Saving Seafood

WHOI Warns Sea Scallop Fisheries of Rises in Ocean Acidification

September 26, 2018 — More than $500 million worth of Atlantic sea scallops are harvested off the east coast of the United States.

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), however, warn that fisheries bringing in this massive catch might be in danger because of carbon-dioxide levels increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere, causing the upper oceans to become increasingly acidic.

“What’s novel about our work is that it brings together models of changing ocean environments as well as human responses. It combines socioeconomic decision making, ocean chemistry, atmospheric carbon dioxide, economic development and fisheries management, said the study’s lead author Jennie Rheuban.

“We tried to create a holistic view of how environmental changes might play out across different aspects of the sea scallop fishery.”

The scientists say the condition could reduce the sea scallop population by more than 50-percent within the next 30 to 80 years.

The predictions were made using a model created by WHOI scientists, which combines existing data and models of four major factors: future climate change scenarios, ocean acidification impacts, fisheries management policies, and fuel costs for commercial fishermen.

WHOI says that the ocean absorbs more than a quarter of all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They say that the acidity caused by this can corrode the shells of clams, oysters, and scallops, and event prevent their larvae from forming shells at all.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Researchers Studying What Climate Change Could Mean for Fisheries in the Northeast

September 25, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Researchers with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center are studying warming ocean waters in an effort to understand what climate change could mean for “future stock conditions and the fisheries that depend on them.”

Congress recently provided the Northeast Fisheries Science Center with funding for a fisheries climate action plan that they released in 2016. Thanks to the funding, the Science Center now has 10 projects underway to “improve stock assessments through new modeling, better surveys, and more work to understand the vulnerabilities of coastal communities to climate change.”

The Science Center is working with fishermen, along with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, State University of New York Stony Brook, Rutgers University Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NOAA Ocean and Atmospheric Research, Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Delaware Sea Grant.

A list of the stock assessment projects, survey projects, modeling projects and social science projects can be found here.

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

Ocean acidification may reduce sea scallop fisheries

September 24, 2018 — Each year, fishermen harvest more than $500 million worth of Atlantic sea scallops from the waters off the east coast of the United States. A new model created by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), however, predicts that those fisheries may potentially be in danger. As levels of carbon dioxide increase in the Earth’s atmosphere, the upper oceans become increasingly acidic—a condition that could reduce the sea scallop population by more than 50% in the next 30 to 80 years, under a worst-case scenario. Strong fisheries management and efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, however, might slow or even stop that trend.

The , published in the journal PLoS One, combines existing data and models of four major factors: future climate change scenarios, ocean acidification impacts,  policies, and fuel costs for fishermen.

“What’s novel about our work is that it brings together models of changing ocean environments as well as human responses” says Jennie Rheuban, the lead author of the study. “It combines socioeconomic decision making, ocean chemistry, atmospheric carbon dioxide, economic development and fisheries management. We tried to create a holistic view of how environmental changes might play out across different aspects of the  fishery,” she notes.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

 

WHOI Center for Oceans and Human Health to Receive $6.9M in Grant Funding

September 19, 2018 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will receive nearly $7 million in grant funding to continue the operation of its Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health.

The collaborative award from the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences will be dispersed over 5 years.

The funding will benefit three centers and four projects aimed at improving public health by investigating the ways oceanic processes affect the distribution and persistence of human pathogens or the products of toxin-producing algae.

“These projects bring together scientists doing basic research on the oceans and Great Lakes with those in biology and human health to study processes that affect millions of people,” said Hedy Edmonds, a program director in NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences, which co-funded the awards.

Read the full story at CapCod.com

 

Senate Panel Told Nation’s Algae Woes Will Worsen If Not Addressed

August 29, 2018 — WASHINGTON — The spread of toxic algal blooms in the nation’s waterways – largely caused by a combination of warming water, contaminant run off and “supercharged bacteria” – won’t stop anytime soon, one scientist told lawmakers Tuesday.

During a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee hearing, scientist Donald Anderson of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, told lawmakers that after 40 years of study on toxic blooms, he is convinced that the outbreaks will only persist and worsen if left unaddressed.

The blooms vary greatly in composition and color; some are red, some green, and others gold.

In freshwater, the blooms are typically caused when simple algae collides with cynobacteria, or blue-green algae.

While some algae growth can be beneficial and the exact causes for emergent blooms vary in both fresh and marine water, Anderson said, it is climate change which will “almost certainly” continue to influence the pervasiveness of dangerous algal build up.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service

 

Woods Hole Researchers Combine Fisheries and Acoustics for Sea Project

August 17, 2018 — A research project led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is underway off the coast of Alaska.

The Beaufort Shelf Break Ecology Cruise will combine oceanography, biology and fisheries science to learn more about the shelf’s nutrient rich waters.

Researchers will measure ocean temperatures and currents, collect plankton and fish and use sonar systems to look at fish distribution and what they are eating.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

It’s ‘the last frontier on Earth that’s truly not well understood,’ and scientists are about to explore it

August 6, 2018 –In the briny deep, far from shore, the vast darkness is home to tiny, glowing fish, massive jellies that may be the largest animals on the planet, and an untold number of other creatures.

What inhabits this realm of the ocean — from about 600 feet to about 3,000 feet — is so shrouded in mystery that scientists call it the “twilight zone.”

At the end of the week, a team of marine biologists, engineers, and other specialists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will embark on the first long-term study of this netherworld, a nearly lightless region believed to be teeming with life — perhaps more than the rest of the ocean combined.

“It’s the last frontier on Earth that’s truly not well understood,” said Andone Lavery, a senior scientist who will oversee the first expedition. “We have many questions.”

Chief among them: What animals live there, and how many? Do they play a role in helping regulate the planet’s climate, and if so, how? Could these species provide a sustainable source of protein for the world’s growing population?

That last question may be the most controversial.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Senators share their fascination with sharks at hearing

July 19, 2018 — Lawmakers on Wednesday held a hearing on sharks to examine new research, conservation techniques and ways to improve understanding of the unique animals.

The hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, titled simply “SHARKS!,” featured experts in shark research who told lawmakers how their discoveries are benefiting the medical and tech fields.

“Americans have been fascinated by sharks,” said Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.). “Aquariums and other educational programs have helped to demystify sharks and our initial fear has turned into fandom.”

The hearing also comes just before the start of The Discovery Channel’s 30th annual “Shark Week,” which is set to begin July 22.

Dr. Robert Hueter, the senior scientist and director of the Center for Shark Research at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Fla., credited the annual television event with leading to a better understanding of the complex creatures.

Americans are now “rooting the shark on,” Hueter said.

“They understand that that shark is not really threatening them, they’re not looking for people, that they’re there trying to do their thing and they’ve been there for millions of years,” Hueter said.

Read the full story at The Hill

Oceanographers in New England given new vessel to explore

July 13, 2018 — The National Science Foundation has selected a group of oceanographers in New England to operate a new research vessel.

The University of Rhode Island said Thursday the $100 million vessel will be delivered to its Graduate School of Oceanography in 2021.

URI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and the University of New Hampshire formed the East Coast Oceanographic Consortium to apply for one of three new research vessels awarded nationwide.

URI already operates a foundation vessel, the Endeavor. It’s more than 40 years old and scheduled to retire within five years.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Midland Reporter-Telegram

MAINE: Return of the seals: Once eradicated mammals back in local waters

July 2, 2018 — At any given time, approximately 600 seals splash, bathe and feed around a modest mass of rocks six miles off the coast of Maine, the northernmost of the Isles of Shoals.

These seals, both gray and harbor species, have made a resurgence in local waters over the last two decades following the imperative enaction of federal protections. Prior to the 1970s, the species had essentially been extirpated in Maine and Massachusetts, after being hunted for their pelts, and killed as competition for fish, said Jennifer Seavey, executive director of Shoals Marine Laboratory on Appledore Island, a joint program between the University of New Hampshire and Cornell University.

Since 2011, Seavey and her staff have been monitoring the seal resurgence at Duck Island, an effort led by Andrea Bogomolni, a researcher from Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institution. The work is conducted with undergraduate interns, and each summer, two students learn the monitoring methods, which are done by boat and with very specific tracking technology and procedures.

The monitoring program runs from May to August, Seavey said, and the interns take to the water approximately 30 times, the boat running a specific transect around the island. Photographs are taken on the same transects each time, where the laboratory uses the unique pattern on the seals’ fur to identify them as individuals.

Read the full story at the Portsmouth Herald