Saving Seafood

4 years after California’s largest dam removal project, how are the fish doing?

May 28, 2019 — Four years ago, construction crews with huge jackhammers tore apart a 10-story concrete dam in the wooded canyons of the Carmel River, between the Big Sur hills and the beach front town of Carmel.

The destruction of the San Clemente Dam, which had blocked the river since 1921, remains the largest dam removal project in California history. It’s still early, but one of the main goals of the project seems to be on track: The river is becoming wilder, and struggling fish populations are rebounding.

“We don’t want to do the touchdown dance yet, but so far things are looking good,” said Tommy Williams, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who has monitored the Carmel River’s recovery. “It’s just amazing how fast these systems come back. Everything is playing out like we thought.”

Removal of the century-old dam is being watched closely around the country as a potential model for how to demolish other aging, dangerous and obsolete dams and restore rivers to a natural state not seen in generations.

The 106 foot-tall dam had been located 18 miles up river from Monterey Bay. In 2016, the first year after it was removed, researchers found that no steelhead trout, an iconic type of rainbow trout listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, swam past its former site to a tagging location seven miles upriver. By 2017, seven steelhead had made the trip. Last year, the count was 29. So far this year, 123 steelhead have traveled upriver.

“We’re seeing progress. I’m surprised that it has been happening in such a short time,” said Aman Gonzalez, who managed the dam removal project for California-American Water, the company that owned it.

Read the full story at The Chicago Tribune

Restaurant, catering group nears settlement with Chicken of the Sea on price-fixing suit

May 28, 2019 — A group of restaurants and catering companies have reached a USD 6.5 million (EUR 5.8 million) agreement with San Diego, California, U.S.A.-based Chicken of the Sea and its parent company, Thai Union, to settle a lawsuit alleging price-fixing.

The lawsuit stems from a price-fixing scandal in the U.S. canned tuna market exposed by a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation in which Chicken of the Sea served as the whistleblower. The scandal led to prosecution of Chicken of the Sea’s primary co-conspirators, Bumble Bee Foods and StarKist. Both companies pleaded guilty to criminal charges in cases brought by the DOJ.

Chicken of the Sea’s potential settlement with the restaurants and catering companies, proposed Friday, 24 May, still must be approved by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California Judge Janis L. Sammartino, who has not yet formally certified the grouping of affected companies involved in the agreement as an official class in the lawsuit. The parties suing claim to represent companies that indirectly purchased packages of tuna in 40-ounce sizes or greater from DOT Foods, Sysco, US Foods, Sam’s Club, Walmart, or Costco from June 2011 through December 2016.

Parties in the so-called “commercial food preparers” class involved in the proposed settlement include Capitol Hill Supermarket, Janet Machen, Thyme Cafe & Market, Simon-Hindi LLC, LesGo Personal Chef, Maquoketa Care Center, A-1 Diner, Francis T. Enterprises d/b/a Erbert & Gerbert’s, Harvesters Enterprises, LLC d/b/a Harvester’s Seafood and Steakhouse, Dutch Village Restaurant, Painted Plate Catering, GlowFisch Hospitality d/b/a Five Loaves Cafe, Rushin Gold LLC d/b/a The Gold Rush, Erbert & Gerbert, Inc., Groucho’s Deli of Raleigh, Sandee’ s Catering, Groucho ‘s Deli of Five Points, and Confetti’s Ice Cream Shoppe.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Two groups studying how to make fisheries more climate-resilient

May 28, 2019 — With a growing consensus that climate change is causing drastic transformations of marine ecosystems and fish stock dynamics, two recent studies have addressed the importance of taking a more adaptive and responsive approach to their management.

The first study, published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science, shows that adjusting fishing levels when fish populations change is key to making global fisheries more climate-resilient. The result of making this shift would be healthier oceans and a more stable supply of fish for consumption, according to scientists at the Environmental Defense Fund and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Their paper outlines the fact that many commercially important fish stocks are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and that managing those stocks sustainably in the future will be a large and growing challenge for fisheries scientists and managers. The paper recommends responsive harvest control rules (HCRs) that automatically reduce catch percentages when decreases in biomass are detected, and increases when biomass increases. By adopting HCRs, “inherent resilience” could be introduced into the system, reducing the adverse effects of climate change while longer-term solutions are sought to better address the negative impacts of global warming.

“Using the right harvest-control rule is like having adaptive cruise control for your fishery,” said Jake Kritzer, a senior director of Environmental Defense Fund’s Oceans program and lead author of the paper. “When you need to slow down, the system can automatically adjust to the right level. Then, when the road ahead is clear, it allows you to return to a higher level.”

Warmer waters caused by climate change are resulting in lower reproduction rates in fish and forcing them to migrate out of their natural ranges. The current system for managing fish catches is often not adaptive enough to respond to these dynamics, the report noted. In addition, current catch levels are being calculated on biomass that may be incorrect as a result of these large-scale changes, the report found.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Retired Oil Rigs off the California Coast Could Find New Lives as Artificial Reefs

May 17, 2019 — Offshore oil and gas drilling has been a contentious issue in California for 50 years, ever since a rig ruptured and spilled 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil off Santa Barbara in 1969. Today it’s spurring a new debate: whether to completely dismantle 27 oil and gas platforms scattered along the southern California coast as they end their working lives, or convert the underwater sections into permanent artificial reefs for marine life.

We know that here and elsewhere, many thousands of fishes and millions of invertebrates use offshore rigs as marine habitat. Working with state fisheries agencies, energy companies have converted decommissioned oil and gas platforms into manmade reefs in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Brunei and Malaysia.

Californians prize their spectacular coastline, and there are disagreements over the rigs-to-reefs concept. Some conservation groups assert that abandoned oil rigs could release toxic chemicals into the water and create underwater hazards. In contrast, supporters say the submerged sections have become productive reefs that should be left in place.

We are a former research scientist for the U.S. Department of the Interior and a scholar focusing on the fishes of the Pacific coast. In a recent study, we reviewed the history of rigs-to-reefs conversions and decades of published scientific research monitoring the effects of these projects. Based on this record, we conclude that reefing the habitat under decommissioned oil and gas platforms is a viable option for California. It also could serve as a model for decommissioning some of the 7,500 other offshore platforms operating around the world.

Read the full story at EcoWatch

Ships coming to Bay Area slowing down to avoid hitting, killing whales

May 17, 2019 — A campaign to slow ships steaming toward San Francisco and other California ports so they are less likely to injure or kill whales is beginning to pay off, with 22 local and international shipping companies agreeing to reduce speeds voluntarily, federal officials said Thursday.

The effort is all the more important this year, given the carnage caused by large vessels, which often have to travel through national marine sanctuaries to get to their destination ports.

Four of the 10 gray whales found dead near San Francisco this year were killed by ships, and nearly 140 whales have died after being struck since 1988, said representatives of the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The 22 shipping firms, which represent 45% of the 8,000 inbound vessel trips through the Golden Gate every year, were honored by the two organizations Thursday for cutting their speed in 2018 to 10 knots (11.5 mph) or less in areas populated by whales. Those include the Farallones, Channel Islands, Monterey Bay and Cordell Bank marine sanctuaries.

Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle

PFMC: June 19-25, 2019 PFMC Meeting Notice and Agenda

May 16, 2019 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) and its advisory bodies will meet June 19-25, 2019 in San Diego, California, to address issues related to groundfish, coastal pelagic species (CPS), salmon, Pacific halibut, highly migratory species, enforcement, habitat and administrative matters. The meeting of the Council and its advisory entities will be held at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Mission Valley, 7450 Hazard Center Drive, San Diego, CA 92108; telephone, 619-297-5466.

Please see the June 19-25, 2019 Council Meeting notice on the Council’s website for meeting detail, schedule of advisory body meetings, our new E-Portal for submitting public comments, and public comment deadlines.

Key agenda items for the meeting include Council considerations to:

  • Adopt Final Pacific mackerel Harvest Specifications and Management Measures for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 Fisheries
  • Review Salmon Rebuilding Plans and Consider Adopting Final Plans for Sacramento River and Klamath River Fall Chinook and Preliminary Plans for Strait of Juan de Fuca, Queets River, and Snohomish River Coho for Public Review
  • Adopt Final Mitigation Measures for Seabird Interactions in Groundfish Fisheries Pursuant to the 2017 United States Fish and Wildlife Service Biological Opinion
  • Initial Scoping of Issues and Adoption of a Process for Developing Groundfish Harvest Specifications and Management Measures for 2021-2022 Fisheries
  • Adopt Final Groundfish Inseason Adjustments for 2019 as Necessary to Achieve but Not Exceed Annual Catch Limits and Other Management Objectives
  • Final Adoption of Criteria for Triggering Allocation Reviews

West Coast swordfish landings hit slight dip in 2018

May 15, 2019 — West Coast swordfish stocks are on the upswing, but Homeland Security stipulations could mean fewer of them will be offloaded at docks in California.

According to a recent stock assessment report to the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-Like Species in the North Pacific Ocean, in 2018, swordfish biomass increased from 51,000 metric tons in 1998 to an estimated 71,979 metric tons in 2016.

The U.S. fleet working the waters in the Western and North Central Pacific Ocean harvests but a fraction of what the fleet from Japan catches in a year. According to data from the stock assessment report, Japan’s average catch has hovered around 3,500 metric tons in recent years, and the U.S. harvest has come in at around half of the landings posted by fleets from China.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

New Research Reveals Clearer Picture of Upwelling That Feeds West Coast Marine Ecosystem

May 13, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Great volumes of nutrient-rich water welling up from the deep ocean fuel the West Coast’s great diversity of marine life. Now scientists using satellite images, research buoys, ocean models, and other ocean monitoring tools have brought the upwelling into much sharper focus, measuring even the velocity of the water and the amount of nutrients that it delivers.

Scientists described new “upwelling indices,” which represent a breakthrough in understanding the biological engine that drives the West Coast marine ecosystem.

“Upwelling is vital to marine life along the West Coast, but the tools we were using to monitor it hadn’t changed much in almost 50 years,” said Michael Jacox, a research scientist at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center who developed the new indices. “Now we’re bringing state-of-the-art tools and the latest science to bear to help us understand how upwelling supports and shapes the California Current Ecosystem.”

Given the ecological importance of upwelling, scientists and managers are eager for indices that allow them to monitor its variability and understand its impacts on coastal ocean ecosystems.

Jacox, of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, and other researchers from NOAA Fisheries, and the University of California at Santa Cruz, recently published the new upwelling measurements new upwelling measurements in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans and the indices are also available online. Maps based on the indices reveal through color-coding where upwelling is most pronounced, such as off Cape Mendocino in California.

Upwelling occurs along certain coastlines around the world where winds and the Earth’s rotation sweep surface waters offshore, drawing deep, cold, and salty water full of nutrients up to the surface. These nutrients fuel growth of phytoplankton that form the base of the marine food web, and ultimately nourish the West Coast’s ocean ecosystem from sardines to sperm whales.

Read the full release here

Good News for California Fisheries Seeking to Test Extended Hook and Line Fishing Gear in U.S. West

May 10, 2019 — The following was released by the California Pelagic Fisheries Association:

The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued an Exempted Fishing Permit (EFP or “permit”) to allow two U.S. fishermen to test extended hook and line (both deep set and shallow set) fishing gear in Federal waters within the U.S. West Coast Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). A primary function of the testing is to determine if the U.S. fishermen can help to increase America’s reliance on domestic seafood.

Currently the U.S. imports 90 percent of its seafood. The new permits could increase reliance on local seafood, particularly where swordfish and tuna are concerned. The North Pacific swordfish population, for example, is very healthy and would support a substantial additional harvest according to all international fisheries experts and published reports. Any increase in U.S. fisheries production improves America’s seafood security as well as provides for a sustainable ecosystem footprint often lacking in the weak environmental oversight of foreign fisheries.

“NOAA’s decision is a huge win for American fisheries, fishermen and ultimately, the environment,” said Dave Rudie, owner of Catalina Offshore Products and President of the California Pelagic Fisheries Association. “It will greatly benefit San Diego and southern California and our consumers as well.”

The EFP excludes any fishing within 50 miles of the coast or offshore islands and requires that a U.S. Government approved fisheries observer be present during all test fishing. Additionally, it requires a full suite of verified mitigation techniques be used during all test fishing. These techniques are known to reduce or eliminate interactions with sea birds, sea turtles and marine mammals.

About the California Pelagic Fisheries Association

The California Pelagic Fisheries Association (CPFA) was formed in 2015 by a group of American fishermen and seafood processors with the function of representing their interests in developing high seas (pelagic) fisheries in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. As a result of CPFA’s ongoing efforts at both a local and national level, American consumers have more opportunities to enjoy the very best quality tuna, swordfish and similar species knowing they were harvested by American fishermen using proven environmentally friendly fishing techniques.

About Catalina Offshore Products

Founded in 1977, Catalina Offshore Products was once exclusively a sea urchin wholesaler in both domestic sales and exports. Today the company is one of the largest buyers of local seafood in San Diego, specializing in species found off the West Coast, from Baja and Southern California to the Pacific Northwest. Its business has expanded to include an online store and walk-in fish market and proudly remains family owned and operated. Recognized as an industry leader, Catalina Offshore Products is committed to providing high quality seafood choices from responsible fisheries or farms. For more information, visit catalinaop.com.

New bill would limit finfish aquaculture start-ups

March 8, 2019 — Alaska Rep. Don Young (R) introduced the Keep Fin Fish Free Act in early May, a bill that that would prohibit federal agencies from authorizing commercial finfish aquaculture operations in the Federal Exclusive Economic Zone unless specifically authorized by Congress.

The seafood industry is critical to Alaska’s economy, and we must be doing all we can to protect the health and integrity of our state’s wild fish stock,” said Young. “If not properly managed, industrial aquaculture operations threaten Alaska’s unique ecosystem with non-native and genetically modified fish species.

There is only one federally regulated offshore aquaculture producer currently in operations in the United States — Catalina Sea Ranch, which produces 2 million pounds of mussels a year in a 100-acre site six miles off the coast of California. But plans to establish new marine finfish operations have been discussed off and on for years.

Read the full story at National Fisherman