Saving Seafood

CALIFORNIA: A San Diego Pier-to-Plate Seafood Market Is a Lifeline for Fishermen

July 2, 2020 — On the morning of March 18, Shane Slaughter loaded groceries, bait, and other provisions into his pickup truck. He was preparing for a week-long trip to the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California, where he and another fisherman harvest spot prawns on Slaughter’s 42-foot boat.

But something was off; they weren’t receiving text messages from the wholesalers who buy their coveted crustaceans, which end up in sushi bars and high-end restaurants throughout California.

“It was eerily quiet,” Slaughter said. “Our product is typically in super-high demand, but we weren’t hearing back from people we normally hear back from in seconds.”

With $400 worth of bait thawing in the cooler, the fishermen looked online to discover that restaurants throughout the state had been ordered to close their dining rooms to slow the spread of COVID-19. Some restaurants were still offering takeout and delivery, but Slaughter knew his prawns—like many sea critters—weren’t well-suited for the to-go menu.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

California Plans to Protect Whales From Crab Traps Rankle All Sides

June 30, 2020 — At a public hearing Monday on proposed regulations for managing whale and sea turtle entanglements in commercial crab fishing gear on California’s coast, one thing was clear: No one’s happy.

Stakeholders on both sides of the aisle had complaints — environmentalists don’t think the protections go far enough, while industry groups say the regulations threaten the economic viability of the crab fishing industry.

Set to take effect Nov. 1, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Risk Assessment Mitigation Program (RAMP) will serve as the primary mechanism for mitigating entanglement risk to humpback and blue whales and leatherback sea turtles whose populations are endangered and could suffer additional casualties due to getting caught in Dungeness crab fishing gear.

The regulation would replace the interim authority given to the director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife under Senate Bill 1309, a 2018 law which gave the director the ability to restrict take of Dungeness crab in response to significant risk of marine life entanglement.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

NOAA ramps up use of drones to collect fish, seafloor and weather data

June 25, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA:

Three shiny, orange-red autonomous surface vessels set out on the water from Alameda, California, in May bound for the Bering Sea where they will survey the nation’s largest fish stock and monitor changing weather and ocean conditions in the Arctic.

The surface vessels are part of an armada of autonomous (unmanned) ocean vehicles NOAA is deploying this summer in the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans to provide high-quality environmental data for resource management and weather forecasting.

“We are accelerating the use of unmanned systems during COVID-19 to meet critical mission needs at a time when some of our ship and aircraft missions have been postponed for safety reasons,” said retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy NOAA administrator. “The innovative systems will provide valuable information for communities at a time when it may be difficult to do so by other means.”

The missions support NOAA’s Unmanned Systems Strategy to advance the use of unmanned systems, which was announced last November at the White House Science & Technology Summit.

Read the full release here

150 cannery workers are in forced quarantine at L.A. hotel without pay, suit claims

June 23, 2020 — About 150 seasonal employees hired to work at a salmon cannery in Alaska are instead being forced to quarantine without pay at a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport after three of them tested positive for the coronavirus, a lawsuit claims.

The workers, most of them from Mexico and Southern California, were hired June 2 by North Pacific Seafoods to work at its Red Salmon Cannery in Naknek, Alaska, through August, according to the lawsuit filed Friday in San Francisco Superior Court.

Instead, they’ve been stuck at the Crowne Plaza LAX Hotel since June 10, attorney Jonathan Davis said Saturday.

“Tomorrow is Father’s Day,” Davis said. “I have two young sons, and I’d be sick to my stomach if I knew one of my children was being held in this type of situation.”

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

In a rare outcome, former Bumble Bee CEO will be sent to prison for price-fixing

June 17, 2020 — The former chief executive officer and president of Bumble Bee Foods, LLC, one of the world’s largest producers of canned tuna and other seafood products, has been sentenced to 40 months in jail for his leadership role in a three-year antitrust conspiracy to fix the prices of canned tuna. Christopher Lischewski’s sentence, which also includes a $100,000 criminal fine, comes after a San Francisco jury found him guilty in December of helping to orchestrate the scheme, which also involved the StarKist and Chicken of the Sea companies.

“The conduct was deliberate, it was planned, it was sustained, over a three-year period,” said Judge Edward M. Chen, according to reporting from Seafood Source. “This was not a rash act of having to commit a crime under distress, under episodic circumstances as we see sometimes, this was a contemplated and deliberate plan.”

Moreover, he said, the scheme targeted poor people.

Read the full story at The Counter

NOAA selects UC San Diego to host new Cooperative Institute to Study Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Systems

June 3, 2020 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced it selected the University of California San Diego to host the new Cooperative Institute for Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Systems (CIMEAS).

The cooperative institute, led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, will conduct collaborative, multidisciplinary research on climate, oceans, and ecosystems to better understand the coupled systems and assess the physical and biological state of the oceans. CIMEAS will advance regional, national, and global understanding of natural and human-caused impacts on ecosystems and the sustainable ways to strengthen our environmental and economic well-being.

“UC San Diego is the perfect home for CIMEAS,” said UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “The university has long been at the forefront of interdisciplinary research to understand and protect the planet with research partners from across the globe. This new institute will help advance our scientific understanding of how our planet is changing and how we can conserve and manage our most precious resources.”

The selection of UC San Diego, made through an open competitive evaluation, comes with an award of up to $220 million over five years, with the potential for renewal for another five years based on successful performance.

Read the full story at SDNews.com

California seafood distributor center of “COVID-19 cluster”

May 27, 2020 — Lusamerica Fish, located in Morgan Hill, California, has become the center of a “COVID-19 cluster,” San Jose Inside reported.

The company, which sells a variety of seafood under the “Tasty Catch” brand, has had 38 employees in the distribution facility test positive for COVID-19, public health officials have stated. According to Mercury News, Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said, during a committee meeting on 26 May, that the outbreak started with a spouse of an employee at the plant being hospitalized due to the virus.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Is coronavirus pandemic giving aquaculture a jump start?

May 26, 2020 — The aquaculture industry may be getting a kick start from the federal government, due in part to the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump issued an executive order on May 7 designed to support and promote domestic aquaculture, an industry that has struggled to gain its footing in California.

Aquaculture is the practice of breeding, raising, and harvesting fish, shellfish and aquatic plants. The industry lies at the cross-section of farming and fisheries. According to the California Aquaculture Association, 80-90% of the seafood consumed in the United States is imported and approximately half of that is produced through aquaculture.

Though not prominent along California’s central coast, there are aquaculture enterprises right under our noses — in Monterey, that includes right under Municipal Wharf No. 2. The Monterey Abalone Company runs California’s only in-Ocean Abalone farm, occupying the space below the pier that was previously left to sea lions and waves.

But U.S.-based aquaculture makes up very little of the market. “We are the second-largest consumer of seafood in the world,” says California Sea Grant Aquaculture Specialist Luke Gardner, “but produce far less than 1% of the aquaculture produced seafood.”

Read the full story at The Mercury News

CALIFORNIA: Wharf fire in San Francisco causes millions in damages, gear losses

May 26, 2020 — A fire broke out on Pier 45 at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco early Saturday morning, 23 May, destroying a warehouse and as much as USD 4 million (EUR 3.6 million) worth of commercial fishing gear inside. The four-alarm blaze shot flames more than 100 feet into the air, with plumes of smoke rising high above the San Francisco Bay, before being contained by the afternoon.

At least 150 firefighters responded and were able to keep the flames from spreading to other commercial fishing facilities on the wharf, San Francisco Fire Department spokesman Lt. Jon Baxter said. The World War II-era SS Jeremiah O’Brien ship tied up alongside the warehouse was also saved.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast Coho Technical Workgroup to hold online meeting June 9

May 22, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast (SONCC) Coho Technical Workgroup (Workgroup) will hold an online meeting, which is open to the public   The online meeting will be held Tuesday, June 9, 2020, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Pacific Daylight Time, or until business for the day has been completed.

Please see the SONCC Workgroup online meeting notice on the Council’s website for participation details.

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff officer Robin Ehlke at 503-820-2410; toll-free 1-866-806-7204.