Saving Seafood

Danish Fishermen Fear Further Slashing of EU’s Cod Quotas

October 11th, 2016 — A stiff wind buffets Ulrik Koelle Hansen’s trawler as he heads out of this tiny fishing village in search of an early morning catch, but it’s nothing to the battering he predicts if the European Union slashes the fishing quota for cod in the western Baltic, as it did late Monday.

According to scientists and environmentalists, the region’s cod stock is on the verge of collapse. While scientists are pushing for the quota to be cut by about 90 percent, conservation groups want to shut it down temporarily.

“If we do not do something in time to allow the cod to recover, it may mean that we lose the (cod) fishery altogether in the near future,” said Inger Melander, a spokeswoman for the Swedish branch of the World Wildlife Fund.

After all-day negotiations in Luxembourg, the European Union late Monday agreed to set tougher cod catch quotas, but stayed well above targets sought by scientists and environmentalists. The EU fisheries ministers agreed on a 56 percent quota cut for the western Baltic cod caught off Denmark and Germany.

Officials said Denmark pushed hard to safeguard the livelihood of its fishermen to make sure there was enough that they would still be allowed to catch.

As Koelle Hansen sees it, cutting the quota would mean the end for the few fisherman still working out of Bagenkop, a sleepy fishing village of less than 500 people on the southern tip of the Langeland island.

Read the full story at The New York Times 

Cod Fish Have ‘Regional Accents’ and This Could Mean Trouble for Their Love Lives, Scientist Says

October 6th, 2016 — It’s a tale as old as time: Boy meets girl, but they speak different languages.

However, in this case, the boy and girl are cod fish, and the fact that they can’t speak the same language could mean the demise of their species.

As cod are increasingly moving north due to warming waters, scientists are worried that males from one region may not be able to “chat up” females from another region with a “different dialect” — thus threatening the species’ ability to breed, according to Stephen Simpson, a marine biologist and professor at the University of Exeter in the U.K.

Male cod fish vibrate their swim bladders to produce sounds, or “love calls,” which are meant to “impress females and stimulate them into releasing eggs for fertilization,” Simpson told ABC News today after he presented his findings at the National Environment Research Council’s “Into the Blue” science showcase in the U.K.

But the “accent,” or unique sound of a male fish’s “love call,” depends on what spawning ground it came from, Simpson said.

Underwater recordings have revealed that male cod fish off Maine make “distinctly different” sounds than that of male cod fish off the U.K.

American cod appear to have “higher pitched” and “quite repetitive” love calls in contrast to that of European cod’s “more longer, drawn out rumbling,” Simpson said.

Read the full story at WBT 

Could man-made noise interfere with cod reproduction?

October 6th, 2016 — A new study of Britain’s seas is attempting to determine whether man-made aquatic noise is affecting the communication and breeding of cod.

Led by Steve Simpson, associate professor in marine biology and global change at the University of Exeter, the study will look at how unnatural noise — from shipping, wind farm construction, and oil and gas drilling — has affected the reproductive behavior of fish.

Cod and haddock, for instance, are known to use certain sounds to attract mates.

“We’re interested in whether the human noise we’re making is drowning this out,” Simpson said.

Additionally, the two-year study will seek to determine whether fish — not unlike killer whales and songbirds — have “regional accents,” or mating calls particular to certain areas. Climate change has sent some fish migrating north in search of cooler waters, and the result could be a sort of underwater language barrier, according to the British scientists. (On this side of the Atlantic, warming waters have coincided with a dramatic drop in cod stocks.)

Read the full story at The Boston Globe 

Burn the gillnets? Some say no place for controversial nets in quality-focused cod fishery

September 27th, 2016 — As we move ever closer to a revival of the commercial cod fishery, insiders say it’s essential the focus be on quality over quantity, and that means there may be no place for the controversial gillnet.

That was one of the messages delivered Monday in St. John’s to members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, and no one said it more forcefully than John Efford.

“Take every gillnet in Newfoundland and have a bonfire,” Efford, a former provincial and federal politician with deep ties to the fishery, told the committee.

