Saving Seafood

Crab season delayed on the Oregon Coast

November 15, 2018 — The commercial Dungeness crab season will be delayed until mid-December along the entire Oregon Coast as state testing shows crabs are too low in meat yield.

The lucrative fishery traditionally opens on Dec. 1, but has been delayed in recent years for a number of reasons. Last year, the season was delayed by the state twice because of low meat yield, but was then further delayed because of price negotiations and bad weather.

This year, crab quality testing in early November showed crab in most test areas did not meet the criteria for a Dec. 1 opening. The delay will allow crab more time to fill with meat, state fishery managers said.

A second round of testing will occur later this month or in early December. The results will determine if the fishery opens Dec. 16, or if it should be further delayed or split into areas with different opening dates.

Fishermen, cautiously optimistic for a Dec. 1 opener, have already been preparing gear as usual. For them, the delay means even more time before they see a paycheck.

The fishery is Oregon’s most valuable. Last year, commercial fishermen landed 23.1 million pounds into Oregon — about 31 percent over the 10-year average — and saw the highest ex-vessel value ever at $74 million.

Read the full story at The Daily Astorian

West Coast crab fisherman sue 30 fossil fuel companies, citing economic losses due to climate change

November 15, 2018 — The day before commercial fishermen were due to bring the first of the season’s Dungeness crab to Bay Area docks, they made other news.

On Wednesday, West Coast crab fishermen filed a lawsuit alleging that 30 fossil fuel companies are to blame for the past several years of delayed seasons and disastrous economic losses due to ocean warming. Specific complaints include strict liability, failure to warn and negligence.

“The scientific linkage between the combustion of fossil fuels and ocean warming, which leads to domoic acid impacts in our fisheries, is clear,” said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, which filed the suit in California State Superior Court in San Francisco on behalf of California and Oregon crab fishermen. “We know it, and it’s time to hold that industry accountable for the damage they’ve caused.”

West Coast crab fishermen have experienced significant losses during the past three years, starting in the 2015-16 season when massive algal blooms caused by warm ocean temperatures resulted in a domoic acid outbreak that caused a months-long delay. The season was partially delayed again during the 2016-17 season for the same reason.

In California, Dungeness crab brought in over $47 million in 2017 and $83 million in 2016; the amount was down to $17 million in 2015, during the industry’s first major problem with domoic acid. Oppenheim said that that the 2015-16 closure cost the industry $110 million in lost revenue. There are nearly 1,000 Dungeness crab permit holders in California and Oregon.

Read the full story at the San Fransisco Chronicle

Industry, agencies working to avoid whale entanglements

November 14, 2018 — LONG BEACH, Calif. — Whale entanglements off the West Coast and potential solutions to the escalating problem are the focus of a new report including the presentations and observations of fishermen, biologists and fisheries managers who gathered at an August workshop.

In recent years, growing populations of humpback and gray whales, changing ocean conditions and prey locations, and later crab season openings have led to more whales getting entangled in fishing gear, such as the ropes and floats that mark the location of crab pots. In 2017 there were 31 confirmed entanglements off the West Coast, including two humpbacks and a gray whale off the Washington coast, according to a press release from NOAA Fisheries. While NOAA concedes these entanglements are still proportionally rare, they sometimes lead to the deaths of entangled whales, so both fishermen and fisheries managers are seeking solutions.

To understand how and where rope and other gear entangles whales and to find ways to address the problem, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC) and NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region convened a two-day workshop in Long Beach, California, in August. This “forensic workshop” was also supported by The Marine Mammal Commission, Oregon Sea Grant, and the Aquarium of the Pacific. The report from the workshop is now available at tinyurl.com/whale-entanglement-report.

The report provides the notes and presentations from the 31 California, Oregon, and Washington experts who attended. Participating were Dungeness crab fishermen; gear specialists; marine mammal biologists and disentanglement specialists; conservation groups; and federal, tribal and state agency representatives.

Read the full story at the Chinook Observer

 

Fisherman Risks His Life to Save a Humpback Whale

November 14, 2018 — As they headed back toward the central California coast after fishing for slime eel in the Pacific Ocean, Sam Synstelien and Nicholas Taron made a troubling discovery: a humpback whale was entangled in a buoy’s rope, frantically trying to free itself.

Synstelien immediately called the U.S. Coast Guard but was told it might take a few hours for someone to get there. The two commercial fishermen thought that could be too long for the whale to survive its predicament.

“(The whale) was just swimming in counter-clockwise circles,” Taron told NBC Bay Area. “You could tell he was stressed and being held to the bottom.”

Instead of waiting for the Coast Guard or leaving the whale behind, Synstelien and Taron decided to try to save its life. They cranked up the volume on the radio of their 27-foot-long boat (aptly named “Persistence”) and shouted into the microphone to get the frantic, 40-foot-long humpback’s attention.

“We were screaming at the whale, ‘You’re either going to help us out and quit swimming away or else, like, good luck,’” Taron said.

The two were able to cut through the rope wound around the whale’s tail, but the rope still entangled its midsection. Synstelien decided to try to free it himself. As Taron recorded a video on his cell phone, Synstelien jumped onto the whale and shimmied up its back.

Read the full story at Care2

CALIFORNIA: Domoic Acid Levels Delay Commercial Dungeness Crab Season Until At Least Dec. 1

November 12, 2018 — The opening of the commercial Dungeness crab season has been delayed until at least Dec. 1 in the waters north of Bodega Head State Marine Reserve to the Sonoma/Mendocino county line because of elevated levels of domoic acid, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced today.

The commercial fishery south of this area will open as scheduled Thursday, however.

Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle

California May Soon Unravel Controversial Nets Used To Harvest Swordfish

November 9, 2018 — Ocean activists seem to be on the eve of winning a long battle against a controversial type of fishing gear that has been banned in most of world’s oceans. But many fishermen are not ready to let go of what has been a reliable method for catching valuable swordfish.

A federal court ruling last week could lead to strict limits on using drift gillnets in California, one of the last places where the gear is still allowed. Drift gillnets are used to snag swordfish but prone to ensnaring other sea life, too. The court decision comes weeks after the state’s governor signed a law that would phase the nets out of use over the next few years.

Todd Steiner, an environmentalist who has fought for stricter regulations on drift gillnets since the 1990s, believes the time has come to ban them everywhere.

“Drift gillnets should no longer be in the ocean,” says Steiner, founder of the Turtle Island Restoration Network based in Forest Knolls, Calif. “Only one in six or seven animals caught in these nets is a swordfish. They’re indiscriminate in what they catch.”

Drift gillnets are essentially long curtains of nearly invisible mesh that hang from buoys and entangle large creatures that swim into them. The nets are notorious for catching high volumes of unwanted creatures, or bycatch — the primary reason Steiner and other activists want them banned.

But Santa Barbara fisherman Gary Burke, who has been using drift gillnets since the 1980s, says environmentalists who oppose the gear have set unrealistic expectations. “We’ve reduced our bycatch so much at this point that it would take some dramatic tech innovation to reduce it anymore,” he says.

Read the full story at NPR

Conservation group seeks judgement in California crab gear lawsuit

November 1, 2018 — A year after the Center for Biological Diversity filed a federal lawsuit against the state of California regarding its Dungeness crab fishery, the conservation nonprofit has requested the judge in the case issue a summary judgement ruling in its favor.

A lawyer for the CBD said the organization filed the motion for summary judgement last week in the U.S. District Court’s North California District in hopes of preventing more animals from getting entangled in the crab traps set by commercial fishermen. Through July, there have been 22 whale entanglements this year, according to the group.

The federal Endangered Special Act prohibits encounters with humpback whales, blue whales, and leatherback sea turtles that could lead to injury or death, and a favorable ruling would force state officials to take action, Kristen Monsell, the center’s ocean’s program legal director, said in a statement.

“Another crab season starts (this month), creating a minefield of heavy gear that migrating whales must navigate,” she said. “We need the court to order state officials to stop causing the injury and death of endangered whales and sea turtles while managing this fishery.”

Judge Maxine M. Chesney isn’t scheduled to rule on the motion until 8 February.

Earlier this year, the state’s legislature passed an omnibus fisheries bill that called for the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife to adopt rules that take into consideration the potential risk for entanglements. Until the regulations take effect, the state could restrict fishing for Dungeness crab in certain areas where the fishery “poses a significant risk” for whales and other marine life.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

California Creates Plan to Curb Ocean Acidification

October 30, 2018 — California officials have created a plan to stop climate change from killing sea creatures and protect the state’s $45 billion ocean-based economy.

Deborah Halberstadt with the California Ocean Protection Council said the ocean is getting more acidic as it absorbs increased amounts of carbon dioxide, which can threaten species key to the fishing industry.

“With climate change we’re seeing warmer oceans. It’s actually changing the chemistry of the ocean water and making it more corrosive,” Halberstadt said. “This has the impact of potentially destroying the bottom layer of the food web.”

Concern began when oysters started dying in the Pacific Northwest.

“The animals can’t develop shells because the water is too acidic and so then they either die or become deformed,” said Halberstadt.

The state’s first California Ocean Acidification Action Plan will analyze and identify the full risk. State officials are worried about the Dungeness crab and salmon populations.

Read the full story at Capital Public Radio

Federal court rules against NOAA Fisheries over driftnet regulation reversal

October 30, 2018 — A federal judge last week ruled that NOAA Fisheries illegally withdrew a proposed rule that would have placed hard caps on bycatch of protected species caught in California’s swordfish drift gillnet fishery.

The decision by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner in the Central District Court of California does not immediately put the caps in place. However, his order on Wednesday, 24 October, requires NOAA Fisheries to either reinstate the regulations or discuss any potential revisions with the Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Two years ago, NOAA Fisheries published a proposed rule to limit the amount of bycatch in the driftnet fishery. Federal officials opened a public comment period on the recommendations approved by the PFMC. Under the plan, the fishery faced closure if four bottlenose dolphins or short-fin pilot whales suffered injuries or died as the result of an encounter with a net over a two-year period. Closure could have also happened if two fin, humpback, or sperm whales; or two leatherbacks, loggerhead, olive ridley, or green sea turtles were injured or killed in the same time span.

However, in June 2017, the agency opted to not enact the regulations, which prompted the lawsuit from Oceana the following month.

“The court’s ruling protects whales, sea turtles, and dolphins and affirms the importance of public process and the role of the Pacific Fishery Management Council in regulating West Coast fisheries,” said Mariel Combs, the NGO’s senior Pacific counsel.

California’s swordfish driftnet fishery is considered controversial because the gear often ensnares animals other than what’s targeted. According to Oceana, the mile-long nets are used by 20 vessels and those boats discarded more than 60-percent of their harvest over a 13-year span ending last year. The number of marine mammals killed in the fishery outnumber those killed by all the other Pacific and Alaska fisheries combined.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Catalina Offshore Gets Funding to Revive Opah Consumption in California, West Coast

October 26, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Catalina Offshore Products has been awarded $139,700 for a project to grow demand for opah and other underutilized and undervalued species. The funding is thanks to the 2018 National Marine Fisheries Service Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program.

Catalina’s proposal, A Culinary Engineering Approach to Increasing the Value of Local Fisheries: Reducing Fish Discards at Sea and Promoting Full Utilization, was envisioned as scalable to the national level and is based on a year-long project that may help to increase revenue to local fleets and provide consumers with a greater range of locally sourced seafood.

Two objectives underscore the project’s culinary engineering approach. The first and primary objective is to broaden the appeal of opah, such that all edible portions of the fish are utilized. The second is to develop new culinary markets for species being discarded by U.S. Pacific highly migratory species (HMS) fisheries landing their catch in southern California.

Opah (Lampris spp.), or “moonfish,” are a closely related group of six large pelagic fish species found worldwide in temperate and tropical waters, two of which (smalleye Pacific opah, L. incognitus, and bigeye Pacific opah, L. megalopsis) occur seasonally off the coasts of California and Mexico. Historically elusive, Pacific opah are a secondary target in West Coast commercial fisheries and have been showing up more frequently in recent years.

Opah are about the size of a car tire and can weigh up to 200 pounds, yet a considerable portion is typically discarded. This reduces profitability to fishermen and deprives U.S. consumers of additional sources of responsibly harvested domestic seafood.

Catalina Offshore has pioneered a full utilization approach to opah by identifying seven distinct types of meat. These portions of the opah, each with a unique color, flavor and texture profile, allow for a wider range of culinary applications. This differs from most other species in which flavor, texture and color tend to be the same throughout the fish.

“People tend to eat what they’re familiar with,” notes the company’s fishmonger, Tommy Gomes in a press release. “We’re trying to get them to look beyond the standard fillet. You wouldn’t harvest a pig just to make bacon. Fish should be approached the same way.”

Catalina also produced a short video showing the different cuts of meat available from an opah.

Several partners join Catalina Offshore on this project, including celebrated local chefs, fishermen dedicated to sustainable fishing practices, a retired NOAA Fisheries administrator turned sustainable seafood consultant, scientists from NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) and Wildlife Computers.

Hoping to gain a better understanding of the opah’s basic biology and ecology, SWFSC researchers began collecting samples from opah in 2009 and initiated an electronic tagging program in 2011. Culinary aspects will draw from the imaginations of chefs Rob Ruiz, Davin Waite and Jason McLeod, known for their innovation, zero waste practices and commitment to using responsibly sourced seafood.

Work will consist of data collection, roundtables with fishermen and consumers, kitchen workshops, recipe development, culinary demonstrations, and an “Ocean to Table” finale event. During this public showcase, project outcomes will be presented along with a suite of dishes highlighting different culinary applications for opah, as well as other HMS species currently being discarded but identified through research as having market potential.

“We’re fortunate to have such passionate and esteemed individuals lending their expertise to our culinary engineering project,” Catalina Offshore owner Dave Rudie said in the statement. “This collaboration will allow us to build on our experience working with opah, and further develop market demand for undervalued and underutilized species. We hope our efforts will benefit our local fisheries, increase the viability of our working waterfronts, and illustrate the value of not only fishing sustainably, but eating sustainably.”

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.