Conservation & Environment

July 31, 2012 — Last fall, you helped in the historical process of beginning to change the way this fishery works. The ASMFC voted to set a new overfishing threshold and target in order to create a sustainable fishery. Now the time has come for the ASMFC to set the rules for the 2013 season and beyond. This is the first time in the history of this fishery that there will be an actual limit placed upon the amount of bunker that can be removed from the waters.

Starting with August 8ths meeting, the ASMFC will be meeting to revise management goals and implement new rules for the commercial harvest of menhaden. As we get closer to the final decision in October, you will begin to hear rumblings from many different angles all in an effort to delay the decision and to avoid catch reduction of any kind. This rhetoric will undoubtedly try to sway public opinion and attempt to derail the management process and utilize the usual “bad science” and “faulty data collection” talk.

We as recreational fisherman and concerned citizens, have had ENOUGH of this talk. We are tired of the future of our waters being determined by commercial financial interests. We are tired of the needs of a few benefiting at the expense of the masses. The ASMFC must not delay in any way and move forward so these fish can rebound NOW.

The facts are in and current data has made it very clear that overfishing has occurred 52 out of the past 54 years. Population levels of this species have dwindled from 200 billion fish down 88% to an all time, century low of 20 billion fish. Older, egg laden adult fish continue to be taken out of our waters in very large numbers and the overall biomass of menhaden has shrunk. Historically, there were evenly distributed schools, with millions of fish of many different ages spread from Florida to Maine and all points in between.

Even in areas such as Raritan Bay, New Jersey, where the bunker are plentiful, the fish are smaller. Yes, there are still some nice size schools present, but the absence of the larger, older adult fish is obvious. Clearly, we need to say goodbye to the large scale, industrialized methods that are strip mining our coastal waters daily.

Read the full story on Stripers Online

Analysis: The article “East Coast: Increase the Population of Menhaden” from Stripers Online states that the issues raised with the validity of recent menhaden stock assessments are, “an attempt to derail the management process” and have only been deployed to prevent regulation of the commercial fishery. This view ignores the many people outside of the menhaden fishery that have concluded that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) does not have the best available science to make management decisions.

The ASMFC’s own Menhaden Technical Committee has pointed out several critical flaws in the 2012 menhaden update stock assessment and the stock assessment model, indicating that it might not be suitable for management advice. At their May 29th meeting, the Committee observed that the update assessment revealed a retrospective pattern, meaning that the estimates in previous population assessments contradicted the population estimates in the current assessment, and needed to be revised in order to fit the more current data. The appearance of retrospective patterns in stock assessments is a sign that a particular assessment model may not be working and that the data being produced is not reliable.

Other issues included inconsistencies between the abundance predictions of adults and juveniles, and using the wrong shaped graphical representation of age distribution caught by the fishery. These issues have led the Technical Committee and Stock the Assessment Subcommittee to consider the recommendation that the ASMFC Menhaden Management Board conduct a new benchmark assessment as soon as possible, rather than using the critically flawed 2012 update to inform the regulatory process.

The menhaden committees of Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission are not the only ones who believe that better science is needed to make good management decisions. In April 2012 several members of Congress wrote to the ASMFC and asked that changes be made to the assessment, such as the inclusion aerial survey data, to ensure more scientifically sound assessments before using them as the basis of management decisions.

The article also states, “current data has made it very clear that overfishing has occurred 52 out of the past 54 years.” However, this is highly inaccurate. According to the last peer reviewed stock assessment in 2010, the occurrences of overfishing have been decreasing. In fact, overfishing has only occurred in two of the last fifteen years.

 

 

 

July 28, 2012 — Being the largest international group aimed at safeguarding aquatic natural habitats and closely monitoring fishing activities carried out in international waters, Oceana has long argued that seafood fraud is a problem which needs to be addressed by authorities and high officials as soon as possible.

The organization now congratulates United States Representatives Edward Markey and Barney Frank for having brought forth this most pressing issue.

For those unaware, seafood fraud refers to practices such as species substitution and false labeling. In other words, illegally caught fish is bound to enter the US market without anyone being even remotely aware of this. Apparently, this happens more often than not with species such as the red snapper, the wild salmon and the Atlantic code.

Thus, said high officials have just introduced the Safety and Fraud Enforcement for Seafood Act (SAFE Seafood, in fewer words). Should this bill be approved, all seafood that enters the US market from that moment on will benefit from full traceability.

This basically means that consumers will know exactly where their meal comes from, and what it took for it to get on their plates.

As explained on Oceana's official website, it is of utmost importance to keep a close eye on these seafood trading operations, primarily because seafood fraud stands to affect local fishermen, public health and also the environment.

Speaking on behalf of the entire organization, Beth Lowell made a case of how, “Representatives Markey and Frank should be applauded for introducing this much-needed legislation to help stop seafood fraud."

Furthermore, "Seafood fraud is cheating customers, hurting honest fishermen and seafood businesses, putting our health at risk and undermining conservation efforts.”

 

Read the full story here

 

 

NEW BEDFORD — July 18, 2012 — Local fishermen aired their concerns Tuesday over the proposed development of offshore wind projects in waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island to the director of the federal Bureau of Offshore Energy Management.

"There is broad consensus in favor of clean energy in the abstract sense. But it's not that simple," BOEM director Tommy Beaudreau told a fisheries working group meeting at City Hall. His agency recognizes that there are "well-established and abundant uses" of the area under consideration, he said. "We need to be respectful and protective of the fishing industry. That's our responsibility."

The bureau has already removed a fish spawning area, known as Cox's Ledge, from the proposed area, Beaudreau said.

However, fishermen are looking for additional safeguards.

Fishery consultant Jim Kendall said that excluding Cox's Ledge was a positive move but questioned whether enough data had been gathered on the environmental impact of the turbines.

"That's a prime monkfish area," he said. "If fishing productivity declines or access is restricted, we need an economic assessment of the effects on fishermen."

Scalloper Eric Hansen said the assessment focused too much on bottom dwelling species. "You have shad, stripers, herring, tuna and whales migrating through there," he said.

The designated area encompasses 165,000 acres in waters southwest of Martha's Vineyard, known as the Area of Mutual Interest after Gov. Deval Patrick and Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri signed a memorandum of understanding in 2010 to collaborate in developing offshore wind.

An environmental assessment of the area was released by BOEM last month and a public comment period ends on Aug. 2.

Professor Kevin Stokesbury, a scallop researcher at UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and Technology, said he wonders how placing hundreds of turbines in the water might affect ocean currents and the distribution of larval scallops.

"It might be detrimental or it could create a bloom. We don't know," he said.

The fishing industry currently sets aside money every year to fund ongoing research and wind developers should be required to do the same, fishermen said.

 

Read the full story in the New Bedford Standard Times

 

 

July 18, 2012 — The unintended consequence of protecting mammals such as seals and porpoises could mean even more of an imbalance in the food chain this fall, fishermen fear. Fishermen will be banned by federal law, starting in the autumn, from catching fish in an area where mammals – and groundfish – abound.

If the itty bitty cod are a seal’s favorite meal, and the seals continue to provide gourmet fodder for the Great White sharks, well, someone’s going to need a bigger boat.

Numerous scientists and fishermen have been equating the plethora of shark sightings this summer with the plethora of seals – which sharks crave – as well as with the perplexing absence of cod, which seals chow down in astounding amounts.

The unintended consequence of protecting mammals such as seals and porpoises could mean even more of an imbalance in the food chain this fall, fishermen fear. Fishermen will be banned by federal law, starting in the autumn, from catching fish in an area where mammals – and groundfish – abound.

As previously reported, the ban will not affect Cape Cod, where the bycatch rate of porpoises is less than here, according to a study by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, which regulates fishing. NOAA also charged that the Gloucester boats use “pingers” to scare off mammals only about two-thirds as regularly as the Cape Codders, though local fishermen soundly dispute that.

While the unprecedented overpopulation of seals is mostly around Cape Cod – where an estimated 25 Jaws-like creatures up to 18 feet are having a day at the beach – both species are summering here as well. Capt. Dave Jewell of the Lady J said he is seeing many more seals.

“They’re brutal,” he said, “sneaking in under the net, ripping open the bellies of the cod; stealing lobsters right out of the pots. They opened 140 doors on my tarps in one day lat week.”

Jewell said he spotted a 12-foot great white about 10 feet from his boat last week — just about “a half mile off Gloucester Harbor,” he said, “by Braces Cove.”

Some seals get caught in the nets, when they show up to eat the trapped cod, fishermen and the government agree, but Teri Frady of the NOAA Science Center in Woods Hole said she had no statistics either on the local seal population, how many become bycatch, or how the forthcoming ban on gillnetting might affect them.

In a Canadian study of the Nova Scotia waters in 1985, when cod there were beginning to decline, the seal count was way up, said Brian Rothschild, Montgomery Charter Professor of Marine Science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

“There were unheard of levels of seals,” said Rothschild, “like now, here, especially in Buzzards Bay. We don’t know exactly what’s going on with the cod, but some say the two are interacting in the food cycle. And we do know white sharks eat seals. Even one Great White is a scary thing.”

As Rothschild noted, the case of the mysteriously diminished cod count – NOAA says stocks are down by 22 percent in three years – is a matter of dispute between government and academic scientists.

Come October and November — prime groundfishing time – more than 2,000 square miles of the Gulf of Maine will be off limits to Gloucester’s 32 gillnetters, about half the local fleet, in order to protect what the government says are threatened numbers of porpoises. Protection of seals will be a side effect, experts admit.

The gillnetters are usually small boats, not trawlers, that use finely sized monofilament to catch fish.

“A properly tended stand-up gill net targets specific size fish,” said Mark Godfried, a Gloucester-based longtime fisherman, fish auction grader and corporate consultant. “Hooks are not discriminatory. They can catch little fish that should not be caught.”

 

Read the full story in the Gloucester Times

 

 

July 16, 2012 — Perhaps we can save the whales — or at least their hearing.

Scientists have long known that man-made, underwater noises — from engines, sonars, weapons testing, and such industrial tools as air guns used in oil and gas exploration — are deafening whales and other sea mammals. The Navy estimates that loud booms from just its underwater listening devices, mainly sonar, result in temporary or permanent hearing loss for more than a quarter-million sea creatures every year, a number that is rising.

Now, scientists have discovered that whales can decrease the sensitivity of their hearing to protect their ears from loud noise. Humans tend to do this with index fingers; scientists haven’t pinpointed how whales do it, but they have seen the first evidence of the behavior.

“It’s equivalent to plugging your ears when a jet flies over,” said Paul E. Nachtigall, a marine biologist at the University of Hawaii who led the discovery team. “It’s like a volume control.”

The finding, while preliminary, is already raising hopes for the development of warning signals that would alert whales, dolphins and other sea mammals to auditory danger.

Peter Madsen, a professor of marine biology at Aarhus University in Denmark, said he applauded the Hawaiian team for its “elegant study” and the promise of innovative ways of “getting at some of the noise problems.” But he cautioned against letting the discovery slow global efforts to reduce the oceanic roar, which would aid the beleaguered sea mammals more directly.

The noise threat arises because of the basic properties of seawater. Typically, light can travel for hundreds of feet through ocean water before diminishing to nothingness. But sound can travel for hundreds of miles.

The world’s oceans have been getting noisier as companies and governments expand their undersea activities. Researchers have linked the growing racket to deafness, tissue damage, mass strandings and disorientation in creatures that rely on hearing to navigate, find food and care for their young.

The danger has long been a political football. In 2008, the Supreme Court heard a lawsuit by the National Resources Defense Council against the Navy over ocean noise; the court ruled that naval vessels had the right to test sonar systems for hunting submarines. But environmentalists saw a tacit victory in getting the nation’s highest court even to consider the health of sea mammals in a debate over national security.

The latest development took place at a research facility off Oahu — at an island where the opening shots of “Gilligan’s Island” were filmed.

Scientists there are studying how dolphins and toothed whales hear. In nature, the mammals emit sounds and listen for returning echoes in a sensory behavior known as echolocation. In captivity, scientists taught the creatures to wear suction-cup electrodes, which revealed the patterns of brainwaves involved in hearing.

The discovery came in steps. First, Dr. Nachtigall and his team found the animals could adjust their hearing in response to their own sounds of echolocation, mainly sharp clicks. The scientists then wondered if the animals could also protect their ears from incoming blasts.

The team focused on a false killer whale named Kina and sought to teach her a conditioned behavior similar to how Pavlov taught dogs to salivate upon hearing a bell.

First, the scientists played a gentle tone repeatedly. Then they followed the gentle pulse with a loud sound. After a few trials, the warning signal alone caused Kina to decrease the sensitivity of her hearing.

“It shows promise as a way to mitigate the effects of loud sounds,” said Dr. Nachtigall, founding director of the Marine Mammal Research Program at the University of Hawaii. “People are generally very excited about it.”

In May, Dr. Nachtigall and his colleagues presented the findings to acoustic scientists and groups meeting in Hong Kong, including the Acoustical Society of America. The team cited the protective deafening as a potential way to help sea mammals cope with noisy blasts from naval sonars, civilian air guns and other equipment.

In the future, the team plans to expand the research to other species in captivity and ultimately to animals in the wild. “We have a problem in the world,” Dr. Nachtigall said of the oceanic roar. “And we think the animals can learn this response very rapidly.”

Scientists unconnected to the mammal research called it important. “It’s a big deal,” said Vincent M. Janik, a prominent marine biologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In an e-mail, he said it revealed a rare ability among the planet’s creatures.

 

Read the full story in the New York Times

 

 

July 12, 2012 — HAVANA, Ill.—As scientists aboard a research boat activate an electric current, the calm Illinois River transforms into a roiling, silvery mass. Asian carp by the dozen hurtle from the water as if shot from a gun, soaring in graceful arcs before plunging beneath the surface with splashes resembling tiny geysers.

Water quality specialist Thad Cook grunts as a whopper belts him in the gut. His colleagues duck and dodge to avoid the missile-like fish that plop onto the deck, writhing madly until someone can grasp the slimy, slithering critters and heave them over the side.

It's like a scene from a Hitchcock movie — and indeed the flying carp have played villainous roles in many a YouTube video. Biologists, however, fear a different kind of horror story may be taking shape underwater: a war for survival between the aggressive Asian carp newcomers and native species important to people who catch fish for a living or fun.

"We suspect at some point there will be a real crash in the populations of some of these native fishes," said John Chick, an aquatic ecologist with the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center on the Mississippi River near St. Louis.

While years of study have turned up ominous signs that the carp are capable of crowding out other species and changing ecosystems, the worst-case scenario scientists expect to unfold hasn't yet been realized. Some scientists say that dire predictions about the damage carp can do may be premature. That makes the research Chick and his colleagues are conducting critical: It likely will influence how the debate over managing waterways made vulnerable by carp plays out in Congress and the courts.

U.S. research so far has focused on rivers, where Asian carp are most plentiful. A common method for determining which fish are in a given location is to shoot an electric charge into the water that temporarily stuns them so crews can scoop them up in nets. Silver carp, an Asian type known for springing from the water when startled, manage to jump first.

Imported decades ago to cleanse algae-choked aquaculture ponds and sewage treatment lagoons, they escaped during floods and have marched up the Mississippi watershed in more than two dozen states, ranging as far as Kansas and the Dakotas. They're taking dead aim at the Great Lakes, with the leading edge on the Illinois River some 55 miles south of Lake Michigan, although their DNA has been found in Chicago a mere 6 miles from the lake.

 

Read the full story in the Boston Globe

 

 

July 13, 2012 — A Canadian government study (PDF) released yesterday revives fears that Asian Carp will set up a population in Lake Michigan before the federal government takes preemptive action. The report arrives as both the U.S. Congress and five Great Lake states, not including Illinois, push the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE), a federal government agency, to take action by the end of 2013.

Released by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, a Canadian federal agency, the study finds that Asian carp can survive in Lake Michigan. The carp may be nearby considering the recent findings of their DNA in the Little Calumet River and Lake Calumet.

The study finds that it would take an adult population of 10 males and 10 females for the carp to have a greater than 50 percent chance of successful spawning. Also, Lake Michigan is not too cold for the fish, and there is plenty for the species to eat, the report concludes. “This is a very significant study – it shows we don’t have the luxury of letting a few fish slip into Lake Michigan,” says Thomas Cmar, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council's midwest office.

If carp were let into Lake Michigan, they could possibly destroy Michigan’s fishing industry and local ecology. Also, the fish could make their way to other Great Lakes within the next 20 years, according to the report.

Such warnings add to the fears of the five Great Lake states – Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – that sued USACE.

The lawsuit, awaiting to be heard before a U.S. District Judge, claims that USACE is derelict in dealing with the carp problem. Chicago waterways, for example, were not closed after a 2010 sighting of a bighead Asian carp in Lake Calumet, which is about 50 miles from Lake Michigan.

Jim Diana, a professor at the University of Michigan where he is director of the Michigan Sea Grant program, predicts the lawsuit will be unsuccessful as it is hard to prove federal agency inaction. But, Diana says, the lawsuit is a justified alternative to states simply “waiting for a report from the Corps of Engineers.”

 

Read the full story on Progress Illinois

 

 

June 27, 2012 – The following is a excerpt from an article that appeared on the website Animal Cafe:

There were billions of Menhaden running from Nova Scotia to Maine, down the East Coast and all around the Florida Panhandle over 150 years ago, and 100 different companies processing them to replace whale fat. While considerably smaller today at around 12″ per adult fish, each Menhaden filters four gallons of water a minute at the lowest estimate, 7 gallons at the highest. Clean water is important, but even more so is the staving off of an ecosystem collapse.

Menhaden eat algae (phytoplankton) which prevents algal blooms. We know algal blooms causes dead zones in bodies of water.  Getting sunlight to beneficial plants at the bottom of the ocean to receive those life-giving properties is another outcome of Menhaden’s clean-up job. As Menhaden eat the algae they become rich with omega 3 fatty acids and are a fine and tasty meal for dozens of fish we eat, and several species of birds. And it’s because of the Omega 3s that their fate seems sealed – industry is hungry for cheap sources of Omega 3s for vitamins, cosmetics and other items.

H. Bruce Franklin, noted cultural historian and Professor at Rutgers, joins us today and relates a little history, a little culture, and a lot about the impact on the future of the fish we eat and the water we fish from and drink.

Read the full story and listen to the interview at Animal Cafe.

Analysis: In an online interview with the website Animal Cafe, Dr. H. Bruce Franklin, a Rutgers English professor and author of the book The Most Important Fish in the Sea, repeated several inaccurate statements about the menhaden fishery. These included claims about menhaden’s ability as a filter feeder and about the overall health of the fishery.

Franklin claims in the interview, as he does in his book, that menhaden are filter feeders that remove large amounts of phytoplankton, algae, and other small plant particles from the water, preventing algal blooms, which are harmful to marine environments, including the Chesapeake Bay. This often-repeated claim has been disputed by several scientific studies, which have found that menhaden’s ability to improve water quality is negligible at best. A 2006 study by Dr. Kevin Friedland of the National Marine Fisheries Service and a 2010 study by Dr. Patrick Lynch and colleagues at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science concluded that menhaden become less able to consume phytoplankton as they age. Younger menhaden consume more phytoplankton than older menhaden, which mostly consume zooplankton (similar to phytoplankton but a larger size, and animals instead of plants).

Franklin makes repeated references to the menhaden reduction industry, accusing them of “strip-mining” the fish at an unsustainable rate and depleting the resource. This accusation is not reflected in the available data on the fishery. According to the last menhaden stock assessment, issued in 2010, menhaden are not considered to be overfished, meaning that the stock was producing enough eggs to meet its abundance targets. It was determined that overfishing was occurring, meaning that the level of fishing exceeded the mortality limits in the last year of the assessment. However, there has been no consistent pattern of overfishing recently, with overfishing having occurred only once in the last decade.

Franklin blames the decline of the menhaden population solely on the alleged overfishing by the industry. However, he fails to mention the many natural and environmental factors that affect menhaden reproduction. A study on menhaden management in Marine Fisheries Review by D.S. Vaughan and J.V. Merriner of the National Marine Fisheries Service concluded, “it appears that managing the fishery to maintain large numbers of spawners may prove fruitless since environmental conditions appear to outweigh the availability of spawners (as numbers or eggs) in controlling subsequent recruitment.” Other similar studies from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have shown a poor correlation between the number of adult menhaden available to reproduce and the number of viable offspring that survive to join the population, indicating that factors other than fishing mortality affect recruitment.

Franklin is also highly critical of Omega Protein’s participation in the political process, saying the company “essentially bribes all the legislators and the state’s governor to protect the industry.” This vastly overstates the political campaign contributions of Omega Protein in Virginia. Between 2008 and 2012, Omega Protein contributed $142,000 to political campaigns and political action committees (PACs) in the state. This ranks it at #267 on the list of political donors in Virginia during that time period. As a point of comparison, the Virginia Taxicab Association made donations totaling $24,000 more than Omega.

In the interview, Franklin claims that the menhaden population is on the verge of collapse and causing an ecosystem crisis in the Chesapeake Bay. His incorrect allegations are not supported, and are in fact, contradictory to current scientific studies.

 

 

 

June 8, 2012 – The six states and the District of Columbia within the Chesapeake Bay watershed are on pace to restore the nation's largest estuary, state and federal officials and environmentalists agreed Monday.

The consensus emerged from a meeting of representatives from the states. D.C. and the Environmental Protection Agency, and from an independent assessment by environmental groups that have been tracking one of the largest water pollution control projects in U.S. history.

The assessment is based on a two-year review of goals outlined in a "pollution diet" aimed at reducing the flow of farm and urban runoff and water fouled by sewage and storm overflows from entering the bay. The actions of 17 million people who live within the watershed have devastated marine life and created vast "dead zones" within the 200-mile-long bay.

William C. Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the reports signal that the states and the district "have begun the journey" to restoring the bay by 2025, the goal of the cleanup.

"The state blueprints and two-year milestones lay out a clear roadmap to restoring the bay, and the rivers and streams that feed it," Baker said. The foundation, the leading advocate of the bay's cleanup, analyzed the reports with the Choose Clean Water Coalition.

The reports were released at the annual meeting of the executive council of the Chesapeake Bay Program. The policy-setting body released detailed individual state assessments on progress in meeting pollution-control goals.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Wall Street Journal.

 

 

July 9, 2012 — Oceans' rising acid levels have emerged as one of the biggest threats to coral reefs, acting as the "osteoporosis of the sea" and threatening everything from food security to tourism to livelihoods, the head of a U.S. scientific agency said Monday.

The speed by which the oceans' acid levels has risen caught scientists off-guard, with the problem now considered to be climate change's "equally evil twin," National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco told The Associated Press.

"We've got sort of the perfect storm of stressors from multiple places really hammering reefs around the world," said Lubchenco, who was in Australia to speak at the International Coral Reef Symposium in the northeast city of Cairns, near the Great Barrier Reef. "It's a very serious situation."

Oceans absorb excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, increasing sea acidity. Scientists are worried about how that increase will affect sea life, particularly reefs, as higher acid levels make it tough for coral skeletons to form. Lubchenco likened ocean acidification to osteoporosis — a bone-thinning disease — because researchers are concerned it will lead to the deterioration of reefs.

Scientists initially assumed that the carbon dioxide absorbed by the water would be sufficiently diluted as theoceans mixed shallow and deeper waters. But most of the carbon dioxide and the subsequent chemical changes are being concentrated in surface waters, Lubchenco said.

"And those surface waters are changing much more rapidly than initial calculations have suggested," she said. "It's yet another reason to be very seriously concerned about the amount of carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere now and the additional amount we continue to put out."

Higher acidity levels are especially problematic for creatures such as oysters, because acid slows the growth of their shells. Experiments have shown other animals, such as clown fish, also suffer. In a study that mimicked the level of acidity scientists expect by the end of the century, clown fish began swimming toward predators, instead of away from them, because their sense of smell had been dulled.

"We're just beginning to uncover many of the ways in which the changing chemistry of oceans affects lots of behaviors," Lubchenco said. "So salmon not being able to find their natal streams because their sense of smell was impaired, that's a very real possibility."

The potential impact of all of this is huge, Lubchenco said. Coral reefs attract critical tourism dollars and protect fragile coastlines from threats such as tsunamis. Seafood is the primary source of protein for many people around the world. Already, some oyster farmers have blamed higher acidity levels for a decrease in stocks.

 

Read the full story in the Christian Science Monitor