Saving Seafood

News for the Western Pacific Region

Hawaii Volcano’s Impact on Marine Life to be Studied by Ocean Robots

June 28, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Liquid Robotics, the creator of the first wave and solar powered unmanned ocean robot, is using their technology to collect data from where lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano is entering the ocean.

The company announced earlier this week that they are deploying two of their ocean robots, called Wave Gliders, to “study the effects of the lava entering the ocean, the plume it creates and the interactions of the lava and seawater directly from the surface of the ocean.”

Kilauea began erupting in early May, forcing evacuations of the Leilani Estates and Lanipuna subdivisions. By the end of the month the lava flow reached the Pacific Ocean, creating a thick and hazardous cloud where the lava hit the water. Residents of Hawaii’s Big Island were warned about the toxic volcanic gas emissions, but now Liquid Robotics will be able to give a better idea of how the volcanic eruptions and lava flow are affecting marine life, including coral reefs and fish populations.

“The effect of this massive lava flow entering the ocean is dramatic and amazing, but at the same time somewhat mysterious,” Roger Hine, CTO and co-founder of Liquid Robotics said in a statement. “Detailed measurements of the ocean plume and the ecosystems it impacts are now possible and safe to obtain with unmanned systems like our Wave Gliders. This is an opportunity of a lifetime to deploy our ocean robots to help advance science.”

The Wave Gliders will get approximately 300+m from the lava flow plume and collect “rare subsurface, surface and atmospheric data.” The ocean robots will be able to collect data on water temperatures, oxygen levels, pH levels, salinity, turbidity, conductivity and underwater acoustics. Researchers from the University of Hawai’i at Hilo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory will be looking at the data.

“The plume of hot, sediment-laden water generated by lava flowing into the ocean spreads out, impacting surrounding ecosystems and permitted boaters operating in the area,” the University of Hawai’i at Hilo’s Dr. Steve Colbert explained. “We don’t know how far and deep that plume extends, or how it changes the oceanographic conditions or changes in the flow of lava. The Wave Gliders provide us the opportunity to answer these important questions.”

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission. 

U.S. Commerce Department Announces Appointments to Regional Fishery Management Councils for 2018

June 27, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA:

The U.S. Commerce Department today announced the appointment of 30 members to the eight regional fishery management councils that partner with NOAA Fisheries to manage ocean fish stocks. Twenty-nine of the new and reappointed council members will serve three-year terms from August 11, 2018 through August 10, 2021. One appointed member is filling an at-large seat recently vacated on the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council and this member will serve through August 10, 2020.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act established the councils as stewards of the Nation’s fisheries resources through the preparation of fishery management plans for their regions. NOAA Fisheries works closely with the councils through this process and then reviews, approves and implements the plans. Council members represent diverse groups, including commercial and recreational fishing industries, environmental organizations and academia. They are vital to fulfilling the act’s requirements to end overfishing, rebuild fish stocks and manage them sustainably.

Each year, the Secretary of Commerce appoints approximately one-third of the total 72 appointed members to the eight regional councils. The Secretary selects members from nominations submitted by the governors of fishing states, territories and tribal governments.  Council members are appointed to both obligatory (state-specific) and at-large (regional) seats. Council members serve a three-year term and may be reappointed to serve three consecutive terms.

Asterisks preceding a member’s name indicate a reappointment.

New England Council

The New England Council includes members from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. 2018 appointees will fill obligatory seats for Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island and one at-large seat.

Obligatory seats:

*Matthew G. McKenzie (Connecticut)

*Terry A. Alexander (Maine)

*John F. Quinn (Massachusetts)

*Eric E. Reid (Rhode Island)

At-large seat:

*Vincent M. Balzano (Maine)

Mid-Atlantic Council

The Mid-Atlantic Council includes members from the states of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. 2018 appointees will fill obligatory seats for New Jersey and Virginia and two at-large seats.

Obligatory seats:

*Adam C. Nowalsky (New Jersey)

*Peter L. Defur (Virginia)

At-large seats:

*Anthony D. Dilernia (New York)

*Sara E. Winslow (North Carolina)

South Atlantic Council

The South Atlantic Council includes members from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. 2018 appointees will fill obligatory seats for Florida and Georgia and two at-large seats.

Obligatory seats:

Art L. Sapp (Florida)

Kyle D. Christiansen (Georgia)

At-Large seats:

Arnold “Spud” G. Woodward (Georgia)

*Anna B. Beckwith (North Carolina)

Caribbean Council

The Caribbean Council includes members from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. 2018 appointees will fill an obligatory seat for USVI and one at-large seat.

Obligatory seat:

Edward P. Schuster, Sr. (USVI)

At-Large seat:

Vanessa Ramirez Perez (Puerto Rico)

Gulf Council

The Gulf Council includes members from Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. 2018 appointees will fill obligatory seats for Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana and two at-large seats.

Obligatory seats:

Susan E. Boggs (Alabama)

*Juan M. Sanchez (Florida)

Jonathan J. Dugas (Louisiana)

At-large seats:

*Edward W. Swindell, Jr. (Louisiana)

*Dale A. Diaz (Mississippi)

Pacific Council

The Pacific Council includes members from California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. The Pacific Council also includes one Tribal seat. 2018 appointees will fill obligatory seats for California and Oregon and two at-large seats. The Tribal seat will be announced at a later date.

Obligatory seats:

Robert E. Dooley (California)

Christa M. Svensson (Oregon)

At-Large seats:

Louis H. Zimm (California)

*Philip A. Anderson (Washington)

North Pacific Council

The North Pacific Council includes members from Alaska and Washington. 2018 appointees will fill obligatory seats for Alaska and Washington.

Obligatory Seats:

John E. Jensen (Alaska)

*Andrew D. Mezirow (Alaska)

*Craig A. Cross (Washington)

Western Pacific Council

The Western Pacific Council includes members from American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. 2018 appointees will fill obligatory seats for Guam and Hawaii. An out-of-cycle appointment is also being made for a vacant at-large seat.

Obligatory seats:

*Michael P. Duenas (Guam)

Edwin N. Watamura (Hawaii)

At-Large seat:

**Michael K. Goto (Hawaii)

(out-of-cycle appointment for current vacancy)

Greenpeace Japan: Eel sourcing “like a black box”

June 27, 2018 — Greenpeace Japan is highlighting the prevalence of illegally-sourced eel in Japan’s supply chain and is calling for more traceability in advance of the midsummer day of the ox, a holiday celebrated by eating grilled eel. This year it falls on two days: 20 July and 1 August.

Greenpeace issued a report on 4 June that shows eels are at high risk from poaching and illegal transactions. The organization conducted a survey on eel procurement at major supermarkets, and found it was rare for the label attached to the grilled eel package to describe what kind of eel it is.

While there are four eels used for grilled eel – Japanese eel, European eel, American eel and bicolor eel – because grilled eel is a processed item, writing only “eel” is no problem in terms of rules. Although in 2013 the Fisheries Agency requested voluntary labeling of Japanese eel, few supermarkets do so. Akiko Tsuchiya of Greenpeace Japan said retailers should be required to label what species is contained in all boxes of grilled eel.

For its report, Greenpeace bought eel at the 18 shops and had an external DNA laboratory conduct genetic testing. The organization said the most confusion was between Japanese and American eel. The tests found one product labeled as grilled Japanese eel was actually American eel. Greenpeace said that it is proof that the supply chain from the glass eels to the shop is wrapped in darkness.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

House Sends Darren Soto’s Billfish Bill to the President’s Desk

June 27, 2018 — On Monday, the U.S. House passed without opposition freshman U.S. Rep. Darren Soto’s, D-Fla., proposal limiting the sale of billfish caught by American vessels and giving the U.S. Commerce secretary more authority to  manage Atlantic highly migratory species.

Soto introduced his proposal back in December and it was backed by the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee last week.

“Under current law, billfish caught by U.S. vessels that land in Hawaii or Pacific Insular Areas (American Samoa, Baker Island, Guam, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Island, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palmyra Atoll, and Wake Island) may be sold and exported to non-U.S. markets or transported to other U.S. markets,” Soto’s office noted about the legislation. “This bill requires billfish caught by U.S. vessels that land in Hawaii or Pacific Insular Areas to be retained for sale in those areas. This strikes a balance between preserving traditional cultural fishing in these areas and the overall intent to prevent large scale commercial fishing of these billfish.

“Moreover, the bill clarifies that there is no language in the Shark Conservation Act (SCA) of 2010 that alters existing authority of the Secretary of Commerce to manage Atlantic highly migratory species under the Magnuson-Stevens Act,” Soto’s office added. “It also cleans up language in the SCA by removing an expired offset. The main goal of this fix is to ensure protection against shark finning.”

Read the full story at Sunshine State News

Your Poke Addiction Won’t Drive Tuna Extinct

June 22, 2018 — The hotel where I stayed in London last week has a restaurant that specializes in poke, the Hawaiian dish featuring chunks of raw fish atop of a bed of rice and vegetables. A couple of blocks away, in the restaurant arcade under the new Bloomberg building, I encountered a branch of Ahi Poke, a five-location London chain.

I first ate poke in Los Angeles in the summer of 2015, as it took Southern California by storm. Not long afterward, it conquered New York. By late 2016, Nation’s Restaurant News was proclaiming that “poke is sweeping the nation.” Now it appears to be sweeping yet another nation.

And so, as I consumed an Oahu bowl at Ahi Poke one day last week, I started wondering whether there are enough fish in the sea to survive this globalization of poke. I am not the first to wonder this. LA Weekly ran an April Fools’ spoof last year headlined “L.A. Poke Joints Shutter as Ocean Officially Runs Out of Fish.” Hawaii-based journalist Jennifer Fiedler took a more serious look in an extensively reported 2016 article for New York magazine’s Grub Street site, although she wasn’t able to answer the question definitively. I won’t be able to answer it definitively, either, but I can at least take a couple more steps in that direction, plus share some cool charts.

The main fish of concern here is the yellowfin tuna (scientific name: Thunnus albacares), which is almost certainly what was in my Oahu bowl. Poke restaurants outside of Hawaii also serve a lot of raw salmon, but the overwhelming majority of commercially available salmon is farmed, and while there are environmental concerns about some salmon-farming practices, we do not seem to be in any danger of running out of the fishies.

The quintessential poke fish, though, is ahi tuna, and it’s all wild-caught. In Hawaii, ahi originally meant bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus), but yellowfin now gets the name, too. With the global yellowfin catch almost four times bigger than the bigeye catch, and the price lower, the ahi you eat in your poke is generally going to be yellowfin.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

Sharp Fall in Australian Fish Stocks Stokes Fight Over Marine Reserves

June 19, 2018 — Australia’s management of its fisheries and marine ecosystems is widely considered among the best in the world. But the first independent peer-reviewed study of targeted fish stocks in Australian waters has found alarming population declines.

“Regardless of its reputation for sustainable fishery management, overfishing has apparently contributed to … declining biomass of large fishes on Australian reefs,” wrote Graham J. Edgar and Rick D. Stuart-Smith of the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, and Trevor J. Ward of the University of Technology Sydney, in a paper published in the journal Aquatic Conservation.

The study found a 36 percent decline over the past 10 years in the total biomass of fish 20cm (8in) or more in length in zones where fishing is unrestricted. Where fishing is regulated, the decline was 18 percent. No-fishing areas, in contrast, saw a 4 percent increase in biomass. To test whether the fall was a function of environmental pressures other than fishing, the scientists looked at species that are not fished and found their drop in biomass was “non-significant.”

“Populations of exploited fishes generally rose within marine reserves and declined outside the reserves, whereas unexploited species showed little difference in population trends within or outside reserves,” the researchers wrote.

They reached those conclusions by analyzing a decade’s worth of fish counts conducted by the Reef Life Survey, an independent visual census that does not rely on fisheries data or involvement. Australian fisheries authorities, on the other hand, evaluate fishery stocks by looking at “catch per unit effort.”

Read the full story at Oceans Deeply

HAWAII: Federal money coming for ocean management

June 18, 2018 — The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee this week passed the Commerce, Science, and Justice Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 2019.

U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) worked to include $1 million to preserve Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, more than $36 million to improve tsunami warnings, and nearly $30 million to protect coral reefs in Hawaii and across the country.

“We were successful at including more federal funding to help us manage Papahanaumokuakea and protect our coral reefs,” said Schatz, a member of the Appropriations Committee. “This bill also funds our tsunami warning system so that we can strengthen tsunami forecasting and better protect Hawaii’s coastal communities.”

Key funding in the Commerce, Science, and Justice Appropriations Bill sought by Schatz includes:

  • $1 million for Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. The bill authorizes NOAA to make a competitive grant of up to $1 million for research and management activities in Papahanaumokuakea. The funding is subject to a 100 percent non-federal match, and will bring new resources to keep our Hawaiian archipelago healthy and productive.
  • $31.6 million for the NOAA Tsunami Program. The program provides funding to coastal states for preparedness activities such as inundation mapping, disaster planning, and tsunami education. Despite deep cuts proposed by President Trump, Senator Schatz helped protect funding for this critical program.

