Saving Seafood

NOAA: ​2019 Saltonstall-Kennedy (S-K) Grant competition is currently open.

May 29, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is pleased to announce the ​​2019 Saltonstall-Kennedy (S-K) Grant competition is currently open. This year’s solicitation consists of two separate submission processes. All interested applicants must submit a 2 page Pre-Proposal to the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) posted at www.Grants.gov found here.  Applicants interested in submitting a full application after the pre-proposal review process must submit the full application through www.grants.gov.

Please note that under this one Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) there are two (2) competition links.  Please be sure to submit your pre-proposals to the “PRE PROPOSALS FY19 Saltonstall-Kennedy” link prior to July 23, 2018, ​the date specified in this NOFO.  Please be sure to submit your FULL Proposals to the “FULL Proposals FY19 Saltonstall-Kennedy” link prior to ​Novem​b​er 5, 2018, ​​​the date specified in this NOFO. Be sure to read the NOFO and follow the directions closely.

The goal of the S-K program is to fund projects that address the needs of fishing communities, optimize economic benefits by building and maintaining sustainable fisheries, and increase other opportunities to keep working waterfronts viable. The FY19 solicitation seeks applications that fall into one of three priorities:

  • Promotion
  • Development
  • Marketing
  • Marine Aquaculture
  • Support of Science that Maximizes Fishing Opportunities
  • Revenue and Jobs in U.S. Fisheries
  • Long-Term Sustainability of Marine Resources

For more information click here.

 

Washington state finds virus in Cooke Atlantic salmon, plans expanded testing

May 21, 2018 — After identifying an exotic virus in fish raised by Cooke Aquaculture, Washington state is planning to test at other sites where the pathogen from Atlantic salmon may have been spread.

The state this week blocked restocking of one of Cooke’s net pens after fish at the company’s rearing facility in Thurston County tested positive for the virus.

Ken Warheit, fish-health manager for the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW), will, as soon as possible, test Cooke’s settling ponds at its incubator in Rochester, Thurston County, as well as Scatter Creek and its confluence with the Chehalis River for the presence of the virus found in the Atlantic salmon smolts raised by Cooke.

The pathogen could have contaminated surrounding water, raising a concern for its potential to affect native Pacific salmon, Warheit said.

Cooke’s request for a permit to transfer the smolts to open-water net pens for growing to harvest size was denied for the same reason, Warheit said.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

 

Why should you care about fisheries? They can help feed the world.

May 16, 2018 — Food security is a hot button topic for today’s world leaders, and rightly so as the population swells to 10 billion people by the middle of the century. Feeding that many people is a huge challenge – creating an urgent call to action for resources to be managed more sustainably and equitably – and wild seafood plays a big role.

Typically, these discussions focus on land-based agriculture, including the production of grains, seeds, crops and livestock that, while subject to droughts, diseases and shortages, are the main source of world food consumption as measured by total calories. However, food sources from our oceans, lakes and rivers also play a large part in feeding the world, and deserve their place in the discussion.   

That’s why we’re excited to share a new report from Duke University and EDF* examining how wild capture fisheries fit into this complex discussion and summarizing what we know about the potential role of fish and other aquatic resources, like shellfish and crustaceans, to help feed an increasingly hungry world. After all, three billion people rely on seafood as a primary source of protein, and this number will only continue to grow.

Read the full story at EDF

 

How the world’s second largest indoor salmon farm could take shape in Maine

May 11, 2018 — BELFAST, Maine — You might have to squint through the trees to spot the world’s second largest salmon farm in Belfast, according to computer renderings unveiled Wednesday.

Nordic Aquafarms, a Norwegian aquaculture firm, says its due diligence, the process used to determine whether the project would be feasible, is about 90 percent complete, and is ready to start applying for permits.

Nordic hosted its latest information session at the Hutchinson Center in Belfast on Wednesday night.

In its first phase, Nordic would build a 300,000-square-foot building on a 40-acre plot near the Northport town line. The building will be about 10-15 feet shorter than surrounding trees, largely hiding it from view, according to Nordic’s CEO Erik Heim.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Chinese fish farm tests deep-sea waters with ‘world’s biggest’ salmon cage

May 8, 2018 — A Chinese fisheries company will soon launch a massive deep-sea salmon farming facility in the eastern province of Shandong to help meet the country’s growing appetite for seafood.

Shandong Wanzefeng Fishery, the operator, said a fully submersible net cage called Deep Blue No 1, the world’s biggest, was delivered to the shipyard of state-owned Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry on Friday, state-run Xinhua reported.

The 35-metre-high cage will be deployed in the Yellow Sea about 130 nautical miles east of Rizhao where the cold water is believed to be a suitable habitat for the fish.

Wang Yu, head of the Hubei Marine Engineering Equipment Research Institute, which designed the system, said the cage had a volume of 50,000 cubic metres and could generate a harvest of about 1,500 tonnes of salmon per season.

Read the full story at the South China Morning Post

 

These machines from Japan could put scallop farming in Maine on the map

April 30, 2018 — A project in Maine, boosted by a new grant, would establish the first semi-automated commercial scallop aquaculture operations outside Japan.

The $300,000 grant to CEI, a Brunswick business development organization, from the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research of Washington, D.C., will help fund efforts to test the economic viability of cultivating scallops on ropes at aquaculture sites in Maine’s coastal waters.

As part of that effort, Bangs Island Mussel in Portland and Pine Point Oyster in Scarborough are testing out machinery made in Japan that should help automate much of the labor-intensive process of attaching and growing scallops on ropes vertically suspended in the water.

Testing and possibly modifying the machinery is just one of multiple angles in trying to develop a market for farmed scallops from Maine, according to Hugh Cowperthwaite of Brunswick-based Coastal Enterprises Inc.

CEI, which is administering the three-year grant, also plans to conduct market research to gauge the potential demand for scallops grown in such a manner, and to write a “how-to” manual for interested aquaculturists, Cowperthwaite added. Rope-grown scallops likely would have to serve a specialty market to be economically viable, he said, because they cannot match the high volume and relatively low production expense of the Northeast’s wild scallop fishery.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Washington Governor Jay Inslee signs bill banning Atlantic salmon farming

March 23, 2018 — Washington Governor Jay Inslee on Thursday, 22 March, signed a bill into law that will phase out Atlantic salmon and other non-native fish farming by 2025.

Canada’s Cooke Aquaculture, the only company that farms Atlantic salmon fish farms in Washington state, was the target of the ban after more than a quarter-million non-native salmon escaped in August 2017 from a Cooke net-pen near Cypress Island, Washington.

“This bill will phase out non-native marine net pens in Puget Sound. These present a risk to our wild salmon runs that we cannot tolerate,” the governor said.

Inslee also vetoed a section of the bill that requesting that the issue of fish farming be revisited if new science for the industry is developed.

“The economic, cultural, and recreational resources of these incredible waters will no longer be jeopardized by the negligent actions of this industry,” Sen. Kevin Ranker, who sponsored the bill in the Washington State Senate, said. “We’ve invested so much in trying to recover our wild Pacific salmon populations, there is no sensible purpose for allowing non-native species into the Salish Sea. The day-to-day impact of invasive aquaculture – feces, disease, loose food pellets or lice –  could have serious impacts. The state ban is a strong stance to ensure the protection of our marine environment and native salmon populations in the Salish Sea.”

In response to the bill being signed into law, Cooke Aquaculture spokesman Joel Richardson said the company was considering its next steps.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Science Ignored in New Anti-Aquaculture Law

March 23, 2018 — OLYMPIA, Wash. — As the leading trade association representing Washington’s multi-million-dollar finfish aquaculture industry, WFGA is deeply disappointed by Governor Inslee’s failure to take science into consideration by signing into law HB 2957. Our organization holds the position—supported by leading fisheries scientists—that this law completely lacks any scientific basis.

We are additionally dismayed by the fact that in early March of this year, a group of concerned scientists reached out to the state legislature, refuting the basis of HB 2957 and outlining the best peer-reviewed science available to date. In an Open Letter to the State Legislature, nine leading fisheries scientists challenged the key assumptions in HB 2957 having to do with purported interbreeding between Atlantics and native species, colonization, disease transfer, and competition for food. In passing HB 2957 by a 31-16 vote, it was clear that the legislature chose to ignore the science in favor of other political considerations.

After the vote, we reached out to Governor Inslee, urging him to veto HB 2957.

At the same time, the signatories to the Open Letter to the legislature requested a meeting with the Governor. While the Governor was not available to meet, a small group of scientists met with the Governor’s staff to present the science and request that the Governor veto the most troublesome sections of HB 2957 or postpone implementation until the study in Section I was completed.

By the actions taken today by Governor Inslee, it is clear that science has taken a back seat to politics in our state’s natural resources policymaking.

Our association includes many Washington subsidiaries of international companies, representing all sectors of the seafood value chain, from egg producers to feed suppliers, equipment manufacturers, vaccine companies, technology companies, and producers of freshwater species such as trout and steelhead.

We are concerned that this ill-conceived and fundamentally flawed legislation may be sending the wrong message to companies seeking to do business in Washington.

Read the full statement by the Washington Fish Growers Association at Value Spectrum

 

Western Pacific council hopes to build up aquaculture around US-controlled islands

March 16, 2018 — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRMC) took initial action on March 15 to establish an aquaculture management program for the exclusive economic zone of the US Pacific islands.

“Supplementing the harvest of domestic fisheries with cultured product would help the United States meet consumers’ growing demand for seafood and may reduce the dependence on seafood imports,” said Kitty Simonds, the council’s executive director.

The aquaculture plan would establish a regional permitting process and provide a comprehensive framework to regulate activities so as to protect wild fish stocks and fisheries. Requirements would include a federal permit that is renewable and transferable, an aquaculture operations plan, prohibition areas, allowable species, and record-keeping and reporting.

The council is expected to take final action on the plan during its next meeting, scheduled for June 12 to 15, 2018, in Honolulu, Hawaii, pending completion of a programmatic environmental impact statement by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Limiting the Spread of Disease in Farmed Salmon

March 14, 2018 — Currents in the ocean spread viruses that are killing large numbers of Norway’s farmed salmon. Where should fish farms be built? And should they all be in use at the same time? Researchers now know more about how to limit the virus problem.

Pancreas disease is a viral infection in farmed salmon that causes major economic losses because it reduces how much the fish grow and increases mortality. When farmed salmon are weakened, they also become more susceptible to other diseases. Pancreas disease (PD) can resolve on its own, but often mortality is high.

Researchers monitored the ocean currents in the Romsdalsfjord and in Nord- Trøndelag county in 2014. Data from the observations have been transferred to a digital model, where researchers then depicted virtual virus particles in order to understand how the disease can spread from one fish farm to another. In addition to threatening fish welfare, every year the disease leads to major losses for Norwegian salmon breeders. A single outbreak can quickly cost a small aquaculture operation more than $1 million.

Ocean currents are one of the most important pathways for the disease, carrying the virus from one fish farm to the next. Planning for where best to locate aquaculture facilities, and knowledge of which facilities to use when combatting the disease, can prevent the spread of the disease, new research from NTNU in Ålesund shows.

Read the full story at Maritime Executive