Saving Seafood

‘Momentous’ sustainable fishing rules adopted for Atlantic Ocean swordfish

November 26, 2024 — In the late 1990s, swordfish had been so overfished in the North Atlantic Ocean that its population faced the possibility of collapse. The dire situation sparked boycotts and conservation campaigns in honor of the highly migratory species, a predator that can move at nearly the speed of a cheetah and slash at prey with the long, flat bill that gives it its name. Managers set a quota and a minimum catch size to protect juveniles, the stock began to recover and it was declared rebuilt in 2013. And now, with a landmark move made Nov. 18, that recovery appears secure.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which manages a wide range of fish stocks across the entire Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas, adopted a “harvest strategy” for swordfish (Xiphias gladius) during its annual meeting, held in Cyprus Nov. 11-18.

Government representatives and conservationists hailed the move, which sets up largely automatic science-based fisheries management decisions for the long term. The harvest strategy, which is designed to be resilient to climate change effects, had been in the works for years, but its adoption wasn’t guaranteed until the final gavel fell, with all parties in consensus.

“To get this across the finish line was a big success,” Esther Wozniak, an international fisheries manager at the Philadelphia-based think tank Pew Charitable Trusts, told Mongabay. Pew had long advocated for the development of a swordfish harvest strategy.

Shana Miller, a project director at the Washington, D.C.-based Ocean Foundation who also worked on the harvest strategy, told Mongabay that its adoption was a “momentous step forward for ICCAT” and would “lock in sustainability” for the highly sought-after species.

The adoption of the swordfish harvest strategy was a high point of the weeklong meeting that conservationists said brought mixed results. ICCAT parties showed a strong commitment to developing harvest strategies for a number of other species, came to an agreement on managing tropical tuna after years of wrangling and passed measures to fight illegal fishing and improve the safety of observers who document catches on fishing vessels. However, the tuna agreement came with certain concessions to industry that could contribute to overfishing. Experts also said the meeting went badly for shark conservation efforts, notably because a measure to stop shark finning was not adopted.

Read the full article at Mongabay

Tuna species productivity and size may decrease due to climate change

March 1, 2023 — Understanding how climate change and fishing pressure affect major commercial species productivity and body size is key to being able to adapt and ensure the future sustainability of the fisheries.

In this context, a team from Spain’s Ciencia y tecnología marina y alimentaria (AZTI) has coordinated a study, published in Global and Planetary Change, in which the projections in  and swordfish productivity and body size in the future under different climatic and fishing scenarios have been analyzed. A model that includes many mechanisms that represent the population dynamics of different species and the competition between them has been used for this purpose.

“We wanted to know how the climate change and fishing pressure is going to impact some of the most commercially important species in order to make decisions to ensure the future of the resources,” says Maite Erauskin-Extramiana, the AZTI researcher who led the study.

Read the full article at PHYS.org

The Future of Fishing Is Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

May 10, 2018 — New England’s groundfish season is in full swing, as hundreds of dayboat fishermen from Rhode Island to Maine take to the water in search of the region’s iconic cod and haddock. But this year, several dozen of them are hauling in their catch under the watchful eye of video cameras as part of a new effort to use technology to better sustain the area’s fisheries and the communities that depend on them.

Video observation on fishing boats—electronic monitoring—is picking up steam in the Northeast and nationally as a cost-effective means to ensure that fishing vessels aren’t catching more fish than allowed while informing local fisheries management. While several issues remain to be solved before the technology can be widely deployed—such as the costs of reviewing and storing data—electronic monitoring is beginning to deliver on its potential to lower fishermen’s costs, provide scientists with better data, restore trust where it’s broken, and ultimately help consumers gain a greater understanding of where their seafood is coming from.

“Electronic monitoring is a tremendous tool,” says Brett Alger, national electronics technology coordinator for NOAA Fisheries. “It isn’t necessarily for everyone or every fishery,” but “we’re working collaboratively in all of our regions with fishermen on the ground to understand their needs. I expect it to grow.”

The technology is required for highly migratory longline species in the Atlantic (swordfish). It’s thriving in the Pacific coast groundfish industry, and dozens of other fisheries regions have pilot initiatives.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

 

NMFS Institutes More Swordfish Research Off Florida, Praised by EDF

August 16, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Dr. David Kerstetter of Nova Southeastern University will receive an exempted fishing permit (EFP) from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to conduct research in the East Florida Coast Pelagic Longline Closed Area. Dr. Kerstetter will be working alongside Atlantic swordfish fishermen in an effort to “improve understanding of encounter rates of juvenile swordfish and species like sharks, bullfishes and sea turtles in order to find the best ways to reduce their mortality.”

According to Katie Westfall, senior manager of highly migratory species advocacy for EDF’s Oceans Program, fishermen have already made sacrifices to help the Atlantic swordfish population rebound. However, this project will help by collecting data from fisheries that “interact with imperiled highly migratory species.”

“The project will also pioneer an approach to link catch data with oceanographic data, allowing researchers to learn over time where and when species will occur in order to help fishermen avoid bycatch of sharks, billfishes, and sea turtles,” Westfall added. “This has the potential to be transformative by dramatically minimizing unnecessary deaths of protected species while improving the catch of healthy target species like swordfish.”

Westfall is hopeful that the research will help “pave the way to responsibly increasing yield in domestic fisheries and strengthening revenues for American seafood businesses.”

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.