#trathan

[pjo-ship-polls]

These are only for romantic pairings, not platonic.

The ships in the polls are the twelve (12) most popular ships for each character based on the number of fics on AO3.

[thenationaltv243]

Thousands of Emperor penguin chicks in Antarctica “disappeared”overnight,drowned after ice shelf collapsed

Thousands of emperor penguin babies are believed to have “wiped out” due to drowning when the ice shelf on which they are raised collapsed.Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS),Dr Peter Fretwell and Phil Trathan spotted the disappearance of the “Halley Bay colony” which was the breeding ground for emperor penguins through satellite imagery.

[barnabascollins]

i didnt like the lineart on the OG so

‘didn’t I tell you it would all work out?’

(sigh) ‘yes, forbes, you told me’

[sciencespies]

Emperor penguins on pathway to 'quasi-extinction' this century, scientists warn

https://sciencespies.com/nature/emperor-penguins-on-pathway-to-quasi-extinction-this-century-scientists-warn/

Emperor penguins on pathway to 'quasi-extinction' this century, scientists warn

Emperor penguins thrive on Antarctica’s coastlines in icy conditions any human would find extreme.

Yet, like Goldilocks, they have a narrow comfort zone: If there’s too much sea ice, trips to bring food from the ocean become long and arduous, and their chicks may starve. With too little sea ice, the chicks are at risk of drowning.

Climate change is now putting that delicate balance and potentially the entire species at risk.

In a new study, my colleagues and I show that if current global warming trends and government policies continue, Antarctica’s sea ice will decline at a rate that would dramatically reduce emperor penguin numbers to the point that almost all colonies would become quasi-extinct by 2100, with little chance of recovering.

That’s why the US Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to list the emperor penguin as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The proposal will be published in the Federal Register on 4 August 2021, starting a 60-day public comment period.

The greatest threat emperor penguins face is climate change. It will disrupt the sea ice cover they rely on unless governments adopt policies that reduce the greenhouse gases driving global warming.

Emperor penguins. (Sylvain Cordier/DigitalVision/Getty Images)

The US Endangered Species Act has been used before to protect other species that are primarily at risk from climate change, including the polar bear, ringed seal, and several species of coral, which are all listed as threatened.

Emperor penguins don’t live on US territory, so some of the Endangered Species Act’s measures meant to protect species’ habitats and prevent hunting them don’t directly apply.

Being listed under the Endangered Species Act could still bring benefits, though. It could provide a way to reduce harm from US fishing fleets that might operate in the region. And, with expected actions from the Biden administration, the listing could eventually pressure US agencies to take actions to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Marching toward extinction

I first saw an emperor penguin when I visited Pointe Géologie, Antarctica, during my Ph.D. studies. As soon as I set foot on the island, before our team unpacked our gear, my colleagues and I went to visit the emperor penguin colony located only a couple of hundred meters from the French research station – the same colony featured in the movie March of the Penguins.

We sat far away to observe them through binoculars, but after 15 minutes, a few penguins approached us.

People think that they are awkward, almost comical, with their hobbling gait, but emperors walk with a peaceful and serene grace across the sea ice. I can still feel them tugging on my shoelaces, their eyes flickering with curiosity. I hope my children and future generations have a chance to meet these masters of the frozen world.

Researchers have studied the emperor penguins around Pointe Géologie, in Terre Adélie, since the 1960s. Those decades of data are now helping scientists gauge the effects of anthropogenic climate change on the penguins, their sea ice habitat and their food sources.

The penguins breed on fast ice, which is sea ice attached to land. But they hunt for food within the pack ice – sea ice floes that move with the wind or ocean currents and may merge. Sea ice is also important for resting, during their annual molt and to escape from predators.

The penguin population at Pointe Géologie declined by half in the late 1970s when sea ice declined and more male emperor penguins died, and the population never fully recovered from massive breeding failures – something that has been occurring more frequently.

To assess whether the emperor penguin could qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act, the US Fish and Wildlife Service encouraged an international team of scientists, policy experts, climate scientists and ecologists to provide research and projections of the threats posed by climate change to emperor penguins and their future survival.

Every colony will be in decline by 2100

Emperor penguins are adapted to their current environment, but the species has not evolved to survive the rapid effects of climate change that threaten to reshape its world.

Decades of studies by an international team of researchers have been instrumental in establishing the need for protection.

