Saving Seafood

When Environmentalists and the Fishing Industry Team Up, Ocean Habitats Win

February 4, 2020 — When it comes to threatened Pacific species, groundfish rarely get the glory. They are not as charismatic as orcas, nor is their life history as inspiring as salmon’s. As seas warm and the threats of climate change take effect, what these bottom-dwellers—and the cultures that depend on them—do have going for them is an incredible and unexpected comeback story.

Historically, the Pacific groundfish fishery was run as a derby—essentially a race for fish. By the 1970s, massive quantities of fish and bycatch were being hauled in via trawl nets all along the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. But by the late 1990s, research began to reveal signs of overfishing among groundfish, which includes dozens of species that live near the ocean bottom, such as rockfish, roundfish, and flatfish. Since many of these species are long-lived, they are slow to grow and reproduce, meaning they’re also slow to recover from overharvesting. As the century turned, managers scrambled to close certain areas to fishing and reduce catch limits to prevent collapse.

“The first decade of the millennium, we were in sort of a frantic panic mode trying to gather more scientific information,” says Gretchen Hanshew, a fisheries management specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. At the same time, NOAA worked to rein in some exploitative fishing practices to make sure they weren’t creating future problems.

Still, in 2001, a coalition of environmental groups sued the federal government to step up the management of overfished species and won. The result was a sweeping closure of fishing areas considered essential fish habitat, many as a precautionary measure. Managers essentially froze the map on trawl fishing until they could get a better handle on what was happening where.

Read the full story at Yes Magazine

MAX MOSSLER: The truth behind seafood sustainability?

January 31, 2020 — People care about the impact of their diet. According to Nielson1, consumers are more likely than ever to acknowledge the environmental impact of global food production and make choices to reduce their individual footprint – usually willing to pay more for lower-impact foods. So why is seafood not flying off the shelves? It is, by far, the lowest impact animal protein2 and, according to a recent global analysis3, fish populations around the world are healthy in places that manage their fisheries well.

The problem is that people’s perception of ocean conservation and subsequent seafood sustainability is often misinformed. For example, when people are asked4 to rank ocean threats, pollution (like plastic) and overfishing are consistently listed as the top two despite expert consensus that climate change is the most pressing threat. The seafood industry has a largely negative5 reputation among everyday consumers and are increasingly blamed6 for plastic pollution.

Why does the negative perception of seafood persist?

Overfishing throughout the 1980s and 1990s earned the seafood industry its infamous label. High-profile media stories about overfishing coupled with the formation of several international ocean advocacy groups vilified the industry – a reputation the industry cannot seem to shake, despite important policy reforms and strong data that many global fisheries are firmly on a path to sustainability.

Read the full story at New Food

New Study Finds Some Fisheries Management Is Actually Working

January 30, 2020 — Understanding how many fish are in the sea is crucial to creating effective policy and management strategies. One study out of the University of Washington in Seattle took a close look at how fishing pressures and stock abundance are correlated. How will management initiatives in countries with high fishing pressure affect the number of fish that are available to catch? Ray Hilborn and 23 contributing authors on the paper took a data-driven approach to this question with optimistic results that they hope will convince policymakers and the public that fish stocks are actually on the rise.

Hilborn has been labeled an “overfishing denier” for his divisive views on the status of overfishing and his pushback against marine protected areas (MPAs), but Hilborn argues that closing areas to fishing is not necessarily the answer; “fisheries are not well managed in many parts of the world (the ones primarily where we did not have data for our paper)…our paper shows that fisheries management does work when implemented”. The researchers assessed fish catch data from six continents (which comprised about 50% of total global catch) up until the year 2016 and found that where fish stocks were being managed properly, increased number of fish was the result. “Our hope for the use of the results is that the thousands of scientists, managers and technicians that have helped stop overfishing will be recognized for their contribution”, Hilborn says.

Fish stock assessments use data gathered from a number of sources including fisheries landings (the fish that are caught by fishers and reported), biological studies and scientific surveys. While there are uncertainties in the data due to environmental, financial and technological limitations, stock assessments provide the backbone of fisheries management and drive regulatory decisions.

Read the full story at Forbes

Crab larvae off Oregon and Washington suffering shell damage from ocean acidification, new research shows

January 27, 2020 — Ocean acidification is damaging the shells of young Dungeness crab in the Northwest, an impact that scientists did not expect until much later this century, according to new research.

A study released this week in the journal Science of the Total Environment is based on a 2016 survey of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia coastal waters that examined larval Dungeness. The findings add to the concerns about the future of the Dungeness as atmospheric carbon dioxide — on the rise due to fossil-fuel combustion — is absorbed by the Pacific Ocean and increases acidification.

“If the crabs are affected already, we really need to make sure we start to pay attention to various components of the food chain before it is too late,” said Nina Bednarsek, the lead author among 13 contributing scientists. The study was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Lawsuit targets Alaska salmon management to protect southern killer whales

January 27, 2020 — A conservation organization based in Washington state is threatening to sue the federal government over the management of Alaska’s chinook salmon fisheries.

The Wild Fish Conservancy claims that management strategies in Alaska approved by the government pose a threat to the survival of several salmon runs in Washington, and the killer whales who depend on them.

The Wild Fish Conservancy filed notice on January 9, stating its intentions to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service for violating the Endangered Species Act, and jeopardizing the existence of southern resident killer whales.

The Conservancy argues that an important food supply of the whales — endangered stocks of chinook salmon originating in Puget Sound, the lower Columbia River, the Willamette River, and Snake River — is being depleted by the commercial troll and sport harvest in Southeast Alaska.

Kurt Beardslee is the director of the Wild Fish Conservancy. Chinook — or king salmon — are managed under treaty between the United States and Canada, overseen by the Pacific Salmon Commission.

Read the full story at KNBA

Cooke Aquaculture approved to farm steelhead trout in Washington

January 23, 2020 — The Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WSDFW) has approved a five-year permit for Cooke Aquaculture to farm steelhead trout in Puget Sound and the Salish Sea, according to The Seattle Times.

In March 2018, Washington state’s legislature voted to phase out the farming of non-native finfish after some 500,000 Atlantic salmon escaped from a Cooke farm near Cypress Island the previous year.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Offshore wind energy watchdogs expanding to West Coast

January 17, 2020 — A fishing industry coalition dealing with offshore wind energy development has launched a West Coast venture, as a first step toward giving Pacific fishermen more voice in how those projects can be compatible with seafood production.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance announced it created a new Pacific Advisory Committee, to address Pacific fishermen’s “significant concern over the lack of communication and collaboration necessary to inform coexistence among ocean users.”

The new effort aims to “improve science and policy approaches to development, while also increasing and improving communication to help strengthen ties between Pacific fishermen and fishing communities across the country,” the alliance said in a statement Thursday.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

A blob of hot water in the Pacific Ocean killed a million seabirds, scientists say

January 16, 2020 — As many as one million seabirds died at sea in less than 12 months in one of the largest mass die-offs in recorded history — and researchers say warm ocean waters are to blame.

The birds, a fish-eating species called the common murre, were severely emaciated and appeared to have died of starvation between the summer of 2015 and the spring of 2016, washing up along North America’s west coast, from California to Alaska.

Now, scientists say they know what caused it: a huge section of warm ocean water in the northeast Pacific Ocean dubbed “the Blob.”

A years-long severe marine heat wave first began in 2013, and intensified during the summer of 2015 due to a powerful weather phenomenon called El Nino, which lasted through 2016.

The heat wave created the Blob — a 1,000-mile (1,600 km) stretch of ocean that was warmed by 3 to 6 degrees Celsius (5.4 to 10.8 Fahrenheit). A high-pressure ridge calmed the ocean waters — meaning heat stays in the water, without storms to help cool it down.

Read the full story at CNN

New Year Brings New Protections For West Coast Seafloor Habitat

January 2, 2020 — Along with the new year, the West Coast is getting new protections for corals and sponges that live on the seafloor.

Regulations starting Jan. 1 restrict bottom trawl fishing on about 90% of the seafloor off Oregon, Washington and California.

Bottom trawlers drag weighted nets along the seafloor to catch dozens of groundfish species, including lingcod, Dover and petrale sole and all kinds of rockfish. In the process, they can damage corals and sponges that live on the ground.

Ashley Blaco-Draeger with the environmental group Oceana said corals and sponges don’t recover easily from the damage because they grow very slowly.

“They only grow about a millimeter a year,” she said. “So once these structures are destroyed it can take hundreds or thousands of years for them to recover — if ever.”

Read the full story at OPB

Chinook salmon are getting smaller, and researchers say killer whales may be to blame

December 31, 2019 — Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon, are getting smaller, and a team of scientists at the University of Washington think they know why. A new study says killer whales might be behind Chinook’s declining size.

Chinook salmon are an important part of life in Southeast Alaska. Part of the prized fish’s value is its size. Chinook are the largest Pacific salmon.

But in the last two years, returns have been low. Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg all saw their king salmon derbies cancelled in 2018 and 2019. And forecasts for 2020 don’t look much better.

But it’s not just their numbers that are declining.

University of Washington researcher Jan Ohlberger published a paper last year that shows Chinook are getting smaller, too. Up to 10 percent smaller.

That discovery intrigued the researcher.

“The question is, what is the cause of that?” said Ohlberger in a recent phone interview.

A causal claim is difficult to make. Correlation, of course, doesn’t always imply causation.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media