Science

March 12, 2013 — The dominant view expressed by leading fisheries scientists at the Boston meeting was that the NGOs have a profound misunderstanding about the scientific basis of sustainability.

A link to the official press release from the American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists and the Ocean Trust Foundation appears beneath this news analysis from Seafood.com News.

NEWS ANALYSIS by John Sackton (SEAFOOD.COM NEWS) March 12, 2013  — Just prior to the Boston Seafood show, some of the world’s leading fisheries scientists gathered for a Science and Sustainability Forum organized by the American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists and the Ocean Trust Foundation.

The contrast between the scientific message about sustainability and the actions of the three most powerful environmental organizations in fisheries (World Wildlife Foundation, the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, and the Marine Stewardship Council) could not have been made more clear.
 
The World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) all do important work contributing to major improvements in the seafood industry.  They have highlighted poor practices, they have supported rigorous science, and they have contributed money and established valuable partnerships with many companies, including producers, processors and retail and foodservice operators.
 
Virtually the entire industry can agree on the benefits of improving fisheries management, research, and operations.
 
Yet this partnership breaks down under the surface, as both WWF and SFP firmly believe that the end result of their work is “MSC” certification of fisheries as sustainable.  They are not willing to adopt scientifically determined sustainability as their goal, but insist that MSC imprimatur is somehow more critical than scientific data.
 
Where they mislead the industry is that their definition of ‘sustainable’ does not pass scientific muster.
 
The dominant view expressed by leading fisheries scientists at the Boston meeting was that the NGOs have a profound misunderstanding about the scientific basis of sustainability.
 
Participants in the forum included:
– Svein Sundby, Norway Institute of Marine Research;
– Ray Hilborn, University of Washington;
– Bill Fox, WWF and ISSF;
– Steve Cadrin, University of Massachusetts;
– Indroyono Soesilo, Director FAO Fisheries & Aquaculture Use & Conservation;
– Grimur Valdimarsson, Iceland;
– Stephen Hall, World Fish Center UK;
– Michael Sissenwine, former chief scientist NOAA;
– Kevin Sullivan, New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries;
– Randall Brummett, World Bank, Sustainable Aquaculture;
  and many others.
 
Here are some of the conclusions, adopted at the end of the scientific forum.  The actual consensus statements are italicized here.
 
Fisheries in developed nations are steadily rebuilding and further improvements in stock status is expected to continue.  For these fisheries in aggregate, ‘sustainability’ is being achieved through successful application of good fishery management practices.
 
Information from assessed or surveyed stocks shows that fisheries for those stocks have been sustainability managed for the last few decades.  Data shows that overfishing has been reduced in most developed countries and some developing countries.  There have been considerable successes in rebuilding, and current fishing rates are expected to lead to further improvements in stock status over time.  In comparison to other sources of nutrition, seafood is relatively environmentally- friendly.
 
There is a significant misunderstanding of terms like overfishing, overfished, and over-exploited.   These terms refer to a rate of fishing that is not optimal, but do not refer to whether a fishery is sustainable.  A sustainable fishery may experience periods of non-optimal rates of fishing but can still be sustainable under all commonly accepted definitions of that term.  The key is that any overfishing is quickly corrected.
 
Effective management systems will include adequate responsive action to end overfishing and avoid irreversible harm.
 
Sustainability is the result of a process of a well-designed and implemented fishery management system. The performance of management systems is more meaningful than the status of any single stock. Fishery products from well-managed systems (e.g., many US marine fisheries) should be considered to be sustainably harvested. Fishery resources are subject to environmental change, and not all stocks respond to fishery management as expected, often because of a lack of understanding about environmental factors.  Advances are needed to incorporate environmental variability, consider mixed-stock fisheries and develop an ecosystem basis for fisheries management.
 
Given the progress in reducing overfishing and rebuilding stocks in well established management systems where the fishery resources are adequately assessed, further improvements should be promoted for unassessed stocks to achieve management objectives.  Current management challenges involve modifying static single species models of fish stocks to how fisheries ecosystems behave in a changing climate.
 
