For four generations Kevin and Taunette Dixon’s families have followed the rhythm of the sea: Harvesting groundfish, such as cod and pollock, early in the year. Pink shrimp beginning in April, sometimes followed by albacore in the fall. Then, Dungeness crab, Oregon’s biggest and most lucrative fishery, just in time to bring in holiday cash.
It’s been the same for fishing families up and down the Oregon Coast.
But the ocean is changing, and with it, life in tight-knit coastal communities.
For the past six years, Oregon’s traditional Dec. 1 Dungeness opening has been significantly delayed because elevated domoic acid levels make the crab unsafe to eat.
The toxin comes from harmful algal blooms caused by marine heatwaves, which are increasing in frequency and intensity.
The warming planet can actually fill the catch with poison.
And this is only one effect of climate change.
Oregon now has a regular “hypoxia season,” when ocean oxygen levels near the sea floor plummet and some sea life flees the region or dies.
In 2017, a huge hypoxia event occurred off Washington. The next year it extended into Oregon, resulting in almost no halibut caught. Over the next two years, Oregon commercial crabbers reported pulling up pot after pot of dead, suffocated crabs.
Some of the highest levels of ocean acidification[1] in the world have been recorded off Oregon’s coast, making it hard for oysters, crab and shrimp to grow shells. Acidification increases as the oceans absorb human-caused carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.
Fishermen also are encountering stronger, more dangerous storms. Bad weather further delayed Oregon’s crab harvest in early 2020. Whale entanglements[2] in crab and other fixed gear have become more common, as warming waters push humpback populations from California and Mexico north and closer to shore. Other whales also have become entangled.
That could eventually cut the crab season short in the spring.
While some of the shifts can be due to natural phenomena, scientists attribute their increasing incidence and intensity to climate change.
“Scientists told us a long time ago what was going to happen,” said Justin Yager, a Newport, Oregon, crab and shrimp fisherman. “Now, we’re watching it happen.”
Already, the changes are forcing larger operators, like the Dixons, to change course and diversify, sometimes trading one fishery for another.
“Crab season hasn’t started on Dec. 1 for years. Sometimes it’s been pushed almost to February,” Taunette Dixon said. “These boats aren’t fishing all this time. They still have boat payments. They still have crew members that have to feed their families.”
And smaller operators without the resources to invest or weather hard times are calling it quits. That’s leading to industry consolidation, changing the fabric of Oregon's coastal communities.
“As a fisherman, climate change is my biggest single concern. It has been for years,” said Bob Eder of Newport, who began commercial fishing in 1973, when he was 21 years old.
“Some of the fisheries that are supporting families now may go away completely," Eder said.
The Oregon coast was one of the first places in the world where the seafood industry began taking an economic hit because of climate change, with a crisis in the state’s oyster industry[3] in the mid-2000s.
Oyster larvae in hatcheries, which use large volumes of fresh seawater, had begun dying at dramatic rates. Within a couple of years, scientists discovered acidic seawater, caused by the ocean absorbing human-caused carbon emissions, was making it difficult for oysters to form shells.
Oyster farmers were able to counter the problem, by treating hatchery water with soda ash, said Caren Braby, Marine Resources Program Manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
But those kinds of solutions don't transfer easily to the open ocean, Braby said.
Hatcheries are "a very controlled, quantifiable system," she said.
In 2014 and 2015, a massive marine heatwave, nicknamed “the Blob[4],” disrupted the West Coast marine ecosystem, causing the largest harmful algal bloom recorded on the West Coast. As a result, the federal government declared multiple fishery disasters.
Since then, marine heatwaves off the West Coast have become more common and intense, as have pockets of hypoxia and acidification.
Those changes eventually could impact marine regulations and management structures, said Lincoln County Commissioner Kaety Jacobson.
Jacobson spent 16 years with Oregon State University Extension Service and Oregon Sea Grant, working with the commercial fishing industry, policymakers and the coastal community.
“A lot of these management structures we’ve had in place, that have worked fairly well, are having to be rethought about,” Jacobson said.
