Tag Archives: climate change
The Deadliest Catch and Other Crab Fishermen Need to Find a New Alaskan Spot Thanks to Climate Change
Even if you’ve only been a fan of Discovery’s “Deadliest Catch” for a short period of time, it’s still pretty obvious that the list of essential steps needed for the featured captains and boats to rake in a season’s worth of seafood remains consistent. On top of a meticulously maintained boat, needed are traps, bait, backup equipment, a solid crew, and more than a handful of other necessities. Of course, the most important detail is the one thing these brave fishermen are there for in the first place, and that’s the crab itself. However, due to climate change, the fishing industry on the Bering Sea has been flipped on its head. >click to read< 11:31
South Jersey Times Editorial Board – N.J. whale death mystery may not lead to mighty wind
Depending on who’s counting, at least six whales have been discovered ashore since late fall. Let’s not to jump to conclusions, though, about why these whales died, at least not to the degree that we need to shut down everything that’s going on offshore. Pressure groups are already calling for moratoriums on any work related to offshore wind energy development, even though none of structures related to the turbines system exist off the Jersey coast. (The survey work is happening, though.) The developers of offshore wind, and cheerleaders who include our governor, are finding more pushback against these planned installations than they anticipated. It’s not just Clean Ocean Action that has a beef; commercial fishing groups and others concerned about shoreline aesthetics are weighing in, too. >click to read< 10:48
Black Gill: Shrimpers and scientists collaborate to study parasite
Georgia’s shrimpers are already facing plenty of challenges like high gas prices, inflation and international competition. But climate change is exacerbating a new problem: black gill, a parasite that is decreasing shrimp populations and is worsening with rising ocean temperatures. On Dec. 15, the University of Georgia’s Skidaway Institute of Oceanography invited shrimpers, researchers and other local stakeholders aboard the R/V Savannah to collect samples in the Wassaw Sound and discuss the current research and on-the-water observations of black gill. Black gill is a parasite that lodges itself into shrimps’ gills and feeds on that tissue. It’s a ciliate, a single-celled organism. It gets its name from the shrimp’s immune response to the invader, which turns the gills black as the shrimp’s body tries to fight off the intruder. Photos, >click to read< 10:37
Alaska crab fishery collapse seen as warning about Bering Sea transformation
Less than five years ago, prospects appeared bright for Bering Sea crab fishers. Stocks were abundant and healthy, federal biologists said, and prices were near all-time highs. Now two dominant crab harvests have been canceled for lack of fish. For the first time, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in October canceled the 2022-2023 harvest of Bering Sea snow crab, and it also announced the second consecutive year of closure for another important harvest, that of Bristol Bay red king crab. What has happened between then and now? A sustained marine heat wave that prevented ice formation in the Bering Sea for two winters, thus vastly altering ocean conditions and fish health. “We lost billions of snow crab in a matter of months,”,,, >click to read< 18:54
Decline of Bering Sea snow crab fishery demands swift action
Billions of crabs have vanished off the coast of Alaska, and with them, the fishing season for the Bering Sea crab fleet. This is grim news for a fleet that has fished crabs under science-based catch limits for years, providing healthy wild-caught seafood to the world and bringing jobs and income throughout Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. It’s also bad news for the communities of the Bering Sea, like St. Paul Island, where the economy is almost entirely dependent on the snow crab fishery. >click to read< 20:44
Mi’kmaq First Nation, environmental group work on creating electric lobster boat
An environmental charity and the Membertou First Nation in Cape Breton are partnering to create electric lobster boats on the East Coast, saying it’s the way of the future if Canada is to meet its zero-emission targets. Hubert Nicholas, the director of fisheries at Membertou, said in an interview the new boats will likely be costlier than diesel-powered vessels at first, but he said it’s expected there will be savings in maintenance and fuel costs. Nicholas estimated the cost of lobster boats is about $600,000 to $700,000, adding that an electrical boat would have higher, yet-to-be-determined costs for its engine and other components.>click to read< 13:11
Canada’s efforts to rebuild depleted fish stocks are flopping, says ENGO Oceana
Major spending increases and policy changes by the federal government to protect and rebuild wild fish stocks in Canada have resulted in little improvement, according to the 2022 Fishery Audit released this week by environmental group Oceana Canada. In its sixth annual audit, Oceana says fewer than one third of wild marine fish stocks in Canada are considered healthy and most critically depleted stocks lack plans to rebuild them. The audit assessed 194 fish stocks in Canada. The audit says 72 per cent of DFO’s management documents do not formally consider climate change and that needs to change. >click to read< 12:33
Did climate change really kill billions of snow crabs in Alaska?
In October 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that the lucrative snow crab fishery in the Bering Sea would close for the first time, following a population decline of 80% between 2018 and 2022. While fisheries managers and biologists say climate change is to blame for the species’ retreat, some fishers and crab experts suggest that trawling bycatch and other fishing activity may have played a role in the snow crab’s decline. The fishery’s closure has amplified a chorus of concerns about Alaska’s trawling industry and the knowledge gaps around its potential impact on fisheries. The disappearance of billions snow crabs from the Bering Sea has captivated the world’s attention since Alaska shut down the fishery for the first time in October 2022. But where exactly did these snow crabs go? And what caused them to vanish so quickly? >click to read< 08:02
Sustaining America’s Fisheries for the Future Act – Partisan Politics Threaten to Sink Reform of Federal Fisheries Law
A divided Congress and the unexpected death of an Alaska congressman appear to have derailed federal legislation meant to improve oversight and management of U.S. fisheries, especially in the face of climate change. The House Natural Resources Committee passed a Democratic-sponsored bill last week to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act for the first time since 2006. While it’s possible the bill will receive a vote on the House floor before the end of the year, its chances of being taken up in the Senate, much less receiving the 60 votes necessary to break a filibuster, is unlikely — at least in this Congress. >click to read< 11:42
Marine biologist perplexed by snow crab disappearance
It’s a mystery perplexing marine biologists that could lead to a loss of one of Alaska’s most prized seafood exports — the Bering Sea snow crab. Many theories have been hypothesized as to what is causing the declining crab populations throughout Alaska, ranging all the way from migration of the crustaceans to predators taking them out. However, Erin Fedewa, a research fishery biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says the disappearance of this Alaskan staple could be a warning about how quickly a fishery can be wiped out in a new, shifting world. Video, >click to read< 12:39
Alaska’s snow crabs have disappeared. Where they went is a mystery.
Gabriel Prout and his brothers Sterling and Ashlan were blindsided. Harvests of Alaskan king crab, the bigger, craggier species that was the star of the television show “Deadliest Catch”, have been on a slow decline for over a decade. But in 2018 and 2019, scientists had seemingly great news about Alaska’s snow crabs: Record numbers of juvenile crabs were zooming around the ocean bottom, suggesting a massive haul for subsequent fishing seasons. Prout, 32, and his brothers bought out their father’s partner, becoming part owners of the 116-foot F/V Silver Spray. They took out loans and bought $4 million in rights to harvest a huge number of crabs. It was a year that many young commercial fishers in the Bering Sea bought into the fishery, going from deckhands to owners. Everyone was convinced the 2021 snow crab season was going to be huge. And then they weren’t there. >click to read< 08:27
Fishing for Solutions: The race to protect coastal Louisiana’s cultures and way of life
The seafood and fishing industry provides tens of thousands of jobs to Louisiana, many of them via small family businesses in coastal communities. And while dealing with the impacts of climate change, local fishers and shrimpers also are contending with imported products driving down prices, fuel costs, fisheries allocations, regulatory constraints and an aging workforce. Local fishers in recent years have been grappling with skyrocketing insurance rates as well, making it harder to recover once the storm has passed. Photos, >click to read< 09:09
How the blue economy will shape the future of Canada’s oceans and coastal communities
The words “blue economy” will soon shape the future of Canada’s oceans, from the fiords and straits of British Columbia to the rugged coastlines of the Atlantic to the vast seascapes of the Arctic. But what is a blue economy? And what makes it different from business as usual? The term blue economy was first championed by small island developing countries, including Fiji, Bahamas and Palau, to bring more local benefits from ocean industries. Developing a blue economy means establishing ocean spaces and industries that are socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically profitable. Canada has been a key player in these efforts, including by supporting the first global conference on a blue economy, held in Nairobi in 2018 with over 18,000 participants. Now Canada is bringing the blue economy to its own waters. >click to read< 10:12
Alaska snow crab fishery saw steep decline. A reporter went ‘Into the ice’ to see it for himself.
CG: Well, at the heart of this reporting that you did were snow crab numbers. So what’s going on with those snow crab numbers? And how steep of a decline have they seen? HB: Well, it’s really pretty stunning for some of the biologists who do the surveys because, of course, in 2020, because of COVID, they were unable to do the summer surveys of crab population. So they did them in 2019. And when they came back in the summer of 2021, they found these staggering drops in abundance of different populations of the snow crab. The juvenile females were down by more than 99%. The juvenile males were also way down. And they’re also less of the mature males and the mature females. So this really triggered a major reassessment of what would be a safe level of harvest for this 2022 season. And they ended up still having a harvest, but reducing it by nearly 90%, >click to read< 16:37
FFAW “Shocked” by Federal Fisheries Minister’s Comments on Climate Change
The union says Minister Murray put forward her ideas and vision for the east coast fishery at the Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters Federation annual meeting. She outlined her goal to leave as many fish in the water as possible and to grow as much vegetation in the water as possible so that the Atlantic Ocean can better absorb carbon to combat climate change. She indicated that fish harvesters would have to accept the sacrifice as part of Canada’s commitment to fight climate change and noted that with technological advancements harvesters could change career paths and work remotely from their homes. >click to read< 08:29
Virginia Olsen: People in Maine’s fishing industry are pleading for rational policies, not denying them.
As a member of the Maine Lobstering Union and a multi-generational lobsterman from Stonington, I read with interest The Lobster Trap, a collaboration between The Boston Globe and the Portland Press Herald. On one hand, I was impressed by the authors’ captivating storylines on the people and families who comprise our multi-generational industry and the recognition of the day-to-day challenges confronting us. On the other hand, I could not help viewing some of the series’ broad-brush inferences and conclusions as inaccurate, unfair and condescending. Precious few lobstermen qualify as wealthy “one-percenters,” as the authors suggest. The Maine lobsterman is not an “average worker,” and any comparison is an unfair characterization, whether made directly or by inference. >click to read< By Virginia Olsen 10:19
California poised to impose wave of boat emissions rules in 2022
Like users of lawn mowers and gas leaf blowers, working boat captains, excursion operators and fishermen will be asked told to get on board with new engine emissions regulations starting as early as 2022. The California Air Resources Board released its proposed emissions regulations on commercial boats in September. After hosting hundreds of meetings and receiving an opposing petition signed by thousands of sport fishers in California, the air quality agency expects to finalize the first in a montage of stricter guidelines to upgrade the boats by next spring. >click to read< 13:21
‘The Lobster Trap’
You’d never know it to meet McCarthy, an unassuming, soft-spoken man who goes to work in a T-shirt and waterproof oilskins but he is, at 32, among the most successful lobstermen in a place where lobster is king. On this remote and rocky island, 15 miles offshore, virtually everyone from the grocery clerk to the family doctor traces their living back to the tanks full of lobster that these boats haul into port each day.,,, In the next decade, regulators will demand that lobstermen like him, who fish in federal waters, switch to a brand-new type of gear that minimizes risk for whales, by eliminating vertical ropes that can ensnare them. >click to read< 08:24
Democrats And Republicans Debate Changes To Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Act
Everyone needs to watch this. You should be alarmed. >click to watch. 09:33
One Alaska Bay Is Booming With Salmon, For Now
Bristol Bay’s sockeye harvest has long made up about half of the global catch of this species, in a seasonal blitz as short as it is enormous: The fishery lasts a mere six weeks. Each summer, 15,000 seafood processors, boat-based fishermen, and setnetters, including families such as the Bandles, gather here to support an industry worth more than $2 billion in 2019. Some fishermen will net enough cash to live on until the fish come back the next year. And this year, Bristol Bay outdid itself,,, But such riches are localized. Outside of Bristol Bay, salmon fisheries are failing, including those on British Columbia’s famed Fraser River, on Alaska’s Chignik and Copper Rivers, and in Cook Inlet. Five hundred miles north of Bristol Bay, Yukon River salmon runs have totally collapsed. >click to read< 12:35 ADFG: Bristol Bay sockeye runs set all-time record – It’s official: Bristol Bay’s 2021 commercial salmon season was the largest on record. >click to read<
Maine: Next Generation Of Lobstermen Brace For Unprecedented Change
On a boat near Kennebunkport in late July, lobsterman Chris Welch demonstrated new ropeless gear made by a Massachusetts company. It costs about $4,000 per trap, several times more than a traditional lobster trap, which is usually $80-180. “So far it is retrievable,” Welch says. “But the challenge of the Maine fishery is there’s 5,000 lobstermen and we all fish amongst each other and attempt not to fish on top of each other. With these units unless you’re staring at your electronics all day or your iPad, there’s no way of knowing where the next guy is.” The 33-year-old is against going ropeless and thinks the gear is a long way from being practical or affordable for most lobstermen. “I foresee it becoming a big boat fishery,” >click to read< 10:55
Mismanaged Since 1949 II: DFO wants to clear the air about the role of seals and focus on ecosystems. Lol.
DFO estimates the Northwest Atlantic harp seal population at 7.6 million, the highest on record (based on 2017 data), at more than triple the population of 50 years ago and still steadily increasing. But Mr. Russell’s concerns are at odds with DFO science, which says the harp seal population is not a major factor in declining fish stocks. Instead, DFO officials offer a different explanation, one that’s harder for local fishermen to accept: that climate change is at the root of the problem. DFO officials held a technical briefing at the end of June to address what they described as “misinformation” about the impacts of seals on fish such as Atlantic cod and capelin in Newfoundland and Labrador waters. During the one-hour briefing, geared toward media, the officials presented the North Atlantic seal as less of a scoundrel and more of a scapegoat. >click to read< 21:12
Climate change: Scotland’s fishing fleet doesn’t deserve to be turned into a water-borne bogeyman by enviros
In fact, official government advice is for people to eat at least two portions of fish per week, one of them oily, and the Scottish government has a dietary goal of increasing fish consumption among the population. Meanwhile, the Scottish fishing industry has a lower carbon footprint than most other forms of food production, such as meat and even many vegetables. Yet with the United Nations’ Cop26 climate change conference due to be held in Glasgow this November, presenting many opportunities for cheap headlines, skippers, crews and coastal communities have been singled out by environmental NGOs for their perceived lack of progress towards achieving net-zero carbon emissions. >click to read< 07:48
‘I’m truly upset’: CA sport fishermen say proposed emissions standards will put them out of business – >click to read<
Electronic Monitoring of the Lobster fishery, Tracking of the Red Shrimp fishery to be imposed
America’s lobster fishing businesses could be subjected to electronic tracking requirements to try to protect vulnerable right whales and get a better idea of the population of the valuable crustaceans. The fishery has collapsed in southern New England, however. Fishermen from New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island were once a significant part of the fishery,,, >click to read<…The American red-spotted shrimp fishery may be subject to electronic tracking requirements to protect vulnerable right whales and better understand precious crustacean populations. However, fishing has collapsed in southern New England. Fishermen in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island used to be an important part of the fishing industry, Starks said, but the stock of red-spotted shrimp in southern New England is now depleted. Scientists have linked the collapse of fishing in southern New England to warming seawater. >click to read< 10:50
The lobster genome map – ‘It’s an encyclopedia on how to make a lobster’
Lobster already live in a variety of different habitats around Atlantic Canada, from the relatively warm waters of the Northumberland Strait through progressively warmer waters on P.E.I.’s North Shore, the east coast of Nova Scotia, and the Bay of Fundy. “We want to really understand how that temperature stress is going to impact different stages of lobster, and if that’s going to be the same impact in different areas of Atlantic Canada,” >click to read< 09:24
Doomed to Extinction? Where have all the codfish in the Gulf of Maine gone?!!
The commercial fishermen have all been given a personal quota for cod. If they reach their quota, they need to purchase or lease more quota from someone who has extra. The price to “lease” these fish in order to catch them can be exorbitant. Cod has become a commodity on the market being bought or hoarded by non-fishermen to make money off the backs of the active fishermen,,, And then there are the seals. Yes, harbor seals, gray seals and harp seals. Seals would not normally be feeding on large amounts of cod, but we have protected the seal population for decades without regard to the rest of the environment. The result is unmistakably a huge explosion in the seal population within the Gulf of Maine. So, are the cod doomed to extinction? >click to read< 07:50
Maine’s having a lobster boom. A bust may be coming.
The waters off Maine’s coast are warming, and no one knows what that’s going to mean for the state’s half-billion-dollar-a-year lobster industry, the largest single-species fishery in North America. Some fear that continued warming could cause the lobster population to collapse. The Gulf of Maine, an ocean body brimming with marine life, is cradled by Cape Cod in the south and the Bay of Fundy in the north, and bounded in the east by two underwater shoals, George’s Bank and Brown’s Bank. In 2015, climate scientist Andy Pershing, formerly of the Portland-based nonprofit Gulf of Maine Research Institute, published a paper in Science concluding that the gulf was warming faster than “99% of the global ocean.” That eye-popping revelation was enough to keep fisheries managers and a whole lot of Mainers awake at night. >click to read< 16:27
At-Sea Processors Association and Seafood Harvesters of America applaud “30×30” initiative
A Biden administration plan to conserve at least 30% of federal lands and oceans by 2030 is winning applause from the seafood industry, but questions abound elsewhere, raising political obstacles. Just about 12% of the nation’s land area is currently under some form of environmental protection, along with about 26% of the country’s ocean areas. The plan, an executive order issued by the Biden administration, and popularized as the “30×30” initiative, has won support from the harvester and processor sector of Alaska fisheries and others, (do you?) in that industry, but farmers and ranchers elsewhere remain skeptical. >click to read< 12:50
NOAA Report: Pacific waters off the West Coast show improved productivity – Cooler temps created a robust environment
Ocean waters off the West Coast showed signs of improved productivity in 2020 after several years of warm water and poor fisheries conditions, The higher productivity seen in 2020 comes after a period of poorer conditions in the Pacific Ocean off the West Coast. “The previous five years, starting in early 2014, were very warm. We were seeing conditions that were not good for the fisheries,” said Toby Garfield, a researcher with NOAA and co-editor of the report. “We’ve had some tough times in the last few years,” said Tracy. “For a lot of species, the cold water regime is favorable, so that’s encouraging.” >click to read< 11:27
Calling On DFO Minister to Clarify Comments
Dear Minister Murray: As the Shadow Minister for Fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador, I write on behalf of the PC Official Opposition Caucus to express our deep concern over remarks you reportedly made during your recent speech at the recent annual meeting of the Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters Federation. The president of the association representing fish harvesters in our province issued a news release in which he restated and challenged your vision for the fisheries here on Canada’s East Coast, saying you told your audience of fish harvesters that your goal as Minister is to leave as many fish and grow as much vegetation in the water as possible so the Atlantic Ocean can better absorb carbon to combat climate change and fish harvesters will simply have to accept the sacrifice as part of Canada’s commitment to fight climate change. >click to read<, By Craig Pardy, MHA Bonavista 14:30
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