Saving Seafood

Is ‘The Blob’ back? New marine heat wave threatens Pacific

September 18, 2019 — In the fall of 2014, marine ecologist Jennifer Fisher was stunned when jellyfish and tiny crustaceans typically found in warmer waters filled her nets off the coast of Oregon. The odd catch was just one sign of the arrival of a vast patch of warm water that came to be known as “The Blob”—a massive marine heat wave that lasted 3 years and dramatically disrupted ecosystems and fisheries along North America’s Pacific coast.

Now, with oceanographers warning that a new Blob could be forming in the Pacific Ocean, Fisher is again preparing for strange encounters when she heads out on a research cruise later this month. “This is a very similar situation,” says Fisher, who works at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.

This time, however, Fisher and other scientists say they won’t be taken by surprise. They are preparing to more quickly share data on heat wave impacts with each other and with managers who may have to impose new catch limits to protect valuable fisheries. When The Blob arrived 5 years ago, “we didn’t realize the impact” it would have, recalls Toby Garfield, a physical oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Southwest Fisheries Science Center in San Diego, California. “We’re going to stay ahead of this one.”

Read the full story at Science Magazine

Giant Bony Fish Being Found Stranded on N.E. Beaches

April 19, 2019 — The ocean sunfish earned its moment in the spotlight in 2015, when a viral video surfaced of a foul-mouthed recreational fisherman who observed a specimen along the Massachusetts coastline and excitedly tried to guess what it was as the fish calmly rested at the surface.

The largest bony fish, the pie-shaped creature is certainly an oddity to those who are unfamiliar with it — they bask on their side on the water’s surface and can grow to nearly 11 feet and weigh up to 5,000 pounds by eating almost exclusively jellyfish.

Like whales, however, they also sometimes become stranded on beaches or in shallow tidal areas, where they are unable to extricate themselves and die. Almost 350 of them have stranded along the New England coast since 2008, according to Michael Rizzo of the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance, who studies the species.

Read the full story at EcoRI News

Overlooked jellyfish play big role in Gulf of Alaska

April 15, 2019 — “Jellyfish have superpowers,” assured Heidi Mendoza-Islas, a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.

The voracious carnivores will eat almost anything that fits into their mouths. When conditions are good, they grow fast and multiply. When conditions aren’t ideal, baby jellies can transform into cysts and wait it out.

So it is no surprise that jellyfish have been successful predators in the Gulf of Alaska, Mendoza-Islas said. But few studies have focused on the role jellyfish play in the Gulf’s ecosystem or how jellyfish affect commercially important finfish, such as pollock. Mendoza-Islas wants to change that.

Read the full story at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

ALASKA: Jellyfish Numbers Rising in Bering Sea; Scientists Studying Potential Impacts

June 29, 2018 –Jellyfish have been a natural part of the Bering Sea ecosystem for decades, but in recent years, their population numbers in the region have dramatically increased. Now, a research team funded by the National Science Foundation is in Nome to find out what the cause and implications might be.

“There are certainly fish that do feed on jellyfish: some of the salmon do, some other fish. But in this part of the world, not this many fish feed on jellyfish.”

That’s Mary Beth Decker, a research scientist from Yale University who is part of a three-person research team sailing to Slime Bank in the southern Bering Sea this week, north of the Alaska Peninsula. As she noted, there are minimal benefits from having jellyfish around. Not only do few types of fish eat them, but these species aren’t exactly edible for humans, either.

When it comes to potential consequences of having more jellyfish, though, Decker says that’s a different story.

“And we know that they have impacts on the ecosystem, because they feed on things that fish eat. For example, they’ll eat small crustaceans, zoo plankton, that are prey for other seabirds and marine mammals. And also fish, both young fish and some older fish, like herring, as well.”

According to Decker, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has been recording jellyfish numbers in the Bering Sea for the last 40 years using their trawls. The populations have fluctuated up and down throughout that period for multiple species of jellies, including larger ones like Pacific Sea Nettle, but Decker also points out there are smaller types that are harder to see or even catch in trawl nets.

That’s why Joanna Chierici, a teacher from New Jersey, is onboard this research voyage, to educate and reach out to groups about the types and numbers of jellyfish present in the Bering Sea.

Read the full story at KNOM

Jellyfish numbers on the rise along US beaches

June 18, 2018 — If you’re heading to the beach this summer like millions of other Americans, scientists are recommending to be on the lookout for jellyfish.

More than 1,000 people were stung on a Florida beach just this week, and it is possible incidents may increase.

Allen Collins, a research zoologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, says there have been more blooms of jellyfish in different parts of the world, but scientists are unsure if this is a worldwide event.

“When conditions are right for them to make jellies, they produce the jellyfish in vast quantities,” Collins said. “People have studied the jellyfish in certain areas quite well and there are instances where it does look like there’s one particular region is having greater numbers of jellyfish. In the literature sometimes people describe it as a global phenomenon and on that we’re just not sure.”

Jellyfish blooms are known to occur every 20 years, but Collins says warmer oceans, agriculture runoff, commercial fishing and the creation of artificial reefs may have an impact on increased numbers of the animals in recent years.

Collins also said places like the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea are prime places for jellyfish blooms. He also noted that there are thousands of different species of jellyfish and countless others that have yet to be discovered.

The majestic creatures are some of the oldest life forms on the planet, having existed for hundreds of millions of years. With no eyes and limited ability to move through water, marine biologists say it’s important recognize the habitat of the animals and know what to do when you encounter them at the beach.

Read the full story at Fox News

Gulf of Maine sea turtle could come off ‘endangered’ list

January 18, 2018 — Federal ocean managers say it might be time to move the East Coast population of the world’s largest turtle from the United States’ list of endangered animals.

An arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has received a petition from a fishing group asking that the Northwest Atlantic Ocean’s leatherback sea turtles be listed as “threatened” but not endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The giant reptiles, which can weigh 2,000 pounds, would remain protected under federal law, but their status would be changed to reflect some improvement in the overall health of their population.

According to the Sea Turtle Conservancy, the number of nesting leatherback females worldwide is between 34,000 and 36,000.

NOAA officials have said the agency has reviewed the petition from New Jersey-based Blue Water Fishermen’s Association and found “substantial scientific and commercial information” that the status upgrade may be warranted. The agency now has about eight months to make a decision about the status of the turtles.

Leatherbacks live all over the world’s oceans and have been listed as endangered by the U.S. since 1970. They can be seen regularly during the summer in the Gulf of Maine, where they feed on a variety of jellyfish and occasionally get tangled in fishing lines.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Scientists, fishermen fight to save leatherback sea turtles

October 11, 2016 — Despite strict protections off the West Coast, leatherback turtles are in danger in other parts of the Pacific, scientists and fishermen said at a conference called to celebrate California’s official marine reptile.

The meeting, held in La Jolla last week, offered a status update on the ancient marine species, in advance of California’s Pacific Leatherback Conservation Day on Oct. 15. With populations down by more than 90 percent since the 1980s, the animals are ranked as one of eight marine species at greatest risk of extinction, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service.

Fishermen and researchers say that U.S. fishing limits designed to keep leatherbacks from getting caught in nets may unintentionally lead to more ensnarement in countries where rules are looser. For the globally roaming species, it will take more than one country’s efforts to stave off extinction.

Leatherbacks are ocean-going leviathans that can weigh up to a ton, and swim nearly 7,000 miles across the Pacific, devouring jellyfish.

Read the full story at the San Diego Union-Tribune

Marine Invasive Species Benefiting from Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels

November 6, 2015 — Ocean acidification may well be helping invasive species of algae, jellyfish, crabs and shellfish to move to new areas of the planet with damaging consequences, according to the findings of a new report.

Slimy, jelly-like creatures are far more tolerant of rising carbon dioxide levels than those with hard structures like corals, since exposed shells and skeletons simply dissolve away as CO2 levels rise.

The study, conducted by marine scientists at Plymouth University, has found that a number of notorious ‘nuisance’ species – such as Japanese kelp (Undaria pinnatifida) and stinging jellyfish (Pelagia noctiluca) are resilient to rising CO2 levels. Published in Research and Reports in Biodiversity Studies, it notes that in the tropics, coral reefs face a host of interconnected problems (bleaching, corrosion, disease, spreading seaweed, invasive species) that are all caused by rising CO2 levels.

Read the full story from Alaska Native News

El Niño is Going to Starve a Lot of Fish

October 14, 2015 — When Joe Orsi goes trawling, he doesn’t go trawling for 900-pound ocean sunfish. Orsi’s title is biologist, his employer the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Research Center, his cause researching said state’s fisheries. His typical prey, therefore, are juvenile Alaskan salmon. Sunfish are tropical—occasionally temperate—creatures, and do not belong about 40 miles offshore of a place called Icy Point. But that’s what Orsi’s nets brought up in June.

“What’s crazy is, like a day before, a guy asked me what was the strangest thing I’d brought up in a trawl,” says Orsi. Whatever he answered then—sea otter, Dall’s porpoise, maybe a blue shark—is certainly obsolete now.

Strange things are aswim along the Pacific coast. Starving sea lion pups, jellyfish swarms, toxic algae blooms. All because of an enormous mass of warm water stretching from California to Alaska that scientists have dubbed “the Blob.” And the Blob is about to get joined by more warm water from the gargantuan El Niño—with its own scientific nickname, “Godzilla“—forming in the equatorial east Pacific. When these monster warm water systems eventually meet, they aren’t just going to bring charming equatorial fish on subarctic vacations. They’re probably going to deliver a generation (or several generations) of scrawny fish to the oceans.

Read the full story from Wired