Coastal Researchers, Fishermen Worried About More Frequent Low Oxygen Zones

Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary research team members, Kathy Hough and LTJG Alisha Friel, recover sensors deployed seasonally off the coast of Washington from the research vessel Tatoosh in July 2017. — S. Maenner / NOAA

 Scientists in Oregon and Washington are noticing a disruptive ocean phenomenon is becoming more frequent and extreme. It involves a suffocating ribbon of low oxygen seawater over our continental shelf.The technical term is hypoxia, sometimes called "dead zones," It's an unwelcome variation on normal upwelling of cold, nutrient rich water from the deep ocean. When the dissolved oxygen drops too low, it drives away fish and can suffocate bottom dwellers such as crabs and sea worms who can't scurry away fast enough.It seemed to marine ecologist Francis Chan like this is happening most every summer lately. So the Oregon State University researcher looked back as far as coastal oxygen readings go—to about 1950—to see if it's always been this way."The ocean starting in 2000 really looked different from the ocean we had between the 1950s and 1990s,” Chan said.Chan said climate change could affect oxygen levels via disrupted circulation and ocean warming. 
 A September storm flushed away this year's low oxygen zone by churning Northwest coastal waters. But Chan described the severity of the low oxygen readings recorded this summer as among the worst ever observed locally."It's very much a patchy ribbon," he said from his post in Newport, Oregon. Marine surveys and fixed instruments recorded notably low oxygen values from south of Yachats up past Newport.Ten oceanographic moorings deployed by the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary also found very low (hypoxic) oxygen values between Cape Elizabeth and Cape Flattery, Washington, this summer."This is not a happy year for organisms out on the coast," said Jenny Waddell, the marine sanctuary's research coordinator.Waddell added that at least one sensor dipped into anoxic conditions, "where there's literally no oxygen.""We had indications of a relatively persistent hypoxia event along the Quinault Reservation coastline," wrote marine scientist Joe Schumacker of the Quinault Department of Fisheries in an email Friday. "Dead fish and shellfish at various locations and times beginning near the end of July and extending through most of August."More frequent and severe near-shore hypoxia concerns fishermen and crabbers. Commercial harvesters face reduced catches and economic losses when crabs suffocate and fish and prawns flee the oxygen-starved waters.One of the tip-offs to OSU researchers of the onset of low oxygen conditions this summer was when Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists monitoring crab populations noticed crabs dying from lack of oxygen in a research trap. Other observers noted crabs leaving the ocean to seek more oxygenated waters in coastal estuaries and bays.Earlier this year, researchers and fishery advocates found a receptive ear at the Oregon Legislature when they presented their concerns about silent changes in the ocean. Legislators approved the creation of a new council to be co-chaired by the state Fish and Wildlife director and an OSU leader.The council is tasked with recommending and coordinating a long-term strategy to address hypoxia as well as ocean acidification.

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Originally published: http://nwnewsnetwork.org/

California Acting Governor Gavin Newsom Requests Disaster Relief for Sardine, Urchin Fisheries

— Posted with permission of SEAFOODNEWS.COM. Please do not republish without their permission. —

Copyright © 2017 Seafoodnews.com

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Sardine and sea urchin closures in California have prompted Acting Gov. Gavin Newsom to request fishery failure declarations for both.Newsom noted in his Sept. 5 letters to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross that ocean conditions caused the closure for sardines and affected the kelp forest ecosystems on which red urchins depend.The California Wetfish Producers Association lauded Newsom’s request to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to approve a declaration of a commercial fishery failure for California’s Pacific sardine fishery. His action was precipitated by La Niña’s cold-water oceanic conditions that are believed to have caused sharply reduced sardine recruitment and the closure of this commercial fishery since 2015.“This declaration is very important as it will enable California’s historic sardine fishery and its participants to seek federal disaster relief to offset the economic harm fishermen and processors have suffered since the fishery closure,” California Wetfish Producers Association Executive Director Diane Pleschner-Steele said in a statement Tuesday.The Pacific sardine fishery has been managed under the federal Coastal Pelagic Species Fishery Management Plan (CPS FMP) since 2000. The CPS FMP established a harvest cutoff, prohibiting directed fishing if the sardine population falls below an estimated 150,000 metric tons. Due to low stock assessments, the fishery was closed in 2015 and 2016, and will remain closed in 2017 and possibly even 2018, although sardines have returned to abundance in the nearshore area, where fishing normally takes place.Certain thresholds have been established that help the National Marine Fisheries Service and Secretary of Commerce make a determination of whether a commercial fishery failure has occurred. One of these involves an analysis of the economic impact and states that revenue losses greater than 80 percent are presumed to be a commercial fishery failure. This is determined by comparing the loss of 12-month revenue to average annual revenue in the most recent five-year period.“This fishery is historically one of the top 10 highest valued commercial fisheries in California,” Newsom said in his letter regarding the iconic sardine fishery. “Statewide, the commercial closure in 2015 resulted in a total value of $343,148, which is 90 percent less than the 2010-14 average of $3,504,098. That dropped to $95,657 in 2016, which was 96 percent less than the 2011-15 average of $2,711,679.”The figures for the urchin fishery, particularly in northern California and Orange County, were dire as well."The impacts to the regions are evident in the fishery landings data," Newsom wrote. "In 2016, the northern California fishery ex-vessel revenue fell by 77 percent compared to the 5-year average from $2,587,419 to $604,440, Orange County ports fell by 93 percent from $85,382 to $6,045, and San Diego County ports fell by 48 percent from $574,526 to $297,594."Newsom's letter noted the initial estimates for both fisheries are based on the average ex-vessel value of commercial landings but do not account for additional impacts to seafood processors or related industry businesses that rely on the either or both fisheries.The sardine fishery is the foundation of California’s wetfish industry, which for decades has produced 80 percent or more of annual statewide commercial fishery landings, until recent years, the CWPA statement said. While fishermen and markets may harvest and process other species in the coastal pelagic species complex, sardines have been the historic mainstay of this industry, and the loss of fishing opportunity has created severe economic impact to both fishermen and processors.The urchin fishery has been a staple for small-boat fishermen throughout the state for a number of years -- until recently."Persistent warm ocean conditions that began in 2014 in northern California and 2015 in southern California has affected the fishery in these two regions," Newsom's letter said. "In northern California, the warm water event devastated kelp production (93 percent loss of surface kelp canopies compared to 2008 levels), a primary food source for urchins that created persistent starvation conditions. Starvation has led to reductions in the food value of the urchins targeted by the fishery in northern California.In addition, a population explosion of the less marketable purple sea urchin continues to overgraze the recovering kelp beds, adding further stress to the fishery. In southern California, urchin mortality increased in response to warm El Nino conditions and disease in 2015. This has reduced the numbers of healthy red sea urchins in southern California available to the fishery."The Governor’s request for federal declaration now opens the door for fishermen and processors in California’s fisheries to pursue a federal disaster declaration from the Secretary of Commerce and appeal to California’s congressional delegation to pursue legislation allocating funding for disaster relief. Such funds would help alleviate the economic and social harm suffered as a result of these disasters.Funds could also be used for cooperative research projects, Pleschner-Steele said, such as the collaborative aerial survey of the nearshore area that CWPA participates in with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in efforts to improve the accuracy of stock assessments.

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Why eye-popping whale shows off the California coast are the new normal

Peter Winch, a naturalist with the Oceanic Society conservation group, said whales have been especially visible this year because cold ocean upwellings have sprinkled near-shore waters with plankton. The whales swim close to shore for anchovies, which feed on plankton, he said.“They are taking advantage of anchovy shoals that are numerous around the coast,” Winch said. “The humpbacks have the ability to pick and choose. They can stay out in deeper water and eat krill or they can come in. In the last few years, they have just really clued in on this abundance of anchovies.” 

Humpbacks have put on a show this summer inside and outside the Golden Gate — flopping around, waving their flukes and leaping out of the water — a bonanza for whale watchers in tour boats and on dry land that scientists say will remain a regular thing.

