#obanographers

[obanographers]

The Bottle Diaries: The RV Calanus and Me

author’s side note*: yes... we have done our blog post in the perspective of a sample bottle... so have fun enjoying this...

*Map of our CTD stations

Cloudy with a little drizzle       

 “Do you hear that?” I said to my friend, Viala, tucked snuggly in the box next to me, “I think we are going on the Calanus!”

“The Calanus? You mean the big old ship, where we get a taste of the ocean?”

It is really something that I look forward to ever since I joined the bottle crew. I have heard many wonderful stories of how they got to go out to sea and see the amazing view the boat has. Now I am ready as ever to go on this journey and hopefully be of some use.

As, we are transported onto the boat, I hear the rush of footsteps as researchers and crew stumble around to get the ship ready to fly. I was so excited, it was a new environment and I’m not ready to let anyone down just yet! As we are all fitted closely and safely, the ship starts to move and I know that this is why I came. I took a little sneak peak outside and what I see astounded me. Six students along the railings of the boat just enjoying the view and the calamity of the surrounding makes me feel very peaceful. I mean, from knowing what comes afterwards, this might just be the calm before the storm. It definitely was very quiet, just the sound of the Calanus’s song of eagerness to finally go soaring.

Then, as the ship stopped abruptly and I saw the 7 students running around the whole deck again.

*yea... here comes the action...

When the ship stopped at our first station, we all got ready to learn how everything works. First, we went up to the Bridge to find out what the CTD profile was when we lower the rosette down to near the sea floor. On the Bridge there were three big screens, one showing our boat location and track, another showing an echo sound location of what is below the boat, and a screen for the CTD data and information. When the rosette is lowered down to the bottom, we could get a clear picture of what the profiles for temperature, conductivity, chlorophyll, and oxygen would look like. This is where Mary, our principal scientists, decides at which depth we would collect water samples at, in order to make sure that Neskin bottles are shut at a suitable depth in order to get water samples at depth where there are significant changes to the water column.

*there were actually serious business going on here, definitely not as silly as this..... okay.... well we can still have fun even while working

Then, I saw a rosette of huge bottles called the Neskin brothers are slowly lowered below into the ocean by two of the ships crew. I do wish that I could be part of the Neskin brothers! They all seem so mighty and strong! I heard bangs as the Neskins are raised back out of the water.

“I heard from Captain Norman, that they are going deep into the unknown to collect samples for them young things,” O1 had said. 

One by one, we were picked out of our carriage. O1 goes out first to join the students. They released water into the O1 bottles and make sure that he is clean and filled him up to the top. How refreshing! A girl called Amy had made sure O1 had barely any bubbled left in him and sealed him up quite nicely.

Soon, it was P1 and me to go join them out with the Neskin brothers. The girl called Zoe had made sure that we were filled up proper and nice. It is really cold when she poured the water into us. I had also noticed that someone named Josh lowered a black and white coloured dish into the water, and pulled it back up, I really do wonder what that is all about?

*want to know what is lowered into the water? Go look at our video of the day as well!

Sooner that we thought, we were transported by someone named Josh into a brightly lit warm room. There we were carefully placed down. P1 is quickly put into a dark cool room under the table. Apparently, this is the place where they take samples of the water they put in us. I saw someone named Alex putting a few drops of chemicals into the O1’s water. It is very magical how suddenly the water had turned orange!

Then, he started shaking O1 around! I bet O1 probably has sea sick after this when shook around like that. Then I saw a girl named Sammi taking samples of the water in my bottle and into the beaker. Somehow, she is saving the little piece of paper and putting it into the Viala. Apparently there should be something important stored on those papers that Viala had kept safe.

This happened a few times and everyone is so busy running around the ship. There was barely enough time for lunch! Everyone was kept on pace and on track trying to keep the ship running smoothly. Soon, the day has come to an end. As the sun sets, I peeked through the lid seeing as everyone is enjoying the sun shining on the water. This is definitely an experience we would all remember…

*Mary enjoying the view of the ocean as we head back to shore after a long day’s work

-Chlorophyll 1 signing out

19.09.16

Please Check out our Calunlus Video!

[samcatlovegood]

What’s The Costs Of Serving That Salmon On Your Plate?

The price of 1kg of Salmon sold at Tesco costs around 12 pounds, but that is not the costs I’m talking about. Recently, BBC reported that the harvest of Atlantic Salmon from Scottish fish farms declined by more than 4% to 172,000 tonnes. Aquaculture is the “farming of marine finfish or shellfish in a ‘natural’ habitat with no supplmentary food added and with minimum impact on the environment” (Read and Fernandes 2003).

Why should I care if the production of salmon is decreasing, there are other food substitutes anyway?

Not only are there less fish production but the government was concerned that the lochs and rivers surrounding the fish farms were being polluted. We have other substitutes other than salmon, but we don’t get a second choice for the environment. There are multiple environmental pressures that exist in fish farms including sustainability of fish feeds, increase in densities of sea lice, synthetic compound contamination and the input of nitrogen and phosphorus just to name a few. People tend to “fish down and farm up”, due to a depletion in fish stocks. Wild fish are decreasing in biomass, whereas farmed fish are increasing. Increasing numbers of sea lice is a challenge to many farmers as it decreases fish production. Also, sea lice may also spread from farmed fish to wild fish. Sea lice is one of the many problems that farmers would use synthetic compounds to solve, but it creates a huge impact on the environment. An open-pen environment allows chemicals to disperse to surrounding waters through treatment, spills, waste food, and fecal matter.

Ewww…

Waste is very disgusting and unhygienic, it can also be toxic to surrounding waters and ecosystems. The toxicity of the compounds may harm non-targeted organisms and cause the pathogen to develop resistance to compounds. The length of time the chemical is active is also another concerning issue with the usage of synthetic chemical compounds. One of the biggest environmental issue caused by fish farming is the release of waste into the ecosystem, which cause an increase in the concentration of nitrogen and phosphorus.

(GIllbrand et al. pg 34 2002)

“Nearly 13% of sea-bed residue samples from fish farms were higher than the environmental standard allowed.” (BBC 2012) These discharges include proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins and pigments. Fish excretory products and decaying food releases ammonia and salts of nitrate and phosphate. Waste release problems are seen as a problem from intensive farming, which uses cages or ponds with high quality artificial feeds and medication. The high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus increases phytoplankton levels which contribute to future eutrophication and algal blooms of the ocean. This is a huge problem during summertime, as there are maximum nutrient levels where temperature is high and feeding rate is high, with a maximum biomass of fish.

Is anyone doing anything to stop this?

(Scotland’s Aquaculture)

The government and many environmental agencies are trying their best to regulate, evaluate, and mitigate these issues. Voluntary best practice is encouraged in the industry. New policies are being made to create stricter control on the fish farming industries and to limit the impact it has to the environment. For example, the Scottish government is currently hoping that a new bill could encourage the proper management of fish farms and that it does not affect fishing on the Lochs and rivers. This new bill includes new legal measures for operations, stricter regulations, and an increased in fines for no compliance. Farmers may also use Locational Guidelines to assist with licensing in order to assure that the nutrient levels are within environmental standards. In Scotland, medicine or other chemical agents can’t be discharged from fish farms unless it is consented and licensed from SEPA under the Water Environment Regulations, 2005. Most farms need to be manage by legislative and regulatory measures and Codes of Conduct and Codes of Practice. The regulatory measures must consider the factors of a reasonable site selection, practices that minimize food waste and chemical usage. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency also monitors the increase of nutrients in organic waste deposition.

Okay, all I heard of is regulations,what about new methods or technology?

Well, there are new ways of farming through integrated aquaculture can be a mitigation approach to nutrient and organic matter waste from intensive aquaculture activities. This practice incorporates species from different trophic positions or nutritional levels in the same system. The output from one subsystem, which could have been wasted, would be the input to another system resulting in greater efficiency of the production of desired products under the farmer’s control. This would allow the growth of marine aquaculture as well as promoting sustainable development. The diversification of ecosystems provide stability in production efficient resource use and conservation. An example of this type of farming is rice-fish farming, where the waste from fish farms would serve as nutrients for the rice crops to grow.

(Salmon Aquaculture in 2050, 2013)

This method is dual beneficial as it reduces environmental impacts and creates other economic products at the same time. Not only is choosing the correct methods and regulations important to the sustainability of fish farming, but a good site selection can make a difference as well.

Does that have to do with why most fish farms are located in Scotland?

Yes and no, “Scotland supplies almost all the marine fin-fish farmed in the UK with a total value of approximately 375 million pounds in 2007” (UKMMAS 2010), which is pretty impressive. Scotland does provide a suitable habitat for salmon, and many other seafood to be farmed. The “production of salmon is highest in Shetland and the North West region of Scotland” (UKMMAS 2010). Aquacultural growth also depends on site availability, environmental carrying capacity and availability of investments. Through the suitable management and regulations, aquaculture could become much mroe sustainable than it is now.

So we can still enjoy our fresh range of seafood, but if we don’t act now and prevent these environmental issues to keep on happening, it would be too late for the future of many farmers and consumers that love seafood!

References:

United Kingdom Marine Monitoring and Assessment Strategy (UKMMAS) (2010), Aquaculture, Charting Progress 2 Feeder Report Productive Seas. Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs on behalf of UKMMAS (Eds. Saunders, J. and McKie, J.) Section 3.1. 

Gillibrand,  P  et  al  (2002)  Scottish  Executive  locational  guidelines  for  fish  farming:  predicted  levels of nutrient enhancement and benthic impact, Scottish Fisheries Research Report #63. 

Read, P and T. Fernandes (2003) Management of environmental effects of marine aquaculture in Europe, Aquaculture 226, 139-163

Peel  and  Lloyd  (2008)  Governance  and  planning  policy  in  the  marine  environment:  regulating  aquaculture in Scotland. The Geographical Journal 174: 361-373

Barrington et al (2009) Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) in marine temperate waters. In D. Soto (Ed) Integrated mariculture: a global review. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper No. 529. Rome, FAO. pp 7-46

BBC (2012, October 4) Scotland’s fish farming faces stricter controls. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-19829553

BBC (2016, September 12) Farmed Atlantic salmon production down. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-37340549

Picture References:

https://salmonfarmscience.com/category/the-future/

http://aquaculture.scotland.gov.uk/