Category Archives: Marine Science
Ridiculous study claims: elevated ocean CO2 gives fish brain impairment
From the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Scienceand the department of “let’s put some fish in a tank and gas them” comes this sub-par science fair level experiment where the only purpose seems to be to demonize CO2 by grabbng a headline. In essence, they’ve created “Dory” from the children’s movie Finding Nemo in an artificial environment that in no way is anything like conditions on a coral reef. Plus, by just dropping the fish into this elevated CO2 environment they aren’t used to, not only are they negating generations of fish and any adaptation that might occur, they are testing fish in a stressed environment that they have no experience with. This truly is bad science. Read the post here 15:41
Have you heard? Nutrient pollution is changing sounds in the sea
Nutrient pollution emptying into seas from cities, towns and agricultural land is changing the sounds made by marine life – and potentially upsetting navigational cues for fish and other sea creatures, a new University of Adelaide study has found. Published online in the journal Landscape Ecology, the research found that marine ecosystems degraded by ‘eutrophication’, caused by run-off from adjacent land, are more silent than healthier comparable ecosystems. This marine ‘soundscape’ comes largely from the snapping of shrimps, but also the rasping of sea urchins and fish vocalisations. The researchers – PhD graduate Tullio Rossi, Associate Professor Ivan Nagelkerken and Professor Sean Connell from the University’s Environment Institute – studied kelp forests and seagrass beds in South Australia’s St Vincent’s Gulf, many of which have been impacted by excessive nutrients washing into the sea, particularly along the metropolitan coast of Adelaide. Read the rest here 17:31
NOAA and Sea Grant fund $800,000 in research to understand effects of ocean changes on iconic Northeast marine life
NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program (OAP) and the Northeast Sea Grant Programs joined together to prioritize and fund new research on how ocean acidification is affecting marine life including lobsters, clams, oysters, mussels and sand lance that are so important to the Northeast region. Funding includes $800,000 in federal funds from the two programs with an additional $400,000 non-federal match. NOAA and Sea Grant drew on the work of the Northeast Coastal Acidification Network to set these priorities. The Network is made up of concerned fishermen, scientists, resource managers, and representatives from federal and state agencies who work together to identify critical vulnerabilities in the northeast, including regionally important and economically significant marine resources that are vital to the many livelihoods and the culture of New England. Read the rest here 00:23
North Atlantic right whales recovery hurt by entanglements, scientists say
The ability of an endangered whale species to recover is jeopardized by increasing rates of entanglement in fishing gear and a resultant drop in birth rates, according to scientists who study the animal. The population of North Atlantic right whales has slowly crept up from about 300 in 1992 to about 500 in 2010. But a study that appeared this month in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science said the number of baby right whales born every year has declined by nearly 40 percent since 2010. Study author Scott Kraus, a scientist with the New England Aquarium in Boston who worked on the study, said the whales’ population suffers even when they survive entanglements in fishing gear. Entanglements have surpassed ship strikes as a leading danger to right whales in recent years. Forty-four percent of diagnosed right whale deaths were due to ship strikes and 35 percent were due to entanglements from 1970 to 2009, the study said. From 2010 to 2015, 15 percent of diagnosed deaths were due to ship strikes and 85 percent were due to entanglements, it said. Read the article here 09:10
UMaine scientist – population size of scallops affects fertilization success
Scallop gonads may seem like fun and games to Skylar Bayer given that her missing samples landed her on “The Colbert Report” in 2013. But scallops are no laughing matter to Bayer. “When I was deciding on a Ph.D. project to pursue, I chose to work on a species that is commercially important and relevant to people’s daily life,” says Bayer, who is based at the University of Maine Darling Marine Center in Walpole. “Giant sea scallops in Maine seemed extraordinarily relevant.” In 2015, Maine fishermen brought in 452,672 pounds of scallop meat valued at $12.70 per pound — the highest in years. But scallops haven’t always done well in Maine and beyond. In the 1990s, after huge reductions in multiple fishery landings, including giant sea scallops, NOAA regulators instituted large fishing closures to try to bolster groundfish stocks. After four years, scallop stocks had increased 14 times what they were prior to the closure. Seeking a similar success story, Maine followed suit in 2009 and instituted a three-year scallop fishing closure. Read the story here 10:38
American Fisheries Society recognizes Bill Hogarth with top conservation award
The American Fisheries Society is honoring recently retired Florida Institute of Oceanography Director Bill Hogarth with the Carl R. Sullivan Fishery Conservation Award – one of the nation’s premier awards in fisheries science – in recognition of his long career and leadership in preserving some of the world’s most threatened species, advocating for environmental protections and leading Florida’s scientific response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The award recognizes a wide span of achievements in Hogarth’s 51-year-career in marine science, beginning with his research into threatened fish species; his roles as director of the National Marine Fisheries Service and chairman of the International Whaling Commission; and his service as the former dean of the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science and Director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography. During his career, Hogarth is credited with,,, Read the rest here 09:59
If you find a crab with a green t-bar tag and/or orange knuckle tag marked with “AOLA” You could win money!
Massachusetts’s Division of Marine Fisheries, in collaboration with the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, is tagging Jonah crabs to investigate migration patterns and growth. Information will be used for Jonah crab stock assessment. WHAT TO REPORT: date, location, tag #, crab sex, egg status and whether you kept or released the animal. For green tags only, if you have a way to measure carapace width in millimeters, we would appreciate that information as well. REWARDS: Every tag report will qualify as one raffle entry. Rewards will be drawn July 1, 2017 and July 1, 2018: 1st place – $500, 2nd place – $300, 3rd place $200. Green tag reports with width measurement will be additionally entered into high value cash raffles drawn July 1, 2017 and 2018: 1st place – $1,000, 2nd place $500 If you haul a tagged crab, please release it and contact (774) 251-9454 or [email protected] Click here 08:37
Whale wars: Humpbacks versus Orcas focus of new study
It’s a strange marine phenomenon: humpback whales actively defend other marine mammals like seals and grey whales from orca attacks, according to a new study. But while some people might call it a rare example of interspecies altruism, the study also found that these attacks are likely a survival behaviour due to orcas’ tendency to feed on humpback calves. Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in southern California, is the lead author of the study recently published in the Marine Mammal Science journal. He told The Early Edition he first became intrigued about the phenomenon during a research trip to Antarctica.”One day, we saw a killer whale chasing a seal. [The seal] started swimming out towards where a humpback was at the surface, and the humpback rolled over, and lifted the seal up on its chest,” he said Read the rest here 09:53
Greenland shark named longest-living vertebrate living up to 400 yrs
A student job with the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources inspired Julius Nielsen, lead author of the new study, to research the Greenland shark, which roams the chill waters of the North Atlantic. “I encountered the sharks here for the first time, and I was fascinated that so little were known about such large sharks,” Nielsen said. They are the largest fish native to Arctic seas, with adults typically measuring between 13 and 16 feet and females consistently outgrowing the males. Still, their biology was mostly a mystery, explained Nielsen. “For example, their age was unknown but expected to be great,” he said, based on studies from more than 50 years ago. The extremely slow growth rates of these sharks — less than a centimeter per year — suggested they must live for many years.” So how do you discover the age of a mute primordial shark? Nielsen and his colleagues turned to radiocarbon dating. Read the rest here 13:53
Dr. Robert E. Hueter – I am writing to share my strong opposition to S. 3095, The Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act.
August 5, 2016 – The Honorable Bill Nelson United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator Nelson: I am writing to share my strong opposition to S. 3095, The Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act. As the Director of Mote Marine Laboratory’s Center for Shark Research, which was designated by Congress in 1991 as the nation’s research center for shark studies, I have more than 40 years of experience with this issue. That experience includes biological research, collaborations with fisheries, conservation education, and domestic and international policy work. As an independent, nonprofit research and education institution in Sarasota, Mote’s history of shark expertise goes back to its founding in 1955 by Dr. Eugenie Clark, our famous “Shark Lady.” While possibly well-intentioned as a measure to improve the conservation of sharks, S. 3095 will be ineffective in making a dent in the global problem of shark overfishing. Instead, it will punish the wrong people by putting American commercial fishermen, who are fishing for sharks legally and sustainably, out of business. I outline below the reasons behind my opposition and those of many of my colleagues who work closely with the fishing community: Read the letter here Read Behind the Fins: Dr. Robert E. Hueter Click here 12:05
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission could increase menhaden catch
New Jersey commercial bait fishermen want to see the coastwide catch of menhaden increased nearly 80,000 metric tons. “We’re focused on the science. If the science supports an increase, we want to take it,” said Jeff Kaelin from Lunds Fisheries, a commercial fishing operation in Cape May. The amount of menhaden fishermen will be able to take from the water next year will be decided Wednesday in Alexandria, Virginia, when the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission meets. The Atlantic Menhaden Technical Committee has given the ASMFC options that would allow the catch to increase by as much as 10,000 to 80,000 metric tons. Kaelin said Jersey gill netters have been shut out of the fishery since July 4, after fishermen reached their allocation for this year. He said if they had more quota, they could be selling bait to New England lobstermen who are clamoring for bait. Read the rest here 19:22
Researchers use the North Atlantic Oscillation as a predictive tool for managing Gulf of Maine Cod
In recent decades, the plight of Atlantic cod off the coast of New England has been front-page news. Since the 1980s in particular, the once-seemingly inexhaustible stocks of Gadus morhua—one of the most important fisheries in North America—have declined dramatically. In 2008, a formal assessment forecasted that stocks would rebound, but by 2012, they were once again on the verge of collapse. Two years later, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration instituted an unprecedented six-month closure of the entire Gulf of Maine cod fishery to allow stocks to recover. While overfishing is one known culprit, a new study co-authored by researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Columbia University finds that the climatological phenomenon known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is also a factor. And it contributes in a predictable way that may enable fishery managers to protect cod stocks from future collapse. Read the rest here 17:37
Shark liver, giant squid, and commercial fish species on seal sea-food-and-eat-it diet
A first of its kind study may make selfie-snapping tourists take a step back from the seemingly indolent New Zealand fur seals 
scattered around our craggy coastlines. A study of the DNA in the seals’ faeces is revealing their true identity when they hit the water, from the bottom up – through their diet. Analysis of the samples collected around New Zealand gives a much more accurate picture of what they eat than before. It includes giant squid and sharks. Big sharks. However these Hannibal Lecters of the ocean are nonchalant about taking on the feared predators: they just eat the nutrient rich livers of the sharks and some stomach. Their diet also includes commercial fish species, which make up 10 per cent of the species identified. One of the study’s authors, Lincoln University Associate Professor Adrian Paterson, says up to 46 fish, and 18 squid and octopi, species were taken at any one sample site. Read the rest here 19:32
We have not published anything by a non-scientist… until today! A fisherman responds to George Burgess
Recently on CFOOD we started a new series where we talk to fishery biologists and let them steer the conversation. We (try to) post one per week and invite anyone to comment or respond to whatever statements our interview subjects make. Our special shark week conversation was with noted shark biologist George Burgess. Dick Grachek, a fisherman out of Point Judith, took issue with some of Burgess’s comments on shark fishermen and women and the spiny dogfish fishery. Here, he responds to Burgess and offers a fisherman’s perspective not often seen.
A response to George Burgess by Dick Grachek – There exists a carefully controlled and stringently regulated legitimate shark fishery! I have an issue with how George Burgess spoke about shark fishermen and women. He made inaccurate and misleading generalized statements about sharks and shark finning and claimed that, unless carefully scrutinized, “fishers will sneak in extra fins.” In particular, making silly statements about Spiny Dogfish as “high value,” implies a motive for overfishing and contributes to a perception of commercial fishing as greedy and uncaring plunder. These misinformed perceptions lead to baseless regulations. Such regulations are destructive to the fish and the fishermen. They can, and often do, prevent legitimate harvesting of a vital, healthy food source. Read the rest here 20:58
Do Lobsters Live Forever?
Many animals that live in the deep, dark sea are subject to myths, and lobsters are no different. But one particular “belief” that lobsters would be immortal were it not for fishermen and hungry predators doesn’t exactly hold water, biologists told Live Science. “Lobsters age just like most other organisms,” said Thomas Matthews, a lobster biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Some lobsters, however, do have extraordinarily long life spans. The American Lobster (Homarus americanus) can live to at least 100 years, which is more than five times the life span of the Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) can live to at least 100 years, which is more than five times the life span of the Caribbean spiny lobster. Water temperature explains most of this difference in age, Matthews said. When lobsters are in warm water, such as the Caribbean, they have faster metabolisms. Conversely, when they’re in cold water, their metabolisms are slower. Read the rest here 14:42
MPAs: Closing parts of the ocean to fishing not enough to protect marine ecosystems
A University of Washington fisheries professor argues this week that saving biodiversity in the world’s oceans requires more than banning fishing with marine protected areas, or oceanic wilderness areas. In a three-page editorial published this week in the journal Nature, he argues that this increasingly popular conservation strategy is not as effective as properly managing recreational and commercial fisheries. “There’s this idea that the only way you can protect the ocean is by permanently closing parts of the ocean to fishing, with no-take areas,” said Ray Hilborn, a professor in the UW’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “You protect biodiversity better by regulating fisheries over the country’s entire economic zone. Several environmental organizations have set a longer-term goal of making 30 percent of the world’s oceans into no-take marine protected areas by the year 2030. But Hilborn believes this is not the best way to protect global marine ecosystems. Read the rest here 20:48
Greased Lightning! Self-Lubricating Swordfish Secrete Oil to Swim Faster
Swordfish may look like formidable beasts, what with their namesake prong jutting out from their noses. That pointy-looking nose, however, isn’t as strong as it may look, thanks to a thin section of bone at its base that shares the space with a particularly large gland. Now, after years of puzzling over its purpose, scientists believe they finally have the answer: the gland helps swordfish swim faster by coating their heads in oil. In a recent study published this week in the Journal of Experimental Biology, scientists from University of Groningen in the Netherlands say that the mysterious gland is linked to pores on the fish’s head through a system of capillaries. These pores then secrete an oily film that could potentially reduce the drag that swordfish experience when swimming—with top speeds reaching over 62 miles per hour. Read the rest here 17:47What we know about lampreys — the arctic bloodsuckers that swarm Alaska rivers by the millions
Last summer lampreys fell from the sky in Fairbanks. It’s hard to decide which is more astonishing, the aerodynamic mystery of how they got in the sky to start with or the fact that Alaska has lots and lots of the gruesome, prehistoric, flesh-sucking terrors. Millions of them. Squiggling and lurking in every suitable waterway from Southeast to the Arctic Ocean. There’s no reason to stay out of the water on their account, however. Lampreys only latch onto people if they’re starving. And in Alaska, it’s the humans that eat lampreys, not vice versa. University of Alaska Museum of the North curator of fishes Andres Lopez finds the arctic lamprey a truly intriguing animal. Unchanged for nearly half a billion years, it’s a genuine living fossil. “It’s a jawless vertebrate,” he said. “It has a spinal cord, but no skeleton. Just cartilage. Its teeth are not real teeth, but keratin, more like your fingernails.” Read the story here 20:18
Research looking at genetic structure of Atlantic lobster
A PhD student from Laval University, Dorant is heading up a research project which seeks to better understand the genetic structure of the American lobster in Eastern Canada and he’s getting support from fisheries organizations, government departments and academics throughout the region. A better understanding could help establish guidelines and recommendations for building a more sustainable fishery, Dorant suggests. His project is co-directed by professors from Laval and University of New Brunswick. Read the story here 11:41
A Rant on Peer Review
Think fish study’s when you read this. Professor George J. Borjas – I have a few pet peeves. One of them is how “peer review” is perceived by far too many people as the gold standard certification of scientific authority. Any academic who’s been through the peer review process many times (as I have) knows that the process is full of potholes and is sometimes subverted by unethical behavior on the part of editors and reviewers. The reason I bring this up is because of a brewing scandal in my own discipline, economics. There has been online discussion about this for over a month, but I’ve delayed this post both because I’ve been traveling too much and because I was hoping for a resolution before I wrote anything down. But as a junior economist recently told me: “The relative silence by senior economists regarding the editorial handling of this paper has been deafening.” So here it goes. Read the rest here 11:00Global population’s of squid, octopuses and cuttlefish are booming
The world’s squid, octopuses and cuttlefish have been going through a massive, 60-year population boom, a new study has found. Published yesterday in Current Biology, the study shows a continued rise in population numbers of cephalopods since the 1950s. It also reveals the boom has happened in 35 species of cephalopods – covering six families – around the globe. Earlier research has found cephalopods, which are highly adaptable to changing environments, may be benefiting from a combination of climatic changes, including global temperature rises. University of Adelaide researcher Dr Zoe Doubleday led the study and found that despite anecdotal reports indicating a “boom and bust” cycle in cephalopod populations, since 1953 there had been a sustained increase. Link to the study here 11:51
Misuse of the precautionary approach in fisheries management – A Conversation with Carl Walters
We spoke with Carl Walters of the University of British Columbia about the misuse of the precautionary approach by risk-averse scientists and conservation advocates. His concern arises from the application of the precautionary approach to Western Canadian salmon fisheries, which he believes has negatively impacted Canadian salmon fishermen and resulted in “virtually, an economic collapse.” He began by first differentiating between the precautionary principle and the precautionary approach, the former he claimed to be “a perfectly sensible statement that I think almost everyone would subscribe to about the need to avoid irreversible harm when possible…in the management of any system. There’s a different creature that has arisen in fisheries policy…called the precautionary approach to management” – this is the one that upsets him (00:35). Read the rest here Click here to listen 16:18
Corals Can Be Saved If We Restore Plankton Cooling
Experts at coral reef conference in Honolulu offer little but the same old career safe ideas. Princely paid pundits prefer pitching party lines about perils to presenting practical prescriptions. Solutions proffered are couched in global warming parlance for the coral reefs those propositions will take decades to make progress and then only at a cost of trillions. Corals will be saved by restoring plankton cooling to stop ocean warming, this will produce positive results for coral reefs in a few years time and will cost mere millions. Scientists at the 13th International Coral Reef Symposium in Honolulu this week are palavering about the latest research on our planet’s imperiled reef. With a little more googling instead of oogling they might quickly discover how the most beautiful bathing beauties at the beach the corals can be saved. Read the article here 17:05
Do sharks survive after the hook?
Fitbit-like sensors are the best tools for monitoring whether sharks survive catch-and-release fishing — essential data for fisheries management — according to a peer-reviewed study published June 23 by scientists from Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida. The study, published online in the scientific journal Fisheries Research, is the first to show that motion-sensing accelerometer tags detect whether a shark has survived and how it recovers from capture stress with much greater certainty than other prevailing technologies. Usually scientists fit sharks with satellite or acoustic transmitters to infer whether a shark has survived using indirect signals like location or depth. In contrast, accelerometers measure sharks’ fine-scale movements directly and with high resolution, including every tail beat, body tilt, ascent and descent. Read the rest here 16:41
Turning Discarded Lobster Shells Into Batteries
Mark MacLachlan, of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, has found a new way to produce batteries: the discarded shells of shellfish. Specifically, by using chitin, the substance that gives certain animals their iridescence (think the luster of the interior of an oyster shell). As reported by Hakai Magazine, Chitin can already be used for a variety of purposes, both medical and industrial. It can be used as biodegradable surgical thread, meaning sutures eventually disappear on their own. It’s can also be used to form a version of biodegradable plastic. Read the rest here 11:16
The Reef’s Self-Serving Saviours
Virtually every year for the past half-century news reports have bannered dire proclamations by “reef experts” on imminent “threats” to the Great Barrier Reef. This has sustained an ongoing, ever-growing charade of “research” and “management” aimed at saving the reef from a litany of hypothetical threats conjured up by a salvation industry which now costs taxpayers over $100 million annually. Although none of these “threats” have ever proven to be anything other than hypothetical possibilities or temporary fluctuations of nature, the doomsters never cease to rummage through their litany of concerns to find something they can present as urgent in order to keep the funding flowing. Please read this. When you do, substitute issues that affect you in your region, ocean acidification, rising oceans, fish surveys that do not resemble what you actually see in your every day world. Ponder why it doesn’t add up. Its about money. Your livelihood being destroyed while others flourish at your expense. Read the article here 20:55
Marine Scientist Censured By James Cook University For Questioning Misleading Claims
When marine scientist Peter Ridd suspected something was wrong with photographs being used to highlight the rapid decline of the Great Barrier Reef, he did what good scientists are supposed to do: he sent a team to check the facts. After attempting to blow the whistle on what he found — healthy corals — Professor Ridd was censured by James Cook University and threatened with the sack. After a formal investigation, Professor Ridd — a renowned campaigner for quality assurance over coral research from JCU’s Marine Geophysics Laboratory — was found guilty of “failing to act in a collegial way and in the academic spirit of the institution”. His crime was to encourage questioning of two of the nation’s leading reef institutions, the Centre of Excellence for Coral Studies and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, on whether they knew that photographs they had published and claimed to show long-term collapse of reef health could be misleading and wrong. Read the rest here 16:40
NOAA grants SMAST $1.6 million for monkfish study
Researchers at the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology have won a federal grant valued at $1.6 million to conduct research into the growth and movement of monkfish, NOAA announced Tuesday. The grant is part of a unique “research set-aside” program that pays for at-sea research not with direct dollars but with fishing opportunities whose proceeds pay for the researchers and for the boat they are using. In the case of SMAST, where Dr. Steven Cadrin and research technician Crista Bank will be doing the study, 250 days at sea allocated in the grant each year for 2016 and 2017 should produce $1.361 million to pay for the boat and $270,000 for the research over two years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “A previous monkfish research set-aside grant to this group found that the current approach of estimating monkfish growth is not valid, exposing a gap in the monkfish stock assessment. This two-year project proposes to fill this gap for juvenile monkfish through this tagging study,” said a NOAA press release. Read the rest here 08:04
Expert: Scientists exaggerated Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching story
There is growing scientific conflict over bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. Picture: Tourism Queensland Activist scientists and lobby groups have distorted surveys, maps and data to misrepresent the extent and impact of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, according to the chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Russell Reichelt. A full survey of the reef released yesterday by the authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science said 75 per cent of the reef would escape unscathed.,, “We’ve seen headlines stating that 93 per cent of the reef is practically dead,” he said. “We’ve also seen reports that 35 per cent, or even 50 per cent, of the entire reef is now gone. Read the rest here 15:47
The NOAA Drones! Unmanned vessels deployed for Alaska ocean research
Researchers in the Bering Sea off Alaska’s west coast will get help this summer from drones, but not the kind that fly. The NOAA and private researchers are gathering data on marine mammals, fish and ocean conditions from two “autonomous sailing vessels” built by Saildrone, an Alameda, California, company. “Think of a 20-foot outrigger canoe with an airplane wing sticking up from the middle,” said Chris Sabine, director of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab, at a press teleconference Friday. They hold great appeal for researchers because they’re far cheaper to operate than research ships and they can work in dangerous conditions of the North Pacific. Researchers will use the vessels to gather information on pollock, an important species for commercial fishermen and the main prey of northern fur seals, a species that has declined. Instruments on board also will collect oceanographic data used to track environmental changes. Read the rest here 22:48
