Saving Seafood

PFMC: California Current Ecosystem Assessment online briefing Wednesday, March 2, 2022

February 3, 2022 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

Drs. Chris Harvey and Toby Garfield of National Marine Fisheries Service will provide a briefing on the 2022 California Current Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (CCIEA) Ecosystem Status Report to interested Pacific Fishery Management Council (Pacific Council) members, advisory body members, and the public. This online briefing will be held Wednesday, March 2, 2022, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Pacific Standard Time or until business for the day has been completed.

•Please see the CCIEA briefing notice on the Council’s website for additional details.

•Questions? Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff officer Dr. Kit Dahl at 503-820-2422; toll-free 1-866-806-7204

 

Pacific Heat Wave Known As ‘The Blob’ Appears To Be In Retreat

March 16, 2018 — Ocean conditions off the Pacific Northwest seem to be returning to normal after a three-year spike in water temperature.

It’s promising long-term news for fishermen who are looking ahead in the short term to yet another year of low salmon returns.

A report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) outlined the latest ocean observations for the organization that sets salmon catch limits off the West Coast. The Pacific Fishery Management Council will set those limits in early April.

The extended marine heatwave of the past few years has been nicknamed “the Blob.”

“The high pressure system over the North Pacific basically got stalled out and stuck there. And so the ocean warmed up about 6 degrees Fahrenheit,” NOAA’s Toby Garfield said.

Then a strong El Niño came through that reinforced these conditions.

“There have been a number of these events, these marine heat waves, that have occurred in the North Pacific. But the one we had in ’13, ’14, ’15 was the by far the largest in the record going back 45 years,” Garfield said.

And the effect on sea life was serious. Whales, sea lions and seabirds starved because the warm water didn’t support tiny nutrition-rich plankton called copepods at the base of the food chain.

Within the past year, the El Niño effect has dissipated, and other longer-term climate cycles are shifting back toward a more average level.

Read the full story at OPB

 

Large numbers of Guadalupe fur seals dying off California

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (AP) — September 29, 2015 — ” Scientists are looking at ocean-warming trends to figure out why endangered Guadalupe fur seals are stranding themselves and dying in alarming numbers along the central California coast.

Approximately 80 emaciated fur seals have come ashore since January ” about eight times more than normal ” leading the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week to declare an “unusual mortality event” for the animals. The classification diverts additional resources to study the animals, which have been traditionally under-researched, officials said.

Researchers will try to determine if the die-off is a result of a disruption in the seal’s feeding patterns from a large-scale warming of the Pacific Ocean, Toby Garfield, an official with NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, said Tuesday.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Bedford Standard-Times