Seafood farming’s growth rate has already peaked, and now it’s in decline

The growth rate of seafood farming worldwide peaked in 1996 according to new UBC research, highlighting the importance of rebuilding wild fish stocks to feed future demand.

Dr. Rashid Sumaila

If we were to rely only on aquaculture to meet the demand for seafood by 2030, the world’s production would need to grow at three times the current projected rate, the study found.

In this Q&A, co-authors Dr. Rashid Sumaila, professor in UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and the school of public policy and global affairs, and Dr. Muhammed Oyinlola, postdoctoral fellow in the UBC department of zoology and the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, discuss why we can’t rely on just farmed seafood for our fishy needs.

Your study discusses aquaculture ‘over-optimism’. What is that?

RS: We feel there’s a sense of over-optimism about seafood farming and its production, with news articles titled, “Can sustainable aquaculture feed the world?” and the like. People tend to focus on the growth rate of the industry, and to view aquaculture as the solution to our food security woes caused by overfishing, climate change and more. So we decided to test this. Using aquaculture production data from 1950 to 2018 and calculating the average growth rate for most farmed seafood species and countries around the world, we found this growth has already peaked in 1996, at 14 per cent, and is now in decline.

This is the average growth rate – production is still increasing, just not as quickly. This is the nature of any industry: initial growth is fast, but reaches a peak and tapers off when it faces the inevitable constraints; in this case, things like adequate space, access to water, availability of fish needed to make fishmeal and so on. Levelling off doesn’t mean aquaculture is not contributing to global seafood production, it’s just not contributing as much as many are hyping it up to be.

What did you find?

MO: Atlantic salmon saw the biggest drop in aquaculture production growth for a species, from 314 per cent prior to 1970 to just 0.9 per cent in 2018. We were surprised to find that growth in shellfish farming is also declining, because shellfish don’t require feeding with fish meal, so there are technically fewer barriers for farming shellfish than finfish.

We also projected that if the world relies solely on aquaculture to meet seafood demand, we would face a seafood shortage of about 71 million tonnes a year by 2030, if farmed seafood production continues growing at its current rate.

What does this mean for seafood farming?

MO: Farmed food is usually very specialized in that a very few species are farmed based on market demand. Without wild fish stocks, we would lose biodiversity. One result of this lack of diversity would be a loss of nutritional value for humans, as smaller fish like sardines are loaded with micronutrients, but tuna is what sells. Maintaining and rebuilding wild fish stocks is not only good for nature but also good for human health and food security.

RS: We can’t just rely solely on aquaculture for our seafood needs. Leaving aside technical, environmental and economic reasons for not doing so, wild fish is fish for all, in a sense. While 201 countries cumulatively caught 60 per cent of the total global wild fish catch in 2018, China alone produces 60 per cent of the world’s farmed seafood, and Asia produces 90 per cent. If you have money, you can afford to buy farmed seafood, but what if you don’t? I would love for fish farming to feed everyone perfectly but it’s not a reality: Aquaculture has a role to play but we shouldn’t give up on our wild fish, and that means rebuilding and conserving them. We need aquaculture, we just need to manage it wisely, and not oversell its potential.

Tags: aquaculture, faculty, fish, fish farms, fish stocks, IOF postdoctoral fellows, Muhammed Oyinlola, Rashid Sumaila, Research, salmon

Posted in 2022, IOFNews, News Release | Tagged with aquaculture, faculty, fish, fish farms, fish stocks, IOF postdoctoral fellows, Muhammed Oyinlola, Rashid Sumaila, Research, salmon

New Working Paper: A practical approach to meeting national obligations for sustainable trade under CITES

A new Working Paper has been added to our list:

Vaidyanathan, T., Foster, S.J. and Vincent, A.C.J. (2022) A practical approach to meeting national obligations for sustainable trade under CITES. IOF Working Papers 2022 (05), 28pp., Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia.

Abstract
Reconciling conservation and resource use requires adaptive management. The Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) is a key tool in species conservation, regulating international trade for a list of species (Appendix II) that are or may become threatened by trade. To export such species, CITES member countries are required to evaluate if their exports are damaging wild populations (dubbed making a non-detriment finding or NDF). When countries find this challenge too great, they often default to banning international trade, thus imposing economic costs on stakeholders and/or driving the trade underground where it is more difficult to control. What, then, are the easiest ways for countries to make NDFs? We propose a simplified spatial approach to making NDFs using the case study of India, which has banned catch and trade of seahorses (Hippocampus spp.), but where rampant illegal trade continues. Our approach involves mapping the answers to four questions: (1) where are the species found?; and then, for those areas, (2) what pressures do the species face?; (3) what measures are in place to manage the pressures?; and (4) how well are the measures working? Information came from fishers’ knowledge and published literature. Overall, reported seahorse presence was greatest in the southern Palk Bay region. This region theoretically offered protection to seahorses through a 3 nm bottom trawl exclusion zone and a 60 day closed season. Implementation was problematic. Both bottom trawl and dragnet fishers reported respecting the closed season but three-quarters of bottom trawl fishers reportedly catching seahorses in the trawl exclusion zone. Our conservation assessment identified the opportunity to better implement existing management measures as well as the need for further management action (that would do more than simply banning capture). This pragmatic geographic analysis provides managers in India with a tractable route towards regulating exports at sustainable levels. Our assessment approach can be deployed broadly in assessing sustainability of exploitation and provides an alternative to the current futile bans.

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Tags: Amanda Vincent, bottom trawling, CITES, conservation, India, Project Seahorse, Publications, Research, Sarah Harper, seahorses, sustainability

Posted in 2022, IOFNews | Tagged with Amanda Vincent, bottom trawling, CITES, conservation, India, Project Seahorse, Publications, Research, Sarah Harper, seahorses, sustainability

Climate change may mean more jellyfish in our oceans

WORLD JELLYFISH DAY

By Solana Pasqual

Coast guard ©Jessica Schaub

As climate change kills off competition, jellyfish numbers may rise, and one UBC researcher is working on increasing what we know about these creatures and their future.

“Growing up on the prairies, I was always drawn to the ocean. In my last few months of high school, I watched a documentary on the jellyfish crisis that was happening, and it got me thinking about jellyfish in a way I have never done before,” said Jessica Schaub, a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia who is embarking on an international research trip on jellyfish, courtesy of a grant from the Hugh Morris Fellowship.

Over 600 million years old, jellyfish are key components of ocean ecosystems, and are often not given the exposure and recognition they deserve. With a background in biology and oceanography, Schaub’s previous research focused primarily focused on jellyfish within food webs. Her paper on scyphozoan jellyfish focused on the composition of stable isotopes and fatty acids in jellyfish, and how these compositions changed based on what the jellyfish ate.

“One of the most common misconceptions of jellyfish is that because they are 95 per cent water, nothing eats them, and that they are not relevant to the food web,” said Schaub. “But that is not correct. They are very often consumed by other animals, but then the question becomes ‘why exactly are they being eaten, given that they are mostly water?’”

The answer may lie in the fact that jellyfish are usually found in abundance, often travel in groups or blooms, and are easy to digest.

Moon jellyfish polyps ©Jessica Schaub

Schaub’s current focus is on “just jellyfishes.” She hopes to understand where other researchers are at in their work, and the big questions they are tackling. “You can have a good feeling for the literature, but it always makes a different to speak to researchers and see what they are working on now,” Schaub said. Having already visited Japan, Schaub’s next country is France, where she will learn how to collect and map out polyps in the Bages Sigean Lagoon, and identify them by their DNA.

Some human processes can actually be traced back to ancestors related to the jellyfish. With some jellyfish only a few millimetres in length, and others with tentacles as long as a blue whale, they are diverse species with a streamlined and efficient body structure that includes no brain, a mouth that doubles as an anus, and very primitive eyes that usually only sense light.

