Saving Seafood

Northern Maine was once home to robust salmon population. Now a new strategy could bring them back

June 12, 2019 — A new generation of Atlantic salmon is getting acquainted with the headwaters of the Aroostook River watershed this spring, as a coalition of organizations works on a long-term effort to restore populations of the fish in northern Maine.

More than 40,000 newly hatched Atlantic salmon were released into tributary streams of the Aroostook River in early June. They are the first cohort of hatches sourced from wild, genetically diverse salmon in the greater St. John River watershed, said David Putnam, a member of the volunteer-run Atlantic Salmon for Northern Maine group.

Most salmon releases have relied on captive-raised fish, and releases over the last several decades in northern Maine and elsewhere have not been successful in establishing new populations of the fish, Putnam said.

These new fish represent a “new strategy,” said Putnam, a long-time natural history and sciences instructor at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. The young salmon come from eggs taken from wild fish that were “selected to get a broad genetic diversity from St. John River salmon,” Putnam said.

The young salmon “fry” were released without being fed in a hatchery and should have a better chance at long-term survival and adaptation than hatchery-raised offspring, Putnam said.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Norway’s deadly algae bloom may be waning, government says

June 3, 2019 — A deadly algae bloom that has killed nearly eight million Atlantic salmon being farmed in northern Norway appears to be dispersing, according to the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries.

The bloom, first reported in mid-May, has killed 3.8 million farmed salmon in the Nordland area, the equivalent of 6,400 metric tons, and four million salmon in Troms, or 6,820 metric tons, according to Norway’s Fiskeridirektoratet. Affected companies include Ballangen Sjøfarm, Ellingsen Seafood, Mortenlaks, and Nordlaks in Nordland and South Rollerfish, Northern Lights Salmon, Kleiva Fish Farm, Gratanglaks, Nordlaks, and Salaks in Troms.

“It may seem that blooming is on the way down. Generally lower numbers of algae are recorded, the cells are smaller in size and there are observations suggesting that the bloom/species is less harmful,” the directorate wrote in a 2 June update. “As reported in recent days, there have been high concentrations of algae without causing fish to die. It may happen that the algae bloom up again in smaller areas.”

Many salmon-farming companies in northern Norway have transferred their fish to locations less likely to be affected by the algae bloom. Cermaq, Nordlaks, Ellingsen Seafood, and Nordnorsk Stamfisk have moved fish and broodstock out of Nordland, while Lerøy had issued a notice that it was considering moving fish out of Troms, but delayed its decision as local water conditions improved.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Maine’s Atlantic salmon prognosis remains grim despite all-time low harvest and more adult returns to North American rivers

May 31, 2019 — On Thursday, as national delegations prepare to meet in Norway to discuss Atlantic salmon conservation, there’s a mixed bag of news for those who are passionate about salmon and salmon angling.

The headline on an Atlantic Salmon Federation press release, in fact, sounds downright cheery, as it announces that harvest of the fish in the North Atlantic is at an all-time low, and adult returns to North American rivers increased from 2017 to 2018.

That’s the attitude the ASF is taking heading into the annual meeting of the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization, at least.

In an accompanying report, “State of the North American Atlantic Salmon Populations,” a more sober picture begins to emerge.

According to that report, salmon returns to U.S. rivers in 2018 met only 3 percent of the conservation limit for fish that had spent two winters at sea. And what’s a “conservation limit?” That’s defined as the number of spawning adults below which populations are unable to sustain themselves, and begin to decline.

And that pretty much defines the Atlantic salmon situation here in Maine; the fish is listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. Fishing for Atlantic salmon here is not allowed, and the population that does exist is almost entirely dependent on the annual stocking of hundreds of thousands of hatchery fish.

In 2018, according to the ASF, the Penobscot had 480 large salmon and 289 small salmon return. That run of 769 fish was lower than 2017’s 849 returning salmon.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Dams still biggest impediment to Atlantic salmon recovery

April 16, 2019 — Addressing the problems caused by dams is still the biggest challenge facing the recovery of the Atlantic salmon.

That’s at the core of a presentation a federal fisheries biologist is scheduled to deliver to a regulatory board on Tuesday in Connecticut. Dan Kircheis of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be speaking to the New England Fishery Management Council during its meeting in Mystic.

Atlantic salmon were once abundant in U.S. rivers, but now they only return to a handful in Maine. They’re on the endangered species list in America. Kircheis will be talking about a recovery strategy for the fish on Tuesday.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Connecticut Post

Maine-based seafood company, stuck in limbo due to government shutdown, back in business

March 19, 2019 — A Maine-based smokehouse that produces cold-smoked Atlantic salmon is back in business after overcoming the loss of its license to the FDA three years ago, and being stuck in limbo during the U.S. government shutdown as it tried to restart operations.

Sullivan Harbor Farm Smokehouse, located in Hancock Village, Maine, reopened on 12 March after regaining FDA approval and documentation. The smokehouse lost its license roughly three years ago, and was then purchased by the company’s current president and owner, Leslie Harlow, who was one of the original founding partners.

Harlow had parted ways with the business back in 2005, but when the business was shut down in 2016 she bought out the former partner and begin the process of reopening. The final hurdle was the government shutdown, which further delayed the reopening as FDA officials were unavailable to give final approvals.

