Issue: May 2023

Three U.S. House of Representatives members are calling on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to expand and update the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), while also advocating for SIMP expansion to all species. Rep. Jared Huffman of California, ranking member of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries, along with fellow subcommittee member Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and Rep. Jimmy Panetta, also of California, in a letter to NOAA, pointed out perceived shortcomings of the agency’s recent proposed rulemaking on SIMP.  Other signers of the letter included representatives from California, Texas, North Carolina and Hawaii. The March 27 letter said that as the world’s largest seafood-importing country, the U.S. has the purchasing...

NOAA Fisheries officials on March 15 proposed listing the sunflower sea star, once common along the Pacific coast of North America, as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), due to its sharp decline and the threat of a lethal pathogen. More than 90% of sunflower sea stars were killed from 2013 to 2017 by Sea Star Wasting Syndrome, in what was considered the largest marine wildlife disease outbreak on record.  Sea stars that contract the syndrome become lethargic, develop lesions, lose their arms and within days disintegrate into gooey masses. Sunflower sea stars are voracious predators that consume a wide variety of benthic species and can influence ecosystem structure by virtue of their predatory habits. They prey on sea urchins, which consume kelp and other marine vegetat...

A NOAA Fisheries researcher in Seattle who’s leading an international team of scientists has compiled a model to predict growth, survival and reproductive strategies for all known fish species in the world. “We’re using a Robin Hood approach,” said Jim Thorson, the leader of the Habitat and Ecological Process Research (HEPR) program at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. “Steal from the data-rich fish, give to the data-poor,” he said in a report released March 27 by NOAA Fisheries. “Our study extends the approach to life-history theory.” The model advances NOAA’s ability to predict impacts of climate change. Besides improving the knowledge of many species traits, it offers the capability to include hundreds of fish species simultaneously in ecosystem models. Global resul...

Scientists studying new information on changes in river discharge from winter ice melt and temperature in the Yukon River in Alaska say it may be influencing the timing and duration of juvenile chum, Chinook and coho salmon migrations. They are trying to determine if, as salmon migrations change due to shifting environmental conditions, that leads to a mismatch with the availability of prey. Katharine Miller, a fish biologist and lead author of the study, which was released on March 20, said the work is important in helping communities better understand what is behind recent declines in salmon abundance and how climate-induced environmental changes may alter migration patterns in future years. The long-term decline of Chinook salmon along the Yukon River since the early 1990s resulted...

Participants in ComFish Alaska 2023, undeterred by a spring snowstorm that halted jet traffic in and out of Kodiak for a day, tackled climate challenges to fisheries, as well as the prospective economic and environmental benefits of kelp mariculture efforts. The state’s biggest and longest-running commercial fisheries trade show—which began in a borrowed Alaska National Guard tent in 1980—incorporated into this year’s March 16-18 program a mix of presenters ranging from harvesters, fisheries managers, federal and state legislators to historians and experts in marine debris and kelp mariculture. The event also featured 50 trade show booths offering fishing marine supplies, vessel permits and sales, expertise in satellite technology, health care, recycling, seafood marketing and more. D...