Saving Seafood

Alliance of Historic California Squid Producers Achieves MSC Certification

August 2, 2o23 — California’s historic market squid fishery is making history again: It has achieved Marine Stewardship Council certification.

The premier market squid fishery in California has a long history, dating back to the mid-1800s, when Chinese immigrants fished out of skiffs in Monterey Bay, using torches of burning fat pine to attract squid. Now, an alliance of six historic California squid processors recently announced that California’s market squid fishery has achieved MSC certification, the recognized pinnacle of sustainability in fishery management.

The California market squid purse seine fishery also is being evaluated under a different certifier, for a different client group.

The Alliance of California squid processors includes Cal Marine Fish Company, Monterey Fish Company, Southern Cal Seafood, Southern Coast Trading, Neptune Foods and J. DeLuca Fish Company. The group represents multiple generations of fish buyers and fishermen, dating back 80 years or more, who have produced the lion’s share of the market squid landed in the Golden State, according to a press release from the group.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Warmer ocean temperatures spawn California market squid boom

July 23, 2023 — U.S. West Coast fishers are enjoying a monumental season for California market squid.

A cool, wet beginning of the year has helped created ideal spawning conditions for the squid (Doryteuthis opalescens), which grow around eight to 10 inches and live six to nine months. With a geographic range stretching from Alaska to Mexico, California market squid spawn from April to November off the coast of California. Fishermen target the squid shortly after they spawn to ensure the health of the population. However, little is known about their population abundance as no study has ever been carried out by NOAA.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

CALIFORNIA: California’s Salmon Are Teetering on the Brink

July 12, 2023 — Arron Hockaday Sr. remembers fishing for salmon with his father in the late 1970s. Back then, it wasn’t just the number of salmon running up Northern California’s Klamath River that impressed him. It was the size.

“Back then, gosh, it was amazing to see the fish when the fish ran during the fall,” says Hockaday, a traditional fisherman and council member of the Karuk Tribe. “The salmon were huge.” On average, he says, you could catch fish ranging from 40 to 50 pounds—although members of his grandparents’ generation were known to catch 100-pound Chinook salmon at Ishi Pishi Falls, the tribe’s sacred fishing grounds. “Nowadays, our average is anywhere from 15 to maybe 25 pounds. We catch a 30-pounder and that’s a hog, that’s a big fish.”

A slow-motion disaster for tribes, commercial fishermen and conservationists, the decline of California’s once-abundant salmon population has been unfolding for decades. The crisis has its roots in decisions about the state’s water use made a century ago and, like so many stories of water wars in the West, it has pitted stakeholders against one another in a seemingly zero-sum contest over a dwindling natural resource.

The outlook is grim, but there are bright spots. As a future of increasingly hot and dry weather hangs over the state, can change come quickly enough to save the imperiled salmon from extinction?

Read the full article at Modern Farmer

CALIFORNIA: California commercial fishermen set to receive second oil spill settlement in September

July 12, 2023 — California commercial fishermen and seafood processors as well as other coastal property owners and businesses could be awarded a second settlement as a result of an oil spill near Huntington Beach in October 2021.

In October 2021, approximately 25,000 gallons of crude oil were discharged from a cracked pipeline owned and operated by Amplify Energy and its subsidies near Huntington Beach, according to a federal grand jury indictment against the oil company. The jury accused Amplify of acting negligently by “operating the pipeline with an understaffed and fatigued crew” and failing to properly respond to multiple alarms.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

CALIFORNIA: Businesses affected by salmon season closure asked to report loss

July 10, 2023 — This year, a prolonged drought prompted the closure of recreational and commercial salmon fishing in California and put many fishermen out of a job.

California submitted a request for a Federal Fishery Disaster Declaration to support the salmon fishing industry following the closure of the 2023 salmon season.

“We miss not having California king salmon this year,” said Mark Tognazzini, owner of Dockside Restaurant in Morro Bay. “Our two main dishes are based on California king salmon.”

To help qualify for the disaster declaration, the state is asking affected businesses to fill out a form regarding their losses.

Read the full article at KSBY

CALIFORNIA: Catch is up but prices are down with Dungeness crab season facing limits in Northern California

May 15, 2023 — The Dungeness crab season in the north of the U.S. state of California will face additional limits on 15 May in response to whale sightings in local waters.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife already closed most of the state’s waters to Dungeness crab fishing on 15 April to prevent interactions with migrating humpback whales. Now, fishers in zones 1 and 2 – stretching between the state’s boarder with Oregon and Point Arena, California – will face a 30-fathom constraint, according to the CDFW.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The slow death and uncertain future of California’s swordfish fishery

April 13, 2023 — After decades of public scrutiny, legal battles, and many regulatory changes that constricted the fishery, large-mesh drift gillnets for swordfish in California will be phased out by 2027. Deep-set buoy gear, now being employed under federal exempted fishing permits, is set to become the primary method to harvest swordfish off the California coast, with harpoons continuing as a supplemental fishery.

After years of debate and with plenty of bad blood some between primary stakeholders, there is one thing the fishing industry, fisheries managers, and environmental groups agree on: There will be less bycatch from catching swordfish, but unless new technology can be scaled up there will also be less swordfish landed out of California ports.

“It’s not a replacement fishery for large mesh drift gillnets,” says Chugey Sepulveda of deep-set buoy gear. Sepulveda is director and senior scientist at the Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research and is the person who first developed deep-set buoy gear in the Southern California Bight. The buoy gear “was brought online to capitalize/augment the existing harpoon fishery, which supports a market that receives a higher price-point for its catch.”

Deep-set buoy gear has shown to be effective at catching swordfish efficiently with minimal bycatch, yielding a higher market price per pound, but Sepulveda and fishermen currently using the gear under federal exempted fishing permits say it was developed for smaller boats and doesn’t yield the volume of fish needed to cover the costs of larger vessels.

Furthermore, bycatch was still part of the catch for drift gillnets. Fishermen using large mesh drift gillnets earned additional income from retained thresher shark, louver, and other species, that will be lost with deep-set buoy gear.

Deep-set buoy gear consists of a vertical mainline around 150 fathoms in length with a flagpole outfitted with a light or radar reflector at the surface and a heavy sinker to keep the line anchored vertically. Attached to the mainline are typically 1 to 3 circle hooks with a light attached to shine below the thermocline at 20-70 meters (65 to 230 feet) in California waters. The gear is also designed to be actively tended with strike indicators at the surface to alert fishermen when a fish is on.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

CALIFORNIA: Closure of king salmon fishing season a concern for local businesses, fishermen

April 13, 2023 — Whether you consume salmon or fish for it, you won’t be able to enjoy a local catch this season.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council shut down the 2023 recreational and commercial king salmon fishing seasons for most of the West Coast due to near-record low numbers of fish returning to their spawning grounds.

It’s a blow to fishermen, restaurants, and consumers.

Morro Bay resident Ilene French says she always looks forward to salmon season.

“I look forward to it. In fact, I was taking a trip up to Oregon to consume some more fish and salmon and evidently, even in Oregon and Washington the season will be late or maybe even closed,” French said.

Read the full article at KSBY

California salmon fishing slated to shut down this year due to low stock

April 10, 2023 — Chinook salmon fishing off the California coast will be called off until next spring in anticipation that a near-record-low number of fish will return to the state’s rivers to spawn.

The recommendation was made by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a federal commission that oversees West Coast fisheries. It will need to be approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service by May 16.

The measure, unseen in 14 years, would temporarily ban both commercial and recreational salmon fishing in the state. Much of the fishing off the coast of neighboring Oregon would also be canceled until 2024.

Chinook salmon are the “largest and most highly prized” of all the salmon in the Pacific ocean, according to the council. But over the years, the species has become increasingly endangered as a result of drought, heat waves and agriculture.

Read the full article at NPR

California seeks federal help for salmon fishers facing ban

April 8, 2023 — California officials want federal disaster aid for the state’s salmon fishing industry, they said Friday following the closure of recreational and commercial king salmon fishing seasons along much of the West Coast due to near-record low numbers of the iconic fish returning to their spawning grounds.

Dealing a blow to the salmon fishing industry, the Pacific Fishery Management Council unanimously approved the closure Thursday for fall-run chinook fishing from Cape Falcon in northern Oregon to the California-Mexico border. Limited recreational salmon fishing will be allowed off southern Oregon in the fall.

Much of the salmon caught off Oregon originate in California’s Klamath and Sacramento rivers. After hatching in freshwater, they spend an average of three years maturing in the Pacific, where many are snagged by commercial fishermen, before migrating back to their spawning grounds, where conditions are more ideal to give birth. After laying eggs, they die.

Read the full article at the Associated Press