Saving Seafood

Explaining California’s sudden humpback entanglement surge

April 22, 2019 — Every year, humpback whales make their annual trek from tropical calving grounds to feed in the cold, nutrient-rich waters off the coast of California. Historically, they arrived to feast in June just as the Dungeness crab fishery was closing and gear was being pulled in for the season. But in 2012, they arrived a few weeks earlier than normal. In 2014, they were a month early. By 2015, the humpbacks arrived in April, a full two months earlier than the norm.

That shift has been dangerous for the whales. In March, it was the subject of a lawsuit settlement that prompted an early end to the Dungeness crab season. Some of our own research has determined the cause: climate change.

Humpback sightings from the Golden Gate Bridge are a hallmark of summer in San Francisco. The whales come to feed where the narrow straits of the Bay meet the ocean. Marine life abounds here, where nutrient-dense water feeds blooms of phytoplankton. They are then eaten by zooplankton, including krill, tiny reddish shrimp-like crustaceans which are a favored food for whales. Seasonal blooms of these tiny animals support the ecosystem bottom-up, producing a massive marine buffet for fish, birds and other marine mammals. Predators gorge themselves in the summer and fall when this area supports the most amount of food.

Where there are high concentrations of fish, there are people catching them, and the whales’ earlier arrival has driven more interactions with West Coast fisheries. Since 2014, the number of whales entangled in Dungeness crab pots has escalated dramatically, with 129 cases reported between 2015 and 2017, compared to around 10 each year in previous decades.

Read the full story at the San Francisco Examiner 

VIMS: Antarctic krill declines as South Atlantic Ocean warms

February 4, 2019 — When biological oceanographer Deborah Steinberg bundles up and steps onto the deck of the Laurence M. Gould research vessel, this is what she sees: ice, ice and more ice.

“I see icebergs, I see sea ice, I see crabeater seals floating by on ice floes, the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula,” Steinberg said in a shipboard phone interview Friday. “It’s gorgeous.”

But it’s what she can’t see, what lies beneath the icy waters of the South Atlantic Ocean off northwestern Antarctica, that concerns Steinberg and an international team of marine researchers: krill.

Read the full story at the Daily Press

SFP sees improvement in sustainability of fisheries used for fishmeal, oil

October 9, 2018 — More than 90% of the fish used for fishmeal and fish oil from the Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans now come from fisheries that are “reasonably well-managed (or better)”, according to the latest annual report on reduction fisheries by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP).

SFP said its report, which analyzes 26 reduction fishery stocks worldwide, found that 91% of the total catch volume came from stocks that scored 6 or better on all five criteria outlined by SFP’s FishSource database. That’s an 8% increase over last year.

Poorly managed fisheries accounted for 9% of the catch, a drop from 16% last year.

Of the stocks listed in “very good condition,” the report singled out the Antarctic krill fishery in the Atlantic Southern Ocean as being particularly well-managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Majority of krill fishing companies join Greenpeace in protecting Antarctic Ocean

July 12, 2018 –A host of seafood industry representatives and companies have aligned with conservation groups to support the creation of marine protected areas in the Antarctic, according to a roundtable announcement hosted at the Greenpeace-led Antarctic 360° event in Cambridge, United Kingdom this week.

Aker BioMarine (Norway), Pesca Chile (Chile), Insung (South Korea), Rimfrost (Norway), and China National Fisheries Corporation (China) have all agreed to the instatement of a voluntary krill fishery closure along the Antarctic Peninsula, the World Wildlife Foundation explained in a press release. Additionally, Aker BioMarine, the world’s largest krill fishing company, pledged its support to the creation of marine sanctuaries in Antarctica through the establishment of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in coming years.

“Safeguarding the Antarctic ecosystem in which we operate is part of who we are. Our ongoing dialogue with ARK members, scientists and the community of environmental NGOs, including Greenpeace, is what makes additional efforts like this possible. We are positive that ARK’s commitment will help ensure krill as a sustainable and stable source of healthy omega-3s for the future,” Aker BioMarine Executive Vice President Kristine Hartmann said. “Through our commitment we are showing that it is possible for no-fish zones and sustainable fisheries to co-exist. Our intention with this commitment is to support CCAMLR’s work on establishing a network of large-scale science-based marine protected areas in the Antarctic.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Antarctic Penguins Find an Unlikely Ally: Fishermen

July 11, 2018 — In the waters off the northern tip of the world’s southernmost continent, one of the most important creatures is also the most profitable: pinky-length Antarctic krill.

These swarming, translucent, shrimp-like creatures are eaten by almost everything here—fish, penguins, seals, and whales. But krill also support a multimillion-dollar global fishing industry. They get sucked into nets and ground into meal to feed aquarium fish or farm-raised salmon and get squeezed for their oil, which is used in pharmaceuticals, including in the United States.

Now, with climate change rearranging life along the western Antarctic Peninsula, scientists and marine advocates have been warning that wildlife—particularly penguins—are under far too much stress. Krill fishing, they say, could be making things worse.

Monday, after years of negotiations, a majority of the fishing industry formally agreed to stop hauling in krill from around the peninsula’s troubled penguin colonies. The industry also committed to helping set up a network of marine protected areas in coming years to better protect marine animals.

Read the full story at National Geographic

Hurricane Harvey’s impact on regional seafood sector still being determined

August 30, 2017 — Hurricane Harvey has caused significant damage in Southeast Texas, but experts in the shrimp industry don’t believe there will be a long-term impact on the United States’ Gulf of Mexico shrimp industry.

However, some Houston-area seafood companies suffered damage from the storm and overall losses in Texas could total USD 100 billion (EUR 83.6 billion).

Rockport, Texas-based Global Blue Technologies, a shrimp farm and hatchery, was still assessing the damage to its facilities on Tuesday and SeafoodSource will provide an update soon.

AkerBiomarine’s krill oil plant in Houston suffered minor leaks due to heavy rain, but did not sustain damage, according to a statement the company provided to SeafoodSource.

“Due to severe weather conditions, we did a controlled shutdown of our Houston manufacturing plant on Friday, securing all assets and the site. The top priority in this situation is always the safety of our employees and their families,” AkerBioMarine said.

On Tuesday, the plant was still shut down.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Nations Will Start Talks to Protect Fish of the High Seas

August 2, 2017 — UNITED NATIONS — More than half of the world’s oceans belong to no one, which often makes their riches ripe for plunder.

Now, countries around the world have taken the first step to protect the precious resources of the high seas. In late July, after two years of talks, diplomats at the United Nations recommended starting treaty negotiations to create marine protected areas in waters beyond national jurisdiction — and in turn, begin the high-stakes diplomatic jostling over how much to protect and how to enforce rules.

“The high seas are the biggest reserve of biodiversity on the planet,” Peter Thomson, the ambassador of Fiji and current president of the United Nations General Assembly, said in an interview after the negotiations. “We can’t continue in an ungoverned way if we are concerned about protecting biodiversity and protecting marine life.”

Without a new international system to regulate all human activity on the high seas, those international waters remain “a pirate zone,” Mr. Thomson said.

Lofty ambitions, though, are likely to collide with hard-knuckled diplomatic bargaining. Some countries resist the creation of a new governing body to regulate the high seas, arguing that existing regional organizations and rules are sufficient. The commercial interests are powerful. Russian and Norwegian vessels go to the high seas for krill fishing; Japanese and Chinese vessels go there for tuna. India and China are exploring the seabed in international waters for valuable minerals. Many countries are loath to adopt new rules that would constrain them.

Read the full story at the New York Times

The Secret Life of Krill

October 19, 2016 — SYDNEY, Australia — On an August morning aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer research vessel floating at the bottom of the world, Christian Reiss was listening for acoustic signals bouncing off krill, a pinkish, feathery-limbed crustacean that is the lifeblood of the Antarctic ecosystem.

It was the last month of the Southern Hemisphere winter, and conditions were good: There was no thud from sea ice pancakes bumping together to distort his tests in the clear waters of the South Shetland Islands, about 500 miles south of Cape Horn.

Dr. Reiss, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and his team were studying where krill live in winter.

Low levels of sea ice gave them access to bays that in previous winters were closed. They wanted to know if a lack of sea ice, where krill gather to feed off the algae that live on the underside, was threatening the ocean’s largest biomass. Krill form schools that can be miles long and miles deep.

