SCeMFiS Archives - Saving Seafood

Community Offshore Wind Joins Science Center for Marine Fisheries; First Offshore Wind Developer to Join

June 24, 2024 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) is pleased to announce that Community Offshore Wind is the latest company to join the Center as a member of its Industry Advisory Board (IAB). The company is the first offshore wind developer to join SCEMFIS.

Community Offshore Wind, a joint venture of RWE and National Grid Ventures, holds the largest offshore wind lease area in the New York Bight, the area between New York and New Jersey. As it works to bring clean energy from offshore wind to homes and businesses across the region, the project is focused on engaging with local communities, promoting dialogue and cooperation with the region’s fishing industry, and working to balance the needs of existing ocean users and the emerging offshore wind power sector.

“Community Offshore Wind is committed to successful coexistence with commercial and recreational fisheries,” said Deirdre Boelke, Fisheries Manager for Community Offshore Wind. “We support SCEMFIS’ approach of science and industry working together for sustainable fisheries, and believe that the growth of offshore wind in the US is an opportunity for the fishing industry, researchers, and developers to identify innovative solutions to build resilient fisheries facing impacts of climate change and other challenges.”

As a member of the Center, Community Offshore Wind will work with representatives of the fishing industry on the IAB to approve and fund needed research on finfish and shellfish. In addition to focusing on how these fish stocks are impacted by a changing climate, the company is also advocating for research on how to improve resiliency in key East Coast fisheries, and other steps to mitigate any potential impacts of offshore wind development.

In the time since Community Offshore Wind joined SCEMFIS, the Center has already begun funding research to help ensure the future viability of surfclam fisheries in the Northeast, with a total of $28,000 allocated to surfclam and shellfish enhancement research.

“We welcome the expertise that Community Offshore Wind will bring as the first offshore wind developer to join our organization,” said Tom Dameron, the Government Relations and Fisheries Science Liaison of Surfside Seafood Products and a SCEMFIS IAB member. “They have taken the first step towards working with us to conduct important research that supports sustainable fisheries and ecosystems, and we hope that other wind developers will follow their lead and similarly engage with the fishing industry.”

By joining SCEMFIS, Community Offshore Wind will benefit from the research and expertise of the universities participating in the Center. This includes leading marine scientists and researchers, as well as a talented pool of students and interns with backgrounds in marine biology, fluid dynamics, socioeconomics, and computer science. It allows for direct collaboration with fishing industry representatives, and direct input on developing and funding research projects, while lowering overhead research costs. Community Offshore Wind will also have access to the peer-reviewed research the Center regularly produces.

For its part, Community Offshore Wind brings to the Center deep expertise in cooperative fisheries research, fisheries management, and the regulatory process, making the Center the ideal collaborative forum for the offshore wind and fishing industries to work together.

Community Offshore Wind is also collaborating proactively with local commercial and recreational fishermen to protect ocean ecosystems, and has developed initiatives to mitigate potential impacts to the fishing industry since its launch. The developer continues to work with the Rotary Club of Huntington and Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Program to restore oyster reefs on Long Island; donated over 90,000 meals of local, sustainable seafood to food banks throughout New Jersey and New York; and is developing project design elements to support coexistence with fisheries.

They are also the first offshore wind developer to sign a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a partnership that will transform environmental monitoring for offshore wind projects and increase transparency between researchers and developers.

Climate change impacting Atlantic shellfish, and scientists predict it will only get worse

July 25, 2022 — A team of researchers form the Science Center for Marine Fisheries, an organization with a number of partners and collaborating scientists from universities like the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, is examining how warmer waters will impact shellfish species harvested in the United States.

The research, centering on ocean quahogs and surfclams, is examining how the two species will begin to interact as changing ocean conditions cause the species to shift habitats. Ocean quahog are one of the longest-lived marine species in the world and inhabit cold waters in the Mid-Atlantic, while surfclams typically inhabit warmer areas.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Restrictive Louisiana Menhaden Legislation Would Have Major Costs; New Report Details Fishery’s Economic Value

May 2, 2022 — The following was released by the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition:

A bill introduced in the Louisiana State Legislature earlier this month would enact harsh restrictions on menhaden fishing within the three miles from shore comprising the state’s waters. Now a new economic report, funded by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS), shows the economic importance of the Gulf menhaden fishery to Louisiana and Mississippi, illustrating how devastating such legislation could be to coastal communities.

Produced by Thomas J. Murray and Associates and led by a respected former Virginia Institute of Marine Science economist, the report shows that over two-thirds (67.7 percent) of the overall Gulf menhaden catch coastwide occurs within three miles of shore, generating $285 million in economic output. Menhaden fishing in these state waters supports 1,400 jobs, according to the report. Overall, the Gulf menhaden fishery generates $419 million in economic output and supports 2,059 jobs.

Louisiana HB1033 would cap landings within three miles of the Louisiana coastline at 260,000 metric tons (MT), which proponents of the bill acknowledge is likely too low. Additionally, the bill would impose progressively harsher catch limits closer to shore, capping landings at 104,000 MT or 5,250 sets between one and two miles from shore, and 52,000 MT or 2,650 sets within one mile of shore. According to the Murray and Associates report, the fishery made over 25,000 sets within one mile of shore between 2015-2019, and another 29,000 sets between one and three miles from shore.

Despite attempts at further regulation, the Gulf menhaden fishery is already being sustainably managed. The most recent stock assessment found that the species is not overfished nor is overfishing occurring. Since 2019, the Gulf menhaden fishery has been certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.

“This report demonstrates that these proposals would likely cause real economic harm to not just the menhaden fishery, but to the coastal communities that rely on it,” said Ben Landry, Director of Public Affairs at Ocean Harvesters, which operates a fleet of menhaden fishing vessels. “Severely restricting our fishermen in state waters is both damaging and unnecessary.”

The report looked at the direct, indirect, and induced impacts of the fishery, which is one of the largest in the region. To get a complete picture of the fishery’s economic footprint in Louisiana and Mississippi, the report considered the value of menhaden landings themselves, income generated from fishing, employment activity, and business and tax revenues.

Using landings and employment data provided by the fishery, as well as a statistical model to estimate economic impact, the report found $260 million in direct economic output. It found an additional $45 million in indirect economic output from interactions with other economic sectors that rely on the menhaden fishery and marketing related industries. It found $115 million in induced “third wave” output from increased household expenditures on goods and services throughout the region thanks to the fishery. And it found $25 million in state and local business taxes generated by the fishery.

The report further broke down impacts based on where menhaden were caught relative to shore. The single largest portion of the fishery’s economic impact occurred within one to three miles of shore, with $147 million in output coming from those areas, supporting 719 jobs.

SCEMFIS is partially funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation as part of its Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers program.

Read the full release at Accesswire

New Study Develops Method to Age Ocean Quahog, Longest-Lived Species in the Ocean

April 21, 2022 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

Ocean quahogs are some of the longest-lived animals in the world, with the oldest specimens in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic regularly recorded at over 200 years old. But even though they are famous for their longevity, many details about the age structure of ocean quahogs—such as how it affects estimates of recruitment, biomass, and growth—are still not well understood. A newly published study finds that ocean quahogs have recruited continuously for over 200 years on Georges Bank, off the East Coast of the U.S., while also providing new tools to researchers and fisheries managers to better understand the species.

Funded by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS), the study collected a large sample of ocean quahogs—gathering over 600 specimens—and recorded relevant information on them, including age, length, and sex. Researchers then took that information to develop what’s known as an “age-length key,” which charts the probability of an animal of a given age being a specific length. The key can be used to determine the distribution of ages in a population based on the simple determination of the distribution of lengths.

Currently, ocean quahog models used for management are based on the length of the ocean quahog, rather than its age. Like trees, ocean quahogs can be aged by counting the growth rings that form over time, in this case on its outer shell. But because the process of directly determining an individual ocean quahog’s age is time-consuming and impractical for most larger surveys, length has been used instead as a proxy for age.

The age-length key resulting from this study, given the size of the sample of ocean quahogs collected, is a robust data set that can be consulted to quickly estimate ages of thousands of quahogs using only animal lengths. A reliable age-length key improves the potential to introduce more age-based data into ocean quahog management, making it more consistent with how other species are managed.

“Because ocean quahogs are so long-lived, getting a method to quickly and accurately estimate their age is critically important,” said Kathleen Hemeon, of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory and one of the authors of the study, which was published in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. “Having this kind of age and length data available can help change the way we manage the species.”

