Tag Archives: aquaculture

Sea Change – Supply challenges and climate changes are forcing the U.S. seafood industry to adapt

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March 2015, By Sherry Daye Scott, QSR Magazine

California-based fast casual Slapfish, which serves a range of premium seafood items—including a Bowl of Shrimp either chilled or fried—partners with Aquarium of the Pacific to develop and maintain a sustainable sourcing plan.

California-based fast casual Slapfish, which serves a range of premium seafood items—including a Bowl of Shrimp either chilled or fried—partners with Aquarium of the Pacific to develop and maintain a sustainable sourcing plan.

Though U.S. consumption is well below other proteins today, seafood will likely be an increasingly important part of the American diet in the years to come. The country’s population is predicted to grow by 89 million between 2010 and 2050 to 401 million people. More people require more food—and land limitations mean the beef, pork, and poultry industries can only produce so much volume.

Increased domestic consumption will have a direct impact on restaurant operators who serve finfish and shellfish. On one hand, more Americans eating seafood means the potential for increased sales. On the other, it also means the potential for higher wholesale prices. And while space limitations largely don’t affect the seafood industry, it has its own challenges to contend with, especially in the U.S.

For starters, more than 90 percent of the seafood the U.S. consumes is imported from countries with their own growing demand for protein. China, the global seafood producer and processor leader, is experiencing a rise in its middle class. China used to be a net exporter of seafood, but now it’s a net importer. The same is true of other seafood-producing countries in Asia and South America.

“If I am a buyer of seafood,” says Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association (MAA), “global demand is going to make it harder for me to source.”

In addition, climate changes are forcing suppliers to reevaluate their sourcing practices and invest in new practices, like aquaculture. These challenges have all levels of seafood stakeholders looking at new ways to approach the present—and future—state of the seafood industry.

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US/NZ Host International Workshop on Ocean Acidification

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August 27th, 2014  US Embassy Press Release

(Note from GOH: our staff member Todd Capson is a participant in this workshop and in article)

An International Workshop on Ocean Acidification: State-of-the-Science Considerations for Small Island Developing States

August 28-29, 2014

Apia, Samoa

Jointly hosted by New Zealand and the United States in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme

Parallel Event of the UN Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States

Leading international ocean scientists and policy experts are tomorrow gathering in Apia, Samoa to better understand the threat ocean acidification poses to Pacific Island nations.

The workshop, co-hosted by the United States and New Zealand Governments in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, will be held on the margins of the Small Island Developing States Conference, on the 28-29 August.

The workshop participants, who hail from the nations attending the Small Island Developing States conference, will discuss best practices, solutions and ocean acidification monitoring programmes for island nations to implement.

US Embassy ChargĂ© d’Affaires, a.i. Marie Damour said US Secretary of State John Kerry’s ‘Our Ocean’ conference in June, highlighted ocean acidification as a key threat to the world’s oceans.

“The workshop, in addition to coming up with practical solutions for the challenge of ocean acidification in the Pacific, showcases the strong partnership between the US and New Zealand on oceans and science issues,” she said.

“As Minister Steven Joyce highlighted this week, the United States is New Zealand’s most significant research and technology partner,” she said.

This week’s Ocean Acidification workshop follows on from a workshop in Nelson in December 2013 which identified ways to future proof New Zealand’s $350 aquaculture industry. It was held in partnership between the US Department of State, the New Zealand Government, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, Sanford Limited and the Cawthron Institute.

This week’s workshop, entitled ‘An International Workshop on Ocean Acidification: State-of-the-Science Considerations for Small Island Developing States’, was officially announced by US and New Zealand at the 45th Pacific Islands Forum in Palau held this year in August.

Speaking at the event will be Dr Todd Capson, an American oceans scientist and Science & Policy Advisor to the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership in Washington DC who also co-organised the Nelson event.

The organisations co-sponsoring the Ocean Acidification workshop are the US Department of State, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme.

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How Will Cod React to Global Warming? Researchers Subject Fish to High CO2 Levels to Find Out

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May 8th, 2014, By Eva Tallaksen, undercurrentnews.com

cod in high co2Scientists in Tromso, Norway, are exposing cod broodstock to high CO2 to find out how the fish will cope as the seas get warmer, and more acidic.

“The idea is to find out, how will ocean acidification affect aquaculture and wild fish?” said Christopher Bridges, zoology professor at the university of Dusseldorf.

It is hoped larvae scooped from five tanks at Nofima’s national cod breeding center will soon yield some clues.

Each tank contained 60 cod broodstock averaging 3-5 kilos in size, exposed to different levels of temperatures and acidity. The fish spawned March and April, and their larvae, which hatched in the past two weeks, are currently being tested.

“The key aspect will be to look at the larvae’s survival rate,” said Bridges.

If global warming continues as some scientists think, the oceans’ CO2 levels could reach 1,000 to 1,200 ppm (parts per million) by 2100, up from just under 400ppm today.

That would take the seas’ pH level down to 7.8, from 8.1 today.

Most the research into the seas’ growing acidity has focused on the impact on fish eggs or larvae, or on habitats. But few have so far focused on its impact on broodstock, said Bridges.

Bridges is one of the scientists involved in the project, which is led by the publicly-funded German Bioacid initiative. Cooperating in the project are Germany’s Geomar and Alfred Wegner Institute, working in Norway under the EU FP7 support project Aquaexcel using the facilities of Nofima.

In two of the tanks, the cod were kept at normal acidity levels (400ppm), but one tank had a temperature of 5 degrees Celcius, and the other 10 degrees. In two other tanks, the fish were exposed to CO2 levels of 1,200 ppm, again with one tank at 5 degrees and the other at 10 degrees.

These four tanks all used broodstock from farmed fish, bred by Nofima’s center. A fifth tank was filled with fish from the wild, but these were caught too late to be used for the experiment.

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Gulf of Maine Uniquely Susceptible to Ocean Acidification

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The Working Waterfont, May 21, 2014. By Heather Deese and Susie Arnold

A recent study led by Aleck Wang, a chemical oceanographer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, has identified the Gulf of Maine as outstanding in an unfortunate way—more susceptible to pressures of ocean acidification than any other region along the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico.

oysters, maine.Ocean acidification may not be a familiar term for many, but it is a critically important aspect of ocean chemistry for all of us to understand.

Ocean acidification is the changing chemistry of seawater caused by the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2). As CO2 is absorbed into seawater, the resulting reactions decrease the availability of carbonate ions, which are critical building blocks for forming the shells and skeletons of many marine organisms. The process also increases the number of hydrogen ions, which leads to lower pH and greater acidity. Toxic chemicals from storm water, industrial pollution and other runoff that flows into the ocean also can contribute to acidification of coastal waters.

Wang and his colleagues think the Gulf of Maine’s susceptibility may be due to a few different factors. Fresh and cold water holds more CO2, and the Gulf of Maine has a lot of colder and fresher water coming in from the Labrador Current, in addition to a large proportion of fresh water from rivers. Also, the semi-enclosed shape of the Gulf tends to hold this more acidic water.

Around the same time this study came out, researchers in Alaska published disturbing results on the impacts of ocean acidification on Red King Crab and Tanner crabs. Their laboratory studies showed decreased survival and growth in low pH water in both species and 100 percent mortality of Red King Crab larvae after 95 days in acidification scenarios predicted for the end of this century.

A few months later, a scallop aquaculture operation in British Colombia appeared to become the latest commercial victim of ocean acidification with a massive die-off.

Oyster aquaculturists on the West Coast have been responding to die-offs for nearly ten years and within the last several years their onsite pH monitoring has confirmed the link to acidification. Upwelling conditions in the Pacific Northwest, which bring cold water to the surface, tend to have lower pH than surface water. The pH of this water has decreased further in recent decades due to increasing atmospheric CO2 and pollutants that run from the land into the ocean.

Rep. Mick Devin, D-Newcastle, who also is a marine biologist at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center, has been concerned about the vulnerability of Maine’s marine ecosystems and fisheries-dependent communities to this unfolding threat. Last fall, he proposed LD 1602, which would establish a commission to study the effects of coastal and ocean acidification on species that are commercially harvested and grown along the Maine coast.

Thanks to support from diverse interest groups, including fishing and aquaculture industries, coastal community members, environmental groups, state agencies and others, the bill became law April 30.

Scientists still don’t know exactly how changing chemistry will impact the various life stages of most marine organisms, particularly a lot of commercially important species. For example, there is still very little known about the possible impacts on lobsters.

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Ocean Acidification Workshop in Nelson Focuses on Protecting Our Marine Resources

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This past week my deputy Marie Damour traveled to Nelson for a workshop on ocean acidification which our Embassy co-sponsored with the New Zealand government, the NZ seafood industry and the Gordon & Betty Moore foundation. The workshop, titled “Future Proofing New Zealand’s Shellfish Aquaculture:  Monitoring and Adaptation to Ocean Acidification,” was intended to respond to what Secretary of State John Kerry describes as the “economic, environmental, and policy concerns created by increasing levels of carbon dioxide and the resulting acidification of our oceans.”

 

The two-day conference brought together more than 60 shellfish experts to share their knowledge in order to help identify ways to protect New Zealand’s NZ$ 350 million (US$ 285 million) per year aquaculture industry from the effects of climate change. The agenda was organized around two topics identified as top priorities during the 2012 session of the N.Z.-U.S. Joint Commission on Science and Technology Cooperation – (1) Climate Change Monitoring, Research, and Services in the Pacific, and (2) Marine and Ocean Research.

 

Click for source.The Great Barrier Reef.

Coral reefs are particularly sensitive to acidification.

 

Just as climate change has evolved from a purely scientific discussion into a set of significant economic and security concerns, ocean acidification has quickly evolved from a theoretical exercise into a major economic threat. Just looking at the United States, for example, one of every six jobs is marine-related, and more than one-third of the Gross National Product originates in coastal areas.

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