Saving Seafood

Pacific Council Finalizes Salmon Recommendations

April 19, 2016 — The Pacific Fishery Management Council finalized their recommendation for ocean salmon seasons on Thursday, April 14. Draft copies of the adopted seasons can be viewed here. Seasons are not official until being signed by the Secretary of Commerce and adopted by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission for waters from 0-3 nautical miles.

The adopted regulations reflect the very challenging issues with poor forecasts for numerous ocean salmon populations. These salmon have variously been affected by several years of extreme drought conditions in California, and followed last year by poor ocean conditions resulting from the recent El Nino event along the Pacific Coast.

The commercial troll salmon seasons North of Cape Falcon will have no coho salmon quota this year, and Chinook quotas, season length, and open periods and open period limits. From Cape Falcon to Humbug Mt. the Chinook seasons will have a number of closures throughout the season, reduced weekly landing limits during the fall period, and limited to fishing only in nearshore waters during October. While the area from Humbug Mt. to the OR/CA border will have reduced June and July quotas from recent years, no fishing allowed in August and September, reduced landing limits, and several additional closed periods in June and July.

Read the full release at The Fishing Wire

Coastal salmon fishing shutdown being weighed by panel

March 17, 2016 — Olympia, Wash. — Regional fishery managers are considering the rare step of closing recreational and commercial salmon fishing off the coast of Washington and northern Oregon this summer due to a low number of returning coho salmon.

Butch Smith, owner of Coho Charters in Ilwaco, Washington, said a no-fishing option would be devastating to coastal communities, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

“Fishing is our lifeblood,” he said. “Fishing is our Boeing and our Microsoft.”

The Pacific Fishery Management Council is eyeing the shutdown as one of three alternatives as it sets fishing seasons off the Pacific coast. Two other options released Monday would permit some salmon fishing.

The last time salmon fishing was closed in the waters was 1994. It was severely curtailed in 2008.

The current proposal would close recreational and commercial non-tribal ocean fishing for chinook and coho salmon north of Cape Falcon, near Manzanita, Oregon.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New Jersey Herald

Pacific Ocean salmon fishing shutdown an option for 2016 season

March 14, 2016 — Recreational and commercial salmon fishing off the coast of Washington could be shut down this summer because of a low number of returning coho salmon. The closure is one of three options being considered by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which sets fishing seasons in ocean waters 3 to 200 miles off the Pacific coast.

The two other options, released early Monday would permit some salmon fishing this year.

Fishery biologists expect 380,000 Columbia River hatchery coho to return to the Washington coast this year, only about half of last year’s forecast. There were 242,000 coho that returned last year to the Columbia River, where some coho stocks are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Biologists are citing a lack of forage fish and warmer water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean “blob” and from El Nino as key factors in last year’s lower than expected return of coho.

It’s not what we want to see, since all the coastal fishing communities are dependent on tourism and our commercial fishers going out and catching salmon. Butch Smith, owner of CoHo Charters and Motel in Ilwaco

As for chinook, the forecast calls for a robust return of Columbia River fall chinook salmon this year. That includes about 223,000 lower river hatchery fish, which traditionally have been the backbone of the recreational ocean chinook fishery, according to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The last time the ocean salmon fishing season was closed was 1994. In 2008, fishing was severely curtailed.

“It’s not what we want to see, since all the coastal fishing communities are dependent on tourism and our commercial fishers going out and catching salmon. That’s our Microsoft and Boeing out here on the coast,” said Butch Smith, owner of CoHo Charters and Motel in Ilwaco. He also serves on a state advisory panel and was at the meeting in Sacramento where the ocean options were discussed.

Smith and Tony Floor, director of fishing affairs for the Northwest Marine Trade Association, believe there are enough salmon to craft some sort of fishing season for 2016.

Read the full story at The News Tribune

FDA nominee sails through Senate committee, but could a fish stand in his way?

January 12, 2016 — A Senate health committee on Tuesday easily advanced the nomination of former Duke University researcher and cardiologist Robert Califf as the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. But Califf, while widely expected to win confirmation from the full Senate, faces at least one surprise hurdle on the way to his new job: genetically engineered salmon.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told her colleagues on the committee that met Tuesday to vote on Califf’s nomination that she is willing to stall it until he and FDA agree to mandatory labeling requirements for the AquaAdvantage salmon.

The salmon, produced by Massachusetts-based AquaBounty and approved by the agency in November, is an Atlantic salmon that contains a growth hormone from a Chinook salmon and has been given a gene from the ocean pout, an eel-like fish. The result is a fish engineered to grow twice as fast as its natural counterpart. The first genetically altered animal approved for human consumption, it has been the subject of long-running fights involving food-safety activists, environmental groups and the salmon fishing industry.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

FDA must develop plan to label genetically engineered salmon, Congress says

December 17, 2015 — The sprawling federal spending bill unveiled this week on Capitol Hill included a small passage with potentially big implications in the food world.

In two paragraphs on page 106, lawmakers instructed the Food and Drug Administration to forbid the sale of genetically engineered salmon until the agency puts in place labeling guidelines and “a program to disclose to consumers” whether a fish has been genetically altered. The language comes just a month after FDA made salmon the first genetically modified animal approved for human consumption and represents a victory for advocates who have long opposed such foods from reaching Americans’ dinner plates. At the very least, they say, consumers ought to know what they are buying.

The fish in the spotlight is the AquAdvantage salmon, produced by Massachusetts-based AquaBounty. The Atlantic salmon contains a growth hormone from a Chinook salmon and a gene from the ocean pout — a combination to help it grow large enough for consumption in 18 months instead of the typical three years.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

 

Salmon breakthrough was driven by chance

November 25, 2015 — It was the early 1980s, and a group of Canadian fish farmers was hoping to find a way for salmon to thrive in the region’s frigid waters. So scientists in Newfoundland began experimenting with how to inject them with antifreeze proteins from an eel­-like creature known as ocean pout.

Instead, they found a way to make the fish grow more quickly.

That work, more than 30 years ago, led to the controversial breakthroughs that allowed AquaBounty Technologies, a biotechnology company in Maynard, to produce a rapidly growing salmon, which the Food and Drug Administration last week declared the first genetically altered animal fit for consumption.

“We thought if we can enhance the growth rate, that’s good for the industry, which can get fish to market faster,” said Garth Fletcher, a researcher at Memorial University in Newfoundland, who did the initial experiments that led to the creation of salmon that can grow twice as fast as those in the wild. Fletcher’s technique of inserting growth hormone from Chinook salmon and a “promoter gene” from ocean pout is now considered antiquated technology. But scientists say its commercial application heralds a new era of genetic engineering.  

Federal regulators on Thursday approved a Massachusetts biotechnology company’s bid to modify salmon for human consumption.

“We thought if we can enhance the growth rate, that’s good for the industry, which can get fish to market faster,” said Garth Fletcher, a researcher at Memorial University in Newfoundland, who did the initial experiments that led to the creation of salmon that can grow twice as fast as those in the wild.

Fletcher’s technique of inserting growth hormone from Chinook salmon and a “promoter gene” from ocean pout is now considered antiquated technology. But scientists say its commercial application heralds a new era of genetic engineering.

New techniques have allowed scientists to more precisely alter animal genomes by editing DNA to include or exclude beneficial or harmful traits. Researchers are now experimenting with modifying the genes of chickens so they don’t transfer avian flu, for example. They also want to develop pigs and cattle that are resistant to foot and mouth disease, and goats that produce a higher level of a microbial protein that may help treat diarrhea in people.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

FDA OK’s genetically modified salmon

November 20, 2015 — For the first time, Americans will be able to dine on a genetically altered animal, after federal regulators on Thursday approved a Massachusetts biotechnology company’s bid to modify salmon for human consumption.

After years of testing the company’s modified fish, regulators said there are no “biologically relevant differences” between the so-called AquAdvantage salmon and other farm-raised Atlantic salmon. Still, for the time being the FDA has barred the fish from being cultivated in the United States and has issued strict regulations to prevent the modified salmon from breeding with those in the wild.

The decision was a big win for AquaBounty, which began seeking approval in the 1990s for its technique of inserting growth hormone genes from Chinook salmon and an eel-like creature called ocean pout into the DNA of Atlantic salmon. The faster the fish grow, the more the company can produce and sell, potentially reducing overfishing of the oceans and developing a new source of food for a growing global population.

Company officials said the federal approval would create a new industry in the United States, which they say imports 95 percent of its Atlantic salmon. But it was unclear how long it might take before the fish appear in supermarkets.

“AquAdvantage salmon is a game-changer that brings healthy and nutritious food to consumers in an environmentally responsible manner, without damaging the ocean and other marine habitats,” Ronald L. Stotish, the chief executive of AquaBounty, said in a statement.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Big Trouble Looms For California Salmon — And For Fishermen

November 6, 2015 — The West Coast’s historic drought has strained many Californians – from farmers who’ve watched their lands dry up, to rural residents forced to drink and cook with bottled water. Now, thanks to a blazing hot summer and unusually warm water, things are looking pretty bad for salmon, too – and for the fishermen whose livelihoods depend on them.

Preliminary counts of juvenile winter-run Chinook are at extreme low levels. These are salmon that are born during the summer in California’s Sacramento River and begin to swim downstream in the fall.

Unusually warm water in recent months has caused high mortality for the young salmon, which are very temperature sensitive in their early life stages. Most years, about 25 percent of the eggs laid and fertilized by spawning winter-run fish survive. This summer and fall, the survival rate may be as low as 5 percent, according to Jim Smith, project leader with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Red Bluff office.

“That’s not good,” Smith tells The Salt.

Worse, it’s the second year in a row this has happened. Most Chinook salmon live on a three-year life cycle, which means one more year like the last two could essentially wipe out the winter run. To protect them, fishing for Chinook in the ocean may be restricted in the years ahead, when winter-run fish born in 2014 and 2015 have become big enough to bite a baited hook. The hope is that the few young fish that survived the recent warm-water die-offs will make it through adulthood and eventually return to the river to spawn.

Read the full story at New York Now

 

Lingering drought heightens worries of extinction for salmon

October 28, 2015 — SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Another deadly summer of drought has heightened fears of extinction in the wild for an iconic California salmon, federal officials said Wednesday.

Officials with the National Marine Fisheries Service said preliminary counts indicate that hot, shallow waters caused by the drought killed most of this year’s juvenile winter-run Chinook before they made it out to the Pacific Ocean.

It “doesn’t look very good,” said Garwin Yip, a federal fisheries spokesman.

If a final count this winter confirms the bad news, it would mean a second straight summer in which 5 percent or less of the young fish survived California’s drought.

Since the fish spawn on a three-year cycle, the die-off would make management of next year’s water critical for the salmon’s survival in the wild.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at New Jersey Herald