Interview: Climate Affecting Fish and Game

  • The National Wildlife Federation is concerned about the nation's fish and game species being impacted by climate change. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

People are beginning to notice the effects
of climate change – especially people who
get out in nature a lot. Hunters and anglers
with the National Wildlife Federation recently
released a list of some of the game and fish
species that are at risk due to climate change.
Lester Graham talked with one of the members
of the group:

Transcript

People are beginning to notice the effects
of climate change – especially people who
get out in nature a lot. Hunters and anglers
with the National Wildlife Federation recently
released a list of some of the game and fish
species that are at risk due to climate change.
Lester Graham talked with one of the members
of the group:

Lester Graham: Kathleen Law in an angler, a member of the National Wildlife Federation, a former member of the Michigan Legislature, and a retired research scientist. First, what kind of game and fish, besides polar bears and penguins, are at risk because of climate change?

Kathleen Law: Well, everything that nests in the water or tries to have a fishery involved. It is affecting our national and our local bird, deer, the population, the habitat.

Graham: I guess that’s the question, though – how do we know that it’s not something else at work? How do we know that it’s climate change? And, of course, the skeptics will say, ‘how do we know it’s man-caused changes to the climate?’

Law: Well, we can continue being in a state of denial, and wonder where everything went, or we can get ahead. It’s not important to me who’s causing it, it’s, ‘what can I do to help?’

Graham: The US House has passed climate change legislation, the Senate is debating a version. Will the policies in those bills be enough to save some of these fish and game species you’re worried about?

Law: It’ll give us a chance. Without a concerted, willful effort, we have a very limited chance. So, there are things that we can do, that we must do, as a people who want diversity, who want to fish, who want to eat – I like venison. So what do we do to protect that resource and, and in a positive way? Which is the education and resource restoration, I think, is probably the best way to start.

Graham: Opponents of climate change legislation worry a cap-and-trade carbon reduction scheme will cost the economy too much. They don’t want the US to be put at a competitive disadvantage. Will the concerns of hunters and fishers sway any members of Congress to actually support climate legislation, if they believe it’s a jobs killer?

Law: Well, it will certainly be a consideration. The hunters and fishing folk are your constituents, they’re your neighbors, they’re your family. You can look at that, ‘it’s a job killer.’ So is climate disruption a job killer. So, how do we create new jobs? Well let’s get people out planting marsh grass. Let’s, you know, something positive. Something that people can do that makes a difference for them and their neighborhood and their community. That’s positive. That’s hope. We gotta give them hope.

Graham: What is the National Wildlife Federation doing in Washington to affect the debate about climate change?

Law: Well, they have flown in a large contingent of just people who are hunters and fishers and who have represented people in the constituencies to come in and talk to the Senators. Our hunters and fishing people – consider them sentinels. They’re out there in November, hunting ducks. They’re out in April, standing in the water, fishing. These are sentinel people, and to pay attention to what they’re saying is very important, vital, and that’s what we did in Washington DC.

Graham: Kathleen Law is a retired research scientist, a former member of the Michigan legislature, and working with the National Wildlife Federation as part of an effort to save fish and game species the group says is at risk because of climate change. Thanks very much.

Law: Thank you.

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If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Eat ‘Em

  • Every march, the Cownose Stingrays migrate into the Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic. They come to give birth, mate, and eat. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)

We like seafood – a lot. Many
species are disappearing. That’s
causing a ripple effect that’s
changing the patterns of sea creatures.
In the Cheseapeake Bay, it’s an invasion
of stingrays. The cownose stingray
is eating oysters that are commercially
raised there. Some people say: if
you can’t beat them, eat them. Sabri
Ben-Achour has the story:

Transcript

We like seafood – a lot. Many
species are disappearing. That’s
causing a ripple effect that’s
changing the patterns of sea creatures.
In the Cheseapeake Bay, it’s an invasion
of stingrays. The cownose stingray
is eating oysters that are commercially
raised there. Some people say: if
you can’t beat them, eat them. Sabri
Ben-Achour has the story:

In a little boat just off shore of Virginia’s Cone River, AJ Erskine leans overboard. He is using 20-foot poles with gaping jaws full of long needle like teeth to scrape the bottom of the emerald colored river.

