Saving Seafood

MAINE: Hungry seals blamed for loss of 50,000 salmon at Maine fish farms

August 14, 2023 — A seal attack is being blamed for the loss of 50,000 juvenile Atlantic salmon at two fish farming sites near Cutler, Maine.

Cooke Aquaculture spokesperson Joel Richardson said that divers discovered on Aug. 7 that seals had chewed through two cage nets near Cross Island. Each normally holds about 25,000 juvenile salmon, but were empty when workers found them.

The company said that the “unusually aggressive seal behavior” is result of a significant increase in the seal population across the Gulf of Maine, and particularly in Machias Bay.

“This is actually the first time that we’ve ever experienced such an attack by seals, who quite voraciously went after two of our salmon cages to feed,” Richardson said.

Read the full article at wbur

NMFS closing Northern Gulf of Maine scallop area

April 20, 2023 — The federal Northern Gulf of Maine scallop management area will close one minute after midnight April 21, with projections now that 100 percent of the 380,855-pound quota set-aside will have been caught in little more than two weeks.

The closure announced late Wednesday by the National Marine Fisheries Service means no scallop vessels fishing under federal scallop regulations may fish for, possess, or land scallops in or from the Northern Gulf of Maine Scallop area until the end of the current fishing year on March 31, 2024.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

1st ocean fish farm proposed for East Coast off New England

April 10, 2023 — A New Hampshire group wants to be the first to bring offshore fish farming to the waters off New England by raising salmon and trout in open-ocean pens miles from land, but critics fear the plan could harm the environment.

The vast majority of U.S. aquaculture, the practice of raising and harvesting fish in controlled settings, takes place in coastal waters or on land, in tanks and ponds. But New Hampshire-based Blue Water Fisheries wants to place 40 submersible fish pens in water about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) off Newburyport, Massachusetts, on two sites that total nearly a square mile, according to federal documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

The farm would grow millions of pounds of Atlantic salmon and steelhead trout, two popular seafood species, documents state. The proposal needs a battery of approvals, and would be the first of its kind off the East Coast.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

New Brunswick’s first land-based Atlantic salmon post-smolt aquaculture facility achieves environmental approval

April 3, 2023 — The following was released by Cooke Aquaculture Inc:

Kelly Cove Salmon Ltd. (KCS), of the Cooke family of companies, has received a Certification of Determination to Proceed from the New Brunswick Department of Environment and Local Government for the construction of its proposed $72 million land-based Atlantic salmon post-smolt aquaculture facility in Bayside, N.B. This approval is an important step achieved upon successful completion of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

Located in the Champlain Industrial Park alongside the Passamaquoddy Bay, the new facility will be a world-class recirculating aquaculture system (RAS). KCS began planning the high-tech project in 2017 and received EIA approval earlier this year for ground source wells to supply the facility with water. Associated with this facility are two water pipeline corridors and a marine loading facility.

NOAA says Kennebec dams improvement plan will benefit Atlantic salmon. Conservation groups disagree

March 21, 2023 — A coalition of local and national conservation groups is criticizing a new opinion from NOAA fisheries that finds endangered Atlantic salmon aren’t jeopardized by four hydropower dams on the Kennebec River.

NOAA said the operator of the dams, Brookfield Renewable, has an acceptable plan to make improvements that will benefit salmon and other species. In a press release on Monday, NOAA said the plan to make significant structural and operational changes to the dams would allow salmon to swim up the Kennebec to freshwater habitat for the first time since the dams were constructed in the 1800s.

Read the full article at Maine Public

MAINE: Environmentalists: Maine dam operator not protecting salmon

March 8, 2023 — Environmental groups and a Native American tribe accused the operator of a Maine dam on Monday of not fulfilling its obligation to protect the country’s last remaining Atlantic salmon river run.

The last wild Atlantic salmon live in a group of rivers in Maine and have been listed under the Endangered Species Act since 2000. The Penobscot River, a 109-mile (175-kilometer) river in the eastern part of the state is one of the most important habitats for the fish.

The Penobscot is also the site of the Milford Dam, which is owned by renewable energy giant Brookfield Renewable. The company is required under the Endangered Species Act to maintain fish passages that allow 95% of adult salmon to pass the dam within 48 hours.

According to the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Atlantic Salmon Federation and Penobscot Indian Nation, documents obtained using the Maine Freedom of Access Act show that Brookfield isn’t living up to that obligation and that data compiled by the Maine Department of Marine Resources last fall show that only about 21% of salmon pass the dam in the required timeframe.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Salmon deplete fat stores while stopped at dams, UMaine study shows Avatar photo

February 10, 2023 — Restoration of the critically endangered Atlantic salmon is an important issue in the rivers of Maine. Dams on Maine rivers have long been known to impact fish populations, but a new study led by the University of Maine quantifying the time and energy lost by Atlantic salmon stopped by dams indicate that the structures might have even more of an impact than once thought.

Atlantic salmon return to the rivers of Maine from the ocean every spring to make the long, arduous swim upstream to spawn in freshwater. When the fish are stopped by dams, they are stuck in warmer waters for longer than expected, which can deplete the fat they have stored up to power their journey. The stored energy isn’t just used for migration, but also producing gametes, developing secondary sexual traits and spawning.

“Salmon limit the food they eat in freshwater, so excess energy lost during their migration doesn’t get replaced,” says Sarah Rubenstein, who completed her masters of science in wildlife ecology at the University of Maine in 2021. “However, spawning takes a lot of energy, so the more energy reserves salmon have left after migrating and during spawning, the more likely they will be at successfully reproducing. This is particularly important here in Maine where Atlantic salmon populations have been on the decline since the 1800s.”

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

USDA kicks off 2023 with USD 8 million salmon buy

January 19, 2023 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is continuing its purchase of U.S. seafood products this year, awarding salmon contracts worth more than USD 8 million (EUR 7.4 million) in early January 2023.

Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based OBI Seafoods will supply the USDA with nearly USD 6.4 million  (EUR 6.9 million) in canned pink salmon and frozen salmon fillets, while Sitka, Alaska, U.S.A.-based Silver Bay Seafoods will supply nearly USD 1.7 million (EUR 1.6 million) the USDA said in a notice.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Ban on salmon farming in Wash. ignites new worries in Maine

December 10, 2022 — Aquaculture opponents in Maine celebrated earlier this year when they helped convince state officials to block a proposed industrial fish farm in the waters of Frenchman Bay, right next to Acadia National Park.

This week, they said they’re now gearing up for another threat, fearing that Washington state’s decision last month to ban net-pen salmon fish farming could once again increase the pressure to develop Maine’s coastal waters.

Henry Sharpe, president of the opposition group Frenchman Bay United, said he was pleased that Washington state had decided to join Alaska, California and Oregon in banning net-pen farms.

But he said he was also “deeply concerned that … others will now see Maine as an even more inviting place to build large ocean-based fish farms.”

“We hope Maine officials are paying close attention to what is happening in these places that went big for ocean-based salmon farming only to now ban it,” Sharpe said.

Washington state’s decision to get rid of its fish farms has drawn attention from both conservation groups that oppose aquaculture on environmental grounds and businesses that hail it as a safe way to increase U.S. seafood production.

Washington state had long been regarded as a leader in salmon farming, allowing it in the waters of Puget Sound for more than 30 years.

But the industry took a huge hit in 2017 when a net pen operated by Canada-based Cooke Aquaculture Inc. near the San Juan archipelago collapsed and released 260,000 nonnative Atlantic salmon.

Read the full article at E&E News

AquaBounty’s GE salmon back under FDA assessment

November 25, 2022 — AquaBounty’s genetically engineered AquAdvantage salmon is once again going through a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) environmental assessment (EA) after a lawsuit by multiple organizations led to a court order for additional analysis.

The FDA granted permission for the salmon to be sold in the U.S. in 2015, but a judge ruled in 2020 the agency needed to perform additional review of the salmon to evaluate the chances it could be introduced into the wild and its subsequent danger to wild salmon populations. A judge in San Francisco ruled the FDA did not do its due diligence when considering the possibility of environmental consequences with its approval of the salmon.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource