Saving Seafood

The US has spent more than $2B on a plan to save salmon. The fish are vanishing anyway.

May 25, 2022 — The fish were on their way to be executed. One minute, they were swimming around a concrete pond. The next, they were being dumped onto a stainless steel table set on an incline. Hook-nosed and wide-eyed, they thrashed and thumped their way down the table toward an air-powered guillotine.

Hoses hanging from steel girders flushed blood through the grated metal floor. Hatchery workers in splattered chest waders gutted globs of bright orange eggs from the dead females and dropped them into buckets, then doused them first with a stream of sperm taken from the dead males and then with an iodine disinfectant.

The fertilized eggs were trucked around the corner to an incubation building where over 200 stacked plastic trays held more than a million salmon eggs. Once hatched, they would fatten and mature in rectangular concrete tanks sunk into the ground, safe from the perils of the wild, until it was time to make their journey to the ocean.

Read the full story at OPB

 

OREGON: Coastal Leaders Push Back Against Location of Wind Energy Plants

May 24, 2022 — There is little doubt that floating offshore wind farms are coming to the southern Oregon coast. The region’s small, ocean-reliant communities are worried about potential damage to sea habitat and the loss of fishing grounds.

In February, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) designated 2,100 square miles of federal water for potential development of floating offshore wind as part of the Biden administration’s goal to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. On the day of the announcements regional stakeholders started pushing back, asking why BOEM would consider placing hundreds of 980-foot-high wind turbines in a globally productive ecosystem.

On April 7, in a rare display of unity, 27 conservation groups and fishing organizations wrote  BOEM asserting, “Siting of wind energy facilities is the single most important decision that will be made for wind development off Oregon’s Coast.”

The following week, Nick Edwards, a southern Oregon fisherman, addressed Oregon’s U.S. Senator Ron Wyden on behalf of Oregon’s seafood industry during a virtual Town Hall meeting.

“Senator, I’ve been a commercial fisherman for 43 years and a board member of the Oregon Wave Energy Trust in Portland for seven. If there ever was a fisherman involved with ocean renewable energy, I would be that person.

I’m here to tell you the current BOEM (Bureau of Ocean Management) process for siting offshore wind in Oregon waters is extremely flawed. [In January] Governor [Kate] Brown sent a letter to BOEM providing a list of parameters to develop offshore wind in Oregon. She stated, ‘This is an opportune time to move these Wind Energy Areas offshore to 1300 meters (4265 feet) in depth and beyond. This would essentially protect the NW upwellings providing one of the most sustainable ecosystems in the world.’ Instead, BOEM is doing the opposite.

Senator Wyden, for the sake of our ocean resources, are you willing to sit down with a small advisory group to discuss these important issues with sighting OSW (offshore wind) in Oregon waters?”

Representatives of the fishing industry, environmental groups, and civic organizations have stated that offshore wind-energy production should be sited in waters deeper than 1,300 meters to protect the region’s coastal upwelling, which is vital to southern Oregon’s sea habitat.

Susan Chambers, deputy director of West Coast Seafood Processors Association, stated in an interview with me:

“It’s infuriating. Yes, we need to transfer away from fossil fuels to clean energy, but I’m not sure if anyone has thought through the damages this technology could do to our oceans. Everyone has been full steam ahead. Until now. We have no bargaining power except to keep pushing in the media, pushing to our congressmen, to our local legislators, to our governor. We just keep pushing.”

Read the full story at the Daily Yonder

Commercial fish and seafood workers rally against wind farms on the Oregon coast

May 12, 2022 — Commercial fish and seafood workers rallied along the Coos Bay boardwalk on Tuesday taking a stand against proposed wind farms that are slated for the Southern Oregon coast.

The rally was hosted on the second day of an “Offshore Wind Industry Fly-In” held just down the street at the Mill Casino. The industry conference, hosted by three non-profits with missions dedicated to developing energy along the pacific and Oregon coast, is described as an event that “will bring leadership from the floating offshore wind industry to the coast of Oregon for direct engagement with state and local leadership,” with the goal of “charting the course for Oregon’s first 3 gigawatts of offshore energy.”

This comes less than two weeks after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced its call areas in Brookings and Coos Bay for offshore energy projects it has been in talks with Oregon about. Tickets for the five-day fly-in event were sold for between $1000 and $1500.

One of the rally’s organizers, Lori Steele, executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association said the event was, at least in part, held as a way to show energy companies and leaders at the conference that “there’s already a very, very big industry here for seafood and fishing,” and that “we are here to stay.”

Read the full story at KMTR

Progressive and export-dependent: Oregon is a test for Democrats on trade

April 25, 2022 — Democrats’ conflicting impulses over the future of U.S. trade policy are playing out here in the nation’s Pacific Northwest.

Oregon, in particular, embodies the tension: The state’s economy is highly dependent on free trade and yet its progressive-leaning voters are typically skeptical of its benefits. That tug-of-war is vexing both parties as lawmakers weigh how much to push for more foreign market access for U.S. companies and investors despite the potential for political backlash.

In his visit to Portland late last week, President Joe Biden touted his administration’s investments in ports, airports and other infrastructure projects to speed the movement of goods, while at the same time acknowledging that snarled supply chains have sparked historic inflation.

“All across Oregon, we’re sending the message: These ports and airports are open for more business,” Biden told the crowd at Portland International Airport.

While back home in Oregon last week, [Sen. Ron] Wyden joined [U.S. Trade Representative Katherine] Tai and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on tours of a commercial fishing vessel and semiconductor development facility. The trio heard from seafood industry groups who say they’re being bested on the global market by Chinese rivals who have been accused of overfishing waterways, taking government subsidies and using forced labor.

“On a good day, we struggle to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace,” said Lori Steele, executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association. “Our days have not been good lately.”

Read the full story at Politico

An ocean of noise: how sonic pollution is hurting marine life

April 12, 2022 — We were whaling with cameras, joining a flotilla of a dozen other tourist boats from harbours all around the Salish Sea. It was one of my first trips to the area, in August 2001. The fuzz and beep of ship radios stitched a net over the water, a blurry facsimile of the sonic connections of the whales themselves. Every skipper heard the voices of the others, relayed by electromagnetic waves. The quarry could not escape. “Whales guaranteed” shouted the billboards on shore.

We motored on, weaving around island headlands. A sighting off the south-west shore of San Juan Island. Through binoculars: a dorsal fin scythed the water, then dipped. Another, with a spray of mist as the animal exhaled. Then, no sign. But the whales’ location was easy to spot. A dozen boats clustered, most slowly motoring west, away from the shore. We powered closer, slowing the engine until we were travelling without raising a wake and took our place on the outer edge of the gaggle of yachts and cruisers.

A sheet of marble skated just under the water’s surface. Oily smooth. A spill of black ink sheeting under the hazed bottle glass of the water’s surface. Praaf! Surfacing 15 metres ahead of the boat, the exhalation was plosive and rough.

The pod of about 10 animals came to the surface. Part of the L pod of orcas, our captain said, one of three pods that form the “southern residents” in the waters of the Salish Sea between Seattle and Vancouver, often seen hunting salmon around the San Juan Islands. Others – “transients” that ply coastal waters and “offshores” that feed mostly in the Pacific – also visit regularly. The L pod continued west, heading toward the Haro Strait. Our engines purred as the U-shaped arc of boats tracked the pod, leaving open water ahead of the whales.

We dropped a hydrophone over the boat’s gunwale, its cord feeding a small speaker in a plastic casing. Whale sounds! And engine noise, lots of engine noise. Clicks, like taps on a metal can, came in squalls. These sounds are the whales’ echolocating search beams. The whales use the echoes not only to see through the murky water, but to understand how soft, taut, fast or tremulous matter is around them.

Mixed with the staccato of the whales’ clicks were whistles and high squeaks, sounds that undulate, dart, inflect up and spiral down. These whistles are the sounds of whale conviviality, given most often when the animals are socialising at close range. When the pod is more widely spaced during searches for food, the whales whistle less and communicate with bursts of shorter sound pulses. These sonic bonds not only connect the members of each pod, but distinguish the pod from others.

Today, ocean waters are a tumult of engine noise, sonar and seismic blasts. Sediments from human activities on land cloud the water. Industrial chemicals befuddle the sense of smell of aquatic animals. We are severing the sensory links that gave the world its animal diversity. Whales cannot hear the echolocating pulses that locate their prey, breeding fish cannot find one another amid the noise and turbidity, and the social connections among crustaceans are weakened as their chemical messages and sonic thrums are lost in a haze of human pollution.

Read the full story at The Guardian

California Seeks to Modify Coldwater Pink Shrimp Management

March 31, 2022 — Rules that Oregon and Washington pink shrimp trawlers are already accustomed to may be implemented in California soon.

The California Fish and Game Commission will consider changes to its pink shrimp fishery management plan when it meets in June.

“The effort to develop and implement this FMP began in 2017, and the adoption of the FMP by the Commission is expected in April 2022,” the Notice of Proposed Regulations reads, although the Commission calendar now has the action scheduled in June. “The purpose of the FMP and its implementing regulation is to update the management of California’s pink shrimp fishery to be in line with Oregon and Washington. Updating the fishery’s management would also assist the fishery in obtaining the Marine Stewardship Council certification. This effort is expected to result in a more sustainable and less environmentally impactful fishery.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

Oregon State researchers create tool to help protect native fish from hybridizing with non-natives

March 8, 2022 — Oregon State University researchers have created a tool to assess the risk of hybridization among native and non-native fish, a development that could aid natural resource managers trying to protect threatened or endangered freshwater fish species.

The introduction of non-native species poses challenges to native species, including competition for resources and habitat, exposure to diseases carried by the introduced species and the risk of hybridization, which occurs naturally in wild populations as part of the evolutionary process.

The Oregon State research, just published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, focused on two species: bull trout, a fish native to western North America that is protected under the Endangered Species Act; and brook trout, a native to eastern North America introduced in the West more than 100 years ago for recreational fishing purposes.

Bull trout were once abundant in Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Idaho and Montana but today are found in less than half of their historic range, and no longer exist in California. They are threatened by habitat degradation and fragmentation, blockage of migratory corridors, poor water quality, the effects of climate change and fisheries management practices, including the introduction of brook trout.

Read the full story from Oregon State University

Catching Crabs in a Suffocating Sea

March 7, 2022 — The crab pots are piled high at the fishing docks in Newport, Oregon. Stacks of tire-sized cages fill the parking lot, festooned with colorful buoys and grimy ropes. By this time in July, most commercial fishers have called it a year for Dungeness crab. But not Dave Bailey, the skipper of the 14-meter Morningstar II. The season won’t end for another month, and “demand for fresh, live crab never stops,” Bailey says with a squinting smile and fading Midwestern accent.

Most marine animals don’t breathe air, but they need oxygen to live, absorbing it from the water as they swim, burrow, or cling to the seafloor. But lately, bouts of dangerously low oxygen levels—or hypoxia—have afflicted parts of the North American west coast, affecting critters from halibut to sea stars. These “dead zones” cause ecological disruption and economic pain for fishers like Bailey, who can’t sell crabs that have suffocated in their traps.

The phenomenon offers a preview of what climate change holds for many other parts of Earth’s oceans, which are already stressed by human impacts. As seawater warms, it holds less oxygen. Warmer surface water also acts like a cap that prevents the gas from mixing from the atmosphere down into the deep. And rising air temperatures can shift weather patterns in ways that worsen the problem.

It’s a subtle but significant change. While well-oxygenated water contains about eight milligrams of oxygen per liter, hypoxic water holds less than two and can sometimes approach zero. Overall, the world’s oceans have lost up to two percent of their total oxygen content over the last 50 years, and scientists estimate that they could lose another two to four percent over the next century. By 2100, some amount of climate-related oxygen loss could affect more than three-quarters of the ocean’s area, inflicting widespread damage to marine ecosystems and the billions of people who depend on them.

Read the full story at Hakai Magazine

Cooke gets two wins, advancing Salish Fish steelhead project in Washington

March 1, 2022 — Cooke Aquaculture Pacific has won two victories allowing its plan to farm steelhead in the U.S. state of Washington to advance.

In a unanimous, 9-0 decision, the Washington Supreme Court upheld a decision by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to allow Cook to convert its idle Atlantic salmon net-pen farms to raise steelhead. The move was precipitated by Washington’s ban on farming of non-native species in its waters.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

BOEM Identifies Three Potential Wind Lease Areas Off Oregon

February 28, 2022 — The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has selected three areas off the coast of southern Oregon for potential offshore wind development, and its picks have attracted immediate opposition from fishermens’ advocacy organizations.

According to BOEM, the planning for the three call areas has been under way since late 2019. The initial call for information is a request for comments from stakeholders and the general public, and it is a prelude to the designation of specific lease areas. BOEM’s objective is to identify enough space for three gigawatts of near-term offshore wind power capacity.

The northernmost call area is located just off Coos Bay, Oregon, one of the largest commercial fishing ports in the region. It is also the largest of the three areas – about 1,360 square miles – and the area with the greatest total potential for energy generation. The southernmost call area, near Brookings, has the highest average wind speeds and the lowest levelized cost of energy.

Read the full story at the Maritime Executive