Saving Seafood

Sacred Cod, Sustainable Scallops

October 31, 2019 — “I am a pirate,” Carlos Rafael once told a group of federal regulators at a Fisheries Management Council meeting. “It’s your job to catch me.” And they did.

Rafael, aka the Codfather, was one of the most successful fishermen on the East Coast. He owned more that 50 boats, both scallopers and ground-fishing vessels, in New Bedford, the #1 value fishing port in the U.S. All the boats were emblazoned with his trademark “CR.”

Scallops sit in the sand underwater in the Nanatucket Lightship area. This photo was taken duringIn 2016, after an undercover sting, he was arrested on charges of conspiracy and submitting falsified records to the federal government to evade federal fishing quotas. In addition to his boats, the Codfather owned processors and distributors on the docks. When he caught fish subject to strict catch limits, like cod, he would report it as haddock, or some other plentiful species. He got away with it, at least for a while, because he laundered the illegal fish through his own wholesalers, and others at the now defunct Fulton Street Fish Market in New York City.

“We call them something else, it’s simple,” Mr. Rafael told undercover cops who feigned interest in buying his business. “We’ve been doing it for over 30 years.” He described a deal he had going with a New York fish buyer, saying at one point, “You’ll never find a better laundromat.” Caught on tape, the jig was up. In 2018, Rafael, 65, was convicted on 28 counts, including conspiracy, false labeling of fish, bulk cash smuggling, tax evasion and falsifying federal records. CR? Caught red-handed!

Read the full story at Medium

NOAA trawl surveys estimate more cod, pollock in Bering Sea

October 29, 2019 — The results from recent US government trawl surveys of the Bering Sea are in and they estimate the biomass of pollock and Pacific cod have risen relative to previous years.

Two vessels — Alaska Knight and Vesteraalen — completed summer surveys of the eastern and northern Bering Sea from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

The AFSC said in a presentation that the trawl surveys led scientists to estimate the pollock biomass at 5.46 million metric tons for the Eastern Bering Sea, a 75% year-on-year rise and 1.17m metric tons for the Northern Bering Sea, compared to the last major survey, which was performed in 2017.

For Pacific cod, the surveys led to an increased biomass estimate of 517,000t in the Eastern Bering Sea, a 2% y-o-y rise and an estimate of 368,000t for the Northern Bering Sea, up 30% from 2017.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

ALASKA: North Pacific Council Takes Up Amendment 113; Adak Cod Fishery Still Uncertain

October 29, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Earlier this month, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council asked for more information on ways Pacific cod could be managed for the community of Adak and its seafood processing plant, which represents about half of the town’s economy.

Amendment 113 to the Magnuson-Stevens Act was rescinded by a federal judge as a result of a lawsuit brought on by representatives of the largely Seattle-based trawl fleet. The judge agreed with the plaintiffs that the Amendment was poorly worded and encouraged the Council to make changes to comply with the Magnuson-Stevens Act and several of its National Standards.

The unanimous motion began the process by calling for a discussion paper “on management options available to promote conservation of [Aleutian Islands] AI Pacific cod and the sustained participation of AI fishing communities.”

The Council wants “an update to the June 2019 discussion paper, including changes to BSAI Amendment 113 to include the modifications approved by the Council in December 2018” as well as an update on the status of the Amendment 113 litigation, and a discussion of how Amendment 113 addresses the MSA’s National Standards, a point in the judges decision that has been contested by the government. The council also directed staff to submit “a thorough examination of options available under MSA 303A for Limited Access Privilege Programs and outside of 303A to meet these objectives.”

Steven Minor, a spokesperson for the Adak plant Golden Harvest Alaska, said the day after the vote, “Yesterday the Council took action to begin the process of restoring Amendment 113.

“We expect the Discussion Paper outlined in the Motion to be brought back at the December Council meeting. If the Council continues to give Amendment 113 priority, we believe that the Discussion Paper will lead to an expedited process similar to the current Mothership package, which could result in A113 being reimplemented by the 2021 season.”

The Mothership package is one of now two issues the Council is currently addressing about cod in the Bering Sea. The other is the BSAI Pacific cod trawl catcher vessel cooperative style-limited access privilege program. The stranded cod in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea was dropped from further discussion.

Opposition to providing the same protections to Adak as the rescinded AM113 does has changed, with two former plaintiffs now dropping their objections. But opposition remains on at least one front: there is less Pacific cod in the eastern Bering Sea than before, and any apportionment from any management program, regardless of who for or where they are located, should reflect that. AM113 set aside 5,000 mt of Pacific cod for Adak when certain conditions were met.

The current owners of the Adak plant have invested millions of dollars in the facility, equipment, and community infrastructure. It was sorely needed over the years when the plant went through a list of owners that included major seafood companies and cooperative entities created by fishermen themselves.

Now they are facing an uncertain future with the fishery starting early next year.  The Council meets next December 2-10, 2019 in Anchorage.

This story was originally posted on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Genetic studies confirm Alaska cod stocks pushing north

October 25, 2019 — Biologists were shocked in 2017 when they found that the numbers of Pacific cod had risen exponentially in the northern Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska. Now, researchers at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center have used genetic testing to prove that those fish, enabled by warming waters and a lack of sea ice, have moved north from the southeastern Bering Sea.

Surveys as recent as the 1970’s revealed “trace amounts” of cod in the northern Bering Sea, according to a brief released by NOAA. Major Alaska cod fisheries in the past decades have operated in the southeastern Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands, and the Gulf of Alaska, which meant management biologists conducted only sporadic bottom trawl surveys in the north.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Efforts underway to streamline fisheries disaster relief

October 23, 2019 — With an increasing number of fisheries disaster requests coming from all over the United States, members of Congress and the federal government are looking for ways to improve the relief process.

Summer 2018 brought disappointing results for many fishermen across Alaska, particularly for sockeye salmon fishermen in the central Gulf of Alaska, but only two fisheries were officially granted federal disaster declarations: the 2018 Chignik sockeye salmon run and the 2018 Pacific cod fishery. While many other fishermen at least got a few fish to fill their wallets, Chignik fishermen had virtually no season, and Gulf of Alaska Pacific cod fishermen saw their total allowable catch reduced by 80 percent from 2017 because of low abundance.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced a dozen commercial fishery disaster declarations Sept. 25 for the 2018 calendar year. Congress appropriated $165 million for fisheries disaster relief, to be allocated according to the losses in revenue for the selected fisheries.

It’s the second time in recent years there have been disastrously poor returns to some fisheries. In 2016, the failed pink salmon run across the Gulf of Alaska left many fishermen holding empty nets, particularly in Kodiak and Prince William Sound, resulting in a disaster declaration in 2017 and eventually $56 million in relief funds for stakeholders.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Russian Pacific cod MSC approval has catchers eyeing more EU, US sales

October 18, 2019 — A portion of the Russian longline Pacific cod and halibut fishery has been certified as sustainable to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standard, meaning the country’s catchers are set to further target the European and US markets.

The approval took place on Oct. 9 and this means all cod and halibut from the certified management areas caught after Aug. 1 this year can be sold as MSC certified, Sergey Sennikov, director of sustainability for Norebo Holding, Russia’s largest fishing company, during the 2019 Groundfish Forum in Berlin, Germany.

“We can target Europe and the US as well, as Pacific cod is well known in the US. It’s about having more access to the market,” he said. This places Russian Pacific cod more closely in competition with product from the US. The US fishery has been MSC certified for many years, but catch allocations have been coming down.

According to the public certification report on the Russian fishery, the portion of the total allowable catch (TAC) for Pacific cod covered by the MSC approval is 31.8%. The report only gives a TAC for 2016-2017, which was 140,000 metric tons, meaning 25,200t of this would be eligible for sale as MSC-approved.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

A fish mystery solved using genetic testing

October 17, 2019 — The population of cod in the Northern Bering Sea has increased immensely since 2010, and scientists are using fish DNA to find out why.

Think of it like a genetic ancestry test, but for fish.

Until recently, pacific cod were rarely found in the Northern Bering Sea. A 2010 survey showed cod made up only three percent of the entire fish population. That’s been changing, fast.

A survey in the summer of 2017 showed that number shot up 900 percent.

Ingrid Spies is a research fisheries biologist who led the way on this research to determine whether the population spike is evidence of a growing population or of an existing population migrating from elsewhere?

One thought was that cod could have migrated from Russia or the Gulf of Alaska, where they observed cod numbers decline significantly in 2017. Scientists were able to come to a conclusive answer to the question using genetic testing.

Read the full story at KTUU

Groundfish Forum forecasts only marginal lift in 2020 whitefish supply

October 17, 2019 — The supply of the big stocks of wild whitefish are set to remain stable for 2020, lifting by less than 1%, according to a forecast from the Groundfish Forum.

The forecast at the forum for the US supply of Alaska pollock for 2020 is 1.528 million metric tons, down from 1.552m in 2019. Undercurrent News previously reported the science on pollock points to possible cuts in the next couple of years.

For Russian pollock, the forum predicts a slight lift in supply for 2020, from 1.685m metric tons to 1.70m. Global pollock supply is set to be 3.44m metric tons, down marginally from 2019’s 3.45m.

For Atlantic cod, the total supply is forecast to rise very slightly, from 1.131m metric tons in 2019 to 1.132m. In June, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) advised the cod quota in the Barents Sea for 2020 be set at a level 2% higher than its advised level for 2019 of 674,678t. At 689,672t, its 2020 advice comes in at 5% lower than the total allowable catch for 2019 set by the Norwegians and Russians, of 725,000t.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Fishing rules don’t match industry realities, advocates say

October 11, 2019 — The federal government on Wednesday released data showing that cod stocks in the area remain overfished and are not on target to be rebuilt by 2024. NOAA Fisheries also reported that “overfishing is occurring” among an already-depleted Gulf of Maine Atlantic cod population.

“Abundance is very low, not the way it used to be, so that’s obviously of great concern to us,” Division of Marine Fisheries Director David Pierce told the News Service after participating in “seafood day” activities Thursday to recognize the contributions of the fishing sector and the 90,000 jobs in the seafood industry.

Pierce said he had not yet reviewed the latest federal assessment, but said an industry-based survey and one in the works at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth will also influence cod quotas for 2021 and 2022.

“It’s a very important assessment. A lot hinges on it,” Pierce said. “The health of the Gulf of Maine groundfish fishery is very dependent on the health of that Gulf of Maine cod stock.”

Calling the report “concerning,” Sen. Bruce Tarr, who represents the fishing port city of Gloucester, told the News Service, “I’m still reading through the details but I think it points to the fact that we should be doing things differently than we are today.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Genetic Evidence Points to Rapid, Large-Scale Northward Shift of Pacific Cod During Recent Climate Changes

October 10, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

New genetic research suggests that unprecedented summer abundances of Pacific cod in the northern Bering Sea were due to escalating movement from their core habitat under recent warm conditions.

Until recently, Pacific cod were rarely encountered in the northern Bering Sea. Fishery surveys in the 1970s reported “trace amounts” of cod there. A 2010 Alaska Fisheries Science Center survey estimated that the entire northern population amounted to about 3% of the large southeastern Bering Sea stock that supported a valuable commercial fishery.

Then in 2017, the summer survey recorded dramatically higher abundances in the north: a 900-fold increase since 2010. In the same year, southeastern Bering Sea abundances were down 37% from 2016. Strikingly, the increase in the north nearly matched the decrease in the southeastern Bering Sea.

A 2018 survey revealed an even more remarkable shift: there were more cod in the northern than southeastern Bering Sea.

Read the full release here