Saving Seafood

Casinos of Winnipeg commit to serving sustainable fish

WINNIPEG, Canada, October 5, 2015 – The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

Building on its commitment to sustainable sourcing, Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries today announced it has received Chain of Custody (CoC) certification from the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to serve certified sustainable products at the Casinos of Winnipeg.  Guests at Club Regent Casino and McPhillips Station Casino now enjoy certified sustainable Manitoba-harvested pickerel (walleye) bearing the blue MSC label. This signifies the fish is from an environmentally responsible, well-managed fishery.

The first ever casinos to enter the MSC program join 3,050 companies and 270 fisheries worldwide that are contributing to making a difference on our waters by transforming our freshwater fish and seafood market to a sustainable basis. Opened in 1993, the Casinos of Winnipeg operate five restaurants and an entertainment centre, and serve 9,000 meals each week.

The pickerel is sourced from Waterhen Lake Fisheries, the first Canadian freshwater fishery to achieve MSC certification (in 2014) and only the fourth in the world. The fishery is operated by the Lake Waterhen Fishermen’s Association with continued support from the Chief and Council of Skownan First Nation, located in the Interlake Region of Manitoba.

“The Casinos of Winnipeg are demonstrating early support for a vital growth area in our province’s commercial fishery – that of an eco-certified catch,” said the Honourable Ron Lemieux, Minister Responsible for Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries. “Waterhen Lake is truly world-class in its eco-certification. Casino of Winnipeg guests are not only being served some of the best pickerel in the world, but they are ordering it in confidence that they are supporting healthy lakes and healthy communities.”

Local Waterhen Lake pickerel allows casino chefs to further their commitment to “Buy Manitoba” while providing Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries with an important tool in advancing the implementation of its sustainable procurement policy.

“The MSC applauds the commitment to sustainability demonstrated by the Government of Manitoba,”said Jay Lugar,MSC Program Director for Canada.“First through their support of the Waterhen Lake fishery certification, and now by completing the cycle of sustainable supply through the CoC certification for the casinos.”

The MSC program is widely recognized as the world’s most credible standard for wild-caught sustainable seafood and supply chain traceability. When a seafood product bears the MSC label this signals that the companies in every step of the chain – from the fishers, to the processors, to the distributors, restaurants and retailers – have achieved MSC certification from an independent certifier. This proven traceability mechanism assures consumers that from fishery to fork, their seafood can be traced back to an MSC certified fishery and that it has not been mixed or substituted for non-certified fish. Adding to its success in the ocean, use of the MSC Standard has been expanding to support not only healthier oceans but freshwater lakes and rivers as well.

 

Three fishermen dead after boat sinks off Vancouver Island

September 7, 2015 — A commercial fishing boat sank Saturday off the west coast of Vancouver Island, killing three of the four crew members.

The boat capsized and sank in the ocean about 55 kilometres west of Estevan Point, north of Tofino, said navy Lt. Nicole Murillo with the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre.

The Coast Guard was called out around 10 p.m. Saturday. Two men were discovered Sunday morning and confirmed dead, said Murillo, while the search continued into Sunday afternoon for a missing third crew member.

The missing man’s dead body was spotted by a helicopter and recovered around 2:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon, Murillo said.

Read the full story at The Province

 

On Prince Edward Island, a Seafood-Dining Excursion

July 29, 2015 — PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND — “Which one should we try first?,” my husband asked, staring at the three equally enticing kinds of clams before us. The picturesque Gulf of St. Lawrence glistened on a sunny August evening on Prince Edward Island, Canada, and our 6-year-old daughter was running around on the grounds of the resort we were visiting for the afternoon called the Sundance Cottages.

But our attention was on the clams.

There was a raw quahog variety spiked with Tabasco and two soft-shell versions, one sautéed in oil and salted butter and the other puffing with an aromatic chorizo and white wine steam.

We had spent the better part of the afternoon on a beach nearby digging dozens of these shellfish from the sand and raking them from the water with the help of Stephen Flaherty, a handyman at Sundance who takes people clamming, including nonguests like us.

