Saving Seafood

Warming Signs: Climate Change Means A Sea Change for Fishermen and Scientists

January 23, 2017 — Lobsters used to lurk in the waters of Long Island. But these days, New York fisherman have trouble finding any—while their peers 500 miles away in Maine are seeing bumper crops. Instead, the lobstermen of Long Island now catch more crabs and other shellfish—which, in turn, leaves crabbers further down the East Coast worried about the future of their own livelihoods.

Last week I wrote about how climate change is prompting a fish migration that will directly affect what’s served—or not served—for dinner. But these rapid marine changes won’t just affect our appetites; they also represent a sea change for the fisherman and communities that depend on the sea for jobs and income.

Fishing Regulations Struggle to Catch Up

Of course, catching new fish in your usual fishing haunt is trickier than just changing your bait. Regulations guide what you may catch and how much of it, usually state by state—and they aren’t changing as fast as the environment is. John A. Manderson, a research biologist at the NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), noted that sea creatures are moving north 10 times faster than their land-based animals.

“Our ideas of property rights and laws are purely land-based,” Manderson told The New York Times. “But the ocean is all about flux and turbulence and movement.”

To get around these increasingly obsolete laws, some fishermen are catching fish further north and then traveling to areas where it is legal to bring large quantities to shore. Such slippery adherence to regulations sparked mackerel wars in the North Sea back in 2010, and the dispute wasn’t settled for four years.

Furthermore, such an expensive round-about the law is not an option for everyone, especially those with smaller fishing operations.

Read the full story at Paste Magazine

Disaster Declared for West Coast Fisheries

January 23, 2017 — SEATTLE — Nine West Coast salmon and crab fisheries have been declared a disaster, allowing fishing communities to seek relief from the federal government.

Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker declared the disaster on Jan. 18.

Nine salmon and crab fisheries in Alaska, California and Washington suffered “sudden and unexpected large decreases in fish stock biomass or loss of access due to unusual ocean and climate conditions,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

The fisheries include Gulf of Alaska pink salmon, California Dungeness and rock crab, and several tribal salmon fisheries in Washington.

Read the full story at Courthouse News

ASMFC 2017 Winter Meeting Final Agenda and Meeting Materials Now Available

January 19, 2017 — The following was released by the ASMFC:

The final agenda and meeting materials for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s 2017 Winter Meeting can be obtained http://www.asmfc.org/home/2017-winter-meeting; click on the relevant Board/Committee name to access the documents for that Board/Committee.  Please note there are two links for the Atlantic Menhaden Board meeting – the first link is for the main materials and the second link is for public comment submitted on the PID. For ease of access, all Board/Section meeting documents, with the exception of the Shad & River Herring Board materials and the submitted public comment portion of the Atlantic Menhaden Board materials, have been combined into two documents – Main Meeting Materials 1 and Main Meeting Materials 2. Main Meeting Materials 1 includes all boards/sections meeting on January 31 and Main Meeting Materials 2 are materials for the remainder of the week.

The agenda is subject to change. The agenda reflects the current estimate of time required for scheduled meetings. The Commission may adjust this agenda in accordance with the actual duration of meetings. Interested parties should anticipate meetings starting earlier or later than indicated herein.

Board/Section meeting proceedings will be broadcast daily via webinar beginning at 8:00 a.m. on January 31st and continuing daily until the conclusion of the meeting (expected to be 3:00 p.m.) on Thursday February 2nd. The webinar will allow registrants to listen to board/section deliberations and view presentations and motions as they occur. No comments or questions will be accepted via the webinar. Should technical difficulties arise while streaming the broadcast, the boards/sections will continue their deliberations without interruption. We will attempt to resume the broadcast as soon as possible. Please go to https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2958062690378327044 to register.

As a reminder, the guidelines for submission of written comment for issues for which the Commission has NOTestablished a specific public comment period (i.e., in response to proposed management action) are as follows:

1.   Comments received 3 weeks prior to the start of a meeting week will be included with the main meeting materials.

2.   Comments received by 5:00 PM on the Tuesday immediately preceding the scheduled ASMFC Meeting (in this case, the Tuesday deadline will be January 24, 2017) will be distributed electronically to Commissioners/Board members prior to the meeting and a limited number of copies will be provided at the meeting.

3.   Following the Tuesday, January 24, 2017 5:00 PM deadline, the commenter will be responsible for distributing the information to the management board prior to the board meeting or providing enough copies for the management board consideration at the meeting (a minimum of 50 copies).

The submitted comments must clearly indicate the commenter’s expectation from the ASMFC staff regarding distribution.  As with other public comment, it will be accepted via mail, fax, and email.

Read the full release at the ASMFC

NEW JERSEY: Bill asks NOAA to rethink increased flounder restrictions

January 19, 2017 — A South Jersey lawmaker introduced a bill Tuesday that would urge the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to halt proposed reductions to this year’s summer flounder catch.

Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo, D-Atlantic, introduced a resolution asking NOAA to conduct a new summer flounder assessment before implementing the proposed regulations, which would cut the flounder catch by 40 percent.

The reduction plan was advanced at a Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council meeting last month but has been roundly condemned by recreational fishermen and prominent state leaders, including U.S. Sen. Cory Booker and U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd.

Federal officials say the cuts are necessary because a recent NOAA report concluded the flounder fishery is overfished.

Recreational fishermen at a hearing earlier this month in Galloway Township questioned NOAA’s methods for measuring flounder, and Mazzeo’s resolution, a draft of which was sent to The Press of Atlantic City, asks the agency to take another look at the stock.

Read the full story at Press of Atlantic City

Who will lead NOAA under President Trump?

January 18, 2017 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent organization of the National Weather Service, will introduce new leadership when President-elect Donald Trump assumes office.

The agency is at a crossroads and faces many important challenges in the coming years. How these challenges are addressed will help define the next generation of weather and climate forecasts and observations, and also have key implications for the health of our oceans.

In recent weeks, I have spoken to numerous leaders in the weather and climate community, and the three names mentioned repeatedly as candidates to head NOAA are:

  • Scott Rayder, senior adviser for development and partnerships at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
  • Barry Myers, chief executive of AccuWeather in State College, Pa.
  • Jonathan White, president and chief executive of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Acidic ocean could soon cost us lots of crabs

January 18, 2017 — Dungeness crab fisheries on the West Coast—valued at about $220 million annually—may face a strong downturn over the next 50 years.

The acidification of the ocean expected as seawater absorbs increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will reverberate through the West Coast’s marine food web in unexpected ways, say researchers.

Dungeness crabs, for example, will likely suffer as their food sources decline. But pteropods and copepods, tiny marine organisms with shells that are vulnerable to acidification, will likely experience only a slight overall decline because they are prolific enough to offset much of the impact, finds the study published in Global Change Biology.

Marine mammals and seabirds are less likely to be affected by ocean acidification, the study found.

“What stands out is that some groups you’d expect to do poorly don’t necessarily do so badly—that’s probably the most important takeaway here,” says Kristin Marshall, lead author of the study who pursued the research as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington and NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center. “This is a testament in part to the system’s resilience to these projected impacts. That’s sort of the silver lining of what we found.”

Read the full story at Futurity

NOAA Accepting Bycatch Grant Proposals

January 16, 2017 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. – Over the last 40 years NOAA Fisheries has been working to reduce bycatch during commercial fishing, and the organization is accepting applications for projects to receive grant funding.

The Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program supports new technology and changes in fishing practices to minimize bycath.

NOAA’s mission with the program is to find creative ways for reducing bycatch, seabird interactions and post-release mortality in federally managed fisheries.

Pre-proposals for projects are due by February 10 with full applications due by March 31.

Proposals should fall within high priority areas which include innovative technologies, gear modifications, avoidance programs and improved fishing practices to reduce the impacts of bycatch.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Despite recent tweaks, New England fishermen want more changes in law

January 13, 2017 — Despite tweaks to fishing guidelines in 2016 aimed at increasing regulatory flexibility, some New England groundfishermen and recreational fishermen still support a move to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act, sources told Undercurrent News.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA’s) recently made changes to a guideline known National Standard One (NS1), but there will still likely be a push from east coast fishermen to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act as Republican president-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The effort intends to bring more “flexibility” to fishery management, sources told Undercurrent News. 

In October of 2016 NOAA made changes to NS1, which aims to prevent overfishing while achieving the optimum yield from each fishery.

Changes were first proposed in January 2015, and the final rule passed in October 2016 giving regional councils more latitude to set catch limits, a change that was opposed by environmental groups.

Call for flexibility 

Fishermen, particularly on the US east coast, have been critical for several years of what they say are rigid timelines that give regulators ten years to rebuild stocks deemed overfished.

Some sources told Undercurrent that the lack of flexibility sometimes forces regulators to severely — and some say, unnecessarily — cut quotas when fisheries are nearing the 10-year mark. If a fishery has shown improvement and is nearing its goal, they claim, it makes no difference in the long run whether they reach that goal in the allotted ten years or sooner.

“I think that it’s possible that those new guidelines acted as a relief valve for that pressure. I don’t know that you’re going to get as much pressure to create flexibility in the act that you would get two years ago,” Shannon Carroll of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council told Undercurrent.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Seafood Industry Fights Back Against Obama’s Fish Fraud Laws

January 13, 2017 — Even your humble local sushi joint will (hopefully) offer a dizzying array of seafood, from fluke to lobster to sea urchin. But chances are high that your sashimi isn’t what it seems: According to one report a couple years back from the ocean advocacy group Oceana, as much as 74 percent of fish sold at sushi spots in the US is fraudulent. Per that report, 92 percent of what’s sold as “red snapper” and 71 percent of what’s sold as “tuna” are actually imposter species of fish.

