Saving Seafood

Virginia, Maryland legislators fighting fake Chesapeake Bay blue crab meat

September 16, 2015 — A group of federal legislators from Virginia and Maryland urged the White House this week to do more to curb the mislabeling of Chesapeake Bay blue crab.

In a letter Monday, U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and Rep. Rob Wittman from Virginia and Sen. Barbara Mikulski from Maryland applauded President Barack Obama for launching the Presidential Task Force to Combat Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing and Seafood Fraud earlier this year.

But, they said, its draft recommendations don’t go far enough to protect area watermen from dishonest people willing to import foreign crabmeat and repackage it as Atlantic or Chesapeake Bay blue crab.

Federal agents are investigating allegations that Casey’s Seafood Inc. in Newport News did just that. No charges have been filed in connection with the case, but DNA tests on several of Casey’s Seafood products contained mixtures of Atlantic blue crab and cheaper alternatives native to foreign waters. All of the products were labeled “Product of the USA.”

“This deceptive labeling misleads consumers and threatens the livelihood of the watermen in our states,” reads the letter, which indicates Virginia’s blue crab fishery generates nearly $30 million in total fishing revenue for watermen each year. Maryland’s blue crabs generate over $58 million annually.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

 

Iconic fish species move north as ocean warms

September 6, 2015 — Warming ocean temperatures off the North Atlantic are causing fish to move up the coast to cooler waters — raising concerns among scientists and regulators about the ocean’s ecosystem, and potentially changing the experience Delaware anglers have enjoyed for generations.

In 2013, a Virginia Beach striped bass tournament drew hundreds of boats, but only one striper was caught.

Wachapreague, Virginia, a tiny town south of Chincoteague that called itself the “flounder capital of the world,” lost its identity and economic engine when summer flounder relocated to waters off the coasts of New Jersey and New York.

And the iconic blue crab, a staple of restaurants and dinner tables throughout the Delmarva Peninsula, are expanding their range, scuttling up the coast to Maine.

Striped bass, which gave birth to a charter fishing industry in Delaware, are swimming into deeper water during their fall migration through the mid-Atlantic — well beyond the 3-mile limit off the coast where it is legal to catch and keep them.

Black sea bass — once so common in area waters, they were the go-to-fish when other species weren’t biting — have moved north to New England.

Read the full story at Delaware Online

 

Maryland launches campaign against illegal crab fishing

July 1, 2015 — Maryland on Tuesday launched a campaign to police recreational and commercial crab fishing as the state grapples with a low population of crabs that can be caught in the Chesapeake Bay, authorities said.

The enforcement campaign takes aim at poachers who defy regulations on minimum sizes, harvest limits and hours, as well as crab pot registrations, threatening the sustainability of Maryland’s blue crab population, officials said.

“Our officers will be on the water, on the docks, at wholesalers and at roadside stands to ensure that everyone plays by the rules,” Colonel George Johnson, superintendent of the Maryland Natural Resources Police, told a news conference in Annapolis.

Officers also will be on the lookout for recreational crabbers who keep female crabs, which is illegal in Maryland.  Officers plan to use patrols, undercover operations, night-vision equipment, cameras and radar, Johnson said.

Read the full story at Reuters