In addition to developing a more comprehensive age-length key, the study had other notable findings that are important in furthering our understanding of ocean quahogs. In the ocean quahogs sampled, the study confirmed that ocean quahogs are a sexually dimorphic species, with female ocean quahogs generally larger than males. It also found that recruitment, or the number of new ocean quahogs that are successfully born into the population every year, has been an annual occurrence since the late 1800s, which is notable given their long lifespans and suspected delayed maturity. In its sampling, the study collected the oldest ocean quahog on record in Massachusetts, at 261 years old.

“This study addresses a conundrum that has bedeviled quahog fishery managers for many years – namely, whether recruitment occurs consistently, or only sporadically in cycles some thirty years apart,” said Tom Alspach, of Sea Watch International, a seafood company based in Maryland. “This evidence of consistent annual recruitment can remove a level of uncertainty from management decision-making, leading to greater confidence in more generous quota setting, with a direct positive impact on industry.”

About SCEMFIS

SCEMFIS utilizes academic and fisheries resources to address urgent scientific problems limiting sustainable fisheries. SCEMFIS develops methods, analytical and survey tools, datasets, and analytical approaches to improve sustainability of fisheries and reduce uncertainty in biomass estimates. SCEMFIS university partners, University of Southern Mississippi (lead institution), and Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, are the academic sites. Collaborating scientists who provide specific expertise in finfish, shellfish, and marine mammal research, come from a wide range of academic institutions including Old Dominion University, Rutgers University, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, University of Maryland, and University of Rhode Island.

The need for the diverse services that SCEMFIS can provide to industry continues to grow, which has prompted a steady increase in the number of fishing industry partners. These services include immediate access to science expertise for stock assessment issues, rapid response to research priorities, and representation on stock assessment working groups. Targeted research leads to improvements in data collection, survey design, analytical tools, assessment models, and other needs to reduce uncertainty in stock status and improve reference point goals.

New study offers improvements to estimating shellfish populations

March 14, 2022 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

A new study, jointly conducted and funded by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), finds ways to reduce a source of uncertainty in the Atlantic surfclam and ocean quahog population estimates: defining the efficiency of the survey gear. The study, published in Fishery Bulletin, is part of the Center’s long-running efforts to improve our understanding of shellfish.

The dredge efficiency issue, which dates to the early 1990s, is about how effective clam research survey vessels are at catching surfclams and ocean quahogs. The efficiency of a clam dredge—which is a measure of the proportion of Atlantic surfclams or ocean quahogs on the ocean floor that a dredge can catch—is one of the key variables in stock assessment population estimates. The efficiency of the dredge is a primary factor affecting the biomass estimate of the stock and therefore an important criterion determining how the assessment evaluates the status of the stock relative to management goals.

One way researchers measure efficiency is through field depletion experiments, where a dredge is run multiple times in a single area to measure the percentage of available shellfish it caught with each tow. These experiments are used in both the Atlantic surfclam and ocean quahog assessments to help estimate their dredge efficiencies. There is no way to know what true dredge efficiency is, but conducting many depletion experiments allows scientists to make a reasonable estimate.

The first depletion experiment was conducted in 1997 as a joint effort between NMFS, academic scientists, and the clam fishery. This team carried out many such studies over the following 15 years, making this one of the longest running successful collaborations of this type. This recent study addresses the remaining uncertainty surrounding dredge efficiency by looking at data from this large set of depletion experiments conducted over two decades and examines the quality of these experiments and the efficiency estimates they produced. Specifically, the study took a close look at simulated depletion experiments, where scientists know what the true dredge efficiency is, to identify common characteristics of studies that do a good job estimating dredge efficiency compared to those that do a poor job.

By focusing on the “best” experiments and identifying field experiments that potentially produced inaccurate efficiency estimates, scientists can refine the set of depletion studies used to help estimate efficiency in stock assessments. This refined set of depletion studies has particular influence on non-model-based biomass estimates, which play an important role in verifying the model-based results and are commonly used in management. Once identified, characteristics of good and bad depletion experiments can also inform methodology used in future experiments.

“Identifying field depletion experiments with accurate efficiency estimates helps confirm present stock assessment models’ gear efficiency estimates,” said Leanne Poussard, of the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory and the lead author of the study.

