Saving Seafood

Researchers examine nations losing fish species due to climate change

February 25, 2020 — As ocean warming causes fish stocks to migrate toward cooler waters to maintain their preferred thermal environment, many of the nations that rely on commercial fish species as an integral part of their economy could suffer.

A new study published in Nature Sustainability from the University of Delaware, the University of California, Santa Barbara and Hokkaido University, shows that nations in the tropics—especially Northwest African nations—are especially vulnerable to this potential species loss due to . Not only are  at risk for the loss of  stocks, the study found there are not currently any adequate policy interventions to help mitigate affected countries’ potential losses.

Kimberly Oremus, assistant professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, explained that when the researchers looked at , including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, they found no specific text for what happens when fish leave a country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), a zone established to give a country national jurisdiction over a fishery resource.

That means countries could be vulnerable to economic losses, and those potential losses could make the fish populations themselves vulnerable as well.

“We realized there was an incentive for countries when they lose a fish or anticipate that loss to go ahead and overfish before it leaves because otherwise, they don’t get the monetary benefits of the resource,” said Oremus.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Study shows impact of climate change on fishing economy

December 26, 2019 — With the Gulf of Maine warming faster than 99% of the world’s oceans, it makes sense there would be impacts on fish stocks and the fishermen who depend on them for a living.

While several studies have demonstrated that marine inhabitants are on the move trying to find cooler water, the data on how climate change is affecting fishermen has been hard to come by. Other factors — cuts to fish quotas, the closing of more areas to fishing, and gear changes to rebuild fish stocks or protect endangered species such as the right whale — also could affect the fishing industry and disguise the impact of ocean warming.

But a new study by Kimberly Oremus, a researcher at the University of Delaware, used existing data to show that fishing jobs in New England’s coastal counties declined by an average of 16% between 1996 and 2017 due to climate variation.

Oremus focused her research on what is known as North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the relative pressure differential between massive oceanic high pressure and low pressure systems in winter.

When the subtropical high pressure off the Azores is stronger than usual, there is a greater pressure differential with a low over Iceland. That means stronger winter storms crossing the Atlantic to Europe, and mild, wet winters in the eastern United States.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

‘Climate shocks’ reducing fish stocks in New England, and Atlantic Canada could be next

December 11, 2019 — A new study says “climate shocks” are reducing fish populations in the North Atlantic region, leading to fewer jobs and lower wages in New England’s fishing sector.

Fishing communities along the northeastern U.S. seaboard have long struggled with warming waters, dwindling fish stocks and rising unemployment.

The research published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is the first to directly link climate change with declining fishing jobs.

It found that climate fluctuations caused a 16 per cent drop in fisheries employment in New England from 1996 to 2017.

The findings suggest Atlantic Canada’s fisheries could also potentially experience increasing variability in fish stocks, revenue and employment due to climate change in the coming years.

Read the full story at The Chronicle Herald

New study maps out how the world’s fisheries are interconnected

July 17, 2019 — A new study published in the journal Science reveals that the world’s marine fisheries form a single global network – linked by transnational flows of fish larvae – rather than existing as discrete groups.

Researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom believe that their work could lead to greater international cooperation in the way fish stocks are managed in the future.

The study combined data from satellites, ocean buoys, field observations, and marine catch records to build a computer model of how the eggs and larvae of more than 700 of the world’s commercially harvested fish species are dispersed. The results showed that more than USD 10 billion (EUR 8.9 billion) worth of fish is caught each year in a country other than the one in which it spawned.

Fisheries are traditionally managed within EEZs, where around 90 percent of the world’s fish are caught. And while adult pelagic stocks can be tracked across international borders, as they tend to swim in large schools, the wider movements of non-pelagic populations are more of a grey area.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Overfishing Not Solely to Blame for New England Cod Collapse

July 28, 2016 — Overfishing is a known culprit of the decline of Atlantic cod off the coast of New England but now, a new study co-authored by researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Columbia University has found that the climatological phenomenon known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is also a factor. And it contributes in a predictable way that may enable fishery managers to protect cod stocks from future collapse.

“In the 1980s, the North Atlantic was stuck in a positive phase of NAO,” said lead author Kyle Meng, an economist at UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.

“We show not only that positive NAO conditions diminish a few consecutive cohorts of cod larvae but also that this effect follows a cohort as it matures.”

The NAO is a periodic climatic phenomenon that, like El Niño, causes changes in water temperatures, although the mechanism is different and the NAO affects the North Atlantic rather than the Pacific.

Also like El Niño, the NAO may be affected in terms of both strength and frequency by climate change. The researchers found that, since 1980, NAO conditions have accounted for up to 17 per cent of the decline in New England cod stocks.

“The Atlantic cod fishery has been the poster child of fishery science and challenges in the field,” said co-author Kimberly Oremus of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Read the full story at The Fish Site