“These things are called hand tongs.”

Up comes a pile of oysters. They’re only about a year old.

“We don’t feel comfortable giving them more than one year of a chance.”

That’s because Erskine is worried about stingrays, specifically Cownose Rays. Every march, the winged sea creatures migrate into the bay from the Atlantic. They come to give birth, mate, and eat.

“What they do is flap their wings, put the oysters in a pile, and crunch the shells, and they go through a seed bed of oysters in a weekend.”

Erskine says it’s become a huge problem for oyster farmers.

The rays also damage the underwater environment. They uproot aquatic grasses, destroying nurseries for fish and blue crabs.

Some biologists believe there are more rays because a main predator – the shark – has been overfished out in the Atlantic. Tiger Sharks in this area have declined 99% over the past 30 years.

Other biologists say it’s that strict limits on fishing in the Chesapeake Bay have meant fewer rays caught accidentally in giant nets. Whatever the reason, oyster farmers are looking for a way to control the rays.

A hundred miles inland, in Richmond, Mead Amery thinks he has a solution.

“Depending on how you prepare it, it’s delicious.”

Avery is a seafood distributor. He and officials with the State of Virginia want you to try stingray.

“The texture is wonderful, it has a veal pork type of texture.”

It’s been a tough sell so far.

“People hear ray and think, ‘I don’t wanna eat that!’”

Marketers are trying hard though. They don’t call it Cownose Ray but rather Chesapeake Ray. They’re pushing the ray in restaurants from Virginia to Japan. And it may take off – after all, lobsters used to be considered insects of the sea and only the poor ate them. The popular Chilean Sea Bass used to be a nuisance by-catch.

But, while those cases offer hope for marketers, they carry warnings for environmentalists. Both Sea Bass and Maine lobsters were dangerously overfished because of their popularity. Bob fisher is a biologist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. He knows full well there are risks involved in going after stingrays.

“You remove a top predator like that from the food chain, we don’t know what the repercussions would be.”

He says stingrays are slow to mature and give birth to only one offspring at a time. And no one even knows how many there are. But Fisher is still very much open to the idea of harvesting the rays given the problems they seem to be causing for oyster growers.

“I look at things that are in our oceans as resources, it’s our responsibility to take care of our resources, but it’s also a resource that’s there that can be, and I believe should be, utilized for humans.”

Fisher is working with the Marine Products Board, and the Department of Agriculture to come up with a plan to strictly limit fishing of the ray to what’s sustainable.

So, if the whole thing is successful, you might find Chesapeake Ray on a plate near you.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sabri Ben-Achour.

Related Links

Something Fishy in the Water

  • A new study out of Baylor University finds our pharmaceuticals are getting into fish and other aquatic life (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

There’s something fishy with pharmaceuticals. Lester Graham reports researchers find the drugs we take end up in some fish:

Transcript

There’s something fishy with pharmaceuticals. Lester Graham reports researchers find the drugs we take end up in some fish:

If you’re a fish living anywhere near a wastewater treatment plant, you’re swimming in drugs.

A new study out of Baylor University finds our pharmaceuticals are getting into fish and other aquatic life.

Bryan Brooks is one of the researchers.

“In many cases we really don’t know the full potential effects of these kind of drugs on aquatic life.”

This is just the latest research that shows the stuff we take passes through us, and ends up in the water.

There’s not a lot you can do about that, but Brooks says at least don’t flush unused medications down the toilet.

“Perhaps the most appropriate way to dispose of unused medications is directly to landfill when it’s properly packaged.”

The FDA says, mix the drugs with something nasty like kitty litter or old coffee grounds so kids won’t be interested. Then put it all in a sealed bag or can with a lid so it doesn’t leak out of a garbage bag.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Opening Up New Waters for Whale Hunts?

