Dan Steadman

🚨Advice release - herring management
ICES response to the joint request from the EU, Norway, and UK to incorporate the Long-Term Management Strategy option MS3 in the advice for herring in Subarea 4 and divisions 3.a and 7.d, autumn spawners is published: doi.org/10.17895/ice...

🌊 Big news from #Vigo: #OSPAR Ministers agreed they will apply the #PrecautionaryPrinciple on #DeepSeaMining.

Norway tried to block it but had to give in. This could seriously complicate their #Arctic mining plans. 👏

A positive step in the right direction.
seas-at-risk.org/general-news...

Deep-dive dinners are the norm for tuna and swordfish, MIT oceanographers find MIT oceanographers discovered big fish like tuna and swordfish get a large fraction of their food from the ocean’s twilight zone — a cold, dark layer about half a mile below the surface.

Yellowfin tuna (fifth most fished species globally) gets half its food from the mesopelagic/twilight zone (200-1000m depth), with some getting up to 94%.

With calls to start fishing in these zones, this study notes the major effect this could have on tuna & their diets. news.mit.edu/2025/deep-di...

Court Ruling Shows Importance of Fisheries Measures to Broader Ecosystem A verdict May 2 from an international tribunal points a way forward for fisheries managers to protect entire ecosystems, an increasingly critical part of their responsibilities as pressures on the oce...

Fisheries managers are legally obligated to maintain healthy ecosystems & balance the needs of fisheries & food webs.

This ruling shows we are finally moving towards ecosystem based fisheries management & greater forage fish protection in the Northeast Atlantic: www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-...

Prawns and pomfrets: How Malaysia’s looming fish trawling ban could affect your dining options The ban is the latest in a long line of challenges for Malaysia’s fishing industry, including piracy

Bottom trawl fisheries are socially complex. Banning them produces obvious ecological gains in pretty much all cases, but those bans have real consequences and governments must manage transitions carefully.

Fascinating example of this from Malaysia: www.straitstimes.com/multimedia/g...

Bright, multi-coloured plastic pellets arranged to form the large text "-74%". Below, the text reads "UP TO -74% POLLUTION FROM PLASTIC PELLET SPILLS". The background is a gradient of light blue, suggesting water, and features stylized fish and coral graphics. The European Commission logo is in the bottom right corner.

Plastic pellets are the building blocks of most plastic products.

Small in size, yet harmful.

@europarl.europa.eu and @consilium.europa.eu agreed to our proposals to prevent their spill and to cut it by up to 74%.

We must protect our ecosystems and health from microplastics ↓

europa.eu/!r8tY4t

@deepseaconserve.bsky.social working very hard on ensuring these VME measures are comprehensive, guided by latest benthic science and in line with UNGA commitments. @pewtrusts.org working very hard to make sure measures conform to CBD OECM criteria!

Re: future permanence. Management measure reviewed every 5 years. Closures can be expanded, reduced, removed but only if annually received scientific advice from @icesmarine.bsky.social shows changes in status/distribution of VME habitats. Underlying measure here: www.neafc.org/system/files...

Generally agreement between closure areas and fishable benthic depth. Images taken from here: ices-library.figshare.com/articles/rep...

Hey both, hard to find the right full overlay map but here's a comparison of the NEAFC benthic closures submitted as OECMs (red on left map) and bathymetry of same area (everything not white on right map is <2000m depth)

Credit to authors Cornell Overfield @overfield.bsky.social and Jessica Ylemo from @cna.org.

Enjoyed this closing remark: "If coastal and flag States fail to establish an RFMO, they may sooner or later find that their squid, hake, and luck have all run out."

The high seas near Argentina are a squid fishing hotspot, with minimal rules in place for a species that we don't know enough about to set catch limits. A new paper proposes setting up a South West Atlantic Fisheries Organization (SWAFO) to tackle the issue: digital-commons.usnwc.edu/ils/vol106/i...

Infographic map showing the six marine flyways (Atlantic Ocean Flyway, North Indian Ocean Flyway, East Indian Ocean Flyway, West Pacific Ocean Flyway, Pacific Ocean Flyway, Southern Ocean Flyway) in a spilhaus projection, and the general direction of travel by migratory seabirds

🚨NEW OPEN ACCESS PAPER🚨details how we delineated six #MarineFlyways using #seabird #tracking data & novel analytical methods

➡️ doi.org/10.1111/geb.70004

🧪 #ornithology #migration #BLScience
@birdlifeglobal.bsky.social

We are grateful to GOBI @iki-germany.bsky.social for funding the project

🧵1/5

Wow. Atlantic cod are wild fish whose population should be determined by ocean conditions, prey availability + other nature-driven phenomena.

But instead, FOR *AT LEAST* 600 YEARS, fishing has been the main variable determining how many/what sizes of cod there are. Amazing paper.

Using light to attract + catch marine species isn't new - massive squid fisheries depend on this - but we didn't know til now that this works for scallops.

Fascinated to see how this method competes with dredging on yield/cost/efficiency as it's clear on environmental impact, this wins hands down.

Marine ecosystem models: the future of ocean management and protection?

Only if governments, private sector etc. understand their "plumbing and piping" i.e. the software and infrastructure that makes them work, enabling them to be adapted and applied #EBFM #EBM

EcoScope partner calls for making marine ecosystem modelling more accessible to society, policy and the collaboration with other sciences Jeroen Steenbeek of EU-funded EcoScope project partner Ecopath International Initiative has published his PhD thesis, entitled Ecosystem modelling for the ocean decade – facing the challenge (Cum Laud...

The Ecoscope project blogged about my thesis. A neat summary of what kept me up at night for the past 4 years: ecoscopium.eu/news/article...
#Ecoscopium

The frustrating thing is that the paper specifically recognizes that “lost yield” may be due to a specific policy choice to preserve ecosystem health, i.e. Menhaden in the US, but still chooses to “penalize” the US for that choice.

Interesting to see Norway (a prolific forage fishing nation) trying to better protect seabirds with minimal focus on fisheries impacts such as prey depletion. Northeast Atlantic seabirds desperately need better domestic/international forage fish management: for herring, sprat, sandeel, mackerel etc.

Increased resilience and a regime shift reversal through repeat mass coral bleaching Assessing coral reefs across the inner Seychelles islands, using a 28-year dataset, we document faster coral recovery from the 2016 than the 1998 marine heatwave events. Further, a reef that had regi....

Still hope for coral reefs. Using 28-years of data in Seychelles, we find reefs recovering 4-5 years faster from the 2016 bleaching event, than they did after 1998. Also, a reef that had regime-shifted to macroalgae for over 15 years, is recovering to coral.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

GFCM Embraces Sustainable Fishing in the Adriatic with Two New Harvest Strategies - Harvest Strategies The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) made history last week by adopting harvest control rules for Adriatic sardines and anchovies, the first for this organization. Until now, ...

Great to see better forage fish protection in the Mediterranean through the adoption of two new harvest strategies (pre-agreed decision frameworks to prevent overfishing).

This will help the fisheries & biodiversity of this historically overexploited sea basin: harveststrategies.org/blog/2024/11...

Good to see more coverage of the challenging North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission meeting in London.

Many of the issues in NEAFC concern problems that have gone too long without being addressed, especially the mismanagement of the region's ecologically critical pelagic fish species. #EBFM

A performance measure framework for ecosystem-based management Abstract. Effective management of ocean resources is crucial for achieving desired ecological, economic, and social outcomes. Marine ecosystem-based manage

I have a new #EBM paper out in the ICES journal of marine science! This one was a great team effort to develop a performance measure framework for ecosystem-based management. How do we know if we are doing successful ebm? Read here! #OpenAccess #MarineScience academic.oup.com/icesjms/adva...

Leaders fail to address overfishing near Europe at ‘fraught’ international meeting Mackerel and herring in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, near Europe, have been dramatically overfished for many years, endangering the stocks and creating potential knock-on effects for marine mammals a...

A fantastic write-up on a difficult meeting of the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission by @mongabay.bsky.social. Work to do on reversing mackerel and herring declines, taking more account of ecosystem needs and improving how observers are involved in meetings: news.mongabay.com/2024/11/lead...

A 10 year anniversary dialogue on steps towards biodiversity conservation by the North-East Atlantic Fishery Commission (NEAFC) Last night in London, discussions unfolded during a side event co-hosted by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC) in association with The Pew Charitable Trusts and BirdLife International to mark ...

International fisheries managers have done a lot to protect marine biodiversity, but there's much more to do. Proud to have been on @deepseaconserve.bsky.social panel on this in the margin of the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission annual meeting #EBFM #HighSeas www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-yea...

To Improve Fisheries Management and Protect Ecosystems, Decision Makers Must Ask Better Questions Good scientific advice is the fuel that drives the engine of fisheries management. When managers want to develop comprehensive, long-term policies for measures such as catch limits or gear restriction...

When making decisions that affect #nature, governments should be asking scientists bigger, bolder and broader questions.

Fisheries managers specifically shouldn't just ask "how much yield can we get?" but "how do we restore biodiversity while optimising seafood production?"

Critical step to #MakeEBFMWork as the UK announces a domestic closure to sandeel fishing.

Fish species like sandeel (that are central to the diet of many struggling, charismatic predators) need cautious management & this is a move in the right direction: www.gov.uk/government/n...

To Improve Fisheries Management Globally, U.N. Creates a New Forum The Committee on Fisheries (COFI) of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is the only worldwide intergovernmental forum that examines international fisheries and aquaculture issu...

The world's highest governing body of fisheries (the UN Food & Agriculture Organization) can go beyond business as usual via a new forum launching next week.

This group should help ensure fisheries managers play their part to "halt and reverse biodiversity loss".

www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-...

NEAFC advances ecosystem-based management measures, but overfishing concerns persist for blue whitin... The North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission has moved toward ecosystem-based management, but the fate of overfished pelagics is still up in the air.

Nice coverage of @pewtrusts.org and advances in ecosystem-based fisheries management in the Northeast Atlantic fisheries negotiations last week: www.seafoodsource.com/news/environ...