Saving Seafood

State and Local

Florida stone crab prices highest in recent memory

March 19, 2014 — With about two months left in Florida’s stone crab harvest season, get ready to empty your wallet if you want to dine on the state’s signature seafood delicacy.

Prices are the highest in recent memory, according to restaurateurs and seafood dealers around the state, and they’re not expected to drop much before the season closes May 15.

At world-renowned Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami Beach, you will shell out about $90 for 1 1/2 pounds of jumbos. For large, figure about $60; mediums — the smallest — are about $30 for just under a pound.

“It’s getting crazy,” acknowledged Steve Sawitz, chief operating officer of Joe’s.

Across town at Truluck’s Seafood, Steak and Crab House in Miami, all-you-can eat large stone crabs cost $99 per person.

“The highest I’ve ever seen it,” manager Ed Tanner said.

Even if you drive to takeout markets at Keys Fisheries in Marathon or Triad Seafood Market in Everglades City, you’ll pay about $38 per pound for jumbos down to about $17 for mediums.


Read the full story at the Miami Herald

 

 

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/19/4004924/craving-seasonal-stone-crabs-get.html#storylink=cpy  

Sorting Out the Risks of Fish

March 17, 2014 — Fish is often called “brain food.” It’s an excellent source of lean protein, rich in nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins and iodine, and pregnant women are encouraged to eat it. There’s just one, ah, catch: Fish also may have mercury, which can harm the developing brain.

Two advocacy organizations sued the Food and Drug Administration last week, demanding that the agency require canned and packaged fish to carry labels informing consumers of the mercury content, and that federal officials force grocery stores and fish markets to display information if they sell fish high in mercury.

The F.D.A. long ago put out information about mercury in seafood, but the groups say it should be at consumers’ fingertips when they’re shopping for dinner.

“People shouldn’t have to do detective work to get this information,” said Michael Bender, executive director of the Mercury Policy Project, one of the groups. Agency officials said they could not comment because of the continuing litigation.

But will labels on a can of tuna do more harm than good — scaring people away from eating fish altogether?

Read the full story at The New York Times 

 

Greener Packaging For Boston: Global Green USA and NAFCO Successfully Test Recyclable Seafood Boxes

BOSTON — March 19, 2014 — The following was released by Global Green USA:

Demonstrating that recyclable packaging can survive one of NAFCO’s longest shipping routes, Global Green USA coordinated a pilot in which water-resistant packaging that is 100% recyclable with regular cardboard could be used to bring Chesapeake Bay seafood five hundred miles to a Boston location of a major grocery chain.
 
interstate box for nafco.pngGlobal Green USA, building on previous successful recyclable packaging tests, came to the heart of New England for the next installment of the pilot series. With the help of a grocer and one of their primary seafood suppliers, Global Green USA documented the ice-packing of water-resistant, recyclable boxes made by Cascades and Interstate Container and shipped to a location in Boston, just in time for the last day of the Boston Seafood Expo on March 18th. As the boxes were unloaded, all present confirmed that they had performed well, indicating that future shipments could also be sent in the strong, water-resistant, recyclable packaging.
 
“Sustainability goes beyond the seafood harvest – packaging matters,” said Global Green USA’s Lily Kelly, Senior Program Associate for CoRR and the pilot coordinator. “The good news, from an environmental standpoint, is that packaging is available today that protects the seafood, can be recycled after its job is done, and is cost-competitive with the usual unrecyclable expanded polystyrene [EPS] and wax-coated packaging. If all unrecyclable corrugated packaging were replaced with recyclable alternatives, and recycled, the greenhouse gas emissions reduction would be equivalent to shutting down an entire coal-fired power plant with no energy loss, and grocers and restaurants would save $200 million.”
 
