Saving Seafood

Feds Looking at Protections for Spring-Run Chinook Salmon in Oregon

April 13, 2020 — A petition seeking to extend federal wildlife protections to spring-run Chinook salmon found along Oregon’s coast has merit and could warrant listing the fish under the Endangered Species Act, the Trump administration said Friday.

The spring-run salmon are the main food source for the Southern Resident killer whales, an endangered population of orca living in the Pacific Northwest.

Chinook salmon populations are also found in Washington state, Idaho and California.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) decision came after a 90-day review process and means the Chinook salmon could be listed as threatened or endangered pending an additional one-year in-depth analysis.

After the year-long study, the agency could determine that the salmon — scientific name Oncorhynchus tshawytscha — could be listed as a threatened or endangered Evolutionarily Significant Unit, or ESU, under federal law.

The process will allow scientists, commercial fishing representatives, wildlife advocates and others to submit additional information on impacts stemming from protecting the salmon population and its habitat under the Endangered Species Act.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

A Direct To Consumer Seafood Business Called Kitchen Catch Is Supporting Fishermen As Restaurants Remain Closed

April 9, 2020 — Ren Ostry has been in the seafood world her entire adult life, and over the years she’s noticed a need for fundamental change in the supply chain. She started her business, Kitchen Catch, to see if a different seafood distribution model could catch on. “I felt like the system we were working in wasn’t set up to do anything sustainable,” said Ostry, “so we are really about deconstructing one of the oldest industries in the modern world and rebuilding it with the true values that can be found in the food justice movement.”

Kitchen Catch is a sustainable seafood subscription service based in Los Angeles. “We operate like a CSF, a community supported fishery, where all of our customers come together to support one fisherman a week,” Ostry said. Kitchen Catch is based on supply, not demand, so whatever comes in your Kitchen Catch box is what a fisherman caught that day, even if it’s not a popular species. “We source fish that people maybe have never heard of or tried before in an attempt to better support our local fishermen,” said Ostry

Change can be hard for people when it comes to food purchasing and preparation, but Kitchen Catch been successful in getting consumers to think outside the box and try new species. “We like to think of opening your Kitchen Catch box as not a replacement for opening a can of tuna but as a commitment to really challenging the way we look at proteins,” Ostry said. They also have a kosher fish only option for those looking to avoid products like shellfish, squid and shark. Recipes come in a weekly newsletter to provide guidance for those who aren’t familiar with the species in their box.

Read the full story at Forbes

Pacific Fishery Management Council Approves Pacific Sardine Fishing Levels for 2020

April 8, 2020 — The following was released by the California Wetfish Producers Association:

“One thing everyone agrees on is the need to improve the sardine stock assessment,” stated Marc Gorelnik, vice chair of the Pacific Fishery Management Council. Conducting the meeting via webinar due to COVID-19 concerns, the Council approved management measures for Pacific sardines for the season July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021, after considering reports from its Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), CPS Management Team and Advisory Subpanel and the public. Environmental groups pleaded for more precaution and much lower harvest limits, arguing that the stock assessment indicates that the stock is at low and declining levels, and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) declared the northern sardine subpopulation as ‘overfished’ in 2019, so the Council must develop a rebuilding plan. However, the Council supported the recommendations of the SSC, management team and advisory subpanel, in light of the fact that the biomass estimate remained essentially the same as last year. So, they approved an Annual Catch Target of 4,000 metric tons for all uses, as in 2019.

“We greatly appreciate the expressions of concern from the management team and advisory subpanel, and the Council’s action based on those concerns,” said Diane Pleschner-Steele, Executive Director of the California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA). “We thank the Council for hearing us,” she continued, adding, “This conflict is between what fishermen say is out there, based on what they see, and what biologists say, based on insufficient science.” Both fishermen and independent scientific surveys have documented sardine recruitment and growing abundance since 2015. The problem is that NOAA’s sardine acoustic trawl surveys have not seen it, and those surveys have largely driven the stock assessments in recent years.

The 2020 stock assessment reported no evidence of recruitment, but the model used to predict biomass has not updated the age data from the fishery since 2015, because the directed fishery has been closed since that time. To resolve this Catch-22, CWPA submitted an application for an Exempted Fishing Permit (EFP) to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The Council unanimously supported this effort, along with the 2020 management measures.

If approved by NMFS, this EFP will allow CWPA to coordinate a closely controlled directed fishing effort to capture sardine schools throughout the year. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has agreed to sample and age all the landings and provide that data for the next stock assessment.

Another thorny problem that California fishermen are facing is the current scientific assumption that all sardines found in water temperatures above about 62 degrees F are deemed to be ‘southern’ stock sardines that have migrated up from Mexico. Thus, these fish are subtracted from the ‘northern’ sardine stock assessment. This assumption and current management policy have frustrated fishermen, especially in Southern California, because all catches are deducted from the ‘northern’ sardine harvest limit.

This issue, and many more, arose during the Council’s sardine discussion. Environmental groups are now asking the Council to revise the entire management structure to provide more forage for other species. These groups discount the mounting evidence of recruitment and abundance, and ignore the fact that the fishery for the entire CPS complex, including sardine, amounts to less than two percent of the key forage pool, which also includes other forage species. Moreover, scientists widely acknowledge that environmental forcing drives the abundance of sardines and other CPS; these stocks rise and fall based on Mother Nature’s whims, with negligible impact from fishing.

This discussion will likely continue at future Council meetings, as environmental groups campaign to further reduce fishery catches for sardines and other CPS. Meanwhile, CWPA and California sardine fishermen, as well as sardine fishermen in the Pacific Northwest, are committed to conduct the research necessary to improve the sardine stock assessment. If the ‘northern’ sardine stock assessment accurately reflected the abundance of sardines reported by fishermen virtually yearlong (in water temperatures below 62 degrees F), northern sardines would not be considered ‘overfished.’

California fishermen and processors are grateful that the Council considered the issues and uncertainties raised and combined scientific underpinning with practicality and common sense. Balance is a key mandate of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The Council and NMFS are required to consider the needs of fishing communities, not just biology, in developing rebuilding plans. The future of California’s historic wetfish industry hangs in the balance.

Watch a video on the California sardine fishery here

Local Fishing Industry Sees Silver Lining Amid Coronavirus Crisis

April 9, 2020 — The commercial salmon fishing season along the Central Coast is about to launch. California’s fishing industry is designated as essential by Governor Gavin Newsom, but their usual markets, restaurants, are all but shut down because of the coronavirus. That’s spelling trouble for local fishermen and women. Still, some believe there’s a silver lining to this crisis.

David Toriumi has been commercially fishing the Monterey Bay for almost 16 years. It’s a livelihood full of challenges, from rigorous and expensive regulations to changing ocean conditions. But the coronavirus is like nothing he’s seen before. Toriumi says the impact was slow at first, less people eating out, and then boom.

“People stopped buying crab. People stopped buying black cod. People stopped coming out to dock sales. Everyone started, obviously, to shelter-in-place,” Toriumi said.

According to the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, 80 percent of US-caught seafood that’s consumed domestically (not exported) is sold to restaurants. But those restaurants are closed or only offering carry out due to COVID-19 social distancing requirements and stay-at-home orders.

Read the full story at KAZU

California’s offshore oil platforms, now marine hotspots, face removal

April 7, 2020 — Tens of thousands – hundreds of thousands, even – of rockfish, boccaccio, and lingcod congregate around the pillars of Southern California’s 27 offshore oil platforms, while shellfish cling to them in thick mats.

The platforms near the Channel Islands are among the world’s most productive hotspots for marine life, producing 27 times more total fish biomass than nearby natural rocky reefs, according to scientists, with rockfish making up 90 percent. From the surface, the platforms descend between 100 to 1,200 feet to the ocean floor; the height of the tallest is comparable to the Empire State Building.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Struggles of California fishermen intensified by coronavirus

April 6, 2020 — Local fishermen and women have faced rough seas and disappointing catches, but even they were unprepared for the shelter in place order which has collapsed seafood markets.

