Saving Seafood

Puget Sound fish farm shutdown at odds with Biden plan

November 17, 2022 — The Washington State Department of Natural Resources has prevailed in a years’ long effort to end fin fish farming in state-owned waters of Puget Sound, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz has announced.

However, the decision appears to be at odds with the Biden administration’s five-year plan, unveiled in October, to increase aquaculture in the United States.

Franz announced Nov. 14 that the last two fin-fish net pen leases, held by Cooke Aquaculture, will not be renewed by the state. The company is using its existing operations to raise steelhead trout.

Franz stated that the effort to terminate the leases began with lease violations by the lessee and noted the Cypress Island net pen collapse in 2017 which resulted in some 200,000 salmon escaping into the bay, according to a WDNR statement.

Read he full article at the Center Square

WASHINGTON: NFI, aquaculture groups demand independent review of Washington’s decision to cancel Cooke leases

November 16, 2022 — The National Fisheries Institute, the National Aquaculture Association, and the Northwest Aquaculture Alliance are calling for an independent review of a decision by the U.S. state of Washington to cancel two net-pen leases for steelhead farms operated by Cooke Aquaculture.

Washington’s Department of Natural Resources made the lease-cancelation announcement on 14 November, 2022, citing a determination the leases “continued operations posed risks of environmental harm to state-owned aquatic lands resulting from lack of adherence to lease provisions and increased costs to DNR associated with contract compliance, monitoring, and enforcement.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

PBS Newshour Highlights Innovations, Challenges in Salmon Farming Industry

August 29, 2022 — Last week, the PBS Newshour featured a segment on salmon farming, addressing the challenges and innovations that have accompanied the industry’s growth. Newshour science correspondent Miles O’Brien talked to salmon farming industry members about the state of the industry and improvements being implemented. As demand for seafood increases each year, aquaculture is likely to play a major role in keeping Americans well-fed and healthy.

Below is an excerpt from the transcript of the segment. Watch the full video here.

Miles O’Brien:

Off of Swan’s Island, we boarded the ship where they monitor and feed their crop of nearly a half-million salmon. They’re kept in 16 flexible floating nets made with stainless steel fiber to guard against escapes.

We watched as they fed some of the fish using a network of submerged cameras.

Andrew Lively, Cooke Aquaculture:

He’s seeing the fish, and there’s no feed coming down through the water column.

 Miles O’Brien:

The trick is releasing the feed at just the right rate. Too fast, and it falls to the bottom of the sea, impacting the bottom line. But it also can cause an environmental problem. As the feed decomposes, it generates nitrogen, as does the fish poop.

High nitrogen levels are a persistent problem for salmon farmers.

Do you feel like you have met those challenges?

Andrew Lively:

One of the big ways to deal with that challenge is proper site location and proper density. We’re in an area that gets about a 12-foot rise and fall of water twice a day, so lots of current, lots of freshwater going through here.

 Miles O’Brien:

Even at the perfect location, fish farmers must closely monitor a myriad of factors to keep their crops healthy. 

Farmed salmon are frequently beset with serious infestations of sea lice. To combat the problem, Cooke deploys custom designed boats equipped with warm freshwater showers to clean the fish. It’s an expensive solution that might soon have an unlikely replacement.

Marine biologist Steve Eddy is director of the Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research at the University of Maine.

These fish are lumpfish. Tell me about them.

 Steve Eddy:

So these are used as a cleaner fish to remove sea lice off of farmed salmon, a form of biological control.

 Miles O’Brien:

Researchers here believe one or two lumpfish per 10 salmon in a pen should be enough to delouse the whole school.

It takes about three years for a salmon to grow from egg to market. As complex and resource-intensive as aquaculture is, its sustainability compares favorably to some land-based agriculture.

Read the full transcript at PBS Newshour

COOKE AQUACULTURE INC. APPOINTS PHILIP WIESE AS MANAGING DIRECTOR OF EAST COAST AQUACULTURE OPERATIONS

July 14, 2022 — The following was released by Cooke Aquaculture Inc:

Blacks Harbour, N.B. – Cooke Aquaculture Inc. is very pleased to announce the appointment of Philip Wiese as Managing Director of East Coast Aquaculture Operations in Canada.

Mr. Wiese joins family-owned Cooke from his most recent leadership role as Chief Executive Officer at Huon Aquaculture Group Limited, Australia’s second largest, vertically integrated salmon farming company employing 800 Tasmanians.

Wiese brings significant aquaculture expertise to Cooke having successfully delivered for nearly 15 years with Huon including as Chief Financial Officer with responsibility for financial management, information technology, human resources and operations.

Over the course of his career, Wiese was Director of the Tasmania Salmon Growers Association where he led collaboration across the Tasmanian salmon industry and managed the Tasmanian salmon brand globally. He has held various senior commercial management roles in finance, insurance and trading in the manufacturing, distribution and retail business areas.

In response to significant global growth in recent years, Cooke has created the role of Managing Director of East Coast Aquaculture Operations to augment North American leadership and provide additional structure, ensuring the company’s long-term success while maintaining an employee-centric culture.

Reporting to Glenn Cooke, Chief Executive Officer, the Managing Director oversees and leads all operations of Cooke Aquaculture’s Atlantic Canadian organization by fostering the alignment of people and resources and championing operational excellence and sustainability by driving efficiency, financial performance and profitability, employee engagement and stakeholder relations.

Read the full release at Cooke Aquaculture Inc.

Cooke gets two wins, advancing Salish Fish steelhead project in Washington

March 1, 2022 — Cooke Aquaculture Pacific has won two victories allowing its plan to farm steelhead in the U.S. state of Washington to advance.

In a unanimous, 9-0 decision, the Washington Supreme Court upheld a decision by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to allow Cook to convert its idle Atlantic salmon net-pen farms to raise steelhead. The move was precipitated by Washington’s ban on farming of non-native species in its waters.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Washington Supreme Court sides with Cooke, upholds fish-farm permit

January 14, 2022 — The Washington Supreme Court has sided with Cooke Aquaculture in a unanimous 9-0 ruling that upholds the company’s fish farming permits in the state.

The lawsuit has its origins in a five-year permit that the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) granted to Cooke in January 2020, allowing the company to farm steelhead trout in Puget Sound and the Salish Sea. Soon after the permit was granted, a consortium of conservation and environmental groups including the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) filed a lawsuit challenging the permit, claiming the department was allowing the farms without fulling considering what the impacts would be on water quality in the surrounding areas.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

MAINE: Authorities Investigating Mass Salmon Die-Off At Down East Aquaculture Operation

August 30, 2021 — An investigation is underway into what caused a mass die-off of salmon at a Cooke Aquaculture operation Down East.

In a statement, Cooke Aquaculture spokesperson Joel Richardson writes that “uncommonly low oxygen levels in the cages” are being blamed for the fish die-off, and that the company is “completing the safe removal of mortalities that have occurred” at salmon farm sites off Black Island, near Frenchboro.

New Brunswick-based Cooke Aquaculture was cited in 2019 by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection after multiple violations were found at net pen sites in Hancock and Washington counties. The company agreed to pay more than $150,000 as part of the case resolution.

The violations included overcrowding of fish pens. The company was also cited for failing to conduct environmental sampling or submit reports on schedule.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Cooke reveals interest in Huon, setting up fight with JBS

August 19, 2021 — Cooke Aquaculture has confirmed its interest in purchasing Tasmania, Australia-based salmon-farming firm Huon Aquaculture, in the midst of a takeover bid from Brazilian meat processing giant JBS.

However, JBS has run into difficulty in the form of activist investor Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, who has used his minority interest in Huon to push for increased environmental standards. In response, JBS issued a parallel bid for control of the company that seeks a 50.1 percent minimum acceptance condition. In a notice filed with the Australian Stock Exchange on 17 August, Huon announced JBS had upped its ownership to 40.53 percent of the voting power of the company.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Salish Fish, Kurt Grinnell’s legacy, prepares for launch as Cooke Aquaculture reboots Washington operations

August 17, 2021 — Salish Fish, a joint venture between family-owned Cooke Aquaculture Pacific LLC and the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, has officially launched and is moving forward with plans to stock its ocean fish farm in Port Angeles Harbor, Washington, U.S.A. with native steelhead and possibly sablefish in the coming months, according to the company and the tribe.

For Cooke, the move represents a reboot of its Washington operations after a 2017 escape at its Cypress Island farm led to the state banning the farming of non-native finfish, effectively phasing out Cooke’s Atlantic salmon farming.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Cooke Aquaculture gets permit to allow stocking of Hope Island farm in Washington

August 6, 2021 — Cooke Aquaculture has received a key permit from the U.S. state of Washington that will allow it to stock its Hope Island farm with rainbow trout.

The permit, issued by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on 5 August, will allow Cooke to stock its Hope Island farm, in Puget Sound’s Skagit Bay, with 365,000 steelhead, also known as rainbow trout. But the facility’s lease expires in March 2022, before the fish will be ready for harvest, meaning the company must either obtain an extension on its lease or move the fish to another site by that time.

Read the full story at Seafood Source