Saving Seafood

Could This Tool Save Washington’s Shellfish?

February 25, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Washington is home to thousands of marine species. Salmon, crabs and bivalve shellfish like oysters and clams fuel both the aquatic food chain and human fisheries — and they thrive under stable levels of acidity, salinity and other marine growing conditions.

But over the past few decades, climate change has acidified the world’s oceans at an unprecedented rate, threatening the biodiversity that defines our region and supports these fisheries. As the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere increases, the ocean dissolves more of it at the surface — producing conditions in Puget Sound and beyond that exacerbate shell deformation, promote toxic algal blooms and create other hurdles to healthy waters. According to the Washington State Blue Ribbon Panel on Ocean Acidification, 30 percent of Washington’s marine species are in danger from it.

Ultimately, stopping ocean acidification requires unprecedented international mobilization to reduce greenhouse gases. But if scientists and others could predict the complex undersea interactions that enable its worst effects, they could pull the trigger on short-term, local solutions that might help people and wildlife work around them. Researchers at the University of Washington have invented a computer model to do just that. Each day, LiveOcean compiles a vast array of ecosystemic data — currents, salinity, temperature, chemical concentrations, organic particles and more — to create a three-dimensional, 72-hour forecast for the undersea weather of the Pacific Northwest.

This is a particularly welcome tool for the state’s $270 million shellfish industry, which produces more farmed bivalves than the next two most productive states combined, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

On the shores of Puget Sound, carbon emissions, excessive nutrient runoff and warming temperatures have made waters that used to be ideal for shellfish farming less dependable, resulting in catastrophic die-offs of oyster larvae in the late 2000s. According to the University of Washington’s Washington Ocean Acidification Center (WOAC), Willapa Bay hasn’t produced any natural oysters for the majority of the past decade, forcing shellfish farmers to purchase “seeds” from hatcheries.

“We know that the seawater chemistry conditions are different now than in the preindustrial era — we see pteropods with pitting and holes in their shells that are due to corrosive seawater conditions,” WOAC Co-Director Dr. Jan Newton said by email. “The CO2 increase is largely (~90%) due to emissions from fossil fuel combustion.”

But with help from LiveOcean, aquaculture has a shot at adapting farming schedules to the ebbs and flows of mercurial ocean chemistry before more permanent solutions are in place. The state-commissioned model is designed to forecast ocean-circulation patterns and underwater environmental conditions up to three days out. Eventually, it could help everyone in the region get a better understanding of how a changing climate impacts a major source of food, funds, fun and regional pride.

Designed by 10 researchers over the course of 15 years, LiveOcean is finally available to Pacific Northwest shellfish farmers (and the public at large) ahead of the 2019 spring oyster spawning season. LiveOcean was pursued in earnestafter Gov. Jay Inslee’s 2012 Blue Ribbon Panel on Ocean Acidification recommended the state “establish the ability to make short-term forecasts of corrosive conditions for application to shellfish hatcheries, growing areas and other areas of concern.” The panel created WOAC and allocated $325,000 toward LiveOcean, which is also funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration..

Understanding how water moves is essential to predicting where and when instances of high acidification will be most damaging to shellfish farms, beachgoers and more. The ocean always circulates: The currents scoop up surface water, pull it into the depths of the ocean, then dredge it upward in what LiveOcean lead researcher Parker MacCready calls “underwater rivers.” These cycles circulate water over the course of decades. When water “upwells” back to the surface, carrying nutrients and dissolved carbon dioxide, it’s been out of sight for 30 to 50 years. “It is the biggest thing controlling water properties in the Salish Sea,” MacCready says.

These days, the “river” is returning with more nutrients and carbon dioxide — reflections of increased fossil fuel use, agriculture and other human activities during the 1970s. Because we know atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased since then, scientists say we can expect to see even worse ocean acidification in the future. And the interaction between human fossil fuel output and agricultural runoff with Puget Sound’s natural geography can make things worse.

“Relative to other coastal regions, Puget Sound is somewhat different in its expression of acidification,” Newton says. “Warming can be intensified or prolonged due to Puget Sound’s retentive nature.”

A system as dynamic as Puget Sound needs dynamic monitoring, and that’s where LiveOcean comes in.

“[LiveOcean] models circulation — currents and mixing — and, at the same time, all the things that are moved with the currents: salt, heat, oxygen, nitrate, phytoplankton, zooplankton, detritus, and carbon variables like dissolved inorganic carbon [DIC, like CO2)] and alkalinity,” MacCready says. “You need to have a really big computer, and deep knowledge of many ocean processes — like physics, chemistry and biology.”

LiveOcean draws on lots of types of data. It sources real-time river-flow information from the U.S. Geological Survey and Environment Canada and three forecasts for conditions in rivers, the ocean and surface and atmosphere.

LiveOcean isn’t the only model for underwater forecasts in the Puget Sound and greater Salish Sea region, but it’s unique in significant ways. LiveOcean is the only one that publicly forecasts oxygen concentration (which decreases as acidity increases, putting animals at risk of hypoxia), pH (the primary measurement of acidity), and aragonite (the most important mineral used by oysters to build their shells, and which decreases with acidity). Acidicified water corrodes and sometimes dissolves protective shells, forcing shellfish to expend extra energy on basic life functions.

Equipped with this data, LiveOcean can be used to predict where acidified water will move throughout the coastal ocean, estuaries, the Salish Sea and ultimately 45 rivers. Shellfish growers can then ideally use that information to determine when and where they should release sensitive larvae, which spend their first few days of life developing shells and essential organs. To ensure shellfish larvae survive through their first two days of life, aquaculture managers release larvae during peak levels of photosynthesis and aragonite. When adults have to battle corrosion to keep growing, they’re not putting energy into reproducing.

“We are still working on the best way to get that to shellfish growers in a meaningful way. [Like how] some clever app developer distills all the terabytes of a weather simulation into a few useful sun and cloud icons on your phone,” MacCready says. “We are not there yet, but that is a key task for this spring.”

According to Bill Dewey, director of public affairs at Taylor Shellfish Co., shellfish hatcheries can account for the majority of acidic events by fixing water chemistry as it enters the hatcheries, making forecasts less essential to overall planning. They inject more basic (less acidic) mixtures into treatment systems, adjust pumping times, and add shell-building minerals to oyster environments.

“Where [forecasting] remains critical is for those in the industry who have what we refer to as remote setting stations,” Dewey says.

Setting stations — land-based tanks filled with mesh bags of oyster shells and heated seawater — are where oyster larvae start their lives. Operators place the free-swimming, hatchery-hatched larvae in the tanks, where they “set” by attaching themselves to discarded oyster shells and making them their own.

“They are vulnerable to all sorts of stresses as they make this difficult transition, including bad water chemistry,” he says. “These operations don’t typically have water chemistry monitoring and treatment capacity, to where LiveOcean predictions could help them ensure they are setting under optimal conditions.”

LiveOcean is also the only ocean model that forecasts for microscopic plantlike organisms called phytoplankton, which shellfish eat. Phytoplankon are the essential first link of most marine food chains: the more phytoplankton, the more organic matter in the ocean. However, this can lead to increases in algae blooms, which cover the ocean’s surface and limit oxygen and sunlight. When the blooms die, they create dead zones and add to the ocean’s mounting CO2 reserves.

While LiveOcean was developed with the shellfish industry in mind, its ability to predict water movement throughout Puget Sound makes it useful for other applications.

NOAA uses LiveOcean to track toxic algal blooms and make decisions about beach closures for coastal razor clam harvests.

LiveOcean’s forecasts also feed into tailored apps meant for tuna fishermen, boaters, beachgoers and more. It also models historical ocean events, which helps researchers make projections for how animals and substances travel through the ocean. Elizabeth Brasseale, a UW graduate student in oceanography, used LiveOcean to explore the origin of invasive green crabs that began infesting the West Coast in the late ’80s. Knowing where the crabs come from will inform attempts to eradicate them.

“Their range has been expanding, but in all that time they haven’t entered the Puget Sound,” Brasseale says. Using LiveOcean, she was able to see how the Salish Sea’s current patterns act like a force field keeping the invasive larvae out.

Some green crabs snuck into Puget Sound between 2014 and 2016, when an intermittent patch of warm water called “the Blob” appeared, mystifying oceanographers. Data from LiveOcean uncovered the conditions that allowed the infestation, and it can predict when and where it might happen again.

“By using LiveOcean as a backcast, we can see what the ocean was doing during those years that allowed the larvae to get in,” Brasseale says. “By using LiveOcean as a forecast, we can watch for recurrences of those ocean patterns and know if we’re going to be vulnerable to invasive larvae.”

LiveOcean’s potential for creating new and  extended applications is only just beginning to be explored.  Recently, parasitic burrowing shrimp have infested Pacific Northwest oyster farms. They’re usually held at bay by fresh water, and that got Dewey to thinking about how LiveOcean could investigate the problem.

“Some speculate that damming the Columbia has contributed to the proliferation of the shrimp, so there are no more floods and major freshwater events in the bays to kill the shrimp,” he says. “Perhaps with LiveOcean and knowledge of the shrimps’ life cycle, freshwater releases from the dams could be done to both benefit salmon and control shrimp.”

As more people apply the tool in different ways, a better picture of ocean dynamics will inform how humans adapt to it in the Pacific Northwest.

“[We’re developing] the ability to see seawater conditions and how they change in time and space. It is exciting that the applications are so numerous,” Newton says, noting oil spill tracking potential. “We gain very basic information on how Puget Sound functions. This tool opens doors to many new avenues of research and understanding.”

The following was released by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Scientists: Southeast Alaska vulnerable to ocean acidification

February 22, 2019 — Southeast Alaska is poised to be among the first regions in the world affected by ocean acidification.

The Alaska Ocean Acidification Network hosted a public presentation Wednesday about the phenomenon that is making ocean water more acidic, and Alaska scientists explained why Southeast is likely to be impacted more quickly than other parts of the world.

Ocean acidification occurs when water absorbs carbon dioxide, which causes the water to become more acidic, and Southeast Alaska waters are uniquely positioned to be particularly susceptible to it, said Jessica Cross, an oceanographer for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

“There’s a couple of reasons for that,” Cross said. “One of them is glacial discharge. The second reason Southeast Alaska is more vulnerable to ocean acidification than other areas around the state is because of the communities themselves. When we talk about OA risk, we’re very interested in communities that rely on threatened species or threatened marine resources for economic value, cultural perspectives or subsistence food sources.”

Also, Cross said there are a few factors that make the water in the area naturally more acidic.

“I like to say Alaska waters are old and cold,” Cross said after the presentation.

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire

Ocean Acidification Could Affect Pacific Cod Development

February 20, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Scientists released results of a study showing that larval Pacific cod response to elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels varies depending on its stage of development. In laboratory experiments, NOAA Fisheries scientists and partners specifically examined larval cod behavior, growth, and lipid composition (the fats needed for storing energy and building muscles). As excess CO2 from the atmosphere dissolves in the ocean, pH is lowered and the ocean increases in acidity, in a process called ocean acidification. Studies like this are important because most marine fish mortality occurs at the larval stage of development and the high-latitude oceans where Pacific cod and other important commercial fisheries occur are expected to be among the most vulnerable to ocean acidification.

“Changing environmental conditions can impact species in multiple ways and not all life stages may respond in the same way,” said Tom Hurst, NOAA Fisheries scientist and lead author of a new paper in Marine Environmental Research. “We wanted to explore this because it has implications for the sustainability of Pacific cod and other important fish stocks in Alaska.”

Hurst and a team of scientists from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center; and the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resources Studies at Oregon State University conducted two laboratory studies to evaluate larval fish sensitivity to elevated CO2.

Read the full story here

Research forms complex picture of mercury pollution in a period of global change

February 15, 2019 — Climate change and the loss of wetlands may contribute to increased levels of mercury concentrations in coastal fish, according to a Dartmouth College study.

The finding implies that forces directly associated with global change — including increased precipitation and land use modifications — will raise levels of the toxic metal that enter the marine food chain.

Estuaries, including coastal wetlands, provide much of the seafood that is harvested for human consumption and also serve as important feeding grounds for larger marine fish.

The study, published in late December in the journal Environmental Pollution, adds to the mounting body of research that indicates a complex relationship between the environment and mercury pollution.

“Estuaries provide habitat for the fish that feed our families,” said Celia Chen, director of the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program. “It’s important to understand how mercury acts within our environment, particularly under increasing climate and land use pressures.”

The Dartmouth study concludes that higher levels of mercury, and its toxic form methylmercury, are associated with higher organic carbon in coastal waters. The study also finds that this results in higher levels of mercury occurring in fish that frequent these waters.

Read the full story at Science Daily

The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans, and it’s dramatically disrupting fishing patterns

February 1, 2019 — The continental United States is 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was a century ago. Seas at the coasts are nine inches higher. The damage is mounting from these fundamental changes, and Americans are living it. These are their stories.

Since 1963, Greg Mataronas’s family has been making a living catching lobster off of Little Compton, R.I. But as water temperatures have risen rapidly along the coast, there are fewer lobster to be found, prompting a shift to other species, like whelk.

The state’s lobster haul peaked at over 8 million pounds in 1999. It hasn’t exceeded 3 million since 2005. And in 2017, it barely reached 2 million. As a result, a way of life is rapidly changing and, for some, ending.

To hold on, Rhode Island fishermen have agreed to a 50 percent cut in how many lobster traps they can set. Like the lobsters, they are adapting to a changing sea, buying out the licenses of competitors or diversifying what they catch.

Mataronas now fishes for whelk and sea bass and other fish, as well as lobster. To provide for his family, he couldn’t just fish like his father had.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Study: Northwest Salmon Not Immune To Ocean Acidification

December 27, 2018 — A new study suggests that salmon will not be immune to the effects of ocean acidification. Scientists found that changes to ocean chemistry disrupt a fish’s ability to smell danger in the water.

Researcher Chase Williams of the University of Washington exposed young coho salmon to the elevated ocean CO2 levels expected over the next few decades. He then dropped in an odor that normally makes the fish react as if a predator is near. The fish ignored it.

“They’re still smelling odorant, but the way their brain is processing that signal is altered … Before, they would avoid this predator odor and now they’re more indifferent to it,” Williams said.

The results are concerning because salmon rely on smell to avoid danger, find food and to find their way back to spawning grounds in West Coast rivers.

Co-author Andrew Dittman is a scientist with the federal Northwest Fishery Science Center. He said the results could apply to other salmon species.

“The mechanisms involved … are very similar. So the expectation would be that we would see relatively similar phenomena in the other species as well,” he said.

Read the full story at KUOW

The most important environmental and sustainability stories of 2018

December 21, 2018 — Sustainability has become a buzzword in the seafood industry in recent years, a prerequisite for doing business in the 21st century.

But with the advent of real effects of climate change being felt in fisheries and aquaculture operations around the world, paying attention to environmental news is no longer shunted off to corporate sustainability officers.

In 2018, even more evidence was presented that increasing water temperatures, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation caused by climate change will result in devastation and disruption in the world’s marine economy. A November report by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, compiled by 13 U.S. government agencies, painted a grim picture of the future of both U.S. and global fisheries as the effects of climate change continue to advance.

Beyond economic damages, upheaval in the global marine economy is likely to lead to political upheaval, a study published in the journal Science in August revealed. Climate change is driving fish species to migrate to new areas, with fish and other marine animals shifting toward the poles at an average rate of 70 kilometers per decade. That rate is projected to continue or even accelerate as the planet warms. In the process, they’re crossing political boundaries – potentially setting up future conflicts as some countries lose access to fish and others gain it, according to the report.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Salmon to lose sense of smell as CO2 levels rise

December 19, 2018 — As atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise, increasing amounts of carbon dioxide will be absorbed into the ocean. New research suggests rising CO2 levels in the ocean could disrupt the olfactory abilities of coho salmon.

Salmon rely on their sense of smell to track prey, find mates and navigate their way back upstream to spawn. According to the new study, published this week in the journal Global Change Biology, a compromised sense of smell would pose a serious threat to the health of salmon populations.

Lab experiments showed rising acidity levels caused by elevated CO2 levels inhibits salmon’s already vulnerable sensory-neural system.

“Our studies and research from other groups have shown that exposure to pollutants can also interfere with sense of smell for salmon,” Evan Gallagher, a professor of toxicology at the University of Washington, said in a news release. “Now, salmon are potentially facing a one-two punch from exposure to pollutants and the added burden of rising CO2. These have implications for the long-term survival of our salmon.”

Read the full story at UPI

JOHN BULLARD: Trump policies threaten New England fishermen

December 5, 2018 — The Trump Administration just approved dangerous seismic blasting to look for oil and gas in the Atlantic Ocean, a move that will threaten marine wildlife and fisheries. This announcement came on the heels of the National Climate Assessment, which the Trump Administration tried to downplay by releasing it the day after Thanksgiving. That’s right, Trump just sidestepped science — twice — to deliver a one-two punch to fishermen.

The scientific report on climate change offers a devastating look at the impact of climate change on the American economy — including fisheries in New England — if we fail to act fast. According to the report, the American economy will decline by up to 10 percent by the end of this century. Failure to reduce carbon emissions will continue to negatively impact the health of fish stocks, threatening the economic stability of our fishing industry and coastal communities.

None of this is news to New England fishermen, who already know the changes happening in their place of business: the ocean. They know warming waters have driven lobster out of southern New England towards Canada. They know that despite difficult quota cuts, cod is much harder to rebuild, and many flounder species don’t reproduce the way they used to.

Fishermen know that warming oceans have pummeled the Maine lobster industry, where revenues fell by $99 million in 2017. Some scientists warn that ocean acidification could make the scallop industry, a $500 million-dollar mainstay of New England’s fishing economy, the next to go. There’s no Plan B if this happens. And new oil and gas development could accelerate the decline of these and other species. Without action, the working waterfronts of New England could cease to work.

What was President Trump’s response when asked about the climate report from his own administration? “I don’t believe it.” Apparently his self-professed intellect is superior to more than 300 scientists from inside and outside the government who wrote the report. Because of his inability to accept the advice of his own scientists on what may be the issue of gravest importance to future generations, the president is putting our region’s fishing industry at risk.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times

West Coast fishermen are suing oil companies for climate change damages

December 5, 2018 — Fishermen are still waiting for permission to catch Dungeness crabs off California’s northernmost coast this season — and they want oil companies to pay for the delay.

State officials have postponed the start of the commercial Dungeness crab season because of high levels of a neurotoxin called domoic acid. Similar closures have wreaked economic havoc on the industry in recent years.

he neurotoxin’s presence in the prized crabs has been linked to warming ocean waters, one of the many effects of human-caused climate change. That’s why the West Coast’s largest organization of commercial fishermen is suing more than a dozen oil companies, arguing they have knowingly peddled a product that threatens ocean life and the people whose economic fortunes depend on it.

The oil companies “engaged in a coordinated, multi-front effort to conceal and deny their own knowledge of those threats, discredit the growing body of publicly available scientific evidence, and persistently create doubt,” the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Assns. said in its lawsuit, filed last month.

“Families and businesses that depend on the health and productivity of the Dungeness crab fishery to earn their livings suffer the consequences,” the federation said.

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times