Seminal research I was involved in in 2009 warned that the colony of Pointe Géologie will be marching toward extinction by the end of the century. And it won’t just be that colony.

My colleagues and I in 2012 looked at all known emperor penguin colonies identified in images from space and determined that every colony will be declining by the end of the century if greenhouse gases continue their current course.

We found that penguin behaviors that might help them adapt to changing environmental conditions couldn’t reverse the anticipated global decline.

Major environmental shifts, such as the late formation and early loss of the sea ice on which colonies are located, are already raising the risk.

A dramatic example is the recent collapse of Halley Bay, the second-largest emperor penguin colony in Antarctica. More than 10,000 chicks died in 2016 when sea ice broke up early. The colony has not yet recovered.

By including those extreme events, we projected that 98 percent of colonies will be extinct by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue their present course, and the global population will decline by 99 percent compared with its historical size.

Meeting the Paris goal could save the penguins

The results of the new study showed that if the world meets the Paris climate agreement targets, keeping warming to under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees F) compared to pre-industrial temperatures, that could protect sufficient habitat to halt the emperor penguins’ decline.

But the world isn’t on track to meet the Paris Agreement. According to one estimate, by Climate Action Tracker, countries’ current policy pathways have a greater than 97 percent probability of exceeding 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F). With recent government announcements factored in, the increase is estimated to be around 2.4 degrees C (4.3 degrees F).

So it appears that the emperor penguin is the proverbial ‘canary in the coal mine’. The future of emperor penguins, and much of life on Earth, including humanity, ultimately depends upon the decisions made today.

Marine ecologist Philip Trathan of the British Antarctic Survey contributed to this article.

Stephanie Jenouvrier, Associate Scientist, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

#Nature

[todropscience]

ONE OF THE LARGEST EMPEROR PENGUIN COLONY IN ANTARCTICA VANISHES

The emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) colony at Halley Bay was one of the largest colonies in Antarctica, second only in size to that at Coulman Island in the Ross Sea, but after three years of reproductive failures and the fracture iceberg in Halley Bay, the population is unviable, a satellite imagery study shows this week in Antarctic Science.

The initial breakup of the fast ice in the ice creeks that the birds habitually used for breeding was associated with a particularly stormy period in September 2015, which corresponded with the strongest El Niño in over 60 years, strong winds, and a record low sea-ice year locally. Conditions have not recovered in the two years since. Meanwhile, during the same three-year period, the nearby Dawson-Lambton colony, 55 km to the south, has seen a more than tenfold increase in penguin numbers.

-  Satellite imagery of the Windy Creek breeding site for the years between spring 2015 and spring 2018

Emperors are the tallest and heaviest penguin species and need reliable ice sheet to breed,  this platform must persist from April, when the birds arrive, until December, when their chicks grow. If ice sheet breaks too soon, chickens will not have the right feathers to start swimming. This seems to have been what happened in 2016.

Photo: Juveniles Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) in Snow Hill Island, Antarctica, by Ian Duffy.

Reference: Fretwell and Trathan, 2019.  Emperors on thin ice: three years of breeding failure at Halley. Antarctic Science.

[Image description: Emperor penguin chicks playing, at the background, some adults are standing.]

[penguinfacts]

The emperor is actually the only penguin species that follows the risky strategy of breeding solely in the winter, which they do in huge colonies of several thousand birds. While the female birds head out to sea for months to replenish themselves with fish after each one lays an enormous egg, the males stay behind and each incubates an egg as temperatures grow increasingly frigid on the flat sheet ice where they live. 

  The reason for their wintertime breeding comes down to some very tight scheduling constraints. When several thousand hatchlings arrive in a penguin colony, they require tons of fish, squid and krill as sustenance. But that's available only in the springtime, when the vast stretches of frozen sea that separate emperor penguins from the ocean's edge melt and break apart.And because incubating an egg takes around four months, "that means starting it in the winter, so the chick is then timed to hatch when maximum resources are available close by in the ocean," said Philip Trathan, head of conservation biology at the British Antarctic Survey. "If [penguins] were trekking over 200 kilometers [124 miles] of sea ice every foraging trip, they just wouldn't have time to do it," he told Live Science. (x)

[re-bee-key]

If it makes you feel better, I’m a time traveler, and your future looks pretty good. I mean you’re not the next Alexander the Great or Trathan the Exonerater, but it’s pretty damn good. Just to prove my truthfulness, the phrase “cherry, wind chime, lampoon” will make complete sense to you in four days time. I don’t need to hope you feel better, because I already know you will ☺️☺️

What does Cherry Wind Chime Lampoon mean? What is happening in 4 days?

