Ocean scientists, fishers and other enthusiasts from around the state gathered last Friday and Saturday for the fourth annual Heceta Head Coastal Conference, which featured the theme Oregon’s Ocean: Change and Consequences.

More than 160 people, including some college and Siuslaw High School students, attended the event held at the Florence Events Center.

This year’s program introduced nine speakers who delivered presentations on ocean policy. Speakers ranged from Burke Hales, associate professor of oceanic and atmospheric sciences at Oregon State University, to David Fox, assistant manager of the Marine Resource Program at Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, to Nancy Fitzpatrick, administrator of the Oregon Salmon Commission and Oregon Albacore Commission.

Each speaker served on one of three panels that covered such topics as ocean climate change and ecosystem resilience, building a healthy marine ecosystem, and the consequences of salmon closure.



Ocean Climate Change

Selina Heppell, assistant professor of the department of fish and wildlife at Oregon State University, was unable to attend the conference as scheduled. Her husband Scott, however, gladly filled in and began Saturday’s all-day program by discussing ocean climate change related to fisheries.

“With climate change, I think we can argue to the point that resistance is futile,” Heppell said. “We’re not going to be in a situation where these systems can exist. They’re going to have to be resilient.”

He said resistance is a system that stays the same regardless of change, like the introduction of invasive species, where as resilience is a system that returns to its natural state with regard to structure.

“Having complexity in the system is really important for resilience. That is, the more complex a system, the easier it is for it to bounce back,” he said.

There are some events, however, that take a system longer to recover: El Niño, over fishing, habitat change, extended periods of low recruitment and prolonged low oxygen events.

“Our ecosystem is naturally resilient: these changes come in, they’re part of the natural cycle, and it can then recover and reset itself,” he said.

But the real question, Heppell said, is whether the system is resilient enough to overcome an event, like climate change, that makes it no longer cyclical. This could then affect fish and fisheries through the timing of reproduction, distribution, recruitment variability and influx of southern species.

Jan Hodder, associate professor at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, spoke next about ocean climate change and its affects on marine birds.

“Marine birds that occur in Oregon have diverse life cycles,” she said.

According to Hodder, some species of birds live and breed in Oregon year-round, while others move as far away as the Hawaiian islands and New Zealand. A few species also utilize the entire Pacific Ocean in their life cycle.

During their long breeding phase, marine birds move to areas with productive waters and no predators. Throughout this time, Hodder said, they are vulnerable to two things related to climate change: food web alterations and sea level rises.

Hodder presented a simple food web that showed the link between aquatic and terrestrial systems. The top predators — marine birds — rely on eating plankton, fish and squid to survive.

“Food web alterations, due to natural or human-caused influences, really have affect on the distribution of these top predators,” she said.

Although climate changes are difficult to accurately predict at this time, Hodder said, the food web proves that there will be some consequences. Changes in ocean-land creatures, like productivity, species abundance and distribution, will be a direct result of a warmer ocean.

But marine birds do show some resilience to change.

“They can recover from a disturbance if the system returns to the state that it was prior to the disturbance,” she said. “In other words, they’ve adapted to cyclical changes in the environment.”

Following Hodder was Hales, who talked about Oregon coastal carbon cycles relating to carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes, acidification and hypoxia. To explain the cycle, he first discussed “old” water, or water that is away from the ocean surface and never sees sunlight.

“What happens to these waters while they’re aging down in the deep ocean is that there’s no photosynthesis driving phytoplankton production and production of organic matter and oxygen,” he said.

This water reacts with the decomposition of dead organic matter that has fallen down from the surface and creates very high nutrient levels and CO2 levels and very low oxygen levels. Through a wind-driven motion called “upwelling,” the CO2 travels upwards into the atmosphere and vice versa.

“This coastal system is productive, and it’s productive in such a way, based on its chemicals and biological structure, that it can actually draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere by these big phytoplankton blooms,” he said.

But if oxygen depletion in the waters progresses to hypoxia, which enhances acidification, Hales said, fish and other aquatic species may die as a result.

“If this bloom-produced material or organic matter doesn’t get out of the system somehow, we get this extreme hypoxia and what people like to call ‘dead zones’ as a result,” he said.

Hales said dead zones, areas that have little to no aquatic life, are not a problem at this time.

“Despite the fact that we’ve got high carbon dioxide in the upwelled water, we have more than enough nutrients there to draw the carbon dioxide down to levels below saturation or equilibrium with the atmosphere,” he said.

Marine Ecosystems

During the second panel of speakers, Peter Huhtala, director of governmental affairs for the Pacific Marine Conservation Council, discussed his view on sustainable fisheries.

“Ideally, if we could adjust the scales of biology that makes sense for the fish to also make sense for the fishing communities, that would be a big plus,” Huhtala said.

He said people should attempt to make sense of the fishing community as long as they do not destroy the ecosystem in the process.

Huhtala presented some challenges for the council to approach the Ecosystem Based Fishery Management: stock assessment (getting information on species they do not know much about), challenging fleets, adapting managers, raising special and public interest and obtaining research dollars.

“We always need more research dollars for state and federal fisheries to help make better sense of all this and to integrate the new science that’s coming on board,” he said.

Huhtala believes it is important for ocean use planning to identify the areas that need concentration the most, like marine reserves and marine protected areas, and it is vital to engage the community in the process.

Fox was next to present and talked about the state’s view on fisheries management, specifically the nearshore area. This area is defined as the coastal high tide line offshore to the 30-fathom (180 feet) depth contour.

“Our ocean system is very complex, and the nearshore system is no different from that,” he said.

Currently, the state actively manages 43 fish species in the nearshore area. Fox said their research traditionally focuses on just hunting and fishing, but now they are finding other uses.

“We see more and more new and emerging uses, and these things are producing social conflicts in some cases,” he said.

In some ways, Fox said, the state is readjusting by using a nearshore strategy to adapt to these challenges, which include wave/wind energy, aquaculture, ocean zoning and management on fine spatial scales.

“The important thing about (the nearshore strategy) is that it steps back and lets us take a broader look or a long-term look at the types of things we need to do to really beat challenges off for the future,” he said.

Leesa Cobb, executive director of the Port Orford Ocean Resource Team, ended the second panel discussion by talking about a stakeholder’s view on ecosystem-based management.

According to Cobb, the Port Orford team is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to maintaining access to natural resources, promoting sustainable fisheries and protecting marine biological diversity.

“We have three formal partners, Surfrider Foundation, Ecotrust and the Pacific Marine Conservation Council, that we’re thrilled to be working with and have brought a tremendous amount of assistance to our community,” she said.

Instead of doing random science, Cobb said, it’s more valuable to take a holistic approach to prioritize the team’s work.

Following the second panel, Dr. W. J. Ballantine of New Zealand delivered the keynote address about the need for systems in marine reserves. Ballantine also spoke at the evening reception on Friday.

Saturday afternoon featured the third and last panel of speakers that discussed the consequences of the salmon closure on the fishermen, fishery and economy. These speakers included Fitzpatrick; Glen H. Spain, northwest regional director of Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association; and Hans T. Radtke, natural resource economist.

After presentations, panelists held discussion groups and conference attendees were able to ask questions and talk about one or more of the panel issues.

Jonathan Allan, coastal geomorphologist at the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, ended the conference with a presentation on the rise of sea levels due to climate change.

The Heceta Head Coastal Conference is a nonprofit corporation that educates the public on the need for healthy, productive and resilient marine ecosystems in Oregon.