New cod data shake fishing industry (Gulf of Maine)

http://www.pressherald.com/news/new-cod-data-shake-fishing-industry_2011-11-26.html

BOSTON - A new look at the health of one of New England's most storied fish stocks is troubling the industry, with some saying the findings have got to be wrong.

Just three years ago, a federal study showed the Gulf of Maine cod was healthy and headed toward recovery.

Now preliminary data suggest the valuable species is in dismal shape and won't rebuild within the time set by law. In a worst-case scenario, that could mean a broad fishery shutdown to protect the cod. But that drastic step would be a long way away.

The preliminary data will first be reviewed, beginning next week, and fishery managers will have other alternatives before a shutdown. Still, anxiety is high.

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The challenge is getting enforcement with teeth at an international level to allow the stock to repopulate, AND compensating the fishermen for lost earnings while the population does just that.

In this case it also seems certain we have some bad science - either the Bush era study was poorly done, or this current data has some issues. I know which one I'm betting on.

there doesn't appear to be a viable 'free market' mechanism to regulate ocean fishing.

There is a huge difference between the collapse of a fishery (this issue) and extinction.

"there doesn't appear to be a viable 'free market' mechanism to regulate ocean fishing" and i say there is it's called extinction. this is to which i was refering

These sites were overfished for decades. They are unlikely to recover without a moratorium lasting decades.

The amount of time it took to deplete the population is not at all relevant to the time required for the population to recover.

If you aren't familiar with the subject already, you might enjoy checking wiki or some other source for "r/K selection". Most teleosts (bony fish) are r selected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory

Is that those previous recoveries didn't have fish attempting to recover as the oceans themselves were changing due to climate change and ocean acidification.

If the waters in those fishing areas warm too far too fast, the food chain that previously supported the cod could also collapse, thus preventing any kind of recovery from occurring.

While ocean acidification has been measured in some surface areas it isn't causing any ecological changes on the scale you are suggesting. We've observed some thinning of the exoskeletons of some microbiota, an indication that there is a serious problem in the making. But unless you have significant new information to share, your speculations are not appropriate to what is known.

Ocean acidification, while a more distant but potentially devastating change, is but one of the potential impacts on the ocean's biota. For example:

http://www.gulfofmaine-census.org/research/research-projects/atlantic-cod-distribution-and-abundance-in-relation-to-climate-change/

"We conclude that under the 1°C temperature rise scenario, the maximum yield for cod will decline by approximately 21%. Under a 2°C temperature increase we predict a 43% decline in maximum yield. At this higher temperature level, we predict that the stock would go extinct at fishing mortality rates which are marginally sustainable under a 1°C increase in temperature. These results qualitatively point to a decrease in yield and a decrease in resilience to fishing pressure under increasing temperature regimes."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090212171941.htm

"In the North Sea, the northward shift of Atlantic Cod may reduce its abundance by more than 20 per cent, while European plaice - a more southerly fish - may increase by more than 10 per cent
In the US, there may be a 50 per cent reduction in the number of some cod populations on the east coast by 2050"

You wrote that these issues are going to alter the ecosystem now, in the present case. There is no evidence you are correct.

So yes, I'd say we are seeing the ecosystem altering as we speak. For example: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6162167/North-Sea-cod-could-disappear-even-if-fishing-outlawed.html

"Over the last 40 years the North Sea's temperature has increased by one degree centigrade, which has proved enough to prompt cod to seek alternative habitats.

The warming has also changed the plankton distribution and that has hastened the departure of the cod.

Cod's young usually feed on a particular species of copepod plankton, but because they also prefer cold water they have moved further north.

The copepod's numbers have declined by more than 60 per cent as the sea has warmed over the last four decades."

The cod are already migrating north as their food supplies falter in the more southernly portions of their range. As the planet warms further, they will be forced to migrate even further.

How you can claim we haven't seen any significant alterations to the ecosystem yet due to climate change really boggles my mind. Even if you dismiss the North Atlantic ecosystem, you have the death of the boreal forest ecosystem due to insect infestation, the thawing of the northern tundra ecosystem, the increased droughts in the N. American South/Southwest and Australia, etc, etc, all attributed to the global warming.

You claimed that their work couldn't be trusted because past performance of that local fishery was not a guide to the to current ability of this r-selected population to recover. That is what I'm focused on. If you want to have a different discussion - which is what you are in fact doing - then introduce it and stop pretending you are supporting the original off-target remark.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091102172247.htm

"About half of 36 fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, many of them commercially valuable species, have been shifting northward over the last four decades, with some stocks nearly disappearing from U.S. waters as they move farther offshore, according to a new study by NOAA researchers.

Their findings, published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, show the impact of changing coastal and ocean temperatures on fisheries from Cape Hatteras, N.C., to the Canadian border.

Janet Nye, a postdoctoral researcher at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. and the lead author of the study, looked at annual spring survey data from 1968 to 2007 for stocks ranging from Atlantic cod and haddock to yellowtail and winter flounders, spiny dogfish, Atlantic herring, and less well-known species like blackbelly rosefish. Historic ocean temperature records and long-term processes like the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation dating back to 1850 were also analyzed to put the temperature data into context."

So yes, I would say: past performance of that local fishery is not a guide to the to current ability of this r-selected population to recover.

It's a common theme we're now seeing. Just because a species or even entire ecosystem could recover in the past is no indication they can recover now despite our best attempts, because the climate is already starting to shift outside of the range those species evolved in. For example, how confident are you that whitebark pines could ever recover in the Yellowstone ecosystem? http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/whitebark/

Are you seriously claiming that this fishery is now going extinct because of climate change?

You can't be that daft.