Saving Seafood

Hawaii researchers study Kona crab release mortality

November 13, 2019 — A rare Hawaiian delicacy and tightly regulated, Kona crab is a small artisanal fishery that lands but a few thousand pounds every year.

Also called spanner crab, all females must be released by fishermen, along with males of less than 4 inches carapace length. But freeing crabs from the traditional baited hoop nets can come at the cost of some crabs’ limbs.

A team of Honolulu-based researchers, funded with a Saltonsall-Kennedy grant from the NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands regional office, is conducting a study to see how those liberated crabs fare in the wild.

Previous research suggests up to 80 percent of the crabs caught are released, according to NOAA. The consultants of Poseidon Fisheries Research are conducting the new study to follow up on 2017-2018 aquarium experiments to determine how often crabs are injured – typically losing one of more dactyls, the last segment of their limbs – and how often they survive.

That study indicated nearly 90 percent of the injured crabs survive. The new phase is a catch-and-release study that will use tags, and the help of Hawaii fishermen, to see how they really do in the ocean.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Even baby fish are eating plastics, Hawaii study finds

November 12, 2019 — Recent evidence has shown that adult fish are eating plastics in the ocean and suffering from perils such as malnutrition and toxicant buildup.

Now, for the first time, a study conducted in Hawaii shows baby fish are ingesting tiny plastics, too.

The research, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that both young coral reef fish and open-ocean species are consuming plastic as early as days after they are spawned.

Working in the waters off West Hawaii, an international team of researchers focused on surface slicks — naturally occurring ribbons of smooth water at the ocean surface that are formed when underwater waves converge near coastlines, according to a NOAA news release. These biologically rich ribbons of water aren’t always visible to the eye but are commonly seen, especially if wind conditions are right.

Found in coastal waters around the world, the surface slicks accumulate high concentrations of plankton, a key food source that lures larval fish in huge numbers. These watery nurseries harbor an impressive variety of species from a range of habitats, ranging from the deep ocean waters to shallow-water reefs.

Read the full story at The Honolulu Star Advertiser

Pacific bird refuge struggles as ocean garbage patch grows

November 11, 2019 — Flying into the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Midway Atoll appears out of the vast blue Pacific as a tiny oasis of coral-fringed land with pristine white sand beaches that are teeming with life.

But on the ground, there’s a different scene: plastic, pollution and death.

With virtually no predators, Midway is a haven for many species of seabirds and is home to the largest colony of albatross in the world.

But Midway is also at the center of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a vast area of floating plastic collected by circulating oceanic currents. The Hawaiian Islands act like a comb that gathers debris as it floats across the Pacific. A recent analysis found that the patch is accumulating debris at a faster rate than scientists previously thought.

Midway is littered with bird skeletons that have brightly colored plastic protruding from their decomposing bellies. Bottle caps, toothbrushes and cigarette lighters sit in the centers of their feathery carcasses.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

First offshore aquaculture farm proposed for Gulf of Mexico

November 6, 2019 — A Hawaii-based fish farming company is proposing the first offshore aquaculture for the Gulf of Mexico, a pilot-scale project off Florida.

Kampachi Farms LLC proposed a single-net floating enclosure where up to 20,000 Almaco jack — yellowtail amberjack, also known as kampachi or kahala — would be reared about 45 miles west-southwest of Longboat Pass and Sarasota Bay.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a draft permit in August and concluded a public comment at the end of September before issuing a final permit.

Kampachi Farms pioneered open-ocean fish culture off Hawaii, and the gulf venture could be the first in federal waters off the continental United States. The new project, dubbed Velella Epsilon, requires other permits from multiple federal agencies, including NMFS and the Corps of Engineers.

An interagency working group prepared a draft environmental assessment to look at potential environmental impacts of building and operating the fish farm. Commercial and recreational fishing advocates along with environmental activists are raising objections, saying introducing dense assemblages of non-native fish will harm the local ocean environment and the existing fishing industry.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Western Pacific Council Urges NMFS Use New Model for Swordfish Fishery; Reference Point for Albacore

November 4, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council discussed changes related to the interaction of sea turtles in the swordfish fishery and the South Pacific albacore fishery when it met in American Samoa last week. Both require the National Marine Fisheries Service to agree with Council’s action to move forward.