“Three years ago, when I took this project on, the goal was to make the facility and products compliant and safe, while still preserving the artisanal methods that made Sullivan Harbor Farm smoked salmon a stand-out from the rest,” Harlow said. “The experience was bewildering at times, but we persisted. Grit, hard work, and a belief in small entrepreneurship brought us to where we are today.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Cardiorespiratory fitness of farmed Atlantic salmon unaffected by virus

March 14, 2019 –The respiratory systems of Atlantic salmon function normally even when carrying large loads of piscine orthoreovirus (PRV), new UBC research has found.

“We didn’t find significant harm to the fish’s respiratory physiology despite the virus replicating to a load equal to, if not higher, than those seen naturally in wild or farmed fish” said Yangfan Zhang, a Ph.D. student in UBC’s faculty of land and food systems and lead author of the study published today in Frontiers in Physiology.

PRV is present in nearly all farmed Atlantic salmon on Canada’s west coast, and various strains of PRV have been detected in many salmonid species around the world. Consequently, the results are a positive step in reducing the uncertainty about the potential of infected farmed Atlantic salmon in marine pens to negatively impact migrating wild Pacific salmon.

Read the full story at Phys.org

Cooke, Martha Stewart partner on value-added seafood range

February 26, 2019 — Diversified seafood group Cooke is partnering with US retail and lifestyle entrepreneur Martha Stewart on a new range of value-added seafood products using raw material from its global farmed and wild supply companies.

Cooke, under its True North Seafood sales arm, is teaming up on the range with Sequential Brands Group, which licenses a range of consumer brands, including Martha Stewart’s, the seafood company told Undercurrent News. The range will launch next month and will be on show at the upcoming Boston seafood show, held in the East Coast US city from March 17-19.

The product line offers a range of True North products accompanied by a Martha Stewart signature butter flavor or spice blend. Packaging will also include an easy to follow recipe created by Stewart’s “test kitchen” team, the company said. These include Atlantic salmon with lemon herb butter; sockeye salmon with miso butter; pollock with a southwest spice blend, and a seafood medley – using pollock, salmon, and bay scallops — with a herb spice blend.

“Knowing where my seafood comes from is very important to me, and I’ve enjoyed and served True North Seafood to family and friends for years,” said Stewart, in a statement.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

European Commission investigating potential price-fixing in European farmed salmon sector

February 19, 2019 — The European Commission has confirmed it carried out unannounced inspections on the morning of Tuesday, 19 February at the premises of several companies involved in the farmed Atlantic salmon sector in Europe.

In a statement, the E.C. said it “has concerns that the inspected companies may have violated E.U. antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices.”

The E.C. did not say what sparked its investigation, nor did it identify which companies are being investigated or which sites its investigators visited. However, Mowi (formerly Marine Harvest) and Greig Seafood confirmed to SeafoodSource their facilities were among those visited on Tuesday. Additionally, a Scottish Sea Farms facility jointly owned by SalMar and Leroy Seafood was also inspected, SalMar CEO Olav-Andreas Ervik confirmed to Reuters.

“We have been informed that The European Commission DG (Director General) Competition is exploring potential anti-competitive behavior in the salmon industry. They have performed an inspection today at Grieg Seafood Shetland,” Grieg Seafood Global Communications Manager Kristina Furnes told SeafoodSource in an email. “The salmon market is very competitive and we are not aware of any anti-competitive behavior. We are co-operating with the European Commission DG Competition’s investigation.”

Furne referred further questions about the investigation to the European Commission DG Competition.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Those of us who fished Atlantic salmon may never have another chance in our lifetimes

February 15, 2019 — Conservationists on Wednesday said the final recovery plan for Atlantic salmon in Maine rivers didn’t contain many surprises. State and nongovernment agencies had already seen previous drafts of the plan, after all, and were much more involved in its formation than anglers (and newspaper columnists).

For those of us who weren’t in the rooms where various conversations have taken place over the past 10 years — ever since the salmon in the Penobscot River joined other Maine waters on the federal “endangered” list — the plan was much more shocking.

Most stunning, to me, was this passage near the end of the report’s summary section.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

Ambitious new plan to save Atlantic salmon has big price tag

February 15, 2019 — The federal government outlined an ambitious, potentially costly new plan to restore Atlantic salmon in the United States, where rivers teemed with the fish before dams, pollution and overfishing decimated their populations.

The Atlantic salmon has declined in the U.S. to the point where the last remaining wild populations of in the U.S. exist only in a handful of rivers in Maine. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are offering a new recovery plan to bring back those fish, which are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The plan would take decades to fully implement, and it focuses on strategies such as removals of dams, installations of fish passages and increasing the number of salmon that survive in the ocean. It states that the estimated cost is about $24 million per year, not including money federal departments already spend on salmon recovery work.

How that money would materialize at this point is unclear. But the plan gives the species a roadmap to recovery, said Peter Lamothe, program manager for the Maine fish and wildlife complex for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“It gives all of the partners involved in this what to shoot for — what we collectively need to achieve to recover the species,” Lamothe said. “It gives us a path forward.”

Atlantic salmon are readily available to seafood consumers because of extensive aquaculture, but the wild fish have been declining in the Gulf of Maine since the 19th century.

Back then, 100,000 adult salmon returned annually to Maine’s Penobscot River, which remains the most important river for the species in America.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Bedford Standard-Times