Minutes
November 16, 2005
Members Present: Laura Arnold, Michael Durland, Terrie Klinger, (Alan) Skeet Lowe, David Loyd, Mary Masters, Victoria Parker, Kit Rawson, Howie Rosenfeld, Jim Slocomb, Jonathan White, Tina Whitman
Staff: Jody Kennedy, Barbara Rosenkotter, Helen Venada, Candace VerBrugghen
Absent: Brian Calvert, Joy Sevier
Guests: Eric Eisenhardt, Kirsten Evans, Phil Green, Kari Koski,, Commissioner Kevin Ranker, Rowann Tallman, Tina Wylie-Echevarria, Jan Newton and her UW FH Labs class
Guest presenters: Anne Boudreau, Jessica Hayden-Spear
Chair Kit Rawson called the meeting to order at 8:30 a.m. in the Community Room at Islanders Bank Annex, Friday Harbor. He welcomed Howie Rosenfeld who replaced Mike Bertrand as the Town of Friday Harbor’s representative on the MRC. Kit also announced that the designation of the local Southern resident orcas as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act will be significant for the MRC.
Citizen comments: The five students from the FH Labs’ class introduced themselves; they are research apprentices studying pelagic ecosystem functions, including pelagic fish, physical oceanography, plankton, and marine birds and mammals.
Commissioner Ranker complimented Barbara and Jody on yesterday’s budget presentation to the BOCC; he said their reference to connections and leveraging of other money was so convincing that it made it politically infeasible for his counterparts to not grant the funding ($25,000). Kevin added that this budget includes increased support and time for the SRF Board work and is otherwise unrestricted.
Kevin provided some background on the Packard Foundation’s interview proposal. He said that Amy Mathews-Amos did a similar survey last year for the Pew Foundation, looking at EBM, Ecosystem Based (as opposed to species-based) Management, models nationally. Last year’s effort spotlighted San Juan County’s MSA process as 1 of 20 or 30 other programs; the results have just been released. Kevin said that before funders put significant money into advancing EBM models, they want to be sure they have a consensus amongst themselves about what constitutes EBM. The Packard survey will look at the Southeast, Hawaii, and the San Juan Islands, which, he noted, presents a tremendous opportunity to showcase what San Juan County is doing. Through the interviews, the Foundation wants to learn more about this region and who’s doing what; then, Kevin added, there could possibly be interest in collaborative funding applications later. Kevin said that there is a Compass consensus paper that lays out what the foundations are looking for.
Minutes:
Minutes of the 11/2/05 meeting were approved as read.
Guest presentations:
Jody introduced the presentations on some of the rockfish and lingcod research going on here, noting that we are very lucky to have the Friday Harbor Labs and all the great research that comes out of that institution.
She said the research on rockfish is very timely and helpful since it is one of the conservation targets for the MSA plan and a next step in the process will be to look at desired future conditions for rockfish in this county and to develop suitable strategies to achieve those goals.
Jessica Hayden-Spear said that her work looked at nearshore habitat associations of young-of-year (YOY) rockfish in San Juan Channel. She acknowledged her adviser and co-author, Dr. Don Gunderson. Jessica said that rockfish in the San Juan Islands have declined dramatically in recent years and this decline can most likely be attributed to fishing pressure. The question is how this population can be recovered. Some measures have been taken, Jessica added, including in1983 a bag limit reduction from 10 to 5 rockfish/person/day and then in 2000 another reduction to 1 rockfish/person/day. In addition, 12 no-take zones have been established in the San Juan Islands to protect bottomfish (4 created by FH Labs with WDFW enforcement and 8 created by the County’s Bottomfish Recovery Program). Jessica addressed the question of whether these measures are working. To be honest, she said, the recovery has been somewhat sluggish. She referenced Eric Eisenhardt’s 2001-published study that found there are larger and more abundant fish inside San Juan reserves but the rockfish populations in the San Juans and Puget Sound continue to decline. Since rockfish are long-lived and have a long generation time, it may take awhile before we see an improvement. Jessica suggested we might need to consider further reduction in recreational catch and discards. Finally, design of more effective MPAs may need to be considered.
Jessica said that in order to create more effective MPAs in the San Juans a more extensive marine reserve network is needed; preferred habitat for both adults and juveniles is critical to the design of reserves. Adults generally prefer high relief rocky reef areas but less is known about juvenile rockfish habitat preferences in the San Juans since there has been little previous research. Jessica’s research area, San Juan Channel, extends from Neck Point in the north to Cattle Point in the south. Underwater video surveys of 6 study sites were used to examine the distribution of vegetation throughout the Channel. Additionally, SCUBA surveys were done 4-5 days/week from mid-July through September 2004, at high and low tides and at random depths and starting points to record habitat features and to count species (lingcod, greenling, quillback, and Puget Sound rockfish). Survey data from this past summer has not yet been analyzed so, ultimately, there will be 2 years of data. Vegetation types included understory kelp, sea lettuce, eelgrass, eelgrass with Smithora, red-bladed algae, and canopy kelp. Jessica added that genetics work is being done on 26 young-of-year (YOY) rockfish raised at FH Labs and now being housed at the Seattle Aquarium.
Results of surveys: all of the 59 YOY identified in 2004 were found in habitats with understory kelp (~45% of the total habitat observed had understory kelp). However, YOY are not present everywhere there is understory kelp. 43 out of the 59 YOY were found in depths of10-15 feet and none were seen in depths shallower than 2 feet or deeper than 30 feet. The highest density of YOY was found in Shady Cove and Point George, both protected reserves. YOY are not necessarily always found in the same areas as lingcod. Management implications include the designation of future MPAs adjacent to or in proximity to habitat that YOY prefer; additional YOY abundance surveys may need to be done in proposed reserves due to patchy distribution of YOY. Terrie said that another management implication, based on this and other research, is that increased abundance of Sargassum, which is highly reproductive, appears to have a dramatic negative impact on understory kelp. Kit challenged that since fishing can be controlled universally rather than in particular areas, the issue to watch is habitat with other species moving in.
Anne Boudreau’s research has been on the feeding habits of lingcod. Lingcod, she said, are a large predatory fish found in the San Juans and along the entire west coast of North America, from Alaska to Baja. They grow more quickly and have a shorter lifespan than rockfish. Due to the decline of lingcod populations in the mid-1980s, a moratorium was placed on the commercial lingcod fishery in Puget Sound and the San Juans in 1991. The recreational fishery here is open only six weeks during late spring. With continued decline through the 1990s, a few conservation measures were put in place in the mid-90s including the end of the commercial fishery, restrictions on the recreational fishery, and designation of marine reserves in the San Juans. Several studies show that there is an increased abundance and size of lingcod inside reserves.
Rockfish, which co-exist with lingcod and are a prey of lingcod, are slow-growing and live much longer than lingcod. Rockfish are fighting a much tougher recovery than lingcod because of their life history characteristics. The question is if lingcod populations recover could they limit rockfish numbers through predation? Anne’s research to look at what lingcod eat was done in Spieden Channel, the NW side of San
Juan Island, Wasp Passage, and San Juan Channel. Anne collected lingcod, did stomach lavage, and then
returned them safely to the environment in order to answer the questions of how their diets vary seasonally and spatially and whether MPAs mediate fish food dynamics.
Of the 545 lingcod collected between June 2004 and November 2005 (50-60 cm in length), 50% of their diet was made up of spiny fish although the diet is varied. Sandlance appears to be important for very young lingcod. About 12% of the larger lingcod diet was rockfish consumed mostly in San Juan Channel. Trophic interactions are dynamic which reflects the distribution of lingcod as well as their prey. The amount of rockfish consumed depends on the predator’s size.
In conclusion, Anne reiterated that much bigger and more fish were found inside reserves. She said that an abundance of lingcod and rockfish are needed in an area for population modeling. The question remains: Is lingcod predation important to rockfish? Another future project, with involvement of the San Juan Islands’ community, involves tagging lingcod to arrive at abundance estimates and movement patterns; Anne said she could train anglers and others to do the tagging. She added that lots of exciting fish stories come out of reserves.
Copies of both Jessica’s and Anne’s research will be available at the MRC office. Tina commented that the bottomfish budget should be connected with the work being done in reserves.
Work Session:
Jody explained that the ultimate goal of the 5-S strategy is to develop strategies to protect targets as part of the MSA planning process; in order to get to the targets, threats and sources of those threats need to be identified. Kirsten presented a brief summary of the 5-S conservation planning process. She said the MRC is partnering with The Nature Conservancy, Sea Doc Society, and the NWSC to use the 5-step process. Targets to be identified are species or biological communities that we want to protect and maintain; the targets taken together will encompass the range of biodiversity found within the San Juans. The next workshop step was to identify the specific stresses and sources of those stresses affecting the targets. This was followed by a situation analysis of each target; today’s work is to finish the situation assessment for the “rockfish, lingcod and greenling” target. Kirsten distributed her 11/12/05 memo to the MRC, with the attached results of the October workshop. Objectives and strategies will then be developed and “desired future conditions” are to be defined; strategies will then be assessed on their feasibility. In the final step, measures to track success will be developed.
The committee worked on completing the situation analysis diagram for the target, “Rockfish, lingcod and greenling.” Kit explained that he would take the results to the upcoming managers’ workshop for a reality check. He noted that some of the things that affect harvest levels are management plans, regulations, enforcement, and the users’ desire to enter the fishery. There is a lack of good stock assessments in order for appropriate management decisions to be made. Jim said that one factor is that perceptions may not be current, i.e. how many people making decisions are actually out fishing and know the regulations today; they don’t know the state of responsiveness of management mechanisms on the resource. Terrie added that either the data isn’t available or the science is there but the wrong decisions are made by management, or there’s no political will, or there is lack of enforcement.
Tina Wylie-Echevarria mentioned a workshop that was convened in September of 2004 with 25 researchers and managers in San Juan County. She said that Jody has hardcopy and CD of the resulting History of Management, with a summary of all the biological information; there is also a white paper on research gaps.
The drivers of the stresses of harvest, excessive predation by lingcod, toxins and contaminants, and juvenile habitat destruction were identified. Specific stresses included invasive Sargassum (with attendant loss of kelp), anchor dragging, dock construction, poor water quality (turbidity), oil spills and use of dispersants. Kit noted that both depth and surface microlayers need to be examined for contaminants. Sources of contaminants include cars, power boats, paints, failing septic systems, treatment plants (female hormones), stormwater runoff, marinas. Contaminants include copper, mercury, various kinds of PCBs (most from
Puget Sound), dioxins (most from Georgia Strait). Michael said that boatyards are tested by DOE four times a year for copper runoff. There is a lack of awareness by boat owners of the cumulative impacts of small overspills at fuel docks from individual boats. Jim said that oil leaks from every boat and there is no easy response to small spills. It has been shown that three years of small spills during fueling in Puget Sound are equivalent to the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez.
Kirsten suggested that members think about “desired future condition” for each target; objectives will need to be set, e.g. improving population size from Fair to Good or reducing a specific amount of local non-point pollution sources over a particular time frame. She mentioned the goal of developing SMART objectives, those that are Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Reasonable, and Time-specific.
Reports:
Kit said that he, Jody, Victoria, Jonathan and Joy attended the NWSC MRC training conference, and all got a lot out of it. There was substantive discussion about the upcoming MSA anniversary event at the conference.
Kit and Mary have been interviewed by Amy Mathews-Amos. They learned that the 1-1/2 hour interview commissioned by the Packard Foundation and Island Press can be established up front to be anonymous or not; that all data will be made available at some point, and that Island Press’ interest is that it wants to know its audience and hopes to use the interviews to inform future books on EBM. All agreed that none of the names on the list of workshop attendees should be given to Amy without prior permission; it was suggested that people on the list be told of the interviews and be asked to email Amy directly if they want to participate. MRC members should let Jody know of their interest. There was consensus that Amy and the Packard Project Manager be invited to present at a future MRC meeting.
Citizens’ comments:
Shannon Davis reported on the third day of the review panel of Friends of the San Juans’ proposal. The panel is made up of nine members, mostly field biologists; the suggestion was made that Stephanie be present and Stephanie requested Kit’s presence as well. If the label of “project of concern” is not removed, then the project will not be funded. Barbara will be contacting all project proponents.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:30 am.
Submitted by Helen Venada
