Saving Seafood

Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network Seeking Stakeholder Perspectives on Ocean Acidification

April 11, 2019 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network (MACAN) is seeking perspectives on ocean acidification from members of commercial fishing, seafood, aquaculture, charter boat and recreational fishing organizations in the Mid-Atlantic. MACAN is a nexus of scientists, tribal, federal, and state agency representatives, resource managers, and affected industry partners who seek to coordinate and guide regional observing, research, and modeling of ocean and coastal acidification. MACAN would like to gain a better understanding of how stakeholders see coastal and ocean acidification affecting business operations or recreational fishing activities now or in the future. In addition, MACAN is seeking thoughts on opportunities to raise awareness and encourage participation in regional efforts to monitor for and adapt to coastal and ocean acidification.

You can help by participating in MACAN’s Stakeholder Outreach Survey. To access the survey, click on your industry or affiliation from the list below. The survey should take about 5-10 minutes to complete. Your responses are voluntary and anonymous. Please respond by June 14, 2019.

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact survey coordinators Kirstin Wakefield at kirstin.wakefield@gmail.com or Grace Saba at saba@marine.rutgers.edu. If you’d like to learn more about MACAN, please visit www.MidACAN.org, or send an email to: info@MidACAN.org.

This survey is a collaborative effort with Rutgers University. For more information, please contact Dr. Grace Saba, Assistant Professor, Center for Ocean Observing Leadership, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, 71 Dudley Rd, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. Email: saba@marine.rutgers.edu.

Climate Change Is Already Reshaping Commercial Fishing

March 26, 2019 — The ocean has been steadily warming over the past 100 years, absorbing most of the heat trapped by atmospheric greenhouse gases. Unless we swiftly and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the ocean could warm by as much as 4°C in the next 80 years. This puts fish and the people they feed and employ in hot water. Half of the planet relies on fish as a vital source of protein, and the fishing industry employs more than 56 million people worldwide.

Understanding where and why fisheries have been impacted by warming is necessary to ensure that the ocean remains a source of both nutrition and prosperity. In a study published in Science, I, along with colleagues from Rutgers University and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, show that ocean warming has already hurt fisheries’ ability to provide food and support livelihoods around the globe.

Fisheries are like a bank account, where we live off the interest. If fishing reduces the principal too much, the interest is lowered. Similarly, if the environment reduces the interest rate, the interest is also lowered. We combined maps of historical ocean temperature with estimates of historical fish abundance to see how warming has affected the interest rate and returns from the global fisheries bank account.

Fish don’t want their water too hot or too cold. As the ocean warms, they move poleward and into deeper water to follow their preferred temperatures. The impacts of these shifts are complicated; depending on the species, ocean warming and its knock-on effects can either increase or decrease the habitat available to fish. This can either increase or decrease the availability of important species in the food chain. Thus, ocean warming might benefit some fish populations while hurting others.

This is what we found in our research. Although warming has benefited some fisheries, it has hurt others. The losers outweighed the winners, resulting in a net 4% decline in sustainable catch potential over the last 80 years. Four percent might sound small, but it represents a loss of 1.4 million metric tons previously available for food and income.

Some regions have been hit especially hard. The North Sea, which supports large commercial fisheries for species like Atlantic cod, haddock, and herring, has experienced a 35% loss in sustainable catch potential since 1930. The waters of East Asia, neighbored by some of the fastest growing human populations in the world, have seen losses of 8% to 35% across three seas.

Read the full story at Baron’s

Black seabass terrorizing New England’s lobsters

March 14, 2019 — Black seabass — a saltwater fish that previously was rarely taken commercially and recreationally in Massachusetts, US, or other parts of southern New England — have increased in number there and are rattling the lobster industry, reports the MV Times, a local news service.

They’re eating the younger, smaller crustaceans, in particular, and maiming the larger ones they can’t fit in their mouths.

