Saving Seafood

Vaccination Resources for Commercial Fishermen

March 24, 2021 — The following was released by the Fishing Partnership Support Services:

Make a Plan to Get Vaccinated!

COVID-19 is frightening – especially for commercial fishermen who don’t receive paid sick time. The economic costs of catching the virus can be greater than the physical toll of becoming ill. Effective March 22nd, commercial fishermen became eligible to schedule a COVID-19 vaccine appointment. Make a plan of action to protect yourself and your loved ones. Vaccines are safe and effective, free of cost regardless of your insurance status, and have been approved for emergency use authorization (EUA) by the FDA.

Vaccination Resources On Our Website:

  • How to sign up and/or preregister for the vaccine.
  • Updates on your eligibility status for the vaccine.
  • Myths versus Facts Primer.
  • FAQs about the vaccine.
  • What to expect after your shot.
  • Videos of Navigators sharing their vaccine story.
  • Resources for coping with COVID-19 vaccine anxiety.
  • Where to find COVID-19 testing near you.

Together we can end this pandemic. Need help interpreting vaccination resources? Contact a Fishing Partnership Navigator 888.282.8816

Tuna brands slammed for “glacial” progress in addressing labor abuses

March 23, 2021 — A new report on labor abuses in the tuna-fishing industry points to “sustained abuse of workers” aboard vessels.

The report by the United Kingdom-based Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), “All at sea: An evaluation of company efforts to address modern slavery in Pacific supply chains of canned tuna,” found labor abuse issues were worsening as a result of increased demand for tuna during the global COVID-19 crisis, which has forced vessels to stay at sea for longer intervals.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska Fisheries Science Center 2020 Year in Review

March 22, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Alaska Fisheries Science Center was able to accomplish a lot in FY 2020 despite the need to cancel some important field research and fish, crab and marine mammal surveys due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was a year of perseverance, creative thinking, and flexibility.

Our scientists took major steps to adjust the way we do business, protecting staff, communities and research partners while delivering critical science to support resource management and conservation efforts in FY20-21.

Some Highlights:

  • Set up makeshift, home-based labs to conduct critical process studies to provide age and diet information to inform fish and marine mammal stock assessments.
  • Employed innovative technologies to collect and more efficiently analyze data safely (e.g., sea going and aerial drones, artificial intelligence, remote camera and underwater acoustic monitoring systems, and sophisticated camera systems that simultaneously collect color, infrared, and ultraviolet images, etc.)
  • Substantially overhauled standard operating procedures to work with fisheries observer provider companies to deploy Federal fisheries observers on fishing vessels and in seafood processing facilities to collect needed data so fisheries could continue to operate and provide seafood to the nation and the world throughout the pandemic
  • Designed new modeling approaches to estimate fish and crab abundance to account for data limitations due to some cancelled surveys and research activities
  • Provided critical socio-economic analyses of COVID-related impacts on the commercial and recreational fishing industries
  • Increased collaboration with research, co-management and industry partners to monitor and collect data safely for bowhead whales, humpback whales, harbor seals, gray whales, Steller sea lions, northern fur seals, California sea lions, and commercially valuable pollock, red king crab and sablefish
  • Organized and safely supported a major ecosystem survey in the Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea during the pandemic
  • Completed a successful environmental DNA (eDNA) proof of concept in the inshore waters around Juneau, AK
  • Enlisted the help of state and academic scientists, Alaska Indigenous communities, private companies and others to collect ecosystem information and provide critical context for resource management decisions this year

Read the full release here

ALASKA: Bering Sea Island’s Gas Shortage Forces Crabbers South To Refuel, Disrupting Their Fishing

March 22, 2021 — The COVID-19 pandemic has already disrupted Alaska’s winter Bering Sea fishing seasons, closing plants and adding quarantine-related complications for crews.

Now, some boats are contending with a shortage of fuel at a key island port, leaving them with less time to catch their quota.

The Bering Sea community of St. Paul, one of the Pribilof Islands, announced the gas ration late last month after bad weather canceled the arrival of a fuel barge, and fishermen say it’s forcing them into days-long detours for refueling.

“I seem to remember we had some rations, years back, but it was nothing like this,” Oystein Lone, the captain of a 98-foot crab boat, said in an interview over a satellite phone.

Read the full story at KUCB

MAINE: Elver season opens Monday

March 18, 2021 — The elver season is set to open Monday, March 22, and continue until June 7, unless the state’s harvesters reach their quotas before then.

Those quotas will remain unchanged for individuals this season, according to recent rulemaking from the Maine Department of Marine Resources. Fishermen who held licenses in 2020 will have the same allocation this year as they did last, plus any quota associated with licenses that were not renewed or were suspended beyond which is allocated to new license holders.

The rule also established a tending requirement for fishermen. The contents of fyke nets and Sheldon box traps must be removed at least once every 16 hours in order to reduce by-catch and elver mortality.

The 2020 season was postponed a week due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Guidelines established for that season will continue this spring.

“Specifically, licensed elver harvesters may again fish for and sell the quota of another licensed harvester, provided they follow the necessary protocols,” according to a notice to industry members.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

GOV. DUNLEAVY: Secretary Blinken, protect Alaska’s fisheries

March 18, 2021 — Dear Secretary of State Blinken,

In light of your imminent meeting with Chinese officials in Alaska, I write to impress upon you the international challenges faced by our commercial fishing industry.

Perhaps no group of Alaskans has been impacted more severely by the global economic collapse than our fishers and processors. Both coped admirably with the logistical challenges of running businesses that rely on the free movement of labor, but neither escaped the pain of demand shock that rippled outward from shuttered restaurants, reductions in consumer spending, and the partial collapse of many export markets.

However, not all of the industries’ woes can be traced back to the pandemic. Many are preexisting conditions stemming from hostile decisions made by China and Russia during the previous decade.

In July 2018, China’s government imposed retaliatory tariffs on Alaska seafood, decimating our market share in the world’s largest and fastest-growing seafood market. Today, these tariffs have reached an outrageous 30-40% on top of several extreme and unproven COVID-mitigation measures intended to slow the importation of Alaska seafood.

Read the full opinion piece at the Juneau Empire

Mental Health and the Modern Fisherman

March 18, 2021 — In 2005, Randy Cushman spent two days trolling through the Gulf of Maine, searching for Gary Thorbjornson’s body. Thorbjornson was family—not by blood, but in all the ways that really count. The men had grown up together, fishing the gulf’s waters since they were kids, and the intervening decades had sculpted their lives into similar shapes: careers in commercial fishing, marriages at about the same time, children of about the same age, and a tight-knit fishing community around Port Clyde, Maine.

While fishing on a foggy day in mid-July, the distress call came through: Thorbjornson’s boat was flooding, and the crew were panicking. “We have to get the fuck off this boat,” Thorbjornson yelled. By the time Cushman arrived, the crew, including Thorbjornson’s own son, were alive and safely aboard a rescue boat, but their fishing vessel was at the bottom of the ocean and Thorbjornson had vanished. The search began, hours lapsing into days as teams traversed the waters, looking for a body that might offer the Thorbjornson family a scrap of closure.

“His father called me, told me to stay,” Cushman says. “The coast guard gave up and then the other boats. I stayed like four to six hours longer and I called him back and said, ‘I can’t do this anymore. It’s killing me.’”

In Brunswick, Maine, 90 minutes west of Port Clyde, Monique Coombs has watched this silent stoicism play out over and over again in fishing communities. Coombs is the director of community programs for the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association (MCFA), a nonprofit trade group dedicated to restoring commercial fishing in the Gulf of Maine. She’s seen fishermen just like Cushman endure the pain of lost loved ones, life-changing injuries, economic hardships, and the barrage of stresses endemic to the commercial fishing industry without seeking help, and she’s seen the legacy of depression and substance abuse that often follows. These problems have gotten worse, she says, ever since COVID-19 disrupted the state’s US $674-million seafood industry, shoving already unstable families even closer to financial collapse. But Coombs has a plan to fight back. Just over one year ago, her team won a grant to launch a pilot program aimed at addressing mental health in commercial fishing communities. The grant, awarded by the Fisher Charitable Foundation, is small—only $5,000, all of which goes to producing informational materials on managing anxiety and depression. But Coombs has much bigger ambitions.

Read the full story at Hakai Magazine

Pandemic pushes North American seafood suppliers to explore local supply, B2C revenue streams

March 17, 2021 — Almost exactly a year ago, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the North American seafood industry to confront an ultimatum: adapt or risk perishing. By and large, seafood suppliers on the continent chose the former, opting to transform their businesses to succeed in a drastically changed market, according to a panel of industry insiders, speaking at this week’s Seafood Expo North America Reconnect.

Ocean Wise Conservation Association Fisheries and Seafood Director Sophika Kostyniuk, who moderated the panel session “Prioritizing Responsible Seafood in Uncertain Times,” said the industry had to act reflexively as COVID-19 and its new social order riddled supply chains with “challenges, uncertainties, and unknowns.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US seafood industry set to benefit from COVID-19 relief package

March 17, 2021 — U.S. President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law on Thursday, 11 March, almost one year after the CARES Act established the country’s first federal coronavirus relief bill.

The USD 1.9 trillion (EUR 1.6 trillion) American Rescue Plan Act is the largest spending package in U.S. history and contains significantly less relief for the commercial fishing and seafood industries than the CARES Act included, though much of that funding is yet to be distributed.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

SENA Reconnect: New US seafood-buying trends here to stay

March 17, 2021 — Given one word to explain the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic for seafood retailers, “chaos” is what Publix Seafood Category Manager Guy Pizzuti immediately names.

Speaking during a panel at Seafood Expo North America Reconnect, Pizzuti – who was joined by Hy-Vee Vice President of Meat/Seafood/Delicatessen Jason Pride, Meijer Seafood Buyer David Wier, and Food Marketing Institute Vice President of Fresh Foods Rick Stein – said the initial days of the pandemic came as a huge surprise for the entire industry.

Read the full story at Seafood Source