Read the full story at The Garden Island

WPRFMC Managers Recommend Changes to Swordfish Longline Fishery in Light of Turtle Interactions

June 14, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Federal fishery managers recommended measures to manage sea turtle interactions in the Hawaii shallow-set longline fishery targeting swordfish this week in Hawaii.

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council recommended amending the Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan (FEP) for the Western Pacific Region to establish a framework that consists of:

a) annual fleet-wide limits on the number of North Pacific loggerhead and leatherback interactions. Once either of these interaction limits is reached, the fishery closes for the remainder of the year; and

b) individual trip interaction limits for loggerhead and leatherback turtles. When a vessel has reached the limit on a trip, the vessel would be required to return to port and may resume shallow-setting upon providing the required 72-hour notice to National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for observer placement.

The North Pacific loggerhead population in Japan has been increasing at about 9 percent annually. Mike Seki, director of NMFS Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, characterized the population as “robust.”

NMFS has reinitiated formal consultation under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for the continued operation of the Hawaii shallow-set fishery. The Council anticipates NMFS will complete consultation and issue a new biological opinion for the fishery by Oct. 31, 2018.

Based upon the current NMFS biological evaluation to support this consultation, the Council anticipates the new opinion will authorize the take of no more than 37 North Pacific loggerheads and 21 leatherbacks. Accordingly, the Council recommended an annual fleet-wide limit of 37 North Pacific loggerheads and 21 leatherbacks, effective Jan. 1, 2019, and an individual trip limit of five North Pacific loggerhead turtles. The Council did not recommend specifying a leatherback turtle trip limit at this time. The effectiveness of the loggerhead turtle trip limit and potential need for leatherback turtle limit would be monitored annually, the Council said in a press release.

At the same time, the Council recommended a sea turtle interaction avoidance pilot program be established utilizing an industry-led fleet communication system. It also requested NMFS conduct further research on the sea turtle issue for this fishery, including research to minimize trailing gear on released loggerhead and leatherback turtles to further reduce post-hooking mortality rates.

Last week, the WPRFMC’s Scientific and Statistical Committee noted the Hawaii shallow-set fleet likely poses less biological risk to turtle populations than other fleets operating in the region, the SSC said in a statement. The industry and managers have recognized this in the past, when lawsuits forced the swordfish fishery to close completely or for part of the year.

The Hawaii Longline Association, NMFS and Turtle Island Restoration Network and other plaintiffs agreed to a settlement agreement in May to close the Hawaii shallow-set longline fishery for the rest of this year.

Hawaii vessels must adhere to numerous regulatory measures, such as the interaction caps, mandatory observers on all trips to monitor protected species interactions, mandatory use of circle hooks and mackerel-type bait to reduce the risk of hooking sea turtles and mandatory equipment for and training in the safe release of live turtles — some other countries do not adhere to such strict regulatory measures.

The SSC also noted that North Pacific loggerhead nesting beach trends in Japan were much higher in the last decade than in previous years.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

HAWAII: Sleuthing leads to new findings about opah

June 8, 2018 — The fish buyer noticed something different about the large, colorful, disc-shaped opah waiting to be sold at the auction house in Honolulu. Among the differences: One fish had a bigger eye than the other.

His curiosity set in motion DNA testing and more sleuthing that led to the identification of three new species of opah — a peculiar deep-diving fish recently found to be the first fully warmblooded fish.

“The more we looked, the more differences we could pull out,” said Karen Underkoffler, lead author of a recently published paper in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa that describes the anatomical characteristics of the different species of opah, including one marked by its big eyes and a purple tongue.

In all, the team of scientists with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries identified five distinct species of opah, revealing that there isn’t a single global species. Three are newly identified, one was already named and researchers better identified another that had been previously described.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Honolulu Star Advertiser

Hawaii: Whales entangled in debris in Hawaii get help from team of drones

June 1, 2018 — Federal rescue teams in Hawaii are now using small DJI drones to help free humpback whales caught in tangles of debris.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary has partnered with Oceans Unmanned of California to use drone technology to assist with whale entanglement response efforts off of Maui.

Oceans Unmanned, a nonprofit founded by former NOAA sanctuary manager Matt Pickett in California, released a video Wednesday offering more details on the program.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Star Advertiser