Saving Seafood

Ambrose Jearld, Jr.: Researcher, Educator, Mentor and Advocate for Diversity and Inclusion

August 9, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Ambrose Jearld, Jr. has spent his life around animals and water—both freshwater and seawater. He was born in 1944 into a Navy family in Annapolis, Maryland, and grew up on the family farm in Orrum, North Carolina. He attended elementary school there, but returned to Annapolis in sixth grade and graduated from Wiley H. Bates High School in 1961. He credits his high school biology teacher and the Boy Scouts for encouraging his interests in science.

He graduated from Maryland State College, now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, with a degree in biology and a minor in chemistry in 1965. He was just one course away from a double major when he graduated. “My family wanted me to go into teaching, but I wanted to do research and instead went straight into science,” he recalled recently. With a brother and sister heading to college soon, he took a few years off after college to work at “a good-paying job” as a chemist at Publicker Industries Inc. in Philadelphia.

A Fateful Meeting

Meeting Bradford Brown changed the course of Jearld’s career. Brown was a fisheries scientist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Woods Hole Laboratory from 1962 to 1965 and from 1970 to 1984. In He had taken a position as assistant leader with the newly established Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program at Oklahoma State University-Stillwater to complete his Ph.D . The Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program in the United States Geological Survey is a joint effort between federal and state governments. It is also a host university offering graduate students research opportunities in fisheries and wildlife sciences.

Brown was recruiting black graduate students to the program. He met two of Jearld’s former professors, who were also completing their Ph.D.s at OSU. They recommended he speak with Jearld. Although some people were skeptical about Jearld heading to Oklahoma given the civil rights climate in the country, Jearld accepted the full ride offer. That meant a research assistantship award that covered all expenses.

Less than a week after he arrived in Stillwater Jearld was headed to his first scientific meeting as a graduate student with Brown and three other white men whom he did not know. The 1967 meeting was for the Southern Division of the American Fisheries Society in New Orleans. The meeting was part of the annual meeting of the Southeastern Association of Game and Fish Commissioners. They had to deal with the intense heat and driving hours in a packed station wagon with no air conditioning. More importantly, they had not discussed safety or how to deal with segregated facilities en route to the meeting. The trip was memorable for many reasons.

Read the full release here

Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’ has grown larger than Connecticut

August 9, 2021 — A “dead zone,” or an area of low to no oxygen, in the Gulf of Mexico has grown larger than Connecticut, creating an uninhabitable environment for some commercial marine life, and scientists are saying the sparse amount of tropical activity has played a role.

An hypoxic zone, also referred to as a dead zone, is formed when excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus from agriculture and sewage from cities and farms upstream wash into the Gulf. Algae then feeds on these nutrients during the warmer months, and when that algae dies and sinks to the Gulf’s floor, the bacteria that then eats away at the large tangled masses depletes the oxygen in the surrounding water.

The resulting area of low oxygen is called a hypoxic zone, or a dead zone as it becomes unable to support marine life, and it forms in the Gulf every year. Not only can it harm local wildlife, but it can also financially impact fisheries.

Hypoxic waters have been found to alter fish diets, growth rates, reproduction, habitat use and availability of commercially harvested species such as shrimp, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Now, fisheries along the coast of Louisiana will have to deal with a larger-than-average dead zone.

“Basically half of the Louisiana coast for several miles, many miles off shore, the oxygen was too low to support the occurrence of penaeid shrimp, which is one of our biggest economic fisheries in that area,” Dr. Nancy Rabalais, professor at Louisiana State University and LUMCON, and also the principal investigator, told AccuWeather. “So that area was basically lost as available and suitable habitat to those shrimp. How that’s going to convert to catches in money in the next month or so, I can’t really say.”

Read the full story at AccuWeather

Climate Change Scenario Planning: Input Needed to Prepare for Uncertainty in Ocean Conditions and Fisheries

August 9, 2021 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

On the East Coast of the United States, some species of fish are already experiencing climate-related shifts in distribution, abundance, and productivity. Although the future is uncertain, a continuation or acceleration of climate change has the potential to strain our existing fishery management system and alter the way fishermen, scientists, and the public interact with the marine environment.

In order to begin preparing for this possibility, management bodies along the entire Atlantic seaboard have teamed up to launch a new project called East Coast Climate Change Scenario Planning. Scenario planning is a way of exploring how fishery management may need to evolve over the next few decades in response to climate change. You can find additional details in the introductory brochure.

Weigh In! Stakeholder Input is Key to Effective Scenario Planning

The initiative is being organized by a Core Team of representatives from the New England, Mid-Atlantic, and South Atlantic Fishery Management Councils, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and NOAA Fisheries. The team has lined up three kick-off webinars:

  1. Monday, August 30, 4:00 – 5:30 p.m.
  2. Wednesday, September 1, 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
  3. Thursday, September 2, 10:00 – 11:30 a.m.

Please register at the links above. The webinars will introduce stakeholders to the overall initiative, explain the benefits of participating in the process, outline additional ways to become involved, and begin collecting stakeholder input.

An online questionnaire will be available soon to serve as an additional tool to collect input. Watch the Scenario Planning webpage for updates.

Here’s why seafood prices are soaring this summer

August 6, 2021 — After experiencing broad declines last year amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the fishing and seafood sectors are still floundering due to the effects of supply chain issues, worker shortages and renewed consumer demand.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries wrote at the beginning of the year that coronavirus contributed to an “almost immediate” impact on seafood sector sales including lost sales at most aquaculture, aquaponics, and allied businesses and charter fishing operations.

Now, chefs and restaurant owners are speaking out on why pandemic woes have led to higher prices for their customers.

According to SeafoodSource, premium items are being taken off menus across the country because the delicacies are too hard or expensive to source.

Read the full story at Fox News

An uptick in industrial aquaculture in Maine has some lobster – and fishermen hot under the collar

August 6, 2021 — With international and domestic corporations aiming to set up in its waters, the state of Maine is bullish on aquaculture’s potential.

And no wonder, considering that it’s managed to triple its annual aquaculture sales revenue between 2007 and 2017, to almost $138 million.

High-profile privately funded ventures have lately been converging on this corner of the North Atlantic. Millions in Shopify dollars and venture capital are backing Running Tide, a Portland, Maine-based oyster operation, in its bid to figure out how to use kelp as a carbon offset. Norwegian-owned American Aquafarms wants to raise 120 acres of salmon in Frenchman Bay, and other large Canadian and Dutch finfish aquaculture companies are moving into the region. Maine is collaborating with several states to build a national seaweed hub and, with $1.2 million from a 2019 NOAA Sea Grant, is opening its own aquaculture hub to support various sea-based farming industries.

This bustle, though, has raised the hackles of lobstermen and -women represented by grassroots Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation (PMFHF) organization. They say large-scale aquaculture corporations are intent on “privatizing” the public ocean, in the process displacing locals who’ve fished these waters for years and endangering their livelihoods. They feel considerably less optimistic about the burst of interest in aquafarming in their local waters—and in particular, about the expanded terms of the leases that accommodate these operations; a single entity can now hold 1,000 acres, up from a limit of 300 in 2006, and the duration of those leases doubled, from a decade to 20 years, in 2017.

Read the full story at The Counter

Coast Guard Hosting NY Bight Port Study Public Meetings

August 6, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

From June 29, 2020, through June 28, 2021, the Coast Guard conducted the Northern New York Bight Port Access Route Study (NNYBPARS) and is requesting public comments on a draft version of the study report. The goal of the study is to evaluate the adequacy of existing vessel routing measures and determine whether additional vessel routing measures are necessary for port approaches to New York and New Jersey and international and domestic transit areas in the First District area of responsibility.

The First Coast Guard District will host three in-person public meetings starting next week and invites the public to provide oral comments.

  • U.S. Coast Guard Station Point Judith Boathouse, Narraganset, RI
    August 10 at 4 p.m. EST
  • Montauk Fire District, Montauk, NY
    August 24 at 4 p.m. EST
  • Portuguese Holy Ghost Society, Stonington, CT
    August 25 at 4 p.m. EST

Meeting details can be accessed here.

Comments on Study Due August 30, 2021

The First Coast Guard District will consider all comments and material received on or before August 30, 2021. To submit your comment online, go to this link on Regulations.Gov and then click “Comment.”

Questions?

Contact Craig Lapiejko, Waterways Management at the First Coast Guard District, (617) 223-8351

NOAA announces higher-than-forecasted Gulf of Mexico “dead zone”

August 5, 2021 — NOAA announced on Tuesday, 3 August that its scientists have determined the size of this year’s “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico to be more than 6,300 square miles, a figure that’s both above the recent average and well above what officials initially forecasted in June.

The “dead zone” is term applied to the hypoxic zone that is annually established in the Gulf of Mexico. Fed by agricultural runoff, the Mississippi River dumps nutrient-rich water into the gulf, leading to algae growth during the spring and summer months. As that dies and sinks to the bottom, bacteria decay the algae but also consume oxygen in the process, resulting in an area of the ocean that is considered unsustainable for marine life.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Connecticut official says “menhaden are most abundant fish in the sea”

August 4, 2021 — It’s the time of year when fish abound in the region’s rivers, lakes and Long Island Sound, and also a time when some fish are dying.

While it’s an annual event, die-offs of menhaden, or bunkers, is most likely larger this year because of all the rain the state had in July, according to David Molnar, senior marine fisheries biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Another factor is that because of fish management, “menhaden are at an all-time high abundance. They are the most abundant fish in the sea,” he said.

Bunker serve as food for larger fish, ospreys and whales, as well as fertilizers, animal feed and bait for crab and lobster, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

They are saltwater fish but all the rain has reduced the salinity in the rivers, Molnar said. “Typically, the saltwater wedge in the Connecticut River can go all the way to Haddam,” he said. Now, it’s fresh water all the way to the breakwater.

At Shoreline towns such as Lyme, “as far as you can see are schools of menhaden,” Molnar said. “It’s an amazing sight. There are thousands and thousands of them.”

But in Guilford, for example, the problem in the West River, which Molnar called “a beautiful system, good water quality,” is that too many fish crowd in, creating school-induced hypoxia. “As the water temperature increases, they consume all the oxygen” and become stressed. Then, “diseases and parasites that they harbor” are able to flourish, killing even more fish.

Molnar said the bunker have been swimming in the West River since May, but the heavy rains in July brought too much fresh water, pushing the salt water out. “This is the third-wettest July in 100 years. That’s a lot of water,” Molnar said.

Read the full story at the New Haven Register

Monterey Bay and parts of Big Sur added to expanded killer whale protection

August 4, 2021 — The federal government Monday expanded its critical habitat area for the endangered southern killer whale population that now includes all of Monterey Bay and a portion of the waters off the Big Sur coast.

The new critical habitat designation also added a large portion of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary down to Point Sur, about 25 miles south of Monterey. The new designation takes effect on Sept. 1.

The demise of what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, calls the Southern Resident population of killer whales is the result of a number of factors, including the lack of its primary food source: chinook salmon

Read the full story at Mercury News

Higher Vessel Speeds Offset Salmon Abundance for Endangered Orcas, Reducing Chance of Catching Prey

August 4, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Increased abundance of salmon in the inland waters of the Salish Sea increased the odds of endangered Southern Resident killer whales capturing salmon as prey, but increased speeds of nearby boats did just the opposite, according to new research findings.

The research was led by NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center. It found that the orcas descended more slowly, and took longer dives to capture prey, when nearby boats had navigational sonar switched on. The sonar from private and commercial vessels directly overlaps the main sound frequencies the whales use to hunt. This may mask the whales’ signals and force them to expend more energy to catch prey.

“That suggests that it may prolong their effort to dive in search of prey, which like all marine mammals they have to do on a breath hold—so they can stay underwater only so long,” said Marla Holt, research wildlife biologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center and lead author of the new research. Researchers used suction-cup tags that record whale movements and sound to track and analyze their behavior and use of sound to hunt.

Earlier research found that the faster nearby vessels traveled, the greater noise the endangered killer whales experienced. That could help explain why higher speeds of nearby vessels were associated with reduced odds of the whales capturing prey. Faster vessels might also seem more unpredictable to the whales, possibly distracting them as they close in on prey, Holt said.

“Consequences of reduced food intake include negative impacts on the whales’ ability to meet their energetic requirements to support key life functions, including growth and reproduction,” the scientists wrote in the new research paper published in the journal Marine Environmental Research.

Read the full release here