“They feed aggressively,” Rutgers University marine biologist Olaf Jensen is quoted as saying. “They’re not picky eaters. If it’s the right size and it’s alive, they’ll eat it.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Black sea bass gobbling up lobsters

March 12, 2019 — Black sea bass, a saltwater fish taken commercially and recreationally in Massachusetts, have increased in number throughout southern New England waters and rattled the lobster industry with their wolfish appetites.

“They feed aggressively,” Rutgers University marine biologist Olaf Jensen said. “They’re not picky eaters. If it’s the right size and it’s alive, they’ll eat it.”

The young of New England’s iconic crustacean fall into the right size category. “Black sea bass love little lobsters,” Michael Armstrong, assistant director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, said.

That’s of deep concern to Beth Casoni, president of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, who says lobster traps are being pillaged by these fish. They are often hauled up with the bass inside the traps, alongside lobsters they couldn’t fit in their mouths, she said. Even more concerning to Casoni is their alleged habit of picking off undersize lobsters tossed overboard by lobstermen.

Read the full story at The Martha’s Vineyard Times 

Past decisions in seafood management portend future actions, Rutgers study finds

January 23, 2019 — A study led by Rutgers University has shown that the choice to conserve or overharvest renewable resources such as fish is often due to habits and past decisions, which could help fisheries discover why some succeed at conservation and others fail.

The study, “Path-dependent institutions drive alternative stable states in conservation,” was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It showed that conservation is significantly easier to continue once it has already been started.

According to lead author Edward W. Tekwa, those who start conserving can often continue with it, but when conservation is not being practiced, the opposite is true.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Ocean Warming Is Accelerating Faster Than Thought, New Research Finds

January 14, 2019 — Scientists say the world’s oceans are warming far more quickly than previously thought, a finding with dire implications for climate change because almost all the excess heat absorbed by the planet ends up stored in their waters.

A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago. The researchers also concluded that ocean temperatures have broken records for several straight years.

“2018 is going to be the warmest year on record for the Earth’s oceans,” said Zeke Hausfather, an energy systems analyst at the independent climate research group Berkeley Earth and an author of the study. “As 2017 was the warmest year, and 2016 was the warmest year.”

As the planet has warmed, the oceans have provided a critical buffer. They have slowed the effects of climate change by absorbing 93 percent of the heat trapped by the greenhouse gases humans pump into the atmosphere.

“If the ocean wasn’t absorbing as much heat, the surface of the land would heat up much faster than it is right now,” said Malin L. Pinsky, an associate professor in the department of ecology, evolution and natural resources at Rutgers University. “In fact, the ocean is saving us from massive warming right now.”

Read the full story at The New York Times

URI and VIMS Researchers Show Aquaculture Oysters Can Limit Spread of Dermo in Wild Oysters

December 19, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Recent research carried out at the University of Rhode Island and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science has found that growing farmed oysters can reduce disease loads in wild oysters.

This counter-intuitive finding is based on the fact that the primary killer of wild oysters is Dermo, a parasite that occurs naturally in the environment, and lives in the tissue of oysters.  The single celled parasite is harmless to humans, and has nothing to do with bacteria such as vibrio.

“The very act of aquaculture has positive effects on wild populations of oysters,” said Tal Ben-Horin, a postdoctoral fellow at the URI Department of Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences. “The established way of thinking is that disease spreads from aquaculture, but in fact aquaculture may limit disease in nearby wild populations.”

Working with colleagues at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Rutgers University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Ben-Horin integrated data from previous studies into mathematical models to examine the interactions between farmed oysters, wild oysters and the common oyster disease Dermo.

Basically, Dermo is spread through an oyster reef when infected oysters die, and their tissues decay.  But aquaculture, particularly caged or bagged oysters off the seabed, act as filters, and take in the Dermo parasite, but they are harvested and sold before the parasite has any lethal effects.

The net result is that near oyster farms, the incidence of wild Dermo goes down.

According to Ben-Horin, diseases are among the primary limiting factors in wild oyster populations. There are few wild populations of oysters in New England because of Dermo and other diseases, and in the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay, wild oysters are managed with the understanding that most will die from disease.

