SEATTLE (Saving Seafood) — June 5, 2017 — Fisheries in the U.S. and other parts of the developed world have provided a blueprint for successful fisheries management globally, according to a newly formed scientific advisory group that plans to take the lessons learned from these successes and apply them to developing fisheries in the rest of the world.
The organization, the International Fisheries Information Network (I-FIN), debuted ahead of this year’s SeaWeb Seafood Summit in Seattle. Headed by internationally recognized marine scientists, economists, and fisheries managers, I-FIN hopes to be a global resource on where fisheries are being managed successfully, why they’re successful, and how those successes can be adopted elsewhere.
“We’ve got a team of people who can provide the most authoritative, scientific advice on what’s happening in global fisheries, and what has been shown to work to improve the performance of fisheries,” said Dr. Ray Hilborn, professor of marine science at the University of Washington and one of the members of the I-FIN steering committee.
According to I-FIN, over the last several decades, fisheries in much of the developed world have quietly transformed themselves into global leaders in sustainable management. In places like the United States, Iceland, and New Zealand, fishing mortality has been reduced, abundance of many fish species has increased, and more species than ever before are being harvested at a sustainable rate.
“The greatest insight that we’ve uncovered so far is that there are a lot of really sustainable fish stocks,” said Chris Costello, professor of natural resource economics at UC Santa Barbara. “Many people don’t realize that in the U.S., most of our fish are some of the most sustainable on the planet, and there are other places where you find a similar story.”
Successful fisheries, like those in the U.S., have several traits in common. Their fisheries are closely monitored and collect significant amounts of data, their management adheres to scientific advice, and their regulations are strictly enforced. Many fisheries in the developing world, in contrast, are data poor, which, combined with weak enforcement, increases the likelihood of overfishing. Identifying and closing these data gaps is one of I-FIN’s top priorities.
“We know a lot about fisheries in some areas of the world and not very much about fisheries in other areas of the world,” said Mike Melnychuk, a research scientist at the University of Washington. “In the developing world, mostly, we know very little. What we’re trying to do is address some of those data gaps by looking at other methods, other kinds of approaches for advancing our understanding in what’s going on with fisheries there, and how we can improve fisheries for people’s livelihoods.”
Much of North America and Europe have collected significant amounts of data on their fisheries, as well as certain fisheries in South America, such as Peruvian anchovetta. However, many fisheries in Africa and Asia have relatively little data collected on them. Compounding this data gap are the unique challenges posed by small-scale fisheries, which make up around 90 percent of fisheries in the developing world and have not traditionally been closely monitored. Successfully managing these fisheries will likely require a different approach than in larger-scale fisheries.
“In the developed world context, where the rule of law is strong, where there are highly evolved processes for doing stock assessments, or making a bridge between research and management, there’s a different set of opportunities for having research make a difference. When you move to the developing world, that really is not appropriate, because of capacity, because of the nature of the fisheries, because of the remoteness of the people, language, politics, many different things,” said Neil Andrew, a professor at the University of Wollongong in Australia.
“You need to take a philosophically different approach to improving fisheries,” he said. “I think we take the best of the lessons from the developing world—and there are some fundamental ecological truths about catching fish—but I think we need to think about it differently and with a different skill set, which is much more social, which is much more invested in the management process rather than the provision of data.”
I-FIN’s current efforts are an outgrowth of previous efforts to monitor progress in fisheries management at the global level, particularly the RAM Legacy Stock Assessment Database. The information gathered by the RAM Database, particularly the positive developments, has helped I-FIN identify trends in global fisheries, and informs the organization’s current message.
“The motivation was that we were seeing all these very bad, sad pictures of fisheries going really in the wrong direction, and we thought ‘well, there are all these NGOs and all these processes that are painting a picture that is probably worse than it is,’” said Ana Parma, a researcher with the Research Council of Argentina. “That was our impression from the fisheries people, because we have seen some improvement in many of them and we thought ‘the only way is to ground these statements on real data.’ That was the motivation to collect RAM.”
I-FIN hopes that its efforts will change the way the fisheries are perceived, and that successful management receives more recognition.
“The common perception that fish stocks everywhere are in decline are wrong, and we now have very strong evidence, and I would argue irrefutable evidence, that that’s the case,” said Dr. Hilborn. “So we’re hoping to change the general perception about the status of global fisheries.”
Back in the good old days we fished for food and fun, and had plenty of both. During World War II, when most good things to eat were rationed, we did just fine with clams, abalone and crab. Our Monterey friends fed the world with sardines, squid, and anchovies, and anything else scooped from the ocean with those beautiful purse seiners. First, second or third generation from the “old country,” they were born knowing how to fish.
What a treat now to talk to some of the old timers that worked all the way from the Bering Sea to Central America. No wonder King Crab is so expensive.
They mended their nets on Wharf 1 and 2, but mostly on Fisherman’s Flat across from Tarpy’s. Back then it was Cadematori’s, and Cadematori’s used to be on Pacific Street, but that’s another story.
You don’t have to scratch very deep to find a Billeci, Lucido, Ferante. Anastasi, Aliotio or a dozen others to tell you stories about themselves or their folks. It helps if their name ends in a vowel. One very good thing is that knowing how to cook has been passed down and happily shared. Try Favaloro’s in Pacific Grove. I’m an expert on calamari and theirs is the best on the Peninsula.
There was always a kid or two in Pacific Grove walking down to Lovers Point, a beat up rod in one hand and gunny sack in the other. (These burlap bags were passed along from father to son. They smelled of old fish and were kept outside.)
At the P.G. pier we would rent a skiff from Sprague, complete with a big granite rock anchor, and a piece of wood for cutting bait, all for four bits. Row out a half mile or so, lines in the water, and usually wind up with a sack of sand dabs. If we drifted over a rocky bottom, maybe a lingcod. Then sometimes a sliver smelt, and even a salmon!
Great sport off Wharf 2 when the mackerel were running. Didn’t even have bait the hook. We didn’t really appreciate mackerel in those days and one fish per rose bush worked out just right. Since then, with fewer mackerel around, we find they are delicious. Olive oil, garlic and tomato sauce.
And then there’s time Dad went out with Tom and a couple of other guys, hoping for salmon. Caught a big shark instead. Good luck since there was a big demand for shark liver. This shark was unhappy with the situation and knocked Tom on his butt.
Dad, for some unknown reason, had a pistol with him, and shot the shark in the head. This further upset the shark which then, still thrashing, puked. Further description unnecessary, but with some difficulty, shark over the side, liver be damned. Further enhancing the experience was the bullet hole in the bottom of the boat. Some days are like that.
And one more thing, the calamari at the Beach House, perfect. Then there’s Marty’s Special at Abalonettis …
Summary: The amount of dissolved oxygen contained in the water — an important measure of ocean health — has been declining for more than 20 years, reveals a new analysis of decades of data on oceans across the globe.
Global map of the linear trend of dissolved oxygen at the depth of 100 meters.
Credit: Georgia Tech
A new analysis of decades of data on oceans across the globe has revealed that the amount of dissolved oxygen contained in the water — an important measure of ocean health — has been declining for more than 20 years.
Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology looked at a historic dataset of ocean information stretching back more than 50 years and searched for long term trends and patterns. They found that oxygen levels started dropping in the 1980s as ocean temperatures began to climb.
“The oxygen in oceans has dynamic properties, and its concentration can change with natural climate variability,” said Taka Ito, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences who led the research. “The important aspect of our result is that the rate of global oxygen loss appears to be exceeding the level of nature’s random variability.”
The study, which was published April in Geophysical Research Letters, was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The team included researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Washington-Seattle, and Hokkaido University in Japan.
Falling oxygen levels in water have the potential to impact the habitat of marine organisms worldwide and in recent years led to more frequent “hypoxic events” that killed or displaced populations of fish, crabs and many other organisms.
Researchers have for years anticipated that rising water temperatures would affect the amount of oxygen in the oceans, since warmer water is capable of holding less dissolved gas than colder water. But the data showed that ocean oxygen was falling more rapidly than the corresponding rise in water temperature.
“The trend of oxygen falling is about two to three times faster than what we predicted from the decrease of solubility associated with the ocean warming,” Ito said. “This is most likely due to the changes in ocean circulation and mixing associated with the heating of the near-surface waters and melting of polar ice.”
The majority of the oxygen in the ocean is absorbed from the atmosphere at the surface or created by photosynthesizing phytoplankton. Ocean currents then mix that more highly oxygenated water with subsurface water. But rising ocean water temperatures near the surface have made it more buoyant and harder for the warmer surface waters to mix downward with the cooler subsurface waters. Melting polar ice has added more freshwater to the ocean surface — another factor that hampers the natural mixing and leads to increased ocean stratification.
“After the mid-2000s, this trend became apparent, consistent and statistically significant — beyond the envelope of year-to-year fluctuations,” Ito said. “The trends are particularly strong in the tropics, eastern margins of each basin and the subpolar North Pacific.”
In an earlier study, Ito and other researchers explored why oxygen depletion was more pronounced in tropical waters in the Pacific Ocean. They found that air pollution drifting from East Asia out over the world’s largest ocean contributed to oxygen levels falling in tropical waters thousands of miles away.
Once ocean currents carried the iron and nitrogen pollution to the tropics, photosynthesizing phytoplankton went into overdrive consuming the excess nutrients. But rather than increasing oxygen, the net result of the chain reaction was the depletion oxygen in subsurface water.
That, too, is likely a contributing factor in waters across the globe, Ito said.
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Eureka Times-Standard] by Will Houston – May 15, 2017
After four years of poor crab and salmon fishing, including one of the worst crab seasons in recent memory, local fisherman and Eureka resident Bob Borck decided in November that it was time to move on. After selling his fishing vessel — the Belle J II — of four years in January, Borck is now planning to start work as a contractor.
“I couldn’t be married to the boat,” he said Friday. “I’ve got enough family responsibilities on shore that it was too difficult to dedicate it to everything it needed to be.”
Borck said he isn’t walking away from the industry completely if the right opportunity presents itself. But he said isn’t pining to return to it either, especially following a “pretty hard financial beating” after toxic algae blooms closed the 2015-16 Dungeness crab season for six months, placing many fishermen into debt.
Borck’s story is not unique.
After Congress decided in late April to not include millions of dollars in funds in its government spending bill to relieve fisheries that experienced disastrous seasons, Borck said he is concerned how many more fishermen will leave the industry.
“You’ve got a lot of youth interest now in trying to keep the U.S. commercial fishing industry operational,” Borck said. “If bankruptcies and financial difficulties are really what a guy has to look forward to on the horizon, unless he gets lucky in the fishing business, you’re going to have a hard time maintaining a U.S. industry.”
On the other end of the California coast, Devin Grace, 39, has been working as a rock crab fisherman in Santa Barbara for the past 10 years.
He had just received his own crab fishing permit — at the price of $75,000 — in April 2015 and fished for a few months when an unprecedented large toxic algae bloom enveloped the West Coast. This caused the normally year-round rock crab season to close for several months.
Grace said he has yet to recoup his losses from that season, and with no government financial relief in sight, he is now wondering if it is worth it to continue fishing.
“By the time the money comes around, most people will have either gone under or fired all their employees or lost their house,” Grace said. “It’s like, ‘Gee thanks, but where were you when we needed it?’ ”
After Congress decided not to include the relief funds, California Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) and Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough) introduced two bills on May 3 to provide $140 million in relief funds to California and Yurok Tribe fishermen.
Huffman told the Times-Standard on Friday that the bill will likely be voted on in the next appropriation cycle in September before the start of the new federal fiscal year in October. By that point, crab and salmon fishermen will have waited nearly two years for federal assistance.
As to whether the funds could be voted on earlier, Huffman said there is no assurances under the current Republican majority in Congress.
“I would say to everyone that is holding their breath hoping this thing happens, we’re trying multiple fronts. It’s not just this bill,” Huffman said before having to end the interview early for another call.
Grace said he is considering whether to take out a sizable loan to remain in the industry.
“To have no help in sight, it’s really disheartening. To watch the wheels of government turn as slow as they do toward industries, to no fault of our own —” Grace said, cutting off his sentence. “… One of my closest friends in the industry had to put a second mortgage on his house. Another is out for good. There are just thousands of jobs just dropping like flies in a really good industry.”
Grace is one of many crab fishermen who have expressed frustration at how the state handled the toxic algae bloom.
The state implemented an immediate closure of the rock crab and Dungeness crab fisheries in November 2015 after crab tested high for domoic acid, which is a toxin produced by algae. While the state is working to improve domoic acid testing and notification to fishermen, Grace said he still does not feel heard by the state.
Meanwhile, the state is considering raising fishing landing fees by as much as 1,300 percent in order to make up a $20 million deficit in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s budget.
The landing fees have not been increased since 1993. While wholesale buyers normally pay the fee, fishermen and local state representatives say the proposed increase will likely impact the per pound price of catch, further impacting fishermen’s finances.
At nearly 40 years old, Grace said he is not sure what he would do if he were to retire from fishing.
“I’m just trying to hang on by my fingernails,” he said.
Two new reports reveal nation’s progress in sustainably managing marine resources
May 9, 2017
U.S. commercial and recreational fishing generated $208 billion in sales, contributed $97 billion to the gross domestic product and supported 1.6 million full- and part-time jobs in 2015 — above the five-year average — according to NOAA’s Fisheries Economics of the United States report released today.
Also out today, the Annual Report to Congress on the Status of U.S. Fisheries shows that the number of domestic fish stocks listed as overfished or subject to overfishing remain near all-time lows, with two new stocks rebuilt in 2016.
The reports highlight the collaborative role of NOAA Fisheries and many partners in making continued progress towards ending overfishing, rebuilding stocks, and realizing significant benefits to the U.S. economy.
“U.S. fisheries are big business,” said Samuel Rauch, acting assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries. “Sustainable management of our nation’s fisheries, supported by sound science, opens up economic opportunities to Americans along the supply chain – from buying bait at a local marina to enjoying a seafood dinner.”
The U.S commercial fishing and seafood industry (including imports) generated $144 billion in sales in 2015, a 6-percent decline from the previous year, and supported 1.2 million jobs, a 15-percent decline from 2014, although this is still above the five-year average. Factors such as the “warm blob,” marine toxins, and El Nino affected the Pacific marine environment in 2015, and West Coast fishermen saw lower landings and revenue for several key commercial species.
Total sales generated by U.S. commercial and recreational fishing industries
In 2015, U.S. commercial and recreational fishing generated a total of $208 billion in sales, and supported 1.6 million full-and part-time jobs. (NOAA)
Market forces affected fisheries in other regions, such as in the Gulf of Mexico, where revenue for shrimp landings decreased due to high inventories, dampening prices for both domestic harvest and imports. Seafood imports were also lower in 2015 — $1.4 billion less than in 2014.
Saltwater angling generated $63 billion in sales across the economy in 2015, up 5 percent from 2014. Job impacts in the marine recreational fishing industry remained steady from 2014 at 439,000 jobs. Mississippi, Connecticut, South Carolina, Washington and Alaska had the greatest recreational fishing sector job growth in 2015.
In 2016, U.S. fisheries continued to rebuild, with the number of stocks on the overfishing and overfished lists remaining near all-time lows. Four stocks came off the overfishing list, while six stocks were added to the overfishing list. There were no changes to the list of overfished stocks in 2016. Two additional stocks — barndoor skate in Georges Bank/Southern New England and albacore in the North Atlantic — were rebuilt in 2016, bringing the total stocks rebuilt since 2000 to 41.
A stock is on the overfishing list when the catch rate is too high. A stock is on the overfished list when the population size of a stock is too low, whether because of fishing or other causes, such as environmental changes.
Two new fisheries rebuilt in 2016 Two stocks were rebuilt in 2016: albacore in the North Atlantic (left) and barndoor skate (right) in Georges Bank/Southern New England. (NOAA)
“These reports show that the U.S. is on the right track when it comes to sustainably managing our fisheries,” said Rauch. “Rebuilding and keeping stocks at sustainable levels will help us address the growing challenge of increasing our nation’s seafood supply and keep us competitive in a global marketplace.”
