Saving Seafood

Rutgers University Looking for Participants for Survey on Economic Impact of COVID-19

May 18, 2020 — The following was released by Rutgers University:

Scientists at the Rutgers University Center for Fisheries and Ocean Sustainability are conducting a study of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on commercial fishermen and their livelihoods in the Northeast US.

Study organizer, Dr. Victoria Ramenzoni says: “There are many media reports of fishermen suffering devastating losses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated market changes and required social distancing measures. We want to hear from fishermen themselves about how they’ve been impacted, what support they’re receiving, and how they’re adapting”.

All commercial fishermen (including vessel owners, captains, and crew) in the Northeast US (North Carolina through Maine) are invited to complete the 15 minute anonymous survey online here: https://rutgers.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1MiTWJDQDt4atTf

The survey will remain open until May 31.

Gov. Murphy just unveiled N.J.’s master plan for energy and made a big pledge to fight climate change

January 28, 2020 — New Jersey will become the first state in the nation to require builders to consider the impact of climate change if they want their projects approved, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Monday as he unveiled the final version of the state’s new energy master plan.

The Democratic governor outlined the plan in a speech at Stockton University in Galloway, calling the 290-page document “ground zero” for “weaning the state off its century-old addiction to fossil fuels.”

The document lays out the Murphy administration’s vision for how to ensure the state reaches its lofty green energy goals: 50% clean energy by 2030, and 100% clean energy by 2050.

The plan is intended to slash the Garden State’s greenhouse gas emissions, reducing New Jersey’s contribution to climate change.

Murphy warned Monday that climate change is direct threat to New Jersey. He citied a recent Rutgers University report that said sea levels along New Jersey’s coast are expected to rise more than one foot by 2030 and two feet by 2050.

Read the full story at NJ.com

Acoustic survey to study right whales, fish around offshore wind projects

January 23, 2020 — Acoustic sensors on buoys and an undersea drone will be used to map out the movements of endangered northern right whales, marine mammals and fish around offshore wind energy sites, in a joint project with wind developer Ørsted and marine science institutions.

Ørsted on Wednesday announced the “Ecosystem and Passive Acoustic Monitoring” project is launching in cooperation with Rutgers University, the University of Rhode Island and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in addition to the company’s 2019 agreement to support Rutgers research related to wind energy development.

Rutgers will supply a Slocum electric glider, an undersea probe that can operate autonomously for weeks at a time, periodically surfacing to transmit its data back via satellite link. Now widely used in oceanography, the glider technology will be a first for Ørsted, one of the pioneer companies in European offshore wind.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Rising sea level, flooding risk threaten Northeast ports

October 30, 2019 — Sea surface temperatures along the Northeast U.S. Atlantic coast have risen faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans since 2004, and the accompanying change in sea level rise is putting the region at increasing risk from tidal flooding and storms, according to a new report from climate researchers.

Released on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Sandy’s Oct. 29, 2012 landfall, the report “New Jersey’s Rising Coastal Risk” by the Rhodium Group’s energy and climate team, with contributions from scientists at Rutgers University, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago.

Sandy hit land as an post-tropical system after shedding some hurricane characteristics ­— its sustained windspeed at landfall did not even qualify as Category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity — but it delivered a storm surge not seen since the great hurricane of 1821.

That surge, later estimated at 14.4 feet at Sandy Hook, N.J., inundated neighborhoods all around the New York Harbor complex, including the commercial fishing port of Belford, N.J. The port’s fleet survived the storm, but its infrastructure was heavily damaged, losing electrical and refrigeration equipment, and the Belford Seafood Cooperative’s restaurant.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Climate change threatens commercial fishers from Maine to North Carolina

June 18, 2019 — Most fishing communities from North Carolina to Maine are projected to face declining fishing options unless they adapt to climate change by catching different species or fishing in different areas, according to a study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Some Maine fishing communities were at greatest risk of losing their current fishing options, according to the study by Rutgers and other scientists.

“Some communities like Portland, Maine, are on track to lose out, while others like Mattituck, New York, or Sandwich, Massachusetts, may do better as waters warm,” said senior author Malin Pinsky, an associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “Adapting to climate change for many communities will require fundamentally new approaches to fishing. Change has become the new normal.”

Fishing has been the economic and cultural lifeblood for many coastal towns and cities along the Northeast coast, in some cases for hundreds of years, Pinsky said. But climate change is expected to have a major impact on the distribution, abundance and diversity of marine species worldwide, the study notes.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Ørsted US Offshore Wind announces partnership with Rutgers University

May 17, 2019 — Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind will support academic research activities related to offshore wind at Rutgers University under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed Thursday.

Ørsted will make an initial contribution to Rutgers, followed by additional funding contingent upon being granted an OREC application by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.

Ørsted submitted an application for its Ocean Wind project to the NJBPU in December 2018 to develop the first offshore wind farm in New Jersey. The announcement for the award is expected from the NJBPU in summer 2019.

“Rutgers University is a premier institution that can provide us with ongoing research that will help propel the New Jersey offshore wind industry forward,” Thomas Brostrøm, CEO of Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind and president of Ørsted North America, said in a statement. “We are very happy to partner with them as we progress with our Ocean Wind project.”

Read the full story at NJBiz

Ocean-Dwelling Species Are Disappearing Twice as Quickly as Land Animals

April 26, 2019 — Marine animals are twice as vulnerable to climate change-driven habitat loss as their land-dwelling counterparts, a new survey published in the journal Nature finds.

As Mark Kaufman reports for Mashable, the analysis—centered on around 400 cold-blooded species, including fish, mollusks, crustaceans and lizards—suggests marine creatures are ill-equipped to adapt to rising temperatures and, unlike land animals that can seek shelter in the shade or a burrow, largely unable to escape the heat.

“You don’t have anywhere to go,” Natalya Gallo, a marine ecologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who was not involved in the study, tells Kaufman. “Maybe you can hide under a kelp leaf, but the entire water around you has warmed.”

Speaking with National Geographic’s Christina Nunez, lead author Malin Pinsky, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, further explains that ocean dwellers “live in an environment that, historically, hasn’t changed temperature all that much.”

Given that cold-blooded creatures rely on their surroundings to regulate body temperature, relatively stable marine ecosystems have actually made their inhabitants more susceptible to significant temperature changes. And while ocean temperatures are still much lower than those on land, as Anthony J. Richardson and David S. Schoeman point out in an accompanying Nature News and Views piece, marine heat waves, increased carbon dioxide pollution and other products of global warming are driving Earth’s oceans to higher temperatures than ever before.

To assess the threat posed by warming waters, Pinsky and her colleagues calculated “thermal safety margins” for 318 terrestrial and 88 marine animals. According to Motherboard’s Becky Ferreira, this measure represents the difference between a species’ upper heat tolerance and its body temperature at both full heat exposure and in “thermal refuge,” or cooled down sanctuaries ranging from shady forests to the depths of the ocean.

Read the full story at Smithsonian.com

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