Saving Seafood

Migrant seafood workers file complaints over COVID-19-based firings in US

June 17, 2020 — Two migrant workers who worked in a Louisiana-based seafood processing facility have filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board claiming they were fired due to leaving company housing to seek hospital treatment.

The two workers, Maribel Hernandez and Reyna Isabel Alvarez, were in the country on temporary H-2B visas, according to Reuters. The two workers claim that their employer, Acadia Processors LLC., told them and other sick workers to remain in employee housing without pay while ill.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NEFMC June 23-25, 2020 – By Webinar – Listen Live, View Documents

June 17, 2020 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council will hold a three-day meeting by webinar from Tuesday through Thursday, June 23-25, 2020.  The public is invited to listen live and provide input during designated opportunities for public comment.  The Council still cannot hold an in-person meeting due to travel restrictions and public safety guidelines associated with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

START TIME:  The webinar will be activated at 8:00 a.m. each day.  However, please note that the meeting will begin at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday and 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday and Thursday.  The webinar will end shortly after the Council adjourns each day.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION:  Online access to the meeting is available at Listen Live.  There is no charge to access the meeting through this webinar.

  • Here are instructions in the Remote Participation Guide for successfully joining and participating in the webinar.
  • THIS IS KEY!  If you want to speak during opportunities for public comment, you need to: (1) register for the webinar; and (2) actually “join” the webinar.  People who call in by telephone without joining the webinar will be in listen-only mode.  Those who take both steps – register and then join the webinar – will see the meeting screen and be able to click on a “raise hand” button, which will let the meeting organizer know you want to be unmuted to speak.
  • Here’s the Help Desk link in case you get stuck joining the webinar or have trouble along the way.

CALL-IN OPTION:  To listen by telephone, dial +1 (213) 929-4212.  The access code is 925-492-373.  Please be aware that if you dial in, your regular phone charges will apply.

AGENDA:  All meeting materials and the agenda are available on the Council’s website at NEFMC June 23-25, 2020 Webinar Meeting.  Additional documents will be posted as they become available.
 
RELATED – ATLANTIC HERRING STOCK ASSESSMENT PEER REVIEW:  A management track assessment for Atlantic herring was recently completed.  The peer review of that assessment will take place on Monday, June 22, 2020 at roughly 10:00 a.m., the day before the New England Council meets by webinar.  All documents related to this assessment can be accessed via the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s data portal.
 
COMMENTS:  The deadline for submitting written comments for consideration at the New England Council’s webinar meeting is Thursday, June 18, 2020 at 8:00 a.m.
 
THREE MEETING OUTLOOK:  A copy of the New England Council’s Three Meeting Outlook is availableHERE.
 
COUNCIL MEETING QUESTIONS:  Anyone with questions prior to or during the Council meeting should contact Janice Plante at (607) 592-4817, jplante@nefmc.org.

The Facts About Seafood, COVID, and Chinese Food Markets

June 17, 2020 — The following was released by the National Fisheries Institute:

On 13 June, Chinese media began reporting on the closure of the Xinfadi food markets in Beijing due the presence of COVID-19.

Do not be misled by sensational reports.  The facts are clear.  And these are the facts about food according to academic experts and global public health officials and agencies:

Former Commissioner of US Food and Drug Administration states:  “The idea it hitched a ride on fish is highly implausible.  I mean it is absurd.  I can’t see any plausible scenario where this virus rode in on a salmon.”

The World Health Organization states:  “As food has not been implicated in the transmission of COVID-19, testing of food or food surfaces for this virus is not recommended.”

The Codex Alimentarius states:  “COVID-19 is a respiratory illness primarily transmitted through person-to-person contact and direct contact with respiratory droplets generated when an infected person coughs or sneezes.  There is no evidence to date of viruses that cause respiratory illnesses being transmitted via food or food packaging.  Coronaviruses cannot multiply in food; they need an animal or human host to multiply. It is highly unlikely that people can contract COVID-19 from food or food packaging.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states: “Despite the hypothesis that the virus may have originated in bats and infected another animal used for food, there is no evidence of continued transmission of the virus from animals to humans through the food chain.”

