Saving Seafood

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.

Seafood subscription service triples sales during lockdown, signs deal with Imperfect Foods

May 21, 2020 — Americans are cooking more seafood while stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The New York Times.

For Ren Ostry, the owner of Culver City, California-based Kitchen Catch, that trend has resulted in a tripling of sales for her subscription seafood service, which touts the environmental and social benefits of eating bycatch and lesser-known species.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Warming Oceans Choke Fish as Habitats Get Less ‘Breathable’

May 20, 2020 — The cool, nutrient-rich water of the California Current supports a variety of marine life, including invisible phytoplankton, economically important salmon, rockfish, and Dungeness crab, and majestic orcas.

For the study in Science Advances, researchers used recent understanding of water breathability and historical data to explain population cycles of the northern anchovy. The findings for this key species could apply to other species in the current.

“If you’re worried about marine life off the west coast of North America, you’re worried about anchovies and other forage fish in the California Current. Ultimately it’s what underpins the food web,” says lead author Evan Howard, a postdoctoral researcher in oceanography at the University of Washington.

Read the full story at Futurity

New rules for California Dungeness crab fleet seek fewer whale entanglements

May 18, 2020 — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife on Friday unveiled a batch of complex new rules designed to reduce the risk to endangered whales and sea turtles of becoming entangled in commercial Dungeness crab fishing gear.

The draft regulations are set to be finalized before the next commercial season starts in November after a period of public review.

They expand on a framework established under a legal settlement reached last year that allows for the state’s $60-million-a-year crab fishery to be delayed or closed when surveys and other observations suggest a high risk of concentrated fishing gear and marine life overlapping in the same place. The new rules are meant to allow more nuanced risk assessment and precise management actions rather than the closure of large swaths of ocean, as seen in recent seasons.

Among the provisions are options to restrict fishing in certain depths, require crabbers to set only a share of the traps for which they’re permitted or limit intervention to any of six newly established geographic zones, rather than the larger Northern and Central California management districts that currently exist.

Read the full story at The Press Democrat