Rockfish and other bottomfish

Dear SeaDoc Society Supporter,
The Pacific Northwest has 26 species of rockfish that are truly “magnificent,” the translation of their Greek name Sebastes. Unlike many other fish they give birth to live young, some species can live to be over 100 years old, most have venom glands at the base of their fin spines, and—they just look cool! Unfortunately for them, they also taste great and are relatively easy to catch. Due to over harvest, many rockfish species are in decline in Puget Sound and the spawning biomass (their reproductive potential) of some species has dropped 90% since the 1980s.
Changing fishing regulations, alone, isn’t going to recover rockfish populations. We need to use as many techniques as possible to improve the health of their ecosystem. An instructive situation is in the Chesapeake Bay where striped bass populations (also called rockfish, but not really a Sebastes species) were over fished. Strict harvest controls helped recover populations and today kids and their parents enjoy catching striped bass again. It’s cause for celebration, except that a serious bacterial disease called mycobacteriosis is now spreading through the striped bass population. Scientists think that stress from poor water quality or low forage fish availability are to blame. Fishing regulations aren’t the only solution; they are one of many actions that will help the striped bass and the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.
In the Puget Sound Georgia Basin area, the SeaDoc Society has been investigating the role of setting aside protected areas as nursery grounds for our rockfish species. We know that larger, older fish produce more young. Theoretically, large fish living in protected areas will reproduce and send young rockfish out to other areas. Recent SeaDoc-funded research bears out this theory. At an artificial reef at Point Heyer in Puget Sound, Dr. Lorenz Hauser and colleagues used genetic markers to identify the babies of adult brown rockfish living on the reef. Results of tracking showed that while some young rockfish will stay where they’re born, others do move off to occupy other habitats. The implication is that under the right circumstances, protected areas can serve as a nursery ground for the recruitment of fish in non-protected areas. Testing theories is a critical step in using new tools to help recover fish populations and your support is improving ecosystem health for rockfish and other species. More information on Dr. Hauser’s research and other SeaDoc Society sponsored research is available at www.seadocsociety.org.

With thanks,

Kirsten Gilardi Joe Gaydos
P.S.: We’re thrilled that the SeaDoc Society has been invited to serve on the Science Working Group for the Washington Governor’s Puget Sound Partnership. This will help ensure best available science is incorporated in the Governor’s plan to restore Puget Sound by 2020. For more information see www.pugetsoundpartnership.org.

Dear SeaDoc Society Supporter:

The SeaDoc Society is ensuring the health of marine wildlife populations and their ecosystems by funding critical research, providing scientific support and bringing stakeholders together. Thanks to the support of numerous private investors, the SeaDoc Society recently solicited and funded four new research projects to be conducted in 2004. Like the projects we have funded before, these studies are designed to provide useful information that will enable us to better manage our living marine resources.

Last year, the SeaDoc Society reported that over 60 marine species in our region have declined enough to warrant their listing or proposed listing as threatened or endangered. The new research we are supporting this year is examining marine protected areas (MPAs) as a tool to help recover declining populations of wildlife like rockfish, herring, and scoters. We are also supporting a project examining historical and current tribal perspectives on using MPAs for species recovery. Specifically, funded projects will examine:

* How big do MPAs need to be to really protect quillback and copper rockfish?
* Do the young rockfish produced within MPAs settle within the protected area?
* Is reduced herring spawn contributing to population declines of surf and white-winged scoters and are herring spawning sites adequately protected?
* What are tribal perspectives on MPAs and how can tribal perspectives and traditional knowledge be incorporated into MPA management?

As results from these projects become available, we will actively ensure that managers and stakeholders understand and utilize the results to make better decisions about using appropriate tools to recover declining species. For more detail about these new projects or past projects funded by the SeaDoc Society, including the paper referenced below*, please contact us or visit our website at www.seadocsociety.org.

Once again, none of this valuable work would be possible without private citizens who care enough about our marine ecosystem to invest in its future. Thank you again for supporting the SeaDoc Society.
Sincerely,

Kirsten Gilardi

Joe Gaydos

*Gaydos, J. K. and K. V.K. Gilardi. 2003. Species of Concern in the Georgia Basin / Puget Sound Marine Ecosystem: more support for a transboundary ecosystem approach to marine conservation. In Droscher, Toni and David A. Fraser (eds.) 2003 Georgia Basin/Puget Sound Research Conference Proceedings, March 31-April 3, 2003, Vancouver, British Columbia. (PDF)

Dear SeaDoc Society Supporters,

In 1872, Ulysses S. Grant signed into existence the world’s first national park, Yellowstone. Since then, networks of parks and protected areas on land have benefited wildlife and ecosystems. Now work has begun to establish ocean parks and reserves often called marine protected areas, or MPAs.

