Erlend Moksness, leader of the Norwegian contingent and director of the Coastal Resources Program in the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research Where Has the Cod Gone?      Collaborations between Norwegian and North American fisheries scientists are nothing new, according to IMR research director Erlend Moksness.      “We have a history of co-operation,” Moksness told Ffiles.      That history goes back more than 120 years, back to the late 19th century when Spencer Baird, the first U.S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, was establishing a research laboratory in Woods Hole to study the question of declining fish stocks. At the same time, a Norwegian scientist named G. M. Dannevig was establishing a private cod hatchery in Flodevigen, and asking, “Where has the cod gone? Can we do something to improve the stock?”      When the Flodevigen Cod Hatchery was built in 1882, Marshall McDonald, who later became the third U.S. Fish Commissioner, sent Dannevig an illustrated letter with instructions for culturing cod.      Marshall’s letter, written on Spencer Baird’s stationary, hangs today on the wall in the IMR Flodevigen Marine Research Station, the modern fisheries research institute that grew out of Dannevig’s cod hatchery. Letter from one of the earliest scientific collaborations between U.S. and Norwegian fishery scientists. G. M. Dannevig at the private cod hatchery in Flodevigen.

By George Liles

Fishery scientists from Alaska, Norway, New England, and Canada gathered at the NEFSC’s Falmouth Technology Park campus in mid-March to talk about joint research projects. The scientific teams work in oceans thousands of miles distant from one another, but if you listen to them talk you might think they are all working in the same pond.

“One hot issue these days is marine protected areas,” Erlend Moksness, the leader of the Norwegian contingent told The FFiles during a break from the roundtable discussions.

Another hot topic is ecosystem management, said Moksness. And then there is the move toward collaborative research projects in which scientists work with the fishing industry and other stakeholders. When the fishing industry is a partner in the research, Moksness noted, they have more confidence in the science and a better understanding of the advice that comes out of the research.

The visiting Norwegian was talking about science in the Bering Sea and North Sea, but he sounded a lot like an American talking about the Gulf of Maine.

So how does fishery science differ in Norway and the U.S.?

The director of the Coastal Resources Program in the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (IMR) pondered the question briefly and came up blank. “The issues are all very similar,” he decided.

The three-day meeting (March 14-16) at the Tech Park brought a contingent of IMR scientists together with NOAA fisheries scientists from the NEFSC and the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, and Canadian research institutions. The scientists discussed three themes: (1) ecosystems dynamics and the loss of sea ice in the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Maine, and the Barents Sea; (2) the effect of organic contaminants on recruitment in managed fish species; and (3) cooperative (industry/agency) research and management advice.

The Norwegian and U.S. scientists have been discussing their common interests for three years, but the workshop in March was the first attempt to identify projects they could work on together, said Thomas Noji, a Sandy Hook scientist who serves as chief of the NEFSC’s Ecosystems Processes Division.

“We all came away feeling positive,” Noji said. “There was a lot of synergy and enthusiasm.”

Noji was one of the leaders of the group looking at organic contaminants and fish populations. That group decided to focus on methodologies for studying the effect of contaminants – especially contaminants related to the petroleum industry. Each of the three teams has its own specific interests, Noji explained. The Norwegians are interested in the effect of “produced water” – water released during offshore drilling. The Alaska fisheries scientists are interested in the effects of oil spills, while Noji and his Northeast colleagues are studying industrial contaminants that find their way into marine sediments.

While each group has its own interests, studies in one region shed light on problems in another. In the Northeast U.S., for instance, there is currently a ban on off-shore oil drilling. But the ban is not permanent, and there will soon be discussion on whether to lift the moratorium. The Norwegian study on the effects of “produced water” may be helpful in the upcoming deliberations about oil drilling in Northeast U. S. waters.

The workshop was organized by Moksness and NEFSC director John Boreman, to continue development collaborative proposals that can be submitted to the Norwegian Research Council and U.S. funding sources, beginning as early as June, 2006.

By that measure, the workshop appears to have been a success: one week after the March workshop, three sub-groups are working on a series of papers, additional visits and workshops, and proposals for joint research projects.

Posted March 28, 2006