-: Good evening.
We're pleased to have you join us for our annual
Seaside Chat Speaker Series about ocean topics
associated with Flower Garden Banks,
National Marine Sanctuary, and the Gulf of Mexico.
This year, we are also part of
the National Marine Sanctuaries Webinar Series,
hosted by NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries,
as well as the NOAA Science Seminar Series.
During the presentation,
all attendees will be in listen-only mode.
You are welcome to type questions
for the presenter into the questions box
in the bottom of the control panel
on the right-hand side of your screen.
This is the same area you can let us know
about any technical issues you may be having.
We will be monitoring incoming questions
and technical issues,
and we'll respond to them as soon as we can.
We are recording this session,
and we'll post the recording to
the National Marine Sanctuaries
and Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary websites.
We will notify registered participants
via email when these recordings are available.
And for those of you who are educators,
we have provided an activity handout in the control panel.
Simply click on this item to download it.
The Seaside Chat Speaker Series began as a way
for Flower Garden Bank's National Marine Sanctuary
to share current research and management efforts
in the Gulf of Mexico in an informal setting.
These chats started in 2012 with presentations
in the gift shop at the Galveston Fishing Pier.
from one year to the next, we moved around
the Galveston community hosting presentations
at Moody Gardens, Texas A&M Galveston,
Texas Seaport Museum, and Sea Star Base Galveston.
In 2020, we brought the presentations
home to our offices at historic Fort Crockett
just before the world shut down for the pandemic.
Although we have offered webinar connections
during our live events for many years,
it wasn't until 2021 that we went completely virtual
and joined forces with the National Marine
Sanctuary Webinar Series.
In all that time, our Seaside Chats
only missed one year, 2019,
which makes this our 10th year of presentations.
We've chosen to recognize this milestone
with a new graphic, and we hope you agree with us
that this comfortable chair by the sea at sunset
captures the essence of our program.
Hello, everyone.
My name is Kelly Drinnen,
and I'm the Education/Outreach Specialist
for Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
I'll be facilitating today's webinar
from Dickinson, Texas.
Also with me today is Leslie Whaylen Clift,
our Constituency Affairs Coordinator.
Leslie will be helping me
with the backend administration of this webinar.
50 years ago, the United States ushered in
a new era of ocean conservation
by creating the National Marine Sanctuary System.
Since then, we've grown into a nationwide network
of 15 National Marine Sanctuaries
and two Marine National Monuments
that conserve more than 620,000 square miles
of spectacular ocean and Great Lake waters,
an area nearly the size of Alaska.
These marine protected areas are kind of like
national parks and national forests, but under water.
In celebration of this 50th anniversary,
we are running a Save Spectacular campaign
across the entire sanctuary system,
a way to remind everyone just how special
these places really are.
The National Marine Sanctuaries Act
gives NOAA the authority to designate
special areas of the marine environment
as National Marine Sanctuaries.
It also mandates that the Office
of National Marine Sanctuaries conduct research,
monitoring, resource protection,
education, outreach, and management
of America's underwater treasures
to preserve them for future generations.
In addition to being places for recreation
and research, National Marine Sanctuaries
are also living classrooms where people can see,
touch, and learn about the nation's Great Lakes
and ocean treasures.
This webinar series is just one part
of that national education and outreach effort.
Today's Seaside Chat Series is hosted
by Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary,
the only National Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico.
This sanctuary consists of 17 banks,
or small underwater mountains,
that are home to some of the healthiest coral reefs
in the world, amazing algal and sponge communities,
and deep reef habitats featuring
an abundance of black coral.
The original sanctuary designation took place
in January, 1992, meaning that we just celebrated
our 30th anniversary a few weeks ago.
As you can see, 2022 is turning out
to be quite the anniversary year.
Today's presentation focuses on
how we can reduce the impacts of climate change
on fishing in the Gulf of Mexico.
Climate change threatens all key life support systems
on our planet, especially our ocean.
Even with drastic global actions
to reduce emissions, changes in the ocean
will grow more profound and accelerate.
These changes won't just damage special places
like coral reefs and mangrove forests.
They will fundamentally alter ocean ecosystems
and the fisheries within them.
However, with thoughtful interventions,
these impacts can be significantly reduced
and perhaps even reversed.
Our speaker today will lead an interactive
discussion to explore the interventions
necessary for sustainable fisheries
in a climate-driven Gulf of Mexico.
Today, we welcome Sepp Haukebo
to talk about his work with fisheries
in the Gulf of Mexico.
Sepp graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor's of Science
in Marine Biology from Texas A&M Galveston.
Soon after, he started his graduate studies
at Texas A&M where he gained field experience
diving at the Flower Garden Banks,
tagging blue marlin in the northern Gulf of Mexico,
and cave diving in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.
After graduating with a Masters of Science
in Wildlife and Fishery Sciences,
he traveled to Washington, D.C.
for Sea Grant's John A. Knauss fellowship.
There he worked for NOAA's Office of Education.
Sepp currently works at the global non-profit
Environmental Defense Fund, working with anglers
and scientists to develop and implement
long-term solutions to recreational fisheries management.