Ian Page, Vice President of Quality Assurance at NAFCO, was also pleased that the recyclable boxes performed well over the course of the multi-day and multi-stage shipping process. “It’s our goal to provide the best possible product, and to support our customers in all of their sustainability goals,” he said. “We are excited to have worked with Global Green USA to assess some of the recyclable boxes available, and we hope to eventually be able to provide 100% recyclable packaging with all our products.”
 
The boxes, which were donated for testing by Cascades and Interstate Container, are made from recycled material, and are recyclable in accordance with the Fibre Box Association’s recyclability and repulpability protocol for wax-alternative coatings. “While Interstate Container’s roots are in poultry, our Greencoat ICE boxes for seafood are also working extremely well. Retailers need to know there are options to non-recyclable wax and EPS packaging.  A switch to a recyclable box is not only fantastic for the environment, but also a savings to the bottom line for the packer, distributor, and retailer.”
 
Olivier Doiron, Sales Representative for Cascades Industrial Packaging, echoed these sentiments. "Our Extreme H2O box is specifically designed for replacement of waxed boxes, and our Thermafresh box is a substitute for traditional EPS containers," he said "We use a non-wax coating that keeps the box strong, but make it easy to recycle it with regular cardboard. Our customers find that it adds value when they use recyclable packaging; what was a cost of getting rid of waste material now becomes a revenue stream for the grocer or restaurant who receives the seafood."
 
This pilot marks a step toward more sustainable food systems: Greens, vegetables, seafood, and meats are often transported in paraffin-coated cardboard, generating 1.45 million tons of solid waste that must be sent to landfills or burned. Old corrugated cardboard is the most widely recovered packaging material in the country (91% recovered, according to the US EPA), meaning that if this packaging were recyclable it could be collected and recovered in nearly every community in the US.
 
Global Green USA is dedicated to helping the people, places, and the planet in need through catalytic projects, transformative policy, and cutting-edge research. In addition to facilitating greater resource recovery and recycling, Global Green USA's signature programs include greening affordable housing, schools, neighborhoods, and cities as well as rebuilding communities — such as New Orleans and areas of New York and New Jersey — that have suffered from the impacts of climate change, sea level rise, and environmental degradation. Global Green USA is the U.S. affiliate of Green Cross International, which was founded by President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993 to foster a global value shift toward a sustainable and secure future. For more information, visit www.globalgreen.org and follow us at @globalgreen.

View a PDF of the press release here 

 

Alabama Marine Resources Division Seeks Red Snapper Reporting System

March 18, 2014 — It’s obvious to Chris Blankenship, Director of the Alabama Marine Resources Division, that recreational fishing surveys conducted by the federal government are unable to provide accurate data on the red snapper catch off Alabama.

That is why Blankenship has asked the Alabama Conservation Advisory Board to approve a regulation that would establish a system for anglers who catch red snapper off Alabama to report their catches to Marine Resources.

“The reporting of red snapper regulation would require people to report how many red snapper they kept after each trip during snapper season,” Blankenship said. “We want to make it as easy on the fishermen as possible to report their catches. We will have a Smartphone app similar to Game Check that will require a little less information and easier-to-input information. If you don’t have a Smartphone where you can use your app, you can use your touch-tone phone. You’ll need your boat registration number, how many people you had onboard and how many red snapper you caught and kept.”

Because of Alabama’s limited shoreline, Marine Resources will be able to use boat ramps as intercept sites for the survey as well.

“In the event somebody doesn’t have a phone to use or the battery goes dead or whatever, we’ll have drop-boxes at Boggy Point, Cotton Bayou, Fort Morgan and Billy Goat Hole on Dauphin Island,” Blankenship said. “We’ll have paper forms with a carbon copy for people to fill out their information and put it in the drop-boxes. They’ll tear off the carbon and keep it.”

Blankenship said Marine Resources is testing the system right now to make sure the bugs are worked out if the Conservation Advisory Board approves the request.

Read the full story at the Courier Journal 

Maine’s elver season opener delayed two weeks to allow for new rules

AUGUSTA, Maine — March 18, 2014 — Maine’s elver season will start two weeks late to give the state time to implement an emergency law enacted Tuesday by lawmakers that gives it more authority over the industry.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Walter Kumiega, D-Deer Isle, House chairman of the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee, passed unanimously in the House and Senate. It was a quick, quiet passage for the bill after a tenuous few months that saw Maine Indian tribes calling it discriminatory.

By Tuesday, tension had cooled on the issue of the glassy, baby American eels, a delicacy in Japan, where the domestic elver market tanked after a 2011 tsunami, driving up prices from $25 per pound toward $2,000 per pound in Maine, one of two American states that allow elver fishing.

The law allows the Maine Department of Marine Resources to establish an annual weight quota for the elver harvest, allocating individual quotas to harvesters of the eels.

After concern over the fishery’s health was expressed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the department agreed earlier this year to slash Maine’s total 2014 elver catch by 35 percent from last year’s, to nearly 11,750 pounds. Another law passed this year allows a swipe-card system for fishermen that will yield daily reporting data and make illegal harvesting more difficult, according to the commission.

Peter Steele, a spokesman for Gov. Paul LePage, said the department was pushing the season back from its normal start date of March 22 to April 5 in order to implement elements of the new laws. The limit is expected to affect the catch more than the length of the season.


Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Scallop buyers get lessons in science, regulation

March 19, 2014 — The numbers were sometimes hard to believe on Tuesday during the 10th annual buyers' visit and tour of the New Bedford scallop industry.

As the group of buyers from all over the world filled Richie Canastra's online auction room, the price of U-10 scallops from the fishing vessel Inspiration pushed past $17 per pound.

That made boat owner Knute Aarsheim very, very happy as he and his son Keith, the boat's captain, watched the beady but beautiful numbers on the big flat-screen auction display.

Canastra remarked, however, that the day before, U-10 scallop prices reached $19.30 per pound at the boat. (The U-10 "channel" scallops are considered top of the line, excellent texture with no more than 10 to the pound. They are from the rock-filled "channel" fishing grounds, where Canastra said the scallops get a workout as though they're at a gym. And of course the scallops we eat are mussels.)

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times 

 

 

Massachusetts Lawsuit Targets NOAA Science, Tactics

March 19, 2014 — The National Marine Fisheries Service used sub-standard methods of data collection and violated the rule of federal law when it failed to consider alternatives to its preferred catch limits or how those alternatives would affect fishing communities, Massachusetts has charged in its most recent filing of its lawsuit against federal fishing regulators.

Those charges are at the heart of the lawsuit the state filed last May 30 against then-Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and her department’s fishing regulators — NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Service — in the wake of unprecedented cuts in the 2013 available catch limits for cod and other species historically elemental to groundfishermen from Gloucester and elsewhere.

The suit, filed by Attorney General Martha Coakley, contends that those Draconian cuts — 77 percent in the allowable landings of Gulf of Maine cod — were based on questionable science and instituted without proper regard for the adverse economic they would create for fishermen and fishing communities.

The federal government has until March 28 to file its final reply brief and then the case will move to oral arguments before U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns renders his judgment.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times 

 

 

Costco being pressured to join in rejection of genetically engineered salmon

March 18, 2014 — Food safety and environmental organizations are pushing retail giant Costco to refuse to stock a brand of genetically engineered salmon awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

Target, Kroger, Safeway, Trader Joe’s and other companies have already committed to refrain from selling the salmon, dubbed “Frankenfish” by opponents of food made with genetically modifies organisms (GMOs).

The Center for Food Safety, along with the groups Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch and Consumers Union, are gathering signatures in support of a letter to Costco CEO Craig Jelinek, urging him to follow suit.

“As one of the largest retailers of salmon and seafood in the U.S., Costco should have a strong policy on this important issue, I urge Costco to join these other leaders in making a commitment to not sell GE salmon,” the letter reads.

As of this week, at least 80,000 people had signed on to the effort, according to the Center for Food Safety.

The FDA is weighing a proposal from the biotechnology firm AquaBounty Technologies to approve for human consumption its Atlantic salmon eggs, which include a gene that enables them to grow to market size in half the time of a normal salmon. 


The agency has issued initial findings that the Boston firm’s fish are identical to traditional salmon, safe to eat and won’t cause environmental harm, leading to speculation that they would ultimately be approved.


Read the full story at The Hill

A Lobster in Every Pot

March 18, 2014 — Lobster, long considered a luxury, is becoming a little more ordinary.

Soaring supply and falling prices for whole live lobster, along with new food trends, are changing how people eat the crustacean—perhaps for the long term.

Sandwich shop Quiznos, like other inexpensive chains, is adding more lobster dishes alongside its subs. Golden Corral, the buffet-style restaurants, has put lobster on the menu for the first time. Grocery stores from Whole Foods  to Wal-Mart are stocking new lobster items such as frozen tails and cooked claws.

The most expensive restaurants are going beyond classic whole lobster or lobster tail and putting the crustacean in dishes such as pasta, soups and even chips.

It is rare dynamic in today's food world: Supply of lobster is plentiful and pushing down prices. This comes at a time when rising commodity costs are boosting the price of foods like beef and coffee. And much of the most popular seafood is being severely overfished. The supply of North Atlantic lobsters has steadily climbed for over a decade.

Supply is likely growing because of a combination of factors. Warming water in recent years may be boosting lobster population. Fishermen are following regulations that protect young and egg-bearing lobsters. And there has been a decline in recent decades of natural predators such as cod, which eat baby lobsters.

Lobster fishermen groups in the U.S. and Canada, the main areas where lobster is caught for the American market, say retail prices have fallen. In the past two years, the average price that Maine fishermen are paid for whole live lobster has been under $3 per pound, down from a high of $4.63 in 2005, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Read the full story and watch the video at The Wall Street Journal

NORTH CAROLINA: Commercial fishing groups may file suit over turtle protection

March 17, 2014 — Two groups representing North Carolina commercial fishermen have fired a shot across the bow of state and federal agencies, sending a notice of intent to sue federal and state fisheries managers over protection of sea turtles under the Endangered Species Act.

The North Carolina Fisheries Association and Carteret County Fisherman’s Association, represented by attorney Stevenson Weeks, filed notice to sue on March 5. They cite ESA violations on the part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Servies and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as the N.C. Department of, Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR), N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries and N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.

The group’s letter charges that the state and federal agencies had knowledge of significant turtle takes in the recreational hook-and-line fishery and other resource users, yet focused their conservation and regulation measures almost solely on commercial fisheries, arbitrarily and capriciously assigning the full burden of the species recovery to commercial fishermen. The letter said commercial fishermen are highly regulated, while recreational hook-and-line fisheries and recreational boaters are involved in interactions with sea turtles, yet they remain unregulated – a violation of the ESA.

While the letter said the commercial fishing groups are simply seeking an assessment of sea turtle populations and a level at which they could be considered as “recovered” – plus equal sharing of responsibility for the recovery – they seek to hold recreational fishermen and boaters hostage to force federal and state agencies to comply.

Jerry Schell, acting executive director of the N.C. Fisheries Association, wrote in his March 8 NCFA weekly update, “I suffer from a long memory when it comes to the Endangered Species Act and the protection of sea turtles. It began with (turtle extruder devices). Shrimpers were asked to come up with a solution to protect sea turtles. And they did. It wasn’t an easy process, and it wasn’t cheap, but they did. The same is true for the pelagic long-line fishery. They came up with circle hooks after a lot of work, and that resulted in losing 25-percent of their swordfish catch. And now we add the estuarine gill-net fishery with observers, closed areas and other restrictions. During all of this, the fishermen see lots and lots of turtles in increasing numbers. On one hand that’s a good thing. But with more turtles, guess what? There’s the possibility of more interaction.


Read the full story at North Carolina Sportsman