Saving Seafood

National Geographic adds 5th ocean to world map

June 11, 2021 — National Geographic announced Tuesday that it is officially recognizing the body of water surrounding the Antarctic as the Earth’s fifth ocean: the Southern Ocean.

The change marks the first time in over a century that the organization has redrawn the world’s oceanic maps, which have historically only included four: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic Oceans.

“The Southern Ocean has long been recognized by scientists, but because there was never agreement internationally, we never officially recognized it,” National Geographic Society geographer Alex Tait told the magazine.

“It’s sort of geographic nerdiness in some ways,” Tait said. “We’ve always labeled it, but we labeled it slightly differently [than other oceans]. This change was taking the last step and saying we want to recognize it because of its ecological separation.”

The Southern Ocean stretches from Antarctica’s coastline to 60 degrees south latitude, excluding the Drake Passage and the Scotia Sea, according to the National Geographic. The newest body of water makes it the second-smallest, after the Arctic.

Read the full story at NBC News

High seas fisheries play limited role in feeding the world

August 14, 2018 — A recent study undertaken by a team of fisheries and social scientists found that fishing fleets operating outside of national waters contributed to less than 3 per cent of the world’s seafood supply.

Scientists from Dalhousie University, New York University and National Geographic paired a global database of marine catches developed by researchers at the University of British Colombia with a seafood trade database maintained by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. They analysed the data, considering the amount of fish and marine invertebrates produced by marine capture fisheries and comparing it to those produced by freshwater fisheries and aquaculture.

The team found that a much lower volume of seafood was produced by the high seas fisheries, with most of the catch destined for upscale EU, US and Asian markets. China and Taiwan account for one-third of the total high seas catch.

Lead author Laurenne Schiller, PhD student at Dalhousie University said: “I think many people have the misconception that because the area is so large, the high seas must be contributing a massive supply of food to the world, but that’s just not the case. Only a handful of countries are fishing in the high seas and the fish they catch are not feeding those most in need”.

The findings of this study are against the common misconception that high seas fisheries are important for food security. Less than 40 species are targeted by fisheries in the high seas, and only one species, the Antarctic toothfish, is exclusively caught in this are of the ocean. Marketed as Chilean sea bass, this fish can easily sell for over $50 per kilogram.

Read the full story at New Food

Massachusetts: New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center celebrates Portuguese Heritage

May 23, 2018 —  NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center will host a variety of programs to explore and celebrate Portuguese heritage during the month of June. Resident artists Manny Vinagre and Manny Catulo will demonstrate their crafts, a film chronicling the dory fishing days of the White Fleet will be shown, and Fado singer Ana Vinagre will entertain with songs of loss and longing. All events are free and open to the public.

Resident artist Manny Vinagre will demonstrate Portuguese decorative knot work on Saturday June 2nd and Saturday June 9th from 1:00 to 3:00 each day. Mr. Vinagre learned how to tie seaman’s knots at escolaprofisional de pesca (fish school) in Portugal over 50 years ago. Now a retired fisherman, he now creates intricately woven cintos (belts) and bolsas (bags) of his own design using synthetic rope.  Each belt or bag is unique, with original patterns created through the use of color and texture, that Manny plans out in his head for each piece.

On Friday, June 15th at 7:00 p.m., The Lonely Doryman will be the featured Dock-U-Mentary film. For more than four centuries, young Portuguese fishermen went to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and Greenland to fish for cod. Known as the Portuguese White Fleet, men set off on schooners under full sail to then drift in a flat-bottomed dory as they baited hundreds of hooks on long-lines. They labored 18 hours a day in pursuit of cod. This 1968 National Geographic film provides a rare window into this life.  Retired fisherman Manny Vinagre, who fished as part of the White Fleet before emigrating to New Bedford, will share memories of his dory fishing days. The film will be shown at the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park’s theater.

Resident artist Manny Catulo will demonstrate the art of model boat making on Saturday June 16th and Saturday June 30th from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. each day. Mr. Catulo recreates the traditional fishing boats that plied the waters of Portugal prior to World War II. These wooden boats predate the engine and were propelled by oar and sail. His detailed models begin as planked hulls and are then brightly painted in traditional blues, greens, and reds. He carves miniature oars, creates tiny anchors, fishing nets complete with floats and sinkers and even bailers. He will also have model boats on display.

A free concert featuring Ana Vinagre, one of the area’s best known, and most respected, Fadistas will take place on Thursday June 28th from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. Born in Portugal, she immigrated to New Bedford as a young woman with her husband Jose. Both had been members of folkloric dance and music ensembles and they have continued to perform at area Portuguese restaurants, community events, and in festivals and concerts around the nation. They take great pride in their culture and enjoy teaching American audiences about the tradition of Fado music, a genre that developed in the port city of Lisbon and was performed at waterfront clubs and bars frequented by sailors and seamen.

This series is funded in part by Massachusetts Cultural Council.

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is dedicated to preserving and presenting the story of the commercial fishing industry past, present, and future through archives, exhibits, and programs. For more information, email programs@fishingheritagecenter.org or call the Center at (508) 993-8894.

 

Global Fishing Watch responds to Ray Hilborn’s critiques of its study

March 27, 2018 — Global Fishing Watch welcomes Dr. Ray Hilborn’s recent statement in Seafood Source expressing his desire to work together to strengthen our collective insights into commercial fishing activity.

Furthering innovation and collaboration with the scientific community is at the heart of Global Fishing Watch’s mission to advance responsible stewardship of our oceans through increased transparency. Our Research Partners program, an interdisciplinary collaboration with some of the world’s leading marine science institutes, strives to improve fisheries management and science through the sharing of data, new research and cooperation.

Our recent study published in Science was produced with partners at the University of California, University of Santa Barbara, National Geographic Society’s Pristine Seas project, SkyTruth, Dalhousie University, Stanford University, and Google. This research has produced the first-ever dataset of global fishing activities, as captured by satellites using automatic identification system (AIS) positions. Global Fishing Watch’s algorithm processed 22 billion AIS messages to identify more than 70,000 commercial fishing vessels, the sizes of and engine powers of these vessels, what type of fishing they engaged in, and where and when they fished down to the hour and kilometer.

The study and associated maps also depict global fishing activity with an unprecedented resolution – the fishing effort footprint is two to three orders of magnitude higher in spatial and temporal resolution than previous datasets – and reveals that industrial fishing covers more than 55 percent of the ocean’s surface – over four times the area covered by agriculture. This new high-definition global view of fishing would not have been possible without recent advances in computing power, an increase of satellites in orbit, and improved machine learning algorithms.

Importantly, by making all of the data in this study public and freely available, we aim to increase transparency in the commercial fishing industry and improve opportunities for sustainable management and informed decision making. We have also grown the data available within our transparency platform, including adding more AIS data, and through our government and research partners, including vessel monitoring system (VMS) and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) data.

Dr. Hilborn says that vessels monitored for the study were largely tuna boats over 100 feet in length. Technically, these tuna boats are only a fraction of the 70,000 vessels monitored in our study. By far, the vast majority of vessels we observe are Chinese vessels operating in Chinese waters.

For the study, we also only track vessels that have AIS devices, and the fraction of fishing vessels with AIS varies considerably between regions of the ocean. In some regions, such as in Europe, almost all sizeable fishing vessels broadcast their locations. Similarly, in the high seas, we can capture most of the fishing activity, as a high fraction of high seas fishing vessels carry AIS. By contrast, in many developing countries, only a small number do. This fact makes our dataset incomplete, but it is still far more comprehensive than previous global datasets of fishing effort.

Read the full statement from Global Fishing Watch at Seafood Source

 

IFFO responds to “unjustified and damaging” criticism of aquaculture’s fishmeal, fish oil use

February 15, 2018 — Fishmeal and fish oil are and will continue to be efficient and sustainable aquaculture feed components if they are responsibly sourced and used strategically, while not using them could compromise fish health and lead to unnecessary waste, IFFO, The Marine Ingredients Organisation has stressed.

In response to an article published by National Geographic, titled “Why salmon eating insects instead of fish is better for environment,” which discusses fishmeal and fish oil replacement in salmon feed, Andrew Mallison, director general of IFFO, said the total replacement of fishmeal and fish oil, as called for in the article, was unjustified and damaging to the fish farming industry.

Mallison said that while IFFO agreed with the need for additional feed options in aquaculture to ensure the growth of “this vital industry,” the article quoted information that was both out-of-date and incorrect.

The improvement in management of wild-capture fisheries has ensured that in recent years stocks are in fact steady and not declining, according to the FAO’s State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2016, he said.

“While catches of some small pelagic species used to produce fishmeal and fish oil are volatile, this is due to environmental fluctuation with permitted catches being varied in line with biomass abundance to protect the stocks. These small pelagic species are often not as palatable, spoil quickly and are less popular compared to other local fish, but can be turned into highly nutritious feed,” Mallison said. “Further evidence of sustainability in the production of marine ingredients is that over 45 percent of the global production of fishmeal and fish oil is now independently certified as being safe and environmentally responsible, including in its sourcing of raw materials, a figure that far exceeds any other source of feed ingredient.”

Regarding the efficiency of the use of fishmeal and fish oil, Mallison highlighted that the latest FIFO (fish in: fish out ratios) using 2015 data showed a conversion rate of one kilogram of wild fish used in feed creates 1.22 kilograms of farmed salmon, demonstrating that farmed salmon now produce globally more consumable protein than is used in feed.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Report: Illegal Fishing Should be Major National Security Issue

November 17, 2017 — Illegal and unregulated fishing supports transnational crime, piracy, insurgency and terrorism and should be treated as a national security issue, a new report from the National Geographic Society and the Center for Strategic and International Studies says.

Although illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing provide pathways for a host of criminal activities, “it doesn’t have the consciousness of government imagination” not only in the United States but globally, John Hamre, CSIS chief executive officer said on Wednesday.

Active enforcement of exclusive economic zones and protected maritime areas is “largely the Wild West” in legal terms because one nation’s laws differ from another, said Gregory Poling, one of the report’s authors. Nations have not agreed-upon definitions of what is permitted even in protected maritime areas.

Transnational criminal networks become involved through the use of large fishing vessels staying at sea for a year or more, said Daniel Myers, of the National Geographic Pristine Seas project. In reality, “You have slave labor” working on these ships. Often a two-step “trans-shipping” system is used. In the first step, the smaller boats unload illegal catches onto a large mother ship. The mother ship, in turn, refuels and resupplies the smaller fishing vessels, allowing them to remain out from port for months and keep the crews working, often against their will.

Additionally, “you have illegal fishing boats used as cover for narco-trafficking,” Myers said. The stomachs of illegally-captured sharks or other fish are filled with cocaine. The results are profits from the illegal catch and the drug smuggling.

Read the full story at USNI News

Climate Change May Shrink the World’s Fish

A new study suggests warming sea temperatures could result in smaller fish sizes.

August 22, 2017 — Warming temperatures and loss of oxygen in the sea will shrink hundreds of fish species—from tunas and groupers to salmon, thresher sharks, haddock and cod—even more than previously thought, a new study concludes.

Because warmer seas speed up their metabolisms, fish, squid and other water-breathing creatures will need to draw more oxygen from the ocean. At the same time, warming seas are already reducing the availability of oxygen in many parts of the sea.

A pair of University of British Columbia scientists argue that since the bodies of fish grow faster than their gills, these animals eventually will reach a point where they can’t get enough oxygen to sustain normal growth.

“What we found was that the body size of fish decreases by 20 to 30 percent for every 1 degree Celsius increase in water temperature,” says author William Cheung, director of science for the university’s Nippon Foundation—Nereus Program.

These changes, the scientists say, will have a profound impact on many marine food webs, upending predator-prey relationships in ways that are hard to predict.

“Lab experiments have shown that it’s always the large species that will become stressed first,” says lead author Daniel Pauly, a professor at the university’s Institute for the Ocean and Fisheries, and principal investigator for the Sea Around Us. “Small species have an advantage, respiration-wise.”

Still, while many scientists applaud the discovery, not all agree that Pauly’s and Cheung’s work supports their dramatic findings. The study was published today in the journal Global Change Biology.

Read the full story at National Geographic

Hey Techies, Wanna Make an App to Help the Ocean?

December 7th, 2016 — We have a lot of data about the ocean, but much of it is in obscure databases – unintegrated, unanalyzed, and largely inaccessible for the public. There is so much we could do with all that information if it was easy to visualize and interpret. At our fingertips, we could have alerts about the presence of water pollution and jellyfish at beaches. We could track seafood and make sure it is fresh, sustainable, and the supply chain is free of the human rights violations that currently proliferate. We could have an early warning system for ocean acidification, before it decimates oyster aquaculture.

Thus, the recent launch of the Big Ocean Button Challenge, which aims to “bring app developers to the trove of available ocean data in order to catalyze the growth of a potentially multi-billion-dollar industry in ocean data products.” (Disclosure: I helped develop this competition, as a consultant to XPRIZE.)

Given the US president-elect who appears to be anti-science, future federal funding for ocean research and monitoring is highly uncertain, potentially jeopardizing our ability for science-based management of the ocean resources upon which food security, livelihoods, cultures, and our very climate depend. Therefore, there is an urgent need to prove the value of diligent, long-term ocean data collection. To this end, this competition is engaging the private sector – the tech community in particular – to explore and develop ocean data products and services. The development of this sector is a huge economic opportunity, on par with the commercial weather industry.

Read the full story at National Geographic 

New Giant, Air-Breathing Fish Discovered

December 2nd, 2016 — One of the world’s largest, most endangered, and most mysterious freshwater fish has yielded a new surprise: a likely new species—and possibly several more—have been lurking in the backwaters of the Amazon.

New research published by National Geographic explorer Donald J. Stewart and colleagues L. Cynthia Watson and Annette M. Kretzer in the journal Copeia this week reveals strong genetic evidence for an unknown new species of arapaima that was found at several locations in southwestern Guyana.

Long, narrow giants, arapaimas live in tropical South America. They can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh 440 pounds. They breathe air through a primitive lung, and tend to live in oxygen-poor backwaters. (See photos of arapaimas and other megafish.)

Stewart, who is also a biology professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in New York, says the team sampled hundreds of the giant fish in the Essequibo and Branco River basins in Guyana, which are part of the Amazon system. They found two sets of fish with highly distinct genetic markers at three locations in the Essequibo.

The genetic markers indicate the fish have not bred across the two groups for a long time and they are likely so different that they represent distinct species, says Stewart. At least one is therefore new to science.

“If you have two types of fish swimming along together but not interbreeding that’s pretty good evidence they are new species,” Stewart explains. “But we still have to work out the details.”

Read the full story at the National Geographic 

Population Recovery of 800-Pound Groupers Not Entirely Welcome

November 28th, 2016 — After many years of a fishing ban in the U.S. on this endangered species, the goliath grouper population is recovering as sports fishermen and charter boat operators in the Keys report that the 800-pound fish has been causing big trouble according to National Geographic.

Fished to near-extinction in its western north Atlantic habitat by 1990, the goliath grouper was listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Goliath groupers, long-lived fish that could reach 40 years old, can grow up to eight feet in length.

“There are a lot of spots we don’t go to anymore because you won’t catch anything,” said Brice Barr, a charter boat skipper and president of the Key West Charter Fishermen’s Association. “The goliaths will catch every single fish that you hook. They hear the sound of our boats and that’s the dinner bell. They know they are going to get fed.”

Groupers are also blamed for the Florida reef’s dwindling snapper and smaller grouper stock, leading fisherman to petition for the fishing ban to be lifted. “They’re not selective in what they eat,” Barr continued. “If you ask most fishermen, they say we need to get rid of the goliath. These top predators are becoming so protected, they are starting to prey more and more on the rest of the fish.”

Read the full story at Nature World News