Saving Seafood

US lobster fishery faces delay in gauge-size increase; Canadian harvesters call for government to do more to combat illegal fishing

August 13, 2024 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) Lobster Board has initiated the process to delay a gauge size increase for the U.S. lobster fishery until 1 July 2025.

The ASMFC first delayed an increase in the lobster gauge size in October 2023, after lobster trawl surveys indicated a decline in the population of sub-legal lobsters. The gauge size increase was first initiated in 2017 as a proactive measure to improve the resiliency of the lobster stock in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, but that process was paused to focus on issues related to entanglement of  North Atlantic right whales.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

U.S. and Canada held talks on lobster gauge increase

August 12, 2024 — This article was first published in Landings, the Maine Lobster Community Alliance (MLCA)  newspaper, in August 2024.

U.S. and Canadian lobster fishery representatives met in Saint John, New Brunswick in late June to discuss the implications of the U.S. gauge increase for Lobster Management Area 1 (LMA 1) scheduled to take effect in January 2025. The meeting was in response to the concerns raised by Maine’s lobster industry at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) American Lobster Board meeting in May.

Background

ASMFC adopted Addendum 27 in May 2023 as a proactive measure which would automatically trigger a gauge increase for LMA 1 if the abundance of young lobster showed a 35% decline. The addendum was developed over five years. It was initiated in 2017 but delayed twice – in 2018 and in 2022 – because the lobster industry was deeply embroiled in management and litigation concerning right whale conservation requirements. Following the Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s (MLA) historic court victory and Congressional action to delay new whale rules for six years, the ASMFC held public hearings in March 2023 and adopted Addendum 27 in May.

Addendum 27 garnered little attention until last fall when, to everyone’s surprise, scientists determined that the abundance of young lobsters had dropped 39% from the historic high, thus triggering the management action just three months after the addendum was adopted. Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner Patrick Keliher urged ASFMC to delay implementation of the gauge increase from June 2024 to January 2025.“I don’t think when we were sitting here in May that we expected to be hitting the trigger as quickly as we did,” he said. He argued that more time was needed to continue discussions with Canada on the implications of having differing gauge sizes between the two countries. The ASMFC moved the date to January 2025.

At the Lobster Institute’s U.S.-Canada Town Meeting in January 2024 in Moncton, New Brunswick, the gauge increase was discussed by an international audience; many in Canada’s lobster industry were surprised to learn about the U.S. gauge increase. They were concerned that a U.S.-only gauge increase would disrupt lobster supply and markets due to the interdependence of the U.S. and Canadian lobster industries.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Canada to ban open-net salmon farms in British Columbia waters by 2029

June 20, 2024 — Canada will ban open-net salmon farms off the coast of British Columbia by the middle of 2029 in order to help protect dwindling wild Pacific salmon populations, the federal government said on Wednesday.

Salmon are a culturally and ecologically significant species on Canada’s west coast, but more than half of the 9,000 distinct populations in British Columbia are in a state of decline, according to the Pacific Salmon Foundation.

US regulators maintain fishing quota for valuable baby eels, even as Canada struggles with poaching

May 2, 2024 — U.S. regulators decided Wednesday to allow American fishermen to harvest thousands of pounds of valuable baby eels in the coming years, even as authorities have shuttered the industry in Canada while they grapple with poaching.

Baby eels, also called elvers, are harvested from rivers and streams by fishermen every spring. The tiny fish are sometimes worth more than $2,000 per pound because of their high value to Asian aquaculture companies.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission decided Wednesday that U.S. fishermen will be allowed to harvest a little less than 10,000 pounds (4,536 kilograms) of the eels per year. That quota, which holds current levels, will stand through at least 2027 and could be extended beyond that year, the panel decided.

Read the full story at the AP

Children, pregnant women in the US and Canada are not consuming enough seafood, study finds

April 3, 2024 — Women of childbearing age, pregnant women, breastfeeding women, and children are not consuming recommended amounts of seafood in the U.S. and Canada, according to a new study.

The research, organized by Washington, D.C., U.S.A.-based National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, was summarized in a webinar titled “The Role of Seafood Consumption in Child Growth and Development,” which took place on 26 March.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Op-ed: Marine protected areas in British Columbia only good for bragging rights

March 25, 2024 — Ray Hilborn has a doctorate from the University of British Columbia and is a professor at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Washington State Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded the Volvo Environmental Prize and the International Fisheries Science Prize, and has published over 300 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Marine fisheries in British Columbia, Canada, not only provide excellent seafood for Canadians, they also employ thousands of people and support small coastal communities, and yet these fisheries are seen to be in trouble, the industry is vilified, and immediate action is demanded.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Lobster community address increase to lobster size limits

March 2, 2024 — The Lobster Institute’s U.S.- Canada Lobster Town Meeting took place in mid-January to open dialogue within the lobster industry in the Northeast of the United States and Canada. The event included various industry members, including commercial fishermen, scientists, policymakers, managers, and association representatives. Together, these individuals came to discuss matters that are shaping the lobster fishery.

The focused sessions at the meeting included lobster markets and the implications of gauge size changes in the United States, climate change, offshore wind development, and innovations in gear.

Session 1 was focused on lobster market issues and the impact of the U.S. minimum gauge size increase. In October, National Fisherman shared that if the bigger gauge is enacted, lobstermen will need to find ways to address the state of Maine’s inequities with Canada if this change is implemented within the states. The lobster abundance index passed a predetermined threshold of a 35% decline in recruit abundance indices and, as such, triggered the minimum gauge increase in hopes of enhancing spawning stock biomass.

Initially, the change was to be implemented on June 1, 2024. However, comments from the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and others have delayed the increase to January 1, 2025. They hoped the delay would provide additional time for the Maine lobster fishery to work with Canadian fisheries officials on management measures that support the equity of fishermen and stock resiliency on both sides of the border.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Dead right whale at Martha’s Vineyard was seen entangled off Canada in 2022

February 5, 2024 –A dead North Atlantic right whale that washed up at Martha’s Vineyard was identified as a 3-year-old female that was first seen entangled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence off Canada in 2022, according to scientists at the New England Aquarium.

First observed by researchers as a calf in 2021, the young whale was dubbed #5120 in a catalog maintained by the aquarium and other whale tracking groups. In August 2022 #5120 was sighted again, entangled in fishing gear in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

“Multiple attempts were made to disentangle the whale in January and February of 2023 off Cape Cod,” according to a summary issued by the New England Aquarium. “She was resighted still entangled in June 2023 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with her overall body condition declining as the rope constricted around her tail had become more deeply embedded.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Canada lags behind on efforts to address human rights abuses in seafood supply chains

January 26, 2024 — Seafood has become a source of concern for consumers who pay attention to the environmental and social impacts of what they buy. Climate change is adversely affecting ocean ecosystems, and a series of widely publicized scandals have exposed widespread illegal fishing and awful working conditions in both fishing and seafood processing.

Seafarers in fishing often work 18 hours a day in what is widely considered to be the world’s most dangerous profession. Many are at sea for months or even years at a time, and most have no access to Wi-Fi. They are often excluded from labour laws and all are paid very low wages, despite producing food for high-income consumers.

Similarly, those working in seafood processing are also poorly paid, and many are migrant workers who lack basic labor rights.

In response to these concerns, governments in many seafood importing countries have taken action. The European Union and Japanese government have banned imports of seafood produced by illegal fishing, while the United States’ program to ban imports produced by forced labour includes seafood.

Read the full article at SALON

Canadian anti-salmon farming billboards removed for false claims about U.S. operations

December 7, 2023 — Anti-salmon farming billboards in Canada have been removed for falsely claiming that “open-net pen salmon farms are banned in the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, California, and Alaska.” The following was released by the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance:

Anti-salmon farming billboards around Ottawa have been removed for false advertising. The false statements included claims from eco-activist group Wild First that “Open-net pen salmon farms are banned in Washington, Oregon, California, and Alaska.” Based on this inaccurate information, the ads called on Ottawa to “remove all salmon farms from B.C. waters.”

The letter of complaint filed by the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance (CAIA) has provided clear evidence that the farming of finfish (including salmon) is not banned in California, Oregon, or Washington. In Alaska, net pens are commonly used to raise salmon for commercial purposes.

“In an age of misinformation, we are pleased that the right thing happened – false ads that did not stand up to the truth test were removed,” says Tim Kennedy, CAIA President and CEO. “Activists with deep pockets who don’t live or work where our salmon farmers live and work are trying to drive policy decisions in Ottawa that would cancel people’s livelihoods using a storyline based on old data and false information.”

“These anti-salmon billboards included statements by the activist group Wild First that were both false and potentially economically harmful to British Columbia businesses and organizations and their employees that the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance represents. Modern, sustainable, in-ocean salmon aquaculture is the second biggest agri-food export in British Columbia and key to the blue economy future for people living in rural, coastal and Indigenous communities.”

Read the full release from the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance