Saving Seafood

Op-ed: Research papers misrepresent impacts of marine protected areas

April 10, 2024 — Ray Hilborn is a professor at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Washington State Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded the Volvo Environmental Prize and the International Fisheries Science Prize and has published over 300 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

A paper from Ocean University of China Researcher Mark John Costello, “Evidence of economic benefits from marine protected areas,” published on 27 March in Scientia Marina, which concluded marine protected areas (MPAs) boost overall economic performance of fisheries, contains many factual errors and violates the standards of a review of the subject.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

In California’s Protected Waters, Counting Fish Without Getting Wet

September 8, 2015 — Diver Dan Abbott unloads his scuba gear on a beach in Monterey, Calif. — his tank, flippers and a waterproof clipboard covered in tally marks. He spent the morning counting fish: pile perch, black perch, blue rockfish and kelp rockfish are among the 150 fish he spotted.

Abbott is diving with a team from Reef Check California, a group of volunteers doing underwater surveys by counting everything in the kelp forest in Monterey Bay.

He’s part of an effort to determine whether there are more fish in the waters now than there were eight years ago. That’s when this kelp forest was set aside as a marine protected area, where there’s little or no fishing allowed, part of a huge experiment to restore marine life.

There are more than a hundred protected areas off California, covering 16 percent of state waters, and the only way to know if they’re working is for Abbott and others to keep checking the marine population year after year.

Read the full story at New York Now

Public invited to join NOAA on deep sea expedition of Pacific marine protected areas

July 30, 2015 — NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer will begin two months of dives using unmanned remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, to explore marine protected areas in the central Pacific Ocean. Starting on Aug. 1, anyone with an internet connection can virtually explore the deep sea with scientists and researchers from their computer or mobile device.

The ship and its crew will investigate deeper waters in and around Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, and the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.

“These areas represent some of the last relatively pristine marine ecosystems on the planet,” said Holly Bamford, assistant NOAA administrator for the National Ocean Service performing the duties of the assistant secretary of commerce for conservation and management. “NOAA explores these regions because the data and information we gather helps scientists and resource managers better understand and protect these biological, geological and cultural resources that we are already aware of and those we will discover in the future.”

The expedition team will explore the seafloor at depths of 1,300 to 16,250 feet (400 to 5,000 meters) with two ROVs, which are tethered toOkeanos Explorer. The vehicles are outfitted with multiple high-definition cameras to capture imagery which the ship will transmit back to shore. Scientists will participate virtually, guiding the expedition from shore, while the public can tune in and view the exploration in real time at oceanexplorer.noaa.gov.

The work around Johnston Atoll will be the largest scientific effort conducted there since President Obama expanded the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument in September 2014.

“These places provide invaluable habitat for corals, birds and many other species — that’s one of the reasons they’ve been protected — but we don’t know much about what’s in the deep-sea areas,” said Samantha Brooke, manager for NOAA’s Marine National Monument Program in the NOAA Fisheries.

Read the full release at NOAA