Only premium products acceptable

The committee is studying the northern cod stock, and preparing for a day when the resource is once again healthy enough to sustain a large-scale commercial fishery.

There’s different opinions on when that might be, but there appears to be unanimous support for a fishery that delivers premium quality products to the marketplace, therefore yielding the highest possible price for those who take part.

Efford says there’s no place for gillnets in such a fishery because quality suffers, and the market will not tolerate it.

Some say between 80 and 90 per cent of the commercial cod fishery is landed by gillnets, fixed gear that entangles cod by the gills as they swim along.

Critics say fish are often left in the water too long, and quality suffers. And that’s an opinion shared by Provincial Fisheries and Aquaculture Minister Steve Crocker.

“Gillnets are not our preferred way of harvesting,” Crocker told reporters.

He said countries like Iceland are slowly eliminating gillnets, and it’s paying off.

“Harvesting techniques play a very important role in quality,” he said.

Read the full story at CBC News 

The Deal to Share the North American Fish and Chips Supply

September 22, 2016 — There’s a looming fish and chips crisis in the United States.

The number of cod, the fish most used in the popular pub dish, is in decline in the waters off New England, and it seems overfishing and warming ocean temperatures as a result of climate change are to blame.

The U.S. and Canada have come to a deal on how to divide what remains of the North American cod supply in parts of the Atlantic Ocean. The Associated Press has the breakdown:

The countries have agreed to set the total allowable catch at 730 metric tons next year. The U.S. will be allowed to take 146 metric tons and Canada will get the rest…

Read the full story at The Atlantic

US, Canada broker agreement to share dwindling cod fishing

September 21, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — The United States and Canada have brokered a deal to share what’s left of the dwindling North American cod fishing business in the Atlantic next year.

Both countries fish for cod, an important food fish that has declined in population following overfishing and warming ocean temperatures. The two fisheries overlap in the eastern reaches of Georges Bank, an important fishing area located off of New England.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Times

CHRISTIAN PUTNAM: Balancing good news with bad

September 13, 2016 — Due to budgetary constraints and other factors, in recent years the federal surveys of fish stocks have been reduced and carried out by a single vessel, the Fisheries Survey Vessel (FSV) Henry B. Bigelow. The way a survey is done is like regular commercial fishing in that the survey vessel tows gear similar to commercial fishing gear in order to determine how many fish are in the area and what species. The reduced surveys and limited areas surveyed have been the subject of considerable criticism by the commercial fishing industry and local politicians.

Taking a page from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts fisheries regulators, last month NOAA Fisheries announced the agency is looking for one to three trawler-type fishing vessels to handle “part or all” of the spring and fall surveys for the next five years.

NOAA Fisheries states this action is to get more consistent and expansive results from the surveys. Perhaps this will avoid recurrence of the disastrous quota reductions, such as the nearly 90 percent reduction in cod quota over the past couple years. This action also shows that NOAA Fisheries is beginning to listen to the criticism of the stakeholders that suffer the results of their decisions and wishes to build some trust in the science and processes used to make quota decisions.

It also makes sense to allow the under-utilized fishing fleet to operate for these purposes so that the fishermen can create revenue through survey research, as they are not able to fish on a consistent basis these days. It is encouraging to see what appears to be a change toward better policy and perhaps a more rational approach to gathering the information needed to make important decisions about the natural resources that belong to the public and are relied up by many of our neighbors to make a living.

Read the full story from the Scituate Mariner

Discovery Channel Acquires Worldwide Rights to Revealing Documentary ‘Sacred Cod’

September 12, 2016 (NEW YORK) — SACRED COD will make its premiere on Sept. 17 at the Camden International Film Festival in Maine. Tickets can be found here. It will also be screened at 7 p.m. on Oct. 2 at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, as part of the GlobeDocs Film Festival. Tickets are available here. For more information, visit the SACRED COD website. The following was released by Discovery Communications:

Discovery Channel announced the purchase of global rights of the revealing documentary SACRED COD. The film will make its world premiere at the 2016 Camden International Film Festival and debut on Discovery in 2017 under the Discovery Impact banner.