I don't really feel better... sorry Time Traveler. I'm feeling super not ok actually. I don't want to be dramatic and say I'm suicidal. Cause I know Im not gonna go through with anything harmful tonight. I just.... am leaning that way and having a hard time of it.

I just feel like nothing in my life has any meaning. I dont mean anything. I am nothing.

[nasa]

From Microscopic to Multicellular: Six Stories of Life that We See from Space

Life. It's the one thing that, so far, makes Earth unique among the thousands of other planets we've discovered. Since the fall of 1997, NASA satellites have continuously and globally observed all plant life at the surface of the land and ocean. During the week of Nov. 13-17, we are sharing stories and videos about how this view of life from space is furthering knowledge of our home planet and the search for life on other worlds.

Earth is the only planet with life, as far as we know. From bacteria in the crevices of the deepest oceans to monkeys swinging between trees, Earth hosts life in all different sizes, shapes and colors. Scientists often study Earth from the ground, but some also look to our satellites to understand how life waxes and wanes on our planet.

Over the years, scientists have used this aerial view to study changes in animal habitats, track disease outbreaks, monitor forests and even help discover a new species. While this list is far from comprehensive, these visual stories of bacteria, plants, land animals, sea creatures and birds show what a view from space can reveal.

1. Monitoring the single-celled powerhouses of the sea

Known as the grass of the ocean, phytoplankton are one of the most abundant types of life in the ocean. Usually single-celled, these plant-like organisms are the base of the marine food chain. They are also responsible for the only long-term transfer of carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere to the ocean. 

Even small changes in phytoplankton populations can affect carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, which could ultimately affect Earth’s global surface temperatures. Scientists have been observing global phytoplankton populations continuously since 1997 starting with the Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of View Sensor (SeaWiFS). They continue to study the small life-forms by satellite, ships and aircrafts.

2. Predicting cholera bacteria outbreaks

Found on the surface of zooplankton and in contaminated water, the bacteria that cause the infectious disease cholera — Vibrio cholerae — affect millions of people every year with severe diarrhea, sometimes leading to death. While our satellite sensors can’t detect the actual bacteria, scientists use various satellite data to look for the environmental conditions that the bacteria thrive in. 

Specifically, microbiologist Rita Colwell at the University of Maryland, College Park, and West Virginia University hydrologist Antar Jutla studied data showing air and ocean temperature, salinity, precipitation, and chlorophyllconcentrations, the latter a marker for zooplankton. Anticipating where the bacteria will bloom helps researchers to mitigate outbreaks.

Recently, Colwell and Jutla have been able to estimate cholera risk after major events, such as severe storms, by looking at satellite precipitation data, air temperature, and population maps. The two maps above show the team's predicted cholera risk in Haiti two weeks after Hurricane Matthew hit over October 1-2, 2016 and the actual reported cholera cases in October 2016.

3. Viewing life on land

From helping preserve forests for chimpanzees to predicting deer population patterns, scientists use our satellites to study wildlife across the world. Satellites can also see the impacts of perhaps the most relatable animal to us: humans. Every day, we impact our planet in many ways including driving cars, constructing buildings and farming – all of which we can see with satellites.

Our Black Marble image provides a unique view of human activity. Looking at trends in our lights at night, scientists can study how cities develop over time, how lighting and activity changes during certain seasons and holidays, and even aid emergency responders during power outages caused by natural disasters.

4. Tracking bird populations

Scientists use our satellite data to study birds in a variety of ways, from understanding their migratory patterns, to spotting potential nests, to tracking populations. In a rather creative application, scientists used satellite imagery to track Antarctica’s emperor penguin populations by looking for their guano – or excrement.

Counting emperor penguins from the ground perspective is challenging because they breed in some of the most remote and cold places in the world, and in colonies too large to easily count manually. With their black and white coats, emperor penguins are also difficult to count from an aerial view as they sometimes blend in with shadows on the ice. Instead, Phil Trathan and his colleagues at the British Antarctic Survey looked through Landsat imagery for brown stains on the sea ice. By looking for penguin droppings, Trathan said his team identified 54 emperor penguin colonies along the Antarctic coast.

5. Parsing out plant life

Just as we see plants grow and wilt on the ground, satellites observe the changes from space. Flourishing vegetation can indicate a lively ecosystem while changes in greenery can sometimes reveal natural disasters, droughts or even agricultural practices. While satellites can observe plant life in our backyards, scientists can also use them to provide a global picture. 

Using data from satellites including SeaWiFS, and instruments including the NASA/NOAA Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, scientists have the most complete view of global biology to date, covering all of the plant life on land and at the surface of the ocean.

6. Studying life under the sea

Our satellites have helped scientists study creatures living in the oceans whether it’s finding suitable waters for oysters or protecting the endangered blue whale. Scientists also use the data to learn more about one of the most vulnerable ecosystems on the planet – coral reefs.

They may look like rocks or plants on the seafloor, but corals are very much living animals. Receiving sustenance from photosynthetic plankton living within their calcium carbonate structures, coral reefs provide food and shelter for many kinds of marine life, protect shorelines from storms and waves, serve as a source for potential medicines, and operate as some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet.

However, coral reefs are vulnerable to the warming of the ocean and human activity. Our satellites measure the surface temperature of ocean waters. These measurements have revealed rising water temperatures surrounding coral reef systems around the world, which causes a phenomenon known as “coral bleaching.” To add to the satellite data, scientists use measurements gathered by scuba divers as well as instruments flown on planes.

During the week of Nov. 13-17, check out our stories and videos about how this view of life from space is furthering knowledge of our home planet and the search for life on other worlds. Follow at www.nasa.gov/Earth.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

[hudsonespie]

Industry Dialogue Helps Sustain Antarctica's Krill Fishery

[By David Adam]

At the height of the Cold War, a hungry Soviet Union launched an unlikely strategy to reduce its reliance on grain imports from the West: the superpower despatched hundreds of fishing boats to Antarctica and told them to come back with krill.

Krill – small crustaceans related to the prawn and lobster – do not carry much meat on a single body. But added together, the world’s krill population weighs in at between 300 and 500 million tonnes. Beyond single-celled organisms like bacteria and viruses, the hundreds of trillions of krill in our oceans represent the greatest biomass of any wild animal on the planet.

With little competition, the Russian vessels netted as much of this bounty as they could carry and returned to the motherland, where Soviet scientists mashed up the protein-rich creatures into a nutritious paste called Okean. Citizens were expected to mix it into their vegetables and soups. British officials got hold of some in 1973 and reported its taste as “very pleasant”. But the idea never really caught on and, by the 1980s, the Soviets were turning much of the krill they caught into animal feed.

By the early 1990s, of course, the Soviet Union – and its appetite for Okean – were no more. Left undisturbed, the krill were free to swim and drift around Antarctic waters, where they help feed other kinds of life – they serve as an important prey species for the unique region’s penguins, seabirds, seals, fish and whales.

“I am a little bit frightened about the local effects of the increasing fishing effort because the fishery is nowadays very concentrated in space and time,” says Bettina Meyer, a krill researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany. “Due to the very high level of krill biomass that we currently have, and the krill management measures in place, we are not in big danger. But we do have to keep a very, very careful eye on it.”

Antarctic krill

Several different species of krill are found across the world’s oceans, but the Antarctic variety (Euphausia superba) is by far the plumpest and so the most valuable catch. Often found in massive swarms, which can number millions of animals and stretch for several miles of ocean, Antarctic krill haven’t been routinely studied in all seasons over the years, and scientists don’t understand some key features of their life cycle. That can make it difficult to predict their numbers and distribution from year to year, as well as the impact of fishing them in the era of accelerating climate change.

Krill abundance in some regions is known to fluctuate greatly, but the reasons for this aren’t clear. Another issue not understood fully is population dynamics: how many mature krill need to spawn to provide enough offspring to keep numbers sufficiently high. Finally, little is known about where the young krill migrate to in their first year of life.

These uncertainties help to explain why researchers are cautious about judging the possible impact from the fishing industry, Meyer says.

“We have a lot of knowledge gaps,” she says. “When you compare for example the maps of distribution of the krill larvae to the distribution of the entire population, then it might be that only a small proportion is responsible for replenishing the entire population.”

In other words, although a relatively small proportion of krill are pulled from the Southern Ocean each year, if those catches happened to target breeding adults, then such fishing could have an oversized impact.

Officially that should not happen. The Antarctic krill fishery is well managed and branded as sustainable. And unlike some contested areas around the world, scientists, conservationists and the fishing industry there enjoy a largely co-operative and constructive relationship. “I think the relationship is very friendly and also very open,” Meyer says.

CCAMLR

Along with other species, the Antarctic krill fishery is managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), made up from a group of 26 nations (including the European Union) with an interest in the region. The commission monitors stocks, assesses the health of the fishery and sets limits on how much krill can be taken each year.

CCAMLR splits the waters surrounding Antarctica into three large areas. The limits on fishing are based on an estimate made in 2010 that krill stocks in one of these large areas – Area 48 on the Atlantic side of the continent – totalled 60.3 million tonnes. This allowed the commission to set an absolute cap on catches – called the “precautionary catch limit” – of 5.61 million tonnes each year. The actual annual take is nowhere near that figure. Fishing is only allowed in seven “sub-areas” and divisions, each of which have their own caps – added together, the total catch from each of these sub-areas cannot exceed 620,000 tonnes – the so-called “trigger level”. However, at present, fishing is only taking place in four of the sub-areas, all in Area 48. The most popular of these, sub-area 48.1 around the Antarctic peninsula, has an annual catch limit of just 155,000 tonnes.

Source: CCAMLR (Graphic: Manuel Bortoletti / China Dialogue Ocean)

In 2020, a total of 450,781 tonnes of krill were taken across the sector, a figure that has doubled in the last five years but is still comfortably below the trigger level. So, all is good? Not necessarily.

Fishery management strategies that permit what look like relatively low catch levels across large regions could still prove to be unsustainable, says Philip Trathan, head of conservation biology at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, the United Kingdom. “It matters where you take it from,” he says. “Say for the sake of argument you are allowed to take 100 tonnes from a defined area. That limit is set with an assumption you are going to take it evenly from across that area. But you’re not going to do that. You’re going to go to the areas where it’s most predictable and most profitable. And those are probably also the regions where the penguins, seals and whales go as well.”

In other words, the fishing industry could be taking their permitted and precautionary amounts of krill out of the mouths of predators that rely on them. That’s important because rises and falls in krill population from year to year, including those influenced by fishing, are believed to have a knock-on effect on the predators that eat them – notably penguins. A 2020 study of penguin colonies in the South Shetland islands, which lie about 120 kilometres north of the Antarctic peninsula, suggested a link between levels of krill fishing in surrounding waters and declining health of the birds.

Using decades of data going back to the 1980s, the research, led by George Watters at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in La Jolla, California, found that when local fishing catches of krill spiked, penguins took longer to find food and had fewer healthy chicks.

One problem with the current fishery management approach, Trathan says, is that it sets up an annual free-for-all that pits fishing vessel against fishing vessel to scoop up as much krill in the shortest time possible. For example, this year the cap for zone 48.1 was reached in early June, so the area is now closed until December. Such an “Olympic-style” management plan can force fishing activity into smaller areas and shorter fishing seasons.

Many scientists and conservation groups would like to see tighter controls on exactly where and when the krill can be caught. Those measures could include dividing the existing sub-areas into smaller zones, each of which would then be allocated its own (smaller) maximum take.

Some countries have gone further and backed the establishment of new marine protected areas, including one around the Antarctic peninsula, which could lead to stricter controls and even outright bans on krill fishing in the most sensitive regions.

Keen to avoid such regulation, the krill fishers have taken steps to show they can manage the threat themselves. In December last year, an industry group called the Association of Responsible Krill Harvesting Companies voluntarily suspended fishing close to three penguin colonies on the Antarctic peninsula for 12 months. This adds to a series of existing buffer zones the industry has established around penguin colonies in which local krill fishing is halted during the incubation and chick-rearing season.

CCAMLR is due to discuss possible new restrictions in November, but Trathan, who sits on the commission’s scientific advisory group, says it’s unlikely much progress will be made. “I think it’s a tall order and it sort of depends on the process as well as the science, making sure that we’ve got enough time to discuss it in the detail that is needed.”

The current focus is on keeping the existing protection in place. The management system that divides the trigger-level catch limit between the seven sub-areas and divisions is due to expire this year. If not renewed, fishers would technically be able to take up to 620,000 tonnes of krill from wherever they liked: including the sensitive waters around the peninsula.

Who fishes?

