JBA Consulting’s Post

🌊A GoPro to protect and monitor marine environments from deep sea trawling in Greenland?🌊 Dr Chris Yesson from ZSL came to speak to us last week about monitoring benthic environments in heavy fishing communities in Greenland. About 80% of the export income of Greenland comes from fishing. 🎣 Original trawling methods involved scraping large nets with heavy pieces of metal across the seabed, resulting in extreme damage to to organisms that live there, not to mention large species accidentally being caught up in the nets, including Greenland sharks! 📷 By attaching a GoPro to a metal cage, they have managed to capture images of the sea floor to identify areas to avoid trawling. These images are then used to identify vulnerable marine ecosystem (VME) indicator species such as the sea pen, cups corals and umbellulas. ⛴️ These images have identified the impacts of trawling on soft seabeds vs hard sea beds, and discovered that hard seabeds take much longer to recover than soft. 🪸This research suggests will hopefully lead to better government marine management/protection areas, sustainability certifications and seabed mapping! Thanks to Dr Chris Yesson for this interesting seminar! #EBE2024 #marineconservation #biology #fisheries #ecology 📸 Dr Chris Yesson

This video by the ICES Working Group on Elasmobranch Fishes sheds light on the captivating world of elasmobranchs (sharks, skates, rays, and sawfish). Delving into their life histories and ecological significance, it highlights the crucial role these creatures play in ocean ecosystems. Moreover, the video underscores the challenges elasmobranchs encounter and the cutting-edge scientific efforts aimed at safeguarding their existence. #elasmobranchs #sharks #rays #fisheries #conservation

Find out about a two-year project testing selective trawls to reduce bycatch in the North East England Nephrops fishery. Eight skippers created the project with Cefas, with input from Seafish and Boris Nets, to ‘road-test’ a variety of trawl designs that have already shown promise in reducing unwanted catches in previous scientific trials. The skippers tested the gear during real commercial fishing operations over two years under a full range of conditions, giving them plenty of time to get a feel for how these trawls performed in the waters they know best. The project was funded by Defra under the Fisheries Industry Science Partnership. Read more in Fishing News here ➡️ https://bit.ly/3DwJR1E

Excited to be heading to the Coastal Futures conference soon to speak about "Queering Ecology as a Regenerative Pathway in nature", and how it can be an essential mechanism in reforming and reimagining our future interactions with wildlife and the natural world, especially when it comes to marine and coastal ecosystems and biodiversity... We are in need of these futurisms, interdisciplinary perspectives and restructures. Simply put, without them, we are heading in the same direction as the current mainstream systems and structures have been guiding us towards: back to the beginning of their destructive cycles. A mechanism of regeneration requires an upheaval, and a recognition of alternative systems and realities within the ecosystems that hold us. Queering can be one of those mechanisms... #Queer #Ecology #Wildlife #Nature #Systems #Thinking #Mechanism

Consumers are increasingly demanding responsibly sourced and sustainably produced seafood. Gear innovations delivered through supply chain collaboration are crucial to help advance marine sustainability, support resilient food production systems and a thriving seafood industry David Warwick Samantha Stott 🇬🇧🇫🇷 Thomas Catchpole James I Lamb Seafish Cefas Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs #fishing #sustainability #selectivity #fishingindustry

What exactly are #pelagicfish? Pelagic fish are species that live in the #pelagiczone of ocean or lake waters – being neither close to the bottom nor near the shore. This ecological zone is characterized by open water away from the coast and the sea floor. Pelagic fish are typically found in the upper layers of the ocean and inhabit sunlit waters up to about 655 feet deep. Examples of pelagic fish include: #Tuna, #Marlin, #Swordfish, #Bluefish, and #Sharks. We support NOAA's Southeast Pelagic Observer Program (POP).   Our team of #biologists gather data to evaluate the harvest and status of #pelagicfish stocks. Our team covers vessels ranging from Newfoundland along the Western Atlantic, and throughout the Gulf of Mexico. #PelagicFish #OpenOcean #SchoolingFish #OffshoreEducation

In Environment, Coastal & Offshore (ECO) Magazine’s summer edition—Fisheries & Aquaculture—we examine some of the proposed solutions designed to overcome the persistent challenges faced by the applied marine science professionals in the field. Read more: https://bit.ly/3Vo868w #fisheries #aquaculture #appliedmarinescience

Find out what happened when we brought 11 of our partners together at a workshop at The Hague to explore how to enhance human and electronic methods for estimating rates of #bycatch of #ETP species. There are plenty of challenges in trying to answer questions around where and how much bycatch may be happening in different #fisheries. But, as the graphic below shows, the solutions are out there and ready to be taken up through collaborative efforts! Read the full blog here 👉 https://loom.ly/KEd2rAA

Jeff Goodwin, Ph.D., director of the Texas A&M Center for Grazinglands and Ranch Management and Texas A&M AgriLife Research assistant professor in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management, has been awarded the Thomas M. O’Connor Endowed Directorship in Rangeland and Wildlife Management. The Thomas M. O’Connor Endowed Directorship was established in 1982 by the Mary Ellen O’Connor Estate in recognition of South Texas cattle rancher Thomas M. O’Connor’s outstanding contributions to agriculture, the ranching industry and the state of Texas. The appointment, which can be held for up to five years, aims to enhance professional competency focused on improving rangeland health, productivity and ranching profitability. Learn more about this prestigious appointment as well as Goodwin's accomplishments and upcoming goals at https://lnkd.in/dmN7YqPM #Ranching #Leadership #Stewardship #Rangelands

There are only a few hundred North Atlantic right whales remaining. Once commonly hunted for whale oil, the species has been listed as endangered since 1970, with the population most directly affected by fishing gear entanglement and vessel strikes. In March 2024, in partnership with NOAA Fisheries, CBI designed and facilitated a large, multi-day workshop on the use of technology to protect North Atlantic right whales from vessel strikes. Read about this work and more in our latest "CBI in Action": https://lnkd.in/eAnH8-RN