Saving Seafood

JOHN SACKTON: Anti-Salmon Video Shot at Cooke Seafood Escalates Attacks on Farmed Fish

October 9, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Following the release of hidden camera video footage from a Cooke Hatchery in Bingham, Maine, Glenn Cooke issued a statement yesterday saying “I am very sorry that this has happened. We are thoroughly reviewing the footage and we are working closely with the Maine Department of Agriculture to review and ensure all our practices are within compliance. We are speaking with all our employees, and we will institute a rigorous re-training program at our Maine facility.”

His statement is an excellent response to an attack on aquaculture by a militant vegan organization called COK, Compassion over Killing.  This group has 18 people on staff, and in 2017 reported income of around $1.3 million.  20% of their budget goes to undercover videos targeting farming, especially industrialized factory farming.

The organization was founded in 1995, and says its aim is to ‘End the abuse of farmed animals using a variety of strategies including vegetarian outreach, investigations, legal advocacy and publications.’

They are very much part of the movement that has led consumers to demand free-range eggs, minimum standards for space for chickens, and regulations against confinement for breeding sows.

They have won a number of concessions from major restaurant chains who have pledged to adopt higher animal welfare standards and offer vegan menu options.

You can see the video they secretly filmed at the Cooke facility on youtube.  It is not getting a lot of hits, less than 5000 as of today.

It shows employees throwing discarded salmon, and in some cases whacking or stomping on fish.  It also shows some deformities being culled from newly hatched embryos.  The emotional tone of the video is that this is no way to treat fish, which Glenn Cooke has forthrightly acknowledged.

But for the salmon industry, and for seafood in general, this raises a larger question about consumer trends.

Farmed and wild seafood has been under continuous attack for both fishing and farming practices for nearly two generations.  Some of the criticisms about overfishing were made largely by people like the MSC, who love and celebrate fish, with the avowed purpose of ending overfishing, or in the case of ASC, certifying farming, to responsibly increase seafood in the global diet.

But others were made by groups who want to halt all consumption of seafood.  This is the category the Cooke critics fall into.

The problem the industry faces is that our customers, who have major retail and restaurant brands, are very sensitive to pressure groups and emotional appeals, regardless of whether they are based on facts or truth.

As a result, restaurant companies have made many changes in response to animal welfare demands and do not want to become targets of animal rights activists.  Part of Compassion’s strategy is to pressure companies like Subway and others to adopt animal welfare standards and to offer vegan options.  Even McDonald’s is subject to these pressures.

For us, complying with social responsibility has definitely increased costs.  The entire infrastructure of certification and traceability has been added to the costs of fishery management in order to demonstrate our social compliance to our customers.

We have no choice but to continue to make our case for responsible harvesting and husbandry.  This applies across the board, whether it is about lobsters being processed and cooked, wild salmon being crammed in RSW tanks, or farmed salmon raised in net pens.  Anyone on a fishing boat knows that gutting and bleeding fish has a cost to the fish.  But just as in nature, we accept that the pain we cause as a predator is no different to the fish than that caused by a seal or a tuna.  We live in a world where there is a food chain.

We have to be responsible stewards of that food chain.  Without the industry making this case, we are going to lose market share not just to vegetarians or people who will not eat fish under any circumstances but even among those who love fish.

As John Fiorello of Intrafish pointed out, there are two camps in the seafood industry regarding fake fish.  One suggests that the idea of plant-based fish products will always be fringe, and that these products will not make headway with real fish consumers.  I have tended to be in that camp.   People eat fish because they like the taste.  If they don’t eat fish, why would they buy fake fish?

The other camp is those sounding the alarm based on what happened to the dairy industry, where the milk aisle now has almond milk, soymilk, and other non-dairy products taking up space and market share.  In the UK, around 15% of ‘dairy’ sales are non-dairy milk products.  I now feel this is more of a true threat.

My kids are big fish eaters, brought up snacking on things like dried squid from a very young age.  But their spouses are vegetarian, and they have certainly been attracted to the non-meat products like impossible beef.

What surprised me in our discussion of fake seafood was their willingness to consider it, because even though they love fish and shrimp, they also think there is an environmental cost, as they do with meat.  So some of our best fish consumers may be tempted to try these fake products due to their overall view that fishing and aquaculture has an environmental cost that they can mitigate through their food choices.

This makes me think that the trend to hold not just fish but all foods to a higher standard is very real, and it means the entire seafood industry must continue to make the case for our responsibility and commitment to environmental and animal welfare.

Glenn Cooke’s statement is an excellent example of how to respond to this type of accusation.  The company was blindsided by someone recording a secret video.

It does not matter if it was unfair, edited, or secretly taped—the response of the company was to own the mistakes shown on the video, and to promise to do better.

Glenn Cooke said he does not judge people’s dietary choices.  If they don’t want to eat salmon they don’t have to, but regardless of their individual choice, Cooke is assuring all those who do eat farmed salmon that it is grown in a responsible, socially conscious way that respects animal welfare.

These are not issues that are going away.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It was reprinted with permission.

Canadian Conservative Party’s fisheries plan more gentle on net-pen aquaculture

October 8, 2019 — Canada’s Conservatives have a few plans for their country’s fisheries and net-pen aquaculture industry that they would like to execute if successful in the Oct. 21 election, but none as dramatic as those promised by the incumbent Liberals.

The party led by Andrew Scheer, a challenger for prime minister, on Sunday unveiled the part of its platform that deals with fisheries and aquaculture issues, promising to, among other things, create advisory panels to consult with the federal government on stock-rebuilding efforts and “increase pathogen testing for open pen aquaculture sites”.

“Unfortunately, Justin Trudeau has failed to appreciate the knowledge of those closest to our fisheries,” the Conservatives said in a brief press release announcing their views and opposition to the positions staked out by the Liberal Party and its leader.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MAINE: This Major Effort To Restore Atlantic Salmon Involves A Company That Raises The Fish For Food

October 7, 2019 — As many as 15,000 adult Atlantic salmon will be put into the Penobscot River over the next three years, most of them after being raised in penstocks off the coast of Washington County. They are expected to create up to 56 million eggs as part of one of the most ambitious efforts yet at reversing the decades-long decimation of Maine’s wild salmon population.

The first 5,000 fish will be placed in the East Branch of the Penobscot River near the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument next fall as part of the Salmon for Maine’s Rivers program, which is funded by a $1.1 million federal grant and involves the state and federal governments, a Native American tribe and a New Brunswick-based company that raises salmon in pens off the Maine coast.

No one should expect the wild salmon population in the Penobscot and its tributaries to explode in the next three years, said Andrew Lively, a spokesman for Cooke Aquaculture USA, which raises salmon in farming pens off the Maine coast and is aiding in the restoration effort.

In addition to Cooke Aquaculture and Maine’s Department of Marine Resources, the other partners in the effort are the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Penobscot Indian Nation.

As the state’s sole commercial grower of sea-penned Atlantic salmon, Cooke’s involvement will vastly improve state revitalization efforts, said Dwayne Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Analyst: Salmon farming needs sector sea lice solutions to meet its full potential

October 7, 2019 — Soaring global demand for farmed Atlantic salmon has put many of the sector’s producers in a very strong financial position in recent years, but greater gains are there for the taking if they can overcome biological production barriers, according to an aquaculture analyst.

Christian Nordby, equity research analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux, informed the recent Aquaculture Innovation Europe conference in London that the salmon market continues to grow at a rapid rate with demand surpassing the supply, and said farmers will remain in good stead as long as they don’t take the “unlikely” approach of creating oversupply in the market.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Cooke gains permission to raise rainbow trout in Washington

October 4, 2019 — Cooke Aquaculture has moved a step closer to ensuring a long-term presence in Washington State after the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) confirmed earlier this week that it plans to issue a five-year marine aquaculture permit to the Canadian aquaculture company to farm all-female rainbow trout at its existing farms in Puget Sound.

Washington lawmakers voted to phase out and ban non-native finfish net-pen farming in the state following the 2017 collapse of a Cooke farm that released at least 250,000 Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound. If Cooke does not repurpose its salmon farms, they will be shut down by 2022.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MAINE: Aquaculture Operation to Support Novel Approach to Wild Atlantic Salmon Restoration

October 3, 2019 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) will employ a novel approach to rearing Atlantic salmon for restoring native populations on the East Branch of the Penobscot.

The project, funded through a NOAA Section 6 Species Recovery Grant totaling $1,075,000, will involve a partnership between DMR, Cooke Aquaculture USA, US Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries, and the Penobscot Indian Nation to grow juvenile Atlantic salmon to adult size in aquaculture pens located near Cutler Maine. The adult salmon will then be released into the East Branch of the Penobscot to spawn, a river with large amounts of high-quality salmon habitat.

Smolts raised from native broodstock by the US Fish and Wildlife Service at the Green Lake National Fish Hatchery in Ellsworth, Maine, and smolts captured in the wild by rotary screw traps will be used to stock the marine net pens in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Smolts will include only those from Penobscot River origin to ensure the genetic integrity of salmon released into the river.

Plans call for increasing the number of smolts captured in the wild from the East Branch to be used to supply juveniles that will be grown out in the net pens. While hatchery spawned fish help ensure an adequate supply of fish for recovery goals, those spawned in the natural environment are more robust due to the impact of natural selection which results in fish that are better suited to survival in the wild.

The smolts will be placed in net pens under a limited-purpose aquaculture lease in Cutler, Maine where they will be fed and managed in cooperation with Cooke Aquaculture USA for 16 to 30 months, during which time they will grow to mature adults. The DMR will hold the lease on the pens while Cooke will supply the pens and feed for the salmon as they grow.

“We are committed to be part of this wild Atlantic salmon enhancement project in Maine. Cooke Aquaculture has the experience working with Atlantic salmon in their natural environment based on proven aquaculture and fish-health science. Working with the Penobscot Nation and government partners, together we will make this restoration program a success by seeing the fish return to their native waters,” said Glenn Cooke, CEO, Cooke Aquaculture USA.

Approximately 5,000 adult fish will be transported from the net pens to target tributaries and the mainstem of the East Branch of the Penobscot River in the fall of 2021 or 2022 where they will find suitable habitat to naturally spawn. This will result in more spawning adults than have been present in the Penobscot River for decades.

While net pens are not new in Maine for cultivating Atlantic salmon, using them to cultivate salmon for conservation purposes at this scale is new in Maine and showing promise in a Bay of Fundy partnership between Cooke and Canadian provincial and federal governments, First Nations and academia.

The Penobscot Indian Nation has inhabited the Penobscot River drainage since time immemorial. The deep cultural, spiritual and historical connections between the Tribe and the Atlantic salmon of the Penobscot River go back thousands of years, said Dan McCaw, Fisheries Program Manager for the Penobscot Nation. The Penobscot Nation is hopeful that this new program can help to restore this iconic species to its ancestral homeland and applauds the collaborative nature of this multi-stakeholder endeavor.

As populations expand, the goal is to build healthy wild populations of Atlantic Salmon on the East Branch, including the potential for downlisting. The estimated 5,000 adults produced by this effort could result in 20 times more eggs in the gravel in the Penobscot River basin compared to existing stocking and natural reproduction, said Sean Ledwin, Director of DMR’s Searun Fisheries and Habitat Division.

The program will involve surveys of redds in spawning areas to assess spawning success of released fish. Released fish will also be tracked using Passive integrated transponders (PIT tags) and radio telemetry. Electrofishing surveys and use of rotary screw traps, along with genetic analysis, will be used to assess the abundance of offspring from this effort.

The program will also include a public outreach effort undertaken by the department and other program partners that will provide information on salmon and other sea-run species, and the impact of protecting ecosystems on which they rely.

https://www.maine.gov/dmr/news-details.html?id=1597983

Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe partnering with Cooke Aquaculture Pacific for Northwest native species farm

October 3, 2019 — The following was released by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe:

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is pleased to announce a joint venture with Cooke Aquaculture Pacific.

The joint venture will initially work to rear sablefish (black cod) and sterile triploid, all-female rainbow trout. The venture will require reinstatement of the farm lease at Port Angeles, in exchange for significant investment by the venture in new infrastructure and local jobs in the area. The two partners will work together to rear these Northwest native species in Port Angeles Harbor.

“Our Council is committed to pursuing our self-reliance goal through diversified economic development and education, and we believe this partnership with Cooke Aquaculture Pacific will contribute to meeting that goal,” says Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe Chairman/CEO W. Ron Allen. “We, along with our sister tribes, are strong stewards of our environment. And we firmly believe we can implement net pen aquaculture consistent with our tribal heritage and cultural values. By working together, combining our history and experience fishing on the Olympic Peninsula with Cooke’s experience and expertise in aquaculture, we are confident that we can raise a sustainable supply of trout and sablefish and contribute to our local economy.”

This partnership with Cooke augments the well-established working relationship between the Tribe, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Manchester Research Laboratory and the University of Washington, who have worked together since 2015 on black cod aquaculture research.

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is the second largest employer in Clallam County, providing jobs for over 750 people in its Tribal government and businesses. In addition to the businesses that provide revenues for Tribal programs and services, the Tribe is an active partner in many community projects focusing on protection and restoration of natural resources and habitat, improving health and wellness for the Olympic Peninsula, public safety, and promoting quality education.

“The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is known for being progressive and forward-thinking in its approach to resource management and economic development,” says Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Aquaculture Pacific. “We look forward to working together to produce top quality seafood for consumers in Washington and across the US.” The partners are expecting to start up the operations in the fall of 2019.

For more information, visit https://jamestowntribe.org or www.cookeseafood.com.

Caught by surprise, Canadian salmon farming group sees closed containment push as limiting

October 2, 2019 — A promise from Canada’s Liberal Party that if they’re elected they’ll introduce legislation to move net-pen salmon farming in the province of British Columbia to closed-containment systems by 2025 caught many in the salmon farming sector by surprise.

Timothy Kennedy, president and CEO of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance (CAIA), said that’s because industry representatives had long been engaged with the government and other stakeholders to discuss technological improvements to salmon farming that would have satisfied many concerns.

That process determined that “hybrid” technologies to grow larger smolts on land and reduce the time farmed salmon spend in the ocean as the medium and near-term solutions that were the most feasible, he said.

“There’s a lot of opportunity and a lot of investment going into that,” he said. “This sort of commitment within an artificial time frame is really challenging and very undermining of the process and the intent of those who were involved in the process.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance CEO: Banning BC salmon farms will drive farming to other nations

October 1, 2019 — Representatives of Canada’s salmon farming industry are hitting back hard at plans unveiled in the recently released Liberal party platform headed by incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to transition salmon farming in British Columbia from ocean netpen farms to land-based operations.

The Liberal platform has potentially serious and far-reaching negative consequences for Canadian jobs and the environment, said the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance (CAIA), which represents the interests of Canada’s aquaculture producers.

“This is a reckless policy, not grounded in science, and it will threaten good middle-class jobs across Canada,” says Timothy Kennedy, CAIA president and CEO.

If implemented, Kennedy added, farmed salmon production would simply be driven to other countries, undercutting efforts the industry has made to improve sustainability.

Read the full story at IntraFish