Permalink | Categories Research on May 12, 2017 by FishingNews | Comments Off on U.S. fishing generated more than $200B in sales in 2015, two stocks rebuilt in 2016 Tags: Fisheries Economics
A slow-moving emergency is lapping at California’s shores — climate-driven sea-level rise that experts now predict could elevate the water in coastal areas up to 10 feet in just 70 years, gobbling up beachfront and overwhelming low-lying cities.
The speed with which polar ice is melting and glacier shelves are cracking off indicates to some scientists that once-unthinkable outer-range projections of sea rise may turn out to be too conservative. A knee-buckling new state-commissioned report warns that if nothing changes, California’s coastal waters will rise at a rate 30 to 40 times faster than in the last century.
The potential result: crippled economies, compromised public safety, submerged infrastructure and a forced retreat from our iconic Pacific coast.
No state has done more than California to curb greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and sea-level rise. But experts say that even if carbon reductions continue, residual warming of the ocean will continue unchecked, breeding surges that will impact the state’s coast and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Last month the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that without concerted intervention, as much as 67 percent of Southern California’s beaches could be lost to rising seas by the end of the century.
A consensus of scientific research makes catastrophic projections that, in the worst case, will be reality by the end of this century:
International airports in San Francisco and Oakland will face flooding, rendering them unusable.
Housing perched on fast-eroding coastal bluffs in Pacifica and elsewhere will continue to crash into the sea.
Malibu’s Broad Beach will dwindle into a seldom-seen slice of sand, its name an oxymoron.
Flooding in the Delta will overwhelm rivers and strain levees critical to California’s water supply.
Power plants, nuclear waste sites and other sensitive waterside sites need to be fortified or will be lost.
Roads, bridges and railways along the coast from Mendocino to San Diego will be abandoned and relocated inland.
San Francisco’s Embarcadero and low-lying cities such as Huntington Beach will flood more frequently and more severely.
More than 42,000 homes in California will be under water — not merely flooded, but with seawater over roofs.
The grim outlook is mirrored in the latest report, which is being presented April 26 for adoption by the state’s Ocean Protection Council. Its sea-level rise projections will assist state agencies and local governments with planning.
No stretch of the state’s 3,400 miles of coast, bays, inlets and islands will be spared. Addressing sea-level rise will cost a staggering amount of public and private money, and will particularly impact the poor and vulnerable. The problem becomes more urgent with much of California’s wealth huddled along the coast, supporting an ocean-dependent $44 billion economy.
In the end, state and local officials may come to the gut-wrenching conclusion that some coastal land should be simply abandoned.
“We’re not doing well at all,” said Democratic Assemblyman Mark Stone, chairman of the Select Committee on Coastal Protection and Access to Natural Resources. “We have yet to really start to answer the hard questions and make policy — saying, ‘No, we are not going to put public money here.’ Eventually we should get to the point that we are not going to do any public investment in those places any more.”
Most scientists tread lightly in the policy realm, providing the information for others to craft into regulations. Not Bill Patzert, who has for years sounded the alarm about rising oceans.
“It’s not an existential threat. It’s real. It’s gonna happen,” said Patzert, a climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Here’s the bigger issue: If you’re in the tunnel and you see the train coming at you, what do you do? Do you race towards it or do you back out? It’s just common sense. As a society, why aren’t we doing that?”
How high will it go? Check sea level rise near your neighborhood
Scientists use maps such as this to help state and local officials plan for sea level rise and associated flooding. This interactive graphic shows potential flood zones with water up to 10 feet, the outer range of current projections. (Map by Climate Central)
From deep in the hive of large brains at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, set hard against the San Gabriel Mountains, an intense group of scientists from Caltech and the NASA are harnessing satellites that for decades have been peering into space and are now directing their gaze to Earth.
The researchers — with advanced degrees in physics, mathematics and oceanography — are engaged in what many consider to be the critical research of our time.
They are watching ice melt.
Sitting alone in a cubicle, bathed in the glow of a computer screen or staring down the barrel of a telescope, can be a balm for scientists. Concerning themselves with one finite slice of a planet-wide catastrophe allows them to compartmentalize and disengage from the entire sobering picture.
But even professional detachment fails against the unfolding horror show depicted in the cold display of satellite imagery.
“We are in the process of watching the ice sheet in Greenland disappear,” said the lab’s oceanographer Josh Willis, who leads a team studying Greenland. “This is the first time humans have been able to measure it. The last time it was shrinking at this rate was tens of thousands of years ago.”
https://youtu.be/swHW80EWIk0
The diminishment of Greenland’s ice mass has been accelerating alarmingly, losing a trillion tons in the last four years. The rapid melting is getting the attention of scientists because locked away in the Greenland ice sheet is the possibility to raise global sea levels by 24 feet. The Antarctic holds 187 feet of potential ice melt. Polar ice loss on that scale would have unfathomable consequences for continued life on Earth.
Willis uses satellites to measure the warmth of the waters around Greenland. Because he has a sense of humor, his project is known to all as OMG: Oceans Melting Greenland. (He preferred calling it Water Temperature Fjords, but couldn’t get the acronym past government sensibilities.)
“As scientists, we’re witnessing these huge events, and it’s telling us how the Earth is changing,” Willis said. “Of course, I’m also a citizen, I live on this planet, and it is worrying that it’s happening. It’s sometimes profoundly shocking to wake up and realize we’re reshaping our entire planet.”
Understanding the threat of sea-level rise in California depends to some extent on where you are standing: Boots in the dust of the Central Valley and you might curse the lateness of a rail shipment held up by flooding at the port of Oakland; bare feet in the sand at Huntington Beach and you may have to consider relocating your family, your home and all your possessions.
Some simple math: Every inch of sea-level rise equates to an 8- to 10-feet loss of beach. So, using the conservative projection of a 4-foot rise, and the lower-end 8-foot-per inch formula, that equates to 384 feet of coastal beach loss in the next 70 years.
The 10-foot rise scenario, which scientists peg as the new worst-case, would cause a land loss of 800 feet — the length of two-and-a-half football fields. The sea will not rise the same amount in every place; scientists say each discrete elevation is dependent on factors such as the shape of the sea floor and the slope of the landfall.
Considering the scope of this coming catastrophe, it does not appear to be front-of-mind to many in the state. But that doesn’t mean it’s gone unstudied. California has a peerless capacity to turn over problems until they are smooth and shiny. Understanding comes first, with action often a distant and expensive second.
A tour through recent scientific analyses:
A 2009 report on sea-level rise commissioned by the state paints worst-case scenarios that are the stuff of disaster movies: A half-million Californians at risk of flooding and more than $100 billion worth of infrastructure. More than two dozen coastal power plants flooded, along with hundreds of hazardous waste facilities, as well as schools, hospitals, police stations, ports and major airports.
A 2012 report prepared for the California Energy Commission focused just on the San Francisco Bay and its 1,000 miles of shoreline, concluding: “Rising sea levels will overwhelm the existing protection structures, putting the 140,000 people currently living in vulnerable areas at increased risk.” The authors cautioned their findings did not reflect worst-case scenarios. And, if no action is taken to address the vulnerabilities, the risk projections should be considered “substantially low.”
The California Assembly weighed in with a report in 2014, and the next year the Senate chimed in with its own review, amping it up a bit: “With current projections, rising seas combined with a 100-year flood event would close over 2,000 miles of roadway, the Oakland and San Francisco airports, and the Port of Oakland.”
The sobering fact of those state-of-the-art reports, recent though they are, is that they are already out of date and not nearly comprehensive enough in describing the scope of what currently faces California. Nor remotely scary enough. What scientists are observing now is, they say, a rapid and steep change that, even as it unfolds over comparatively long periods of time, is nonetheless occurring at a breathtaking pace.
A melting glacier calving. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Sea-level rise is caused primarily by two factors related to global warming: the expansion of seawater as it heats up and the added water volume from melting ice. Researchers focused on glacial melt in Greenland and Antarctica see the process as an action-packed cataclysm marked by heaving ice shelves collapsing into the sea and sheets of decaying ice sloughing off the end of a continent.
The power unleashed by that tide of ice is awesome to contemplate. Water has always been one of the most destructive and transformative forces in nature. With warmer waters creating more energy that incubates more powerful storms, some see a near future in which seas assault our coast more frequently and with greater force. Exhibit A: California’s past winter, when repeated storms lashed the state, resulting in a preliminary price tag of $569 million and a federal disaster declaration.
Scientists warn that intensified El Nino events, coupled with higher seas, will bring about unprecedented flooding. What civil engineers refer to as nuisance flooding — overwhelmed storm sewers and street flooding — is already more common. King Tides are getting worse. Commuting times, the ability of first-responders to get to an accident scene, and the transportation of goods by road will be severely compromised, researchers say.
That risk, too, can be observed at its point of origin. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintains tide gauges that bob and float in U.S. waters, sentinels sending out a stream of data measuring current sea levels. The information feeds tidal forecasts used by surfers and mariners, and is also monitored by emergency services.
The tide and currents map is both colorful and alarming. The maps depict the North American continent ringed by arrows pointing straight up, denoting trending rising sea levels, like pickets defending the coast.
It turns out the coast is all-but defenseless.
Brett Sanders, a civil and environmental engineer at UC Irvine, is using a grant from the National Science Foundation to help inform communities along the California and northern Mexican coast about the risk of rising waters. Most people are thrilled that they’ve managed to fulfill a dream of living near the beach, Sanders said, and are unaware of what they should do to protect themselves.
“We have done a bad job of mapping flood risk. It’s awful,” Sanders said.
Zillow, the website that calculates residential real estate values, recently took its maps of coastal property and overlaid NOAA’s sea-level projections. Using what are now thought to be conservative projections, the company estimated 2 million coastal homes in the United States would be underwater by the end of the century. Not as in being upside down on a mortgage, but as in fish swimming through the den. The total value of those homes? Nearly $1 trillion, in California, $49 billion.
Zillow’s chief economist, Svenja Gudell, said she was surprised that when the company shared its information with mayors or city planners, officials saw it as an event that would take place far in the future. “For some of these places the time horizon is not 100 years, it’s happening now,” she said. “It’s not as top of mind as it should be or you would like it to be. People are underinsured when it comes to flood insurance. The system is broken.”
Gudell said that her research showed that homeowners living in high-risk areas are not getting market cues —real estate values in beach areas destroyed by Hurricane Sandy are now higher than before the superstorm that played out on national television in the fall of 2012.
“We were not able to explain that rationally,” Gudell said. “We will see in the future, if you are on a cliff and that cliff is further eroding and if you put a piece of property on that land, it won’t be safe anymore. For now, the benefit of living in these homes clearly outweighs the current and future cost of living there.”