So, how do these creatures impact the ecosystems that they live in, besides eating and being eaten?

“Jellyfish also have other effects on ecosystems besides feeding interactions. For example, jellyfish release nutrients into the water when they expel waste and mucus. Just like human bacteria keeps us healthy, bacteria in the ocean can also help keep the environment healthy,” said Schaub. “The microbial community can be altered because of jellyfish, and this has consequences for the overall ecosystem.”

Jellyfish can also be very beneficial when it comes to climate change.

Moon jellies quadra ©Jessica
Schaub

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a major driver of climate change, and the ocean acts as a big carbon sink that transports carbon from the atmosphere and buries it deep within the sediment or in deep water. This gets sequestered for a long time, and helps to regulate the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

“One of the ways the ocean does this is through biological pumps,” Schaub said. “Plants and phytoplankton take carbon that originated in the atmosphere and fix it into sugars that are consumed by other animals. Because the ocean food web is often structured as big eats small, when animals eat and grow, they accumulate carbon throughout their life cycle.”

“Although jellyfish are mostly water, they accumulate carbon too,” explained Schaub. “Jellyfish usually only live for about a year, and they grow quite fast during this time. So, every year, you have huge amounts of jellyfish being born in the spring, and when they die, sinking quickly and taking their carbon away from the surface and into the deep ocean to be sequestered.”

These effects may have implications for ecosystems under pressure due to climate change. Jellyfish can survive at a range of salinities, oxygen levels, and temperatures that many of their competitors cannot. “Normally, you’re looking at animals because they are moving or dying, and their populations are decreasing. When it comes to the jellyfish, it actually seems that their competitors are dying out” Schaub said. “As we move forward, jellyfish may encounter less and less competition, and we have yet to figure out what that means for the future.”

Jellyfish and gelatinous zooplankton need to be a part of climate change conversations

WORLD JELLYFISH DAY

By Solana Pasqual

Florian Lüskow taking notes of CTD cast information on a research expedition around Vancouver Island in summer 2019 ©Jacob Lerner

Existing ocean models often poorly include, and heavily oversimplify, these gelatinous organisms, and one UBC researcher hopes to change that.

“It became very clear to me early on that I wanted to work (and live) somehow with the water, and literally, in my first lecture on invertebrate diversity in my undergraduate, I learned about jellyfish and their kin,” said Florian Lüskow, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia, researching marine ecology and biological oceanography.

There is much that researchers do not know about jellyfish, and they are often disregarded in marine biology and climate change discussions. With a background in biology and marine biology, Lüskow is hoping to change that. His 2021 paper focused on freshwater jellyfish in British Columbia, and highlighted an increase of sightings of these jellyfish that may be indicative of climate-change related range extensions, growing public awareness, and/or an increase in observational efforts.

Deceptively complex creatures, jellyfish can be found in most aquatic systems, from marine, brackish, and freshwater systems to polar regions, the tropics, shallow waters, and deep-sea trenches. The most diverse jellyfish groups are the hydromedusae with several thousands of species, although most of them are only a few millimetres in size. Often only living between a few weeks to a year, most jellyfish disappear from the water column as quickly as they appeared.

Helmet jellyfish in Trondheinsfjorden, Norway ©Florian Lüskow

The jellyfish is actually only one stage in the lifecycle of these animals. The adult jelly, the medusae, mates and creates fertilized eggs.[1] Most of these eggs drift freely while developing into small larvae that eventually attach themselves to the seafloor.[2] These larvae become polyps that can catch and digest prey.[3] When conditions are favourable, these polyps eventually directly, or through another stage, become adult jellies.

Made of over 90 per cent water, we often expect them to be of little importance in the grand scheme of things.

“However, it is just the opposite,” said Lüskow. “Jellyfish occur in huge amounts along shorelines, and in some parts of the world, are fished for and farmed in aquacultures for human consumption. We also know that they prey directly on fish eggs and larvae, which makes them also highly important to consider for fish population dynamics.”

“Indeed, jellyfish play a vital role in connecting bottom and open water ecosystems, and many species depend on them to complete their life cycle,” Lüskow said.

Jellyfish play important roles in coastal food webs, and researchers have only started exploring their biotechnological implications for medical applications and environmental pollution research. However, there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to jellyfish, and their effects in marine ecosystems.

“Jellyfish medusae are only the visible part of a complex life cycle. Where their polyps are, what they eat, and what else they do is, in most cases, entirely unknown,” Lüskow said. “Their indirect effects on population dynamics, shaping microbiological communities, and interactions with other non-indigenous species are often not addressed.”

So, why is there such a lack of knowledge and active research into jellyfish and gelatinous zooplankton?

“When I am on board research vessels, one thing that always draws a tired smile is when fisheries scientists have the perception that marine jellyfish are nuisances to marine ecosystems. After processing target species in fisheries trawls, I am often told to ‘enjoy the leftover slime’,” Lüskow said. “There are also only a few dozen studies that look at the ecology of freshwater jellyfish, and many critical factors need to be researched further before statements can be made about their impact on ecosystems.”

Trawl catch of helmet jellyfish in Trondheinsfjorden, Norway ©Florian Lüskow

Jellyfish are a subject close to home. They have been recorded in over 30 major lakes in Lower Mainland British Columbia, on the Sunshine Coast, and on Vancouver Island for years, and now, are being discovered in isolated lakes across the province.

“The impact of climate change on freshwater jellyfish populations in B.C. is a topic close to my heart, and long-term monitoring on a broad scale is the only way to address this,” Lüskow said. “Realistically speaking, over the years, I hope to assemble a dataset that will allow provincial and federal government monitoring of these creatures to become a reality.”

Other related papers

Distribution and biomass of gelatinous zooplankton in relation to an oxygen minimum zone and a shallow seamount in the Eastern Tropical North Atlantic Ocean was published in Marine Environmental Research.

Gelatinous and soft-bodied zooplankton in the Northeast Pacific Ocean: Phosphorus content and potential resilience to phosphorus limitation was published in Hydrobiologia.

Footnotes

[1] Bowen, D. (2019, November 5). The life cycle of a jellyfish: Spawning, cloning and immortality. Two Oceans Aquarium.

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid

Tags: climate change, freshwater, IOF students, jellyfish, Marine Zooplankton and Micronekton Laboratory, Pelagic Ecosystems Lab, Research, zooplankton

Posted in 2022, IOFNews, News Release | Tagged with climate change, freshwater, IOF students, jellyfish, Marine Zooplankton and Micronekton Laboratory, Pelagic Ecosystems Lab, Research, zooplankton

New Working Paper: A rich analysis of the economic, social and environmental effects of harmful fisheries at the ecosystem level

A new Working Paper has been added to our list:

Sumaila, U.R., Zeng, Z., Lam, V.W.Y, and Cheung, W.W.L (2022) A rich analysis of the economic, social and environmental effects of harmful fisheries at the ecosystem. IOF Working Papers 2022 (04), 23pp., Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia.

Abstract
Marine fish stocks and the fisheries they support and play a vital role in meeting the food and nutritional needs of tens of millions of people worldwide while providing jobs and incomes to many more millions. Even though marine fish stocks are renewable they are seriously threatened by many stressors, including overfishing due to ineffective management and the perverse effects of government policies such as the provision of harmful subsidies; climate change and marine pollution, e.g., ocean plastic pollution and oil spills. Here, we explore the effects of harmful fisheries subsidies in three marine ecosystems chosen for their importance in terms of food security, size and diversity (Mauritanian EEZ, South China Sea and East China Sea); and three different management scenarios, i.e., optimizing (i) economic rent; (ii) jobs; and (ii) ecological fitness. This rich modelling exercise allows us to address pertinent questions such as how much resource depletion is due to subsidies; how much rent depletion occurs due to the provision of harmful subsidies; and to what extent do differences in management regimes matter?

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Tags: climate change, faculty, fisheries economics, fisheries management, food security, food webs, IOF Research Associates, nutrition, pollution, Publications, Rashid Sumaila, Research, Vicky Lam, William Cheung, Zeyu Zeng

Posted in 2022, IOFNews | Tagged with climate change, faculty, fisheries economics, fisheries management, food security, food webs, IOF Research Associates, nutrition, pollution, Publications, Rashid Sumaila, Research, Vicky Lam, William Cheung, Zeyu Zeng

IOF goes to Ottawa

(l to r) Dr. Daniel Pauly, Dr. Andrea Reid, Dr. William Cheung, and Dr. Rashid Sumaila. ©Andrea Reid

Dr. William Cheung, professor and Director of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, Dr. Daniel Pauly, University Killam Professor and PI for the Sea Around Us initiative, Dr. Rashid Sumaila, University Killam Professor and Director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit (FERU), and Dr. Dr. Andrea Reid, assistant professor and PI for the Centre for Indigenous Fisheries, all attended the Oceana Canada’s Science Symposium – Rebuilding Abundance: Priorities for a Resilient Ocean – in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Drs. Pauly and Sumaila, who are also Oceana board members, gave keynote speeches. Pauly’s was for the “An Abundant Ocean is Possible: What is the potential for rebuilding abundance in Canada’s oceans in the next decade?” session, which also featured Dr. Cheung as a panelist.

(l to r) Dr. Daniel Pauly, Dr. Sarah Harper, Dr. Andrea Reid, Dr. William Cheung, and Dr. Rashid Sumaila. ©Rashid Sumaila

Sumaila’s keynote was for the “An Abundant Ocean is our Legacy: What are the growth opportunities for food security, income and livelihoods in coastal communities?” session. Dr. Reid was the keynote for the “An Abundant Ocean is our Legacy: What are the growth opportunities for food security, income and livelihoods in coastal communities?” IOF alumn, Dr. Sarah Harper was also in attendance.

More information about, and pictures from, this event are available here.

Posted in 2022, IOFNews | Tagged with Andrea Reid, Canada, Daniel Pauly, Ottawa, Rashid Sumaila, Sarah Harper, William Cheung

New Fisheries Centre Research Report (FCRR)

Implementing CITES Appendix II listings for marine fishes: a novel framework and a constructive analysis

When we set out to investigate the implementation of CITES Appendix II listings for marine fishes, we thought it would be relatively straightforward. Just document what had been done, identify the gaps, and summarize it all in a primary paper like the one we had written on the early listings of marine fishes on Appendix II.

We knew the story, or so we thought. Our team is hugely experienced, all of us having led on marine fish issues in CITES for 20-30 years. We were key agents in the Appendix II listing of seahorses, sharks and humphead wrasse. We had helped drive subsequent actions that pioneered many CITES processes for marine fishes, actively engaging in marine fish issues at all 12 of the last CITES CoPs. One of us was the head of the US CITES Scientific Authority for many years. The others of us are Chairs, an ex-Chair and the Focal Point for Global Trade of IUCN SSC Specialist Groups that are trusted by CITES to offer expert technical advice on these various taxa.

The story we now tell is substantially different from the one we thought we would share. For one thing, that primary paper has grown into a massive tome. More to the point, the anticipated simple task of summarizing implementation has evolved into a truly immense challenge of trying to untangle what has been done and what needs to be done. We have all pondered, debated, argued, and struggled with the ideas and information we document in the report. We have tried really hard to tell comprehensive stories, but we know we have also missed a lot. So, our goal has become extraction of key messages.

Our main challenge has been to determine what is meaningful in all that has been done and how such efforts might be affecting the marine fishes at the centre of the story, marine fishes that we all value enormously. Meeting that challenge necessitated us parsing out the different forms of implementation, creating a framework that allows us to sort through the many activities that engage us, all while seeking evidence that these are making a difference to the fish themselves. We were determined to distinguish the critical from the helpful, the vital from the optional, the exciting from the interesting, the promised from the promising.

We now offer you our thinking on how CITES has moved to implement Appendix II listings for marine fishes in a framework that we hope will have broader value for colleagues engaged in CITES… and other forms of conservation action and resource management, too. We know from personal experience that this framework will provoke animated discussion and prove controversial at times. We also know that this framework, in all its imperfections, provides a useful lens on a complex world, forcing us to consider how much (or how little) of what we do is really relieving pressures on marine fishes and other species.

We invite you to browse this report and share your ideas. We hope our framework will highlight and even challenge underlying assumptions in the theory of change used by governments, NGOs, and other stakeholders in CITES implementation. The good news is that we were able to find encouraging progress and identify options for improvement. The bad news? This report is very, very long, but we will be turning it into more concise outputs. We welcome your thoughts, comments, and recommendations.

Amanda Vincent, Sarah Foster, Sarah Fowler, Susan Lieberman, and Yvonne Sadovy de Mitcheson

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Tags: Amanda Vincent, CITES, faculty, FCRR, fish, IOF Research Associates, Project Seahorse, Publications, Research, Sarah Foster, seahorses, sharks

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Nature, society, and culture should be taken into consideration when dealing with climate change

by Solana Pasqual

Quiver trees in Augrabies national Park in South Africa ©Juliano Palacios-Abrantres

Taking nature, society, and culture into consideration can change the way the natural sciences approach climate change, new UBC study found.

While focusing on creating sustainable climate change solutions, how dependent humans are on the natural world is often forgotten. From the Namibian desert to South African savannas to the Galapagos Marine Reserve, humans inhabit all corners of the world in different ways. To understand this, a conservation framework is needed to recognise this, and can be used to create more resilient ecosystems. The current business-as-usual conservationist approach needs to consider much more than economics and biodiversity. To combat this, a new UBC study applied a framework, the Nature Futures Framework (NFF), that can include Indigenous stakeholders, =expertise, and different knowledge systems in conversation efforts.

This study looked at Aloidendron dichotomum, woody encroachment, and the Galapagos Marine Reserve, and how humans use these very different environments for means of society, culture, and employment.

“The NFF tries to include everything – all the values we have, what we do; it can all fit. You can move in between the spaces of the framework,” said Dr. Juliano Palacios-Abrantes, lead author and post-doctoral fellow in the Changing Oceans Research Unit (CORU) in the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF). “With the framework, not everything is simple. What is good for biodiversity and some cultures may not necessarily be good for tourism and the economy. Conservation is holistic.”

The new framework would help natural scientists understand how to preserve important conservation areas, like the Galapagos Islands, while also allowing people like fishermen and ecotourism workers to maintain their livelihoods and ways of life. As a result, it would make climate change solutions stronger, and help integrate a wide variety of areas into conservation. Areas such as government and policy work, and grassroot initiatives, would be able to contribute to changing the way we look at climate change.

“The question is: how do you make the natural sciences and social sciences talk to each other?” Palacios-Abrantes said. “How do we achieve the flexibility needed for these areas to accommodate each other, and create long-lasting climate change solutions?”

Will this new framework be able to encompass all perspectives into every decision?

“Unfortunately, while the framework tries to find a middle ground, it cannot take into consideration all areas of nature and human life,” Palacios-Abrantes said. “It is hard to find a perfect balance between so many different perspectives and considerations. For everything, there are trade-offs that must happen in order to make decisions that move us forward.”

Managing biodiversity in the Anthropocene: discussing the Nature Futures Framework as a tool for adaptive decision-making for nature under climate change was published in Sustainability Science.

Tags: biodiversity, climate change, conservation, Galápagos, IOF postdoctoral fellows, Juliano Palacios-Abrantes, natural science, Research, social sciences, tourism

Posted in 2022, IOFNews, News Release | Tagged with biodiversity, climate change, conservation, Galápagos, IOF postdoctoral fellows, Juliano Palacios-Abrantes, natural science, Research, social sciences, tourism

As sea ice retreats, narwhals are changing their migration patterns

Narwhals are changing their migration patterns in response to pressure from changing Arctic climates, a new UBC report has found.

Narwhals are the perfect Arctic animal for a migration study. These culturally-significant whales are considered to be among the most sensitive Arctic marine mammals to the effects of climate change. They are thought to live over 100 years old, and are seasonally migratory, with migratory patterns that include travel from shallow, ice-free waters to wintering grounds with over 95 per cent ice coverage. Since narwhals can be so long-lived, changes in behaviour may be one of the few recourses to adjust to the new normal of a changing Arctic.

The timing of migration appears to be changing over the longer time frame, matching changes in climate-driven sea-ice loss across the region. This study used satellite measurement devices to observe narwhal behaviour, including when they switched their behaviour into a migratory mode, when they left the summering areas, and how direct their movements were.

“We looked at satellite tracking data spanning 21 years from the Canadian Arctic, and found significant delays in the timing of narwhal autumn migrations, where narwhals were remaining longer in their summer areas at a rate of 10 days per decade,” said Dr. Courtney Shuert, lead author and post-doctoral fellow in the Statistical Ecology Research Group in the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF). “There were also sex-specific differences in departures, with the male narwhals starting the migration out of the summering areas, while females potentially with dependent young departing later by almost a week.”

Narwhals have shown a preference for cold water, and their space use is largely tempered by ice cover and the availability of open water regions. As a result, narwhals may be residing in coastal waters within the larger summering areas, until ice formation in the autumn and an increasing risk of entrapment, forces movement over deeper water towards the wintering areas in central Baffin Bay.

These changes in habit predictability due to climate shifts that have resulted in narwhals remaining longer in their summering areas, likely adjusting within a single individual lifetime, and will help us better understand how marine mammals in the High Arctic are adapting to climate change, Shuert said.

Does this change in behaviour means that narwhals will be able to adapt to climate change? “Unfortunately, departing later is not necessarily good news for the narwhal,” said Dr. Marie Auger-Méthé, senior author and an associate professor in the IOF. “Because staying in the summering grounds could results in further exposure to shipping traffic associated with the new iron mine, it may not be beneficial to the narwhals in the long term. We know they are sensitive to shipping disturbance, and that their stress levels have been rising over the part 20 years. In addition, staying in their summering grounds longer could increase the chance of narwhals being caught in quickly freezing ice. Such ice entrapments can kill hundreds of narwhals.”

Climate change and loss of sea ice is creating stressors for these animals, and they are adapting to a new life in the Arctic. “Natural resource exploitation, ice breaking, and tourism are also impacting narwhal migratory patterns,” Auger-Méthé said. “Climate change and increased human exposure are creating additional stress for these whales, and with it, comes consequences for human activity as well.”

Decadal migration phenology of a long-lived Arctic icon keeps pace with climate change, was published in the Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences.

The authors wish to thank the funders of this research: Field work was supported Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, the Nunavut Implementation Fund, and World Wildlife Fund Canada. Other funding was provided by Mitacs through the Mitacs Accelerate program in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund, the Government of Nunavut and the Nunavut Fisheries Association, ArcticNet, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery and Northern Supplement Fund, the Kenneth M. Molson Foundation, the Canadian Research Chair Program, the NSERC Discovery Grant Program, and the NSERC Northern Research Supplements Program, as well as the Canada Foundation for Innovation (the John R. Evans Program) and the B. C. Knowledge Development Fund Program.

Tags: animal movement, Arctic, climate change, IOF postdoctoral fellows, Marie Auger-Methe, migration, narwhals, Research, SERG, whales

Posted in 2022, IOFNews, News Release | Tagged with animal movement, Arctic, climate change, IOF postdoctoral fellows, Marie Auger-Methe, migration, narwhals, Research, SERG, whales

Researchers call for action to stop exploitation of Antarctic waters

Image by David Mark from Pixabay

The critically important Southern Ocean is not being properly protected by its stewards, a distinguished group of scientists from around the globe have noted.

The Southern Ocean has immense global value, for its ability to regulate global ocean temperature, moderate sea levels, and store carbon, as well as the fundamental role its marine native species play in the food web, feeding marine mammals, seabirds, and fish. However, in a new paper, a group of scientists including UBC researchers say the members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCLAMR) and other nations of the world are not protecting it well enough.

“With no Indigenous Peoples in Antarctica, and no local fishing communities, exploitation of the waters surrounding Antarctica has always been the result of industrial distant water activities,” said lead author Dr. Cassandra Brooks, professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. “Species such as toothfish, the region’s top fish predator, Antarctic krill, and mackerel are being overexploited by fishers, to the detriment of the Southern Ocean ecosystem, including local fauna, such as whales and native seabirds.” Dr. Brooks pointed to direct competition between the krill fishery, which, in 2021, killed three juvenile humpback whales, along with 16 seals, and 59 seabirds over the last two seasons.

Humpback whale flukes as it dives in Fournier Bay off Anvers Island (Antarctic Peninsula). Photo by Derek Oyen on Unsplash

The researchers noted that the Southern Ocean suffers major stressors from climate change. Sea ice is melting at alarming rates and ocean acidification and rising temperatures are pushing stocks into other zones, which has allowed for fishing all year round. Fishing at current levels will likely exacerbate environmental impacts on toothfish and Antarctic krill, along with the greater Southern Ocean ecosystem, including competing birds and mammals. Finally, krill’s crucial role in ecosystem and biogeochemical cycles means that impacts to their population is predicted to negatively impact Southern Ocean ecosystem services, including reducing the carbon storage by krill and drawdown of carbon and nutrients to the seafloor by whales.

“Antarctic fish have been easily overexploited, and many of these fisheries continue to be economically viable only on account of government subsidies which, as has been shown, contribute to overfishing,” said senior author Dr. Rashid Sumaila, professor at the UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF) and the school of global affairs and public policy. “The remoteness of the Antarctic means that fuel use is high, leaving a disproportionate carbon footprint for fishing. Further, some fisheries are still targeted by illegal, unregulated, and unreported fisheries.

The researchers highlighted their support of several recommendations that have already been made to CCAMLR, including a suite of science-based tools for managing marine systems for ecological and climate resilience.

“The Southern Ocean should be valued beyond its extractive value,” said co-author Dr. Louise Teh, IOF research associate. “Comprehensively mapping and then assessing the area in terms of ecosystem services should be done. It is important to evaluate this international zone in terms of social perceptions from stakeholders and all non-monetary values, including the significance of its marine mammals and birds, its role in our earth systems, its value as a global wilderness, and its contribution to peace and science.”

“Both current and future generations would suffer greatly if this area continues to be misused. Prioritizing conservation into CCAMLR values, management, and trade-offs in tandem with the wider Antarctic Treaty System, which is included in the CCAMLR Convention is necessary,” agreed Dr. Sumaila.

“The CCAMLR, during its meetings taking place this week and next, should push more forceful approaches to protecting this highly important and vulnerable area. This includes introducing more stringent catch limits, and expanding the current Ross Sea marine protected area to an ecologically representative network of Southern Ocean MPAs. A complete moratorium on finfish fishing may even be required if the species in the Antarctic Peninsula region continue to be vulnerable: unable to combat climate change or rebuild their stocks due to the overfishing pressure.”

“Protect global values of the Southern Ocean ecosystem,” was published in Science today.

Scientists and conservation professionals are invited to give their support for stronger climate change management and reduced fishing in the Southern Ocean: sossouthernoceanscientists.org/

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Posted in 2022, IOFNews, News Release | Tagged with Antarctic, Antarctica, faculty, fisheries management, humpback whales, IOF Research Associates, krill, Louise Teh, ocean governance, overfishing, Rashid Sumaila, Research, whales

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