Though larger fisheries are somewhat better equipped to weather this storm, fishermen on small commercial fishing boats say they are scrambling to adjust their business models — from how they catch to where they sell — to stay afloat.

At a recent fisheries management meeting, officials with Oceana, an international nonprofit that advocates for sea life, reported talk about this being an unprecedented time “with significant challenges at every level,” noting that “We have lost global and local markets.”

This week local crab and salmon fisherman David Toriumi has been fileting black cod in his fish buyers’ warehouse. “I’m taking on any work that I can,” said Toriumi. Despite fishermen classifying as essential workers, the uncertainty of recent weeks leaves him fearful that he will not be able to pay his bills.

Read the full story at The Mercury News

CALIFORNIA: Coronavirus upends San Francisco’s fishing industry

April 3, 2020 — Fisherman’s Wharf looks like an unused movie set, a shadow of its pre-pandemic self. Most businesses are closed.

One of the few signs of life is a wholesaler who has quickly adapted to the new challenges the fishing industry faces with a huge loss of sales.

Tucked towards the back of Pier 45, Joe Conte, owner of Water 2 Table, found a new way to keep his doors open.

He showed a KTVU crew halibut and black cod, fresh catch from local fishermen. Conte normally sells solely to Bay Area restaurants. But with the shelter-in-place order, they closed and the market was suddenly gone overnight.

“I’m pretty scared that we lost all our restaurant business,” said Conte, “We immediately pivoted to home deliveries we reached out to our email contacts.”

He started building a new clientele: the retail customer. First, it was a dozen orders.

Read the full story at KTVU

Whales are dying, but numbers are unknown. Coronavirus has stalled scientific field work

March 30, 2020 — As gray whales began their northern migration along the Pacific Coast earlier this month — after a year of unusually heavy die-offs — scientists were poised to watch, ready to collect information that could help them learn what was killing them.

The coronavirus outbreak, however, has largely upended that field work — and that of incalculable other ecological studies nationwide.

A large network of marine biologists and volunteers in California normally spend this time of year keeping an eye on gray whales, documenting their numbers and counting strandings as the leviathans swim from Mexico to the Arctic.

Scott Mercer, who started Point Arena’s Mendonoma Whale and Seal Study seven years ago, said the watch was called off last week, as he and his wife were told by a local sheriff to disperse and go home.

Read the full story from the Los Angeles Times at MSN

CALIFORNIA: Humboldt Bay crab fishing season ‘devastated’ by COVID-19

March 26, 2020 — Crab fishing in Humboldt County has seen better days, but it’s never been as bad as this, several fishermen said Tuesday.

“We could use one word: it’s devastating,” said Harrison Ibach, president of the Humboldt Fishermen’s Marketing Association. “Everything has come to a screaming halt. And it’s not just the crab industry, it’s the entire seafood industry.”

Ibach and others estimated that the best market price for a pound of crab in Humboldt County — from the few buyers left — stands around $2 per pound, down from $3 at the start of this year’s season. For Ibach, “that’s the lowest I’ve seen in many, many years.”

The crabbing season naturally slows down in March, but the global coronavirus pandemic has brought unprecedented new levels of decline to the industry, fishermen said. It started when China — a top shipping location for live crabs — stopped taking in product from Humboldt Bay fishermen after the virus began wreaking havoc in the country.

In the couple of months that followed, the domestic market has similarly plummeted. Now that the ongoing statewide shelter-in-place order has closed most restaurants, almost no one in Humboldt County is buying crab.

Read the full story at The Times-Standard

PFMC: Notice: Salmon hearing public testimony

March 24, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

If you are attending the Salmon Hearings via webinar and plan on giving verbal testimony, please fill out our virtual comment card before the hearings begin.

The links below will take you to the specific meeting information and links to that specific public comment form:

Reminder:

In advance of the meeting, please reference the following materials and video to practice joining the meeting. This is to ensure your ability to participate, as troubleshooting moments before the meeting will be difficult.

Alternative ways to provide public comment:

Public comment is also being accepted through March 27th at 5pm via our E-Portal . Agenda Item E.1 is the most appropriate for Salmon alternatives adopted in March.