Saving Seafood

Are scientific bottom trawling efforts in the Gulf of Mexico damaging habitats?

November 4, 2022 — Multiple websites that are affiliated with NOAA detail info about bottom trawling and outline the tools and processes that are associated with many different trawl practices, including their own. NOAA trawl surveys allow the agency to track changes in fish and invertebrate populations across the oceans, providing academic institutions, government agencies and the private sector with essential information.

However, one notable omission from these resources is the impact that they do or could have on the very ecosystems they’re exploring. While NOAA captures plenty of information in an unobtrusive way, bottom trawling efforts cannot be described as such. That insight was broken down in detail back in 2016, when the USGS outlined info about how such practices destroy the natural seafloor habitat by essentially rototilling the seabed. It mentions that bottom-dwelling plants and animals are greatly affected by this practice and can be outright destroyed.

That insight caused some government and private agencies to change how they capture information about seabed ecosystems. However, NOAA’s bottom trawling efforts in the Gulf of Mexico remained mostly unchanged, which recently compelled the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) to send a letter to NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad. This letter outlines how these practices are needlessly harming seafloor habitats in the Gulf of Mexico. The effort to change the way scientific surveys of bottom habitats are conducted is something that’s been going on for over a decade though.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Call for Obama to Declare First Alaskan Marine Monuments

August 31, 2015 — Washington, D.C. — President Obama’s first extended visit to Alaska coincides with release of a Care 2 petition signed by more than 100,000 people asking that he use his executive powers to designate the first Marine National Monuments in Alaskan waters, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). While more than half of Alaska’s lands enjoy permanent federal protection, none of Alaska’s federal offshore waters receive comparable protective status.

Half of the nation’s entire shoreline and three-fourths of its total continental shelf are in Alaska. This vast area hosts some of the most abundant populations of fish and marine life in the world ocean. But this ecological treasure trove is at growing risk from climate change, overfishing, pollution, increased shipping, and offshore oil drilling. In addition, many Alaska marine mammal, seabird, and fish populations are in decline, including some that have become threatened or endangered species.

The Care 2 petition was authored by Richard Steiner, a member of the PEER Board of Directors and a retired University of Alaska professor of marine conservation, who said “Designating marine monuments would be the only viable means for permanently shielding Alaska’s offshore waters, whales, polar bears, walruses, seals, sea lions, sea otters, seabirds, fish, cold-water corals, and coastal communities from the cascading effects of climate change combined with marine ecological degradation. President Obama cannot leave office with a complete environmental legacy without addressing Alaska’s fragile and unraveling offshore ecosystems.” The petition was forwarded today directly to The White House.

Read the full story at Yuba.net