The ballet of the behemoths, far from a one-time event, is the result of the humpbacks recovering from near-extinction thanks to an international whaling ban, intense conservation and protection of their breeding grounds.John Calambokidis, a senior research biologist for the nonprofit Cascadia Research Collective, said the giant cetaceans are swimming off the coast of California in numbers equal to their historic population and extending their range into places where they lived long ago.“Their numbers reached carrying capacity in the last five years, and that’s when sightings in unusual areas began to occur,” said Calambokidis, who has been studying humpback and blue whales for 35 years.“It’s a good thing in the sense that it reflects the recovery of humpback whales,” he said. “It’s a bad thing in that some of these coastal areas they are repopulating, like San Francisco Bay, put them in greater conflict with other activities, like noise, ships and recreational boaters.”Since May, large pods have moved through Monterey Bay, past Pacifica and just beyond the breakers at Stinson Beach. Lucky viewers have spotted humpbacks doing pirouettes and splashing down under the Golden Gate Bridge, near the Channel Islands in Southern California and in Puget Sound in Washington.The phenomenon is all the more remarkable after record-high temperatures in the Pacific Ocean two years ago unleashed toxic algae that closed down the Dungeness crab fishery and contributed to a huge death toll among seabirds and sea lions.Peter Winch, a naturalist with the Oceanic Society conservation group, said whales have been especially visible this year because cold ocean upwellings have sprinkled near-shore waters with plankton. The whales swim close to shore for anchovies, which feed on plankton, he said.“They are taking advantage of anchovy shoals that are numerous around the coast,” Winch said. “The humpbacks have the ability to pick and choose. They can stay out in deeper water and eat krill or they can come in. In the last few years, they have just really clued in on this abundance of anchovies.”Humpbacks, which have long pectoral fins and distinctive knobby heads, are unique among baleen whales. They are friendly and playful, often interacting with other species, including bottlenose dolphins and right whales, and they have complex vocalizations that sound like singing.They are known for their acrobatic breaching, in which they lift nearly their entire bodies out of the water before splashing down.The whales, which can grow to 52 feet long and almost 80,000 pounds, were hunted throughout the 18th and 19th centuries in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, reducing the global population by more than 90 percent.Before 1900, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 humpbacks lived in the North Pacific. Only about 500 remained in 1966, when the International Whaling Commission finally halted the killing.Calambokidis said humpback numbers have increased by 7 to 8 percent every year since he began studying them in the 1980s. At least 40,000 of the creatures now live in the world’s oceans — and the North Pacific population is at a historic high.They have done so well, in fact, that nine of the 14 subspecies that had been listed under the Endangered Species Act since 1970 were taken off the list in 2016 in what one federal official called a “true ecological success story.”Bay Area residents have been particularly enamored with the species since 1985, when a 40-ton humpback named Humphrey swam through the Carquinez Strait, up the Sacramento River and into a creek near Rio Vista. The Solano County city became the focal point of a whale craze, attracting 10,000 people a day as experts tried desperately to turn around the lost animal — which went back to sea after 25 days.

Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle | Whale watchers take photos of the Farallon Islands.

 The local humpbacks migrate along the California coast past San Francisco on their way to and from their breeding grounds in Mexico and Central America. Unlike gray whales, which generally make a beeline to Alaska, humpbacks move north slowly after giving birth, feeding all along their migration route.Jared Davis, the captain of the Salty Lady fishing and tour boat, said he and his passengers spotted 50 humpbacks on a trip from San Francisco to the Farralon Islands last month. Boaters there have also seen blue whales, fin whales, orcas, dolphins and porpoises in large numbers this summer.“When the conditions are good, the whales flourish, and the conditions have been good the last couple of years,” said Davis, who takes people whale watching on the weekend and salmon fishing during the week. “It’s a lot of fun.”The problem with humpbacks moving close to shore, Calambokidis said, is that boats can hit them or crab pot lines can tangle them up.A recent study by Point Blue Conservation Science found that ships strike and kill an average of 22 humpbacks a year off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington. About 7,300 vessels pass the Golden Gate every year.The number of whales entangled in fishing lines off the West Coast has risen sharply in recent years, with 71 cases in 2016 — up from 57 the year before and the most since the National Marine Fisheries Service began keeping records in 1982.“There has been a dramatic increase in entanglements, particularly in crab pots,” Calambokidis said. The humpbacks, he said, “are arriving earlier in the spring to find prey and feed and that overlaps with the crab fishery.”

 

Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle | A humpback whale dives off the coast of San Francisco.

Another long-term threat to the whale resurgence is climate change, though all signs indicate the humpbacks will be back again next year in all their glory.“It’s not unusual anymore,” Calambokidis said. “Sometimes they will be seen closer to shore because prey is closer to shore and sometimes offshore because the prey is out farther to sea, but humpback sightings will be much more common going forward.”

