Calling all undergraduate students! The NOAA Fisheries Inclusive Fisheries Internship Program is now accepting applications for the summer of 2024. This is a paid, 10-week summer internship for diverse undergraduates interested in careers in:

• Fisheries
• Marine and environmental sciences
• Resource management
• Education
• Outreach

Deadline to apply is February 10, 2024. This program was established by NOAA Fisheries in 2021 to increase diversity in its scientific and management communities. Check out our intern highlights to see what kinds of research projects interns have worked on, what they gained from their internship experience, and more. 

Scientists at our Woods Hole Laboratory used passive acoustics to create a baseline soundscape before wind developers started construction off the coast of southern New England. They found that offshore wind areas in southern New England are a biologically important habitat for whales and dolphins. Their research, recently published in the International Council For The Exploration of the Sea’s Journal of Marine Science, will help evaluate the potential impacts of offshore wind development on these species. 

Explore the StoryMap “Long Island Sound's Shellfish Growers are Citizen Scientists” to learn more about these oyster growers in their own words. To date, our GoPro Aquaculture Project has collected and analyzed more than 1,600 hours of underwater footage from oyster farms and natural rock reef habitats for comparison. The videos reveal that fish abundance and behavior on oyster farms is similar to that in natural habitats, and the farms may be acting as artificial reefs.

ResilientWoodsHole now has a climate walking trail app available for download. This app guides users through the village of Woods Hole, Massachusetts, highlighting the ways we plan to keep up with a changing climate. It offers a brief history of the village, climate change projections, adaptation solution charts, current and historic images, and more. If you visit Woods Hole, be sure to check it out!

ResilientWoodsHole is a private-public collaboration between Woods Hole-based  science institutions—Woods Hole Oceanographic Oceanographic Institution, University of Chicago/Marine Biological Laboratory, and our science center—and local businesses, residents, and other stakeholders. It helps us have crucial conversations, share ideas, build teamwork, and plan for a better, more climate resilient future for our community.

As sentinels of the marine environment, seals can provide insight into the state of a changing ecosystem. That’s why our scientists are working with their Northwest Atlantic Seal Consortium partners to study gray seals from Maine to Virginia. This work includes winter surveys on Muskeget Island, a small island off the coast of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. There, the team uses a variety of tools and technology to collect information on population abundance, animal health, diet, and behaviors. This information will help us better understand the biology and ecology of gray seals, see if we're meeting Marine Mammal Protection Act recovery goals, and more. Our new video shows how.

This fall marks the 60th anniversary of our Bottom Trawl Survey. To celebrate, scientists from our science center and NOAA’s National Systematics Laboratory have been blogging—sharing their experiences, reflecting on the survey and its history, and more. Equipment specialist Dom St. Amand kicked off the blogging highlight with his blog giving us a little behind the scenes look at what goes into calibrating and testing all the shipboard and scientific gear and equipment. This work is critical to the success of the survey and ensures everything performs as it should and runs like a well-oiled machine. 

We work to recover endangered U.S. Atlantic salmon populations and to conserve other native and sea-run fish and the ecosystems where these fish live. Our team studies what’s causing continued low numbers of U.S. Atlantic salmon to help managers develop plans to restore sustainable populations. To promote their recovery, we’re:

• Taking an ecosystem approach
• Monitoring and assessing U.S. and international populations
• Studying barriers to fish passage in rivers 
• Conducting ocean ecology research

This month is the inaugural meeting of the East Coast Climate Coordination Group. The group is an outcome of the East Coast Climate Scenario Planning effort and will work to implement the suite of actions defined during scenario planning. Group members include:

• New England Fishery Management Council
• Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council
• South Atlantic Fishery Management Council
• Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
• NOAA Fisheries Southeast Regional Fisheries Office
• NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Offices
• NOAA Fisheries Southeast Fisheries Science Center 
• NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center

I often hear frustration, “Climate change and fisheries—why hasn’t this problem been solved yet?!” While my short response, “It’s complicated,” is rarely satisfying, it is accurate. Climate change and fisheries present what design theorists have dubbed a “wicked problem.” To have meaningful discussions and solutions, a number of different perspectives and parties need to come together to define:

• What the problem(s) is/are
• Processes for addressing the problem(s)
• Potential solutions for decision makers

This approach is incremental and adaptive and embraces the concept of continued improvement. There’s a lot of evidence and literature supporting this approach when faced with large, complex problems like these. My talk “A Perspective on Moving Forward with Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management,” covers the incremental approach since it too is a “wicked” and complex thing. 

A huge amount of work has already been done to advance the ability of fisheries scientists and managers to work together to address climate change and fisheries for the East Coast. A huge step forward was the completion of the climate scenario planning effort and many thanks to the team that led that effort: 

• Kiley Dancy, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council
• Toni Kerns, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
• Moira Kelly, NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office
• Travis Ford, NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office
• Michelle Bachman, New England Fishery Management Council
• Sean Lucey, NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center
• Wendy Morrison, NOAA Fisheries
• Roger Pugliese, South Atlantic Fishery Management Council
• Karla Gore, NOAA Fisheries Southeast Regional Office 

The East Coast Climate Coordination Group will lead the next steps in addressing the effect of climate change on fisheries. We’re committed to working as part of them and to continuing the climate change and fisheries discussion.