“As long as aquaculture farmers harvest their product before the disease peaks, then they have a positive effect on wild populations,” Ben-Horin said. “But if they’re left in the water too long, the positive effect turns negative.”

The study’s findings have several implications for the management of wild and farmed oysters. Ben-Horin recommends establishing best management practices for the amount of time oysters remain on farms before harvest. He also suggests that aquaculture managers consider the type of gear – whether farmers hold oysters in cages and bags or directly on the seabed – when siting new oyster aquaculture operations near wild oyster populations.

This story was originally published by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Oyster aquaculture limits disease in wild oyster populations

December 17, 2018 — A fisheries researcher at the University of Rhode Island has found that oyster aquaculture operations can limit the spread of disease among wild populations of oysters. The findings are contrary to long-held beliefs that diseases are often spread from farmed populations to wild populations.

“The very act of aquaculture has positive effects on wild populations of oysters,” said Tal Ben-Horin, a postdoctoral fellow at the URI Department of Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences. “The established way of thinking is that disease spreads from aquaculture, but in fact aquaculture may limit disease in nearby wild populations.”

Working with colleagues at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Rutgers University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Ben-Horin integrated data from previous studies into mathematical models to examine the interactions between farmed oysters, wild oysters and the common oyster disease Dermo.

Read the full story from the University of Rhode Island at Phys.org

Warming waters and migrating fish stocks could cause political conflict

August 8, 2018 — Climate change is driving fish species to migrate to new areas, and 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 a recent study published in the journal Science.

Already, fish and other marine animals have shifted 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.

When fish cross into new territory, it might prompt competitive harvesting between countries scrambling to exploit disappearing resources.

“Conflict leads to overfishing, which reduces food, profit, and jobs that fisheries can provide, and can also fracture international relations in other, non-fishery sectors,” Malin Pinsky, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of biology at Rutgers University, told SeafoodSource.

The study looked at the distribution of nearly 900 commercially important marine fish and invertebrates, examining how their movements intersect with 261 of the world’s Exclusive Economic Zones. By 2100, more than 70 countries will see new fish stocks in their waters if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rates.

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions could reduce the scale and number of these migrations by half or more, Pinsky said.

Conflict over shifting fish stocks is not unheard of. In the 2000s, migrating mackerel in the northeast Atlantic caused such a rift between Iceland and other nations that it played a role in derailing attempts to join the European Union. In the eastern Pacific, a bout of warm ocean temperatures in the 1980s and 1990s shifted salmon spawning patterns, prompting a scuffle between U.S. and Canada.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Sharks Are Creeping Into the Northeast Because of Climate Change

July 30, 2018 — Warmer waters are pushing the animals further north into previously shark-free waters. Should we be worried?

Shark Week, Discovery Channel’s annual homage to the ocean’s most infamous predator, comes to a close this weekend.

But residents of northeastern states like New York—long considered a relatively shark-free zone—might not have to wait until July 2019 to see more, as global warming has been linked with a significant northern shift in the habitats of most marine animals, including most sharks.

“There’s an astounding mass migration of animal life towards the poles,” Malin Pinsky, an associate professor in Rutgers’ Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, told The Daily Beast. In his work with spiny dogfish, a thin, small shark that lives along most of the East Coast, he’s seen their habitat shift “quite substantially.”

Pinsky isn’t the only scientist to make this observation. In April, researchers in North Carolina published a paper in Nature’s Scientific Resources that documented the northern migration of bull shark nurseries.

By analyzing data from North Carolina’s Division of Marine Fisheries (NCDMF), the researchers found that between 2003 and 2011, when water temperatures in the sound were hovering closer to 22 degrees Celsius, only six juvenile sharks were caught in the area. But as temperatures began to rise, a group of bull sharks migrated from their previous home in Northern Florida and established a nursery in Pamlico, causing a drastic uptick in juvenile shark presence. Between 2011 and 2016 alone, NCDMF found 53.

Read the full story at The Daily Beast