Saving Seafood

Despite a pause on new regulations, U.S. and Canadian lobstermen see big challenges ahead

February 7, 2023 — After a two-year hiatus, members of the U.S. and Canadian lobster fisheries met in Portland over the weekend to discuss challenges facing their industry. Top of mind is how the industry will prepare before new federal regulations designed to protect endangered right whales begin in six years.

Fisheries in Maine had late last year expressed relief about the years-long delay in the rules change included in a federal spending bill, as it bought the industry more time to research and test new fishing techniques and other measures aimed at protecting North Atlantic right whales.

Read the full article at wbur

Canada, U.S. fail to reach agreement on quota for shared haddock stock in 2023

January 6, 2023 — Canada and the United States have, for the first time, failed to agree on a shared quota for the transboundary haddock stock on the Georges Bank fishing grounds off southern Nova Scotia.

The two countries have jointly managed the haddock fishery — and two other straddling stocks — since 2000, but were unable to reach a consensus for the 2023 haddock quota.

“While Canada and the U.S. tried to negotiate a shared haddock total allowable catch … our countries will be setting our own total allowable catch independently of the other,” wrote Kathy Cooper-MacDonald, senior advisor, Fisheries Management in Maritimes Region on Dec. 28.

The disagreement centred on the size of the quota cut.

“Everybody agreed that a large reduction was required, but the size of large is not defined,” said Alain d’Entremont, president of Scotia Harvest, operator of a groundfish fleet and processing plant in southwestern Nova Scotia.

He is a Canadian industry representative and co-chair of the Transboundary Management Guidance Committee, which helps negotiate quotas.

“I don’t think we’ve caused irreparable damage to the agreement.”

Read the full article at CBC News

Fisheries minister angling for joint Canada-U.S. management of depleted Atlantic mackerel stock

December 8, 2022 — Canada is lobbying the United States to add Atlantic mackerel to transboundary fish stocks jointly managed by the two countries on the East Coast — but so far has not landed an agreement.

The appeal comes after Canada imposed a total moratorium on all commercial mackerel fishing in 2022  to rebuild the depleted shared stock. The Americans kept fishing, albeit with a reduced quota.

Minister raised concern with U.S. counterpart

“We don’t support the fact that we had closures because the stock was in critical condition and the United States were fishing essentially that same stock,” Canada’s Fisheries and Oceans Minister Joyce Murray told a parliamentary committee Friday.

Murray’s remarks are a more public stance on what has been a quiet effort by Canada to persuade the United States to jointly manage a species both countries say is in trouble.

Murray said she expressed her concerns in a virtual meeting earlier on Dec. 2 with her U.S. counterpart, Richard Spinrad, who leads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA.

Murray said Spinrad was sympathetic.

“He wants to invoke the precautionary principle, which in my view, wasn’t happening adequately. We agreed that we share our approach to this and in two months there will be meetings between NOAA and DFO to discuss our assessments and build a better approach to rebuilding mackerel.”

Read the full article at CBC

Canada’s fisheries minister no longer proposing salmon net-pen bans in BC

October 26, 2022 — Salmon farmers in British Columbia, Canada appear to no longer be facing the imminent end of net-pen farming in the entire region following several tours of the region by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard (DFO) Minister Joyce Murray.

The tours were part of a long-term plan by the Canadian government and Murray to phase out salmon farming in the region. In late 2020, the Canadian government announced that some salmon farms in B.C., specially located in the Discovery Islands, would be phased out in just 18 months, a decision that communities and salmon farmers in the region said they were “blindsided” by.  

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Canada disputes U.S. environmentalist claims on right whale protections

October 7, 2022 — The federal government is challenging charges from U.S. environmentalists that it’s not doing enough to protect critically endangered north Atlantic right whales, claiming measures taken since 2018 have reduced the risk of entanglements in the critical Gulf of St. Lawrence snow crab fishery by 82 per cent.

The new statistic was unveiled by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) at a parliamentary committee meeting held after the latest environmental condemnation — a red rating from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch — recommending consumers avoid buying Canadian snow crab and lobster because of the risk posed to right whales from entanglements in fishing rope.

“We disagree with it,” said Adam Burns, an acting assistant deputy minister.

Burns was repeatedly questioned about the red rating on Sept. 27, the first of six meetings planned on right whales by the DFO committee.

“Canada worked to ensure that [Seafood Watch] had the necessary information to make a fair and balanced assessment of Canada’s management regime. Unfortunately, we do not believe that they took all of that into consideration in their findings and did not recognize the differences in Canada’s regime from those in the U.S.,” Burns testified.

DFO is not disputing that north Atlantic right whales are imperilled.

Read the full article at CBC News

Traceability efforts overridden by inflationary pressures in Canada, US

August 19, 2022 — An increased effort by Canada and the United States to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing isn’t being matched by a tightening of import controls that would prevent illegally sourced seafood from entering domestic markets, according to a letter sent from 26 seafood industry stakeholders to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The letter, which was signed by Buy-Low Foods, Sobey’s, and Ocean Brands, as well as seafood sustainability non-governmental organizations including Oceana, Ocean Wise, Sea Choice, and the David Suzuki Foundation, urged Canada’s federal government to commit to a timeline on mandating boat-to-plate traceability for seafood sold in the country.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Cooke reaches agreement to acquire Tassal

August 16, 2022 — Canada-based Cooke Inc. announced on 15 August that the company has reached an agreement with Tassal Group Limited to purchase the Australia-based aquaculture company.

In a release, Cooke announced the two companies reached an agreement that would have Cooke purchase all outstanding shares of Tassal for AUD 5.23 (USD 3.65, EUR 3.60) per share in cash, by way of a scheme arrangement.

Read the full article at SeaFoodSource

Canadian Fisheries Minister Announces 2-Year Renewal of Discovery Island Fish Farm Leases

June 24, 2022 — Progress is being made to transition from open-net pen salmon aquaculture in British Columbia.

Joyce Murray, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, announced on Wednesday that the Government of Canada is committed to transition from open-net pen salmon aquaculture in British Columbia’s coastal waters in a manner that “protects wild salmon, the environment and the economy.” As part of that commitment, the government agency is introducing draft framework for the transition. Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) will be relying on input from the Government of British Columbia, First Nations, industry, local governments, stakeholders, and British Columbians to develop the final transition plan. Consultations will continue until early 2023, with the expectation that the final transition plan will be completed by spring 2023.

As the DFO works with partners and receives feedback, marine finfish aquaculture facilities outside of the Discovery islands will have a two-year renewal of licenses. These licenses will have stronger requirements for aquaculture facilities, including the implementation of standardized reporting requirements and sea lice management plans, as well as wild salmon monitoring. The DFO says that all of this will “improve the management of the salmon aquaculture industry and help protect wild salmon stocks and their habitat.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

Canada renews BC salmon farm licenses for two years

June 23, 2022 — Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has announced a two-year renewal of licenses for marine finfish aquaculture facilities outside the Discovery Islands in British Columbia, Canada.

The decision by the government impacts salmon farms run by Mowi, Grieg, and Cermaq, and according to a release by the DFO, is part of a planned transition from open-net pen salmon aquaculture in B.C. The decision is part of an ongoing government push to phase out all net-pen fish farming in the area – Canada’s Liberal Party and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have called for a shift away from net-pen farming by 2025.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Fishery managers call for deeper look at salmon bycatch, but decline to tighten rules

June 16, 2022 — Western Alaska villagers have endured the worst chum salmon runs on record, several years of anemic Chinook salmon runs in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, harvest closures from the Bering Sea coast to Canada’s Yukon Territory and such dire conditions that they relied on emergency shipments of salmon from elsewhere in Alaska just to have food to eat.

Many of those suffering see one way to provide some quick relief: Large vessels trawling for pollock and other groundfish in the industrial-scale fisheries of the Bering Sea, they say, must stop intercepting so many salmon.

Advocates for tighter rules on those interceptions, known as bycatch, made their case over the past several days to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the organization that manages fish harvests in federal waters off Alaska.

‘Like fishing in the desert’

“The numbers are really low. There’s nothing out there. It’s like fishing in the desert,” Walter Morgan, of the Yup’ik village of Lower Kalskag, said in online testimony to the council, which met in Sitka.

Read the full story at the the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman