February 2, 2021 — A new collaborative project, Fishful Future, seeks to movethe fishing, seafood processing, and culinary industries in San Diego, California, U.S.A. toward a zero-waste supply chain.
Backed by seafood processors, fishery scientists, local fishermen, and renowned chefs, Fishful Future primarily promotes fully utilizing each fish that enters the supply chain.
February 1, 2021 — California’s Dungeness crab fishermen have had a rough year. Poor meat quality, endangered whales migrating too close to shore and price disputes with wholesalers kept crab pots on boats for nearly two months. The delays left families without their cherished holiday centerpiece and fisherman without the funds that normally pay their bills the rest of the year.
But as rising ocean temperatures threaten to make fishery closures routine, it will be even harder to count on crab for holiday meals—or livelihoods. Over the past decade, warming sea waters have produced harmful algal blooms that contaminate crab meat with domoic acid, a neurotoxin that can cause seizures, memory loss and other serious symptoms and has been blamed for poisoning and stranding scores of sea lions in California every year. State officials delayed three out of the last six crab seasons to protect public health after an unprecedented multiyear marine heat wave, dubbed “the blob,” hit the north Pacific Ocean in 2013.
The blob precipitated a series of extraordinary events: it caused a massive harmful algal bloom that led to record-breaking domoic acid concentrations, which in turn caused first-of-its-kind closures of the West Coast’s most valuable fishery, from southern California to Washington state. But in doing so, it also set up a natural experiment that researchers harnessed to reveal strategies that could help food-producing communities recover from climate-driven disturbances.
February 1, 2021 — Subway is vigorously defending the tuna is uses in its sandwiches and wraps after a class action lawsuit filed in late January claimed that the massive sandwich chain’s sandwiches do not contain any of the fish.
Subway’s tuna products contain “a mixture of various concoctions that do not constitute tuna, [which] have been blended together by (Subway) to imitate the appearance of tuna,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed on 21 January in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Legal Newsline reported.
January 28, 2021 — The following was released by The Office of Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA):
Today, Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) announced he will reintroduce this week the West Coast Ocean Protection Act and the Stop Arctic Ocean Drilling Act to permanently protect these places from the dangers of offshore oil drilling. This comes as President Biden continues to sign a series of executive orders focused on combatting climate change and moving the United States away from fossil fuels and expanding alternative, renewable energy, including suspension of new offshore leases under the next five-year plan.
“Offshore drilling poses unacceptable risks, and the science and public opinion are clear: we should not put our oceans and fisheries, coastal communities, economies, and planet at risk just to enrich the fossil fuel industry,” said Rep. Huffman. “It’s past time that we permanently ban new offshore drilling and show our united commitment to combating climate change and to give the Pacific Coast and the Arctic Ocean the protections their communities and ecosystems deserve.”
Rep. Huffman’s introduction of the West Coast Ocean Protection Act and the Stop Arctic Ocean Drilling Act comes alongside several other House members’ initiatives to protect coastlines from offshore drilling nationwide. Senator Feinstein also leads the West Coast Ocean Protection Act in the Senate, introduced today, with support from all West coast senators.
“California understands all too well the danger that offshore drilling poses to our oceans and coastal economies,” said Senator Feinstein. “President Biden is committed to reducing our carbon emissions, and I applaud his decision to enact a temporary moratorium. This bill takes that action a step further, codifying the proposal so future administrations can’t overturn it. It’s time to permanently ban new offshore oil and gas drilling along the West Coast. Doing so represents a giant step toward the vital goal of building a cleaner, more sustainable energy future.”
January 27, 2021 — The International Pacific Halibut Commission has opened the license application period for fishermen in Area 2A, Washington, Oregon and California.
While the IPHC sets the overall total fishery removals (mortality limit) for the area, the Pacific Fishery Management Council and National Marine Fisheries Service adopts a catch-sharing plan for all three states to further allocate the amount of fishery removals between sectors.
January 27, 2021 — Subway Restaurants is selling tuna wraps and sandwiches that do not contain any actual tuna fish, according to a proposed class-action lawsuit.
Instead, the “’tuna’ is a mixture of various concoctions that do not constitute tuna, yet have been blended together by [Subway] to imitate the appearance of tuna,” according to the lawsuit filed on 21 January in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Legal Newsline reported.
January 13, 2021 — For commercial fishing enterprises and other seafood businesses, alternative marketing arrangements, such as direct sales to consumers, can be a great way to increase sales or diversify a customer base.
Sea Grant extension personnel, who have served as trusted advisors to the US fishing industry for decades, have developed several go-to information sources for fishermen interested in alternative marketing. These include Alaska Sea Grant’s Fishermen’s Direct Marketing Manual first published in 1997 and California Sea Grant’s Market Your Catch website.
A new report published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) now brings this expertise to a global audience. The report includes case studies from leading fisheries experts around the world to address recommendations contained in FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines to Secure Small-Scale Fisheries. The guidelines, published in 2015, aim to support sustainable small-scale fisheries as an important part of the food system, end hunger and poverty, and strengthen human rights.
California Sea Grant and Alaska Sea Grant contributed a case study to the report highlighting the approach Sea Grant extension personnel take in working with fishing communities, and the information products they have created since the mid 1990s.
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.”
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.
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 crabs 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.