“Ms. Poussard’s work has rekindled interest in the cooperative depletion experiment dataset and produced important guidance for anyone undertaking similar experiments in the future”, said Dr. Dan Hennen of NMFS.

SCEMFIS: New Survey Will Help Fill Gaps in Menhaden Count in New England, Mid-Atlantic

January 14, 2022 — The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) highlighted a new project that will look to count a population of menhaden that could help inform not only a local New Jersey fishery but other fisheries in New England and the Mid-Atlantic region.

A team from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s (UMCES) Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, in collaboration with NOAA Fisheries are on the verge of launching a winter population survey of menhaden, specifically off the coast of New Jersey, SCEMFIS said.

That area is home to a growing winter bait fishery but because there hasn’t been much work to survey the population that far north, there is not a strong enough count of how many fish are in that area.

The survey, which will launch from Cape May, New Jersey, will use sonar equipment to estimate the number of menhaden schooling in the area, and will collect additional information to estimate age, size, and weight, data that will be important for managing the fishery, per SCEMFIS.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Growing fishery? NOAA to work on winter survey of menhaden off N.J. coast

January 14, 2022 — The surprising news last weekend was not just the striped bass bite on the Ocean County beaches, but the numbers of menhaden off the coast here in January. NOAA has also taken notice of the baitfish and is collaborating on a survey of their winter population here.

The researchers that are working on it are from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s (UMCES) Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, in collaboration with NOAA Fisheries. The winter population survey of menhaden will specifically look at the menhaden spending the season off the coast of New Jersey.

According to the Science Center for Marine Fisheries in Virginia which released a statement on the survey, the researchers believe New Jersey is home to a growing winter bait fishery but there have been few attempts to survey menhaden this far north and there is currently not a good count of how many menhaden are in the area. Data is also lacking on measurements like age and weight compositions.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

Science group funds $126,000 for Atlantic fisheries studies

January 5, 2022 — Atlantic thread herring, squid, surf clams and ocean quahogs are the focus for $126,000 in funding approved by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries’ industry advisory board for 2022 research projects.

SCEMFIS is part of the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers program. By connecting and marine scientists with members of the fishing industry, the center identifies scientific priorities for better understanding commercially important fish species, and directs industry funding to projects that study them.

“Since its founding, SCEMFIS has promoted research that has increased our understanding of these species, and improved their management,” according to the center’s announcement of its 2022 plan.

Topping the list with $69,336 in funding is a study using biostatistical and fishery-dependent sampling of Atlantic thread herring and Atlantic chub mackerel in the mid-Atlantic region, where a fishery for thread herring is developing in the Mid-Atlantic region as a result of climate change and the subsequent shifting of fish stocks.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Science Center for Marine Fisheries Approves $126,000 in New Research for 2022

January 3, 2022 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) has funded $126,000 in new marine science research for 2022. The funds, approved by the members of the Center’s Industry Advisory Board at its annual fall meeting, will support new, much-needed research on prominent fisheries such as thread herring, ocean quahogs, squid, and surfclams.

Part of the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers program, SCEMFIS connects marine scientists with members of the fishing industry to identify scientific priorities for better understanding commercially important fish species, and directs industry funding to projects that study them. Since its founding, SCEMFIS has promoted research that has increased our understanding of these species, and improved their management.

The following research projects were approved by SCEMFIS for 2022:

