In the 47 years Guy Johnston has worked as a fisherman off the coast of British Columbia, he has watched friends and colleagues leave the trade as climate pressures mount.
Johnston was a shrimp and salmon fisherman based in Cowichan Bay on the east coast of Vancouver Island who also spent time harvesting crab. He said predicting salmon runs using Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) estimates used to be straightforward. Within a small margin of error, scientists can generally say how big the runs will be, and therefore how many can be caught consistently. Today, the swings in size are so dramatic that predictions are less accurate.
“For the last … 30 years, salmon have been running [have] becomes more erratic,” Johnston said, adding that in his time fishing, he’s seen both the largest and smallest salmon runs on record. “So indicate that[s] to me, things change,” Johnston said.
One of the factors driving the large swings is ocean acidification, the process of ocean water absorbing CO2 gases from the burning of fossil fuels; when those gases mix with water, they create carbonic acid. Increased acidity harms marine life — including Johnston’s target species and many others — by dissolving shellfish shells, disrupting fish development and senses, and much more.
Now, scientific research is expanding along BC’s coast to better understand the effects of ocean acidification, and how to respond. In March, the BC-based Tula Foundation announced 11 local problem-solving grant recipients — the result of a $1.7 million grant received last year, with just over $1.6 million going to these projects.
One of the grant recipients is Timothy Green, a researcher at Vancouver Island University. His team was awarded $95,359 for their work finding genes that help oysters fight ocean acidification.
Shellfish commonly harvested in BC, including oysters, mussels, shrimp, crab and scallops, make their shells from calcium carbonate. Green says ocean acidification is melting their shells faster than they can. This is critical in the early stages of life when the shellfish have to make a shell before they start feeding, or they will die and never reproduce.
“You’re going to have the failure of recruiting all these little organisms that attach to the rocks and then grow and do all these ecosystem services that are really important for us. It’s quite heartwarming. …Fortunately, the oyster I worked with appears to be able to adapt to ocean acidification, but you wonder how it will work out in the long run,” Green said.
He said the global ocean pH was measured at about 8.2 about 20 years ago, and has now dropped to 7.8, which is a lot on a scale that drops 10 times for every point of increase or decrease. . Green added that in certain areas of the Salish Sea on the east coast of Vancouver Island, pH levels occasionally drop below 7.5, an incredibly acidic environment that endangers marine life, such as of shellfish.
The T Buck Suzuki Foundation is another team that received money from the program — $184,033 to use fishermen as citizen scientists to create a baseline data set on ocean acidification levels in data-poor areas, such as west coast of Haida Gwaii.
The team aims to bridge the gap between harvesters and scientists, with fishermen gathering data to feed back to researchers to help solve some of the mysteries surrounding what acidification is doing ocean in hard-to-reach areas.
“We don’t know what we don’t know,” said Alaina Pyde, project leader for the T Buck Suzuki Foundation. “We know that [ocean acidification] is a problem for any bivalve or calcifying organism… but does it spread further than that?
The team will ship three sets of equipment with fishermen near the end of August to early September — including Johnston. who is also a member of the foundation board.
“As a fisherman, I think it’s important that we work with the scientific community to understand these issues. I think we’re well-positioned to be able to gather data across large geographic areas, and I think we’re also able to … share our insights from what we see at sea,” Johnston said.
“We spend more time than scientists [do] in the sea watching what is happening. Really, that’s the nature of our work, is understanding and reading what’s going on in natural systems.”
The grant money ultimately comes from the BC government’s Climate Ready BC Seafood Program, part of the Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia (BC OAH) Action Plan, programs announced by the province that focus on harvest impacts. But the researchers also hope to seize the opportunity to fill knowledge gaps on ocean acidification in other marine ecosystems, and make information available to inform decisions surrounding BC’s sensitive waterways.
“A really important thing is to have more people understand the effects of ocean acidification and what’s happening in our waters,” said Nina Nichols, program manager at the Tula Foundation. “Commercial fishermen, they’re out on the water and experiencing the ocean every day, so it’s great to interact with them and get them involved in the scientific side of things as well.”
Hope Lompe, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, National Observer of Canada
