marine ecosystem Archives - One Fish Foundation

A College Student Walks into a Webinar…

November 23, 2017October 20, 2021
by Colles Stowell

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One Fish Foundation Intern Jennifer Halstead is a senior at the University of New Hampshire. She has been instrumental with several One Fish projects, including the coordination of the recent Webinar co-hosted by One Fish Foundation and Local Catch, Fisheries Management: Best Available Science May Not Be Good Enough. Below is her take on the Webinar from the perspective of a college student, and why we should include college students in these discussions more frequently. And she’s right. Why wouldn’t we want to empower future leading researchers, fishermen and policy makers with a broader perspective and a voice?

By Jennifer Halstead

I had to drive to a neighboring town to run some errands immediately following the webinar, and I had a million thoughts swimming around in my head. So, I did what any millennial would do, and I used my smart phone to take notes for me, setting it to record as I drove.

Listening to the recording later, I realized some critical points. First, I was extremely fired up and passionate about the issues, and even a little angry about some of them. Second, I recognized through this webinar that the scientists, fishermen, and others taking part in the conversation represented a broad range of backgrounds and viewpoints, but were united on one theme: that the current fisheries management model doesn’t work for this extremely dynamic, and rapidly changing ecosystem.

Being a college student in marine sciences is exhilarating and intimidating. We’re presented with myriad challenges and questions, and rarely presented with solutions. We’re kind of left in limbo: We have a strong knowledge base, but a wide-open area to apply it, and we’re walking into a field of open-ended questions that have been asked for decades.

The curriculum of marine sciences now has a large portion of time allocated to climate change-related topics and challenges. As students, we’re presented with climate related disasters in all our classes. Not only is this depressing, but the lack of tangible solutions can take away our hope for our future in minutes. Being able to be part of an active discussion about how to change that as part of this Webinar put the last four years of me hearing about these unsolvable problems into a different perspective. I know we need change, because that’s what I’ve paid tuition to learn. An entirely different story starts when I hear other people talking about change, however. Suddenly, there’s a light ahead, collaboration forms, and solutions start to appear to all of those previously unsolvable problems.

Determining lobster sex aboard the F/V Vivian Mae this summer.

I was emboldened by hearing fishermen and scientists talk about how different, fast-changing dynamics throughout the Gulf of Maine necessitate a different data approach: one that is more localized. Hearing them talk about a solution motivated me to keep moving forward and not feel as overwhelmed by the issues. We as college students will listen and take heart when authoritative voices such as fishermen, council members and scientists uniformly agree on the need for change and discuss possible solutions. Hopefully, these credible voices will resonate with the larger community.

To move forward, we need to analyze the current model and determine what the problems are that are highest in priority to address. In addition to this, we need to keep the conversation going, and keep working toward common goals.

The current data collection model is a One-Size-Fits-All model, but the consensus of the discussion was that one size does not fit all. Therefore, the current model is not doing its job and needs to change. The Gulf of Maine is an extremely dynamic region, with highly productive areas, multiple spawning areas and freshwater inputs. Unfortunately, it is feeling climate change impacts at an alarming rate. In a system with this many moving parts, we should not be employing a model that is rigid. Instead of adjusting this model, however, it may be easier to start with new ideas. Relying on data from random trawl surveys that occurred three years ago is not a solid foundation to build a management plan on.

So, let’s change the way we collect data. Fishermen are out on the water every day in different areas, looking for different target species and making different observations. Why not make their observations available for scientists to use, creating an up-to-date, usable set of data? Up-to-date data means that the moving and fluctuating parts of the system can be more accurately accounted for, and we can develop more accurate and successful management plans more quickly. Collaboration between fishermen and scientists when it comes to collection of data and observations is important. It helps refine the current model and bring the sides together while doing it.

A large part of creating change and addressing these problems exists in the need to have active discussions. Everyone sitting at the table, simply discussing the challenges, could lead to change. Different perspectives bring different ideas, and then solutions can start to form. College students taking part in such discussions and offering their perspectives could be integral to the formation of such solutions. That involvement would also likely encourage them (as it has with me) to dive deeper into the issues and help find solutions, rather than be overwhelmed with fear and gloom.

Along with this, it is imperative that all stakeholders be involved in these discussions. If we want to use data that fishermen collect, for example, we need to make sure they’re on board with the idea, and we need to see how much they’re willing to do to create a better system. If too much is put on the fishermen’s plates, or on the plates of any other group for that matter, the new method will work as effectively as the current one. It won’t.

Jennifer Halstead is a senior at University of New Hampshire studying marine biology, and intern for One Fish Foundation.

Top Photo: Jennifer extracts the otoliths (ear bones) of a bluefin tuna to determine its age.

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“One Word: Plastics” … and the damage to our…

March 6, 2017October 20, 2021
by Colles Stowell

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Here’s a sobering thought: There will be more tonnage of plastic than fish in the world’s oceans by 2050 if we continue to produce, consume and dispose of plastic as we are now.

Think about the implications. In fact, some scientists estimate that a minimum of 5 trillion pieces of plastic weighing more than 250,000 tons are floating in our oceans. That’s just the plastic that is floating. Another study from 2015 suggests that oceans now hold more than 4.8 million metric tons of plastic, much of which now rests on the sea floor. The most offensive item? Plastic bags. Approximately 500 billion plastic bags, or 150 per person on the planet, make their way into the waste stream. And those numbers are rising. They can take up to a 1,000 years to break down, and are often mistaken for jellyfish by a wide variety of marine species.

You don’t have to look far to find horrifying stories and gruesome pictures of dead whales, seabirds, turtles and other marine organisms with organs jammed full of plastic bags, containers, expanded polysterene products (Styrofoam™) and other human detritus. As many as 100,000 marine animals die from interactions with plastic, as do 1 million sea birds. It’s not hard to see that the more plastic that floods into oceans, the less healthy marine ecosystems become.

A recent study released last month by the World Economic Forum suggests a major re-think of how we produce, consume and reuse plastic items.

Here are some highlights:

More than 40 years since the recycling symbol appeared, we only recycle 14% of plastic produced today.
Every year up to $120 billion worth of plastic packaging material is lost to the economy as single-use plastic. Much of which ends up in our oceans.
UNEP suggests the cost of all of this packaging spilling into the environment at $40 billion.
30% of plastic packaging (such as lids, straws, plastic tear offs, polysterene cups and to-go packages, etc.) will never be recycled and likely will continue to be loosed on the environment unless we significantly re-design and reconfigure them.
20% of packaging can be reused as a result of new designs that replace single-use packaging for such items as cleaning and personal care products.
A retooling of the recycling system, including the design of packaging products and the materials could render the remaining 50% of plastic packaging products economically feasible for recycling. This is a big deal. To date, most recycling operations have been money-losing operations. This was certainly the case for the omnipresent plastic bags doled out at grocery stores. The Clean Air Council has estimated that recycling one ton of plastic bags costs $4,000. The recycled product can be sold for $32.

Microplastics are insidious because they’re hard to clean up, and they find their way into marine food webs, causing sickness and death. NOAA photo

It’s not just the big visible plastic bags, lids, floating polysterene etc. that may appear as food to some sea creatures, which ingest it then die of suffocation or starvation. It’s the tiny particles as well.

But truly addressing this problem is about people and their actions, not plastic.

Those microplastics that were once touted as the most efficient way to clean your bathtub or restore vitality to your cheeks? They hitchhike a ride through municipal water systems and into streams, rivers, lakes, marine estuaries and bays. Once there, they disperse and end up in seafood webs because they take a long time to break down.

In a study published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that filter feeders such as oysters, mussels, sea cucumbers and zooplankton are particularly vulnerable to the hazards of plastic.

The study focused on the impacts to oysters, which feed on the plastics they filter in. Researchers observed these oysters experienced drops in fertility, reproduction and larval development (some affected larva grew 18% smaller than healthy specimens).

Yes, the convenience of plastics have proved minor in the face of the mounting waste heap of trash floating, drifting or sinking in our oceans and the impact that has on seafood.

But truly addressing this problem is about people and their actions, not plastic. We first have to change our thinking on plastic so it is no longer the daily, disposable necessity we take for granted. We need to think of it in terms of how to minimize global environmental impact. As such, I agree with the larger premise of the PNAS report that we should re-think how we manufacture, consume and recycle plastic to minimize production, and single-use products.

Similarly, I agree with one researcher’s conclusion about ocean conservation. In a recent National Geographic op-ed piece, she writes “…ocean conservation is not about fish. It’s about people.”

She’s right. We have to change our attitudes about how we look at ocean conservation. I may not agree with her concept of zoning the ocean into areas that are and aren’t open to fishing as that would be very controversial and impractical on a global scale. But her approach to starting from the ground up, in this case, talking with local fishermen and using their input to manage the fishery, is essential to their buy-in. That investment in the outcome by the fishermen is crucial to the success of the fishery management and to the conservation of the resource.

Here are some additional resources:

National Geographic article on the volume of plastics in the ocean
National Geographic article on plastics and the great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Reuters story on using shrimp shells to make biodegradable plastic bags.
Statistics from Ocean Crusaders.
More statistics from Save the Bay.
Huffington Post graphic on how plastic enters marine ecosystems.

Top photo credit: NOAA

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DNA Sampling Next Frontier in Fish Counts

September 15, 2015October 20, 2021
by Colles Stowell

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Keeping track of marine ecosystem health is expensive, as discussed in the last blog about the NOAA observer program. Monitoring what species are swimming or living where, and in what numbers often means teams of divers counting individual organisms in defined grids over a period of time. This provides a limited view because of the tiny section of ocean surveyed and just a brief window on activity in that grid at any time. And it costs a lot of money. Other approaches include dredging the ocean bottom to see what comes up, which doesn’t do the seafloor any favors. Read more “DNA Sampling Next Frontier in Fish Counts” →