Saving Seafood

Conservation & Environment

Rewriting the Disaster Narrative in New Orleans through Collaboration and Community

September 25, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today, locals in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward call the Bayou Bienvenue Wetlands Triangle a “ghost swamp.” The area was formerly a cypress forest with trees so close together people could canoe through them without paddles. Now, standing by a sign commenorating the the forest, you’ll see open water with a few bone white tree trunks jutting out. Through its grant program for underserved communities under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, NOAA Fisheries is providing $1.2 million to galvanize the efforts of local groups to restore the habitat.

The original Bayou Bienvenue forest stood within the 30,000-acre Central Wetlands Unit in Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes. It provided residents with a place to fish and hunt, collect wild onions and herbs, and escape from the heat and noise of the city. Its towering cypress trees and live oaks, together with the marsh grass and aquatic plants, also buffered the wind and waves from hurricanes.

However, after the construction of a massive shipping channel through the wetlands in the 1960s, salt water entered the ecosystem. As the salt killed off the freshwater plants, the channel, dubbed the “Hurricane Highway,” also gave storm surge coming off the Gulf of Mexico a direct path into the wetlands and surrounding community. In 2005, storm surge from Hurricane Katrina inundated the area in up to 15 feet of saltwater, destroying homes and killing many people. In the 18 years since then, despite the development of a restoration plan and efforts to revitalize the communities, both remain a shell of their former selves.

With new NOAA funding, these groups, working in partnership with foundations and city and state governments, will:

  • Plant 15,750 trees, 18,000 plugs of marsh grass, and 20 plots of aquatic vegetation in the Central Wetlands Unit.
  • Create a nature-based engineering and design plan for additional restoration work in the Bayou Bienvenue Wetlands Triangle
  • Engage residents of the Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish in all aspects of restoration work and project planning to improve the health and sustainability of the community

“We feel grateful that we’re stewards of these congressionally-appropriated dollars for coastal and community resilience,” says John Barco, Marine Habitat Resource Specialist for NOAA. “We’re excited to work with these partners and the community to build off the work they’ve already accomplished.”

Millions pegged for salmon, steelhead recovery

September 25, 2023 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is recommending sending $106 million to 16 salmon and steelhead recovery efforts in five Western states.

NOAA and the Department of Commerce recommended grants to state agencies with salmon protection missions, tribes and tribal partnerships in Idaho, Alaska, Oregon, Washington and California.

The funding “provides an important opportunity to bolster salmon and steelhead recovery and invest in the communities that rely on them,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement.

Read the full article at The Challis Messenger

Trawl vessels caught 10 killer whales in ’23 off Alaska, federal agency says

September 25, 2023 — A federal agency that takes an active role in “shaping international ocean, fisheries, climate, space and weather policies” reported last week one of its teams is “evaluating data collected” on 10 killer whales incidentally caught in Alaska by Bering Sea and Aleutian Island groundfish trawl fisheries in 2023.

In a statement, NOAA Fisheries, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said just one whale ended up being released alive. For the other nine, the agency is in the process of determining the cause of injury or death and which stocks these whales belong to through a review of genetic information.

In addition, NOAA Fisheries is reviewing information regarding “a killer whale incidentally caught during the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s longline survey for sablefish and groundfish this summer.” The agency added that on June 7, a dead killer whale was observed entangled in gear on the Central Bering Sea slope.

Read the full article at KIRO

Can $82 million stop the first modern-day extinction of a great whale?

September 25, 2023 — The U.S. government has issued an $82 million grant to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales — “the largest climate and conservation investment in history,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said. The whale is fast approaching extinction, with just 70 females of reproductive age amid its dwindling numbers.

The funding from the Inflation Reduction Act will be used to ensure that the NOAA can implement technology to help ships detect and avoid the whales, alongside existing conservation measures.

Read the full article at SEMAFOR

Trawlers accidentally caught 10 orcas off Alaska this year — only one lived

September 25, 2023 — A federal fishery agency reported last week that 10 killer whales were caught in the gear of trawl net vessels fishing this year in the Bering Sea and North Pacific waters off the Aleutian Islands.

Only one was released alive, according to a brief Alaska NOAA Fisheries statement posted online. A team is analyzing data collected about the other nine whales to determine the causes of injury or death, and also to determine which stocks these whales belonged to through reviewing genetic information.

Killer whales, also known as orcas, have been entangled in trawl gear off Alaska in years past, but the numbers reported in 2023 are higher.

“The agency is working quickly to evaluate these incidents and will share findings as soon as possible, after all required analyses are completed,” the statement said.

The agency reported that another killer whale was entangled with longline gear set out by a vessel conducting a federal fishery survey in the Central Bering Sea. On June 7, a dead whale was observed caught up in gear, the statement said. NOAA Fisheries scientists were on board the survey vessel, which was designed to provide an assessment of black cod — also known as sablefish — populations, and that incident is also under review.

Read the full article at The Seattle Times

NOAA Fisheries releases interactive climate vulnerability tool

September 23, 2023 — A new interactive tool from NOAA Fisheries allows users to access the agency’s data and see how vulnerable fish and their habitats are to climate change.

With data on roughly 400 marine species and habitats, the Climate Vulnerability Assessment Tool can create reports by drawing on the agency’s assessments of fish stocks, protected species, habitats, and fishing communities. NOAA Fisheries develops assessments based on the subject’s level of exposure to environmental changes and its sensitivity to those changes.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

New Interactive Tool Consolidates Data from Climate Vulnerability Assessments

September 23, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries has launched its new Climate Vulnerability Assessment Tool! It provides easy access to vulnerability information from all of the current Climate Vulnerability Assessments in one convenient location. Previously, these assessments were only available as individual reports on the NOAA Fisheries website or via scientific journals.

As part of its commitment to addressing the impacts of climate change, NOAA Fisheries conducts Climate Vulnerability Assessments on fish stocks, protected species, habitats, and fishing communities. The Climate Vulnerability Assessment Tool provides an easy way for scientists, academia, and decision makers to find vulnerability information on nearly 400 marine-related species and habitats.

Climate Vulnerability Assessments provide decision makers with information on which species, habitats, and communities may be most susceptible to climate change. They also show where action may be needed to help reduce impacts and increase resilience to changing ocean conditions. The information is also being used to guide research on possible climate impacts and solutions. The assessments estimate vulnerability to climate change based on:

  • Level of exposure to projected changes in the environment (such as increased ocean temperatures)
  • Sensitivity to these changes based on life history characteristics (such as diet and reproductive rate)

Currently, the Climate Vulnerability Assessment Tool pulls data from seven completed assessments:

The Climate Vulnerability Assessment Tool will be regularly updated as data from new assessments are made available. Several other Climate Vulnerability Assessments are in progress, including assessments for sea turtles, Atlantic highly migratory species, and Gulf of Mexico fish stocks.

When climate change throws the Pacific off balance, the world’s weather follows

September 20, 2023 — The Pacific Ocean is a juggernaut. It’s the largest ocean on our planet, almost double the size of the Atlantic. Its vast expanse, exposure to trade winds, and range of temperatures makes it incredibly dynamic. All these factors contribute to create the El Niño—Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a climate pattern that affects seasonal precipitation, heat, storms, and more around the world.

ENSO is made up of three stages: El Niño and La Niña, which can both increase the likelihood of extreme weather from the Philippines to Hawaii to Peru—and the neutral phase that we are typically in. El Niño is currently underway and is predicted to go strong until winter. With it come a slew of weather patterns like exacerbated heat waves in the northern US and Canada, increased risk of flooding in the south and southeast US, delayed rainy seasons, and even droughts in countries like Indonesia and the Philippines. And this is for an El Niño period that is predicted to be strong, but not particularly extreme. But as the Pacific warms due to human-driven climate change and temperature gradients across the ocean widen, scientists warn that El Niño and La Niña periods are becoming longer, more extreme, and more frequent.

In one recent study published in the journal Nature Reviews, researchers looked at different climate models to see how ENSO has changed through the past century, and how it may shift in coming years. While El Niño and La Niña ordinarily last nine to 12 months, the vast majority of models predict that we will see them stretch out over multiple years. “In the 20th century you got about one extreme El Niño per 20 years,” says Wenju Cai, chief research scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia and lead author of the Nature Reviews paper. “But in the future, and in the 21st century on average, we will get something like one extreme event per 10 years—so it’s doubling.”

Read the full article at Popular Science

Restoring Estuary Habitat After Oil Spills and Other Disasters

September 20, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

National Estuaries Week takes place each September—this year, from September 16 to 23. It’s a chance to highlight the importance of some of the most productive ecosystems in the world. Estuaries provide habitat for wildlife and fish, create protective breeding grounds, and allow for migratory resting spots. Estuaries also provide ecosystem services such as natural filtration of pollution and flood protection.

NOAA’s Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program works to protect, restore, and maintain habitat after oil spills and toxic waste releases. We conduct extensive restoration work among estuarine habitat. Read on to learn about recent projects that include estuary restoration.

Calcasieu Estuary (Louisiana)

Restoration activities are currently underway to restore nearly 400 acres of Long Point Marsh. The marsh restoration project consists of 392 acres of marsh and 8 acres of tidal creeks, as well as an 18-acre oyster reef project in the Calcasieu Lake.

A 2006 oil spill in Lake Charles, Louisiana—a city rich in Creole culture—contaminated more than 150 miles of shoreline including beaches, residential and industrial waterfront, and marsh. Twenty-one million gallons of oil waste from storage tanks at the Citgo Refinery wastewater treatment plant spilled into the Calcasieu Estuary.

Additional estuarine restoration projects stemming from a different case settlement are in the restoration planning phase in Bayou d’Inde. Contaminants have polluted the bayou, a major tributary of the Calcasieu River, since the 1920s.

Federal Report Confirms Offshore Wind Effect on Whales Produces ‘Temporary Behavioral Changes’

September 20, 2023 — With offshore wind projects being blamed for the increase in deaths in whale species in New Jersey and along the East Coast in 2023, the NOAA has issued a final determination on the effects of sonar mapping and wind farms on marine wildlife.

This week, the federal agency issued a ruling on a Virginia offshore wind project. The opinion says effects the wind farm projects has on whales is only ‘temporary behavioral changes’, adding that the uptick in whale deaths is unrelated to projects being touted by the Biden administration.

Read the full article at Shore News Network