Saving Seafood

Rep. Huffman Travels Coast to Coast to Receive Input on Fisheries Policy

November 25, 2019 — The following was released by The Office of Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA):

Over the past week, Representative Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), Chair of the Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee, traveled across the country to complete the third and fourth stops on his nationwide listening tour on federal fisheries policy. These events are designed to engage diverse perspectives, interests, and needs of individuals who have a stake in the management of ocean and fisheries resources.

During the listening sessions in Baltimore and Seattle, Representative Huffman heard from industry stakeholders, advocates, scientists, and members of the public, who gave feedback on the current state of fisheries management under the Magnuson-Stevens Act and what they hope to see in future federal fisheries policy.

“Each stop on this tour has shown me that while there are varying issues and perspectives in each region, there are also common threads that tie us together. The Magnuson-Stevens Act has made the U.S. a leader in sustainable fisheries, but there may be room to look forward and address future challenges for coastal communities and the fishing industry,” said Rep. Huffman. “Hearing from stakeholders and experts on both coasts has been an incredibly valuable and informative endeavor and given me ideas to consider in a reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act.  I look forward to picking back up early next year.”

“By crisscrossing the country, Chairman Huffman is showing his true commitment to listening to all points-of-view about our nation’s valuable ocean resources. This fourth listening session, as with the previous three in California and Maryland, produced a thoughtful and well-rounded discussion on the future of federal fisheries policy with the people who have day-to-day investments in healthy and abundant fish populations,” said Robert C. Vandermark, executive director of the Marine Fish Conservation Network. “We continue to support Chairman Huffman’s efforts to spend time outside the DC beltway listening to the experience and knowledge of those in our coastal communities and working waterfronts.”

Rep. Huffman’s goal for this listening tour is to assess whether improvements to the Magnuson-Stevens Act are needed and if so, what they should be. More information, a public comment page, and the full press release for this tour can be found on our website here.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (also referred to as the Magnuson-Stevens Act or MSA) is the primary law governing the management and conservation of commercial fisheries in federal waters.

The MSA was last reauthorized and extensively amended in 2006 (P.L. 109-479). Although the authorization of appropriations expired at the end of Fiscal Year 2013, the law’s requirements remain in effect and Congress has continued to appropriate funds to administer the act.

Videos from the listening sessions can be accessed through Representative Huffman’s Facebook page here.

CALIFORNIA: Dungeness crab season pushed back over whale concerns

November 22, 2019 — Bay Area crab connoisseurs will have to wait until next month for a taste of Dungeness crab, as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has once again pushed back the start date of the commercial season.

The commercial Dungeness crab fishery south of the Mendocino/Sonoma County line was set to open on Friday, however, it will now open on Dec. 15 in order to minimize the risk of whales getting entangled in ropes connected to crab traps.

The new date comes after an aerial survey on Monday conducted by the CDFW, the Greater Farallones and Monterey Bay national marine sanctuaries, which found concentrations of whales near Point Reyes and Half Moon Bay.

According to CDFW officials, another aerial survey will be conducted ahead of the new start date to again evaluate whale presence in the area and determine if there’s any further risk to marine life.

The commercial Dungeness crab season was originally set to start last Friday but earlier this month the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced the start date would be moved by a week out of fear that whales and sea turtles might be harmed.

Read the full story at SFGate

ALASKA: Payments For 2016 Pink Salmon Fishery Disaster Delayed

November 21, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Fishermen who were expecting payments from the 2016 Gulf of Alaska pink salmon fishery disaster relief in December will have to wait until March to receive their checks, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Many Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission permit holder applicants misreported their crew percentages or did not list any crew at all, said Karla Bush, the Fish and Game federal fisheries coordinator.

The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission will delay payments until after the crew member application deadline on Jan. 31.

“I know participants were expecting checks to come six to eight weeks after the Oct. 31 deadline. That’s now going to be pushed back,” Bush said.

The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission is an interstate agency that helps resource agencies and the fishing industry manage fisheries resources. Member states include Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

After crew members send in their applications, Fish and Game will match crew members to the permit holders they work for. Payments will be sent to permit holders and crew at the same time, Bush said.

Payments to crew will be deducted from the permit holder’s total disaster payment based on the crew shares provided in the permit holder’s application.

The amount each permit holder received was calculated by averaging the value of pink salmon caught in even years from 2006 to 2014, minus the value of fish caught in 2016.

However, fishermen were concerned that the payment calculation did not take into account the unique circumstances in the fishing industry.

For example, some fishermen switched from a lower volume gear type to a higher volume gear type. Others had a partial catch history instead of a full or no catch history, causing their payments to be substantially less than others who fished alongside them, according to a letter written by Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak.

To address such issues and review calculations, an appeal process was put in place. Friday was the deadline to appeal.

These payments are part of the $53.8 million approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in July to restore losses caused by a poor 2016 salmon season in the Gulf of Alaska. The areas receiving funds are Kodiak, Prince William Sound, Chignik, Lower Cook Inlet, South Alaska Peninsula, Southeast Alaska and Yakutat.

Fishery permit holders and crew will receive $31 million, fish processors will receive $17.7, municipalities will receive $2.4 million and $3.63 million will go to research.

The payments to municipalities will be based on losses of fish taxes, Bush said.

Calculations for municipality payments are not yet available because NOAA is working the office of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget on the approval process.

Municipalities will use the funds for specific projects related to the pink salmon fishery such as projects that support the pink salmon fishing fleet.

“The people at NOAA grants are trying to work with the office of OMB in the White House to see at what level the projects need to be approved,” Bush said. “OMB wants to approve the list of projects that each municipality will put forward themselves. We know that that will cause some additional delays, so we hope those will be approved by Pacific States or NOAA grants and not have to be forwarded all the way to the highest level.”

Fish and Game is also waiting on fishery tax information from the Alaska Department of Revenue as a basis to calculate the payments, Bush said.

The tax information is vital before calculating the payment amount, because the Department of Revenue does a “split between the cities and boroughs and so I would expect the city of Kodiak and the Kodiak Island Borough would be getting a share of those moneys,” Bush said.

To expedite future fisheries disaster funding, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, sponsored legislation that would reform NOAA’s Fishery Resource Disaster Relief program of the National Marine Fisheries Service to expedite relief for fishermen during fishery disasters.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Fish in California estuaries are evolving as climate change alters their habitat

November 21, 2019 — The threespine stickleback, a small fish found throughout the coastal areas of the Northern Hemisphere, is famously variable in appearance from one location to another, making it an ideal subject for studying how species adapt to different environments. A new study shows that stickleback populations in estuaries along the coast of California have evolved over the past 40 years as climate change has altered their coastal habitats.

The study, published November 21 in Global Change Biology, looked at variation in the armoring that protects the  from predators, specifically the number of bony plates along their sides (called lateral plates). Previous research showed that populations in northern California have a more complete set of this armoring than populations in southern California, corresponding to differences in their habitats.

“There’s a gradient from drier systems in the south, where the estuaries are more pond-like, with more vegetation, to increasingly more open, river-like systems as you go north,” explained coauthor Eric Palkovacs, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz.

The new study found that threespine stickleback in some California estuaries are evolving to have fewer lateral plates as their habitats become more pond-like due to a warmer, drier climate. Stickleback populations at some central California sites are now looking more like the low-plated populations typical of southern California.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Huffman in Seattle, WA for Next Stop on Fisheries Listening Tour

November 21, 2019 — The following was released by The Office of Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA):

Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) Chair of the House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife, will be hosting the next stop on his listening tour tomorrow, Friday, November 22, at 1:45p.m. in Seattle, Washington. This is the third stop on a nationwide listening tour on federal fisheries management designed to engage diverse perspectives, interests, and needs of individuals who have a stake in the management of federal ocean and fisheries resources. The event is free and open to the public and press.

Members of the press interested in attending should submit their RSVP to Mary Hurrell atmary.hurrell@mail.house.gov. 

WHO:            Congressman Jared Huffman, fisheries and oceans experts

WHAT:          Discussion on federal fisheries management

WHEN:          Friday, November 22, 2019 @ 1:45p.m. – 3:45p.m. PST

WHERE:       Seattle Aquarium, 1483 Alaskan Way, Pier 59, Seattle, WA 98101-2015

Representative Huffman’s panel discussion with experts and stakeholders will include a detailed, technical examination of current and future challenges in federal fisheries management and will explore potential solutions. Guests will be able to submit written questions during the roundtable and provide public comments at its conclusion.

The ideas Huffman receives from this listening tour, and from other stakeholder outreach that is already underway, will inform his introduction of a reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary law governing fisheries management in U.S. federal waters.

More detail on Huffman’s listening tour, which was first announced in July, can be found here.

‘Stalking horse’ bidder lined up for Bumble Bee as part of likely bankruptcy filing

November 20, 2019 — A “stalking horse” bidder, said to be an industry player, is lined up for Bumble Bee Foods if — or when, according to some executives — the company goes into US Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, sources told Undercurrent News.

A Chapter 11 filing is seen as highly likely for the beleaguered shelf-stable seafood giant, driven by the lack of a settlement with the litigants in the civil lawsuits against the Lion Capital-owned company over its tuna price fixing, sources said. This comes as Chris Lischewski, the long-time CEO of Bumble Bee, is on trial in San Francisco, California for allegedly leading the price-fixing.

Undercurrent was unable to identify the stalking horse bidder, but Bolton Group International, Canadian Fishing Company (Canfisco), Cooke and Mitsubishi Corp. are four trade players who are said to have looked at all or parts of the business before.

Fong Chun Formosa Fishery Company (FCF), the Taiwanese tuna giant, is already a 22% shareholder in Bumble Bee and Itochu, the Japanese trading house, was also tipped by some tuna sector sources as a possible interested party.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Latest regulations safeguard 140,000 square miles off the West Coast

November 19, 2019 — Monday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued final regulations to protect the seafloor habitat off the West Coast from bottom trawling.

The regulations cover 140,000 square miles and includes corals, sponges, rocky reefs and other important areas for marine life and ocean ecosystems. These safeguards for the living seafloor are in response to a vote by the Pacific Fishery Management Council in April 2018, which followed years of scientific input and advocacy by Oceana, which has an office in Monterey County.

Bottom trawling is described as the most damaging fishing method to seafloor habitats off the West Coast. Weighted nets are dragged to catch fish living near the seafloor and in doing so flatten, topple and crush delicate corals and sponges that provide habitat for these fish and other marine creatures.

The new regulations protect unique and important ocean areas off Washington, Oregon and California. Also included is the protection of deep-sea habitats beyond 3,500 meters depth (nearly 2 miles) below the ocean’s surface from all commercial bottom-contact fishing gear. In addition, the regulations increase fishing opportunities by allowing select re-openings in some historic fishing grounds where bottom trawling has been prohibited in recent years to recover overfished rockfish populations.

Read the full story at the Santa Cruz Sentinel

Can the long-lost abalone make a comeback in California?

November 19, 2019 — Hunched over a tank inside the Bodega Marine Laboratory, alongside bubbling vats of seaweed and greenhouses filled with algae, Kristin Aquilino coaxed a baby white abalone onto her hand.

She held out the endangered sea snail—no larger than a bottle cap—like a delicate jewel. After years of fretting over their health, cleaning tanks and filtering the saltwater just right, one tiny oops could undo it all.

“They’re like human hemophiliacs,” Aquilino said, using a plastic ruler to measure the stubborn gastropod as it twisted and squirmed. “Even a small cut, they can bleed to death.”

To the untrained eye, they appear pretty drab. But in this humming lab, home to more white abalone than in the wild, these invertebrates have captured minds and even hearts. They’re the unsung canary in the coal mine—their vanishing numbers sounding the alarm of human greed and the perils we face as the land and oceans burn.

Abalone once were to California what lobster is to Maine and blue crab to Maryland, so plentiful they stacked one on top of another like colorful paving stones. Californians held abalone bakes, spun abalone folk tales, sang abalone love songs. They grew large and hardy and fetched extraordinary prices. One diver once said it was like pulling $100 bills from the seafloor.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Bottom-trawling fishing severely restricted off West Coast starting in January

November 19, 2019 — The most extensive ban on bottom trawling — dragging weighted nets on the sea floor — became law Tuesday after fishing groups and environmentalists agreed to protect more than 140,000 square miles of seafloor habitat along the West Coast, including beds of lush coral around the Farallon Islands.

The new regulations, which will take effect Jan. 1 after being published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, will restrict fishing over 90% of the seafloor along the coast from Canada to Mexico, the largest contiguous area protected from bottom trawling in the world.

At the same time, about 3,000 square miles of sandy seafloor previously closed to fishing under the 2002 Rockfish Conservation Area rules were reopened after it was determined that rockfish populations had recovered in those areas.

“It’s monumental,” said Geoffrey Shester, the senior scientist for the conservation group Oceana, which has fought for years to limit bottom trawling, long considered the most damaging method of fishing in the ocean. “It puts the West Coast at the top of the barrel for global leadership in protecting our seafloor.”

Read the full story at the San Fransisco Chronicle 

Chris Lischewski trial enters second week as key witnesses testify

November 19, 2019 — The trial of Chris Lischewski is now in its second week, with a panel of 16 jurors having heard six days of testimony from many of the witnesses deemed most important to the government’s price-fixing case against the former Bumble Bee president and CEO.

Lischewski is on trial for a single charge of engaging in a conspiracy to fix the prices of canned tuna in the United States from 2011 to 2013. The case is being heard by District Court Judge Edward M. Chen of the Northern District of California.

Read the full story at Seafood Source