The cumulative impact of WWF, SFP, and MSC has been a concerted campaign to convince buyers and the public that unless a fishery actually is assessed against the MSC standard it is not ‘sustainable’. This is a great falsehood.  Numerous fisheries are being sustainably managed today, regardless of whether they have entered into an MSC assessment process or not.  These fisheries meet every scientific criteria for sustainability yet the WWF, SFP and the MSC urge their partners not to accept products from these fisheries.  And some fisheries in the MSC are lumped together with others that have vastly superior management and practices.
 
The net result is that any approach that attempts to equate the MSC standard with “sustainability” and conflate the two does real harm to the seafood industry.  It makes buyers and the public suspicious of fisheries that are fully sustainable and managed for long term ecosystem health, but which may not have an MSC logo.

Within the retail community itself, this approach promotes radically different standards for seafood products than for any other food group. It is a given that human food production modifies the environment, even at the hunter gatherer stage.
 
Agriculture, on the whole, is far more destructive of the original ecosystem than marine fisheries, which are the result of a managed wild ecosystem, not the wholesale replacement of a natural ecosystem with a new man-made ecosystem.
 
Yet the seafood industry is called an environmental villain while terrestrial agriculture is accepted as productive land use.
 
The environmental groups have promoted this double standard, and they have been abetted by retailers who are less interested in the science of sustainability than in not being picketed outside their store.
 
At the Science conference, and on the show floor, there is a sense that the battle to apply scientific understanding to fisheries sustainability has been lost, because retailers will not accept scientific arguments on their merits, but only if they meet the ideological tests of the NGOs.  Bowing to greenmail and avoiding controversy trumps science every time.
 
This is a battle that hurts the seafood industry, and the global food industry.  It totally fails to address problems such as food security for a growing population, and the role that sustainable marine protein has to play. It focuses huge time and effort in a battle over whether salmon in Alaska, which virtually all NGOs and fisheries scientists recognize as extremely well managed, is best represented by having an MSC label or not.
 
Meanwhile, the real issues in fisheries conservation are ignored.  A true agenda for the SFP, WWF and the MSC might include advocating strongly for fisheries habitat protections.  The Pebble mine is a perfect example.  That mine is a true threat to sustainable salmon – yet what mileage do the NGOs get out of spending money to oppose it and educate the public.  The MSC and others should be crying alarm about the potential impact of the Pebble mine to every salmon buyer on the globe.
 
They might also focus on improving fisheries assessment and research in Africa and Asia.  There is a widespread recognition that in many less developed countries, catch reporting is little more than guess work, yet accurate understanding of catch and stock status is essential for sustainable management.
 
The ISSF (International Seafood Sustainability Foundation), fully supported by the WWF, has been an outstanding example of focusing resources where they are needed – in providing science to better support tuna fisheries decision making, and in lobbying managers to adopt scientifically determined management strategies.
 
If the NGO movement were to follow the scientists advice about fisheries sustainability, we would see more international NGO efforts like the ISSF, and less effort whose goals are simply to increase the use of the MSC label.
 
But instead we are caught up in a false battle over what constitute true sustainability, and until the WWF and SFP are willing to broaden their goals beyond MSC certification, this is where the sustainability movement will remain, and it will lose relevance over time. 
 
Google shows that public interest in "sustainable seafood" based on word searches peaked in 2005, and has been declining since then.  Let's rekindle that interest with a new approach that celebrates our success in terms of true scientific achievements. These include much more than just the growth in the use of the MSC label.

This article was originally published by Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

Read the press release about the forum from the American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists and the Ocean Trust Foundation

 

 

 

March 9, 2013 — The following was released by Ocean Trust:

Boston, Massachusetts, March 9 2013 – Senior science and management representatives from leading fishing nations gathered together to discuss the state of fisheries and the sustainability of seafood at the third annual Science and Sustainability Forum. Major findings from the Forum were:

– Information from assessed or surveyed stocks shows that fisheries for those stocks have been sustainability managed for the last few decades.

– Overfishing has been reduced in most developed countries and some developing countries. o There have been considerable successes in rebuilding, and current fishing rates are
expected to lead to further improvements in stock status over time.

– In comparison to other sources of nutrition, seafood is relatively environmentally-friendly.

– The terms ‘overfishing’, ‘overfished’, ‘over-exploited’ refer to a rate of fishing that is not optimal, but they are not synonymous with the term ‘unsustainable.’ Effective management systems will include adequate responsive action to end overfishing and avoid irreversible harm.

– Sustainability is the result of a process of a well-designed and implemented fishery management system.

– The performance of management systems is more meaningful than the status of any single stock.

– Fishery products from well-managed systems (e.g., many US marine fisheries) should be considered to be sustainably harvested.

– Fishery resources are subject to environmental change, and not all stocks respond to fishery management as expected, often because of a lack of understanding about environmental factors. Advances are needed to incorporate environmental variability, consider mixed- stock fisheries and develop an ecosystem basis for fisheries management.

– Given the progress in reducing overfishing and rebuilding stocks in well established management systems where the fishery resources are adequately assessed, further improvements should be promoted for unassessed stocks to achieve management objectives.

– Alternative management approaches and institutional strengthening may be needed for
data-limited fisheries and in different socio-economic contexts.

Science & Sustainability Forum presentations will be available from www.oceantrust.org.

About the Science & Sustainability Forum

The Science & Sustainability Forum is a network of professional fishery scientists and government fishery management organizations established to promote effective management of fisheries, and provide factual guidance to seafood consumers and retailers based on the best scientific and unbiased information available.

Presentations at the 2013 forum were given by representatives from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Iceland Ministry of Industries &Innovation, Institute of Marine Research Norway, New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, University of Washington, International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, World Fish Center, World Bank, Southern Indian Ocean Deepsea Fishers Association, New England Fisheries Management Council, American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists and Ocean Trust. The forum was sponsored by Bonefish Grill, Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, H- E-B, Audubon Nature Institute GULF, International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, Boston Fisheries Foundation, Stavis Seafoods, Santa Monica Seafood, Profish, SeafoodNews.com, American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists and Ocean Trust with participation by Lund’s Fisheries, Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, Sea Port Products, Rialto Restaurant, John Nagle Company, Bluefin Seafood, Save On Seafood, Hawaii-Seafood, New England Aquarium, High Liner Foods, Environmental Defense Fund, Global Trust, FW Bryce, Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and SeafoodSource.com.

About Ocean Trust

Ocean Trust is an award-winning ocean conservation foundation building science, conservation and industry partnerships for the sustainability of the oceans. Its focus is fisheries sustainability, wildlife protection and environmental restoration in partnership with communities dependent on the sea. Ocean Trust serves as secretariat for the Science & Sustainability Forum. www.oceantrust.org

About American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists

AIFRB is a professional organization established to promote conservation and proper utilization of fishery resources through the use of fishery and related sciences. The role of the Institute is the professional development and performance of its members, and the recognition of their achievements. AIFRB is a cosponsor of the Science and Sustainability Forum. www.aifrb.org

 

 

March 11, 2013 — Humans are dumping so much carbon dioxide into the oceans so fast that seawater — even in the Gulf of Maine — is getting warmer and more acidic, according to marine and climate researchers.

Scientists aren't sure yet how the trend, which is believed to be tied to human-induced climate change, will affect ocean life in the gulf. But there is rising concern — especially among fishermen — that changes in the ocean ecosystem could severely damage some of the fisheries that are the backbone of the region's seafood industry.

The effects of warming and acidification are showing up all over the world, including in and along the gulf.

"We've seen levels of acid that rival some of the highest levels recorded anywhere," said professor of marine science Mark Green, whose work at St. Joseph's College in Standish has focused exclusively on ocean acidification. "Many coastal areas are increasing three times faster than open ocean."

Lobsters are up, cod down. The herring caught in the gulf are much smaller than they were 20 years ago, marine scientists have observed. Northern right whales might leave altogether if populations of plankton are reduced enough to affect the whales' food supply.

Ocean acidification is a long, slow process in which seas absorb excessive amounts of carbon dioxide, enough to alter pH levels (the percentage of hydrogen, which is a measure of acidity and alkalinity).

Global surface waters have an average pH of 8.1, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But scientists believe that level could drop in the next 50 years to as low as 7.8, a huge change.

The impacts of increased carbon dioxide go far beyond making the water warmer and more acidic. Many species are weakened by the loss of oxygen and the spread of infectious diseases can speed up when water temperatures rise. Higher carbon dioxide levels in the ocean lead to an increase in carbonic acid, which reduces the availability of structural materials that mollusks and crustaceans need to form their shells.

The ranges of many species of sea life have been changed. Green crabs, for example, have moved in on shellfish beds in Maine from the more southerly waters they have traditionally inhabited.

"That's the really compelling story — that there will be winners and losers," said Rick Wahle, research associate professor in the School of Marine Sciences at the University of Maine.

Absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the ocean waters has increased to about 100 times what it was 600 years ago, Green said. On average, ocean carbon dioxide levels are up 30 percent, most of it absorbed in the past 50 years. Exacerbating the problem is runoff from rivers polluted by fertilizer and soil erosion, and millions of tons of untreated sewage pumped into coastal waters, including Casco Bay.

Debate swirls about which stressors are to blame for which consequences, but one fact is undeniable: Ocean temperatures are rising and the water is becoming more acidic. The increased carbon dioxide in air and water comes largely from the burning of fossil fuels and emissions from factories, cars and power plants, most scientists say.

 

Read the full story from the Portland Press Harold

 

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. — March 11, 2013 — Twenty one years after the first suction survey sampling in Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay of post-larval lobster settlers, known as young-of- year (YOY), Rick Wahle returned in 2011 and 2012 to resample the bay’s Southern New England nursery grounds.

Despite including additional sites recommended by industry, the results were disappointing.

“It was rather disturbing. Itwas especially shocking that, in 2011, juveniles had fallen below detectable levels at the six sites that are sampled annually,” said Wahle, a marine biologist at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center.

Suction sampling measures the number of YOY and juveniles per square meter at each site, which, when combined with data collected at other sites from Canada to Rhode Island, is used to create the settlement index (see CFN June 2012). YOY and settlers measure 5 millimeters (mm) to 13 mm carapace length. Juveniles measure up to 60 mm carapace length.

In 2011 and 2012, the researchers found less than one settler per 10 square meters. That compared to 1990, the first year of the index, when there were closer to 10 or more settlers in those same 10 square meters, according to Wahle.

To get the same number of YOY now as 22 years ago, Wahle and his team would have to put in 10 times the effort and cover 10 times the area to find them, he said.

Wahle noted that there was a slight uptick in 2012 compared to 2011, but the increase was not enough to change estimates of abundance for the Southern New England lobster population.

“This doesn’t mean that the YOY are completely gone,” Wahle said. “It is more like having a signal that is too faint for radar to pick up.”

Still, some lobstermen firmly believe that the young-of-year are settling out in the region, but at different locations and different times.

Dellinger said commercial fishermen are pulling up settlers and juveniles in their gear at odd times.

“Fishermen are finding them in places where there’s not a lot of information,” he said.

Dellinger said there are concerns that the data cover too short a time span to determine that Southern New England lobsters are in a state of permanent decline. A number of environmental factors can change from year to year and affect settler abundance, he suggested.

Among them are predation by black sea bass. Another is the timing of state trawl surveys, particularly if the weather gets too cold or too hot. In both cases, settlers and juveniles may go into the mud for protection, he said.

 

This story orignally appeared in Commercial Fisheries News. It is reprinted with permission. Read a PDF of the full article here.

 

 

March 5, 2013 — A research scientist at Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center in Miami is in the homestretch of a pilot study showing that substituting two types of fishing gear for pelagic long-lines might eliminate the bycatch of severely overfished bluefin tuna in their northern Gulf of Mexico spawning grounds.

The findings could have implications for fishermen who catch tuna in the Gulf of Maine. The University of Massachusetts’ Large Pelagics Research Center, located in Hodgkins Cove and headed by Gloucester resident Molly Lutcavage, is tracking bluefin tuna migrations between the two gulfs.

The preliminary findings of David Kerstetter and several graduate students are seen as important because bluefins are among the world’s priciest and most exploited fish.

The northern Gulf of Mexico is one of a few spots where bluefins are known to reproduce, and many are caught accidentally by commercial long-line fishermen targeting yellowfin tuna and swordfish. To make matters worse, the 2010 BP oil spill might have taken out large numbers of bluefin larvae because it occurred in the middle of the spawning season, scientists have said.

 

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

 

March 5, 2013 — Calculating discards, an essential component in the fishery management system, has evolved into a knot of absurdities which helps explain the poor quality of NOAA fisheries science, says David Goethel, a commercial fisherman and member of the New England Fishery Management Council.

Because only a fraction of the fishing trips are monitored for NOAA by private contractors, whose employees keep records of the number and weight of the fish discarded, their calculations are then extrapolated and applied universally no matter what fish are targeted and what fish are discarded.

Worse still, Goethel has written in a letter to top officials of the agency, it is a practical impossibility for these monitors to get true weights while a boat is rolling and pitching on the high seas. Yet, those projected weights work their way into the stock assessment system and bias the conclusions, distorting the findings about the profile of stocks and even their overall vitality, Goethel says.

In a technical letter to William Karp, director of the NOAA Science Center at Woods Hole, John Bullard, NOAA’s Northeast regional administrator, and Rip Cunningham, chairman of the New England Fishery Management Council, Goethel analyzes the flaws in the incumbent system of attempting to determine discards which is anchored to the system of at sea monitors on a fraction of the commercial trips.

He proposes abandoning at-sea monitors completely and instead suggests requiring all fish brought on board to be landed at the dock where monitors would weigh the “discards” and the fishermen would be paid for the fish that would become the possession of the monitoring companies, but no longer would be charged against the allocation of the fisherman.

 

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

 

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS  by John Sackton Feb 27, 2013 — In the current February 21st issue of Nature, there is a debate between Daniel Pauly vs Ray Hilborn and Trevor Branch, that gets to the heart of the entire issue of fisheries sustainability.
 
Pauly, who famously developed the analysis that was used to claim that all fisheries would be collapsed by 2048, basis his arguments on his view that catch data reflects the abundance of fisheries, and that declines in catches can be used to estimate declines in stock abundance.  He then goes on to say that catch data is notoriously under reported, and therefore actual historical abundance was orders of magnitude higher than today.

Although he has backed off the 2048 extrapolation, this is very much still his main argument.
 
Hilborn, and Trevor Branch at the University of Washington, have disproved this hypothesis by conducting studies of fisheries stocks that have survey and abundance data as well as catch data, and that are under some type of management.
 
What Hilborn and Branch have found is that the survey and assessment data paint a very different picture from the catch data, and that survey data is a far more reliable indicator of biomass than extrapolation from catch data alone.
 
The reason is many factors impact catches beyond simple abundance.  They include regulatory limits, bycatch limits, economic incentives, ecological changes and long term stock movements. 
 
Why does this scientific argument matter?  Because in a nutshell it frames the debate between environmentalists who believe the only way to preserve fish stocks is to shut down fishing vs scientists like Hilborn, who have shown conclusively that effective fisheries management – including stock assessments and controls on landings – is a key component in stock recovery and sustainability.
 
Far from a doom and gloom approach that says only by cutting catches drastically can we save fisheries, Hilborn’s position is that the data show that it is scientific management that saves fisheries, and that where these controls are in place, stocks recover and maintain themselves.
 
Pauly says that actual fishery landings are underreported by 30-50% in developed countries, and by 100% to 500% in developing ones.  Such a claim makes it seem fisheries are in an uncontrollable crisis. 
 
Hilborn on the other hand, says that fishermen are already catching 80–96% of the potential global yield.
 
Unfortunately, the wild assumptions made by Pauly are driving the environmental view of fisheries, which can potentially lead to a very destructive limitations for food output from the oceans.
 
Here are a few excerpts from the point counterpoint articles in Nature:
 
Pauly:
 
In 2006, a group of researchers from various institutions used a stock status plot to project, among other things, that all stocks would be collapsed by 2048. Unsurprisingly, this projection, although a small part of the study, triggered an avalanche of alarmist headlines: “Seafood may be gone by 2048,” wrote the National Geographic; “The end of fish, in one chart,” said The Washington Post.
 
The weirdly precise 2048 date, with echoes of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, was widely derided within the fisheries community. Given the myriad factors that can affect fishing — shifts in policy, rising fuel costs, market crashes and natural disasters — it is impossible to predict where fisheries will be even ten years from now. But, of the various lines of attack that fisheries scientists have used to discredit the 2006 paper, one charge has since gained momentum and stands to do much more damage to fisheries science and management than the original paper. This is the idea that catch data are not useful for determining the health of fish stocks. This is wrong. Dangerously so.
 
As part of the Sea Around Us initiative – a collaboration between the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and the Pew Charitable Trusts, which aims to monitor the impact of fisheries on marine ecosystems – I am leading a project to evaluate the entire body of FAO catch data collected since 1950. So far, my team has gathered information on fish consumption and the tonnage of fish imported and exported, for instance, to verify the catch data of 180 countries and island territories. Our findings suggest that catches, with the notable exception of domestic catches by China, are underreported by about 100–500% in many developing countries, and by 30–50% in developed ones.
 
Hilborn and Branch:
 
The major database on all the fisheries of the world is the FAO Yearbook Fishery and Aquaculture Statistics. This collates the amount (in weight) of haddock, bream, cod and more than 1,000 other species hauled in each year by fishermen, whether from commercial trawlers or canoes, using estimates sent in by officials from individual countries.
 
For the past few years, researchers have been conducting analyses to use these data to assess the health of the world's fish stocks. And high-impact journals, including this one, have published them. Such assessments consistently overlook the fact that the amount of fish caught does not necessarily reflect the number of fish in the sea.
 
Attempts to use catch data as an indication of fish abundance have spread alarm and confusion in policy circles, and fuelled the perception among the public and conservation organizations that fisheries management is failing. A much better approach is to deduce the health of stocks region by region and fishery by fishery using scientific stock assessments, which collate all sorts of data – from the results of surveys conducted from research vessels to the catch per fishing effort, and the age and size distributions of the fish caught. This can reveal which management strategies are actually effective.
 
In 2006, researchers projected that all the fisheries in the world would collapse by 2048.   The group classed a stock as 'collapsed' if less than 10% of the highest catches ever recorded were being harvested each year, using an approach developed by others. For many of us in the fisheries community, the 2048 projection was hard to believe; Alaskan salmon fisheries, for instance, were in better shape than they had been in the history of industrial fishing.
 
The 2048 projection and the controversy it sparked within the fisheries community undermined conservationists' confidence in the ability of governments to prevent overfishing. Even more misleading, in our view, is the most recent attempt to assess all the fish stocks in the world using catch data.
 
The Ocean Health Index, published in Nature last year, aggregates various measures, such as biodiversity, into a single score that is meant to indicate how healthy the seas are. To calculate the capacity of the oceans to generate food, the researchers estimated the maximum sustainable catches of 100 well-studied stocks using the results of stock assessments. They then used a previously devised equation relating these maximum sustainable catches to the highest catches ever recorded from these same fisheries to estimate the maximum sustainable catches for all the fisheries in the FAO database.
 
Hugely unreliable predictions result. For instance, the maximum sustainable yield for Antarctic krill assigned by the Ocean Health Index is 174 times lower than the estimate derived from detailed stock assessments conducted by the International Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.   Overall, the health-index study implies that fishermen could theoretically catch several times more marine fish if fisheries were better managed. This wildly contradicts the findings of several other studies – that fishermen are already catching 80–96% of the potential global yield.
 
Analyses based largely on catch data are fuelling a view held by numerous non-governmental organizations and environmentalists that the only solution to marine conservation is a ban on fishing in large areas. Between 2007 and 2009, for instance, several non-governmental organizations and US foundations spent $58 million each year on efforts to create 'marine protected areas'. This campaign has been spectacularly successful in Australia, where 3.1 million square kilometres of ocean are now closed to fishing.
 
This approach overlooks the enormous successes of many management strategies. For example, on the east coast of the United States the total abundance of bottom fish, such as redfish and haddock, increased more than fivefold from 1995 to 2007 after fishing restrictions were strengthened from the mid-1990s.
 
Various data collected by national fisheries agencies, fishing companies and marine scientists are also available for the rest of the world. Currently, there is no global database for this information. We (the authors) have recently begun working with more than 20 countries, the FAO and the World Bank to try to assemble a database for a good sample of the world's fisheries. We estimate that obtaining the kind of data needed for 40 countries (focusing on 6–8 fisheries in each country) will take 10 years and require US$20 million.
 
Meanwhile, we urge researchers to use all the available data in addition to the FAO database, and to validate their results by consulting local experts or other data sources.
 
Catch data are a crucial part of any fisheries assessment – it is impossible to calculate the maximum weight of fish that could be harvested sustainably without knowing what is being caught each year. But on their own, catch data cannot answer the question at the heart of fisheries science: how many fish are in the sea?
 
The Citation for the Nature article is Fisheries: Does catch reflect abundance? by Daniel Pauly, Ray Hilborn and Trevor Branch  Nature 494, 303–306 (21 February 2013)

 

This article is from Seafood.com, a subscription site. The article is reprinted with permission.

 

 

February 28, 2013 — New fishing grounds are being added to the highly successful system developed by UMass to avoid catching yellowtail flounder in the Northeast, it was announced Wednesday.

The 2013 program, which begins Friday, will include open area scallop fishing grounds in Georges Bank and Southern New England, in addition to the open and limited access areas in Georges Bank included in the previous three years.

In the program, fishing vessels that volunteer send real-time information back to scientists at the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology. The boats report what kind of yellowtail activity is being found in squares on a grid map.

Dr. Brian Rothschild, dean emeritus of the UMass School for Marine Science and Technology, said the program "has reduced the ratio of yellowtail to scallops and because of that it has been an economic boon to the fishery."

Asked if he thinks it might become permanent, Rothschild said "Yes, I think it will. And I think it will be generalized even further to come up with different ways of avoiding bycatch."

"Fish species are not uniformly distributed," he said. "In Place A there will be more of Species X and at Place B there will be Species Y. It varies." This will enable the fleet to have better knowledge "about where the fish are."

The system reflects the fact that avoiding certain endangered or overfished species is as difficult as is finding them. The fewer yellowtail that fishermen catch, the longer they can keep fishing for scallops.

Longtime fisherman and boat owner Rodney Avila said: "It's a good program that works. When there's a high concentration of yellowtail, the boats all leave and go to another area.

"That's a positive thing. All the fishermen will agree with that."

 

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times

 

 

February 20, 2013 — As recently as 2008, Maine groundfishermen were feeling fairly optimistic. That year, scientists announced that the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank cod stocks, which had been close to collapse in the mid-1990s, were on the rebound after years of rebuilding. Fishermen were understandably buoyed by the assessment.

"People took that to heart; they made plans expecting higher landings," says Robert Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, a non-profit communications organization for the seafood industry. "Boats made plans, the industry made plans, the auction houses were all geared up."

So imagine everyone's surprise and dismay when a subsequent survey (such assessments are performed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Fisheries Service every few years) revealed that the 2008 projections had been off the mark. The stocks, it seemed, were no healthier than they had been. Fishermen were still having a hard time finding cod in the sea.

"They realized that, in fact, they had been wrong," says Jonathan Labaree, director of community initiatives at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. "It's difficult to know, frankly, exactly why they were wrong. It seems as though they overestimated the amount of fish out there because they didn't really take into account all the information."

According to a NOAA presentation at the end of January, the 2008 study was skewed because it didn't properly account for the weight of the sexually mature fish in the stock, the health and size of young fish in the stock, and the number of fish dying due to fishing activities.

The revised 2011 NOAA assessment presented a much more dire picture. Cod stocks were in poor condition, rebuilding much more slowly than expected, and vulnerable to further depletion. Thus, at the end of last month, the New England Fishery Management Council — which establishes rules for small- and large-scale commercial fisheries between three to 200 miles off the coast of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut — cut the fishing quotas, significantly.

Fishermen's allocation for Gulf of Maine cod was slashed 77 percent; for Georges Bank cod, the catch-limit cut was only slightly less painful at 61 percent (quotas for yellowtail flounder and haddock were also reduced). On top of existing restrictions, these new limitations represent a serious constraint.

"[M]any Council members expressed their awareness about the serious negative economic impacts that will undoubtedly occur and affect the small inshore boat fleet in New England most significantly," a NEFMC release read. "Many fishermen in this group have been historically dependent on cod and have already seen the impacts of decreased catches."

Meanwhile, environmental interests like the Conservation Law Foundation are calling for the NEFMC to shut down the cod fishery altogether to give the species a legitimate chance to rebuild.

It is not a great time to be a groundfisherman in Maine.

 

Read the full story by Deirdre Fulton at the Portland Phoenix

 

 

BOSTON (AP) — February 14, 2013 — What happens to fish that swim in waters tainted by traces of drugs that people take? When it's an anti-anxiety drug, they become hyper, anti-social and aggressive, a study found. They even get the munchies.

It may sound funny, but it could threaten the fish population and upset the delicate dynamics of the marine environment, scientists say.

The findings, published online today in the journal Science, add to the mounting evidence that minuscule amounts of medicines in rivers and streams can alter the biology and behavior of fish and other marine animals.

"I think people are starting to understand that pharmaceuticals are environmental contaminants," said Dana Kolpin, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey who is familiar with the study.

Calling their results alarming, the Swedish researchers who did the study suspect the little drugged fish could become easier targets for bigger fish because they are more likely to venture alone into unfamiliar places.

"We know that in a predator-prey relation, increased boldness and activity combined with decreased sociality … means you're going to be somebody's lunch quite soon," said Gregory Moller, a toxicologist at the University of Idaho and Washington State University. "It removes the natural balance."

Researchers around the world have been taking a close look at the effects of pharmaceuticals in extremely low concentrations, measured in parts per billion. Such drugs have turned up in waterways in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere over the past decade.

They come mostly from humans and farm animals; the drugs pass through their bodies in unmetabolized form. These drug traces are then piped to water treatment plants, which are not designed to remove them from the cleaned water that flows back into streams and rivers.

The Associated Press first reported in 2008 that the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans carries low concentrations of many common drugs. The findings were based on questionnaires sent to water utilities, which reported the presence of antibiotics, sedatives, sex hormones and other drugs.

The news reports led to congressional hearings and legislation, more water testing and more public disclosure. To this day, though, there are no mandatory U.S. limits on pharmaceuticals in waterways.

The research team at Sweden's Umea University used minute concentrations of 2 parts per billion of the anti-anxiety drug oxazepam, similar to concentrations found in real waters. The drug belongs to a widely used class of medicines known as benzodiazepines that includes Valium and Librium.

The team put young wild European perch into an aquarium, exposed them to these highly diluted drugs and then carefully measured feeding, schooling, movement and hiding behavior. They found that drug-exposed fish moved more, fed more aggressively, hid less and tended to school less than unexposed fish. On average, the drugged fish were more than twice as active as the others, researcher Micael Jonsson said. The effects were more pronounced at higher drug concentrations.

 

Read the full story from the AP in the New Bedford Standard Times