The Council urged NMFS, on the Hawaii deep-set longline fishery consultation under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) consider all anticipated scientific information in the biological opinion. This should include the new model developed by the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center that evaluates the impacts of fishery interactions on the North Pacific loggerhead and Western Pacific leatherback sea turtle populations.

The Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, prior to last week’s Council meeting, endorsed the new model as best scientific information available for evaluating the fisheries’ impacts. The results of the model for the shallow-set (swordfish) longline fishery showed no discernible impact of the fishery’s interactions on the population trend of loggerhead turtles over the next 100 years. For leatherbacks, it showed a small change in the long-term population trend, indicating that the population impact from the fishery would occur five years earlier at the end of the 100-year period.

The NMFS scientist noted the primary impacts to the leatherback population include directed fisheries and nesting predation where the turtles nest in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

The Council also urged NMFS to apply the model to the Hawai’i deep-set (tuna) and American Samoa longline fisheries so they may be considered in the ongoing consultations. It also recommended NMFS work with the Council to develop only necessary sea turtle protection measures under the ongoing consultations for the Hawai’i deep-set and American Samoa longline fisheries that are appropriate and practicable and ensure the sustainability of the fisheries.

Additionally, the Council will work with NMFS to evaluate the impact of any management actions for reducing turtle interactions on the economic performance and socioeconomic effects of the shallow-set and deep-set longline fisheries, including consideration of the effect on protected species being transferred to foreign fisheries should the U.S. longline fishery close.

Regarding South Pacific albacore tuna, the Council requested NMFS compile and evaluate the catches of albacore from Chinese-flagged longline vessels operating in the southwest Pacific and compare them to the catches and performance of the American Samoa longline fleet.

The Council also wanted to move forward on creating a reference point for South Pacific albacore. It requested NMFS and the U.S. delegation to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission work with other international delegations to develop the reference point. It should include the catch per unit effort of small island developing states and participating territories to reach historical levels, in addition to a biomass target reference point.

Furthermore, they should also work with other international delegations to develop:

a) a harvest plan for South Pacific albacore to achieve its target reference points “soonest” and under 20 years; and

b) an allocation scheme for countries and cooperating members in which small island developing states and participating territories are exempt from annual catch reductions to reach the target reference point or that they can maintain catches commensurate with historical optimal levels. The allocation scheme must take into consideration charter arrangements and allocations should be accounted by fishing vessel registry, such that conservation benefits are not undermined.

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

Climate warming promises more frequent extreme El Niño events

October 22, 2019 — El Niño events cause serious shifts in weather patterns across the globe, and an important question that scientists have sought to answer is: how will climate change affect the generation of strong El Niño events? A new study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science by a team of international climate researchers led by Bin Wang of the University of Hawaii’s International Pacific Research Center (IPRC), has an answer to that question. Results show that since the late 1970’s, climate change effects have shifted the El Niño onset location from the eastern Pacific to the western Pacific and caused more frequent extreme El Niño events. Continued warming over the western Pacific warm pool promises conditions that will trigger more extreme events in the future.

The team examined details of 33 El Niño events from 1901 to 2017, evaluating for each event the onset location of the warming, its evolution, and its ultimate strength. By grouping the common developmental features of the events, the team was able to identify four types of El Niño, each with distinct onset and strengthening patterns. Looking across time, they found a decided shift in behavior since the late 1970’s: all events beginning in the eastern Pacific occurred prior to that time, while all events originating in the western-central Pacific happened since then. They also found that four of five identified extreme El Niño events formed after 1970.

Wang and his co-authors focused on the factors that seemed to be controlling these shifts, including increased  in the western Pacific warm pool and the easterly winds in the central Pacific, and found that with continued , those factors may lead to a continued increase in frequency in extreme El Niño events.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

A New Marine Heat Wave Threatens Hawaii’s Reefs

October 21, 2019 — Parts of the Pacific Ocean are simmering, threatening coral reefs and livelihoods around Hawaii, and causing many to worry of worse to come.

“The ocean is very important to us,” said Ka’imi Kaupiko, who lives in Milolii, a community often called the last Hawaiian fishing village, on the Big Island. The way of life there depends on the fish provided by the reefs, reefs which are now becoming sick in the warming waters.

“It affects a lot of how we are going to survive,” Mr. Kaupiko said.