For example, marine heatwaves since 2014 have led humpback and other whales to feed closer to shore, putting them in the path of ships and crab fishing lines.
In 2018, 46 whales were confirmed entangled off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California, according to NOAA Fisheries.
Because all whales are protected under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, and some, including humpbacks, under the Endangered Species Act, the increasing entanglements threaten to curtail crab fishing.
Oregon’s commercial fishing industry provides 6,848 jobs and nearly $700 million in total economic output, according to a 2019 study by ECONorthwest for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
That includes about $271 million in gross revenue received by fishermen. The industry also supports state revenues through permit fees, landing fees and income taxes.
The money trickles through coastal communities, to seafood processors, supply stores, scientists, restaurants and more.
The changing ocean could present opportunities for those who can afford to diversify or are willing to take a risk.
Eder, for example, just replaced the entire drive train on his 60-foot boat, the Timmy Boy, at a cost of more than $400,000, to have enough power to participate in fisheries that involve towing nets, such as shrimping.
“We are making the boat more versatile, to have more options if the crabbing becomes severely impacted,” Eder said.
John Corbin has fished for four decades out of Warrenton, Oregon, and Alaska.
Because of climate change, he says, he’s betting on Alaska, adding a fourth boat to fish strictly there.
“We previously fished primarily for Pacific cod on the Gulf of Alaska. Now, we’ve moved up to the Bering Sea, because they’ve closed the gulf,” Corbin said.
Federal fisheries managers announced in December 2019 an unprecedented decision to close the cod fishery in the Gulf of Alaska for the 2020 season after stock assessments showed populations at a historic low.
Scientists have connected the decline to increased water temperatures in the gulf since 2014. Stocks fell by half in the three years following the heatwave.
“It’s definitely in the back of your mind all the time,” Corbin said of climate change. “You wish you had a crystal ball to see what the future holds.”
Because of warming waters, over the past three years, market squid have been moving up from California, and some California squid fishermen have followed.
VIDEO: Squid fishing
As the ocean warms, the squid fishery has moved north from California to Oregon and fisherman are rigging their boats to catch them.
Chris Pietsch, Register-Guard
Right now, it’s an open fishery in Oregon, meaning no permits are needed. If it develops into a permanent fishery, permits will go to those with a catch history.
That’s attractive to Oregon fishermen.
“Because fishermen are adaptive, many of them in the last couple years have tried really hard,” Jacobson said. “Even though they’re not set up for squid, they have tried to adapt current gear or buy squid gear to make landings of squid.”
But it can cost as much as $500,000 to truly refit a boat for squid, Eder said.
Newport fisherman Jeff Oliver is one of the few Oregon fishermen who have made that investment. This year, he purchased a new squid boat, the F/V Nordic Valor.
“In Oregon, they see it as a fishery, but it's not a recognized fishery," Oliver said. "Meaning, if you have an Oregon boat license and an Oregon crew license, you’re able to go fish squid. It’s not a limited entry, like crab or groundfish or shrimp."
"The squid market is really strong. I think the projection for the years to come are going to follow suit," he said.
Many fishermen are struggling to hang on, or are giving up, Taunette Dixon said.
She can measure the economic pain in requests for help to Newport Fishermen’s Wives, the non-profit she co-leads.
Four years ago, the organization began putting together holiday boxes, with food and presents, for out-of-work fishing families.
“It all stemmed from the domoic acid season,” Dixon said. “Crab seasons were starting so late, we were getting more and more requests for help.”
Now, as many as 60 fishing families receive help over the holidays.
“This port used to be just packed full of small groundfish and crab and salmon boats,” Dixon said. “It’s been difficult for those boats to stay afloat.”
The number of vessels bringing in fish to Oregon ports has been falling since 2014, according to the ECONorthwest report. In 2017, 1,152 boats made onshore landings, a decline of about 16% from 2016, according to the report. The Oregon Employment Department counted 976 fishing vessels with at least one landing in 2018, and 960 in 2019.
“We continue to see economic responses that include probably fewer fishermen over time. There’s fewer buyers. Markets are being taken over by fewer and fewer distributors," Braby said.
“You see individuals who are making a lot of money, who have multiple boats, multiple permits,” she said. “Maybe they were in the right place at the right time to be able to accumulate those pieces of their business. And then you see people who are small scale, have been forever, and they can’t find a way to continue that kind of commercial fishing operation anymore.”
Braby says climate impacts may not follow a slow, predictable progression, but hit like a hurricane. To prepare, the industry must be nimble and diversified.
“We think of climate and ocean change as this slow, interminable treadmill that we’re on. In reality, at any point in time it’s probably more likely that it’s some dramatic event interspersed with kind of normal times,” she said.
Video: Shrimp fishing
The crew of the Tauny Ann search for shrimp off the coast of Oregon near Newport.
Chris Pietsch, Register-Guard
“There are going to be things that blow up, whether it’s a harmful algal bloom, marine heatwave that affects a single year, something that’s truly abnormal and pulls the rug out from under us. But then it might return to kind of normal,” Braby said.
The industry got a glimpse of that future in early 2020, when COVID-19 hit, Braby said. Suddenly, restaurants closed, markets dried up, crews were hard to find, and seafood processors were hit hard by illness.
Pacific Seafood, the state’s largest seafood processor, has had at least a combined 327 cases at plants in Newport, Warrenton, Charleston and Clackamas, according to the Oregon Health Authority. Bornstein Seafoods, in Astoria, had 33.
“The disruption is apparent,” Yager said. “It’s a tough time. We’ve been affected by it, but we’re surviving it.”
Fishermen responded by finding local buyers, rather than relying on a centralized single buyer. Restaurants began serving more takeout meals instead of having dining inside.
“The real outcome is that the solutions for COVID and for climate change are probably much more similar than people are currently thinking,” Braby said. “Our ability to pivot and adapt to those extreme but maybe somewhat short-term events is going to basically lay out for us whether we’re successful or not.”
Both Kevin and Taunette Dixon come from four generations of fishing families.
Kevin’s family drag fished out of Newport, while Taunette’s fished for crab in Alaska.
About 20 years ago, the couple bought the 58-foot F/V Corsair from Kevin’s father.
Since 2018, climate-related industry pressures have escalated, Taunette Dixon said.
This year, Dungeness crab season started Dec. 16 on the south and central Oregon coast, and not until Feb. 16 on the north coast. It typically will run through August.
“It doesn’t affect us as much as the smaller boats. Because we carry so many permits we can keep ourselves busy,” she said.
Still, delayed seasons and changing catches make it harder for everyone to plan boat payments and make payroll.
“It’s really feast or famine in this industry. You get paid in a bundle all at once. Then you won’t get paid for a few months," Taunette said. “We’re really used to managing our finances, but when you have such a lapse in fishing it’s really tough.”
Follow: Tracy Loew on Twitter: @Tracy_Loew[5].
Across America, the jobs and traditions, cultural touchstones and ways of living that have defined our communities are changing fast.
A warming planet is reordering how we live and how we see ourselves. It’s putting our homelands and historic sites underwater, disrupting how we harvest crops, catch fish and raise livestock. It’s raising our risks of diseases and disrupting how we run our businesses and cities.
As the planet changes, Americans are changing with it. Some will reinvent old ways to survive in a new world. Others won’t have time, or space, to adapt. Their livelihoods, histories and homes will become the climate’s casualties.
All year, the USA TODAY Network explores America, from its inundated coasts to its peaks of melting snow, to reveal these stories of change. These are the climate’s casualties — and its survivors.
References
- ^ ocean acidification (https://ift.tt/18LdI16)
- ^ Whale entanglements (seagrant.oregonstate.edu)
- ^ oyster industry (today.oregonstate.edu)
- ^ the Blob (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ @Tracy_Loew (twitter.com)
from GANNETT Syndication Service https://ift.tt/3fNPcDo
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