The US Food and Drug Administration states: “…. there is no evidence that food or food packaging have been associated with transmission (of COVID-19) and no reason to be concerned.”

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states:  “In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from food products or packaging..”

Canadian Food Inspection Agency states:  “Scientists and food safety authorities around the world are closely monitoring the spread of COVID-19.  There are currently no reported cases of COVID-19 being spread through food.”

The Norwegian Food Safety Agency states:  “There are no known cases of infection via contaminated food, imported food or water.  Therefore, fish and seafood products from Norway are safe to eat” and “Currently there are no known cases of infection via contaminated food, imported food or water.  Based on current knowledge of coronaviruses, infection via food and water is considered unlikely.”

The European Food Safety Authority states:  “Experiences from previous outbreaks of related coronaviruses, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), show that transmission through food consumption did not occur.  At the moment, there is no evidence to suggest that coronavirus is any different in this respect.”

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment states: “There are currently no cases which have shown evidence of humans being infected with the new type of coronavirus via the consumption of contaminated food.  There is also currently no reliable evidence of transmission of the virus via contact with contaminated objects or contaminated surfaces, which would have led to subsequent human infections.”

The Chilean National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service states:  “There is no evidence to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 can infect aquatic animals and, therefore, these animals do not play an epidemiological role in spreading COVID-19 to humans.”

University College London researchers state:  “SARS-CoV-2 can infect a broad range of mammals, but few fish, birds or reptiles” and that “most [fish] have no susceptibility to infection.”

Asian Fisheries Science journal states:  “Currently, there is no evidence to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 can infect aquatic food animals (e.g. finfish, crustaceans, molluscs, amphibians) and therefore these animals do not play an epidemiological role in spreading COVID-19 to humans.”  (authors include 16 global public health researchers)

North Carolina State University researcher states:   “In fact, we don’t see evidence of any respiratory viruses being transmitted through food in the past.”  (COVID-19 is a respiratory virus) and “‘The good news with this particular virus is that it is not a foodborne virus.  Most of the food that we eat, ends up getting right into our gut and ends up encountering a whole bunch of acid in our stomachs.  And this virus particularly doesn’t really remain infectious once it hits the stomach.”

For more information about what global public health professionals say about seafood and COVID, visitCOVID-19 & Seafood website.

Alaskan Native Tribes Face Health and Government Challenges With Fishing Season

June 16, 2020 — Like many tribal members in Alaska, Melanie Brown lost a generation of her family to influenza in 1918. Now, with Covid-19 circulating among the tens of thousands of fishermen and cannery workers arriving in the remote villages of Bristol Bay, Brown fears history is repeating itself.

Growing up in Naknek, a small village in Bristol Bay, Brown heard stories about the 1918 pandemic from her great-grandparents. They told her the disease killed people they knew, often within just a couple days of falling ill.

“It was so fast-acting, it was like it would liquify your lungs,” Brown said.

Brown’s great-grandparents were among those orphaned by the pandemic. But they were teens — old enough to raise themselves, Brown said. An orphanage was founded in Dillingham for younger kids.

Today, the Kanakanak orphanage is Bristol Bay’s largest health clinic. And with 12 available beds and two ventilators, that facility is bracing for an influx of Covid-19 during a summer fishing season that triples the area’s population.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Vietnam’s shrimp sector thriving thanks to swift COVID-19 containment

June 16, 2020 — Vietnam’s shrimp sector has been reaping the benefits of the country’s successful containment of the COVID-19 outbreak, with growth seen in export and farming activities.

Official data from Vietnam government shows that the country has experienced more than 50 consecutive days without any new cases of the coronavirus in the community, thanks to its early and resolute actions by its government. As of 5 June, Vietnam had more than 300 confirmed cases, with zero deaths. Almost all restrictions during the social distancing order imposed in the first half of April have been lifted, and major economic and social activities have been brought back to a “new normal” since late April.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Jersey’s Commercial Fishing Industry Struggles to Stay Afloat

June 16, 2020 — Sam Martin has never had to deal with a housing crisis. Now, thanks to the pandemic, he’s got a big one. Ordinarily, when the oysters he raises along the Delaware Bay shoreline outgrow their bags and cages, he ships them to market and starts over again. But with “virtually all our sales coming from restaurants,” and the restaurant industry on hold, Martin’s oysters have nowhere to go.

“It’s a big bottleneck,” he says.

Atlantic Cape Fisheries, of which Martin is chief operating officer, is a large commercial fishery as well as New Jersey’s largest producer of farmed oysters. Based in Port Norris, about 20 miles northwest of Cape May, its oyster operation has “doubled in size each of the last three years,” Martin says. “Last year we sold 2.5 million oysters, and we planned to sell 5 million this year, but sales so far are down about 80 percent compared to last year.”

Lodged in the water in their bags and cages, the oysters continue to grow. But once they exceed the ideal raw-bar size of about 3 1/2 inches, they lose as much as 60 percent of their value and wind up in the commodity breading-and-frying market. This month, the company will make a difficult decision. To free up bags and racks for future crops, it may have to dump its unsold, now-oversize oysters into the bay.

Three counties away, the Barnegat Oyster Collective is facing similar straits on the Atlantic coastline. Before the pandemic, “tens of thousands of people were eating our oysters in restaurants,” says CEO Scott Lennox. But since the collective was selling to distributors, “we didn’t know who they were. So we had to completely pivot and turn ourselves into an e-commerce company. We created the party pack. You get two dozen chilled oysters in a foam box with gel packs, a free oyster knife with instructions, and free shipping. And we do a Saturday Instagram shucking demo.”

Read the full story at New Jersey Monthly

Fishermen’s business remains in the doldrums even as restaurants reopen

June 16, 2020 — The reopening of Long Island restaurants for outdoor dining hasn’t translated into banner days for the region’s commercial fishermen and fish dealers, who say demand for wholesale fish, clams and oysters is inching up but nowhere near past levels.

While many local fishermen sell to local retailers, a steady local business even through the pandemic, the lion’s share of local fish go to companies that distribute to restaurants throughout the region and across the country. Three months of lockdowns over the coronavirus has backed up the market for the products, leaving warehouses for local frozen fish such as squid fully stocked, while drastically reducing demand for local clams and oysters. Market prices for most have fallen, though some, like fluke, are on the rebound.

Local fishermen have been catching and selling fluke, but with the New York quota at 100 pounds a day, the market isn’t lucrative. The market for porgies, also known as scup, has picked up as the plentiful fish come into season and more consumers learn to appreciate its value (and cook it whole).

Bill Zeller, owner of Captree Clam in West Babylon, said his business is down by around two-thirds from where it was a year ago, nearly all of  the drop tied to restaurant closures. He delivers to distributors across the nation — Florida, Boston, the West Coast, where protests in recent weeks also led to some order cancellations just as some states were reopening.

Read the full story at Newsday

MASSACHUSETTS: Cape Cod Local Seafood provides fish fresh from the boat

June 15, 2020 — Kevin Conway started Cape Cod Local Seafood with a mission to bridge a gap between fishermen and consumers.

Conway says it provides consumers with the opportunity to get a hold of “the freshest seafood at the best prices.”

Facebook users may connect with Cape Cod Local Seafood by subscribing to their page and signing up to purchase seafood fresh off the boat from various docks across the Cape.

Conway’s preorder system is designed to avoid a “free for all on the dock” that would make social distancing difficult to maintain. Signing up beforehand also gives consumers the added benefit of not having to “stand in line for a couple of hours” when paying for their orders.

The program is open to all people who want fresh seafood below market price. Conway says that “residents, tourists, people from off-Cape, anyone can participate.” The seafood available to consumers includes haddock, striped bass, bluefish, fluke, lobsters, tuna, blue tuna, yellow fin, and various types of shellfish.

Conway decided to launch Cape Cod Local Seafood’s page while using “other virtual marketplaces” on Facebook to buy some of his own fishing gear. His thinking was “this is pretty cool, I want to see if I could do this with seafood.”

Read the full story at Wicked Local