Saving Seafood

Japanese Animals Are Still Washing Up in America After The 2011 Tsunami

Plastics and metals have made it much easier for invasive species to raft across oceans.

September 29, 2017 — On March 11, 2011, an unprecedentedly powerful earthquake struck the Tōhoku region of Japan. It destroyed hundreds of thousands of buildings, wrecked the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, created a tsunami that reached 40 meters in height, and shifted the entire planet a few inches on its axis. But among these catastrophic consequences, there were also subtler ones. For example, the tsunami inundated a small blue-and-white fishing boat called the Sai-shou-maru, ripping it from its moorings and casting it out to sea.

The boat drifted eastward through the Pacific, never capsizing. Then, on March 22, 2013, a couple weeks after the two-year anniversary of the quake, it washed ashore on Long Beach, Washington. Its hull was encrusted with seaweed and barnacles, and one of its compartments was full of water. And living in that water were five striped beakfish. The fish were youngsters, just four inches long. They had probably been swept into the boat as larvae, and spent their entire lives growing up within this ersatz aquarium. For two years, the boat was their entire world.

Four of those fish were euthanized by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, but the fifth—now known as the “tsunami fish” was relocated to Oregon’s Seaside Aquarium. Its story astonished John Chapman, an ecologist at Oregon State University who studies aquatic invasive species. Somehow, this coastal species had endured a two-year, 4,000-mile voyage across the open ocean, in the tiniest of living spaces. “We said this couldn’t happen,” Chapman told OregonLive. “And nature is like: Oh yes it can.”

Of late, nature has been saying that to Chapman a lot.

In the last five years, he and his colleagues have documented 634 pieces of debris that were swept away by the Tōhoku tsunami and eventually washed up on the coasts of North America. And it hasn’t stopped coming yet. Between them, these bits of ocean-hopping junk carried 289 species that are typically found along Japanese coasts—a vast horde of sponges, sea stars, sea anemones, mussels, limpets, barnacles, and fish.

Read the full story at The Atlantic

What’s best weapon for battling species invading California waters? Data

August 21, 2017 — There’s an invasion plaguing the coastal waters of Southern California.

Waves of tiny interlopers spark havoc at fisheries, clog municipal water pipes and frustrate boaters who must dislodge buckets of sea crud.

They’ve altered our coastal regions’ ecosystems, endangered native fish and birthed such nasty problems as “swimmer’s itch.”

Accelerated in recent decades by international trade, invasive sea creatures have hitchhiked here in and alongside massive cargo vessels from around the globe.

Local officials admit they often don’t know enough about these oft-destructive invaders to halt their environmental takeovers or truly know to what extent the strategies they’ve launched against them are actually working.

But experts from such prestigious organizations as the Smithsonian Environment Research Center have vowed to gather the intelligence needed to rescue native species by studying the incoming hordes, comparing the myriad areas they’ve infiltrated and assessing whether anti-invasive methods and regulations already in place are effective.

“We still don’t know enough about these species,” said Brianna Tracy, a research biologist for the center, which has launched four years of monitoring of the waters along the nation’s largest seaport, the twin Long Beach and Los Angeles cargo complexes.

Read the full story at the Press-Telegram

Tuna won’t be listed as endangered, Trump administration says

August 8, 2017 — Rejecting a petition from environmental groups, the Trump administration announced Monday that it will not list Pacific bluefin tuna — a torpedo-shaped fish that can grow to 1,000 pounds and which sells for $100,000 or more per fish in Japanese sushi markets — as endangered, despite that fact that the animal’s population has fallen 97 percent.

Even with heavy fishing pressure, the steely fish, which swim 6,000 miles between California and Asia, still number about 1.6 million, officials from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said Monday.

“The Pacific bluefin tuna does not meet the definition of threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act; that is, it’s not likely to become extinct either now or in the foreseeable future,” said Chris Yates, assistant regional administrator for protected resources at the NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region in Long Beach.

“The population has been at low levels before and has rebounded,” he added.

Environmental groups, however, were disappointed. They have compared bluefin tuna to elephant tusks or shark fins — products that come from an important, but vulnerable, species and command high prices for status value.

Read the full story at the Mercury News

Fishers balk at proposal to designate Pacific Ocean national monuments

July 8, 2016 — West Coast fishers, including those that supply Los Angeles and Long Beach with local seafood, are incensed at a “secret” proposal from environmentalists asking President Barack Obama to create new national monuments in the Pacific Ocean.

Dozens of California fishing businesses and their representatives signed a letter this week asking Obama to ignore suggestions to block fishing in open-ocean areas rich with sea life by designating them as offshore marine monuments.

Environmental groups made the proposal in a “secret effort” to lobby the president to declare that many Pacific Ocean seamounts, ridges and banks are national landmarks, according to the letter.

The five-page environmental proposal, “The Case for Protecting California’s Seamounts, Ridges and Banks,” argues that these parts of the ocean should be preserved for scientific research. Seamounts and ridges are craggy underwater mountains, and banks are shallow areas near deep ocean drop-offs.

“These special places are home to thousand-year-old corals thriving against all odds in the dark, cold depths,” the proposal states. “And they attract a remarkable variety of migratory predators such as sharks, tuna, billfishes, seabirds, and endangered sea turtles, which congregate to fuel up on the food produced by nutrient-rich upwelling currents.”

Read the full story in the Daily Breeze

GILBERT VERRET: Believe the experts, not the scare tactics on menhaden

June 22, 2016 — In F.J. Eicke’s “Near-shore fishing for menhaden needs tighter regulation” letter (June 3), he blames the fishery for a recent fish die-off in Gulfport and Long Beach.

The best available science on the incident disputes Mr. Eicke’s claim. Scientists with the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources investigated the die-off, concluding the menhaden that washed up on the shore most likely died of natural causes.

Their conclusion was based on a number of factors, specifically the amount of dead fish, which given how low it was, is unlikely that a commercial fishing vessel is to blame.

Read the full letter at the Sun Herald

NEW YORK: Feds identify offshore wind farm site

March 24, 2016 — Nearly a decade after plans for an offshore wind farm several miles off Jones Beach were scuttled, federal officials announced last week that an area off the coast of Long Beach has been identified for potential wind energy development — and called it a major step toward creating clean energy for the region.

The announcement by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management — naming an 81,000-acre site in federal waters 11 miles south of the barrier island that would be suitable for wind turbines — was welcome news to environmental groups that have been calling for renewable energy sources and ways to reduce the region’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“This wind farm will be at least 11 miles offshore, if not more, and that’s important, because a decade ago, the first proposal was for 3.6 miles offshore,” said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment. “This will now be very far offshore and not be a visual concern. It’s important because we are in critical need of making the transition from dirty fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.”

But the proposal has sparked the ire of those who claim that wind turbines in that area, known as the New York Bite, would negatively impact the commercial fishing industry. “The problem … is that it was an unsolicited bid — the power companies are coming out and saying we want this area without having talked to anyone prior to the selection,” said Drew Minkiewicz, a spokesman for the Fisheries Survival Fund, which opposes the construction of turbines in that area. “It’s a highly productive fishing area, including scallops. … We harvest over $5 million [worth] every year, on average.”

The announcement by the BOEM comes after Gov. Andrew Cuomo vetoed plans for a liquefied natural gas terminal roughly 16 nautical miles off Jones Beach in December, citing environmental concerns and saying that the terminal would conflict with the potential site of a wind farm. Officials said that an offshore wind power source is in keeping with Cuomo’s goal of generating 50 percent of New York’s energy from renewable sources by 2030.

Read the full story at the Long Island Herald

MASSACHUSETTS: Coast Guard tows fishing boat over violations

January 8, 2016 — A New Bedford fishing vessel’s voyage was cut short Thursday after the Coast Guard found multiple safety violations, according to a statement from the Coast Guard.

The 83-foot Amber Nicole did not have a life raft, had improperly marked survival suits, and no record of performing mandatory monthly drills, all serious safety deficiencies, according to the Coast Guard statement. The boat was operating about 44 nautical miles off Nantucket with a crew of seven.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times