Webinars

Climate Change and the Columbia River Tribes Tuesday, October 19, 2021 1:00 pm Eastern Time Register Now! Climate change will cause profound effects to the first foods of the Native American Tribes of the Columbia River Basin. Staff from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission will discuss their efforts to assess these effects and to develop climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. Presented by: David Graves Geographer Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission Casey Justice Fishery Scientist Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission Wenix Red Elk Public Outreach and Education Specialist Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Colleen Sanders Climate Adaptation Planner Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation

  What Can a Long-Term Chinook Salmon Redd Survey Tell Us about Habitat Quality and Climate Change in a Dynamic Mountain Wilderness Landscape? Monday, August 23, 2021 1:00 pm Eastern Time Register Now!   Presenter: Greg Jacobs Cornell University Department of Natural Resources and the Environment   Description: Pacific salmon spawning and rearing habitats result from dynamic interactions among geomorphic processes, natural disturbances, and hydro-climatological factors. The effects of these variables on salmon habitat are well established in isolation, but their relative importance and joint effects in driving variation in spawning habitat quality at the landscape scale are less well-established. Here, we couple a familiar probabilistic species distribution model (logistic regression) with a 21-year record of redd locations in a wilderness river network in central Idaho, USA, to examine Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) spawning occurrence and how a changing climate might affect habitat. First, this webinar will discuss how we quantified geomorphic characteristics, climatic factors, wildfire, and conspecific abundance throughout the network, and how we then built and evaluated our model to predict redd occurrence probability based on landscape environmental variables. Second, this webinar will present our assessment of (a) how well our model predicts new data collected in subsequent years and (b) what our model indicates for the future of Chinook salmon habitat in in our system.

Fleet heterogeneity and economic performance in American Lobster fishery Thursday, July 22, 2021 1:00 pm Eastern Time Register now! Thank you to the AFS Socioeconomics Section for sponsoring this webinar! Session description: American lobster fishery is the most valuable fishery in the United States. After several decades of steadily increased landings, the American Lobster fishery now dominates Maine’s marine economy. The center of the fishery, the Gulf of Maine, is one of the fastest-warming water in the world, and there is uncertainty about the future robustness of the stock and the economic value, and profitability of the fleet appear vulnerable. This research characterizes heterogeneity in Maine’s fishing fleet using latent profile analysis and then quantifies the technical efficiency of Maine’s lobster industry for each profile to benchmark diversity of fishing styles and associated economic performance in Maine’s lobster fishery in the pre-warming period. The study uses a unique dataset obtained from the firm-level economic survey of the American lobster fishery operators conducted in 2010, the year before the reported environmental change in the Gulf of Maine. In total, firm-level economic and operational data were collected from 1,007 harvesters. First, the latent profile analysis was performed, identifying four fishing styles representative of the fisher’s experience, fleet’s technical capacity, and technology, and fishing ground characteristics. For each identified fishing style, we conduct the Cobb-Douglas and trans-log stochastic profit frontier analysis. Our findings indicate economic efficiencies differ based on their choice of fishing styles and found technical upgrades generally contribute to improved economic performance in the pre-warming period. Reported societal benefits associated with employment levels have characterized the lobster production environment over firm-level efficiency. This research establishes a critically important baseline for future comparison and quantification of policy reforms within the U.S. lobster fishery.   Presented by: Kanae Tokunaga is an Associate Research Scientist in Coastal and Marine Resource Economics at Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI). Prior to joining GMRI, she worked as a researcher at the University of Tokyo, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, and as a consultant for the Environmental Defense Fund. In her research, she applies quantitative and qualitative research methods, including bioeconomic modeling, econometrics, surveys, and interviews, to approach coastal and marine resource management issues. She is interested in understanding the efficiency, efficacy, and stability of various fisheries management institutions, and how they may be impacted by climate change and other environmental changes. She is also interested in understanding various aspects of socio-economic activities that take place in coastal communities, and how they shape coastal and marine resource use. She values and enjoys collaborative research and continues to work with researchers from diverse disciplines, while also working closely with coastal communities, policymakers, and industries.