An official selection of the 2016 Camden Film Festival, SACRED COD chronicles the collapse of the historic cod fishery in the waters off New England in the United States. Scientists and environmental advocates have attributed the collapse to overfishing, climate change, and government mismanagement. Many of the fishermen — who are losing their livelihoods and way of life as the species have declined — have argued that the science is wrong and have protested government policies that have banned them in recent years from fishing for cod. SACRED COD features interviews with fishermen and their families, along with scientists, advocates, and federal officials who warn about the risks of overfishing and climate change and say that the plight of cod could be a harbinger for fish around the world. The film tells a complex story that shows how one of the greatest fisheries on the planet has been driven to the edge of commercial extinction, while providing suggestions about how consumers can help support sustainable fisheries.

“For centuries, cod was like gold. Wars were waged over it. Settlers sailed across oceans in search of it. And early America used it to finance a revolution,” said David Abel, one of the filmmakers and a Boston Globe reporter who has covered the fishing industry for years. “Cod were so abundant in the waters off New England that fishermen used to say they could walk across the Atlantic on the backs of them, and generations of men from places like Gloucester and Cape Cod spent their entire lives chasing the coveted fish. Cod played such an important role in the early history of New England that a carved replica of the fish has hung for centuries in the Massachusetts State House. It’s called the Sacred Cod.”

“Unfortunately, what is happening in New England is being seen in many fisheries and fishing communities across the world,” said John Hoffman, EVP Documentaries and Specials, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Science Channel. “The decline or collapse of fish stocks is a complex issue rooted in climate change, overfishing and shifting legislative policies, which together have destroyed many once thriving communities. SACRED COD is an epic tale of our times about a collapsing ocean ecosystem, which threatens a community’s livelihood, and the scientists who are working to rescue a species and way of life.”

SACRED COD is directed and produced by Steve Liss, Andy Laub and David Abel. The film is presented by Discovery Channel in association with Endicott College, The Boston Globe, In Our Own Backyard, and As It Happens Creative. For Discovery: Ryan Harrington is Supervising Producer and John Hoffman is executive producer.

Read the release at Discovery Communications

First US off-shore wind farm to start generating power

September 7, 2016 — The first off-shore wind farm in the U.S. is nearing completion off the coast of Rhode Island. In the past there’s been opposition to these ventures. But this one, which has been planned as a demonstration project, has managed to go forward.

A Rhode Island company, Deepwater Wind, is behind this nearly $300 million project. The five turbines were recently finished after more than a year of construction.

“The first off-shore wind farm in America will be ready to start spinning its blades, and that’s a momentous occasion, believe me,” said Jeffrey Grybowski, Deepwater’s CEO and a former chief of staff for Rhode Island Gov. Donald L. Carcieri.

But there is another constituency which isn’t so keen on these off-shore wind farms: commercial fishermen. In this part of the Atlantic they catch squid and cod, and there’s a scallops fishery, which alone generates a half billion dollars a year. They’re worried that their livelihood will suffer. And in fact, in Rhode Island commercial fishing was disrupted during construction and one operation had to be relocated.

Read the full story at WBFO

Seattle company debuts high-tech, sustainable fishing vessel

September 7, 2016 — SEATTLE — A new commercial fishing vessel, built in Washington, is charting new territory for sustainability and crew safety.

The F/V Blue North is a 191 foot freezer longliner owned by Seattle based Blue North Fisheries. The vessel was designed in Norway and built by Dakota Creek Industries in Anacortes.

“I’m kind of pinching myself – we are finally here – we’ve got it,” said Patrick Burns who is the co-founder of Blue North. “It’s a state of the art vessel.”

The $36 million fishing boat has been under construction for several years. It was delivered last week and has been receiving some final touches at Seattle’s Pier 91 as it prepares to make fishing history in Alaska’s Bering Sea.

“This vessel is a game changer – it’s the greenest, most sustainable and highest tech commercial fishing vessel that’s ever been built in the United State and possibly the world,” said Kenny Down, President and CEO of Blue North Fisheries.

There is no other vessel like it in the Alaska hook and line cod fishery.

Read the full story at KOMO