His objectives are to balance
access to the fishery with sustainability
for generations to come.
Sepp is also a recreational fisherman himself.
Welcome, Sepp.
Sepp, you can go ahead, and there you go.
I see you now.
-: Thanks, Kelly.
-: You're welcome.
-: Good evening.
-: Do you have screen control?
-: I saw a meme about this.
Yeah, I do.
I just saw meme about this the other day,
where people always tend to just stare at the screen
and say, "Let me, let get my presentation launched."
(Kelly laughing)
Let me know when you can see my slide.
-: Okay, not just yet.
There's a little bit of a delay.
Leslie: This is Leslie, I'm seeing it, Sepp,
but I'm not seeing it in the full, there we go.
-: Here we go. There now.
Okay, take it away, Sepp.
-: Awesome. Thanks, everyone.
Well, good evening, everybody.
My name is Sepp Haukebo.
Tonight, we'll be talking about
the Future Fisheries in a Climate-Driven Gulf.
A quick note on these types of chats.
I love that our sanctuary hosts the Seaside Chats,
and I did a little bit of research
to remind myself
exactly what it was that brought
these fireside chats about.
And they started in 1933 at a time
when there was a lot of hardship across the country.
There were a lot of fears.
There was a lot of uncertainty,
and the intent of FDR's fireside chats
was to help address the fears and concerns
of the people and share information
on the efforts to tackle the nation's biggest challenges.
Kelly gave a great overview of kind of how
these Seaside Chats started.
And those fireside chats were really
to give hope, right?
And I'm no FDR, and the challenges of today
are very different from those
of the 1930s and '40s,
but still my intent for this talk
is to provide some hope as it relates to our
fisheries of the Gulf and our Gulf community.
EDF began in 1967 as a scrappy group of scientists
and a lawyer on Long Island, New York
fighting to save osprey from the toxic pesticide DDT.
Using scientific evidence, our founders
helped get DDT banned nationwide,
and today we're one of the world's largest
environmental organizations,
and science still guides everything we do.
We have about 2.5 million members worldwide.
Now I work in our Oceans program,
and we work with fishing communities,
scientists, fishery managers,
and other decision makers around the world
to help rebuild the world's fisheries.
We are driven by science, economics,
law, and human-centered design.
Now real quick, little background on me.
I grew up in a landlocked state,
but I loved the water and I loved fishing.
And in high school, I learned that
Texas A&M Galveston was one of the best
marine science schools in the country.
And through A&M, I was exposed to a number of classes
on marine fisheries, marine biology, and diving.
And I went from a snorkeler
to a fully-certified cave diver in two years
through A&M Galveston, and that included
opportunities to dive and do research
on the Flower Garden Banks.
A&M provides a gateway to a ton
of opportunities in STEM fields.
My classmates have gone on to work in academia,
research, medicine, engineering, and policy.
And after A&M, I spent some time
roaming the oceans, then went back
to get my Master's from A&M and focused
on underwater caves in the Yucatan of Mexico.
I also, as Kelly mentioned,
pursued the Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship
and have since been with EDF for the last four years
working on recreational fishery solutions.
As Kelly also mentioned, I also serve
on our Sanctuary Advisory Council.
Here's an action shot on the top right
of the SAC at work.
And that's been a great opportunity to stay engaged with
research and management at the sanctuary.
So quick outline for today,
I'm gonna start real broad
with an overview of what a fishery is
and how they're managed.
And then we'll start to get into the meat
and potatoes of climate ready fisheries.
I'll take you on a quick tour of some resources
to let you also do your own research.
And then I'm gonna wrap up with some take home messages.
So what is a fishery?
Well, a fishery includes so many different components,
but the core pieces are the ecosystem,
the human communities, and the livelihoods
tied to an area of ocean where sea creatures are caught,
and that includes fish, shellfish,
that could include a number of species.
And there's three main types of fishing,
especially as it relates to fisheries.
There's commercial, which is catching
and marketing seafood for profit.
There's recreational,
which is fishing for sport or pleasure,
and that includes private anglers,
the folks that take their own boat out,
as well as charters,
whether it's party boats or
some of the charters where you rent the whole boat.
And then there's subsistence fishing,
which is really fishing for personal, family,
or community consumption.
Now, why are fisheries important?
Well, number one, they provide food.
Over three billion people around the world
depend on fish as a key source of protein.
They also provide economic impact,
contributing up to $270 billion dollars
to the global economy.
And they support jobs, over 260 million jobs globally.
So let's do a quick poll in the chat.
We'd like to ask folks,
how do you interact with your nearest fishery,
whether it's the Gulf or another part of the world?
Are you a commercial fisher, recreational fisher,
a scientist, seafood consumer, scuba diver?
So let's give 10 seconds for folks to
do a chat storm and just blast
a ton of responses in there.
And apologies, Leslie, if there's hundreds of responses,
but that's a good thing, right?
Leslie: Yeah, so I've seen scientist,
seafood consumer, diver,
recreational, recreational fisher,
recreational, Chesapeake Bay, mostly recreational,
diver and consumer, scuba diver.
I see fish, I eat them.
Scientist, research diver,
scientist, faculty, seafood consumer,
lots of seafood consumers, swimmers,
education and outreach for fishers.
Kelly: And I saw illustrator in there, too.
-: Nice.
Leslie: Collect fishing line, teachers,
recreational diver and fisherman.
-: Awesome.
Leslie: Consumer, lots of consumers.
-: Great, great responses.
Yeah, so I mean, just that highlights
just all the different ways that fisheries
are important to different folks.
I want folks to read this quote
and think about this for a minute.
"Really managing fisheries is about managing people,"
and truly think about that.
If we can't manage the fish themselves,
we can't control these fish,
and human action is the primary lever,
what can we actually do to manage a fishery?
So, I'd like folks just to take
maybe 15, 20 seconds to think about that,
write down on a piece of paper some of your ideas,
or type it into your cell phone,
or just capture a few of those in your mind.
Hopefully folks got a few ideas down.
The good news is there's actually a lot that we can do,
and there's so many different factors in our oceans
that we can't control, but there's a lot that we can.
So here's just a few examples of levers,
and really it's the who, what, where, when and how?
Who can fish?
This includes the number of licenses, permits,
which sectors get what percentage of fish?
There's a lot of governance that can take place there.
What species: what species are gonna be protected,
what species
will have certain limits, what species are invasive?
So there's a lot to think about in terms of what species.
There's a lot to think about in terms of where.
Are there gonna be some closed locations?
Are there going to be marine-protected areas?
Certain sanctuaries in the US don't allow
certain levels of commercial or recreational fishing.
You can also manage when fishing is allowed.
Are there gonna be closed seasons?
And another example is how to fish?
Are there certain gear restrictions?
There's certain parts of the world
where bottom trawling is not allowed,
certain trawling is not allowed.
There's certain types of line fishing that's not allowed.
There's certain places where you can't
scuba dive and spear fish.
So there's actually a lot of components
that you can build regulations around.
Okay, so when we talk about the importance
of fisheries in terms of food security,
and economic opportunity, and jobs,
it's important to recognize what happens
when fisheries are not managed at all,
or in this case that I'm gonna talk about,
when they're not managed well.
And one of the best known examples
around the world is the collapse
of the Atlantic Cod Fishery off the East Coast,
really affecting Canada
and the northeast portion of the US.
Now I want folks to look at this graph
and look at the amount of fish
that was being harvested in the 1960s.
It was over 800,000 tons of cod per year.
That's an incredible number,
but it was also more than the ecosystem could handle,
and shortly after that, you saw a drastic decrease.
And then in the '90s, you actually saw
the stock crash.
Now fishery managers in the Northeast
are still working to rebuild those stocks.
And there's a lot of reasons for the collapse:
tremendous fishing pressure,
lack of effective regulations,
inadequate data collection,
and lack of political will to reduce catch
when early signs of overfishing appeared.
Now we've learned a lot from that collapse,
but in many fisheries, we still see
some of the mistakes still being made,
even here, in parts of the US and around the world.
And that includes kicking the can down the road,
holding off on making difficult decisions,
waiting for more science or better science.
And I say all this, but it's also important
to recognize that when people's livelihoods are at stake,
it's also hard to say, "You can't go fish.
You can't earn a wage this month,
or this season, or this year,
because we have to let the fishery rebuild."
However, in this case, when the stock crashed,
it wasn't just a few fishermen that were affected.
In the end, it was the entire fishery,
the communities, the supply chain
that ended up losing their livelihoods.
So inability to make the hard decisions now
can lead to disastrous effects down the line,
and also add that there are mitigation strategies
to help with issues before they become fully exploited.
And when you get to this point of a crashed fishery,
then all the decisions are gonna be
exponentially more difficult
and make those mitigation strategies equally challenging.
Now, I won't get too much into this aspect,
how climate change played a role in that collapse,
but the important thing to take away from this
is that changing temperatures and oceanic conditions
have been affected by climate change.
And like I said, we'll get into this
in just a little bit.
So we've got a bit of a perspective
from around the world and the US.
Let's zoom in on the Gulf a little bit.
In the Gulf of Mexico, Red Snapper is one of
the most important fisheries,
both in terms of recreational and commercial fishing.
Now here, we're looking at data about red snapper,
and in terms of what fishery data is useful,
these are two of the most important.
On the top, you see total biomass,
and on the bottom graph, the bottom right,
you see spawning ratio.
Now the blue line is the Eastern Gulf,
which is areas offshore of Mississippi,
Alabama, and Florida.
And then the red line is the Western Gulf,
which includes areas offshore of Louisiana and Texas.
Now I noticed that in the 1950s,
there was a significant decline,
and the fishery actually almost collapsed around 1990.
Fisheries management has actually brought
this fishery back from the brink of collapse,
and that's where you see both the total biomass,
you see that uptick in the red and the blue
shortly after the two thousands,
and same in that bottom right graph,
the spawning ratio.
Now this success story would not have been possible
without the commercial and recreational
fishing community working with scientists,
and fishery managers, and conservation groups
to identify solutions that help
the red snapper population rebound
and become the economic engine that it is today.
So as far as a few more resources about fisheries,
there's a ton more to learn
about fisheries and fisheries research.
But I got a shameless plug here
for a program that I'm a huge fan of,
the Teacher at Sea program.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
NOAA, actually places teachers and educators
from formal and informal education institutions
to fill empty berths on their research vessels.
The teachers get exposed to
a ton of interesting field research
on ocean exploration, fishery surveys,
and so much more.
And many of the vessels are filled with
cutting-edge gizmos and gadgets,
and the participants get to access
and learn from the crew,
you're eating with the crew, and the researchers,
and the tech experts that are on that vessel.
And then during the cruise,
the teachers will actually start to
to translate their experience into
communications, materials, and lessons
that they actually share with
their institutions, their students.
And they've got an awesome alumni support network.
2019 was the last season before COVID.
But as I understand, they're starting it back up this year.
They're gonna be accepting applications next year,
but follow their newsletter
if you're not familiar with them,
and you're interested in learning a little bit more.
And also for my fellow educators out there,
another great tool to understand
the human element of fisheries management
is a game that EDF developed
called The Fishing Game.
You can get some of the resources from this link here,
but this can be played online,
or it can be played in person with candy.
Swedish Fish is one of my favorite,
or beans, or any small, little thing
that you can count, and catch, and collect,
but you can also play on Google Slides
if you can't do it in person.
But the trick here is to have a finite number of fish,
allow the students to go crazy in the first season
and catch all the fish,
and then start to talk about
what are some of the ramifications?
How's that fishery gonna rebuild in the next season
if you've taken all the spawners
or all the brood stock out of the water?
And then you start to talk to the students
and say, "Okay, what kind of new regulations
would we introduce in this next season?"
Have the students
play each one of the roles, like a fisher,
a scientist, a fishery manager,
and think about all those different questions.
What are the human levers that you can
actually control and keep that a viable fishery
where there's still jobs,
and seafood, but there's also sustainability?
And that works for anybody,
I'd say, from like kindergarten to Capitol Hill.
We've used this in a lot of different places.
So this isn't just middle school, high school.
This is also great for college students,
and even in communities for folks
that work around the world.
So let's shift gears a little bit
and talk about climate change in fisheries,
the main meat and potatoes of this talk.
Now here we're looking at the three basic climate zones,
the tropics, the temperate region, and the poles.
So let's do another quick poll on the chat.
And I want to ask folks
to enter their answer, but don't hit enter
until I say go, and I'm gonna give everybody
15 seconds to think about this,
type it in, and when I say go,
everybody's gonna hit Enter.
And I want you to think about and name
one change to our oceans that you expect to see
from climate change.
And I'll give a great example.
In most parts of the world,
the waters are actually gonna get warmer.
So, you can't steal that one.
Now I'll give you 15 seconds to type in your response.
Don't hit Enter yet.
We're all gonna hit Enter at once.
Okay, everybody go.
Leslie: Okay, Sepp, I'm seeing answers.
More dead zones, coral bleaching,
weather, acidification, water clarity,
coral bleaching, coral disease increases,
coral death, sea level rise, increased acidity,
rising sea levels,
icebergs melt, more red tides,
migrating fish stocks, changing of ocean currents,
some fish species will disappear.
Sea shells disappearing.
Fish start hiding, fish behavior changes.
-: Yes, there are some great ones in there,
and that's already a long list.
And the list is even longer than that.
We're still finding out how
so many species around the world
are going to be impacted.
And here, there's a lot of information on this slide,
but a few things that I want to highlight is,
that in the tropics, especially warmer waters,
are gonna mean that fish will start
to shift towards the poles.
And in some cases toward deeper waters,
seeking refuge from higher temperatures.
We'll also see more destruction of fish habitat
in the face of warming waters,
for instance, coral bleaching,
and more frequent and intense storm activity
in the tropics, especially,
and we'll also see more disease in warming waters.
Now in the temperate zone,
we're gonna see new fishing opportunities,
new fish moving in, and some fish moving out,
meaning that there's gonna be some new opportunities
to catch new species, while certain fishing windows
are gonna start to close.
Now in the polar region, we'll see melting ice,
which will open up new fishing grounds,
and we'll also see new fish stocks arriving.
So as a whole, the poles are mostly gonna gain,
and remind everybody to think about
what does this mean for fisheries management?
In some areas of the world,
it's gonna mean new opportunities, new economies,
and in other areas, it's gonna mean loss of fish
and loss of livelihoods.
Now, EDF has looked at fisheries around the world,
identifying best practices and worst practices
for climate resilience to help alleviate
some of the impacts and better prepare
for climate change in fisheries.
We identified five core principles that are listed here,
and they're discussed in detail in the handout
that Kelly has attached here in the chat bar.
Today, we're mostly gonna focus on Principle Two,
but there's some really great case studies
in that handout to be able to talk about
places where certain strategies have worked,
or where strategies haven't worked.
But like I said, we're gonna focus on number two.
And a key piece of that is to really start
planning ahead, and to do that,
EDF has a whole suite of resources on our website.
Some that we've developed.
Plenty of others that we've linked to other sites
to help raise awareness about
and advance climate ready fisheries,
and one of the best places to find all this is at
FISHE.edf.org, and that's F-I-S-H-E, FISHE.
Now under the FISHE process,
we have a series of steps to walk,
help walk stakeholders through the entire process
of goal setting, talking about fisheries management,
the participatory process, really sitting down with
this can be applied to small-scale fisheries
in developing countries all the way up to
fully-developed fisheries in developed countries.
But this is also really helpful as an education tool.
And again, for any of my fellow educators out there,
I want to highlight this,
but really Step One is to project future conditions.
And there's a number of sources under this step
that we highlight in the worksheet,
but I'm gonna walk you through a few today.
One of my favorites is AquaMaps.
It's a great resource where you can look at
the species distribution of almost
any marine critter on Earth.
Being a Gulf local, I actually searched for red snapper.
And this map you're looking at here
is the current native range map.
Now you can see the different gradients
of the relative probability of occurrence,
basically dark red is where
you've got a high probability of red snapper
all the way down to this light, light, yellow
where there's a really small chance.
And then there's other places that
don't have any color where you're not
gonna see them at all.
Now I'm gonna show you the range in 2050,
so I want folks to look specifically at the Gulf,
the colors in the Gulf of Mexico,
and then also along the East Coast of the US.
All right, so this is 2050.
This is current.
2050.
Current.
Back to 2050, and a couple things that I noticed
from this is that there's a good chance
folks might actually be catching red snapper
off of New York.
Also notice that the probability of occurrence
really decreases from that dark red
around the tropics,
see how dark red that is around the tropics
off of the northern tip of South America,
and really starts to decrease to
like a light orange and in some places yellow.
Now in the Gulf,
we're expecting red snapper to be
somewhat resilient compared to a number of other species.
But since those snapper can't move
immediately north, 'cause we're a closed-in basin,
we're expecting them to move towards deeper water
to get refuge from increasing sea surface
temperatures and the right habitat conditions.
So when it comes to the human element,
this means commercial and recreational fishers
will need to travel further
to pursue this fish in the future.
Now this map shows the native range
right now for mahi-mahi.
Mahi are known as the rabbit of the sea
because they reproduce so rapidly
and are one of the most sustainable seafood options,
as long as the type of fishing
doesn't destroy habitat or generate bycatch.
Now notice here that mahi are found
almost all over the world within the tropics
and the temperate regions.
And also notice that the Gulf is mostly red
with a little bit of orange.
So this is 2050.
Notice that most of the Gulf now becomes yellow,
and also notice that
the range has expanded towards the poles.
So here's current
and here's 2050.
Current.
2050.
Now we're already hearing about
folks catching mahi a lot more regularly
off of Washington state.
And you can see from this 2050 map
that there's actually gonna be some opportunity
to catch mahi off of Alaska.
Now I could do this exercise
for a hundred different species in the Gulf,
and each one has a really unique story.
Southern flounder perhaps might be
the canary in the coal mine for the Gulf.
And that's one stock where we're already seeing
warming sea surface temperatures
really hammering the fishery.
On the East Coast and the West Coast,
where there's that kind of north/south migration route,
we're already seeing a lot more changes.
Another example I'll give real quick from the Gulf is
we're hearing a lot more fishermen off of Florida
that are catching African pompano.
And if you got a second, I'd say Google that species,
they're really wild looking,
but there's no federal regulations
on catching African pompano in the Gulf.
So as these reports have been rolling in,
the state of Florida is actually developing
those regulations to adjust to that emerging fishery.
And that scenario is gonna play itself out
in various different ways, thousands of times
around the world.
And again, EDF is helping to create tools, best practices
to help adapt to those changing conditions.
I can't go through anymore.
I wish I could highlight a few
'cause this is such a cool tool,
but I highly suggest folks go check out AquaMaps,
type in your favorite species,
whatever part of the world you're in,
check out some of these range shifts,
and this is mostly fish,
but there's a lot of other really neat
species in there, like Caribbean spiny lobster.
Yeah, you name it, it's a great resource.
All right, so back to the FISHE process.
Now I want to highlight
the Climate Vulnerability Analysis or,
also known as a CVA for marine species.
Kelly: Sepp, we just had somebody real quick
ask if you could repeat the information
about the flounder.
-: Yeah, absolutely.
So Southern flounder are actually,
the fishery's not doing well.
And there's a lot of emerging science
that shows that warming sea surface temperatures
are a contributing factor.
I'm not a flounder expert.
So only the papers that I've read
do I have information on,
but that's especially in the Gulf,
that's kind of one of the emerging fisheries
that we know are being impacted heavily.
All right, so onto the CVA.
Really the CVA is a tool for determining
the relative vulnerability of a species.
And this looks super wonky,
but I won't get too technical here.
Bu the basic premise of the CVA
is that the vulnerability of a species,
whether it's coral, a fish, or a marine mammal
really depends on that species' exposure
to climate change and the species' sensitivity
to certain impacts.
I'm gonna go over these terms here in a second.
Now the exposure part of this equation
refers to how much climate change
a species will experience,
given its distribution and behavior.
There are climate maps from all over the world
that talk about the changes to expect
in different parts of the world.
Now, remember our early discussion
on the tropics, versus the temperate zone,
versus the poles.
And so here's a great example
of a few climate exposure factors.
Because the climate is changing
in a lot of different ways, exposure can include
different types of factors,
including things like ocean temperature,
ocean acidification, coastal erosion,
changes in storm frequency and intensity,
and sea level rise.
Now the sensitivity part of the equation
refers to how sensitive a species will be
to climate change given its biological traits.
So this refers to how likely
it is to experience declines or reduced productivity
as a consequence of its biological characteristics.
And I'll get into this in detail in the next few slides.
So these biological traits include things
that are likely to affect how able it is
to respond to climate change.
For example, the diet specificity,
habitat specificity, spawning behavior, mobility,
how much fishing pressure it's under,
and how fast the population can grow.
So each of these species ends up getting
a relative score for how exposed it will be
to the climate factors and how sensitive it will be
to that exposure based on biological traits.
And here, you can see, we've ranked them relatively,
and we can get an overall assessment
of how vulnerable different species are,
which can be helpful for planning and management.
For instance, take a look at the,
I think this is reef shark from
one of our Caribbean CVAs,
which is gonna be very high sensitivity
and really high climate exposure.
Like I said, red snapper are gonna be
moderate to high, but then you've got
like crabs and squid, which are gonna be,
tend to be a little bit lower
in the relative vulnerability.
Now imagine how big this process can get
when you add, for instance, all the different species,
including fish and corals
that are found at the Flower Garden Banks.
The good news is that the process is pretty simple
for each species.
And you can also add in some shortcuts,
like lumping similar species into baskets,
like, for instance, taking all the similar
snapper species and assigning them similar scores.
And so you end up getting examples where,
we know sharks are gonna be some of the most vulnerable,
they're slow growing, they're specialists.
They're fairly range-restricted,
small population, and
on the flip side, you've got,
I think here was anchovies,
threadfin anchovies from the Caribbean,
which do not use rapidly changing habitats.
They're fast growing, they're generalists,
and they're highly mobile.
So those species are gonna be less vulnerable,
and how all that translates to the human side,
you can actually start to plan out
for some of these changes.
You can start to strengthen protections
for some of the most vulnerable species.
You can strengthen fisheries management
to buffer for some of those moderately vulnerable species.
And then you can also start to think about
different ways and barriers that
might be in place that need alleviated
to help tap into robust supply chains,
developing markets, new fishing opportunities
for commercial and recreational sectors,
and really tap into those new opportunities.
All right, three more slides; hang in there, everybody.
Some of you might be asking, "Hey, Sepp,
how can I run a CVA at home?"
Well, great question.
The good news is there's a lot of tools online
in addition to what I've highlighted today.
And one of the best I've seen is
on the Climate Adaptation Toolkit,
also known as the Climate Action Knowledge Exchange,
CAKE, for short.
It's got some great tools, not just on fisheries,
but also on climate vulnerability
of habitats like corals, intertidals,
dunes, and a lot more.
I suggest checking it out, whether you're a scientist,
a resource manager, a researcher,
or an educator, and also want to add
that a lot of these CAKE tools
have actually been used to conduct CVAs
at other sanctuaries around the US.
And one of my favorite tools
is the Adaptation Actions Table.
There's a lot of really neat ones here,
but I'm just gonna dive into that table.
And it's fairly small script here,
but you can actually go in
and search for different types of habitat,
like corals, for instance.
And then you're gonna see a whole list
of climate stressors and impacts.
You'll start to see some actions,
some case studies, and then some additional tools
and resources to think about management actions.
So again, I highly encourage folks
to jump into this tool, check it out.
There's some neat things in there.
So final take home messages.
I'd like to leave you with a few.
Yes, fisheries are incredibly complex
environmentally and politically,
but there are career opportunities
in all aspects of this space,
especially in research and management,
which is great news for all you students out there,
and also for anyone that's listening
that might be a little burnt out in their day job.
Point Number Two, people can make a difference.
I would say human action matters.
And Number Three,
it's incredibly stressful to think about
how we'll ever get back to where we were before
these climate impacts were set in motion,
but we can't think like that.
We need to think about building toward a better future,
not to an old memory.
And lastly, I want to say that there is hope.
So EDF's research with leading scientists
from around the world indicates
that with good management, community engagement,
and the right political will,
the oceans and our fisheries can recover quickly,
in many cases, to what the future holds,
which means more fish, more food for communities
around the world, and more prosperous livelihoods.
And that concludes my presentation.
Thanks, everybody.
Kelly: Thank you, Sepp, that was great.
Everyone, we're happy to take your questions
at this point, but we'll need you to type those
into the question box.
We will not be able to unmute people to ask questions.
My apologies, that column was available for you,
and we didn't realize that setting was turned on.
So we've turned it off, and please,
if you have questions for Sepp,
type them into the questions box.
There were a couple typed in
during the course of your presentation, Sepp,
so I'll start with one of those.
What as a recreational fisherman can we do
to help with management and conservation?
-: Yeah, great question.
I'd say one of the biggest pieces
is stay engaged and involved.
And data collection is a huge component
in the recreational fishery.
Here in the Gulf, we've got one of the biggest
recreational fisheries in the world.
Up to a hundred thousand plus boats
taking millions of trips,
and that's according to NOAA's data,
but it's hard to get data from every single
one of those anglers, right?
So there's some great apps for reporting your catch.
A lot of folks tend to
get tired of reporting throughout the season.
But I'd say even if you go out and don't catch anything,
that's a really important data point.
And the more folks that report,
the better data that those managers,
whether it's state managers or federal managers,
can have to make those decisions.
Kelly: Thank you.
Next question: How does one police these regulations,
especially in our current climate?
-: Yeah, great question.
I've got a few answers.
In one sense, we've seen places around the world
that are, you know, developing countries,
small-scale fisheries, where if you build in
the right level of incentives
and the right community engagement,
there's a lot of self-policing that actually takes place,
where if they see illegal fishers,
or if they see people that don't have permits,
they can actually address those folks
in the community or that they can work with
the right, like, wardens or whatever they might be called
in that part of the world, to police those issues.
There's also technology that is emerging
in so many different ways.
There's some areas where actual
satellite images can be used to police.
There's some really neat examples of hydroacoustics,
where they can actually sense the difference
between a small vessel or a large vessel
that might be like a large commercial vessel
that's coming in from another fishery.
And so it's a tough nut to crack.
But, there's a lot of great resources
that are emerging out there.
Kelly: Thank you.
Next question: What are your thoughts
on fishing nets that are expelled into the ocean?
I heard they're a big contributor in harming animals
like whales, for example.
-: Yeah, absolutely.
There's some nets that are set for fishing.
And I think there's been a lot of great
progress made over the last 10+ years
to more intelligently set regulations around nets.
There are some really small, small-scale fisheries
around the world where there's been,
where there's been discussions about
or trying to advance net bans,
and I think those need to be approached
from a sustainability component,
but also talking about the socioeconomic implications,
and where do those fishers go
when their net bans have been set up,
and that's a tricky issue.
The other piece is ghost fisheries,
or ghost fishing, where those nets
are no longer being tended.
And that's a huge issue.
EDF doesn't work on ghost fishing problems, but
there's a lot of focus that needs to be brought
within the community, as well within the regulations.
Can't go any deeper than that,
'cause I'm not an expert on that side of things.
Kelly: All right, we have an apology, everyone.
We turned off the column for putting
the little question marks in.
It apparently turned off the question box.
So we have reopened the question box folks.
I'm sorry about that technical difficulty.
Please type in any questions you have
in the question box, you should be able
to find that again in your control panel.
Next question we have is what role
do marine-protected areas play in fishery management?
-: Yeah, great question.
So there's a spectrum of protections around
sanctuaries and marine-protected areas,
and there's actually some really neat reports
that have come out in the last couple months
that talk about, when you're gonna be talking about
like 30x30, protecting 30% of the world's oceans
by 2030, or 30% of even the US oceans by 2030.
What does that mean?
What do protections mean?
And so I'd say on one end of the spectrum,
there's complete closure of fishing,
and those areas, there's some science out there
that shows that those areas are
really great at generating new biomass,
and in that you start to get the spillover effect
where those fish then spill over into the area
where fishing is allowed.
There are some instances like the Flower Garden Banks
where certain types of fishing are not allowed.
There's also, the Flower Garden Banks has
no anchoring allowed, so there's a really strong
protection for the habitat itself.
And that can also have additional benefits beyond just,
to a degree below, complete closure of fishing
at a protected area.
Like I said, there's some great science out there
that talks about the different spectrums.
And again, I encourage folks to think about
that human element.
What are the ramifications of setting up a sanctuary,
especially in like a developing country
where those fish, or the seafood,
is a core component of
the protein that those people get.
Is there a way to intelligently design
that protected area so that it still meets
the societal needs, but also generates
the protections and the long-term sustainability
that you're looking for?
Kelly: Okay, next question.
Are there ways to reduce bycatch that is being destroyed?
-: Yeah, bycatch is
a really critical piece of fisheries management.
We didn't touch on it here,
but there are a lot of different strategies
to work on bycatch.
In some areas you can take more of
an ecosystem-based management approach
and look at multi-fisheries management
where you're not managing a bag limit,
or a daily limit for just one species,
but you're starting to look at
all the species that are caught together,
and starting to build regulations around
maybe the most susceptible of those species.
So for instance, like red snapper's a great
example in the Gulf.
A lot of folks are catching amberjack at the same time
they're catching red snapper,
but the amberjack season doesn't perfectly overlap
with the red snapper season.
So there's a good amount of times,
whether it's, well, on the rotational side
where you have to throw back an amberjack
or you'll have to throw back a red snapper
depending on the season.
We've also seen fishing quotas
around the world where fishermen will have
a certain amount of quota around these
multi-species management, and you've actually seen
a lot of instances where bycatch is reduced,
whether it's a small-scale fishery
or larger-scale fishery,
move toward these quota approaches.
Kelly: Thank you.
How can we inspire hope in our students
who are overwhelmed with climate change?
-: Yeah, that is a great question.
And I talked to some folks through the Artist Boat
Program this last year, and I think
one thing that's really critical is
we're getting really good at teaching
the science around climate change,
but often we present it solely as the science,
and we don't talk about coping mechanisms,
and we don't talk about how does this,
how does this make you feel?
And I think those are really important
when you're talking about something
that's at the global level,
that's gonna impact everybody's
life in one way or another, impact livelihoods.
And I think it's important to remind folks
that there are some things that are going to change,
but there's a lot of things
that can't be impacted by climate change, right?
Family is still gonna be hugely important.
Community is still gonna be hugely important,
the importance of art and education,
and a lot of the things that have advanced
civilization are still gonna be really critical pieces.
And so not just talking about the science,
and not just talking about the changes to come,
but also talk about
what are the things that will still be
prevalent in society.
We can also talk about individual actions.
You know, there's so many different ways
to be more sustainable in seafood,
but also in so many other ways that we consume.
And one of the other ways I would say is just get outdoors.
There's so much science that shows
the more a student or a person of any age is outdoors,
the stronger the connection to that place,
that sense of place.
And with that, you start to see increased conservation,
increased stewardship, and encourage folks
to disconnect from tech and just spend
a little bit of time outside.
In Japan, they have this really neat thing
called shinrin-yoku, I think that's right,
which is forest bathing.
And basically you just go out,
and you just sit in the forest
and kind of soak in and look about you,
and totally disconnect from electronics.
And that's a great example of
just being able to get out, connect with the environment,
and through that, you also notice a lot of
kinda internal stress relief,
but also connection to that place
where you're gonna think more about
conservation and long-term stewardship.
Kelly: Thank you, Sepp.
I think that's a great question to end on.
We've got a few more things to cover
before we wrap things up.
Folks, depending on the number of questions remaining,
we will attempt to get them answered
after the webinar ends and email out responses,
but that's gonna depend on how many questions we have
and how much time we have.
Please also remember to check out the links
we shared with you throughout the presentation
to help you find more information on your own.
As a reminder, we have provided a Pathways
for Climate Ready Fisheries document
in the Handouts pane of the control panel,
and if you haven't yet downloaded this item,
now would be a good time to do that.
Thank you for attending the Seaside Chats presentation
on Paradise Lost?: Future Fisheries
in a Climate-Driven Gulf.
This is the second in a series of four presentations
we are offering this month, and we invite you
to register for the remaining chats
by visiting us on the web at flowergarden.noaa.gov.
We promise that the other topics
will be just as engaging and informative.
You can see there on the screen
we have one next week on Discovering Climate History
in Coral Skeletons.
In other words, the tree ring-type growth
in a coral skeleton has a lot to tell us,
and we're gonna explore that aspect next week
with Kristine DeLong from LSU,
and then the following week,
How Humpback Whales Feed Hawaii.
It's not about eating whales, please don't misunderstand.
It's about how the whales being
in that ocean environment around Hawaii
helps the rest of the ecosystem flourish.
We also welcome any feedback or further questions.
You can submit input by replying to
the follow up email you'll receive after the webinar
or by emailing us at FlowerGarden@NOAA.gov.
Today's presentation has also been part of
the National Marine Sanctuaries Webinar Series.
While Seaside Chats last just one month,
our National Webinar Series continues throughout the year
to provide educators with educational
and scientific expertise, resources,
and training to support ocean
and climate literacy in the classroom.
Of course, they are open to everyone.
Be sure to check the website for recordings
of past webinars and the schedule of what's to come.
The recording from today's webinar
will also be added to that collection.
As a reminder, we will share the recording
of this webinar via our website, as well,
and you will see it on that National Marine Sanctuaries
Webinar Series web page.
Following this webinar, attendees will receive
a PDF copy of a certificate of attendance
that provides documentation for one hour
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This includes our Texas CPE provider number
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If you are an educator outside of Texas,
please use the certificate to help get
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If you require additional information,
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There will also be a short evaluation
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Please complete this survey immediately after
signing off the webinar.
It should only take about three minutes to complete,
and we greatly appreciate any feedback
you are willing to share.
Thanks again, Sepp.
It was a great presentation.
I loved how you had everybody type into the chat box,
even though it created quite a flood of information
for us all at one time.
It was a great way to be interactive
in our presentation about the Future Fisheries
in a Climate-Driven Gulf
and the potential impacts for the Gulf of Mexico.
And thanks to all of you for taking the time to join us.
This concludes today's webinar.