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Read the original article: http://www.sfchronicle.com/

Bait and Switch: Anchovies Eat Plastic Because It Smells Like Prey

Schooling Northern anchovies. Matthew Savoca, CC BY-ND

As you bite down into a delicious piece of fish, you probably don’t think about what the fish itself ate – but perhaps you should. Over 50 species of fish have been found to consume plastic trash at sea. This is bad news, not only for fish but potentially for humans who rely on fish for sustenance.Fish don’t usually die as a direct result of feeding on the enormous quantities of plastic trash floating in the oceans. But that doesn’t mean it’s not harmful for them. Some negative effects that scientists have discovered when fish consume plastic include reduced activity rates and weakened schooling behavior, as well as compromised liver function.Most distressingly for people, toxic compounds – such as PBDEs – that are associated with plastic transfer to and bioaccumulate in fish tissues. This finding is troubling because it means these toxic substances could further bioaccumulate in us if we consume fish that have eaten plastic. Numerous species sold for human consumption, including mackerel, striped bass and Pacific oysters, have been found with these toxic plastics in their stomachs too.It is well known that our plastic trash poses a serious threat to marine animals, but we are still trying to understand why animals eat it.Typically, research has concluded that marine animals visually mistake plastic for food. While this may be true, the full story is likely more complex. For example, in a recent study with colleagues at the University of California, Davis, we showed that plastic debris may also smell attractive to marine organisms. That study focused on seabirds, but now my co-authors and I have found that plastic trash has a similar effect on anchovies – a critical part of ocean food chains.

A school of anchovies. (Wikimedia, Etrusko25)

Sniffing Out the Role of Smell

Olfaction (smell) is a very important sense for marine animals, including fish. Sharks can smell minute quantities of blood over long distances, which helps them find prey. And scientists believe that salmon’s sense of smell helps them navigate up rivers to the specific tributaries where they were born to spawn. Fish may use their sense of smell in behavioral contexts including mating, homing, migrating and foraging.We tested the idea that plastic debris might smell attractive to the Northern anchovy (Engraulis mordax), a common schooling fish found off the West Coast of North America. Known as forage fish, anchovies are critically important species, ecologically and economically. Unfortunately, they have also been found to eat plastic in the wild.Working with anchovies is challenging because they require very specific water conditions and school size to behave normally. They need to be in cold, fast-flowing water in schools of at least 100 individuals. When that happens, the anchovies display their contentment by swimming slowly and directly into the flow of water – a behavior known as positive rheotaxis. Luckily, we were able to collaborate with the Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco, where they have expertise in keeping these fish happy and healthy.

Anchovies schooling in a tank before being exposed to the odor of plastic debris. (Matthew Savoca. CC BY-ND)

Our Olfactory Experiment

When we started the experiment we did not know whether adult anchovies used their sense of smell to find food at all, let alone whether smell might lead them to consume plastic. To test our hypothesis that it would, we soaked krill (tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that anchovies eat) or plastic debris and clean plastic in seawater for several hours, allowing the water to take on the smell of the material steeping in it. We then filtered our krill or plastic “tea,” presented it to the anchovy schools, and observed their behavior.When fish are searching for food in groups, their behavior changes in predictable ways: They clump together near the interesting stimulus and dart around, altering their body position relative to the water current. To compare how anchovies responded to the scents of krill and plastic, we hung a specially designed apparatus with a GoPro camera attached over their tank to film the school’s behavior from above.In addition to analyzing what anchovies did when they detected these odors, we also filmed their anchovies’ behavior while feeding on krill and when they were presented with control treatments of unscented seawater. This gave us baseline information about the schools’ behavior, which we could compare to their responses when they were presented with the different odors.Using a combination of automated computer analyses and diligent observer scoring, we evaluated how tightly the schools clumped together and how each fish’s body positioning relative to the direction of water flow changed before and after adding an odor solution to the tank. As we predicted, when the anchovies were feeding, schools became more densely clumped and changed their body positioning so that instead of all the fish facing directly into the oncoming current, their bodies aligned more haphazardly as they searched for food morsels. In the control treatments, with no food or food odors present, we did not observe these changes.When we injected seawater scented with krill into the tank, the anchovies responded as if they were searching for food – which in this case was not there. And, importantly, when we presented them with seawater scented with odors of plastic debris, the schools responded in nearly the same way, clumping together and moving erratically as they would if they were searching for food. This reaction provided the first behavioral evidence that a marine vertebrate may be tricked into consuming plastic because of the way it smells.

The same anchovies displaying feeding behavior after being exposed to the odor of plastic debris. (Matthew Savoca, CC BY-ND)

Reducing Plastic Pollution

This research confirms several things. First, we showed that Northern anchovies use odors to locate food. This may sound intuitive, but before we did this study there was scant behavioral evidence that adult forage fish, such as anchovies, sardines and herring, used smell to find food.Our main finding was that plastic debris is likely confusing for marine consumers because of both its appearance and its smell. That’s a problem, because if plastic looks and smells interesting to fish, it will be very hard for them to discern that is it not food.This study also suggests that our consume-and-dispose culture is coming back to haunt us via the fish we eat. The next big question that it raises is whether plastic-derived contaminants can be transferred from plastic-eating fish to fish-eating humans.One way to mitigate the problem is to figure out why animals confuse plastic for prey so frequently, and our research has helped to do that. However, everyone can do something right now about ocean plastic pollution by avoiding single-use plastic items and recycling plastic upon disposal. There is more work to be done, but we know enough now to make substantial headway on this global environmental issue.

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Read the original article: https://www.newsdeeply.com/

Pelagic survey highlights NOAA's growing collaborative relationship with industry

 Preface: " The California Wetfish Producers Association and NOAA’s SW Fisheries Science Center are conducting a collaborative survey of the nearshore in Southern CA in 2018. CWPA also partners with the CA Department of Fish and Wildlife to conduct aerial surveys of the nearshore area to document coastal pelagic species now missed in current stock assessments." Earlier this year, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration used the Lisa Marie, a private fishing boat, to collect data for its annual coastal pelagic species survey. The more was part of an effort to increase collaboration between the public and private sectors.Earlier this summer as officials with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration completed work on an annual survey of coastal pelagic species (CPS) in the Pacific Ocean, they received some assistance from a new source: the private sector.Not only were representatives from the West Coast seafood trade industry on board a federal vessel for five days while survey samples were taken, but one fisherman allowed NOAA officials to outfit his boat with equipment to survey more shallow waters near the coastline. The collaborative venture marked a milestone in a public-private dialogue that’s been going on for years.The CPS survey collects data primarily on Pacific sardines, Koch said, but it also includes observations on other CPS fish such as northern anchovy and jack and Pacific mackerels. Typically, officials use the Reuben Lasker, a NOAA vessel, to conduct the survey. However, private sector representatives felt the government was missing out on some key data in their work.Government leaders welcomed the idea to get more data to fill in the gaps they also sought to fill.“Data is like gold to us,” said Kristen Koch, the acting science and research director of NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Service Center in La Jolla, California. “If we can collect more of the kind of data we need, it improves the precision of our assessments of these species.”Because of its size, the Reuben Lasker can only conduct surveys in deeper waters, around 35 fathoms. Fishermen and processers, who must abide by the survey data that is used to establish catch limits for fisheries, contended that large schools of these fish can be found much closer to the shore, in water roughly seven fathoms deep.Greg Shaughnessy, chief operating officer for Ocean Gold Seafoods, spent nearly a week on the Reuben Lasker. For the 40-year industry veteran, it was an educational experience for him to see to see the steps NOAA officials take to conduct their surveys. He also said he appreciated being involved in the process.“We feel that we have something to add to the conversation because we’re out there,” said Shaughnessy, who is also a member of the West Coast Pelagic Conservation Group, a nonprofit industry advocacy group. “We’re looking at the ocean everyday.”Besides Shaughnessy, Andy Blair, who owns the Lisa Marie, observed the survey on the NOAA vessel. Blair’s boat was also rigged to conduct surveys along the coasts of Washington and Oregon.The idea for the joint venture stemmed from conversations between current NOAA Chief Scientist Cisco Warner, who was serving as the director of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center at the time; Koch, then the SFSC deputy director; Gerard DiNardo, the Fisheries Resources Division director; Mike Okoniewski, the Alaska operations manager and a fisheries policy advisor with Pacific Seafood; and Diane Pleschner-Steele, with the California Wetfish Producers Association.Okoniewski said the collaboration and the talks that led up to it indicate an improving relationship between the two sides. “This has been a real sea level change for the science centers, and they’ve really done a good job reaching out to industry,” he said.While the survey results won’t be ready for quite some time, both industry and government leaders already hail the project as a success and hope they can do similar endeavors in the near future.“This is a really positive – experimental, yet, but positive – collaboration that I think we’ve had with this particular group, and we’re looking forward to continuing to work toward jointly getting at more of these observations that help the assessment,” Koch said. “That’s really the bottom line.”

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Originally posted: https://www.seafoodsource.com/ 

Humpback whales gorge in Monterey Bay

Preface: a huge population of anchovies is drawing whales to feed frenzies in Monterey Bay as well as San Francisco Bay and along the California coast.

A pair of humpback whales lunge feed on a school of anchovies while showing off their baleen in July in the Monterey Bay. (Chase Dekker -- Sanctuary Cruises)

MOSS LANDING – For the past few weeks, at least 50 to 75 humpback whales have been gorging on krill and anchovies in the Monterey Bay, delighting boaters and whale-watching groups.Their feeding frenzy is often visible from shore, from Monterey to Santa Cruz, at hot spots such as Aptos’ Seacliff State Beach and Marina Beach, as well as the Santa Cruz, Monterey and Moss Landing harbors.Rio del Mar resident Rachel Birns said she’s seen humpbacks from her deck overlooking Beer Can Beach every day since July.

A humpback whale breaches out of the waves in July in the Monterey Bay (Chase Dekker -- Sanctuary Cruises)

“Every day, I’m like, are they going to leave? And every day they’re still here,” said Birns, who said she checks for them every morning.“You just keep looking and you’ll see one. You’ll see a blow and then sometimes they’re breaching. Like, I just had a late lunch and my husband goes, ‘They’re breaching,’ so I ran outside,” she said.Santa Cruz resident and retiree Steve Lawson kayaks the waters between Capitola and Santa Cruz about five days a week.

A trio of humpback whales work together to feed on an anchovy bait ball in July in the Monterey Bay (Chase Dekker -- Sanctuary Cruises)

“What can I say, it’s consistent,” said Lawson. “That is, I’m generally seeing one or two whales a day.”On Wednesday, he saw a humpback with a distinctive curled dorsal fin, which some call “Captain Hook,” a quarter mile offshore Santa Cruz’s Main Beach, where he sometimes sees humpbacks feed. He also often sees humpbacks feeding near Live Oak’s Corcoran Lagoon and Moran Lake, he said.The humpbacks near shore are following their food: anchovies, said Kate Cummings, naturalist and captain at Blue Ocean Whale Watching, a Moss Landing-based company.“It’s not unusual, just very awesome,” Cummings said in an email to the Sentinel. Cormorants roosting on a section that remains of the Cement Ship at Seacliff State Beach have a front row seat as a Humpback Whale puts on a show nearby. Numerous whales and orcas have been seen recently in the Monterey Bay. (Shmuel Thaler -- Santa Cruz Sentinel)“Humpback whales are in the Monterey Bay throughout the spring, summer and fall to feed, but their proximity to shore makes their presence more obvious to people,” Cummings wrote.Jim Harvey, director of the Moss Landing Marine Labs, said around June or July is when humpbacks switch their diet, from krill to anchovies.“This is pretty standard fare for this time of year,” Harvey said. “We usually get a fair amount of whale activity early, as in April, May, June — mostly concentrating (feeding) on krill.”The krill draws both humpback and blue whales.As the season progresses and the krill are “mowed down,” the humpbacks switch to anchovies and sardines, which brings the whales closer to shore, Harvey said.Humpback whales have become a common sight in the Monterey Bay from May to November. What’s more rare are the blue, minke and fin whales that have been spotted in deeper waters in recent weeks, said Nancy Black, captain and owner of Monterey Bay Whale Watch, a Monterey Harbor-based company.Strong northwest winds this spring and early summer have created perfect conditions for krill, since winds generate an upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich waters from the ocean’s depths. About a week ago, the winds stopped and the waters calmed. The krill have begun to accumulate, and so have the whales, Black said.“We’re seeing blue whales on our trips every day in Monterey. They’re in the bay, on the edge of the canyon, scattered wide. Most of the whale watching trips are seeing blue whales on most of the trips now, because they’re fairly numerous (there),” Black said.Blue whales are endangered, and tourists fly from all over to the Monterey Bay hoping to see them, Black said.She has seen fin whales — the second largest whale, next to the blue whale — as well as the much smaller minke whales in the Monterey Bay recently. And on Sunday, she thinks she saw a sei whale, which is the third largest whale, around 20 miles offshore.“The diversity right now is pretty amazing, to have a chance to see at least three different species of large whales,” Black said. “I wouldn’t say you’re going to see all three for sure on your trip, but they’re out there and conditions are great right now.”A Humpback Whale surfaces near the pier at Seacliff State Beach Tuesday afternoon. (Shmuel Thaler -- Santa Cruz Sentinel)

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Read the original post: http://www.mercurynews.com/

Oceanographic influences on the distribution and relative abundance of market squid paralarvae (Doryteuthis opalescens) off the Southern and Central California coast

Joel E. Van Noord | Emmanis Dorval

July 2017

 

Abstract

 Market squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) are ecologically and economically important to the California Current Ecosystem, but populations undergo dramatic fluctuations that greatly affect food web dynamics and fishing communities. These population fluctuations are broadly attributed to 5–7-years trends that can affect the oceanography across 1,000 km areas; however, monthly patterns over kilometer scales remain elusive. To investigate the population dynamics of market squid, we analysed the density and distribution of paralarvae in coastal waters from San Diego to Half Moon Bay, California, from 2011 to 2016. Warming local ocean conditions and a strong El Niño event drove a dramatic decline in relative paralarval abundance during the study period. Paralarval abundance was high during cool and productive La Niña conditions from 2011 to 2013, and extraordinarily low during warm and eutrophic El Niño conditions from 2015 to 2016 over the traditional spawning grounds in Southern and Central California. Market squid spawned earlier in the season and shifted northward during the transition from cool to warm ocean conditions. We used a general additive model to assess the variability in paralarval density and found that sea surface temperature (SST), zooplankton displacement volume, the log of surface chlorophyll-a, and spatial and temporal predictor variables explained >40% of the deviance (adjusted r² of .29). Greatest paralarval densities were associated with cool SST, moderate zooplankton concentrations and low chlorophyll-a concentrations. In this paper we explore yearly and monthly trends in nearshore spawning for an economically important squid species and identify the major environmental influences that control their population variability.

— download the full paper —

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Americans Need to Know U.S. Fisheries are Sustainable: Former Senior NOAA Official

July 24, 2017 -- Earlier this month, Saving Seafood unveiled our campaign to tell the public that American Seafood is Sustainable Seafood™. A recent paper by Mark Helvey, former NOAA Assistant Regional Administrator for Sustainable Fisheries for the Pacific Region, confirms that purchasing U.S.-caught seafood is one of the most sustainable choices consumers can make, and notes that, "Most Americans remain unaware of the high environmental standards by which U.S. federal marine fisheries – and many state fisheries – are managed, in compliance with multiple state and federal laws."According to the paper, the standards under which U.S. fishermen operate "conform to or exceed internationally accepted guidelines for sustainable fisheries adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations."The first recommendation made in the peer-reviewed paper is to "increase awareness...of the high environmental standards by which U.S. federal marine fisheries – and many state fisheries – are managed."The paper makes the case that, "Sea Grant Extension Programs in U.S. coastal states and territories have conducted education and out-reach, with NOAA Fishwatch and a number of nongovernmental organizations also helping to bridge this gap. However, further efforts to address this lack of understanding are needed."This is precisely the goal of our American Seafood is Sustainable Seafood™ campaign.Mr. Helvey provided the following summary of his paper to Saving Seafood:

• The United States is recognized for its robust seafood appetite and strong commitment to environmental conservation. However, efforts to close or restrict its own domestic fisheries in pursuit of environmental protection are often not considered within the context of seafood consumption.
• Restricting U.S. fisheries comes at the cost of displaced negative environmental impacts associated with the fishing activities of less-regulated, foreign fisheries.
• The authors provide six solutions for addressing this issue beginning with the need for U.S. consumers becoming more aware of the exceedingly high environmental standards by which U.S. marine fisheries are managed relative to many foreign ones.
• While efforts by NOAA’s Sea Grant Extension Program, FishWatch, and a number of nongovernmental organizations are bridging the information gap, the authors stress that more is required for increasing awareness that U.S fisheries are sustainable fisheries.

The paper, "Can the United States have its fish and eat it too?," was published in the January 2017 volume of Marine Policy and is co-authored by Caroline Pomeroy, Naresh C. Pradhan, Dale Squires, and Stephen Stohs.