Saving Seafood

CALIFORNIA: San Francisco area crabbers end holdout, move to “organized start”

January 12, 2021 — First came whales, then came a price most West Coast Dungeness crabbers deemed too low to fish for, but after nearly two months of having their gear at the ready, San Francisco area fishermen finally set their pots Monday, 11 January, at 8 a.m. They will begin hauling on Wednesday, 13 January, at the same time, under an “organized start” – agreed to by fleets out of Half Moon Bay, San Francisco, and Bodega Bay – to prevent a mad dash, shotgun start once a price had been agreed to.

“Holy Christ has this season been a mess,” Dick Ogg, who runs the F/V Karen Jeanne out of Bodega Bay, said. “But the fleet has really come together. If this works, which it looks like it will, it will be pretty amazing and will have a lasting imprint on the fleet.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

California commercial crab price strike ends

January 11, 2021 — The commercial crabbing fleet has ended its strike and will start soaking traps in the ocean on Monday, with fresh crab likely appearing in markets by Thursday afternoon, a local industry leader said Saturday.

Wholesale buyers and negotiators for crabbers in California and Oregon finally agreed Friday on an opening price for the coveted crustaceans after nearly three weeks of stalemate.

But the late agreement, following a 5½-week delay because of whales that were still feeding in the fishing grounds well after the traditional Nov. 15 season start, means the fleet already has missed the key Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s markets.

Fishers also had to settle for less than the $3 a pound they had hoped to secure for the initial landings, instead agreeing to $2.75 per pound, said Dick Ogg, vice president of the Bodega Bay Fishermen’s Marketing Association.

Read the full story at The Press Democrat

Use of ocean resources changed as Dungeness crab fishing industry adapted to climate shock event

January 6, 2021 — An unprecedented marine heat wave that led to a massive harmful algal bloom and a lengthy closure of the West Coast Dungeness crab fishery significantly altered the use of ocean resources across seven California crab-fishing communities.

The delayed opening of the 2015-16 crab-fishing season followed the 2014-16 North Pacific marine heat wave and subsequent algal bloom. The bloom produced high levels of the biotoxin domoic acid, which can accumulate in  and render them hazardous for human consumption.

That event, which is considered a “climate shock” because of its severity and impact, tested the resilience of California’s fishing communities, researchers from Oregon State University, the University of Washington and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center found.

The study is the first to examine impacts from such delays across fisheries, providing insight into the response by the affected fishing communities, said James Watson, one of the study’s co-authors and an assistant professor in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

California sues Clearwater, PAFCO, others over lack of cadmium, lead warnings

January 6, 2021 — The U.S. state of California has sued five seafood companies, including Clearwater Seafoods and Pacific American Fish Company (PAFCO), accusing them of failing to properly label their products as containing lead and cadmium.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a lawsuit on 29 December alleging violations of the state’s Proposition 65 and Unfair Competition Law. The suit claims Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada-based Clearwater Seafoods; Vernon, California-based PAFCO; Hanover, Maryland-based Rhee Bros. Inc.; City of Industry, California-based Seaquest Seafood Corporation; and Paramount, California-based Jayone Foods Inc. “knowingly and intentionally sold products that exposed California consumers to lead or cadmium without providing a clear and reasonable warning that the products contained these toxic chemicals.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

No agreement yet on crab prices

January 4, 2021 — Two weeks after the season was set to open on Dec. 16, Oregon crabbers are still sitting at the dock waiting for a price before heading out to sea.

The California season is likewise delayed by price negotiations, while the Washington season has been delayed until at least Jan. 15 due to high domoic acid levels.

With no price agreement in sight, many would pin the price hang-up on the largest processor in the area, Pacific Seafood, but after a period of silence, the company has asserted it’s only one of many processors that contribute to determining the price, which is especially difficult this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While not directly involved, Lori Steel, executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association, said that as of Wednesday, negotiations were still ongoing behind closed doors, and a price could be decided at any time. Pacific Seafood is one of the companies that falls under the association’s umbrella.

“The companies I represent are working hard to get this going and find an agreement among the fishermen they buy from,” Steel said. “We’re all hopeful to see fishermen on the water as soon as possible.”

Steel said the pandemic has been a huge source of uncertainty this year and has disrupted every part of the supply chain for the crab industry. She estimates that the government closures have caused restaurant and food service demand for crab to fall 70 percent, and other restrictions on employment have led to a labor shortage.

“People who don’t work in the industry need to understand that we’re a struggling industry right now, and the pandemic is putting unprecedented pressure on us from the harvesters all the way up the supply chain,” Steel said. “We’re doing the best we can, and it’s just been a tough year. We want to see this resolved and have our guys packing crab in the plants as soon as possible.”

