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ALASKA: NPFMC advisory panel proposes 33,000t hike in Bering Sea pollock TAC, 7,000t drop in cod

December 7, 2018 — The advisory panel to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) voted in favor of a 33,000-metric-ton increase in the eastern Bering Sea pollock total allowable catch (TAC), as well as a 7,000 drop in the Pacific cod TAC.

This draft TAC sheet will then go to the vote at the NPFMC meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday. The supply outlook comes with prices for cod and pollock set firm.

According to an Undercurrent News source, the advisory committee is recommending a pollock TAC of 1.397 million metric tons for 2019, up from 1.364m in 2018. The panel also recommended a Pacific cod TAC of 181,000t, down from 188,136t in 2018. For Pacific cod in the Aleutian Islands, the panel voted in favor of a TAC of 20,600t.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Virginia Beach business owners rush to fight Trump administration’s approval of seismic testing

December 7, 2018 — When the Trump administration OK’d seismic testing along the Atlantic coast to explore the possibilities of offshore drilling, business owners in Virginia’s largest city condemned the approval and scrambled to plan how to oppose it.

The exploration carries risks, such as damage to marine life and Virginia’s coasts, and could threaten the tourism and fishing industries, the port of Hampton Roads and even the military, opponents here said.

Laura Habr is co-owner of Croc’s 19th Street Bistro in the ViBe District and a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast, an organization that represents roughly 43,000 businesses and 500,000 commercial fishing families from Maine to Florida.

For her, the next several days will be filled with meetings and conference calls, where a community on high alert will work to decide how to push back against the decision.

Read the full story at The Virginia-Pilot

Herring fishermen likely to see dramatic reduction in harvest allowances

December 7, 2018 — Fishermen who seek one of the most important bait fish on the East Coast are likely to see a dramatic reduction in the amount they are allowed to harvest next year.

Commercial fisheries for herring are a major industry in the Atlantic states, where the little fish is important as lobster bait as well as used for human food. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it wants to cut the annual catch limit from nearly 110 million pounds this year to less than half that in 2019.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News

Vietnam boosts tuna exports to US in October, thanks to trade war

December 7, 2018 — The tariff conflict between the United States and China has enabled Vietnam and other tuna exporters to increase shipments to the United States and this trend is expected to continue in the coming months, Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said in a statement last week.

In October, Vietnam exported tuna worth USD 26 million (EUR 22.9 million) to the United States, soaring 35 percent from the same month in 2017 and up 36.8 percent month-on-month. The rise in October was reached following continuous declines in the previous months. And it was made when U.S. importers suspended cargoes from China due to higher duties, said VASEP.

The value of tuna exports from Vietnam to the United States in the first 10 months stood at USD 183 million (EUR 161.2 million), down nearly 3 percent from the same period last year.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ASMI requests federal aid to cushion losses in US-China trade war

December 7, 2018 — The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) is crossing its fingers that its request goes through for several million dollars in federal aid to defray costs of the trade war between U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and China.

ASMI, a state-run entity, has requested USD 9 million (EUR 7.9 million) over three years as tariffs threaten to undermine the market for Alaskan seafood in China. The request was submitted to the Agricultural Trade Promotion (ATP), a U.S. Department of Agriculture program designed in part to mitigate the adverse effects of tariffs.

The organization has been getting around USD 4.25 (EUR 3.74) million a year in federal aid for over a decade, according to Jeremy Woodrow, ASMI’s communications director and current interim executive director. This new aid money would be on top of that.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

FLORIDA: Where did all the lobsters and stone crabs go? How the fishing industry is bouncing back

December 7, 2018 — The red tide algae bloom plaguing Southwest Florida hasn’t hit the Florida Keys. And Hurricane Irma happened more than a year ago.

But they’re both affecting the island chain’s commercial fishing industry.

That’s a crucial impact because the industry is the second-largest stand-alone economic generator in the Keys next to tourism. Fishing is estimated by the Florida Keys Commercial Fishing Association to bring in about $900 million a year to the Monroe County economy. That includes transactions such as fuel sales, dockage fees, and boat and engine repairs.

Read the full story at The Miami Herald

NEW YORK: A Push for Offshore Oil

December 7, 2018 — A recent move by the Trump administration could lead the way to oil and gas exploration and extraction off the Atlantic coast.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has approved five requests that will allow companies to conduct seismic surveys. The “incidental take” authorizations allow companies conducting such surveys — geophysical companies working on behalf of oil and gas corporations, The Post reported — to harm marine life as long as it is unintentional.

Such surveys would be conducted using seismic air guns, which emit loud blasts on a recurring basis, 10 seconds apart for 24 hours a day, often for weeks at a time, according to the environmental group Greenpeace. The sonic blasts, or “pings,” penetrate through the ocean and miles into the seafloor and can harm whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and fish. They can result in temporary and permanent hearing loss, habitat abandonment, disruption of mating and feeding, beachings, and death, according to Greenpeace.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star

New England Shellfish Harvest OK’d, With More Monitoring

December 7, 2018 — A regulatory board is allowing shellfish harvesting in a key management area off of New England, though more monitoring of the fishery will now apply.

The New England Fishery Management Council has approved new measures to allow the harvest of surfclams within the Great South Channel Habitat Management Area. The council says mussel fishermen will also be able to operate in the new areas.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S News and World Report

NOAA: 2017 whale entanglements worse than average, improvement over 2016

December 7, 2018 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report on Thursday, 6 December that indicates 2017 was a worse than average year for the entanglement of large whales, but an improvement over numbers in recent years.

That news was of a worse-than-average year was also tempered by the fact that of the large whales entangled, right whales had fewer entanglements in the U.S. Northeast than in previous periods. The most frequently entangled large whale species in 2017 was the humpback, which accounted for 49 of the 76 entanglements, according to NOAA.

Right whales accounted for only two of the 76 entanglements, according to NOAA.

Read the full article at Seafood Source

GOP senator: Arctic Ocean may be ice-free in summer within 20 years

December 7th, 2018 — Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) on Thursday said the U.S. must prepare for an Arctic Ocean that is ice-free in the summer months within the next 20 years.

Sullivan, speaking at a hearing for the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard, which he chairs, pointed to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicating that as of 2011, Arctic sea ice was “42 percent thinner than it was in 1979.”

“If this trend continues, the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free during the summer months within the next 20 years,” he said.

Read the full story at The Hill

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