Beyond Tasty Fish

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Not Just The Ocean How The Ocean (and
everything) Is Changing And What It Means For You
(and everyone) Carl Safina
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The Story of a Changed Sea

• Fishing the major changer
• Depletion Renewal
• Non-target catch
• Pollution
• Invasions
• Climate Change
• Warming seas
• pH the enemy within

Salmon boat, Icy Strait, Alaska Photo Carl Safina
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Early on Caribbean Sea Turtles
1600s Vessels which have lost their latitude in
hazy weather have steered entirely by the noise
these creatures make in swimming, to attain the
Cayman Isles... They resemble herring shoals.
McClenachan et al., 2006
Leatherback, Trinidad. Photo Scott Eckert
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OIL 1.0 Thinking of themselves, not the future
Humpback Fetus, South Georgia Island, South
Atlantic Ocean Photo Carl Safina
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When we take this generation
we take The next, too.
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Bluefin Tuna. Going, going
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Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus)
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Tuna Fishing Salvador Dali
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The last buffalo
Fish are wildlife, too
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Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus)
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Modern Fishing Massive Declines
Average decline 90
Ransom A. Myers and Boris Worm
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Genetic Changes from fishing
Conover and Munch, Science
Breeding Minis Not letting fish grow big
selects for fish programmed to grow small
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Non-target Catch 25 of world catch
Photos Carl Safina
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Habitat Destruction reef fisheries

• Dynamite fishing
  Poisoning
• Reefs devastated over large regions

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Courtesy Daniel Pauly
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Disintegration of Memory Salvador Dali
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Consequences for people

• Worldwide
• gt1 billion people rely on fish as primary
  protein
• 35 million people employed in fishing or
  aquaculture
• Newfoundland cod collapse
• Tens of thousands of jobs lost (not just
  fishermen)
• gt2 billion in bailouts
• California salmon closure, 2008
• 255 million loss to CA economy
• gt2,000 jobs lost

Trap Fisher, Zanzibar, Tanzania Photo Carl
Safina
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Its OK to use the ocean. Its not OK to use it
up.
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• The ocean size doesnt matter

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Recoveries
Fishing pressure down, population up
Atlantic sea scallop Haddock North Atlantic
swordfish Striped Bass Summer Flounder
Photos Carl Safina
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TURTLE ESCAPE DEVICES NOW MANDATORY IN U.S.
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Circle Hooks Turtle Mortality decreased up to
90
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Recovering Sea Turtle Populations Kemps
Ridley Olive Ridley in Mexico Eastern Pacific
Green Turtle Leatherbacks in South Africa,
Caribbean, and Florida Caribbean / Florida
Loggerheads Caribbean and Hawaiian Greens
Leatherback. Scott Eckert
Green Turtles, French Frigate Shoals Carl Safina
Central Florida Green Turtles
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Non-target CatchAlbatrosses 23 species Most
endangered bird family
Salvins Albatross Carl Safina
Wandering Albatross Graham Robertson
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Source BirdLife International
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But, besides taking lots out

• Were also putting in

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Nutrients, Chemicals

• Introduced nutrients
• Nitrogen human produced exceeds natural
• Up 5-fold since 1960s
• Leads to
• Dead Zones
• Harmful Algae
• Chemicals
• Heavy Metals (lead, mercury)
• Hormones
• Leads to nerve and sex
• problems

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Dead Zones and Bad Blooms

• 146 worldwide
• Number doubles each decade

Kills millions of fish, lobsters, seabirds and
marine mammals More new toxins
www.nasa.gov
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The Human Face of Pollution
Inuit mothers milk contaminated with heavy
metals from diet of contaminated seafood etc.
Spotted Seals Bowhead Whale blubber Alaska
Carl Safina
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The Human Face of Pollution
Illness Skin irritation Respiratory
illness Sickness through seafood
consumption Economic Impact Declining fish
value Declining tourism
Pfiesteria
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Invasions
FROM Aquaculture Shipping
TO You
CONTAINS Competition, interbreeding
destruction of wild fish New disease
Industrial problems PLEASE PAY Billions
Zebra Mussels clogged pipe
Zebra Mussels on crayfish
MSX disease
Codium killing scallop
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Bad Aquaculture reducing wild biodiversity
Farmed Atlantic Salmon Introduced to Pacific
Waters Sea lice from salmon farms cause gt 80
mortality in wild juvenile pink salmon BC runs
in 2008 2 of 2000 Possible extinction in 4
generations
Parasitic copepods killing young wild salmon
Krkoek et al., 2007
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The Carbon Burden
CO2
CO2
CO2

• Ocean acidification
• Decline in ocean pH
• Decline in available carbonate

(Global warming was quaint)
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Getting High
Oceans absorb majority of heat

• Sea temperatures
• Increase of 0.1ºC from surface to 700 m since
  1960
• Arctic summer sea surface temperatures 2 ºC
  warmer since mid 1990s

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Warming and Coral Reefs

• Warming water
• 1C makes a difference

• Increased bleaching since 1970s
• 1998 16 of all coral reefs worldwide affected
• some regions 70-80 mortality
• -700 year-old corals died

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Dropping Acid

• pH on the INSIDE
• Carbon dioxide affects INTERNAL pH of
  (potentially) all organisms
• Animals expend energy to adjust pH balance
• Reduced growth, immune function, reproduction,
• altered behavior

S. Dupont
Reduced growth rate in sea urchin larvae raised
in different seawater pH ALREADY KILLING
commercial oyster larvae
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Ocean Acidification ctd

• Low pH on the outside
• CO2 Reduces dissolved carbonate
• decreased calcification in corals and shelled
  animals
• Requires more energy, leading to stress and
  disease
• Changes community composition
• Reefs may dissolve

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BIODIVERSITY MATTERS gtfish gtresilience
Kingman reef (USA 0 people)
Palmyra atoll (USA 10 people)
Tabuaeran (Fanning) atoll (Kiribati 2500 people)
Kiritimati (Christmas) atoll (Kiribati 5100
people)
Line Islands Expedition (Sandin et al., 2008)
Human gradient
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Human Face of Reef Biodiversity

• collapsed reefs cannot protect from storms
• Feeding hundreds of millions of people
• Medicine HIV, cancer drugs
• 25 of known marine species
• Estimated 1 to 8 million undiscovered species

Trap Fisher, Pemba Island, Tanzania. Carl Safina
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Polar Regions and Climate Change

• Fastest change twice global average
• Sea ice shrinking water
• Absorbs more heat
• Sea ice thinning
• Earlier spring melt (3 weeks)
• Warming permafrost
• Releases more greenhouse gas

Ivory Gulls, Svalbard Carl Safina
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Increased Temperatures

• A Great De-coupling
• Phytoplankton (soup of the sea) declines,
  shifts, altered timing
• Seabird hatch prey not synched
• Gray whale foraging shifts north
• -Decrease in clams, amphipods
• Walruses starving, pups abandoned

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Polar Bear

• Reduced hunting habitat and time
• Some populations declining
• Prey populations declining
• More bears drowning

Polar Bears, Svalbard Carl Safina
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Ice-dependent Arctic Vertebrates
Seals L-R Ringed, bearded, harp, hooded,
spotted, ribbon
Bowhead
Ross Gull
Narwhal
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Antarctica
Or is it just me?

• Penguins
• Rain freezes chicks
• Chicks growth period out of synch with krill
• Southward range shifts
• Declining Adélie Emperor numbers
• Adélie local extinctions and rapid declines
• Emperor Penguin endangered

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Increasing temperatures change the menu
Krill need ice
Salpsforget about it
Krill are Nutritious And everything eats them
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Human Face of Warming

• Sea level rise
• Small islands are drowning
• Pacific islands families relocating
• Taro fields too salty to farm
• Shorelines eroding

Palau Carl Safina
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Human Face of Warming

• Sea level rise
• Was 2 cm/decade in 1900s.
• Now 3 cm/decade
• Small islands are drowning
• Inuit (Eskimo) homes destroyed.
• Shorelines eroding.
• Where to go?

Shishmaref, Alaska Carl Safina
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Zanzibar, Tanzania, 08 Carl Safina
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Zanzibar, Tanzania, 08 Carl Safina
If you cut a tree, you must plant a tree.
Koran-inspired Mangrove replanting.
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Scientists and Christian evangelicalswere all
in the same boat
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Campbell Albatross, Campbell Island Carl Safina
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Campbell Albatross
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Laysan Albatross, Midway Atoll Carl Safina
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Laysan Albatross, Laysan Island. Carl Safina
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Frans Lanting www.Lanting.com
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Unsustainable management? Or moral problem. It
is a matter of our relationship with the human
community and the whole living world.
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The Land Ethic That land is a community is the
basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be
loved and respected is an extension of
ethics. Aldo Leopold Water too!

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So What Can We Do? 1. Choose Sustainable
Seafood
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Sustainability and Health Give a man a fish
and he eats for a day give him mini-guides
and he is insufferable to dine with.
Fishphone text 30644 with the message FISH and
the name of the fish youre interested in. e.g.
FISH striped bass
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What Can We do? 2. Support Creation of a green
economy to get America back to work Based
on Clean energy. A new smart national
grid. Green innovation and manufacturing. Even
without global warming, we need this.
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• Why be optimistic?
• Increasing attention on the sea
• Increasing demand for information on sustainable
  seafood
• Enthusiasm from culinary community
• Wal-Mart, of all things
• Certain fish increasing w/improved mgmt

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Recovery is possible Managed Recovery of
Striped Bass on the East Coast
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Salvador Dali and friends
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Fairy Terns, Midway Atoll Carl Safina
Inspirationthe urge to act
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QUESTIONS?
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QUESTIONS?
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Habitat destruction- Trawl Fisheries
Trawlers
Satellite image of bottom trawl trails in Gulf of
Mexico.