the trade imbalances of imported seafood. The USD 4.5 billion (EUR 4 billion) trade deficit from shrimp alone has had devastating impacts on communities in the Gulf and South Atlantic regions for the last two decades,” he said. “Any effort to reduce the trade deficit is appreciated by those who make their livelihoods in the domestic shrimp industry and their associated communities.”

In his remarks commemorating the declaration, Trump also said that the country’s offshore areas are underutilized and often unexplored.

“We have yet to fully leverage new technologies and unleash the forces of economic innovation to more fully develop and explore our ocean economy,” he said.

Gavin Gibbons, vice president of communications for the National Fisheries Institute, said it was “good to see the White House taking notice of the seafood community and focusing on the importance of resource utilization.”

“Safe, sustainable expansion of underutilized areas may present an opportunity for expansion of things like aquaculture. We look forward to seeing any administration plan for such an effort,” Gibbons said.

The key to successful expansion of U.S. seafood production will be maintaining the rigorous sustainability oversight of NOAA, according to Gibbons.

“Initiatives that seek long-term growth solutions should continue to observe the tested, science-based system based on total allowable catch,” he said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Trump administration pledges to do more with less for U.S. aquaculture

June 5, 2017 — “Aquaculture is not the future of oyster harvests. It’s the present,” said Mark Luckenbach – Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Luckenbach, based at the VIMS lab at Wachapreague, told me those words 11 years ago, when I wrote my first story about oyster aquaculture. Since then, I’ve written more than 100 stories on the topic, and someday, I hope, I’ll write a book. One thing is sure: the present has taken a long time to arrive – not just in the Chesapeake Bay, but all over the country.

Eighty to 90 percent of the seafood eaten in the United States is imported, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In Baltimore, where I live, the crabmeat at my local grocery store is not from the Chesapeake Bay. The salmon is not from this country. And striped bass? Never seen it there, though I live just an hour from where one could catch some of the nicest rockfish you could find anywhere.

NOAA officials want to change what they’re calling a $14 billion seafood trade deficit. At a webinar last week, agency officials said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees NOAA, is committed to “eliminating barriers” to growing aquaculture here in the United States.

In Maryland, we know well some of these barriers as they relate to growing oysters. Would-be growers have spent years awaiting permission to put oysters in the water, even though the bivalves filter the water, increase biodiversity, and even spur recruitment for the Bay’s long-troubled wild oyster population, which is less than 1 percent of historic levels.

On a conference call during the webinar, federal officials touted Maryland’s permit innovations as a success. (They didn’t mention that oyster farmers have blamed NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service for some of those delays, relating to the possible impact of oyster farming on endangered marine turtles.) Maryland worked with the Baltimore District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to streamline the permit process. State and federal officials, as well as oyster farmers, report it is working more smoothly now. (NOAA officials said they had an “ombudsman” role in the process.)

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

Maine scientists, academics condemn Trump’s decision on climate accord, see consequences for state

June 2, 2017 — Maine scientists, academics and physicians were dismayed by President Trump’s decision Thursday to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, saying his action will endanger the health of Mainers and harm the state’s fisheries and agriculture.

The move will make the United States look ridiculous in the eyes of world leaders who are trying to effect change, one prominent scientist said.

“China and Europe will become the heroes and we will look like fools,” said Paul Mayewski, director of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine.

Mayewski has led more than 55 expeditions to some of the remotest polar and high-altitude locations on Earth, has been published in more than 450 scientific publications, and led climate-change research programs in Antarctica, Greenland and Asia.

Mayewski said that while countries such as China are taking steps to reduce carbon emissions, the U.S., under Trump’s leadership, stands to lose credibility because it remains the second-largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world. He noted that Syria and Nicaragua were the only countries that did not sign the Paris climate agreement.

“We’re giving up, at least politically, the high road on being a leader in climate change,” he said.

Mayewski said Mainers could be harmed by the president’s decision. As temperatures continue to rise and weather patterns become more unstable, extreme heat will make more people vulnerable, especially the sick and the elderly. Climate change also will impact tourism and lobstering, Mayewski said. Health care costs also could increase.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald