Tag Archives: marine-science

Tiny ear bones of fish tell a big story about the environment.

Fish ear bones, also known as otoliths, are like tree rings for the ocean. A layer of calcium carbonate laid down each year offers a snapshot of both the fish’s yearly growth and its surrounding ocean conditions. continued@seattletimes

First global atlas of marine plankton reveals remarkable underwater world

Now researchers from the University of East Anglia have helped to compile the first ever global atlas of marine plankton – published today in a special issue of the journal Earth System Science Data. [email protected]

Should scientists avoid publishing shark migration data because it helps fishermen? (The environmental activists are a bit paranoid, me thinks.)

Spoiler: No. In recent weeks, some conservation activists have been promoting an idea that I would like to respond to as a member of the scientific community. They claim that scientists shouldn’t publish data about shark migrations, movement, or population dynamics because such data helps fishermen to find areas where there are lots of sharks and kill them. This  misguided anti-science paranoia demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding about how conservation policy works. continued@southernfriedscience

The most abhorrent occupation in the world? Dr Magnus Johnson,

Imagine you have a business.

You’re not breaking any laws and its something your family have been doing for hundreds of years.  Your whole community has been doing it and whole cultures, traditions, music, stories and clothes have evolve around it.  Industries have thrived on your products.  Your product is gluten free, contains no additives, has a low carbon cost, doesn’t involve ploughing and transforming the land and gives us beautiful food that kings and commoners alike adore. continued

In depth article: Climate Change Impacts Ripple Through Fishing Industry While Ocean Science Lags Behind

Huffington Post – With a limberness that defies his 69 years, Frank Mirarchi heaves himself over the edge of a concrete wharf and steps out onto a slack, downward sloping dock line bouncing 20 feet above the lapping waters near Scituate, Mass. continued

SMAST Video Technology Shows Promise to Improve Groundfish and Flat Fish Stock Surveys

smastsavingseafood.org – Dr. Kevin Stokesbury, whose work in developing the SMAST Scallop Video Survey was essential to transforming scallop surveys in the 1990s, is collaborating again with the fishing industry, NOAA Fisheries, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, SIMRAD, and his colleagues from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) to improve groundfish and flat fish stock surveys using video data collection. This new method shows promise to improve accuracy by increasing spatial coverage and to allow the conducting of surveys without fish mortality. continued

BULLARD, SHELLEY, and COD: or Fish Being and Nothingness – Featured Writer Dick Grachek

63338_485671558129923_2088140092_s dickyg“Returning Our New England Fisheries to Profitability”: “You’re doin’ a great job, Brownie” aka, Janie, Johnny, Petey.  You should be proud.  Mission Accomplished?

In her resignation email Lubchenco made the gravity-defying claim that she had made “notable progress” in “ending overfishing, rebuilding depleted stocks, and returning fishing to profitability”; but soon after, John Bullard “In an interview at the Times, Bullard said the telling figure was that the fleet caught only 54 percent of the allowed catch in 2012, and reasoned from that statistic that there is a dearth of inshore cod, a situation that warrants serious action to reverse.”  Richard Gaines March 8, 2013 Gloucester Daily Times, “NOAA head explains stock stand” 

Peter Shelley of Conservation Law Foundation explains the Cod Dilemma in a wormy little video he so humorously named “For Cod’s Sake”…..continued

Watch out, NOAA: SMAST is innovating again – GO SMAST, GO!!!

Dr. Kevin Stokesbury

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smast

Dr. Kevin Stokesbury posed a challenge: How do you count fish in the ocean without killing them, in particular yellowtail flounder? It’s an important question because fishermen simply do not trust NOAA’s survey methods. Many believe fish are severely undercounted because the NOAA researchers on the ship Bigelow don’t seem to know what they are doing when they go fishing. It’s killing the industry. excitedly continued.

Taking the Long View – The Fall & Rise & Fall of Stripers

Striped bass, for thousands of years, have been coming back to the great spawning rivers of the Chesapeake Bay. And scientists, for decades, have been trying to figure out why striped bass reproduce so well during certain eras and so poorly during other eras. Bob Wood (above) has come up with a new theory that may answer these old questions. Credit: top, David Harp; bottom, Michael W. Fincham.

That’s a twist worthy of the old gods out of Greek myths. Every gift they ever gave us mortals carried a dark side. As mere mortals trying to manage the natural world, we instinctively try to maximize all the fish that matter most to us. We want a Bay full of stripers and a Bay full of menhaden. But that may not be an option. continued

Ocean food chains remain elusive

The marine biologist’s cod-food web looks more like the architecture of an acid-tripping spider than a depiction of what cod eat, and get eaten by, on the Scotian Shelf.

Cod eat herring and capelin and sand lance — small eel-like fish that in turn eat cod larvae. Seals eat cod, but they prefer herring and capelin and sand lance. Whales eat everything.

Everything eats everything. And that’s nearly all we know about how the hundreds of species on the Scotian Shelf interact — which is a problem.

“If cod came back, we’d have no idea why, because we don’t know what the interactions are,” Iverson said. We’ve had stock assessments — educated guesses made by scientists on how many of a particular species are out there, based on sample trawls and fishermen’s landings. continued

Scientists admit ‘we got amount of fish wrong’ – one Whitby fisherman has said: “Now give us our quota back.”

With scientists admitting they got the amount of fish in the North Sea and surrounding waters wrong, one Whitby fisherman has said: “Now give us our quota back.” The International Council for Exploration of the Sea’s most recent advice has confirmed that fishing  pressure across the main commercial stocks has in fact fallen to a remarkable degree. continued

Atlantic cod in for even more stress? – Marine biologists launch a new research project

Researchers have known for some years that the Atlantic cod beats the retreat in the direction of the Arctic when the waters in its traditional habitat become too warm. In summer, shoals from the Atlantic Ocean, for example, are now moving up as far as Spitsbergen into the waters the Arctic cod calls its own. continued

European fisheries flip with long-term ocean cycle – Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation

A sudden switch from herring to sardines in the English Channel in the 1930s was due to a long-term ocean cycle called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), an international study shows.  This is the first evidence linking the AMO to trends in important European fisheries. The study, funded by the governments of the UK, Canada, Norway, the USA and Germany, compared data on sea-surface temperatures with measurements of plankton concentrations continued

Pollution: Learning the Limits for Marine Species

Work by biologists and marine scientists at various Norwegian research institutions over the past 10 years has covered such commercial resources as shrimp, scallops, herring and cod. continued

Where did global warming go? The deep ocean, experts say

The deep oceans have recently been soaking up much of the excess heat trapped under the ever-thickening blanket of greenhouse gases that humans pump into the atmosphere, according to a recent study. continued

Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content pdf

Science. Lots of science.

msScientists stress need for national marine biodiversity observation network continued

Early Warning Signs of Population Collapse continued

Goosefish Capture Small Puffins Over Deep Water of Northwest Atlantic continued

Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport opens doors wide on Saturday continued

Research questions need for Ottawa to streamline environmental assessments

De Kerckhove, a University of Toronto PhD candidate, analyzed 10 years worth of data from Department of Fisheries and Oceans annual reports on the progress of environmental assessments triggered under the Fisheries Act. That legislation generates more such reviews than almost any other — anywhere from 7,700 to more than 12,000 in a single year. His paper, published last month in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Acquatic Sciences, found that simple reviews in which impacts on fish habitat could be fixed were completed within months, 19 times out of 20. continued

With the Menhaden Stock Status Still Unknown, Industry Leaders Request Better Science

WASHINGTON — April 1, 2013 — In the wake of a deeply flawed 2012 stock assessment that has prevented the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) from determining the status of Atlantic menhaden, members of the bait and reduction fisheries have written to the ASMFC calling for updated science and better data collection for the menhaden assessment.  continued  For more information on the stock status see: “Menhaden are Overfished” Reports Turn Out Premature

Cod research could revive species

sct logoFive years ago, a state fisheries employee was on a busman’s holiday: fishing in 170 feet of water near a small gravel sandbar 3 miles east of Gloucester, happily hauling up one large cod after another. He had discovered the epicenter of a mass of spawning cod, possibly 30,000 fish, that returned to this spot every spring. State fisheries scientists realized this was a unique opportunity to observe spawning cod in the wild so, in 2009, they set up an underwater laboratory at the site. continue reading

SCU student astounds scientific minds with new discovery – published in the Canadian Aquatic Science Journal

A GROUND-BREAKING discovery which could revolutionise Australia’s fisheries has earned a Southern Cross University student a major government grant and the respect of scientists around the world. continue reading

Acoustic monitoring of Atlantic cod reveals clues to spawning behavior – Phys.Org

For decades researchers have recorded sounds from whales and other marine mammals, using a variety of methods including passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) to better understand how these animals use sound to interact with each other and with the environment. Now, for the first time, researchers report using this technology to record spawning cod in the wild. continued

Researchers seek to reduce bycatch in groundfish trawling

Phys.org) —Researchers working with the groundfish fishing industry in the Pacific Northwest have tested a new “flexible sorting grid excluder” – a type of bycatch reduction device that shows promise to significantly reduce the incidental bycatch of Pacific halibut from commercial bottom trawl fishermen. continued

Alright. This 2048 crap is out of control! You gotta read this. (shaking head) – Want to Save Starving Sea Lion Pups? Here’s How

Want to Save Starving Sea Lion Pups? Here’s How– Megan Pincus Kajitani. Tears streamed down my 7-year-old daughter’s face this cloudy, March morning, as we watched the plight of a lone female California sea lion pup, clearly exhausted, struggling to keep her head above water and get herself to our local beach’s jetty. blah blah blah, tears running down my face, and then, Many marine scientists believe that, at the rate we’re going, the seas will be barren by 2048.  (Did you get that? No sea life in 35 years!) Read this ! See this article – No fish Left in the Ocean by 2048!!! – Media hype gets you more citations? Well, it did for this fisheries paper. By Dr Bik

Ocean plankton’s absorption of CO2 higher than assumed

In making their findings, the researchers have upended a decades-old core principle of marine science known as the Redfield ratio, named for famed oceanographer Alfred Redfield. He concluded in 1934 that from the top of the world’s oceans to their cool, dark depths, both plankton and the materials they excrete contain the same ratio (106:16:1) of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous. continue

Big fish catches mean smaller fish – Bangor scientists

Scientists have warned that a fishing rethink is needed after finding that catches of big fish trigger a rapid change in the gene pool of fish stocks. Researchers at Bangor University say they found that over-harvesting larger fish leads to a population of smaller fish that are less fertile. continue

John Bullard – No guarantees that fish stocks will come back

The big question is: Why has this happened? Over the years, quotas have been gradually reduced, but still the fish aren’t coming back as expected. It isn’t simply a case of overfishing. There are environmental forces at play such as predation from recovered populations of dogfish and seals, changes in ocean water temperature and increases in ocean acidity. So, while it may not be totally on the fishermen’s shoulders, it will be the fishermen who will have to pay the price. Read more

End of the line?

It could be overfishing. It could be global warming. It could be the seals. It could be a lot of things. In fact, there are perhaps only two things that are certain when it comes to fishing off the shores of Cape Cod: fish stocks are rebuilding at a slower rate than expected. And they will not meet management targets to recover to healthy levels unless something changes dramatically. Read more here

Editorial – Save the fish, but also help the fishermen

This newspaper understands the angry response severe restrictions provoked among those whose families  have earned their living from the sea for generations  – “I’m leaving here in a coffin,” one fisherman from New Bedford, Mass., complained – but the council had no viable options…..We encourage NOAA to adopt the restrictions, as painful as they will be to New England fishermen, since they are the best way to give cod, now on the verge of extinction, a chance to replenish. Read more here at The Day

A Must Read – Common-sense fisheries oversight needed By Daniel Goethel. “Extinction”

As the debate looms over whether Gulf of Maine cod catch limits for 2013 and beyond should be cut by 90 percent or a mere 80 percent, I found myself drawn to a piece of writing that I submitted as part of my college applicatioyn in 2002. Dramatically enough, it was titled “Extinction” and recapped my naive first 18 years of life as part of a small-boat New England fishing family. The essay started ominously enough by stating that “every year, New England’s fleet shrinks and approaches extinction.” Typically enough, for a pro-fisherman piece, it bashed government science for using incorrect data and ignoring fishermen’s observations, while bemoaning the days of 30-pound trip limits. However, it ended on a cautiously optimistic note highlighting the then-recent increase in cod trip limits to 400 pounds a day.

Looking back at this work, written more than a decade ago, I am dumbfounded to see that New England groundfish management has once again regressed. Today, I am deep into my pursuit of a PhD in fisheries stock assessment,,,,,,,,Read the rest

Fish panel holds off on limit cuts – “I say if you’re going to take 1 damn percent (more), shut the whole God damn thing down!”

manatthewheelNew England fishing regulators Thursday delayed voting on a series of significant cuts to fishermen’s 2013 allowable catch in groundfishing stocks after repeated and emotional warnings that the reductions would finish off an industry already grappling with a federally recognized economic “disaster.” The New England Fishery Management Council voted 15-2 to put off deciding on new catch limits for various bottom-dwelling groundfish species until their next meeting, scheduled for the end of January. Read More