Economic Impact

September 17, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Center for American Progress released a new report earlier this week called “Warming Seas Falling Fortunes.” In it, fishermen on the front lines of climate change describe the impact of warming oceans on their jobs and communities.

In a five-part series, SeafoodNews is summarizing the report. Today we look at the Mid-Atlantic and New England. On Monday, we cover the West Coast and on Tuesday, the Alaska fishing industry.

Along the Mid-Atlantic coast, commercial and recreational fishing are important economic drivers. In 2015, the fishing industries in New Jersey, New York, and Virginia supported over 117,000 jobs and generated $15.6 billion in sales. Yet, fishing in all three states is under threat as researchers see marine species shifting an average of 0.7 of a degree of latitude, or roughly 50 miles, north and 15 meters deeper in the water.

Fishermen from these states are seeing the same phenomena.

“Summer flounder off the coast of New York are having poor spawning seasons; everyone is switching to black sea bass, which have become more abundant due to warming waters,” said Charles Witek, an attorney and avid saltwater angler. I never caught a black sea bass in Long Island Sound, in all 27 summers that I lived in Connecticut. Now, they are an important part of the regional fishery.”

“I never caught a black sea bass in Long Island Sound, in all 27 summers that I lived in Connecticut. Now, they are an important part of the regional fishery.”

Dolphinfish, commonly known as mahi-mahi, are a tropical fish traditionally caught between Florida and North Carolina. Now, they are increasingly found in the waters off New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

“When I started fishing offshore in the early ‘80s, once in a while, someone got a dolphin[fish], but only when the warm canyon water came inshore,” Witek said.

“But they were targets of opportunity. … Now, I go out looking for dolphin[fish], and so do a lot of people. My wife and I go out and we catch all that we want. A friend of mine is a charter boat captain and is always talking about how he has dolphin[fish] on top chasing bait.”

Scientific research indicates that the wide-ranging species is sensitive to sea surface temperature and is caught recreationally only in waters warmer than 66.2 degrees Fahrenheit, while catch rates peak at 80.6 degrees F.

Fishermen are also reporting noticing more “funny fish,” or unusual species showing up in their waters. “You can cast a net under lights in Virginia and catch Gulf shrimp—not grass shrimp, Gulf shrimp. The guys that are running oyster aquaculture, it’s becoming common to see Nassau grouper juveniles in the cage—you see it, and you think you’re the only one. Two weeks later, someone else has got one too,” explained Tony Friedrich, former executive director for Maryland’s Coastal Conservation Association and an avid recreational fisherman in Maryland. He added, “I know it’s hard to believe, but adult tarpon

“You can cast a net under lights in Virginia and catch Gulf shrimp—not grass shrimp, Gulf shrimp. The guys that are running oyster aquaculture, it’s becoming common to see Nassau grouper juveniles in the cage—you see it, and you think you’re the only one. Two weeks later, someone else has got one too,” explained Tony Friedrich, former executive director for Maryland’s Coastal Conservation Association and an avid recreational fisherman in Maryland.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but adult tarpon are becoming frequent summer visitors to the southern Delmarva Peninsula,” he added.

Witek also mentioned that “funny fish” are becoming the norm. “Juvenile red drum, croakers, 90-pound cobia have all been caught in New York and shouldn’t be this far north. We are starting to see more tropical fish on a regular basis.”

These changes in the distribution of marine fisheries along the Atlantic coast, as well as changes throughout all U.S. waters, are compiled in the OceanAdapt portal, developed by Malin Pinsky’s research lab at Rutgers University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It illustrates the same trends that are being projected by climate models. The waters along the Northeast are predicted to increase between 1.8 degrees and 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 50 years. As waters warm, and poleward environments become more hospitable for tropical species, fishermen will continue to see more and more of these “funny fish.” Changes in forage fish abundance, habitat loss, and other changes to food web dynamics due to warming waters and changes in ocean chemistry may also contribute to shifts in marine species.

The waters along the Northeast are predicted to increase between 1.8 degrees and 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 50 years. As waters warm, and poleward environments become more hospitable for tropical species, fishermen will continue to see more and more of these “funny fish.” Changes in forage fish abundance, habitat loss, and other changes to food web dynamics due to warming waters and changes in ocean chemistry may also contribute to shifts in marine species.

In New England, the cod fishery is perhaps the most historic and the most troublesome of American fisheries. Decades of intense fishing pressure and overfishing caused the cod populations of the Northeast to almost disappear entirely.

Strict management plans and catch limits slowly helped the stock recover, but cod populations in New England remain low. Research now suggests that climate change, specifically ocean warming in the Gulf of Maine, has hindered the cod population’s ability to rebuild.

The Gulf of Maine has experienced a warming trend of 0.03 degrees Fahrenheit per year since 1982, and the Gulf’s sea surface temperature is warming 99 percent faster than the rest of the global ocean. Warm water hinders the ability of some fish to spawn and has also been linked to smaller body size.

The lobster industry is among those in trouble. Lobster that was once plentiful in southern New England have largely disappeared from those rapidly warming waters over the past 10 years. Instead, the perfect water temperature for lobsters is now found off the coast of Maine, leading to a boom in Maine’s lobster profits. Between 2005 and 2014, Maine lobstermen earned an average of $321 million per year in revenue and supported more than 4,000 harvesting jobs in Maine since 2013.

But fishermen are wary of the longevity of this success if the growing rate of carbon emissions is not addressed.

“Lobsters have become our only major fishery,” said Richard Nelson, a commercial lobsterman in Friendship, Maine. “And it’s gotten to a bad point, because we have become so dependent on a single species and yet know so little about the impacts of warming and ocean acidification.”

Ocean acidification is an ongoing process of the planet’s seawater becoming more acidic as it absorbs carbon from the atmosphere. The resulting increased acidity has harmful effects that we see in coral bleaching, slow growth of shells in mollusks and shellfish, and other impacts scientists are just discovering. That has led some scientists to describe ocean acidification, distinct from global warming, as a more damaging result of increased carbon in the atmosphere.

Nelson has been in the lobster fishery for more than 30 years. He also participated in Maine’s Ocean Acidification Commission, a multistakeholder group that formed in 2014 to assess the state of the scientific research on acidification, as well as the impact that acidification is having on commercially important species.

“So far, what we know is that [the lobster] are affected by multiple stressors, such as warming and acidification together, a combination that has shown changes in respiration and swimming rates. We also see this same warming, when joined with nutrient runoff, helps create coastal acidification and also aggravates toxic algal blooms,” Nelson said. “People have to pay attention to the whole thing.”

Lobsters aren’t the only species affected by climate change in Maine. Bill Mook, owner of Mook Sea Farm, one of the largest oyster producers in Maine, started noticing that his oyster larvae were experiencing disruptions and abnormal development. When this began affecting his business, his team started to treat the seawater used in their hatcheries to make it less acidic.

Mook’s efforts worked, and his oysters grew properly with this treatment. He believes ocean acidification was to blame for the development problems. From 2003 through 2014, the Atlantic Ocean absorbed more than twice as much carbon dioxide than it did from 1989 through 2003, which has led to a measurable drop in pH.

Mook also thinks that freshwater runoff is further reducing the pH of ocean water, making it harder for his oysters to grow. Northeast climate models predict an increase in annual average rainfall as climate change intensifies.

This pattern of increased freshwater runoff is even changing the color of the water in the Gulf of Maine. William “Barney” Balch at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences has been sampling waters from the Gulf of Maine for more than 18 years and found that the fresh water’s yellow color competes with phytoplankton for the wavelengths they need for photosynthesis—ultimately impeding their ability to nourish themselves.

Through his research and analysis, Balch has showed a potential fivefold decrease in primary productivity in the Gulf of Maine over the past decade.

Mook also has to deal with additional food safety concerns linked to the warming climate.

“Warming waters also require additional steps to ensure our oysters are safe to eat, because pathogenic strains of the bacteria—Vibrio parahaemolyticus—are more abundant. If oysters sit on the deck of the boat and are not immediately cooled down, the bacteria can multiply rapidly and cause people to get sick. This never used to be a concern,” he said.

In response, oyster growers and the Maine Department of Marine Resources have worked together to establish regulations aimed at maintaining safe-to-eat oysters.

Meanwhile, in southern New England, fishermen are catching more black sea bass than they are legally allowed to land. Historically, states from Rhode Island to Maine have a much lower quota for black sea bass, since this species is normally found off the coast of North Carolina.

But as black sea bass move north and North Carolina fishing vessels are forced to travel farther distances for their catch, a management problem occurs — fishermen in the northern states are forced to throw their overages away, so are tossing fish overboard.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.