Saving Seafood

Disaster Declared for West Coast Fisheries

January 23, 2017 — SEATTLE — Nine West Coast salmon and crab fisheries have been declared a disaster, allowing fishing communities to seek relief from the federal government.

Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker declared the disaster on Jan. 18.

Nine salmon and crab fisheries in Alaska, California and Washington suffered “sudden and unexpected large decreases in fish stock biomass or loss of access due to unusual ocean and climate conditions,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

The fisheries include Gulf of Alaska pink salmon, California Dungeness and rock crab, and several tribal salmon fisheries in Washington.

Read the full story at Courthouse News

Oysters remain king as growers race to meet consumer demand

January 23, 2017 — Demand for oysters continues to trend upward heading into 2017, with production capacity expanding to satiate consumer demand.

According to a panel of bivalve and oyster experts speaking at the National Fisheries Institute’s 2017 Global Seafood Market Conference in San Francisco, California, “the number of oyster growers [is] increasing just to keep up with demand.”

The rate of oyster consumption particularly at restaurants, remains strong, with the popular shellfish serving to elevate complementary species such as mussels, clams and scallops, noted the panel.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Price spread between U10, 20-30 US scallops likely to widen

January 19, 2017 — SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — More smaller-size scallops are set to be landed in the 2017/2018 US fishing year, which could widen the price gap between U10s-10/20s and 20/30s, according to one executive on the shellfish panel on Wednesday at the Global Seafood Market Conference (GSMC).

Although the US landings are forecasted to increase 15% to 46 million pounds in 2017/2018, the quantity of U10s is not expected to rise.

“We think it will be static on U10s. They [U10s] are unlikely to increase as a percentage of the fishery,” said Sean Moriarty, vice president of sales with Blue Harvest Fisheries, one of the largest US scallop catching companies, during the 2017 GSMC in San Francisco, California.

While some of the new open areas for the fishery are likely to yield more large scallops, the southern areas are producing less.

According to price data up to September last year presented by the panel, U10s are on the increase and have been over $20 per pound, but 20/30s have been sliding.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Fisheries disasters declared for 9 species on United States West Coast

January 19, 2017 — The United States Secretary of Commerce declared nine salmon and crab fisheries in Alaska, California and Washington as fisheries disasters on Wednesday, 18 January, opening federal coffers for relief assistance.

Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker announced each of the fisheries covered by the decision had “experienced sudden and unexpected large decreases in fish stock biomass due to unusual ocean and climate conditions.”

The newly designated fisheries disasters are:

In Alaska:
• Gulf of Alaska pink salmon fisheries (2016)

In California:
• California Dungeness and rock crab fishery (2015-2016)
• Yurok Tribe Klamath River Chinook salmon fishery (2016)

In Washington:
• Fraser River Makah Tribe and Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe sockeye salmon fisheries (2014)
• Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay non-treaty coho salmon fishery (2015)
• Nisqually Indian Tribe, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, and Squaxin Island Tribe South Puget Sound salmon fisheries (2015)
• Quinault Indian Nation Grays Harbor and Queets River coho salmon fishery (2015)
• Quileute Tribe Dungeness crab fishery (2015-2016)
• Ocean salmon troll fishery (2016)

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Tough times for tilapia persist due to oversupply, low prices

January 19, 2017 — Tilapia producers faced a tough year in 2016, with an oversupply of product and the lowest prices seen since 2011.

A panel of premium finfish experts speaking at this year’s National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference in San Francisco, California, debated tilapia’s latest challenges, including a softening in demand related to a lack of species promotion. Such hurdles have prompted many fresh tilapia producers to gravitate toward frozen product offerings, and tilapia producers in Ecuador have started to veer in the direction of shrimp production, which has become more lucrative in the region recently.

“2016 has been a challenging year for anyone producing tilapia,” the panel surmised. “A little too much fish in the market.”

Despite these difficulties, the outlook for tilapia heading into 2017 and 2018 is positive, the panel said. Honduras continues to dominate tilapia production, even with a devastating El Nino drought to contend with, and is expected to maintain its reign in the sector. Meanwhile, Colombia will look to capitalize on its new free trade agreements and Brazil has growing potential to transform into a major tilapia exporter to the United States, the panel agreed. However, given the volatility of tilapia, it may still be a while yet before Brazil reaches its potential as a tilapia exporter, the panel concurred.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

CALIFORNIA: Toxic algae delays Dungeness crab season

January 19, 2017 — As expected, the opening of the commercial fishing season for California’s treasured Dungeness crab will be later than usual.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife on Friday evening announced that,  because of a toxic algal bloom that could be related to warm temperatures brought by El Niño, the start of the commercial season will be later than the traditional Nov. 15 date.

This follows the delay in the recreational fishery announced by the California Fish and Game Commission on Thursday, and a Wednesday afternoon announcement that the California Department of Public Health had recommended that people not eat any California-caught Dungeness or rock crab until further notice.

“Crab is an important part of California’s culture and economy, and I did not make this decision lightly,” said fish and wildlife agency director Charlton H. Bonham in a statement. “But doing everything we can to limit the risk to public health has to take precedence.”

According to a public health agency spokesman, the agency will continue collecting samples up and down the California coast on a weekly basis. “Once the levels of [the toxic algae] decline in the coastal waters, we usually start seeing the levels of domoic acid in bivalve shellfish (i.e., mussels and clams) and small finfish (i.e., anchovies and sardines) start to decline. Crustaceans such as Dungeness and rock crab are usually the last animals to flush the domoic acid out of their systems.”

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

Something’s fishy in LA’s sushi supply, study says

January 12, 2017 — Almost half of the fish ordered at Los Angeles sushi restaurants and bought at high-end grocery stores is mislabeled, with some of the offerings coming from endangered species, according to a study by researchers at UCLA and Loyola Marymount University.

The study, whose findings were announced Wednesday, checked the DNA of fish ordered at 26 L.A. sushi restaurants from 2012 through 2015 and found that 47 percent of the sushi was mislabeled.

“The good news is that sushi represented as tuna was almost always tuna. Salmon was mislabeled only about 1 in 10 times. But out of 43 orders of halibut and 32 orders of red snapper, DNA tests showed the researchers were always served a different kind of fish,” stated a UCLA press release. “A one-year sampling of high-end grocery stores found similar mislabeling rates, suggesting the bait-and-switch may occur earlier in the supply chain than the point of sale to consumers.”

Paul Barber, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior author of the study that appeared Wednesday in the journal Conservation Biology, said the apparent fraud goes beyond having the wrong fish on your plate; it also undermines environmental regulations limiting overfishing, introduces unexpected health risks and interferes with consumers’ decisions.

“Half of what we’re buying isn’t what we think it is,” Barber said. “Fish fraud could be accidental, but I suspect that in some cases the mislabeling is very much intentional, though it’s hard to know where in the supply chain it begins. I suspected we would find some mislabeling, but I didn’t think it would be as high as we found in some species.”

Read the full story at KPCC

CALIFORNIA: Whither the crab? Monterey Bay pulls empty pots

January 9, 2017 — SANTA CRUZ , Calif — As a labor strike continues to dry dock their colleagues to the north, many Monterey Bay Dungeness crab fishers are pulling predominantly empty pots, despite letting them soak for as much as two weeks.

“You run a whole string and pull a bunch of blanks, you’re going to start getting eggy,” said Justin Barry, 38, a crewmember on the commercial crabber Five Stars, which is docked at the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor. “The whole thing’s belly up. We’re trying to convince our captain not to call it a season at this point.”

To make matters worse, the market price of Dungeness crab remains relatively low — from $3 to $3.25 a pound — despite the crustacean’s scarcity.

“There’s just not a whole lot of crab to buy right now,” said Hans Haveman, co-owner of H&H Fish. “We were paying as much as $5 a pound around New Year’s. I’m not even sure what I’d pay if someone brought me crab right now. I’d have to think about that.”

Vincent Pham, 40, owns two crab boats in the Santa Cruz Harbor, both named Five Stars. This week, he looked out at the wind chop whipping the ocean outside the harbor mouth.

“It’s not cheap to go out and pull empty crab pots,” said Pham. “You have to know when to say when.”

Many recreational crabbers have already pulled the plug.

Read the full story at the Santa Cruz Sentinel 

Northeast Pacific is the region producing most Marine Stewardship Council fish

December 23, 2016 — The Northeast Pacific fishing area annually produces a total of 2.6 million metric tons of certified seafood from Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) sustainable fishing standard, representing 83 per cent of the total catch of the area.

The MSC certified seafood from the area — covering Northern California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea waters — ranks first for the percentage and includes MSC certified salmon, albacore tuna, pink shrimp, hake, halibut, sablefish, Pacific cod, and Alaska pollock fisheries.

Another North American fishing area, the Northwest Atlantic — waters from North Carolina, the US mid-Atlantic, New England, and Eastern Canada — ranked seventh globally with 32 per cent (580,000 metric tons) of the total catch being MSC certified.

This area is home to MSC certified swordfish, spiny dogfish, sea scallop, lobster, Acadian redfish, haddock, pollock, Atlantic halibut, snow crab, Northern shrimp and Arctic surf clam fisheries.

The analysis and ranking was done as part of the recently published MSC Annual Report 2015-2016, which also reported that MSC certified fisheries caught more than 9.3 million metric tons of seafood in 2015-16, representing almost 10 per cent of the total global wild caught seafood by volume.

The global volume of MSC certified catch has increased by 6 per cent since 2014-15, while the MSC certified supply chain has climbed 16 per cent over the same period.

Between April 2015 and March 2016, the number of processors, restaurants and caterers with MSC Chain of Custody grew from 2,879 to 3,334 companies, operating in 37,121 sites across 82 countries. More than 20,000 products now carry the blue MSC label and can be traced back to fisheries which meet the MSC’s world-class standard for sustainable fishing.

Commenting on the results, Brian Perkins, MSC Regional Director – Americas, said, “When people purchase MSC certified seafood, their choice supports fishermen around the world who are working hard to meet the world’s most rigorous standard for environmental sustainability.”

“While we’re proud of the MSC certified fisheries here in North America, it takes a global effort to safeguard seafood supplies for the future,” pointed out Perkins.

For her part, Christina Burridge, Executive Director, B.C. Seafood Alliance and Chair, International Association of Sustainable Fisheries, stressed that fishermen on the Pacific Coast of the US and Canada are proud to be recognized by the MSC for their responsible stewardship of a renewable food resource for their countries and the world.

Read the full story at Fish & Information Services

NOAA awards $8 million for coastal resiliency investments across the nation

December 22, 2016 — NOAA Fisheries is pleased to announce $8 million in recommended funding for 11 shovel-ready coastal resiliency projects in various sites across the country. These awards are part of NOAA’s continued commitment to build resilient coastal ecosystems, communities, and economies.

“Americans who live on the coast face enormous risks when Mother Nature strikes; however, it is natural infrastructure—wetlands, marshes, floodplains, and coral reefs—that often serve as our best defense. The selected projects will restore our natural barriers and help keep people, communities, and businesses safe,” said Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for Fisheries.

Six projects aim to restore critical wetlands, marshes, and floodplains in Massachusetts, California, Washington, and Hawaii, which increase resiliency and offer flood protection for homes and businesses:

  • The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation will receive $250,000 to restore floodplain connectivity in the Teanaway Community Forest which will reduce peak flows and recharge groundwater for the nearby community and enhance streams for salmon by reducing water temperatures.
  • Ducks Unlimited will receive $1.5 million to transform 710 acres of former salt evaporation ponds in South San Francisco Bay into marsh and upland habitat which will increase resiliency to sea level rise and flooding.
  • The Nature Conservancy will receive $721,095 to support coastal habitat restoration on the Hawaiian island of O’ahu through invasive species removal, native species replanting, and traditional management practices to strengthen ecological and community resilience.
  • Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe will receive $1 million to restore the tidal connection between Kilisut Harbor and Oak Bay, Washington. This effort will provide passage for endangered juvenile salmon, and enhance cultural traditions of fishing and clam digging.
  • The Redwood Community Action Agency will receive $1,091,045 in funds to support a multi-phase project to enhance Martin Slough in Northern California which will reduce flooding on surrounding public and agricultural land and improve habitat for threatened salmonids.
  • The Town of Yarmouth, Massachusetts will receive $633,044 to replace a degraded and undersized bridge on a major transportation corridor in Cape Cod and allow for restoration of the estuary to reduce flooding for property owners caused by storm surge and also improve fish passage.

Two projects focus on coral reef restoration efforts in Florida and in Hawaii to help sustain many economically-important fisheries and natural barriers to storm surge:

  • The Coral Reef Alliance will receive $842,782 to reduce the flow of water and levels of nutrients and sediment that reach nearshore coral reefs off West Maui. In applying best management practices, the project will increase these reefs’ resilience to climate changes.
  • The University of Miami will receive $521,920 to restore coral reefs across Miami Beach and Key Biscayne which will improve the resiliency of threatened staghorn and elkhorn corals to sea temperature changes.

Read the full story at Phys.org