Krill fishing is currently dominated by Norway. Helped by technology that continuously pumps the contents of submerged nets onboard, Norwegian vessels bagged almost 250,000 tonnes last year, which is more than double its nearest competitor. Chile, South Korea and Ukraine also take significant amounts of krill. An important new player is China. The country landed almost 120,000 tonnes of krill last year (up from 41,000 in 2018 and 50,000 in 2019).

“[Krill fishing] fits with the Chinese policy to develop its distant water fishing fleet,” says Nengye Liu, director of the Centre for Environmental Law at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. The gap between the number of krill allowed to be caught and the number actually caught is of interest to Chinese policymakers as having potential to grow or even just maintain that fleet."

Climate change

As nations target increased krill catches in coming years, scientists are anxious about another possible pressure on stocks. A cold-water species, researchers aren’t sure how the crustaceans will manage as the waters around Antarctica steadily warm.

“Change will happen, but it will happen slowly, so maybe they will be able to adapt. We don’t know,” says Katharina Michael, a krill researcher at the University of Oldenburg in Germany.

To try to find out, Michael and her colleagues caught krill off the Antarctic coast and put them in giant tanks filled with different temperature seawater for eight months. They found that krill responded differently when the water was 3.5C or higher: their metabolism significantly increased, they used more oxygen and they grew to be significantly smaller.

“There is an increased energy demand, which may have implications for long-term processes. So, energy might be taken away from growth and reproduction,” Michael says. “We don’t know that yet. We have to investigate. But there is something going on.” Water temperature in krill habitats changes a lot with the seasons and weather, but currently range from -1.8C to 5.5C.

The Alfred Wegener Institute’s Meyer says the possible effects of warmer temperatures on krill body size is something that should be closely monitored in the future, along with other important information such as the distribution and density of krill stocks.

To gather real-world data, Meyer hopes to take advantage of the currently good relations between krill researchers and krill fishers. With limited slots available aboard scientific research ships and field stations, Meyer hopes that more fishing vessels could help, either by hosting scientists or by taking samples themselves.

With more reliable measurements, the management system could be made more responsive, with catch limits tightened or relaxed from year to year to match the real-world state of the fishery. “What CCAMLR needs to find is a way to reduce the risks to predators like penguins, seals and whales, while recognising that fishing is allowed,” Trathan says. “But ultimately the more krill you take out the more likely you are to see an effect.”

David Adam is a freelance journalist based near London.

This article appears courtesy of China Dialogue Ocean and may be found in its original form here.

from Storage Containers https://maritime-executive.com/article/industry-dialogue-helps-sustain-antarctica-s-krill-fishery via http://www.rssmix.com/

[chadspaulding]

RT @IWBeaconMag: January doesn’t have to be gloomy after the Christmas decorations come down, it can be the ideal time to revamp the home, as Adele Trathan explains. #homeimprovements #cosyathome https://t.co/HsF0LM2rAa

January doesn’t have to be gloomy after the Christmas decorations come down, it can be the ideal time to revamp the home, as Adele Trathan explains.#homeimprovements #cosyathome https://t.co/HsF0LM2rAa

— Beacon Magazine (@IWBeaconMag) January 20, 2021

RT @IWBeaconMag: January doesn’t have to be gloomy after the Christmas decorations come down, it can be the ideal time to revamp the home, as Adele Trathan explains. #homeimprovements #cosyathome https://t.co/HsF0LM2rAa http://twitter.com/stephenbharris3/status/1351967799711830018

[hudsonespie]

Industry Dialogue Helps Sustain Antarctica's Krill Fishery

[By David Adam]

At the height of the Cold War, a hungry Soviet Union launched an unlikely strategy to reduce its reliance on grain imports from the West: the superpower despatched hundreds of fishing boats to Antarctica and told them to come back with krill.

Krill – small crustaceans related to the prawn and lobster – do not carry much meat on a single body. But added together, the world’s krill population weighs in at between 300 and 500 million tonnes. Beyond single-celled organisms like bacteria and viruses, the hundreds of trillions of krill in our oceans represent the greatest biomass of any wild animal on the planet.

With little competition, the Russian vessels netted as much of this bounty as they could carry and returned to the motherland, where Soviet scientists mashed up the protein-rich creatures into a nutritious paste called Okean. Citizens were expected to mix it into their vegetables and soups. British officials got hold of some in 1973 and reported its taste as “very pleasant”. But the idea never really caught on and, by the 1980s, the Soviets were turning much of the krill they caught into animal feed.

