Saving Seafood

Regulators consider whether Atlantic sea turtles are endangered

December 13, 2017 — Federal wildlife officials say they are reviewing the status of a sea turtle that lives in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean to see if it should be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The National Marine Fisheries Service says it is conducting the review of the Northwest Atlantic population of leatherback sea turtles. The turtles live all over the world, including off of the mid-Atlantic states, New England and Canada.

Leatherbacks are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The fisheries service says it’s collecting comments until Feb. 5 about whether the northwestern Atlantic’s population should be included on the U.S.’s endangered list.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

Russia, U.S. and Other Nations Restrict Fishing in Thawing Arctic

December 1, 2017 — MOSCOW — Relations between Russia and the United States are in a deep freeze, but they share a looming common problem north of their Arctic coastlines — the prospect that commercial trawling fleets might overfish the thawing Arctic Ocean.

Out on the sea, the polar ice cap has been melting so quickly as global temperatures rise that once improbable ideas for commercial activities, including fishing near the North Pole, are becoming realistic.

While Russia, the United States and three other countries with Arctic coastline control the exclusive economic zones near their shores, overfishing in the international waters at the central Arctic Ocean could collapse fish stocks.

Whatever their disagreements elsewhere, the countries have a shared interest in protecting the high Arctic from such unregulated fishing, which could affect coastal stocks as well, conservationists say.

Read the full story at the New York Times

Omega Protein sets date to decide on Cooke deal

November 27, 2017 — Cooke Aquaculture will know as soon as Dec. 19, a week before Christmas, whether it’s getting what it hoped to find under the tree: a large Houston, Texas-based company that catches menhaden and reduces it to fishmeal and fish oil.

That’s the date Omega Protein has set for a shareholder vote on its proposed acquisition by the Cooke’s New Brunswick, Canada-based parent company, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Maine Lobster, The Most Valuable Species In US Seas, Hit By Trump’s Trade Stance

November 22, 2017 — Maine lobster has become more valuable than any other single species commercially fished in the United States, but trade policies pursued by President Donald Trump could reduce its annual worth for the first time in nearly a decade.

Of the more than $600 million worth of North Atlantic lobster caught in the U.S. in 2016, nearly 90 percent, or $538 million, was harvested and brought ashore in Maine, according to a report on nationwide fisheries released this month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

No other single commercially fished species, even those harvested in multiple states, exceeded $500 million in landings in 2016 or in 2015, according to the report. Maine lobster first earned the most-valuable distinction in 2015, when $501 million worth of American lobster was harvested in the state, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

The value of Maine’s lobster catch has risen every year since 2009. But it’s on track to drop for 2017, in part because of U.S. trade policies that put Maine’s lobster industry at a disadvantage to Canada in selling abroad.

Trump is pursuing efforts to renegotiate trade deals with Mexico, Canada, and South Korea, the fifth-largest importer of Maine lobster. He also pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation free-trade agreement, and has talked tough on trade with Europe.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

The Sea Is a Terrifying Place to Work

November 13, 2017 — Fishing remains one of the most dangerous jobs in Canada. We talked to captains about their most hazardous experiences.

In 2017, fishing remains one of most—if not the most—dangerous jobs in Canada. Between 1999 and August of 2015, 55 people died on Canadian fishing vessels simply because they fell overboard, according to the Transportation Safety Board. Overall, more than 200 fishermen have died in Canada since 1999. A recent Globe and Mail investigation showed that fishing vessel deckhands have a higher workplace fatality rate than roofers, farmers, pilots, and—by a wide margin—cops. In all, fishing has the highest fatality rate of any sector in Canada. Storms, equipment failures, and even stingrays are among the many hazards fishermen face. Then there’s the everyday work, including setting longlines with hundreds of sharp hooks, hauling heavy lobster traps, and gutting swordfish, sharks, and tuna. Yet for many fishermen, the potential pay outweighs the hazards. Statistics Canada says the average pay for a fisherman is about $1,000 a week. But fishermen will tell you that a crew member working year-round for a skilled captain can make $75,000 to $120,000—serious money in many of the economically depressed fishing towns on the East Coast of Canada. Even six months on a lobster boat can net a deckhand $50,000 to $90,000 depending on market prices. Fishing is a rarity in that you can make six figures without a high school diploma. Others simply love the thrill of fishing, or see it as their only job option. Regardless of what pulls a fisherman to sea, hazards are always lurking, so we talked to three East Coast captains about their most harrowing experiences at sea.

Richard Gillett has lost three fishing boats. Two sunk—one was a “total destructive loss.” The first sinking was the most harrowing, the 46-year-old says in an interview by phone, while mackerel fishing off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

Gillett was 25 and aboard his 34-footer, Sea Breeze, with a crew of three. The men were off the coast of Labrador, Canada, with a load of seals aboard, caught in a fierce storm: hurricane-force winds of 80 miles per hour and 45-foot waves. Plus, chunks of ice—some as large as buildings and half city blocks—surrounded the boat. “We figured we could ride it out on the sheets of ice,” he recalls. “Unfortunately we couldn’t.”

Read the full story at VICE

 

Trump’s Trade Policy Is Lifting Exports. Of Canadian Lobster.

November 12, 2017 — CENTREVILLE, Nova Scotia — This lobster factory on a windswept bay in eastern Canada is so remote that its workers have to drive for miles just to get cellphone service. But Gidney Fisheries is truly global, with its lobsters landing on plates in Paris and Shanghai through trade agreements hammered out in far-off capitals.

Of late, these trade pacts have been shifting in the factory’s favor, giving it an advantage over its American competitors.

A new trade agreement between Canada and the European Union has slashed tariffs on imports of Canadian lobsters. That means more 747s filled with Christmas-red crustaceans will depart from Nova Scotia for European markets this winter — and more revenue will flow to Gidney Fisheries. The factory, which in the 1800s sent its lobsters to Boston by steamship, is flush with potential as it gains access to new markets and plans to increase its work force by roughly 50 percent, adding dozens of positions to its current payroll of around 85 workers.

“For us, free trade is a good thing,” said Robert MacDonald, the president of Gidney Fisheries, which processes 10,000 to 15,000 lobsters a day.

The Trump administration has adopted a skeptical view of trade deals, promising to scrap or renegotiate global agreements that it believes put American companies and workers at a disadvantage. Among them is the North American Free Trade Agreement, which the United States is trying to renegotiate. It will join its partners in the agreement, Canada and Mexico, for a fifth round of talks in Mexico City that officially begin on Friday.

Some trade experts, though, say America’s get-tough approach is dissuading foreign partners from jumping into talks. Other countries, like Canada, are forging ahead with their own trade deals as they balk at the tough terms the United States is demanding in its trade negotiations. Over the weekend, a group of 11 countries including Canada announced that they were committed to moving ahead with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sweeping multinational trade deal negotiated by the Obama administration.

Read the full story at the New York Times

Under threat of lawsuit, Maine lobstermen say Canada is failing to protect right whales

November 1, 2017 — A record number of right whale killings this summer has put environmental groups on the offensive, potentially leading to stricter regulations for Maine lobstermen, even as most of the animals turn up dead in Canadian waters.

A group of environmental organizations has notified federal officials they intend to sue if regulatory agencies fail to better protect the endangered species, following what’s believed to be one of the deadliest summers for North Atlantic right whales in centuries.

Maine lobstermen fear that a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service could result in more costly restrictions on how they fish, even though none of the 16 right whale deaths have been directly linked to the American lobster fishery. Twelve of the whale deaths occurred in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence, where that country’s snow crab fishery has been cited by experts as a likely factor in several of the deaths.

The remaining four were found off Cape Cod.

With this year’s deaths, the total population of North Atlantic right whales is estimated at fewer than 450.

Early this month, the four environmental organizations sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Chris Oliver, head of the federal fisheries service, saying that federal regulators are violating the Endangered Species Act by not doing more to protect North Atlantic right whales. The groups specifically called on regulators to determine whether additional restrictions should be placed on the American lobster fishery in order to prevent whales from getting entangled in lobster gear.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

No salmon return to Canada river, bringing New England fears

October 30, 2017 — A conservation group’s discovery that no wild Atlantic salmon have returned to a key river in New Brunswick is prompting concern for the fish’s population health in the U.S. and eastern Canada.

The New Brunswick-based Atlantic Salmon Federation has been monitoring the Magaguadavic River for the Canadian government since 1992. The group says this year is the first time since then that no wild salmon have returned to the river to spawn.

Atlantic salmon were once abundant in rivers of New England and eastern Canada, but they’re now endangered or have disappeared in parts of both areas. The U.S.’s National Marine Fisheries Service is in the midst of reviewing the Gulf of Maine’s population, which is listed endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

About 900 wild salmon entered the river to spawn in 1983, and the fact that none returned this year is bad news for the fish’s population in Maine and Canada, said Neville Crabbe, spokesman for the Atlantic Salmon Federation.

“It means for the Magaguadavic River, whatever wild salmon that existed there are now extinct,” Crabbe said. “It affects the good work being done on all the rivers.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

Right whale deaths raise concern for species’ survival

October 24, 2017 — CAPE COD, Mass. — The discovery Monday of another dead North Atlantic right whale off Cape Cod escalated the already fevered concern among Canadian and U.S. marine scientists and fishery managers on the imperiled state of the highly endangered species.

The discovery of the severely decomposed whale brings the 2017 death count to at least 16, with the majority of the mortalities — attributed exclusively by researchers to ship strikes and gear entanglements — occurring in Canadian waters.

Four of the right whale deaths have occurred off the coast of Massachusetts.

“Our research and data have shown us that ship-strike or entanglement are the only definitive cause of death,” said Mike Asaro, NOAA Fisheries’ Gloucester-based marine mammal and sea turtle branch chief for the Atlantic region. “There’s nothing else we’re aware of.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times 

NOAA Fisheries Announces Increase in Atlantic Herring Quota for Area 1A for Period of October 24 – December 31, 2017

October 20, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Atlantic Herring Management Area 1A sub-annual catch limit is being increased from 31,115 mt to 32,115 mt  for the period of October 24-December 31, 2017. This is due to an underharvest of the New Brunswick weir fishery.

As stated in the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan, if the New Brunswick, Canada weir fishery herring catch through October 1 is less than 4,000 mt, then 1,000 mt will be subtracted from the management uncertainty buffer and allocated to the annual catch limit (ACL) and Area 1A sub-ACL.

Based on the best available information, the New Brunswick weir fishery landed 1,724 mt through October 1, 2017.

On October 24, NOAA Fisheries will allocate 1,000 mt of herring to the Area 1A sub-ACL, increasing the fishing year 2017 (Jan 1-Dec 31, 2017) Area 1A sub-ACL from 31,115 mt to 32,115 mt, and increasing the stockwide ACL from 101,656 mt to 102,656 mt.

Check the current status of the Atlantic herring catch.

For more details, read the notice as filed in the Federal Register, and the permit holder bulletin on our website.

Questions? Contact Daniel Luers, Fishery Management Specialist, 978-282-8457, Fax 978-281-9135.