Biostatistical and fishery-dependent sampling of Atlantic thread herring and Atlantic chub mackerel in the mid-Atlantic region – As a result of climate change and the subsequent migration of fish stocks, a fishery for Atlantic thread herring is developing in the Mid-Atlantic. As part of that development, fisheries managers need better biological data on the species in order to manage it sustainably. This project, led by Dr. Robert Leaf (University of Southern Mississippi), will conduct a sampling survey of thread herring to collect data on the fish being harvested by the fishery, including factors such as age, length, and weight. ($69,336 in funding)
Ocean quahog population dynamics: project completion – SCEMFIS researchers have worked extensively at expanding our understanding of ocean quahog, especially work in charting the age frequencies for quahogs in the Northwest Atlantic, as well as measuring the uncertainty that comes with estimating the age-at-length of quahogs. This project, led by Dr. Eric Powell (University of Southern Mississippi), and Dr. Roger Mann (Virginia Institute of Marine Science), will complete the Center’s ongoing work on ocean quahog, finishing and publishing current unpublished research on quahog age frequencies. ($41,210 in funding)
Genetic and age structure of Southern surfclams – The surfclam fishery has recently resumed fishing in the waters off the coast of Virginia in a region where high bottom water temperatures have led to the deaths of most Atlantic surfclams during much of the 2010s. Increased survival recently may be due to recruitment of the Southern surfclam. To better understand how and why surfclams have returned to this area, this project, led Dr. Daphne Munroe (Rutgers University), will conduct genetic testing on a sample of clams from the area. The tests will help determine their relationship with the rest of the coastwide Atlantic surfclam stock. ($10,795 in funding)
Squid age estimation using CAT Scan technology – A recurring challenge in managing squid is the lack of demographic data available to estimate the ages of the squid in the population. This project, led by Dr. Roger Mann, (Virginia Institute of Marine Science), will evaluate the use of CAT scan technology as a tool to age squid. The scans will be used to measure the size of squid statoliths, which are the hard structures in squid heads that grow over time, and attempt to age the squid based on these measurements. ($5,000 in funding).

About SCEMFIS
SCEMFIS utilizes academic and fisheries resources to address urgent scientific problems limiting sustainable fisheries. SCEMFIS develops methods, analytical and survey tools, datasets, and analytical approaches to improve sustainability of fisheries and reduce uncertainty in biomass estimates. SCEMFIS university partners, University of Southern Mississippi (lead institution), and Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, are the academic sites. Collaborating scientists who provide specific expertise in finfish, shellfish, and marine mammal research, come from a wide range of academic institutions including Old Dominion University, Rutgers University, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, University of Maryland, and University of Rhode Island.

Ahead of Magnuson-Stevens Act Hearing, Studies Question Need for Additional Forage Fish Restrictions

November 16, 2021 — Editor’s note: The following was released ahead of today’s House subcommittee hearing on the Forage Fish Conservation Act. Watch the full hearing here.

Today, the House Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Water Oceans and Wildlife will hold a hearing on H.R. 5770, the Forage Fish Conservation Act, which would impose new rules on how fisheries managers regulate certain small, schooling, short-lived, pelagic fish and invertebrates that serve as food sources for larger predator species. Two recent studies have raised questions about the need for additional restrictions, and point to existing provisions in the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) that are already ensuring the sustainability of “forage fish” and the species that depend on them.

In addition to the Forage Fish Conservation Act, the subcommittee will consider two bills that would reauthorize and amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA). H.R. 4690 is the Democratic Majority’s re-authorization of MSA, sponsored by Subcommittee Chair Jared Huffman (D-California) and H.R. 59, sponsored by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska).

Proponents of the Forage Fish Act point to the need to keep forage fish populations at extra-precautionary levels, above existing overfishing limits, so that they can better provide for the needs of predator species. But a study released this summer in the journal Conservation Biology, and funded by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS), found that, for many predator species, managing forage species at these levels are unlikely to bring additional conservation or environmental benefits. This is especially true in already well-managed and well-monitored fisheries, such as those in the U.S. managed under the existing Magnuson-Stevens Act.

“Management of forage fish populations should be based on data that are specific to that forage fish, and to their predators,” said Dr. Olaf Jensen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the study’s authors. “When there aren’t sufficient data to conduct a population-specific analysis, it’s reasonable to manage forage fish populations for maximum sustainable yield, as we would other fish populations under the Magnuson-Stevens Act.”

Dr. Jensen and his co-author Dr. Chris Free of the University of California Santa Barbara discuss the results of the paper at greater length in a video released earlier this year. They are joined by scientists Dr. Doug Butterworthof the University of Cape Town, and Dr. Éva Plagányi of CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, who offer their independent assessment of the study and their own conclusions on its findings.

To reach these conclusions, the study examined decades worth of abundance data for 45 different predator species and their prey, and found that only 13 percent of them showed any positive impact from having additional, higher levels of forage. Instead, it found that other environmental factors have a far greater influence.

The results of the study reinforce the conclusions of an earlier 2017 study published in Fisheries Research, which found that the fishing of forage fish species had a much smaller impact than previous studies had indicated, and that forage fish were best managed on a case-by-case basis, rather than on broad rules applied across species.