Cefas Monthly News - August

Last week, we handed a report highlighting opportunities for climate adaptation to the Government of Grenada. The Grenada Fisheries: Adapting to Climate Change Report Card looks at some of the main climate change impacts facing the island and what can be done to tackle them.

In the Caribbean, we expect the climate emergency to have huge impacts on the marine environment and fisheries. Dr Bryony Townhill, Cefas Climate Scientist and lead co-ordinator of the report card, said “following on from work on climate adaptation in Caribbean fisheries, this work focuses in on Grenada, and what can be done to tackle the climate crisis.  There is a lot of adaptation action already underway, and here we look at what more can be done both by fisherfolk, policy makers and managers.”

This work is part of the Commonwealth Marine Economies Programme.

This week, we saw the opening of the season for our Defra funded scientific ‘catch, tag and release’ (CHART) programme. This programme aims to provide important scientific data to understand and manage Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (BFT) while benefiting coastal communities.

The launch of the season saw 28 skippers and their crew from fishing ports across the South West and Southern England make their first voyage of the 2022 season to try to encounter these ocean giants. One of the vessels was joined by a film team from BBC Spotlight (Southwest News broadcast) who will be documenting the programme for a special feature in the coming weeks. The launch was also featured on various other news outlets including Fish Focus.

Look out for updates throughout the season on Twitter and Facebook using #BFTCHART.

Earlier this month, Cefas Scientist Joanna Murray featured on BBC Earth to talk about the impact of keeping exotic fish.

Joanna spoke about the process for capturing fish, the benefit to local communities and the need for greater accessibility to trade data. “What many people don’t know is most of the fish that are caught are caught by hand by free divers. They will take small boats, take a deep breath and go down and dive and collect them using small hand nets or scoops depending on the species or size” said Joanna.

Each month we shine the spotlight on a current member of Cefas staff as part of our celebrations of 120 years of #CefasScience. This month we hear about Bryony's favourite memories working for Cefas. 

"A lot of my favourite memories from Cefas are from the trips I’ve been on, taking me to wonderful places to work with local scientists and stakeholders.  Some of the most memorable visits were to Colombia where I worked with local fisherfolk to understand the problems facing their communities, and what they wanted to see done to ensure that their fisheries were healthy in the longer term.  They hosted us so well and made us feel at home.  It was fascinating to hear from the older generation about how fisheries had changed over the years, and the changes that they had seen in the oceans."

Bryony Townhill is a Climate Change Scientist at Cefas who recently worked on Grenada's climate change report card.

Fisheries Technologist