Saving Seafood

JOHN SACKTON: Anti-Salmon Video Shot at Cooke Seafood Escalates Attacks on Farmed Fish

October 9, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Following the release of hidden camera video footage from a Cooke Hatchery in Bingham, Maine, Glenn Cooke issued a statement yesterday saying “I am very sorry that this has happened. We are thoroughly reviewing the footage and we are working closely with the Maine Department of Agriculture to review and ensure all our practices are within compliance. We are speaking with all our employees, and we will institute a rigorous re-training program at our Maine facility.”

His statement is an excellent response to an attack on aquaculture by a militant vegan organization called COK, Compassion over Killing.  This group has 18 people on staff, and in 2017 reported income of around $1.3 million.  20% of their budget goes to undercover videos targeting farming, especially industrialized factory farming.

The organization was founded in 1995, and says its aim is to ‘End the abuse of farmed animals using a variety of strategies including vegetarian outreach, investigations, legal advocacy and publications.’

They are very much part of the movement that has led consumers to demand free-range eggs, minimum standards for space for chickens, and regulations against confinement for breeding sows.

They have won a number of concessions from major restaurant chains who have pledged to adopt higher animal welfare standards and offer vegan menu options.

You can see the video they secretly filmed at the Cooke facility on youtube.  It is not getting a lot of hits, less than 5000 as of today.

It shows employees throwing discarded salmon, and in some cases whacking or stomping on fish.  It also shows some deformities being culled from newly hatched embryos.  The emotional tone of the video is that this is no way to treat fish, which Glenn Cooke has forthrightly acknowledged.

But for the salmon industry, and for seafood in general, this raises a larger question about consumer trends.

Farmed and wild seafood has been under continuous attack for both fishing and farming practices for nearly two generations.  Some of the criticisms about overfishing were made largely by people like the MSC, who love and celebrate fish, with the avowed purpose of ending overfishing, or in the case of ASC, certifying farming, to responsibly increase seafood in the global diet.

But others were made by groups who want to halt all consumption of seafood.  This is the category the Cooke critics fall into.

The problem the industry faces is that our customers, who have major retail and restaurant brands, are very sensitive to pressure groups and emotional appeals, regardless of whether they are based on facts or truth.

As a result, restaurant companies have made many changes in response to animal welfare demands and do not want to become targets of animal rights activists.  Part of Compassion’s strategy is to pressure companies like Subway and others to adopt animal welfare standards and to offer vegan options.  Even McDonald’s is subject to these pressures.

For us, complying with social responsibility has definitely increased costs.  The entire infrastructure of certification and traceability has been added to the costs of fishery management in order to demonstrate our social compliance to our customers.

We have no choice but to continue to make our case for responsible harvesting and husbandry.  This applies across the board, whether it is about lobsters being processed and cooked, wild salmon being crammed in RSW tanks, or farmed salmon raised in net pens.  Anyone on a fishing boat knows that gutting and bleeding fish has a cost to the fish.  But just as in nature, we accept that the pain we cause as a predator is no different to the fish than that caused by a seal or a tuna.  We live in a world where there is a food chain.

We have to be responsible stewards of that food chain.  Without the industry making this case, we are going to lose market share not just to vegetarians or people who will not eat fish under any circumstances but even among those who love fish.

As John Fiorello of Intrafish pointed out, there are two camps in the seafood industry regarding fake fish.  One suggests that the idea of plant-based fish products will always be fringe, and that these products will not make headway with real fish consumers.  I have tended to be in that camp.   People eat fish because they like the taste.  If they don’t eat fish, why would they buy fake fish?

The other camp is those sounding the alarm based on what happened to the dairy industry, where the milk aisle now has almond milk, soymilk, and other non-dairy products taking up space and market share.  In the UK, around 15% of ‘dairy’ sales are non-dairy milk products.  I now feel this is more of a true threat.

My kids are big fish eaters, brought up snacking on things like dried squid from a very young age.  But their spouses are vegetarian, and they have certainly been attracted to the non-meat products like impossible beef.

What surprised me in our discussion of fake seafood was their willingness to consider it, because even though they love fish and shrimp, they also think there is an environmental cost, as they do with meat.  So some of our best fish consumers may be tempted to try these fake products due to their overall view that fishing and aquaculture has an environmental cost that they can mitigate through their food choices.

This makes me think that the trend to hold not just fish but all foods to a higher standard is very real, and it means the entire seafood industry must continue to make the case for our responsibility and commitment to environmental and animal welfare.

Glenn Cooke’s statement is an excellent example of how to respond to this type of accusation.  The company was blindsided by someone recording a secret video.

It does not matter if it was unfair, edited, or secretly taped—the response of the company was to own the mistakes shown on the video, and to promise to do better.

Glenn Cooke said he does not judge people’s dietary choices.  If they don’t want to eat salmon they don’t have to, but regardless of their individual choice, Cooke is assuring all those who do eat farmed salmon that it is grown in a responsible, socially conscious way that respects animal welfare.

These are not issues that are going away.

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

MAINE: DMR joins partnership to restore Penobscot River salmon

October 8, 2019 — The Department of Marine Resources will employ a novel approach to rearing Atlantic salmon for restoring native populations on the East Branch of the Penobscot River.

The project, funded through a $1,075,000 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Species Recovery Grant, will involve a partnership among DMR, Cooke Aquaculture USA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries and the Penobscot Indian Nation to grow juvenile Atlantic salmon to adult size in aquaculture pens located in Machias Bay near Cutler. The adult salmon will then be released into the East Branch of the Penobscot, a river with large amounts of high-quality salmon habitat, to spawn.

Smolts raised from native broodstock by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Green Lake National Fish Hatchery in Ellsworth and smolts captured in the wild using rotary screw traps will be used to stock the marine net pens in 2020, 2021 and 2022. To ensure the genetic integrity of salmon in the river, only smolts of Penobscot River origin will be released.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Group targeting Cooke with undercover video tied to plant-based seafood alternative companies

October 8, 2019 — WASHINGTON — Yesterday, the Washington, D.C.-based NGO Compassion Over Killing (COK) made headlines when it released a video targeting the operations at a Cooke Aquaculture hatchery in Maine. Today, new reporting from IntraFish and Seafood Source reveals that COK has ties to a plant-based seafood investor that is led by COK’s board chair, Amy Trakinski, an attorney who formerly represented animal protection groups. Plant-based seafood products would compete with farm-raised seafood products in the marketplace.

The following is an excerpt from IntraFish’s reporting:

[Compassion Over Killing] has ties to VegInvest, which provides early-stage capital and guidance to companies working to replace the use of animals in the food supply, according to its website. Its portfolio of companies includes plant-based alternative seafood firms Good Catch, New Wave Foods and BlueNalu, among other plant-based food producers.

Read the full story from IntraFish

Read additional coverage from Seafood Source

 

MAINE: This Major Effort To Restore Atlantic Salmon Involves A Company That Raises The Fish For Food

October 7, 2019 — As many as 15,000 adult Atlantic salmon will be put into the Penobscot River over the next three years, most of them after being raised in penstocks off the coast of Washington County. They are expected to create up to 56 million eggs as part of one of the most ambitious efforts yet at reversing the decades-long decimation of Maine’s wild salmon population.

The first 5,000 fish will be placed in the East Branch of the Penobscot River near the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument next fall as part of the Salmon for Maine’s Rivers program, which is funded by a $1.1 million federal grant and involves the state and federal governments, a Native American tribe and a New Brunswick-based company that raises salmon in pens off the Maine coast.

No one should expect the wild salmon population in the Penobscot and its tributaries to explode in the next three years, said Andrew Lively, a spokesman for Cooke Aquaculture USA, which raises salmon in farming pens off the Maine coast and is aiding in the restoration effort.

In addition to Cooke Aquaculture and Maine’s Department of Marine Resources, the other partners in the effort are the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Penobscot Indian Nation.

As the state’s sole commercial grower of sea-penned Atlantic salmon, Cooke’s involvement will vastly improve state revitalization efforts, said Dwayne Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Cooke gains permission to raise rainbow trout in Washington

October 4, 2019 — Cooke Aquaculture has moved a step closer to ensuring a long-term presence in Washington State after the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) confirmed earlier this week that it plans to issue a five-year marine aquaculture permit to the Canadian aquaculture company to farm all-female rainbow trout at its existing farms in Puget Sound.

Washington lawmakers voted to phase out and ban non-native finfish net-pen farming in the state following the 2017 collapse of a Cooke farm that released at least 250,000 Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound. If Cooke does not repurpose its salmon farms, they will be shut down by 2022.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MAINE: Aquaculture Operation to Support Novel Approach to Wild Atlantic Salmon Restoration

October 3, 2019 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) will employ a novel approach to rearing Atlantic salmon for restoring native populations on the East Branch of the Penobscot.

The project, funded through a NOAA Section 6 Species Recovery Grant totaling $1,075,000, will involve a partnership between DMR, Cooke Aquaculture USA, US Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries, and the Penobscot Indian Nation to grow juvenile Atlantic salmon to adult size in aquaculture pens located near Cutler Maine. The adult salmon will then be released into the East Branch of the Penobscot to spawn, a river with large amounts of high-quality salmon habitat.

Smolts raised from native broodstock by the US Fish and Wildlife Service at the Green Lake National Fish Hatchery in Ellsworth, Maine, and smolts captured in the wild by rotary screw traps will be used to stock the marine net pens in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Smolts will include only those from Penobscot River origin to ensure the genetic integrity of salmon released into the river.

Plans call for increasing the number of smolts captured in the wild from the East Branch to be used to supply juveniles that will be grown out in the net pens. While hatchery spawned fish help ensure an adequate supply of fish for recovery goals, those spawned in the natural environment are more robust due to the impact of natural selection which results in fish that are better suited to survival in the wild.

The smolts will be placed in net pens under a limited-purpose aquaculture lease in Cutler, Maine where they will be fed and managed in cooperation with Cooke Aquaculture USA for 16 to 30 months, during which time they will grow to mature adults. The DMR will hold the lease on the pens while Cooke will supply the pens and feed for the salmon as they grow.

“We are committed to be part of this wild Atlantic salmon enhancement project in Maine. Cooke Aquaculture has the experience working with Atlantic salmon in their natural environment based on proven aquaculture and fish-health science. Working with the Penobscot Nation and government partners, together we will make this restoration program a success by seeing the fish return to their native waters,” said Glenn Cooke, CEO, Cooke Aquaculture USA.

Approximately 5,000 adult fish will be transported from the net pens to target tributaries and the mainstem of the East Branch of the Penobscot River in the fall of 2021 or 2022 where they will find suitable habitat to naturally spawn. This will result in more spawning adults than have been present in the Penobscot River for decades.

While net pens are not new in Maine for cultivating Atlantic salmon, using them to cultivate salmon for conservation purposes at this scale is new in Maine and showing promise in a Bay of Fundy partnership between Cooke and Canadian provincial and federal governments, First Nations and academia.

The Penobscot Indian Nation has inhabited the Penobscot River drainage since time immemorial. The deep cultural, spiritual and historical connections between the Tribe and the Atlantic salmon of the Penobscot River go back thousands of years, said Dan McCaw, Fisheries Program Manager for the Penobscot Nation. The Penobscot Nation is hopeful that this new program can help to restore this iconic species to its ancestral homeland and applauds the collaborative nature of this multi-stakeholder endeavor.

As populations expand, the goal is to build healthy wild populations of Atlantic Salmon on the East Branch, including the potential for downlisting. The estimated 5,000 adults produced by this effort could result in 20 times more eggs in the gravel in the Penobscot River basin compared to existing stocking and natural reproduction, said Sean Ledwin, Director of DMR’s Searun Fisheries and Habitat Division.

The program will involve surveys of redds in spawning areas to assess spawning success of released fish. Released fish will also be tracked using Passive integrated transponders (PIT tags) and radio telemetry. Electrofishing surveys and use of rotary screw traps, along with genetic analysis, will be used to assess the abundance of offspring from this effort.

The program will also include a public outreach effort undertaken by the department and other program partners that will provide information on salmon and other sea-run species, and the impact of protecting ecosystems on which they rely.

https://www.maine.gov/dmr/news-details.html?id=1597983

Maine Aquaculture Association’s Sebastian Belle forecasts bright future for industry in state

September 20, 2019 — In 2017, the governor of Washington State ordered all agencies to ban salmon farming in state waters after a net-pen failure at a Cooke Aquaculture-owned Atlantic salmon farm caused a fish escape into the surrounding Pacific.

That event in the Northwest became an obvious opportunity for the Northeastern U.S. state of Maine, which was once home to an Atlantic salmon fishery. While the wild fishery has been nonexistent for years due to wild populations of Atlantic salmon being deemed endangered in the state, aquaculture operations continue to see results.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Cooke acquires Invergordon fish feed mill in Scotland

September 19, 2019 — The following was released by Cooke Inc.:

Cooke Inc. announced today the establishment of Northeast Nutrition Scotland Limited after the acquisition of the former Skretting fish feed mill in Invergordon.

The mill facility is located at Inverbreakie Industrial Estate and had previously produced fish feed for aquaculture companies in Scotland. Northeast Nutrition Scotland Limited will manufacture fish feed for Cooke Aquaculture Scotland Limited, a leading salmon producer with facilities in the Shetland and Orkney Islands, as well as the United Kingdom’s mainland. Invergordon is a town and port in Easter Ross, in Ross and Cromarty, Highland, Scotland.

“All of our salmon is reared using feeds that are manufactured in compliance with the highest standards for animal feed safety,” said Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Inc. “We are excited to include domestic feed manufacturing in Scotland, adding to the vertical integration of our operations and further enhancing the full traceability of our fish.”

Skretting announced in November 2018 its plans to cease manufacturing activities in the United Kingdom, and it closed the Invergordon facility at the end of April 2019. Cooke plans to work with former employees who were affected by the closure to resume operations at the mill. “We are thrilled to be in a position to offer new opportunities to those employees and have an engaged and experienced team in place from day one,” said Chris Bryden, mill manager. “As a rural coastal community, Invergordon has a population of approximately 4,000 residents. Joining the Cooke family of companies provides us with the opportunity to keep Scottish jobs and be an important part of a globally respected growing seafood leader,” expressed Bryden.

Cooke Aquaculture Scotland and Cooke’s feed division and feed suppliers employ teams of professionals in fish nutrition, feed manufacture, fish feeding behavior, fish health management, farm management and information technology that oversee every aspect of feed supply and delivery. Cooke’s commitment to sustainably sourced feed ingredients, ongoing improvements to feed formulations and innovations in feed delivery allow the company to produce healthy fish for its customers.
https://www.cookeseafood.com/2019/09/19/cooke-acquires-invergordon-fish-feed-mill-in-scotland/

This company is the only one raising salmon in Maine so far, as more look to join it

July 29, 2019 — With his high-backed chair and banks of keyboards, windows and video screens, Frank Lank could be in an air traffic control tower. Instead, he’s at sea watching fish swim inside netted pens in Machias Bay.

The 53-year-old Eastport man sits aboard a floating platform, essentially a two-story office, overseeing the automated feeding of Atlantic salmon at 12 of 24 sea sites Cooke Aquaculture USA, Maine’s sole aquafarmer of the prized kingfish, leases from the state.

He also watches them for signs of trouble. Are they surfacing too often, as if they’re agitated or lacking oxygen? Are they overeating? Lank carefully notes fish behavior and sea conditions so the company’s divers and veterinarians can review it and, if necessary, take follow-up action.

“You’re always learning from [the salmon]. You can never ever settle,” Lank said during a recent workday. “I mean, granted you have a number of years of experience and all that, which probably kind of gives you a little bit of a leap up, but there’s always some kind of new way that you can do what you do.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News