Whales, sea birds, penguins, squid and seals all feed off krill. And they compete with commercial fisheries in the same waters, who sell the tiny creatures to be used as fish food or to make omega-3 fish oil for human use.

Read the full story at The New York Times

What If We Had All Listened to NASA and Started Eating Krill?

October 5th, 2016 — Way back in 1977—the year Star Wars came out, British Airways launched Concorde SST service between London and New York, and Jimmy Carter signed legislation creating the Department of Energy—NASA published an exceptionally forward-looking report called “The Role of Aerospace Technology in Agriculture.” Its purpose was to figure out how to feed a ballooning world population given the Earth’s limited resources—using space-age technology. Oddly enough, amid high-minded discussions about the aerial application of chemicals and remote-sensing systems, was tucked this suggestion: Perhaps humans could subsist wholly—or partially—on a diet of krill.

The succinct proposal clearly fell to the wayside and remained buried in the NASA report until we happened upon it recently. It got us thinking: What if we humans had actually embraced this notion back in the day and had become a race of krill-eating beings? Was this forgotten report from the 70s a viable proposal for saving the future of mankind?

Krill, of course, are the tiny, shrimp-like crustaceans that are found near the rock bottom of the food chain. They feed on phytoplankton and—because they are protein-rich—are a primary food source for larger fish, which eventually get eaten by us. Although some nations certainly do make use of krill as a food stuff—the Japanese call it okiami, and Norwegians eat krill paste with crackers—in most of the world, krill is just used as fish feed in aquaculture. Vitamins are also made with their oil, and certain enzymes found in krill are used in various food and medical products. However, not eating them is understandable, too—krill are quite salty, and each crustacean’s hard exoskeleton must be removed before being eaten because it contains contains fluorine, which is toxic in high enough concentrations. But still, if humankind’s sustainability problems could be saved by krill, maybe we should figure out a way to use them as sustenance. Who needs Soylent or crickets if the oceans are filled to the brim with underutilized krill, right?

Evidently not.

As it turns out, the harvesting of Antarctic krill has greatly increased since the report was published, and conservationists are now increasingly concerned about its diminishing global supply. Not only do countless fisheries rely on Antarctic krill as feed, but demand for krill oil and its enzymes has skyrocketed. “It is well-known that many proposals in the 1970s were made to greatly increase food production from the sea—including harvesting krill and other zooplankton,” explains Boris Worm, a marine research ecologist and associate professor at Dalhousie University. “At the time, it was still thought that the sea could feed a rapidly growing human population, but by the 1990s, it became clear that wild fisheries could not be increased any more.”

Read the full story at Vice 

When Ice Melts: Tipping the Scales in the Predator/Prey Arms Race in Antarctica

February 1, 2016 — A man is poised with a crossbow on an inflatable Zodiac in the Weddell Sea, impressively keeping his balance as the tiny boat pitches in the Antarctic swells. He’s aiming at a killer whale that’s surfaced to breathe. Unlike his predecessors from long ago, he’s not trying to kill the whale. Rather, his crossbow is equipped with a satellite tracking device that he is attempting to attach to the whale’s dorsal fin.

The man is Dr. John Durban, and along with his partners Dr. Holly Fearnbach and Bob Pitman with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, he is conducting research to understand the role of killer whales as top predators in the changing Antarctic ecosystem. With a grant from the Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic (LEX-NG) Fund, this team of scientists makes annual expeditions to Antarctica to carry out their research.

While Antarctica tends to get a bad rap as a frozen wasteland, it’s actually a dazzling wilderness of ice and stone. Offshore, the Southern Ocean is chock full of marine life. Despite the frigid water temperatures—somewhere in the vicinity of 30℉…brrr!—an abundance of marine creatures exist as part of a robust food web.

At the bottom (of the web, not the ocean), is krill. This mini crustacean smaller than your pinky finger is the foundation of the Antarctic food chain. Species from minke whales to small fish, squid, and penguins dine on this shrimp-like creature. Bigger fish and seals eat the fish, squid, and penguins that eat the krill. And at the top of the web is the killer whale: a cunning and efficient predator.

Read the full story at National Geographic