Saving Seafood

Chesapeake crab caper results in felony charges

January 23, 2018 — More than three years after federal fish fraud investigators were tipped off that a Virginian seafood company was selling foreign crabmeat labeled as more expensive domestic crabmeat, federal prosecutors filed felony charges against Casey’s Seafood owner, James R. Casey, 74, of Poquoson, Va.

At the time of the tip in 2014, The Baltimore Sun had begun following special agents tracking crab fraud among other kinds of seafood fraud.

The Sun found that, despite increased concerns about such fraud, the number of enforcement cases brought by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency had plummeted after the agency began cutting the “special agents” who investigate fish fraud in 2010.

As the world’s seafood resources decline, substituting other species of seafood for rarer and more expensive ones has become a lucrative business as well as a growing concern for governments and health officials.

Jack Brooks, co-owner of J.M. Clayton Seafood in Cambridge, described how easy it is to commit fraud with crabmeat in a 2014 letter he wrote to the federal task force establishing the new rules to mitigate seafood fraud. It happens, he wrote, when “unscrupulous domestic companies, seeing a quick and profitable opportunity” simply put imported crabmeat into a domestic container.

Brooks, who processes crab, added that there is “no or very limited enforcement” of such fraud, which can net businesses an extra $4 to $9 per pound. That leaves domestic competitors with higher costs and puts seafood-related jobs in jeopardy.

During their investigation, NOAA agents sent eight containers of Casey’s Seafood crabmeat bought at stores in Delaware and Virginia to a laboratory in College Park for DNA testing. The results confirmed the tip: seven of the eight Casey’s containers labeled as “Product of the USA” contained swimming crab found only outside U.S. waters, according to court documents.

Read the full story at the Baltimore Sun

 

Chesapeake Bay sees ‘near-record high’ water quality

December 18, 2017 — EASTON, Md. — Water quality in the Chesapeake Bay has reached a near-record high, according to estimates announced Thursday, Dec. 14, by the Chesapeake Bay Program.

According to preliminary data from the U.S. Geological Survey, almost 40 percent of the Bay and its tidal tributaries met clean water standards for clarity, oxygen and algae growth between 2014 and 2016, which represents a 2 percent increase from the previous assessment period, according to the Chesapeake Bay Program.

Scientists are reasoning it is due in large part to a rise in dissolved oxygen in the deep channel of the Bay.

“The improving trends in water quality standards attainment follow similar trends in other indicators that we track. The acreage of underwater grasses has increased to more than 50 percent of its goal,” Chesapeake Bay Program Director Nick DiPasquale said.

“In addition, we are seeing an increase in the diversity of grass species and the density of grass beds. We also are witnessing improvements in several fisheries, including blue crabs, oysters and rockfish,” DiPasquale said. “While these improving trends are encouraging, we must ramp up our efforts to implement pollution control measures to ensure progress toward 100 percent of the water quality standards is achieved throughout the Bay and its tidal waters.”

Read the full story at the Star Democrat

Gloucester Times: Leave striped bass management to the experts

December 6, 2017 — The return to health of the striped bass has been one of the great conservation success stories of recent decades. On the brink of extinction in the 1970s and 1980s, the popular sport fish was brought back to health by sound management.

Lawmakers would be wise to leave that management to the experts and not back a renewed push to manage the fishery through legislation.

The Legislature’s Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture heard testimony on two such proposals last week.

One, from former state Sen. James Timilty, a Walpole Democrat, would limit commercial access to fishermen who can prove they have caught and sold 1,000 pounds of striper a year for the past five years.

And a plan by state Rep. Thomas Stanley, D-Waltham, would completely end commercial fishing for striped bass by 2025.

Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Times 

 

Menhaden catch limit raised along Atlantic coast, slashed in Bay

November 20, 2017 — East Coast fishery managers plan to increase the coastwide menhaden catch by 8 percent next year, while slashing the amount that can be harvested from the Chesapeake Bay.

But despite heavy pressure from environmental groups, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission balked at a proposal that would have required fishery managers to take into account the ecological role of the small, oily fish when setting future harvest levels.

By the end of their two-day meeting in mid-November, commissioners had succeeded in disappointing and pleasing environmentalists and industry officials alike — typically not at the same time — while setting up another big debate two years from now over how to account for the role menhaden play as a food source for other species.