Researchers said the heat wave was reminiscent of 2014, when a hot spot that became known as the blob began forming in the Pacific. It expanded and lingered over much of the Pacific Coast from Mexico to Alaska for years.

Both marine heat waves are “super unusual,” according to Andrew Leising, a research oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Nearly every other marine heat wave NOAA has recorded in 40 years of satellite monitoring shrinks in comparison.

“The event in ’14-15 was maybe eight to 10 times the size of Alaska. And the current event we’re having is nearly that big,” Dr. Leising said. “And then, everything else is sort of an even further distant third or fourth.”

Read the full story at The New York Times

Hawai’i Shallow-Set Longline Fishery Has No Discernable Impact on Sea Turtle Populations

October 17, 2019 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

Scientists from throughout the Pacific meeting this week in Honolulu found that mortality by the Hawai’i shallow-set longline fishery on loggerheads and leatherbacks are “trivial” and have no impact on their population levels. The fishery, which produces 55 percent of the domestic US catch of swordfish, was shut down on March 19, 2019, after it reached the annual limit of 17 physical interactions with North Pacific loggerhead sea turtles. All 17 were released alive. Since 2004, more than 99 percent of the turtles with which the fishery have interacted were released alive.

The Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council made its conclusion after reviewing the assessment of population level impacts of loggerhead and leatherback turtle interactions in the Hawai’i shallow-set longline fishery presented by T. Todd Jones and Summer Martin of the NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) and Zachary Siders of the University of Florida. The assessment is a post-interaction mortality model for the shallow-set longline fishery that evaluates the fishery’s impact on the population trend. The model was developed by PIFSC and based on a population vulnerability assessment for the species conducted in 2018.

The model predicted that the anticipated annual take by the Hawaii shallow-set fishery would have no significant impact on the long-term abundance of these two marine turtle species over the next 100 years. The model also indicated that the past take made no discernable difference on the historical population trend. The model is considered to be conservative because the take is only applied to index beaches, which accounts for about 52 percent of the loggerhead population and about 75 percent of the leatherback population.

The SSC endorsed the take model developed for the shallow-set longline fishery as the best scientific information available for evaluating the impacts of the fishery on loggerhead and leatherback turtle populations. It recommended that PIFSC apply the model to the take data for the Hawai’i deep-set longline fishery (which targets bigeye tuna) and the American Samoa longline fishery (which targets albacore tuna) to provide a robust scientific assessment to be considered in ongoing Endangered Species Act (ESA) consultations. The SSC further encouraged consideration of transferred effect of the US longline fishery closure on target species as well as protected species. [Note: Markets seek foreign imports, which have less stringent regulations and monitoring, when domestically caught fish is unavailable.] The SSC reiterated that the 25 percent reduction goal in the shallow-set longline fishery biological opinion (BiOp) completed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in June 2019 as “aspirational, overly conservative and not supported by the scientific information presented in the final BiOp, especially in light of the results of the new take model.” The BiOp would allow the fishery up to 16 leatherback sea turtle interactions annually. The SSC recommended that the Council reevaluate its position on the reasonable and prudent measures in the BiOp in light of the model results.

The Council will consider these and other recommendations by the SSC and its other advisory bodies when it meets Oct. 22 to 24, 2019, at the Tauese P. F. Sunia Ocean Center in Utulei, American Samoa. For more info, go to http://www.wpcouncil.org/public-meetings/ or contact the Council at info@wpcouncil.org or call (808) 522-8220.

Trump Sued For Failing To Protect Hawaii’s Cauliflower Coral

October 11, 2019 — The Center for Biological Diversity said Thursday that it is suing the Trump administration for failing to protect cauliflower coral around the Hawaiian Islands.

“The bushy, shallow-water coral species has been devastated by ocean warming triggered by human-caused climate change,” according to a press release.

The warming is due to a “marine heat wave … now hitting Hawaii’s coral reefs hard, and researchers predict massive coral bleaching and death.”

The coral species is estimated to have declined by 36% from 1999 to 2012, and conditions are expected to worsen.

“Cauliflower coral is like the canary in the coal mine of our warming oceans. Marine life around Hawaii will suffer without bold actions to protect coral reefs,” said Maxx Phillips, the center’s Hawaii director. “Hawaii’s coral reefs are dying and they need our help. Letting colorful corals bleach white and die indicates an ocean becoming less bountiful and biodiverse.”

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat