Saving Seafood

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

Trump Administration Report Recommends Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions To Protect Oceans From Climate Change

November 27, 2018 — The Fourth National Climate Assessment is a landmark report that was published last week on the day after Thanksgiving. It summarizes the impacts of climate change in the United States as well as potential mitigation and adaptation measures. The report states that the combined effect of burning fossil fuels, developing natural landscapes, and deforestation have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in Earth’s atmosphere* and emphasizes that drastically reducing GHGs is necessary to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

According to the report, climate change is modifying the ocean environment in three primary ways:  warming, oxygen loss, and acidification. These “stressors” have large implications for ocean ecosystems and marine fisheries. Globally, ocean surface temperatures have increased by nearly 1.3°F over the past century and “… more than 90% of the extra heat linked to carbon emissions is contained in the ocean.” As the ocean warms, seawater not only expands and causes sea levels to rise, but it also loses its ability to hold gases – including oxygen. Additionally, as carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by human activities dissolves in seawater, it undergoes a series of chemical reactions that are gradually causing the ocean to become more acidic.

While warming, oxygen loss, and acidification will likely reduce the diversity of life in the sea, they will also impact fisheries, seafood farming, and recreational activities. These stressors will also interact and can have complex impacts. For example, as climate change progresses, hurricanes will become more frequent and intense. These hurricanes may redistribute nutrients that cause massive algal blooms that are sustained by warmer temperatures. When the blooms die off, microbes respire as they assist in the algae’s decomposition, simultaneously producing CO2 and consuming oxygen that cause ocean acidification and oxygen loss. The severe red tide along the Florida coast this year was likely a product of this series of events.

Read the full story at Forbes

From skiing to salmon runs, the national climate report predicts a Northwest in peril

November 27, 2018 — Climate change’s effects – among them, increasing wildfires, disease outbreak and drought – are taking a toll on the Northwest, and what’s to come will threaten and transform our way of life from the salmon streams to ski slopes, according to a new federal climate assessment released Friday.

The 1,000-plus-page report, produced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is the most comprehensive evaluation to date of climate change’s effects on the nation’s economy, human health, agriculture and environment. Thirteen federal agencies contributed to the report, which was required to be published by Congress.

The federal report’s stark, direct and largely negative projections are at odds with President Donald Trump’s skeptical view of climate science. But federal officials, like National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researcher David Easterling, left little room for ambiguity about whether climate change was real and who was causing it.

Temperature data, Easterling said, provided “clear and compelling evidence that global average temperature is much higher and rising more rapidly than anything modern civilization has experienced and that this warming trend can only be explained by human activities …”

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Changing climate to put further pressure on New England, federal report predicts

November 26, 2018 — New England’s forests, fisheries and cultural traditions are already experiencing significant disruptions from a changing climate and will face additional transformation over the coming decades, according to a federal report released Friday.

Northeastern states are seeing some of the largest changes in the nation, yet conditions are shifting even faster in New England than the region as a whole, in some instances. Annual average temperatures in New England, for example, rose by roughly 3 degrees since the beginning of the last century compared to 1.8 degrees in the contiguous United States.

Those temperature changes – combined with shifts in precipitation levels and rapid warming in the Gulf of Maine – will continue to impact the health, economy and aging infrastructure of the region.

“For example, because much of the historical development of industry and commerce in New England occurred along rivers, canals, coasts, and other bodies of water, these areas often have a higher density of contaminated sites, waste management facilities, and petroleum storage facilities that are potentially vulnerable to flooding,” reads the report from 13 federal agencies.

“As a result, increases in flood frequency or severity could increase the spread of contaminants into soils and waterways, resulting in increased risks to the health of nearby ecosystems, animals, and people – a set of phenomena well documented following Superstorm Sandy,” the report says.

While the political debate over climate change continues, there is little doubt among fishermen or the scientists who work with them that the Gulf of Maine is changing. Maine fishermen now routinely see species once found only in southern or mid-Atlantic states while stocks of northern shrimp and cod have been depleted or moved north to cooler waters.

The report cited numerous examples of New England fishermen attempting to adapt to those changes and acknowledged that the arrival of new species will create new opportunities. But the authors also warned that markets, shoreside infrastructure as well as regulatory restriction on what fishermen can catch are often slower to respond.

Scientists also predict that species particularly important to New England face a bleaker future because of rising acidity levels as the oceans absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

California Creates Plan to Curb Ocean Acidification

October 30, 2018 — California officials have created a plan to stop climate change from killing sea creatures and protect the state’s $45 billion ocean-based economy.

Deborah Halberstadt with the California Ocean Protection Council said the ocean is getting more acidic as it absorbs increased amounts of carbon dioxide, which can threaten species key to the fishing industry.

“With climate change we’re seeing warmer oceans. It’s actually changing the chemistry of the ocean water and making it more corrosive,” Halberstadt said. “This has the impact of potentially destroying the bottom layer of the food web.”

Concern began when oysters started dying in the Pacific Northwest.

“The animals can’t develop shells because the water is too acidic and so then they either die or become deformed,” said Halberstadt.

The state’s first California Ocean Acidification Action Plan will analyze and identify the full risk. State officials are worried about the Dungeness crab and salmon populations.

Read the full story at Capital Public Radio

MASSACHUSETTS: New commission created to study ocean acidificaton

October 18, 2018 — David Ryan and Al Suprenant have a lot invested in their business.

The co-owners of Cape Cod Oyster Co. in Marstons Mills have eight full-time employees working 54 acres of ocean bottom on three sites; a 4,000-square-foot processing plant, two truck drivers, two bookkeepers, a fleet of refrigerated box trucks and five 28-foot vessels.

It takes careful planning, and a steady supply and demand for their product to keep it all rolling. They dread the reversals of fortune nature can dole out, such as occurred during a sudden onslaught of ocean acidification in the Pacific Northwest a decade ago that caused a 70 percent to 80 percent die-off of oyster larvae in Washington state hatcheries. One-quarter of the carbon in the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean, forming an acid that inhibits shell building, particularly in larvae. Since the beginning of the industrial era 525 billion tons of carbon dioxide has been absorbed by the ocean, 22 million tons per day, according to a Smithsonian report.

“The West Coast was taken completely by surprise,” Ryan said Tuesday.

Washington was the largest aquaculture industry in the country with over 3,000 jobs but half the state’s production and hundreds of employees had to be relocated to Hawaii to avoid the acidic water that was delivered to the coastline by a slow-moving current.

Avoiding that kind of surprise in Massachusetts — where the aquaculture industry produced $28 million of oysters and other shellfish in 2017 — and in Barnstable County — with 270 licensed growers who produced over $12 million worth of shellfish — is why Ryan and Suprenant supported state Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Truro, and state Rep. Dylan Fernandes, D-Woods Hole, in their pursuit of legislation to create an Ocean Acidification Commission in the Bay State.

The commission is intended to foster research as well as legislative and other solutions to a problem often described as the evil twin of the global warming caused by climate change. On Tuesday, Cyr and Fernandes chose Cape Cod Oyster Co. headquarters to announce the official launch of the acidification commission, which was authorized under the latest state environmental bond bill this summer.

“This is a real challenge for our burgeoning aquaculture industry,” Cyr said, promising to leverage the power of state agencies, the wealth of research being done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, and the fishing industry to offset the effects of ocean acidification.

It’s not just aquaculture in state waters, but larger federal fisheries that are potentially in peril, including sea scallops and lobsters. Massachusetts harvested 29.2 million pounds of sea scallops in 2016 worth over $350 million. State lobstermen caught 17.7 million pounds of lobster worth $82 million.

The problem has not been well publicized because the effects occur out of sight, said Laurence Madin, WHOI vice president of research.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Scallop fishery may be imperiled by acidic seas

October 16, 2018 — Increasingly acidic seas pose a serious threat to the sea scallop fishery, a recent collaborative study by the University of Virginia, the Ocean Conservancy, the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) concluded.

“As levels of carbon dioxide increase in Earth’s atmosphere, the oceans become increasingly acidic — a condition that could reduce the sea scallop population by more than 50 percent in the next 100 years under a worst-case scenario,” the study states. Models from the study, which were published recently in the journal PLOS One, combine existing data with several factors that impact the fishery: “future climate change scenarios, ocean acidification impacts, fisheries management policies, and fuel costs for fishermen.” Those factors were modeled out into 256 different possibilities.

Oceans absorb vast quantities of carbon dioxide. Fossil fuel emissions exacerbate what the oceans take in, further acidifying the water. “That acidity can corrode the calcium carbonate shells that are made by shellfish like clams, oysters, and scallops, and even prevent their larvae from forming shells in the first place,” the study states.

“[The scallop fishery is] healthy and valuable today in part because it is very well managed,” says Scott Doney, a co-author from WHOI and the University of Virginia. “We also used the model to ask whether management approaches could offset the negative impacts of ocean acidification.”

It couldn’t. In every scenario, elevated carbon dioxide levels created acidiferous ocean water. The culprit, the study concluded, was “unabated carbon emissions.”

Read the full story at the MV Times