Fishing News

Oncoming El Niño likely to continue species shakeup in Pacific

Crews from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center caught two large ocean sunfish far to the north of where the species usually occurs. Photo credit: AFSC.

 One-two punch of El Niño and “warm blob” could boost coastal temperatures and supercharge storms

Contributed by Michael Milstein

The emerging El Niño climate pattern that is warming the tropical Pacific Ocean is likely to continue–and could even increase–the appearance of marine species in unfamiliar places along the West Coast. This trend started with a vast “warm blob” of high temperature waters that has dominated the Northeast Pacific since 2014.

Previous El Niños coincided with large-scale redistribution of some West Coast marine mammals, fish and sea turtles. The combination of an anticipated strong El Niño and the blob may do the same, possibly in new and different ways, NOAA Fisheries researchers say.

“One of our big questions right now is, how can we best link observed changes in species distributions to changing environmental conditions?” said Dave Weller of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California. Weller is chief scientist for the ongoing Collaborative Large Whale Survey, a joint survey for whales off the West Coast and Southeast Alaska by the SWFSC and Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

“We need to be clever about it in terms of using a range of observations and having eyes on the water in the form of ship surveys like this can really help,” Weller said.

NOAA Fisheries scientists have been tracking the blob since last year and are cooperatively following continued changes in ocean conditions through at-sea surveys, remote sensing and automated monitoring to understand how the changes are affecting marine ecosystems.

The blob has already driven temperatures in the North Pacific some 3 to 4 degrees C (about 5 to 7 degrees F) above average. Not since records began around 1900 have temperatures in the region been so warm for so long.

Temperature changes shift marine life

Already in the last month the survey spotted about 25 pilot whales around 50 miles off the Central California Coast. Pilot whales were once common off Southern California but largely disappeared following a strong El Niño pattern in the early 1980s. In the last few years pilot whales have begun to trickle back into the area, a sign they may be starting to reoccupy former habitat.

“This recent uptick in pilot whale sightings may be related to the warm blob’s influence,” Weller said. “If we pay close attention to the animals, they’re telling us something about changes in their environment. We now need to connect the puzzle pieces.” Scientists are also investigating connections between the blob and a harmful algal bloom along the West Coast that may be a factor in an unusual number of whale deaths in Alaska.

Rockfish surveys conducted by the SWFSC in May and June already showed the likely influence of warm water from the blob, turning up large catches of species typically seen during strong El Niño periods, and some never before seen in the survey. They included record high catches of pelagic red crabs and California spiny lobster, and the survey’s first-ever catches of warm-water species including greater Argonaut (a swimming octopus with a shell), slender snipefish and subtropical krill.

Offshore surveys by the AFSC pulled in warmer-water species including two large ocean sunfish and market squid, species which have not been seen in the prior 18 years of sampling, said Joe Orsi of the AFSC’s Auke Bay Laboratories. Other warm-water species reported from Alaska recently include albacore, bonito and yellowtail.

“This El Niño is liable to bring some really strange changes in ocean conditions because the widespread warming of the North Pacific we saw with the blob was so far outside of our experience,” said Northwest Fisheries Science Center oceanographer Bill Peterson. “When you put an El Niño on top of that it is anyone’s guess as to how this will affect marine organisms.” He tracks types of plankton off the Central Oregon Coast for insight into ocean conditions. He expects a new surge of warm-water plankton as the tropical El Niño begins to influence Oregon waters this fall.

Salmon and other species that thrive in cold water often do poorly in warm years, especially strong El Niño years, he noted, while species such as sardines that favor warmer water could do better.

El Nino vs. the blob

Now another key question is how the tropical El Niño and the blob may interact as El Niño gains strength and begins to affect the West Coast this fall and winter. In terms of size, El Niño far exceeds the blob and is expected to pummel the blob with storms that will likely break up the blob and push its warm water up along much of the West Coast, said Nate Mantua, leader of the SWFSC’s Landscape Ecology Team.

That will likely make this the third winter in a row with record-high coastal temperatures that affect both marine ecosystems and the coastal climate. El Niño typically shifts the jet stream in a way that redirects storms from the Pacific Northwest to Southern California instead.

“Because we’re starting from an exceptionally high baseline temperature this could take us further into uncharted territory in terms of effects,” Mantua said.

He said there is potential for the warm coastal temperatures to “supercharge” storms spawned by El Niño. Since warmer air holds more moisture storms may carry greater precipitation ashore, which could lead to more intense deluges on land. That could multiply the impacts of this summer’s large wildfires by pouring water on recently burned slopes.

“If you put heavy rains on that, you can get mudslides, debris flows, rapid runoff and other serious impacts,” Mantua said.

California sea lions will likely continue to struggle as the warm water temperatures lead to shifts in prey, he said. Record numbers of starving sea lion pups stranded on Southern California beaches last winter and spring as their mothers had a harder time finding food near their rookeries in the Channel Islands.

Investigations of the sea lion strandings by AFSC researcher Sharon Melin and others found that adult females could not maintain enough lactation to support normal pup growth. In July 2015 AFSC biologists recorded declines in the number of sea lion pups born on San Miguel and San Nicholas islands, another sign of nutritional stress in the population.

Mantua noted that El Niño effects extend far beyond the West Coast of North America. Dry conditions in Central America have already led to restrictions on the size of ships that can transit the Panama Canal because of lack of water, for instance. Meanwhile heavy rains are falling in the Peruvian desert.

“This El Niño will likely cause extreme climate events in different parts of the world for the next six to nine months,” Mantua said.

How science tracks conditions

The way that El Niño interacts with the warm blob may depend on the depth and extent of the blob’s warm water, which remains something of a mystery, said Toby Garfield, director of the SWFSC’s Environmental Research Division. If it’s shallow, it should dissipate quickly. But if it’s deeper, the larger volume of water may hang on longer.

“How much heat does it hold and how that volume of hot water out there may or may not change things, those are the questions everyone’s asking right now,” Garfield said. “This is going to be a very interesting winter coming up and many scientists and communities will be working hard to anticipate and prepare for changes in the ocean and atmosphere.”

Marine scientist are mobilizing partnerships to make the most of ocean monitoring instruments along the West Coast. New instruments such as autonomous gliders that survey ocean conditions may offer opportunities to gather marine data that was not available during previous El Niños, Garfield said.

Read the original post: http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/

Savoring Sustainable Seafood

A Message from Eileen Sobeck, Head of NOAA Fisheries

October is National Seafood Month and across the country, there’s a bounty of delectable seafood choices to enjoy from U.S. fisheries.

Our fisheries are among the largest and most sustainable in the world, and all U.S. seafood is responsibly harvested and grown under a strong monitoring, management, and enforcement regime that works to keep the marine environment healthy, fish and shellfish populations thriving, and our seafood industry on the job.

A steady, sustainable supply of safe, healthy seafood is a critical ingredient to keeping our coastal communities and working waterfronts resilient, both environmentally and economically. And we know that our investments in science-based fisheries management are paying off. In 2013, U.S. fishermen landed 9.9 billion pounds of fish and shellfish worth $5.5 billion—that’s an increase of 245 million pounds and an additional $388 million compared to 2012. And in 2014, the number of U.S. fish stocks rebuilt since 2000 increased to 37. As a result of the combined efforts of NOAA Fisheries, the regional fishery management councils, and all of our partners, the number of stocks listed as subject to overfishing or overfished continues to decline and are at an all-time low.

For more facts about what makes U.S. seafood sustainable, seafood lovers can turn to FishWatch, the nation’s database on sustainable fisheries. And some great news—coming soon, consumers can find FishWatch information when they’re on the go—right on their phone or tablet.

Stay tuned throughout National Seafood Month as NOAA Fisheries features stories and updates on our website highlighting:

• The dynamic process of sustainably managing living marine resources in an ever-changing ocean environment;
• Getting to know your seafood from ocean-to-plate;
• Recent advancements in aquaculture, and much more.

You can also learn more about the 100 marine species profiled on FishWatch with our daily #SeafoodMonth facts coming soon.

This October, we encourage you to take some time to stop and savor the season, as well as the healthful and tasty seafood available.

Eileen Sobeck Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries

Ask Well: Canned vs. Fresh Fish

 

Rare Giant Squid Found Off the Coast of Hawaii

A rare giant squid was caught off the coast of Hawaii this week. It will be sent to Washington for further research. Mathew Fowler

Researchers Keep Missing Picture on Sardines, Where there is a 1400 Year History of Boom and Bust

— Posted with permission of SEAFOODNEWS.COM. Please do not republish without their permission. —

Copyright © 2015 Seafoodnews.com

“Climate variations or natural boom-and-bust cycles contribute to population fluctuation in small fast-growing fish, ” Pinsky said, “but when they are not overfished, our data showed that their populations didn’t have any more tendency to collapse than other fish. ” He called these findings counterintuitive because the opposite dynamic holds true on land: “Mice thrive while lions, tigers and elephants are endangered, ” he said.

While it’s common these days to blame the ocean’s woes on overfishing, the truth is Pinsky’s conclusions don’t paint a complete picture. Fortunately, we do have an accurate picture and it’s definitely better than the proverbial thousand words.

The picture is a graph (adapted from Baumgartner et al in CalCOFI Reports 1992, attached) that shows sardine booms and busts for the past 1,400 years. The data were extracted from an anaerobic trench in the Santa Barbara Channel which correlated sardine and anchovy recoveries and collapses with oceanic cycles.

(Click on Image for larger Version)

It’s important to note that most of sardine collapses in this timeframe occurred when there was virtually no commercial fishing. The best science now attributes great fluctuations and collapses experienced by sardines to be part of a natural cycle.

“Pinsky has never been a terrestrial biologist or naturalist or he would have known that small rodents have boom and bust cycles brought about by combinations of environmental conditions and the mice’s early maturity and high fecundity rates, ” says Dr. Richard Parrish, an expert in population dynamics now retired from the National Marine Fisheries Service, .

“All fish stocks show boom and bust cycles in recruitment unrelated to fishing, ” says Dr. Ray Hilborn, internationally respected fisheries scientist from the University of Washington. “Sardines in particular have been shown to have very great fluctuations and collapses long before commercial fishing. Fast growing, short-lived species will be much more likely to decline to a level called “collapse” when recruitment fluctuates because they are short lived — longer lived species won’t decline as much. ”

As a further poke in the eye to the truth, Pinsky cites sardines off the coast of Southern California as a species that has seen fluctuations for thousands of years, but “not at the levels that they’ve experienced in recent decades due to overfishing. ”

Again, this simply is not true.

Since the fishery reopened in 1987, Pacific sardines have been perhaps the best-managed fishery in the world – the poster fish for effective ecosystem-based management. The current harvest control rule, updated to be even more precautionary in 2014, sets a strict harvest guideline that considers ocean conditions and automatically reduces the catch limit as the biomass declines.

If the temperature is cold – which scientists believe hampers sardine recruitment – the harvest is reduced. And if the population size declines, both the harvest rate and the allowable catch will automatically decrease, and directed fishing will be stopped entirely when biomass declines below 150,000 mt.

In fact, the current sardine harvest rule is actually more precautionary than the original rule it replaced. It does this by producing an average long-term population size at 75 percent of the unfished size, leaving even more fish in the water, vs. 67 percent in the original rule. The original harvest rule reduced the minimum harvest rate to 5 percent during cold periods. The present has a minimum rate of 0 percent during cold periods.

Compare this to the 1940s and ’50s when the fishery harvest averaged 43 percent or more of the standing sardine stock with little regulatory oversight and no limit on the annual catch. This, coupled with unfavorable ocean conditions, culminated in the historic sardine fishery collapse that devastated Monterey’s Cannery Row.

But that was nearly 70 years ago, not “recent decades. ” Our current fishery harvest is less than a quarter of the rate observed during that historical sardine collapse.

As a scientist, Pinsky should be aware of the complex, proactive management efforts that have been in place for decades to prevent overfishing in California and the west coast. He should also be aware of the data from Baumgartner that contradicts his faulty conclusions.

D. B. Pleschner is executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, a nonprofit dedicated to research and to promote sustainable Wetfish resources.

Copyright © 2015 Seafoodnews.com

Global Fisheries Scientists set up ‘Truth Squad’ to Counter Inaccurate Scientific Claims in Media

— Posted with permission of SEAFOODNEWS.COM. Please do not republish without their permission. —

Copyright © 2015 Seafoodnews.com

Their media partners lap up stories of doom and collapse, often uncritically.  For that reason, a group of  International experts in fisheries management have come together as part of a new initiative, called CFOOD (Collaborative for Food from Our Oceans Data.) The coalition will gather data from around the world and maintain fisheries databases while ensuring seafood sustainability discussions in the media reflect ground-truth science.

The scientists behind the project have long pushed for accurate and clean data sources on the world’s fisheries.

The CFOOD project, headquartered at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (SAFS), is made up of a network of scientists whose mission stemmed from a frustration with erroneous and agenda-driven stories about fisheries sustainability in the media. The CFOOD project will maintain a website and social media channels that provide a forum for immediate feedback on new seafood sustainability reports and studies.

“The CFOOD website allows us to offer independent scientific commentary to debunk false claims, support responsible science, or introduce new issues based on recent research,” said Dr. Ray Hilborn, Professor at University of Washington’s SAFS and founder of the CFOOD initiative.

“The ocean is a remarkably abundant source of healthy protein,” said Hilborn. “And while sustainability challenges exist, particularly in areas lacking sufficient fishery management infrastructure, many fisheries around the world are well-managed and sustainable. The message doesn’t always seem to resonate with consumers because of misinformation they continue to hear in the media.”

By reviewing and providing scientific analysis on relevant studies, papers, and media reports the CFOOD network hopes to use science to set the record straight for consumers, so they can have confidence the seafood they purchase is harvested in an environmentally responsible fashion.

Other scientists on the editorial board for CFOOD include Robert Arlinghaus, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries and Humboldt at Universität zu Berlin; Kevern Cochrane, FAO Retired, Cape Town, South Africa; Stephen Hall, World Fish Center, Penang, Malaysia; Olaf Jensen, Rutgers University; Michel Kaiser, Bangor University, UK; Ana Parma, CONICET Puerto Madryn, Argentina; Tony Smith, Hobart, Australia; Nobuyuki Yagi, Tokyo University.

“Exaggerated claims of impending ecological disaster might grab attention, but they risk distorting effort and resources away from more critical issues.  I hope this initiative will help provide the balance we need,” said Dr. Stephen Hall, Director General, World Fish Center, based in Malaysia.

The first set of comments on the CFOOD website debunks a WWF paper claiming a 74% decline in global mackerel and tuna species.  The scientists point out that the data used to support that conclusion is out of date, having not been updated since 2004, and that more robust data sources, such as the actual stock assessments of tuna and mackerel stocks around the world were not used by the WWF in creating their estimate.  We explore the comments in depth in our related story.

To connect with the scientists, you can use twitter, facebook, or their website.

Website:  Twitter:  Facebook:

John Sackton, Editor and Publisher

Copyright © 2015 Seafoodnews.com

Will El Niño ‘solve’ drought? Not if the rain falls in Southern California

In recent weeks, conditions have gelled for what forecasters say could be one of the strongest El Niño weather patterns in recorded history. Will it substantially ease California’s historic drought? If the storms center on Southern California, the answer is probably not.

Experts stress that El Niño is notoriously unpredictable, and when its storms do hit the state, they’re prone to soaking the southern third of California. While more than 75 percent of the demand for irrigation and drinking water is in the south state, the backbone of California’s water supply and delivery system – and most of its reservoir capacity – is in the north.

“We’re much better off if it rains in the north than in the south,” said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, an environmental policy group based in Oakland.

In a typical year, about 75 percent of the state’s annual precipitation falls north of Sacramento, in the form of rain and mountain snow.

Four years into the drought, conditions have been far from typical. On April 1, when California snowpack generally has reached its greatest depths, the Sierra snowpack was at just 5 percent of normal. Researchers said it was the lowest it had been in more than 500 years. State officials say the 2015 “water year” that ended Sept. 30 recorded the warmest high-elevation temperatures in the 120 years people have been keeping track.

Those conditions have strained California’s massive water-delivery system, a series of reservoirs and canals operated by the state and federal governments. The infrastructure was built to take advantage of historic weather patterns, with a focus on regulating flows to prevent downstream flooding in heavy storms and capturing snowmelt to buoy the state through summer and fall.

“If you only get a series of early spring and early summer rainstorms, we’re not really designed to capture that runoff,” said Noah Garrison, a water-law expert and geologist at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

The state has approximately 1,500 reservoirs, which portion out water over the year to meet demand for farm and landscape irrigation, drinking water, and fish and wildlife habitat. The vast man-made conveyance network is capable of funneling Mount Shasta snowmelt 700 miles south to San Diego.

The trick is storing the right amounts at the right times to ensure there is adequate water to meet yearlong demand in a state with enormous regions of developed land that get minimal precipitation or have just one wet season a year.

We’re much better off if it rains in the north than in the south.

Peter Gleick, Pacific Institute

In all, California has 43 million acre-feet of reservoir storage space, almost three-quarters of it north of Fresno. The largest of these reservoirs, Shasta, Oroville and Trinity in far Northern California, account for almost a quarter of the state’s surface water supplies.

Jay Lund is a civil and environmental engineering professor at UC Davis and heads the university’s Center for Watershed Sciences. During a recent interview, Lund held up a chart that showed a seemingly random scattering of points on a graph. The dots represented Sacramento River runoff during El Niño years, he said, underscoring the uncertainty of whether this year’s El Niño will substantially raise water levels in the northern reservoirs.

“It looks like a shotgun blast,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to bet on this. Maybe we will get a lot of water. Maybe we won’t.”

El Niño conditions occur when ocean temperatures warm along a stretch of the equatorial Pacific roughly twice the size of the United States. The warming leads to a shift in weather patterns that typically cause West Coast storm systems to move south.

During weak or moderate El Niño events, in which Pacific water temperatures rise by a modest amount, it’s hard to find a consistent rain pattern in Sacramento, according to a Sacramento Bee review of data back to 1950. The average precipitation in those years was 18 inches – about normal for the city. Stronger El Niño years – when ocean temperatures rise by a significant amount as they have this year – are more encouraging. During those years, rainfall in Sacramento averaged 24 inches, roughly 130 percent of normal.

If that happens, and El Niño douses central California as far north as Sacramento, it would substantially ease the burden on the state’s water supply – even if the storms don’t dump deep snow in the northern mountains, said Maury Roos, an hydrologist with the state Department of Water Resources.

Roos said there are a number of smaller reservoirs south of Sacramento that help supply the state’s Central Valley farm belt. Crop irrigation, most of it in the Valley, accounts for about 80 percent of the “developed” water in California, meaning water that people put to use.

“If it gets as far north as where we are, then it will help a lot more,” said Roos from his office in Sacramento. “Then you can help to refill some of the major reservoirs around the rim of the Valley.”

If the bulk of the heaviest rains stay further south, a wetter Southern California will help, but not nearly as much.

“We’re just not set up to handle the capacity, the total volume of water that we’re really dealing with,” said Garrison, the UCLA geologist. “A 1-inch rainstorm in L.A. can produce 10 billion gallons of runoff … most of which ultimately will end up flowing down the L.A. River and out to the ocean. We don’t have capacity to capture large events like that and really put them to use yet.”

Still, the situation has improved since the state’s last deep drought in the early 1990s. Several major Southern California cities and irrigation districts have made strides in recent years to capture more stormwater, reduce local use and make imported reserves last longer.

Rich Atwater, executive director of the Southern California Water Committee, said the region, on average, now gets about 12 percent of its water supply from locally captured stormwater. Southern California is investing in infrastructure improvements that should increase this capacity 5 percent, he said.

The region also gets about 10 percent of its water from recycled sewage, he said. He expects that figure to double in the next 25 years. That’s based, in part, on an ambitious plan for what would easily be the largest wastewater recycling effort in the state. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is discussing a project that would produce 168,000 acre-feet of potable water using treated sewage to replenish groundwater supplies.

The water district, which serves 19 million customers, recently spent close to $3 billion on a reservoir and tunnel project at Diamond Valley Lake near Hemet in Riverside County. The reservoir can capture 800,000 acre-feet – or about 260 billion gallons – of water. But for now, there’s no ready infrastructure for funneling in storm runoff from around the region. The reservoir will capture rain that falls directly in its walls, but it is only plumbed to receive water piped from Northern California.

A 1-inch rainstorm in L.A. can produce 10 billion gallons of runoff … most of which ultimately will end up flowing down the L.A. River and out to the ocean. We don’t have capacity to capture large events like that and really put them to use yet.

Noah Garrison, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

The biggest benefit to Southern California from El Niño storms could be replenishment of groundwater supplies. In the drought, government surface deliveries have been slashed to a fraction of what they have been in average rainfall years. Central and Southern California cities and farms have been furiously pumping groundwater to make up for the loss.

Over the decades, several Southern California water districts have invested in groundwater banks and groundwater recharging projects to offset the unreliability of imports from the north and the Colorado River. These projects make use of imported water or natural flows that are channeled into swampy or porous areas where the water can seep into the ground for later pumping.

Kern County has created the state’s largest water bank, primarily to help irrigate its $7.5 billion agricultural industry. The storage network, spread across numerous irrigation districts, can hold 5.7 million acre-feet of water.

In the drought, even this massive system has been depleted. Jon Parker, general manager of the Kern Water Bank Authority, said his district alone can store up to 1.5 million acre-feet. In the drought, pumping has lowered that level to 500,000 acre-feet.

Robb Whitaker, general manager of the Water Replenishment District of Southern California, said drought-related pumping has similarly drained the groundwater stored under his district, which supplies about 40 percent of the water for 4 million people in southern Los Angeles County. He said a single wet El Niño year could put more than 150,000 acre-feet of water back into the ground.

“The basins are very, very dry. … They’re ready to capture water,” Whitaker said. “It’s like a dry sponge, and we’re hopeful we’d be able to get about twice the normal capture, if not more. In that case, we could be caught up in two or three wet seasons.”

The challenge with water banks and groundwater recharging is that too much rain too fast can overwhelm the system. Unlike a traditional reservoir, the basins that capture groundwater need time for that water to seep in.

“If the engineers and the water managers could control all the knobs like the great and powerful wizard of Oz, they would like it to come down at a moderate pace for a long time, so the system could sort of absorb it as it happens,” said Kelly Redmond, deputy director and regional climatologist for the federal government’s Western Regional Climate Center in Reno.

“If you overwhelm the system, some of it will go into groundwater recharge, but a lot of it will just go out to the ocean, and I guess your perspective on whether that’s wasted water or not might depend on if you’re a water manager or a fish.”

At the most basic level, a prolonged soaking would keep Southern California residential landscapes green longer without sprinklers. Some residents are hoping to extend that run with rain barrels, which while not widespread, have gained some traction through rebate programs.

Geri Cicero, a retired administrative assistant from Costa Mesa, is ahead of the curve on that front. She said that even before the drought, she installed rain barrels and other water-catching devices around her property. She’s anxious for an El Niño to fill them up for later landscape use.

“If you walked around my house, you’d see bucket after bucket and barrel after barrel,” she said. “It’s almost like a game for me. I really enjoy it.”

Atwater, with the Southern California Water Committee, has rain barrels, too. While they’re helpful in getting people to think about how much water they use on their landscape, he said, they can only do so much in solving the state’s water storage needs. He said he uses larger rain barrels than most people, and they’re empty within a week or two after a storm.

“A 50-gallon rain barrel doesn’t go very far,” he said.

Water storage

Shasta Lake was 35 percent full on Saturday. That’s 58 percent of the amount of water it would normally have this time of year. How the state’s largest reservoirs compare:

Reservoir	Size (acre-feet)	Pct. full	Pct. of normal
Shasta Lake	4,552,000	35%	58%
Lake Oroville	3,537,577	30	49
Trinity Lake	2,447,650	22	32
New Melones Lake	2,400,000	11	20
San Luis Reservoir	2,041,000	19	40
Don Pedro Reservoir	2,030,000	31	47
Lake Berryessa	1,602,000	52	70
Lake Almanor	1,308,000	55	96
Lake McClure	1,024,600	8	19
Pine Flat	1,000,000	12	35
Folsom Lake	977,000	18	31

Source: California Department of Water Resources

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Read the original post: http://www.sacbee.com/

Dolphins, Pelagic Red Crab, Sun Fish Point to El Nino Coming to Northern California

The subjects of science are often witnessed through microscopes, tiny squiggly things writhing in a petri dish. But last week as a large research boat drifted through the Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, science was getting scrutinized through binoculars and even the naked eye.

For the 12th year in a row, researchers from Point Blue Conservation Science, the Gulf of Farallones and Cordell Bank Marine Sanctuaries were spending 10 days on the ocean outside the Golden Gate Bridge taking a scientific snapshot of ocean life.

“Our goal is to understand how ocean conditions affect food for birds and whales,” said Jaime Jahncke of Point Blue.

Over several days the team collected krill samples, tested for signs of ocean acidification and attempted to lay eyes on as many critters as possible.

“Our sampling effort looks at birds, mammals, krills, boat activity ,” said Jan Roletto, research coordinator for Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

A researcher scans the ocean for seabirds during a recent scientific cruise in the Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.
Photo credit: Joe Rosato Jr.

But this year’s gathering turned-up some unusual phenomenon, which scientists believe are signs of an El Nino year – which draws unusually warm waters to Northern California. For the first time in decades, scientists saw schools of hundreds of common dolphins which aren’t common to the Bay Area, but rather the typically warm waters of Southern California.

“It’s a sign the water is more warm than we normally see,” Roletto said. “And that’s a sign of El Nino.”

Scientists have recorded large pockets of warm water along the West Coast over the last two years – which they’ve affectionally nicknamed “the blob.”

“This year has been particularly interesting,” Jahncke said. “The ocean has been really warm because of ‘the blob.’ ”

During an expedition earlier this summer, the scientists noted fewer krill in the ocean which in turn was driving humpback whales closer to shore near Half Moon Bay and Monterey to seek out fish.

“There are more whales visible from the mainland,” Roletto said. “That’s because that’s where the fish are being concentrated.”

A small fish sits among a sampling of krill collected by researchers during their scientific cruise.
Photo credit: Joe Rosato Jr.

In addition to dolphins, Roletto said the group spotted other typically warm water creatures venturing north. Sleepy-looking sun fish were seen basking in the waters. And the researchers’ nets pulled up a curious traveler — a small red pelagic crab that normally makes its home near Baja.

“The last time I personally saw in this region red pelagic crabs was in the 1983, 1984 El Nino,” Roletto said.

Roletto said the lack of krill and juvenile rockfish which are normally abundant along the coast was posing hardships on common murres which have been recently turning-up starving and dead on Northern California beaches. Roletto said the young birds count on juvenile rockfish to survive. She pointed out similar die-offs occurred in past El Nino years.

“That’s pretty extreme,” Roletto said, “pretty significant indicator that something is missing in the eco system.”

As part of the research, observers armed with binoculars lined the boat’s upper deck, calling out every bird and mammal along a set swath of ocean near the Farallon Islands. Sea lions, whales and even plain old seagulls became part of a moving record of the area’s life. The results are compared to previous years’ records to help paint a picture of the changing conditions.

A research team hauls in nets designed to collect krill and other small sea creatures in the Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.
Photo credit: Joe Rosato Jr.

“It’s really interesting because things change from day to day,” said Danielle Lipski of Cordell Bank Marine Sanctuary. “Sometimes we’ll see lots of whales and seabirds and in other areas we won’t.”

Jahncke stared off across the churning waters as the boat bobbed and jibed across rolling swells — when something suddenly caught his eye. In the distance came the telltale blowhole spout of a whale.

“Do you see it?” he said enthusiastically, quickly tapping record of the sighting into his computer. Then he leaned back to appreciate the view, watching as the ocean swallowed the meandering giant.

View the original post: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/

NEW SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD REPORTING APPLICATION AVAILABLE FOR BUSINESSES

September 28, 2015 — FORT COLLINS, Colorado — The following was released by FishChoice:

New Sustainable Seafood Reporting Application Available for Businesses

Online Application Enables Businesses to Self-Assess the Sustainability of their Seafood

Powered by FishChoice.com, in partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch^® program and Seattle Fish Co., the new Sustainable Seafood Calculator application enables businesses to self-assess and track the sustainability of their seafood.

“We partnered with FishChoice.com to create the Seafood Calculator to allow our customers to easily and accurately rate the sustainability of their seafood,” says Derek Figueroa, COO of Seattle Fish Co. “The Seafood Calculator is a valuable and straightforward tool that makes it easy for Seattle Fish Co. to deliver up-to-date information to our customers and allow them to drive real change.”

Chefs, retailers, distributors, and others register for a free account and can immediately start creating one or more lists of their seafood inventory. At any time, users can calculate sustainability where they will be directed to a dashboard with a table of their seafood inventory matched with corresponding up-to-date sustainability information. The dashboard also includes a collection of charts summarizing their seafood categories by overall sustainability and by individual sustainability categories. Additionally, users of the application receive email notifications when there are updates to the sustainability of any of their items.

Currently, over 500 companies have tested the application and use it to track and report the sustainability of their seafood. Chefs are some of the main businesses benefiting from the application. According to Sheila Lucero, Executive Chef, Jax Fish House and Oyster Bar, “We are committed to our sustainability practices and being able to utilize the Seafood Calculator has been a beneficial tool to our chefs.” The sustainable seafood calculator can be found at http://www.fishchoice.com/sustainableseafoodcalculator/. 

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‘The Blob’ Fueling Drastic Changes Under The Sea Ahead Of El Niño

It’s the crack of dawn on a recent morning at Fisherman’s Landing in Point Loma, and the docks are bustling.

Dozens of enthusiastic anglers have just returned with a boatload of bluefin tuna, dorado and yellowtail.

It’s been a banner season, said Andrew Dalo, who books reservations for Point Loma Sportfishing.

“I’ve got overnight and day-and-a-half boats that are catching 100- to almost 200-pound bluefin tuna up off our coast here, out west and up north,” Dalo said. “And that’s stuff that we don’t even normally see up here, let alone go after.”

The tropical fish are typically reeled in off Mexico and far off-shore, Dalo said. Now they’re being hooked as close as 10-20 miles off of San Diego, where water temperatures are exceptionally warm.

“Right now we’re 4 to 5 degrees above normal, which to you and me doesn’t seem like much, but if you’re an animal living in the sea and you live at that temperature — that’s a huge change,” said Toby Garfield, director of the Environmental Research Division at Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla.

The warm water, which scientists have named “the blob,” formed two years ago near Alaska and has spread down the West Coast. Garfield said the warm conditions have sent mother nature into disarray.

“In fact, having this additional warm water has changed the winds a little bit,” Garfield explained. “The upwelling winds really drive the productivity along the California coast. So if you reduce that productivity, you start changing a lot of different parts of the whole ecosystem.”

Much of the fishery population has shifted north, and El Niño hasn’t even arrived yet, said Garfield, who analyzes ocean conditions and reports his findings to the Pacific Fishery Management Council.

“If you go out and do an assessment and you’re not sure where that population is from, you can get some erroneous results in terms of how you’re going to divide up the fisheries,” Garfield said. “And remember, the fish don’t know there’s a Mexican border or Canadian border.”

“We really do have a front row seat on a fascinating change,” Garfield added. “We haven’t seen it this anomalously warm in the record, and at the same time, we’re having a developing El Niño.”

Garfield said he sees two possible scenarios playing out this winter: El Niño’s storm energy will stir up the water, causing the cool water from the ocean depths to mix with and cool the water at the surface.

“That’s one scenario — that it may disappear and will go back to more normal temperatures,” Garfield explained. “The other scenario is that the two will reinforce each other and we’ll have even warmer conditions, and the weather patterns will be different than we expect with a normal El Niño.”

Garfield says additional heat from El Niño could produce storms with higher energy and moisture.

Meanwhile, the telltale signs of current ocean water temperatures from “the blob” have appeared in recent months along San Diego’s shores. The unusual visitors range from hammerhead sharks to tropical fish to millions of red tuna crabs.

“We’ve also seen ‘by the wind sailors’ that have occurred en masse on the shores here on La Jolla and elsewhere,” said David Checkley, a professor of marine biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Checkley said the reduction in upwelling of cold water nutrients from the ocean floor has drastically altered the food web.

“At the base of the food chain it’s been observed that the amount of chlorophyll or phytoplankton is lower than normal because we have fewer nutrients brought up into the surface waters,” Checkley said.

Phytoplankton provide food for a wide range of sea creatures including whales, shrimp, snails, and jellyfish, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

“The continued poor health of the California sea lion population is likely due to a lack of forage — anchovy, sardines… perhaps squid,” Checkley said.

An algal bloom occurring along the West Coast from California up to Alaska is also a growing concern.

“Those harmful algal blooms sometimes come with toxins — demoic acid that can poison marine mammals that eat fish that consume those algae,” he said.

Checkley said water temperatures will likely eventually return to normal, but he can’t help but look at the conditions as a harbinger of the future.

“What perhaps is worrisome is if you think of things such as this and a long-term trend in a rise in temperatures associated with the climate warming or climate change,” Checkley said.

He predicts some sea creatures will suffer through El Niño.

“The winners are the recreational fishermen,” Checkley said.

San Diego’s sportfishing season usually wraps up in September, but not this year.

“We’re hoping this stuff stays around,” Dalo said. “If it stays up here, we can fish in U.S. waters. You bet. We’ll fish into October. We’ll fish into November.”

NASA – This map of the West Coast shows sea surface temperature anomalies in the Pacific Ocean in March 2015. They show how much above (red) or below (blue) water temperatures were compared to the long-term average from 2003 to 2012.

By Susan Murphy – Tuna crabs blanket the shoreline at Ocean Beach in San Diego, June 12, 2015.

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