By the early 1990s, of course, the Soviet Union – and its appetite for Okean – were no more. Left undisturbed, the krill were free to swim and drift around Antarctic waters, where they help feed other kinds of life – they serve as an important prey species for the unique region’s penguins, seabirds, seals, fish and whales.

“I am a little bit frightened about the local effects of the increasing fishing effort because the fishery is nowadays very concentrated in space and time,” says Bettina Meyer, a krill researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany. “Due to the very high level of krill biomass that we currently have, and the krill management measures in place, we are not in big danger. But we do have to keep a very, very careful eye on it.”

Antarctic krill

Several different species of krill are found across the world’s oceans, but the Antarctic variety (Euphausia superba) is by far the plumpest and so the most valuable catch. Often found in massive swarms, which can number millions of animals and stretch for several miles of ocean, Antarctic krill haven’t been routinely studied in all seasons over the years, and scientists don’t understand some key features of their life cycle. That can make it difficult to predict their numbers and distribution from year to year, as well as the impact of fishing them in the era of accelerating climate change.

Krill abundance in some regions is known to fluctuate greatly, but the reasons for this aren’t clear. Another issue not understood fully is population dynamics: how many mature krill need to spawn to provide enough offspring to keep numbers sufficiently high. Finally, little is known about where the young krill migrate to in their first year of life.

These uncertainties help to explain why researchers are cautious about judging the possible impact from the fishing industry, Meyer says.

“We have a lot of knowledge gaps,” she says. “When you compare for example the maps of distribution of the krill larvae to the distribution of the entire population, then it might be that only a small proportion is responsible for replenishing the entire population.”

In other words, although a relatively small proportion of krill are pulled from the Southern Ocean each year, if those catches happened to target breeding adults, then such fishing could have an oversized impact.

Officially that should not happen. The Antarctic krill fishery is well managed and branded as sustainable. And unlike some contested areas around the world, scientists, conservationists and the fishing industry there enjoy a largely co-operative and constructive relationship. “I think the relationship is very friendly and also very open,” Meyer says.

CCAMLR

Along with other species, the Antarctic krill fishery is managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), made up from a group of 26 nations (including the European Union) with an interest in the region. The commission monitors stocks, assesses the health of the fishery and sets limits on how much krill can be taken each year.

CCAMLR splits the waters surrounding Antarctica into three large areas. The limits on fishing are based on an estimate made in 2010 that krill stocks in one of these large areas – Area 48 on the Atlantic side of the continent – totalled 60.3 million tonnes. This allowed the commission to set an absolute cap on catches – called the “precautionary catch limit” – of 5.61 million tonnes each year. The actual annual take is nowhere near that figure. Fishing is only allowed in seven “sub-areas” and divisions, each of which have their own caps – added together, the total catch from each of these sub-areas cannot exceed 620,000 tonnes – the so-called “trigger level”. However, at present, fishing is only taking place in four of the sub-areas, all in Area 48. The most popular of these, sub-area 48.1 around the Antarctic peninsula, has an annual catch limit of just 155,000 tonnes.

Source: CCAMLR (Graphic: Manuel Bortoletti / China Dialogue Ocean)

In 2020, a total of 450,781 tonnes of krill were taken across the sector, a figure that has doubled in the last five years but is still comfortably below the trigger level. So, all is good? Not necessarily.

Fishery management strategies that permit what look like relatively low catch levels across large regions could still prove to be unsustainable, says Philip Trathan, head of conservation biology at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, the United Kingdom. “It matters where you take it from,” he says. “Say for the sake of argument you are allowed to take 100 tonnes from a defined area. That limit is set with an assumption you are going to take it evenly from across that area. But you’re not going to do that. You’re going to go to the areas where it’s most predictable and most profitable. And those are probably also the regions where the penguins, seals and whales go as well.”

In other words, the fishing industry could be taking their permitted and precautionary amounts of krill out of the mouths of predators that rely on them. That’s important because rises and falls in krill population from year to year, including those influenced by fishing, are believed to have a knock-on effect on the predators that eat them – notably penguins. A 2020 study of penguin colonies in the South Shetland islands, which lie about 120 kilometres north of the Antarctic peninsula, suggested a link between levels of krill fishing in surrounding waters and declining health of the birds.

Using decades of data going back to the 1980s, the research, led by George Watters at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in La Jolla, California, found that when local fishing catches of krill spiked, penguins took longer to find food and had fewer healthy chicks.

One problem with the current fishery management approach, Trathan says, is that it sets up an annual free-for-all that pits fishing vessel against fishing vessel to scoop up as much krill in the shortest time possible. For example, this year the cap for zone 48.1 was reached in early June, so the area is now closed until December. Such an “Olympic-style” management plan can force fishing activity into smaller areas and shorter fishing seasons.

Many scientists and conservation groups would like to see tighter controls on exactly where and when the krill can be caught. Those measures could include dividing the existing sub-areas into smaller zones, each of which would then be allocated its own (smaller) maximum take.

Some countries have gone further and backed the establishment of new marine protected areas, including one around the Antarctic peninsula, which could lead to stricter controls and even outright bans on krill fishing in the most sensitive regions.

Keen to avoid such regulation, the krill fishers have taken steps to show they can manage the threat themselves. In December last year, an industry group called the Association of Responsible Krill Harvesting Companies voluntarily suspended fishing close to three penguin colonies on the Antarctic peninsula for 12 months. This adds to a series of existing buffer zones the industry has established around penguin colonies in which local krill fishing is halted during the incubation and chick-rearing season.

CCAMLR is due to discuss possible new restrictions in November, but Trathan, who sits on the commission’s scientific advisory group, says it’s unlikely much progress will be made. “I think it’s a tall order and it sort of depends on the process as well as the science, making sure that we’ve got enough time to discuss it in the detail that is needed.”

The current focus is on keeping the existing protection in place. The management system that divides the trigger-level catch limit between the seven sub-areas and divisions is due to expire this year. If not renewed, fishers would technically be able to take up to 620,000 tonnes of krill from wherever they liked: including the sensitive waters around the peninsula.

Who fishes?

Krill fishing is currently dominated by Norway. Helped by technology that continuously pumps the contents of submerged nets onboard, Norwegian vessels bagged almost 250,000 tonnes last year, which is more than double its nearest competitor. Chile, South Korea and Ukraine also take significant amounts of krill. An important new player is China. The country landed almost 120,000 tonnes of krill last year (up from 41,000 in 2018 and 50,000 in 2019).

“[Krill fishing] fits with the Chinese policy to develop its distant water fishing fleet,” says Nengye Liu, director of the Centre for Environmental Law at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. The gap between the number of krill allowed to be caught and the number actually caught is of interest to Chinese policymakers as having potential to grow or even just maintain that fleet."

Climate change

As nations target increased krill catches in coming years, scientists are anxious about another possible pressure on stocks. A cold-water species, researchers aren’t sure how the crustaceans will manage as the waters around Antarctica steadily warm.

“Change will happen, but it will happen slowly, so maybe they will be able to adapt. We don’t know,” says Katharina Michael, a krill researcher at the University of Oldenburg in Germany.

To try to find out, Michael and her colleagues caught krill off the Antarctic coast and put them in giant tanks filled with different temperature seawater for eight months. They found that krill responded differently when the water was 3.5C or higher: their metabolism significantly increased, they used more oxygen and they grew to be significantly smaller.

“There is an increased energy demand, which may have implications for long-term processes. So, energy might be taken away from growth and reproduction,” Michael says. “We don’t know that yet. We have to investigate. But there is something going on.” Water temperature in krill habitats changes a lot with the seasons and weather, but currently range from -1.8C to 5.5C.

The Alfred Wegener Institute’s Meyer says the possible effects of warmer temperatures on krill body size is something that should be closely monitored in the future, along with other important information such as the distribution and density of krill stocks.

To gather real-world data, Meyer hopes to take advantage of the currently good relations between krill researchers and krill fishers. With limited slots available aboard scientific research ships and field stations, Meyer hopes that more fishing vessels could help, either by hosting scientists or by taking samples themselves.

With more reliable measurements, the management system could be made more responsive, with catch limits tightened or relaxed from year to year to match the real-world state of the fishery. “What CCAMLR needs to find is a way to reduce the risks to predators like penguins, seals and whales, while recognising that fishing is allowed,” Trathan says. “But ultimately the more krill you take out the more likely you are to see an effect.”

David Adam is a freelance journalist based near London.

This article appears courtesy of China Dialogue Ocean and may be found in its original form here.

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