Apartment buildings hang perilously over an increasingly eroded bluff in Pacifica. (Eric Cheng/The Nature Conservancy)
Which leaves us with the National Flood Insurance Program, a troubled and debt-ridden program operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The flood insurance covers millions of Americans living in flood zones, based on maps that are decades out of date. The program is currently $24 billion in debt and requires reauthorization from Congress.
Critics of the federal insurance say the rates don’t reflect current risks, leaving taxpayers on the hook for someone else’s folly.
Democratic state Sen. Henry Stern represents a coastal district that includes Malibu and a string of state beaches. A lifelong surfer, he understands the attraction.
“It’s so alluring,” he said of living by the beach. “But my whole thing is to make the market tell the truth about it. We know where sea level rise is going to happen. What I don’t want to happen is for all of us to bear the bill afterwards.”
Even with the horrific projections scientists have repeatedly shared about public health and safety associated with rising seas, it might be the economic cost that spurs action. A 2016 paper published in the journal Nature estimated the annual global cost for sea-level rise adaptation measures at about $421 billion per year.
The authors of the study argue that the figure doesn’t take into account population growth and clustering around coasts. By the year 2100, the report warns, the price tag for mass relocations could exceed $14 trillion. Given California’s coastal population clusters — 75 percent of the state’s residents live in a coastal county — the figure here will be enormous.
The Ocean Protection Council receiving the new science report is a state agency whose mission, as its name implies, is to look after the welfare of California’s piece of the Pacific Ocean. It’s an almost laughably large responsibility, and one that the members approach thoughtfully.
The report placed the scientific findings at the forefront, said Liz Whiteman, the science and strategy director for the Ocean Science Trust, which was a partner in the study. That means the analysis does not entertain the question of whether climate change is altering the behavior of the Pacific. Nor does it belabor stale arguments about how weather has always changed. It is, rather, an unsparing document that presents the best projections about the range of sea rise, and, for the first time, assigns a probability and risk to those numbers.
“California is in a great place for being willing to call the hard question and not shying away,” Whiteman said. “There is no doubt that there is some scary information contained in a report looking at sea-level rise and our future.”
Dan Cayan, one of seven scientists who contributed to the newest report, is a researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, investigating how climate affects changes in oceans. Viewed from his office window in La Jolla, the Pacific Ocean appears benign and soothing. But a glimpse into the updated information he’s assembling paints a different, darker picture.
New data and more sophisticated modeling, he said, coupled with more extreme climate warming, “Is going to be pushing the amount of sea-level rise above what was thought to be reasonable.”
Comparing previous projections to current ones, he said, is no longer useful. “We’re actually off this scale,” he said.
Cayan pulls out the 2012 report from the National Research Council, which is the basis for California’s current sea-level rise assumptions and the predicate for the state’s coastal policies. The mid-range of its projections envisions about 3 feet of rise by 2100.
Then he carefully takes out a sheet with the new data. Cayan points at the the elaborate graphs to the updated mid-range projection— 8½ feet. Cayan and his colleagues shrug off questions about how to apply their science—that’s the job of the politicians. But the report does counsel state officials to consider the worst-case scenario in their deliberations, and cautions: “Waiting for scientific certainty is neither a safe nor prudent option.”
So what now? California planners and policymakers will pore over the latest report. Their deliberations will result, at some point, in “updated guidance” to use the parlance of the bureaucracy. The final document will help local officials incorporate the sea-level rise projections into their future plans for building and safety, in some cases altering zoning and building codes.
Meanwhile, Greenland’s summer ice melt season begins, and the 2-mile deep ice sheet that was created in the last Ice Age continues to shrink. Researchers drilling ice cores have been astounded to find more and more streams of water rushing below the sheet—a river of water scything through ice. The proliferation of these ‘melt streams’ is leading scientists to consider that the loss of Greenland’s ice may be set on an unstoppable trajectory.
Permalink | Categories Research on April 27, 2017 by FishingNews | Comments Off on Rising Seas Claiming California’s Coast Faster Than Scientists Imagined Tags: California coast, sea level rise
The one-two punch of warming waters and ocean acidification is predisposing some marine animals to dissolving quickly under conditions already occurring off the Northern California coast, according to a study from the University of California, Davis.
In the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, researchers at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory raised bryozoans, also known as “moss animals,” in seawater tanks and exposed them to various levels of water temperature, food and acidity.
The scientists found that when grown in warmer waters and then exposed to acidity, the bryozoans quickly began to dissolve. Large portions of their skeletons disappeared in as little as two months.
“We thought there would be some thinning or reduced mass,” said lead author Dan Swezey, a recent Ph.D. graduate in professor Eric Sanford’s lab at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory. “But whole features just dissolved practically before our eyes.”
SKELETONS KEY
Bryozoans are colonial animals, superficially similar to, but not related, to corals. They are abundant in California kelp forests and are calcareous, meaning they build their honeycomb-shaped skeletons from calcium carbonate.
The scientists found that when raised under warming conditions, bryozoans altered their chemical composition by building higher levels of magnesium into their skeletons, particularly if they were also eating less food. When exposed to acidic conditions already observed off coastal California, these changes predisposed the animals to dissolve.
The researchers consider bryozoans a canary in the coal mine for other marine animals that build calcareous skeletons containing magnesium. These include sea stars, sea urchins, calcifying algae and tube-building worms.
The authors do not know why the bryozoans added more magnesium to their skeletons under warmer temperatures. But they conclude that marine organisms with skeletons made of high-magnesium calcite may be especially susceptible to ocean acidification because this form of calcium carbonate dissolves more easily than others.
Bryozoans grow in connected colonies. During the experiments, the animals shut down parts of themselves when undergoing the stress of ocean acidification, redirecting their energy to new growth. This was somewhat like closing down units of a condominium complex while building new ones at the same time. But the moss animals could not outpace the dissolution.
“They were trying to grow but were dissolving at the same time,” Swezey said.
CALCIFIED ANIMALS INCREASINGLY VULNERABLE
The authors said the study underlines the increasing vulnerability of calcified animals to ocean acidification, which occurs as the ocean absorbs more atmospheric carbon emitted through the burning of fossil fuels.
During the spring and summer months, deep ocean water rich in carbon dioxide periodically wells up along the California coast when surface waters are pushed offshore by strong winds. These upwelling events also push nutrients to the surface to help support kelp forests and productive fisheries. However, this deep water tends to be more acidic.
Climate modeling shows that the trends of warming ocean temperatures, stronger winds and increasingly strong upwelling events are expected to continue in the coming years as carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere increase. This indicates that acidic conditions will likely become more common, rather than episodic.
MARINE LIFE FACES MANY CHANGES AT ONCE
“Marine life is increasingly faced with many changes at once,” said co-author Sanford, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology. “For bryozoans, their response to warmer temperature makes them unexpectedly vulnerable to ocean acidification. The question now is whether other marine species might respond in a similar way.”
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The study’s other co-authors include Jessica Bean, Aaron Ninokawa, Tessa Hill, and Brian Gaylord from UC Davis. Bean is also affiliated with UC Berkeley.
The study was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives. Swezey was also supported by a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
Biologists at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) have cracked the code for how to spawn Pacific sardines in the laboratory, opening a new window on the life cycle of the commercially important species.
Like many species, sardines require just the right conditions to reproduce. Researchers working with sardines in the SWFSC’s Experimental Aquarium had tried for decades to identify those conditions. Then in early March, they hit upon the right combination of conditions and documented sardine spawning for the first time in captivity.
“The biggest challenge is getting them comfortable enough in captivity to get them ready to spawn, because we’re trying to replicate the conditions they would experience in the ocean,” said John Hyde, leader of the Experimental Aquarium and Fisheries Genetics Program at the Science Center.
The advance will allow scientists to more closely study and better understand the early life cycle of the species that is known for wide swings in abundance. That in turn will help biologists refine the life-cycle models they use to estimate the size of the sardine population and determine whether enough fish are available to support commercial harvest.
Scientists from the SWFSC’s Fisheries Resources Division varied the lighting, temperature, feed and other conditions in tanks holding the small silvery fish to encourage them to reproduce. Once they recognized that the sardines were ready to spawn, they injected the fish with hormones to induce spawning. The sardines spawned for the first time on March 1, and then again the next day when researchers observed a second batch of fertilized eggs in the tanks.
Researchers collected newly spawned eggs on March 1 and reared them in incubators at three different temperatures: 11°C, 13°C, and 15°C, chosen to mimic the range of temperature conditions they are likely to encounter during sardine spring spawning in the southern California Bight. Staff continued to rear the eggs over the following days until they hatched, sampling the eggs in each incubator every two hours to track their progress. Then they sampled the larvae once or twice per day through exhaustion of the yolk. The preliminary results of the egg-rearing data are still being analyzed.
Spawning sardines in the laboratory can give scientists new insight into early development of the fish, since it is very difficult to capture sardine larvae in the wild without damaging them. For example, sardine ear bones (called “otoliths”) provide natural records of the water conditions experienced by individual fish throughout their life. “By combining the chemistry of these bones with genetics, we can better understand where larvae and young fish are spending their time and how they may respond to changing ocean conditions such as shifting temperatures or ocean acidification,” said Emmanis Dorval, the lead scientist of the spawning experiment. “Ultimately, the research can lead to a better understanding of how biological and ecological factors influence sardine populations along the U.S. West Coast.”
Stage 5-6 sardine eggs subsampled from the 15°C incubator. Each major unit on the ruler represents approximately 0.33 mm. Larger circles represent the chorion of the eggs.
FRD contractor, Megan Human, taking a subsample of eggs during the egg-rearing experiment at the SWFSC Aquarium.
Permalink | Categories Research on April 20, 2017 by FishingNews | Comments Off on NOAA Fisheries Scientists Spawn Pacific Sardines For The First Time In Captivity Tags: captivity, sardines, spawn
April 18, 2017 — The following was published by CFOOD. Founded by Dr. Ray Hilborn from the University of Washington, CFOOD is a network of scientists formed to study the science of fisheries sustainability, and to correct erroneous stories about fisheries in the mainstream media:
A paper published earlier this month shows a new understanding of how commercially fishing forage fish impacts forage fish predators like sea birds, marine mammals, and pelagic finfish.
Forage fish are small, silvery, bottom-of-the-food-chain fish that eat plankton and small invertebrates. They are eaten by seemingly everything in the ocean, providing “forage” for many other animals—you’ve probably heard of the two most common forage fish: sardines and anchovies. If asked their favorite marine species, not many people would choose a forage fish, but many would choose a forage fish predator: Penguins and puffins are endearing, dolphins and seals are adorable, and tuna and swordfish are delicious. Forage fish help sustain these populations, but are also favorite foods for many cultures.
With a high oil and protein content, forage fish are also the perfect species for conversion to fishmeal and fish oil. The largest fishery in the world, Peruvian anchovy, is such a fishery. Fish oil provides essential fatty acids and is sold in drugstores as a nutritional supplement. Fishmeal is food for several of our favorite edible animals. It is especially important in farmed fish production (like most of the salmon eaten in the US), but is also fed to terrestrial livestock like cows and pigs. Essentially, forage fish fisheries take a renewable resource and turn them into protein that people eat.
But how do these fisheries affect the marine predators that feed on forage fish? This is an important question that has only recently been investigated. A paperpublished in 2012 used mathematical models to estimate the impact of fishing forage fish populations on their predators and recommended that commercial reduction fishing be cut by 50-80% to ensure forage fish predators get enough food. However since then, several papers—including some by the authors of the original—have recognized that the models used in the 2012 research were not suitable for the questions asked, and further studies are needed.
The latest, Hilborn et al. (2017) published earlier this month (open access), shows that environmental variability, left out of the original models, is actually the most important factor affecting forage fish populations. Commercial fishing often has little effect on forage fish populations and their predators. Instead, ocean conditions and nutrient cycles (things humans have no control over) dictate how many forage fish survive each year.
The new paper also suggests that the relationship between forage fish and their predators is complicated by several factors. Forage fish predators often rely on specific, high-density locations where the abundance may be largely unrelated to the total abundance of the population. Basically, instead of predators relying on the total number of forage fish, they rely on forage fish appearing in certain locations, such as near breeding areas. Predators are also not singularly reliant on commercially harvested forage fish to survive—most consume a wide variety of prey. Indeed, Hilborn et al. (2017) found no link between larger forage fish populations and increases in predator populations.
Forage fish provide a wonderful service to humans. They are tasty, nutritious, and their harvest provides food for animals that we enjoy and eat, both above and below the surface. Understanding their ecological role is important to ensure sustainability.
Permalink | Categories Research on April 19, 2017 by FishingNews | Comments Off on CFOOD: New Study Sheds Light on Relationship Between Forage Fish, Predators, and Fishing Tags: fishing, forage fish, Predators
Sea birds fly out to greet the Maria T. returning from an overnight fishing trip off the Palos Verdes Peninsula to catch sardines in April 2007. (File photo)
Fishing for Pacific sardines in California has been banned for the third year in a row.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council voted Monday afternoon in Sacramento to close the fishery through June 30, 2018 because the population limit of 150,000 metric tons wasn’t met.
Researchers estimate that only about 87,000 metric tons of the oil-rich fish are now swimming around off the coast.
The decision blocks commercial fishers in San Pedro, Long Beach and elsewhere across the West Coast from anything other than small numbers of incidental takes. While sardines don’t command the high price of California shellfish, their plentiful numbers and popularity make them one of the state’s most-caught finfish.
But fishery managers say there’s reason to believe sardines are much more plentiful than studies have found.
Dept. of Fish and Game agent Eric Kingsbury collects a random sample of fish from a sardine catch in San Pedro. The fish will be analyzed and entered into a database in efforts to monitor the health of the marine ecosystem. (File photo)
Flawed count?
NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center deputy director Dale Sweetnam said the acoustic-trawl method that researchers use to estimate the number of sardines is in the process of being improved to take into account other areas closer to shore.
The count is done from a large NOAA ship that surveys the entire West Coast by sampling schools of fish, and then bounces sound waves off of them to create a diagram that estimates the size.
But the ship is too large to go into harbors or coastal areas where sardines like to congregate.
“There are questions about the acoustic detector being on the bottom of the ship — how much of the schools in the upper water columns are missed by the acoustics,” Sweetnam said. “Also, the large NOAA ship can’t go in shallow waters, but most of the sardine fishery is very close to shore.”
The fisheries service will soon employ a Department of Fish and Wildlife plane, along with drones, to survey coastal areas for sardines.
“It will take some time because we’re going to have to determine a scientific sampling scheme,” Sweetnam said. “We’re starting this collaborative work with the fishing industry to extend our sampling grid-lines to shore.”
Ocean activists cheer closure
However, environmental activists cheered the decision to close the sardine fishery for a third season.
Oceana, a worldwide conservation advocacy organization, blames the sardine population decline on overfishing.
“Over the last four years we’ve witnessed starved California sea lion pups washing up on beaches and brown pelicans failing to produce chicks because moms are unable to find enough forage fish,” said Oceana campaign manager Ben Enticknap.
“Meanwhile, sardine fishing rates spiked right as the population was crashing. Clearly the current sardine management plan is not working as intended and steps must be taken to fix it.”
Industry representatives, however, argue that fishers are reliable environmental stewards and that they are just as eager as environmental activists to protect the long-term survival of marine species.
California fishers were able to replace sardine takes with increased numbers of squid in recent years. This year, promising anchovy stocks and other fish may keep the industry solvent.
California Wetfish Producers Association Executive Director Diane Pleschner-Steele said fishermen are frustrated.
“Fishermen are just ready to pull their hair out because there’s so many sardines and we can’t target them,” said Pleschner-Steele. “I’m relieved that the Southwest Fisheries Science Center acknowledges problems with the current stock assessment and has promised to work with the fishermen to develop a cooperative research plan to survey the near-shore area that is now missed. Unfortunately, this does not help us this year.”
Editor’s note: This article was updated with additional comments from NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center deputy director Dale Sweetnam.