Read the full story at the Newport News Times

Trump vetoes Calif. fishing bill over seafood trade deficit

January 4. 2021 — President Trump vetoed a bill Friday that would have gradually ended the use of large-mesh drift gillnets deployed exclusively in federal waters off the coast of California, saying such legislation would increase reliance on imported seafood and worsen a multibillion-dollar seafood trade deficit.

Trump also said in his veto message to the Senate that the legislation sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., “will not achieve its purported conservation benefits.”

Feinstein issued a statement late Friday saying Trump’s veto “has ensured that more whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other marine species will be needlessly killed, even as we have a proven alternative available.”

Trump vetoed the fishing bill as the Republican-controlled Senate followed the Democratic-led House and voted to overturn his earlier veto of the annual defense policy bill, enacting it into law despite Trump’s objections.

The fishing bill’s sponsors said large-mesh drift gillnets, which measure between 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) and 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) long and can extend 200 feet (60.9 meters) below the surface of the ocean, are left in the waters overnight to catch swordfish and thresher sharks. But they said at least 60 other marine species — including whales, dolphins and sea lions — can also become entangled in the nets, where they are injured or die.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Fox Business

Sea Otters Could Get New Home in San Francisco Bay

December 29, 2020 — Once hunted to the brink of extinction for their luxuriant pelts, California sea otters rebounded after protections were put in place in 1911. Their population grew steadily for much of the last century, but now the still threatened species is stuck at about 3,000 otters. The problem is that they are boxed in at both ends of their current range, along the state’s central coast, by a sharp (and so far unexplained) rise in shark attacks. Hoping to reintroduce breeding populations elsewhere in the otters’ historical range, wildlife managers have been looking at certain coastal estuaries, which are sheltered pockets of water.

It turns out that the largest estuary on the West Coast—San Francisco Bay—could potentially provide an excellent home for sea otters, despite being in the middle of a major urban area, according to a study published last month in PeerJ.

“I was surprised,” says lead study author Jane Rudebusch, a spatial ecologist at San Francisco State University’s Estuary & Ocean Science Center. “The bay is intensely urbanized. You can tell it’s a busy place just by looking at it.” Tanker ships deliver crude oil to shoreline refineries every day, and high-speed commuter ferries constantly zoom between San Francisco, Oakland and other waterfront cities at up to 50 miles per hour. Sediment in parts of the bay is laced with methylmercury and polychlorinated biphenyls, toxic chemicals that accumulate in the clams, crabs and other animals that sea otters eat.

Read the full story at Scientific American

North Bay crabbers caught in price battle with wholesalers

December 23, 2020 — Eggnog? Check. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Sure, if you’re into that. But don’t bet on landing any Dungeness crab this holiday season.

“Unless a miracle happens, which is highly unlikely, we won’t see crab for Christmas,” said Tony Anello, a veteran fisher who runs his boat, the Annabelle, out of Bodega Bay and offers up his tender product at Spud Point Crab Co.

After several years of varied setbacks and more than a month of delays to the 2020 Dungeness season, local crabbers now face a new hurdle as they haggle over price with large wholesalers. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife had reset the season’s start date to Wednesday, offering a glimmer of hope to those who have made fresh crab part of their annual holiday ritual. But few boats were heading out to set traps on Tuesday.

“We should be traveling right now,” Dick Ogg, another icon of the local Dungeness harvest, said Monday from behind a shopping cart at Costco. “I’m here grabbing stuff in case something happens this afternoon. We would normally anchor up, set up all the bait cups and be ready. Then (Tuesday), right at 6:01 (a.m.), we’d start setting gear.”

But Monday did not bring resolution. At 3 p.m. that day, representatives of the major fishing ports in Northern California spoke by phone with executives of Pacific Seafood, one of the West’s largest seafood wholesalers. A couple hours later, the company engaged in a separate call with a wider range of fishers stretching up the Oregon coast.

Read the full story at The Press Democrat

Rep. Huffman reveals preview of federal fisheries management legislation

December 22, 2020 — North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman released a draft of legislation Friday that would reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which is the primary law governing federal fisheries management and conservation.

Rep. Huffman, chair of the Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee, and subcommittee member Ed Case of Honolulu, introduced a discussion draft to reauthorize the MSA. Huffman said the legislation has made the U.S. a global leader in sustainable fisheries.

The draft comes at the end of a year-long listening tour Huffman led. In a press release, he said the tour was part of his effort to promote a “uniquely transparent, inclusive, science-based approach to updating this important law governing fisheries in American waters.”

Read the full story at KRCR