  • Mother-calf pair of "Type C" orcas in the Ross Sea. (Photo by Robert Pitman, NOAA)

Japan kills more whales than any other country in the world. A new proposal would allow Japanese whalers to hunt off their county’s coasts. Mark Brush reports – some think opening up these waters to whale hunts is a bad idea:

Transcript

Japan kills more whales than any other country in the world. A new proposal would allow Japanese whalers to hunt off their county’s coasts. Mark Brush reports – some think opening up these waters to whale hunts is a bad idea:

The International Whaling Commission passed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. But it allowed some countries to kill whales for what it calls scientific study.

Japanese boats kill hundreds of minke whales in the southern ocean under this designation. Critics say there’s nothing scientific about these hunts.

Now, the Commission wants to stop Japan from killing whales in the southern ocean. Phasing out these so-called scientific whale hunts. But in exchange, they might let the country openly hunt whales off its own coasts.

Jonathan Stern is with the American Cetacean Society. He says whale populations could take a hit, if Japan is allowed to start hunting in these waters:

“I’m just afraid once their fleet starts operating. They’re going to want to take more whales and more different species of whales.”

Japan has long maintained that these hunts are part of their cultural heritage. The International Whaling Commission will meet next month to decide the issue.

For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Throwing the Big Fish Back

  • Fishing laws in Canada and US states often protect small fish and are less restrictive with big ones. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

People who love to fish spend plenty of money on gear, license fees and even gas for their boats. It’s enough to make anglers think, maybe they’re entitled to keeping the biggest fish for trophies or the frying pan, right? Shawn Allee met a researcher who wants you to throw back your biggest catch:

Transcript

People who love to fish spend plenty of money on gear, license fees and even gas for their boats. It’s enough to make anglers think, maybe they’re entitled to keeping the biggest fish for trophies or the frying pan, right? Shawn Allee met a researcher who wants you to throw back your biggest catch:

This is the guy who wants to change how a lot of people fish.

“My name is Paul Venturelli and I study fisheries biology at the University of Toronto.”

Venturelli’s disturbed by how many fish species are on the brink of collapse – either in oceans or in fresh water.

He hopes to grow fish stocks – with this fishing advice.

Toss the big ones back.

And what’s he got to back that up?

“I’ve got about ten pages of notes here. Nah, I’m kidding. I’m kidding.”

Actually, he says the idea is pretty simple.

“A ton of big, old fish will produce more new fish than a ton of smaller, younger fish. And this is because the bigger, older fish tend to produce offspring that have a higher chance of survival.”

Venturelli studies mostly ocean-species, but he says the principal should apply to North American freshwater fish like pike and walleye, too.

But Venturelli’s got a problem spreading this idea around.

Fishing laws in Canada and a lot of US states often protect small fish and are less restrictive with big ones.

I asked one of the head guys in Illinois fisheries, Joe Ferencak, why that is.

“Essentially what you’re doing with that minimum size limit is protecting one or two year classes of reproductive age fish so they can successfully spawn or reproduce.”

Ferencak says, fisheries science has stood behind the ‘protect the small fish’ theory for decades – with some exceptions.

He says to change laws, Venturelli would need to do more studies.

Plus, Ferencak says no state would want to completely keep people from big fish – that’s just not much fun.

“We want to maintain and enhance these fisheries for the benefit of the fishing public, the angler. And it’s kind of counter-intuitive to not allow them to take these larger fish.”

Well, I figure it wouldn’t be fair to talk about big fish without talking to outdoorsmen, so I spent some time in Griffith, Indiana.

It’s about ten miles from Lake Michigan.

Fishing and hunting outlets are all around – and there’s this place.

Allee: “So what’s the establishment.”

Leap: “American Natural Resources.”

Edward Leap Senior runs American Natural Resources – it’s a taxidermy shop – with stuffed deer, fox, and fish filling every nook and cranny.

I figure Leap would rush to the defense of catching big fish, but, you know what? He doesn’t bite.

Allee: “If you get a whole bunch of fish in your boat, I mean, you want to show off the big one. Most people do, right?”

Leap: “Yes and no, though. When you get talking about the conscientious outdoorsman, no, he’s not going to be thinking this way. He’s going to say, ‘I got this fifteen pound walleye, a super-trophy fish. It took a lot of years to grow this fish, I’m going to take a picture of it and I’m going to release it.'”

And, to prove the point, he reaches back and pulls a fish trophy off the shelf.

“For the trophy part of it, we’ll do a reproduction of it that you can’t tell from the real thing. And the fish now is out there spawning, and making eggs, and continuing its species.”

Leap says more and more fishermen are having him make fake fish – or, reproductions, as he calls them.

So, from his vantage, scientists like Paul Venturelli won’t have too much trouble with the advice to ‘throw back the big ones.’

Leap says you don’t have to keep fish you catch, and in his experience, smaller fish make better eating anyway.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Bait and Switch in the Seafood Section?

You might not be getting what you paid for in the seafood section of your grocery store. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… a new study has found some fish are being sold in the guise of others:

Transcript

You might not be getting what you paid for in the seafood section of your
grocery store. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports a new
study has found some fish are being sold in the guise of others:


A new study finds cheaper fish are being sold as ‘red snapper.’ Amy Moran at
the University of North Carolina is a co-author of the study published in
Nature
. She says DNA tests showed three-fourths of the ‘red snapper’
filets they tested from grocery stores were actually other species. Moran says
consumers are being deceived a couple of ways:


“The public perception of how common these species are is obviously influenced
by how common they appear to be on the marketplace. And if you go to the
grocery store and see Red Snapper everywhere and it’s $6.95 a pound, you can
rightly assume that it’s fairly common. But if what you’re getting is something
different, it’s going to lead to some public misapprehension of how common these
species are and that may at some level affect policy.”


Because less valuable fish are being reported as ‘red snapper’ catches,
fisheries managers are fooled into overestimating the population of the fish,
contributing to over-harvesting.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Commercial Fishers Angling for Trout Fishing Rights

  • Steve Dahl is one of about 25 commercial fishers on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Dahl makes a modest living selling herring, but he'd like to be able to fish for lake trout too. When he's fishing for herring, Dahl pulls his gill net up and passes it across his boat, plucking herring from the mesh. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Some fish populations in the Great Lakes have recovered dramatically from the devastating pollution of the last century. But the very health of the fishery presents a new set of challenges for people. Who gets to catch the fish? Most states favor sport anglers, but some commercial fishing operations are asking for a bigger share. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Some fish populations in the Great Lakes have recovered dramatically from the
devastating pollution of the last century. But the very health of the fishery presents a
new set of challenges for people. Who gets to catch the fish? Most states favor sport
anglers, but some commercial fishing operations are asking for a bigger share. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


(sound: engine zooms, slows)


Steve Dahl guides his aluminum boat to his gill net, anchored below the waves of Lake
Superior. He fishes out of Knife River, a small town just up the shore from Duluth
Minnesota. A few feet at a time, the net offers up its catch – slender silver herring
caught by the gills.


“The mesh actually has a little bit of flex to it. That’s why I can squeeze them out. One
that’s too big or fat, you have to back it out, so you don’t harm the flesh.”


The openings in the net are just right to catch herring. Too small for lake trout. Dahl
isn’t allowed to catch lake trout anyway. He says they mostly just bounce off the net.


When the net is empty, about 40 herring – each of them about a pound – are lying in a tub
at the bottom of the boat.


Dahl is working hard for these fish. It’s pretty cold, and the wind is gusting.


(ambient sound)


Dahl says sometimes the current is so strong, he can’t pull the net up out of the water.
Sometimes there are no fish in the net. In the
summer, they move around and they’re hard to find. And of course, he can’t fish when
the lake is frozen.


But he loves this life.


“I get to be outside all the time, my own boss. It’s great fun.”


Steve Dahl sells his catch to the restaurants and fish houses that dot the North Shore of
Lake Superior. He makes his living this way. He says he doesn’t make a lot of money,
but it’s a good life.


Dahl says the money would be better if he were allowed to fish for lake trout. He figures
he’d be able to make several thousand dollars more a year if he could catch even just a
few hundred lake trout.


“That’s all we’re asking for is to be able to supply the local restaurants through the peak
tourist season.”


Lake trout were almost wiped out by over-fishing and by the parasitic sea lamprey in the
1960’s and 70’s. The lamprey are under control now, and decades of stocking lake trout
have brought the population back up. People who fish for sport have been catching more
and more lake trout. Last year, they caught about 15,000 of the fish on the Minnesota
side of Lake Superior. But so far the state of Minnesota won’t allow commercial fishers
to go after them. Neither will Michigan, although Wisconsin and Ontario do.


Don Schreiner manages the Lake Superior fishery for Minnesota. He says restoring the
lake trout population is taking a long time. That’s why they don’t want to open it up to
commercial fishing just yet.


“Right now we’re pretty cautious, we’ve just started kinda pulling back on stocking and it
seems a little premature to start thinking about opening the door for commercial
fisheries.”


Next year, Minnesota plans to create a new ten-year plan for the fish in its Lake Superior
waters. Don Schreiner says during the planning process, everyone will be able to have
their say. But sport anglers far outnumber the two dozen or so commercial fishermen on
the North Shore. So they’ll need to find allies in their claim on the lake trout.


Paul Bergman is likely to speak up in favor of commercial fishing for lake trout. He
owns the Vanilla Bean Bakery & Café in Two Harbors, Minnesota. He buys herring from
Steve Dahl. He says half his customers order fish, and they love it when it’s locally
caught.


“People really do come up here for the native fish on the North Shore, so we’re getting so
many more repeat customers now from the cities. More and more are asking for the fish.”


Bergman puts a sign in the window when he has fresh herring, and he says it pulls people
in. He’d like to be able to do the same with lake trout.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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Preserving World-Class Walleye Fishery

  • Walleye (image courtesy of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission)

Conservation officials say there need to be new restrictions on walleye fishing. Lake Erie is a world-class destination for walleye fishing. But officials say without better conservation, it won’t be in the future. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Aileo Weinmann reports:

Transcript

Conservation officials say there need to be new restrictions on walleye
fishing. Lake Erie is a world-class destination for walleye fishing. But
officials say without better conservation, it won’t be in the future. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Aileo Weinmann reports:


The Canadian province of Ontario and the states around Lake Erie plan to cut
this year’s walleye harvest by 30 percent. Conservation officials say
lowering the catch of the popular sport fish is necessary because the
walleye population is down.


Jim Barta runs charter fishing trips for walleye. He says rough weather in
recent years has damaged a lot of the fish nests of the walleye.


“Cold weather, storms in the Spring, about the time the walleye
are depositing their eggs on the sandbars and in the various reefs where
they spawn — you lose a lot of these nests, a good many of these nests.”


Even with the reduction in the number of walleye fished from the lakes,
conservation officials say the walleye population will still go down during
the next two years. They hope the plan begins to help walleye bounce
back after that.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Aileo Weinmann.

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Will Trout Coast to Recovery?

A sport fish native to the Great Lakes region is famous for its looks and its size, but overfishing and habitat loss have driven its numbers down. Now, some fish experts are helping the coaster brook trout make a comeback. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

A sport fish native to the Great Lakes region is famous for its looks and its size… but over fishing and habitat loss have driven its numbers down. Now, some fish experts are helping the coaster brook trout make a comeback. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:


Coaster brook trout, or coasters, cruise the near shore waters of Lake Superior most of their lives, and only swim into rivers to spawn. Male coasters turn vibrant red when they’re spawning. And the trout grow much larger than their inland relatives… an 8 pound fish is a trophy.


But coasters are rare, so Trout Unlimited is working with other scientists to boost their numbers. In the last 2 years, biologists have released baby coasters in 4 rivers in the Upper Peninsula.


Bill Deephouse is president of Trout Unlimited’s Copper Country chapter.


“You can’t protect all of these little creatures. So you put… and this certainly isn’t exact… but you put 10,000 fish in, you hope a few thousand of them make it. Maybe a few hundred make it to adulthood.”


The biologists say it may be some time before fishermen will feel one of the reintroduced coasters on the end of their lines. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.