Creating ocean parks is not without controversy, however; tribal treaty rights to harvest fish and shellfish, the needs of commercial and sport fishermen, and non-consumptive uses like recreational SCUBA diving and boating need to be considered. To effectively create protected areas and reserves, decision makers need sound scientific information that will allow their decisions to stand the test of time. Can Voluntary No-Fishing Areas be Effective?

The SeaDoc Society is providing sound scientific information about marine protected areas in the Puget Sound Georgia Basin region. In addition to funding and driving scientific research we have co-chaired a collaborative science working group, studied tribal perspectives on protected areas, and delivered scientific presentations to the State Fish and Wildlife Commission, the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and the Governor’s office.

In the Puget Sound region and around the world, people are thinking about and creating voluntary protected areas, yet little to no data exist on the efficacy of voluntary MPAs for recovering fish populations. With the help of Eric Eisenhardt and scientific SCUBA divers, the SeaDoc Society just finished collecting data for a first-ever evaluation of voluntary no- fishing areas. Are bottomfish such as rockfish, lingcod and kelp greenling larger or more abundant in voluntary no-fish areas than elsewhere?

Our preliminary evaluation of data collected suggests that in San Juan County there are few to no differences in fish size or abundance between the voluntary no-fish areas studied and similar fished areas. Further analysis this winter will evaluate the data in more detail and the final report will be published and shared with people working to restore and protect marine fish and wildlife populations locally, regionally and internationally. Your support of the SeaDoc Society is helping to secure a healthy future for our marine wildlife, and for our families. For more information on this and other SeaDoc-funded research, please visit www.seadocsociety.org.

With thanks,

Kirsten Gilardi & Joe Gaydos

Many people have been concerned that a burgeoning harbor seal population is responsible for the declines in bottomfish like rockfish, lingcod and greenlings, but nobody has the data to show if this is true or not. If seals are eating large numbers of bottomfish, it’s important to know so we can make good decisions about where to locate bottomfish protection areas.

Filling a critical science gap, the SeaDoc Society funded Steve Jeffries and Monique Lance to determine harbor seal diet in rocky areas where bottomfish occur, and the first year of data from this two-year project are very interesting. Of 507 harbor seal scats collected and analyzed from 18 different sites in 2005 and early 2006, rockfish remains like vertebrae and ear bones (otoliths) were only found in 4 samples and greenling were only found in 3 samples. No lingcod remains were found in any of the samples examined.

Instead of bottomfish, it appears that seals in rocky habitats prefer to eat adult salmonids and small schooling fish. In fact, 80% of the scat samples collected during the summer and fall contained adult salmon (mostly pink salmon) and 70% of the samples collected in winter and spring contained Pacific herring. Other fish that made up a large part of the seals’ diet included Walleye pollock, Pacific sand lance, Northern anchovy, and spiny dogfish. It appears that when salmon, herring, and other favored species are available, seals prefer to eat them over rockfish and suggests that having robust numbers of forage fish is important for rockfish recovery. Some species of rockfish feed on forage fish and having adequate forage fish around also might protect them from predation from seals. After all, why eat a single spiny, poison- ous rockfish when you can eat from a school of fatty forage fish?

This unique SeaDoc-funded science is continuing through 2006 and with no run of pink salm- on this year (they only run in odd years here), it will be interesting to see what harbor seals prefer to eat in the summer and fall. These data also are being shared with people who man- age bottomfish populations, set quota for herring, dogfish and other harvested species, work on marine protected areas, and work on understanding food webs in the Puget Sound Georgia Basin. Understanding and working to restore an ecosystem under pressure is not simple and relies on solid information.

Your donations to the SeaDoc Society have made this important work possible and we thank you for your continued support. For more information on this and other SeaDoc Society-sponsored research visit our website: www.seadocsociety.org. With Thanks,

Kirsten Gilardi & Joe Gaydos

(Originally published November 2006 as a letter to SeaDoc supporters)

Note: this was adapted from a presentation Joe Gaydos made to the 2008 Leadership San Juan Islands class in May 2008.

Over the past 7 years the SeaDoc Society has put millions of dollars into studying fish and wildlife. Why?