In a statement after the meeting, Robert Ballou, of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and chair of the ASMFC Menhaden Board, acknowledged that many people were left disappointed by the decisions that will guide harvests for the next two years. But he said the commission’s actions demonstrated a “commitment to manage the menhaden resource in a way that balances menhaden’s ecological role with the needs of its stakeholders.”

It was the latest round in a decades-long struggle over how to manage the catch of Atlantic menhaden, a fish almost never eaten by humans that is an important food for a host of marine species. By weight, menhaden make up the largest catch in both the Chesapeake and along the East Coast, but by nearly all accounts their abundance is increasing, especially in New England. In fact, the ASMFC’s science advisers indicated that the current coastal catch limit of 200,000 metric tons could be increased by more than 50 percent with little chance of overfishing the species.

But conservation groups have long argued that such assessments do not fully account for the importance of menhaden as a food source for marine mammals, many birds, and a host of other fish, such as striped bass.

It is part of a larger, long-running debate between conservation groups and the fishing industry over how to treat forage fish, which include menhaden, anchovies and other small species that provide a critical link in the aquatic food chain by converting plankton into nourishment for larger predators.

Historically, conservationists contend that forage species have received less attention — and protection from overfishing — than the larger predators, such as striped bass. Prior to the meeting near Baltimore, conservationists had gathered a record-setting 157,599 comments urging the ASMFC to adopt new harvest guidelines, or reference points, that would take the ecological role of the fish into account when setting catch limits. If adopted, the guidelines would almost certainly have required a reduction in the current coastwide menhaden catch.

But critics — which included ASMFC’s own scientific advisers, as well as the commercial menhaden industry — said the reference points under consideration were based on studies of other species in other places and may not be applicable to menhaden.

Ultimately, the commission — a panel of state fishery managers that regulates catches of migratory fish along the coast — voted 13–5 to delay the adoption of ecological reference points until a panel of scientists it has assembled can make its own ecological recommendations, tailored specifically to menhaden. Those recommendations are not expected to be ready until 2019.

Dozens of activists attended the meeting, many holding bright yellow signs that said, “Little Fish Big Deal,” “Keep it Forage” or “Conserve Menhaden.” Many were surprised not only to be defeated after the huge volume of comments — more than 99 percent in favor of ecological reference points — but also by the lopsided vote.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

 

VIRGINIA: Endangered sturgeon’s return to James River could be hurdle for industry

Dominion seeking federal permit to ‘take’ protected fish after dead ones found in power plant’s water intake

November 17, 2017 — In the James River south of Richmond, endangered Atlantic sturgeon have become so common that observant spring and fall boaters are nearly guaranteed to see one breach. It’s hard to miss — a 6– or 7-foot fish exploding out of the water, as if shot from a cannon, wiggling for a split second in midair, then belly-flopping back into the river with a theatrical splash.

Long-lived and enormous — in its 60-year lifespan it can grow to 14 feet and weigh as much as 800 pounds — the Atlantic sturgeon was harvested to the brink of extinction in the late 1800s. But after a century of marginal existence, this prehistoric-looking fish, with its flat snout and rows of bony plates covering its back, is staging a steady but still fragile comeback in the Chesapeake Bay.

The sturgeon’s increased presence could complicate matters for industrial facilities that draw water from that same stretch of river. In one case, it already has.

After finding two dead sturgeon larvae and one adult in its water intake system in the fall of 2015, Dominion Virginia Power’s Chesterfield Power Station began seeking an “incidental take” permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service, which would allow the company to continue operating despite a potential impact to the endangered fish. In its application for the permit, Dominion estimated that up to 846 sturgeon larvae and maybe two adult fish per year could be trapped or killed in the intakes over the next decade.

The fisheries service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will determine in the coming months whether to grant Dominion’s Chesterfield plant a federal permit under an Endangered Species Act provision that allows private entities to “take” a given number of an endangered or threatened species in the process of conducting otherwise lawful operations.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

Watermen Happy for Small Win over Menhaden Regulation

November 17, 2017 — CAMBRIDGE, Md. — It’s a small fish that’s making a big splash. It’s called menhaden.

In a two day meeting, the Atlantic Marine Fisheries Committee voted to keep menhaden regulations the same for commercial fishers.

With a vote to keep the status quo of how much they’ll be fished, watermen say it’s a win.

“Any time they dont take, it’s a win. We’ll take a small win instead of a big loss any time,” said Burl Lewis from Hooper’s Island.

