New aerial surveys of sardines off Southern California will address fishermen’s concerns that sardine abundance estimates are effectively “missing California fish.”
Collaborative Fisheries Research West has awarded a $16,000 grant to a California sardine industry group to help pay for two spotter-pilot surveys. The first survey is being flown this summer and the second will occur in the spring of 2014.
The project’s leaders hope to use digitally enhanced photos of fish schools taken during the flights to develop a scientifically rigorous method for calculating sardine abundances. If this can be done, they will ask the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which manages the Pacific sardine fishery with NOAA Fisheries, to consider including California aerial survey data into its future stock assessments, from which harvesting limits are set.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife pilot Tom Evans (left) flies transects while spotter Devin Reed (right) identifies sardine schools, which are then photographed. Credit: K. Lynn/CDFW
In recent years, Marine Protected Areas (MPA), where fishing is severely restricted or not allowed, have become the Holy Grail of marine conservation for both nongovernmental organizations and governments. In the United States, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the NW Hawaiian Islands became the first large-scale reserve closed to fishing in 2006 (1). This reserve is 90% the size of California and was followed by the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, about half the size of California, in 2009 (2). In total, the United States has established MPAs 19-times the size of California or roughly the area of the Continental United States.
The United States is not alone. The South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands Marine Protected Area in British sub-Antarctic waters is roughly 2.5-times the area of California, and most recently Australia has declared its economic zone in the Coral Sea a no-take area of 3.1 million square kilometers, an area eight times the size of California. All of these areas are heralded as great conservation victories and the Convention on Biodiversity has set a target of 10% of the ocean protected by 2020.
Are these indeed victories? Not necessarily. I suggest it is likely that the world’s environment is actually worse off once such victories are evaluated globally.
Many of us may be pretty clueless about what fishermen catch off our coast, the gear they use, or the species that are farmed.
To help educate the public, California Sea Grant has created four regional posters that highlight local, commercially caught and farmed marine seafood.
Scientists aboard the survey ship Fairweather will travel along the U.S. West Coast to study ocean acidification. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration / July 25, 2013)
A team of scientists is setting out on a research expedition along the U.S. West Coast to study ocean acidification, the greenhouse gas-driven change in the chemistry of seawater that has been called climate change’s “evil twin.”
Chemists and biologists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will board the survey ship Fairweather next week, sailing from Canada to Mexico to collect samples of water, algae and plankton, officials said Thursday. The goal of the monthlong voyage is to better understand how marine ecosystems are responding to water that is becoming more acidic as a result of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
“We will for the first time not only study the chemistry of acidification but also study at the same time the biological impacts,” Richard Feely, an oceanographer with NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Research Laboratory, told reporters in a telephone briefing.
Oceans have absorbed about 25% of the greenhouse gases that have accumulated in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, buffering some of the effects of climate change, Feely said. But that comes at a great cost to marine life because when carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater, it lowers itsthe water’s. The gradual change in chemistry poses a particular threat to shellfish such as oysters and clams that require alkaline water to build their protective shells.
The research expedition could shed light on whether acidification is harming pteropods, marine snails that are especially sensitive to changing acidity and are a key food source for fish, birds and whales. Scientists also want to know whether acidification is making harmful algae blooms more toxic to marine life. Increased toxicity has been shown in laboratory experiments but not observed the field.
Legislation aimed at alleviating the financial hardship of a federal loan that has been weighing on Pacific Coast groundfish fisherman for nearly a decade has moved one step closer to passing, North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman’s office announced on Thursday.
Introduced into Congress this week, Huffman’s “Revitalizing the Economy of Fisheries in the Pacific Act” picks up where a bipartisan bill introduced in September 2012 by former North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson left off, and would allow for the refinancing of a $35.7 million buyback loan authorized by Congress in 2003.
In a press release, Huffman called the bill — his second piece of legislation to be introduced since he took office in January — “… a win-win for small businesses and the environment.”
The opportunity to refinance the loan at a lower interest rate would give local groundfish fishermen the same opportunities as any homeowner or business, and would not require the federal government to spend any new money.
“The success of our local fishermen is essential to the health of the North Coast’s economy, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to repay the debt on a decade-old federal loan,” Huffman said in the release. “The combination of interest payments, new fees, and rising fuel costs are putting small businesses in our coastal communities at risk.”
Market squid create one of California’s most valuable fisheries. Due to its high quality as a fishery product, these squid are much sought-after by seafood traders around the world. In fact, California has become one of the world’s biggest squid suppliers. A growing taste for squid in restaurants has created a demand that now exceeds supply. As a result, the value of squid is on the rise. Check out the video below on the value of market squid in Monterey Bay from the perspective of a scientist, a student, a restauranteur, and fisherman.
A Native California Species:
Several species of market squid inhabit the world’s oceans. However, California’s species (Doryteuthis opalescens) is native to the Pacific coast of North America. These squid range from Baja (Mexico) to southeastern Alaska. The biogeographic distribution of market squid is similar to Pacific salmon and steelhead trout, which are also native to California.
Market Squid Fishery Management:
Squid catch is landed at six California ports. The fishery is divided into northern and southern regions. The northern fishery is active from April – September while fishing operations in the south run from October to March.
Monterey Bay and the Channel Islands form the centers of the northern and southern market squid fisheries in California. Today, these centers lie within two marine sanctuaries. Several Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and Preserves have been established on traditional squid fishing grounds, as well. Commercial fishing in these areas is now limited or restricted. One benefit of MPAs and marine preserves is to create replenishment areas for market squid and other fishery species. In the case of Año Nuevo, which is an island known for its elephant seal and sea lion rookeries, restrictions help ensure adequate squid for the diets of these federally protected marine mammals.
California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is responsible for managing the market squid resource. Goals of the Market Squid Fishery Management Plan are:
1.) to ensure long-term sustainability and conservation of the resource, and
2.) develop a management framework that is responsive to environmental and socio-economic changes.
On a recent weekday morning, Daniel Pondella strode along a century-old stretch of concrete pylons and shabby warehouses in San Pedro.
As kelp swayed in the waves and terns circled overheard, Pondella recalled an elementary school field trip he took 40 years ago to this gritty wharf known as City Dock 1: “That was the day I decided to become a marine biologist.”
Now, Pondella is involved in transforming the wharf into a marine research center at the heart of the Port of Los Angeles, the nation’s busiest.
When City Dock 1 opened in 1913, it turned on a spigot for the Southern California economy through which $283 billion a year in international commerce now flows. Plans call for it to be converted into a nexus of laboratories and classrooms, fish hatcheries and berths for research vessels, which will explore the flows of Pacific currents, solutions to oceanic pollution and coastal erosion, and the rhythms of sea creatures from bacteria to 150-ton blue whales.
SAN PEDRO, CA – JUNE 4, 2013: Daniel Pondella , director of new Southern California Marine Institute,walks along the old wharf near the old historic Terminal Superintendents building and cleaned up chemical tank farm in the background on June 4, 2013 in San Pedro,California. The century-old City Dock 1 will soon be transformed into the 28- acre marine research center.(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Anglers and crew aboard a Southern California half-day boat were astonished last week to see what the captain had reeled from the depths: a stunningly gorgeous moon-shaped denizen with a speckled body and bright-red fins.
It was an opah, a species more commonly found in tropical and sub-tropical waters much farther offshore. Opah catches are rare off California, and extremely rare in coastal waters. To have landed one of these pelagic beauties from a half-day boat, within view of the shore, might be unprecedented.
Opah2Capt. Jeff Patrick of the Western Pride hooked the 125-pound opah on a sardine at a depth of about 250 feet, while on a rockfish excursion out of Davey’s Locker Sportfishing in Newport Beach.
The “mystery fish” was so feisty that he thought he had hooked a shark. The fight lasted 45 minutes and at one point the captain contemplated cutting the line because the rockfish had stopped biting and he wanted to relocate to a more productive area.
Hearing claims of three squid brail (smaller boat) fishermen, one might think that the larger seine vessel squid fishermen are illegally catching all of the allowable quota.
But that’s just not the case. In fact, not only is there an abundance of squid in California’s waters – more than enough to go around – most of the brail-boat fishing fleet have no problem with the current management structure.
That’s because the squid resource is booming and most fishermen have been catching plenty of squid!
A federal judge has rejected an environmental group’s attempt to require the government to lower its catch limits on sardines, mackerel and other forage fish off the California coast.
The organization, Oceana, claimed that the plan approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2010 was based on flawed data and allowed fishing at levels that would deplete offshore populations of several species. Those fish are part of the food chain for other fish, seabirds and whales.
But U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco said Friday that the federal agency had simply reaffirmed, or in some cases tightened, the harvesting limits it had set for the same forage species in 2000.
Chen ordered the fisheries service to reconsider its catch levels for one species, the northern anchovy, saying the agency had reopened that subject in 2010 but failed to determine the limits needed to protect the fish. That decision is required, he said, by a 1976 conservation law designed to prevent overfishing.
But Chen said it was too late to challenge the rules the agency had established in 2000 – and reaffirmed in 2010 – for the Pacific sardine, the Pacific mackerel, the jack mackerel and the market squid. Oceana also challenged the fisheries service’s conclusion that its 2010 plan would cause no ecological harm and that a full environmental study was therefore not required. But the judge said the 2010 plan “by its very terms has no negative impact.”
A federal judge has rejected an environmental group’s attempt to require the government to lower its catch limits on sardines, mackerel and other forage fish off the California coast.