Seafood fraud is nothing new, and another Oceana report found that overall, 20 percent of all types of seafood sold nationally was mislabeled. Often, endangered fish of dubious origin can be passed off as more sustainable types of fish.

Last month, in an effort to enhance transparency for consumers and allow traceability of fish coming to US shores from foreign waters—where shady international fishing operators often use illegal methods to haul in catch en masse—the Obama administration announced rules that would require seafood importers to be able to trace the origin of each and every fish sold in the US back to an individual boat or fish farm.

Now, however, fishing industry players are fighting back, and have sued the government for placing what they say is an onerous and expensive burden on importers who already follow the rules.

The rule, which would go into effect on January 1 of 2018, requires importers to keep track of sourcing information for 13 priority species including tuna, swordfish, cod, and other species that are often mislabeled and overharvested. Importers would need to specify when and where a fish was caught, and would have to hold onto the data for two years. A new Seafood Import Monitoring Program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would oversee the program.

When the program was announced, Kathryn Sullivan, a NOAA Administrator said, “As a global leader in sustainable fisheries management and seafood consumption, the US has a responsibility to combat illegal practices that undermine the sustainability of our shared ocean resources. We designed this program to further ensure that imported seafood is legally harvested and truthfully represented, with minimal burden to our partners.”

Read the full story at VICE

Important Fish Habitat Formed by Slow-growing Corals may Recover More Slowly in Warming Climate

January 13, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Managing fisheries means more than managing fish. To keep fisheries sustainable, managers need to make sure the ecosystems that support fish production stay healthy. An important part of Alaska’s marine ecosystems is the corals that create habitat for fish and their prey.

Coral gardens provide refuge for fish, but may be vulnerable to fishing gear and warmer temperatures. How long it takes for coral habitat to recover from injury depends on how fast corals grow and reproduce.

A new study led by Bob Stone of NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Fisheries Science Center reveals just how slowly some corals grow, and provides insight on how they might respond to seafloor disturbance and ocean warming.

How the garden grows

Watching coral grow may sound like restful work. Not the way Stone does it.

Every year for five years, Stone’s team travelled to remote areas of Southeast Alaska and dove into frigid waters to observe corals in their natural environment.

“Several of the dive sites were very remote, so just getting there was quite a challenge,” says Stone. “Sometimes we enjoyed the comfort of the NOAA ship John N. Cobb, but other times we had to take a small (26 foot) boat over 80 miles to the sites. Occasionally we had to use float planes.”

Often the last 25 meters of the trip was the biggest challenge.

“Diving conditions were quite unpredictable,” Stone explains. “We needed to work during the same time every year, but you never know what you are going to get for weather or dive visibility.”

Once they made it to the seafloor, the most exciting part of the work began: “finding the coral colonies from year to year. Just think, small coral colonies with little tags at the bottom of the ocean in a remote place. You find one and your heart starts beating fast.”

To monitor the environmental conditions experienced by the corals, the team deployed temperature loggers and current meters at each study site.

They tagged a total of 93 healthy coral colonies at three locations. Each year they video recorded each of these colonies against a centimeter measuring grid. Later, in the laboratory, they analyzed the video using computer image analysis to measure the length of colony branches to the millimeter.

Coral growth hits a new slow

Stone’s team found that the corals grew an average of 6 millimeters, less than a quarter of an inch, a year. At that rate it would take 60 years to grow to maximum size. That’s important, because fully grown coral makes the best habitat for fish.

“We were surprised that these particular corals grow so slowly — slower than any other species we have looked at in the north Pacific Ocean,” Stone says.

Injured colonies, especially those chronically injured in areas of frequent disturbance, grew more slowly. Those in warmer ocean conditions also had reduced growth. That double whammy could affect the ability of corals to recover from disturbance if ocean warming continues.

The shallow water populations that Stone observed are not at risk from disturbance by commercial fisheries, but deeper (greater than 80 meters) colonies of the same species are periodically disturbed in some regions. Most Alaska corals are found only in very deep waters. The species Stone studied lives at depths of 15-512 meters in Alaska and Canadian waters. Because its shallower depth range is accessible to scuba divers, it provides a rare opportunity to learn about coral growth rates.

Right now, damage to this species from trawls is low (3 percent) and there is no evidence of damage from long line fishing. Stone’s study gives fisheries managers information they need to protect this important resource in the future. Stone explains:

“We know that corals provide important habitat for some species of managed fish and crabs, and we know that in some places in Alaska there are interactions between fishing gears and coral habitat. Better management of both resources is possible by knowing the recovery rates of the coral habitat. This study demonstrated that not all corals in Alaska grow at the same rates, and we need to consider this in our management strategies.”

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.