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

New Study Shows Arctic Cod Development, Growth, Survival Impacted by Oil Exposure

September 18, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today, a team of U.S. and Norwegian scientists published new laboratory research findings that show how an Arctic fish species can be seriously affected by small amounts of crude oil released into surface waters. For Arctic (Polar) cod in its early stages of development, crude oil can be lethal if exposure is high enough. Some exposed Arctic cod eggs die not long after hatching due to toxicity. At lower exposure levels, others experience developmental issues affecting their survival when they become larvae and juveniles.

“With the warming ocean and sea ice decline in the Arctic, ship traffic is on the rise. As a result, cod and their habitats are at increasing risk to oil spills,” said Ben Laurel, research fisheries biologist, Alaska Fisheries Science Center and lead author of a new paper published this week in iScience.“Since Arctic cod are one of the most abundant circumpolar forage fish, they play a key role in the marine ecosystem. We really need to better understand how an oil spill will affect keystone species and the ecosystem as a whole.”

For this study, NOAA teamed up with Oregon State University, SINTEF Ocean, and Norway’s Institute of Marine Research. The multi-disciplinary team had expertise in toxicology, fish biology, energetic studies, embryology and chemistry. They conducted one of the first laboratory studies of oil impacts on this coldwater fish species.

Read the full release here

Dead right whale off New York raises toll — and pressure on NOAA

September 18, 2019 — A dead North Atlantic right whale found floating off New York’s Long Island Monday afternoon could raise the official death toll of the endangered species to 29 in the last two years, jacking up pressure on the U.S. and Canadian governments to slow those losses.

The latest find comes less than a week after Chris Oliver, NMFS administrator, said the agency will move ahead with rulemaking to reduce the risk of whale entanglements in fishing gear — despite a withdrawal of support for proposed measure by the Maine lobster industry.

“We intend to address the threats posed by gillnets and to humpback whales at future (Atlantic Large Whale) Take Reduction Team meetings,” Oliver said in a statement issued Sept. 11.

NMFS officials said the carcass was discovered 4 miles south of Fire Island Inlet, and was so decomposed that its age, sex and cause of death could not be determined immediately.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NOAA Fisheries Seeks Comments on Proposed Dredge Exemption Areas in the Great South Channel Habitat Management Area

September 17, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries seeks comments on proposed measures for three exemption areas within the Great South Channel Habitat Management Area (HMA) where dredge fishing for surfclams or mussel would be allowed.

The New England Fishery Management Council created the Great South Channel HMA as part of its Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2, which prohibited the use of all mobile bottom-tending fishing gear in the area. The HMA contains complex benthic habitat that is important for juvenile cod and other groundfish species, but also susceptible to the impacts of fishing.

This action would allow the surfclam fishery to operate hydraulic dredge gear year-round in two small areas (McBlair and Fishing Rip) and seasonally in a third area (Old South) within the HMA. Mussel dredge fishing would also be allowed in these exemption areas.

These exemption areas were chosen to allow relatively limited access to some historical surfclam fishing grounds, while protecting the majority of the HMA. The three exemption areas total only 6.9 percent of the total area of the HMA, and do not include areas most clearly identified as containing complex and vulnerable habitats.

Read the proposed rule as published in the Federal Register, and submit your comments through the online portal. You may also submit comments through regular mail to: Michael Pentony, Regional Administrator, Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930

Comments are due date by October 17, 2019. For more details please read the draft environmental assessment as provided on the Council website.

Read the full release here

As Bering Sea ice melts, Alaskans, scientists and Seattle’s fishing fleet witness changes ‘on a massive scale’

September 16, 2019 — Derek Akeya hopes for calm waters and a lucrative catch when fishing from a skiff in the Bering Sea that surrounds his island village.

But on this windy late summer day, waves toss about the boat as Akeya stands in the bow, straining to pull up a line of herring-baited hooks from the rocky bottom.

Instead of bringing aboard halibut – worth more than $5 a pound back on shore – this string of gear yields four large but far less valuable Pacific cod, voracious bottom feeders whose numbers in recent years have exploded in these northern reaches.

“There’s a lot more of them now, and it’s more than a little bit irritating,” Akeya says.

The cod have surged here from the south amid climatic changes unfolding with stunning speed.

For two years, the Bering Sea has been largely without winter ice, a development scientists modeling the warming impacts of greenhouse-gas pollution from fossil fuels once forecast would not occur until 2050.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

NOAA moves ahead with whale-safety rules

September 16, 2019 — The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced it is reviewing claims by the Maine Lobstermen’s Association that a goal to reduce the industry’s risks of harming North Atlantic right whales by 60% is too high. But the federal agency said it will move ahead with crafting federal rules to reduce the risk to the whales of vertical fishing rope associated with trap and pot fishing.

“In the coming months, we will proceed with rule-making as planned,” Chris Oliver, the agency’s assistant administrator, said in the statement Wednesday.

The fisheries service is in the midst of preparing a draft environmental impact statement on the proposed rule changes, based on a pact approved nearly unanimously in April by the 60 members of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team, including the Maine association.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Program aims to provide Alaska Native and rural students with opportunities at NOAA

September 13, 2019 — The following was released by the University of Alaska Fairbanks:

Alaska Sea Grant is partnering with NOAA Fisheries to provide opportunities to Alaska Native and rural students at the federal agency. The goal is to increase their representation in marine-related professions at NOAA Fisheries, an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration formerly known as the National Marine Fisheries Service.

During summer 2019, NOAA Fisheries and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which houses Alaska Sea Grant, launched a marine education and workforce development program that brought five undergraduate students to the UAF campus for a two-week course run by Vladimir Alexeev, research professor at the International Arctic Research Center. It’s called the Partnership in Education Program Alaska. The program was developed by policy analysts Sorina Stalla and Megan Hillgartner and by UAF faculty member Alexeev.

This summer’s curriculum focused on marine sciences and the drivers of Arctic change, climatology, oceanography, marine resource management and policy, law, subsistence use and perspectives, hydrology, climate modeling, permafrost, interior wildfires, meteorology, atmospheric science and more. Following their course work and a trip to the Toolik Field Station on the North Slope, students applied their knowledge and completed internships with NOAA’s regional Alaska office and its Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Juneau.

Read the full release here

US biologists eye unusual deaths of Alaska ice seals

September 13, 2019 — Seals that rely on sea ice off Alaska’s northwest coast have been dying at uncommon rates, and federal marine mammal biologists Thursday declared an “unusual mortality event.”

The cause of death for nearly 300 ringed, bearded and spotted seals since June 1, 2018, is not known, according to the fisheries arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the management agency for the marine mammals.

“We’re looking at a broad spectrum of possible causes and trying to rule out what we can and narrow it down,” NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Julie Speegle said.

Viruses, bacteria and algal blooms are possible causes. Water temperature in the northern Bering Sea and the Chukchi Sea the last two summers have been higher than normal. The agency is looking at possible ecosystem influences, including diminished sea ice, Speegle said.

Alaska Native coastal communities hunt all three seals for meat and hides as part of a subsistence life.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

Preliminary NOAA survey suggests ‘low abundance year’ for king salmon

September 12, 2019 — The latest of several trawling vessels to come through Nome this summer is the Northwest Explorer. As it conducts a research survey in the Bering Sea, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries scientists onboard the ship say they’ve seen signs that this year’s chinook salmon numbers are dwindling.

Jim Murphy is the survey lead for this surface trawl in the Northeastern Bering Sea, as well as a fisheries research biologist with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, based out of Juneau.

“Yeah, we don’t see a large movement, because they still basically come out (of the Yukon River), take a left-hand turn, and go south,” he said. “They (chinook salmon) could be further north, but I think it’s more likely this is going to be a low abundance year for chinook or kings.”

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

West Coast marine life endangered by ‘blob’ heatwave

September 12, 2019 — A “blob” of warm water in the Pacific Ocean could disrupt the marine ecosystem off the coast of California, similar to an event that occurred five years ago, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The patch, designated the Northeast Pacific Marine Heatwave of 2019 and also referred to as a “blob,” is the second-biggest such mass in four decades and, according to experts, is on a similar path to that of one that, from 2014 to 2016, caused toxic algae blooms and killed sea life ranging from sea lions to salmon en masse.

“I am surprised to see something like this develop again so soon after what looked like the end of the marine heatwave in 2016,” Nate Mantua, head of the Landscape Ecology Team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in Santa Cruz, Calif., told the newspaper.

Read the full story at The Hill