Lewis says he’s one of the few remaining watermen who still fish for menhaden.

Over the years, he says he’s struggled to follow federal menhaden fishing regulations. He say they’re regulations that really hurt.

“It hurts us in the long run because now our market is really cut back because some of the bigger holders ended up icith our customers,” Lewis said.

Read the full story at WBOC

 

Atlantic Menhaden Board Votes Against Ecological Management Plan For Fishery

November 17, 2017 — The Atlantic Menhaden Board voted earlier this week to stick to the status quo when managing the menhaden fishery and made slight changes to the annual catch limit. However, Saving Seafood, a group that represents the commercial fishing industry, has mixed feelings about those changes.

Menhaden are a forage fish found across the Atlantic Coast. The Board was considering implementing a new ecological-based management plan that was designed for forage fish.

The plan would have required fishermen to leave enough fish in the water for it to replenish itself and enough for predators to eat. However, the board voted no for the plan because it’s not specifically designed for menhaden.

Bob Vanasse, executive director at Saving Seafood, said the group agrees with the board’s decision.

“I think this was a strong statement that moving forward science needs to prevail, data needs to prevail and we need to look at this complex system in its complexity and not try apply a rule of thumb in every circumstance,” Vanasse said.

The menhaden board also voted to increase the annual catch quota by eight percent.

Read the full story at WNPR

 

Political pressure affected quota decision, menhaden industry group charges

November 17, 2017 — A day after the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted to raise the catch limit on Atlantic menhaden by eight percent, a trade group claimed on Wednesday that the commission let political pressure affect not only that raise but how quotas were allocated across member states.

The commission’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board approved an amendment to raise the total catch limit to 216,000 metric tons. However, in doing so, it gave each member state a minimum share of 0.5 percent. While those shares seem small for states that do not have an active menhaden fishery, the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition said it will have a significant impact on the two largest fisheries, Virginia and New Jersey.

Virginia received an allocation of 78.66 percent, while New Jersey got 10.87 percent. No other state received more than 1.27 percent of the allocation.

“The creation of a system allowing non-fishing states to ‘horse-trade’ allocation, the ‘taking’ of quota from some to give to others, and the arbitrary moving of quota from the marine ingredients fishery to the bait fishery constitute inappropriate intrusions into the market economy, our members say,” the coalition said in a press release issued late Wednesday afternoon.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

New Chesapeake Bay menhaden rules spark praise, criticism

November 15, 2017 — CHESAPEAKE BAY, Va. — New regulations on the harvest of menhaden are proving a mixed bag for local industry and conservationists.

Menhaden is a key part of the Chesapeake Bay’s ecosystem, serving as food for larger fish, mammals and birds. But they are also the key raw material for Omega Protein. Every day Omega turns tons of menhaden into fish oil, fish meal and other products.

As we showed you in our investigation Controversial Catch two years ago, Omega is the last major company of its kind on the Atlantic Coast, and has been operating in Reedville since the mid-1800s. Omega employs about 250 people there.

This week at its meeting near Baltimore, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has raised the total allowable catch of menhaden, from Maine to Florida, by 8 percent.

But Omega is not happy about that, because at the same time, the commission cut the amount the company can catch from the Chesapeake Bay by 40 percent.

Read the full story at WAVY

 

Menhaden vote a mixed bag for Virginia

November 15, 2017 — There was measured praise and disappointment all around this week after a regional fisheries commission voted on a 2018-2019 management plan for Atlantic menhaden, often called the most important fish in the sea.

For Virginia, too, it was a mixed bag.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission decided at an annual meeting in Linthicum, Md., to lower the Chesapeake Bay reduction fishery cap by 41.5 percent, from 87,216 metric tons to 51,000 metric tons. This pleases Virginia conservationists, but not the reduction fishery.

The commission said in a statement that its decision “recognizes the importance of the Chesapeake Bay as nursery grounds” for menhaden and many other species that rely on menhaden as a food source.

It also bumped up the coast-wide catch limit for menhaden by 8 percent to 216,000 metric tons — a net plus for fisheries, and a “modest” increase with a “zero percent chance of subjecting the resource to overfishing or causing it to be overfished,” the commission’s Atlantic Menhaden Board Chairman Robert Ballou of Rhode Island said in a statement.

Read the full story at the Daily Press