Finding them was only the start. Linda Lowther, a former owner of Sundance who offers cooking classes, had invited my husband and me into her home for a lesson on how islanders like to eat the mollusks, and now we were sitting at her kitchen table looking at the fruits of our half-day’s work.

It was one of several foraging trips we took during our summer break to the 175-mile-long, crescent-shaped province that’s famous for its picturesque setting of more than 90 beaches, rolling hills and sandstone cliffs and the abundant seafood in surrounding waters, including oysters, clams, cod, lobster and mussels. Agriculture, too, is big, with close to 1,500 mostly family-run farms growing a variety of produce and crops.

Restaurants were the obvious way to enjoy this bounty, but I had heard that the island was rife with opportunities to enjoy it through foraging, a tradition that locals practice. Given my primarily pescetarian diet, it was a particularly appealing proposition, and on our visit, we canvassed the area to find nearly everything we ate.

Read the full story at the New York Times

There’s a border dispute heating up between the US and Canada over lobster

July 28, 2015 — There is still a tiny bit of disputed territory between the US and Canada, and relations on the border are getting frosty.

The northeastern-most part of the US — on the coast where Maine meets New Brunswick — there are two tiny, uninhabited islands in a political gray area. It isn’t because anyone wants the islands — instead, they want the lobster surrounding the islands, and it’s disputed which country has the fishing rights.

During normal times, the dispute seems to be little more than an annoyance. But apparently this year, there are real problems because the price of lobster is so high ($5.50 a pound in that area, compared to $4 the previous year), according to Zane Schwartz in Maclean’s.

Read the full story at Business Insider

 

CANADA: Regulatory amendment expected to improve fishery management

July 23, 2015 — The Government of Canada intends to pursue an amendment to the Pacific Fishery Regulations, 1993, to create separate commercial fishing licence categories for tuna, lingcod and dogfish.

These species, along with Pacific cod, sole and flounder, skate, sturgeon and smelt, are currently grouped together as “Schedule II species” under Schedule II, Part II of the Pacific Fishery Regulations.

The amendment proposes to remove tuna, lingcod and dogfish from Schedule II, Part II of the Pacific Fishery Regulations and create separate licences for these fisheries. No new access or changes in allocation will result from this administrative change.

Read the full story from Fish Info & Services

North Sea cod make a comeback and Canada’s are on their tail

July 8, 2015 — FISH and chips for all! The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) in Copenhagen, Denmark, has recommended the first major catch increase for North Sea cod since 2000, as it says the stock has climbed back above danger levels.

Also, figures to be released later this year by Canada’s fisheries ministry show cod stocks on the Grand Banks are up for the third year in a row – although they aren’t out of danger yet.

There’s no mystery to it, say fisheries experts on both sides of the Atlantic: fishers stopped killing so many cod, and the population recovered, although it took its time.

Read the full story at New Scientist 

Massive Pacific Coast Algal Bloom Dissipates from BC Coast

July 8, 2015 — The threat from a large toxic algae bloom, which settled off the B.C. coast in May, has abated, according to scientists.

The Pacific Ocean bloom had sparked concern along the coast from California all the way to Alaska.

Though the situation in B.C. waters wasn’t as bad as further south, the bloom was serious enough to cause shellfish closures. At the time, researchers were concerned that shellfish and other marine life, including razor clams, crabs, hake and West Coast sardines, could have elevated levels of domoic acid, a neurotoxin that causes amnesic shellfish poisoning.

Read the full story at the CBC

 

This is what happens when you dump your live goldfish down the toilet

June 25, 2015 — Have you ever seen a goldfish in the wild? Well, they exist, and they’re huge.

It sounds like a sci-fi fantasy, but its real: Goldfish are growing to gigantic proportions in Canada after being dumped by bored owners.

The Alberta government is trying to stop Canadians from throwing out their fish into ponds, according to The Washington Post. CBC News summed up the affects pretty eloquently: “Goldfish the size of dinner plates are multiplying like bunnies.”

In one case, 40 of the domestic fish were pulled from a pond.

“That’s really scary because it means they’re reproducing in the wild,” said Kate Wilson, aquatic invasive species coordinator at Alberta Environment and Parks. “They are getting quite large and they are surviving the winters that far north.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe