Saving Seafood

Seacoast Leaders And Commerce Secretary Talk Visa Workers, COVID Funding, Climate Change

April 27, 2021 — Seacoast tourism and business leaders want federal officials to approve more foreign visa workers and economic aid to support what they hope will be a busy summer on the tail end of the pandemic.

They spoke at a roundtable Monday in Hampton Beach with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

Raimondo, the former governor of Rhode Island, was on her first official trip as U.S. Commerce Secretary. She asked what the Seacoast wants out of the latest round of pandemic stimulus money and President Biden’s proposed jobs and infrastructure plan.

New Hampshire Lodging and Restaurant Association CEO Mike Somers said he’s optimistic for any small tourism businesses that made it this far through the pandemic. But he said continued federal support – for visa workers and other aid – will be crucial in the next few months.

To lower emissions and mitigate the warming trend, Raimondo said she’s confident the nation can scale up offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Maine without hurting the region’s fisheries.

She was asked about it by David Goethel, a Seabrook-based commercial fisherman and member of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a fisheries advocacy group with concerns about wind growth.

Raimondo said she was proud of how Rhode Island worked with its fishing industry to build what’s currently the nation’s only utility-scale wind farm, Block Island Wind.

“They were super anxious, as you are, about what would happen to fish migration patterns when you put the turbines in the middle of the ocean,” she said. “It worked out because we listened to them and we really looked hard at all the data.”

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

Pandemic accelerates major shifts in China’s seafood marketplace

April 27, 2021 — Long a proponent of sourcing more seafood from overseas, China’s central government has shifted its strategy in response to pressures related to COVID-19.

China continues to encourage seafood imports, which have long been seen as a means of dampening consumer price inflation. Recently, China reduced the tariff on frozen cod from 7 percent to 2 percent, while duties on ribbonfish, frozen crab, and frozen small shrimp were also reduced from 7 percent to 5 percent. The rate on live or fresh abalone imports dropped from 10 percent to 7 percent. The biggest cut was for “fertilized fish eggs,” which went from 12 to zero percent. Chinese import taxes for most seafood range from 5 percent to 7 percent, while VAT is charged at 9 percent.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Cornell To Survey Suffolk County Fishing Industry About Pandemic Recovery

April 27, 2021 — The Cornell Cooperative and Suffolk County will survey the commercial fishing industry on Long Island. They will recommend ways for fishermen to recover from the pandemic-related shut down of restaurants and seafood markets across the state.

“They work to be able to provide this food for the nation. And COVID, just basically — in New York, especially where 90% of our seafood market is New York City restaurants that were completely shuttered,” Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, said.

In 2019, Long Island commercial fishermen landed over 19 million pounds of fish valued at over $27 million. Then, the pandemic cut market prices for fish in half. Commercial fishing is a more than $50 million industry on Long Island and employs more than 650 people.

Read the full story at WSHU

NOAA Keeps Deploying Fishery Observers But With Limits Amid Pandemic

April 27, 2021 — Considered essential workers, federal fishery observers have continued monitoring Pacific commercial operations during the pandemic, but COVID-19 restrictions have forced them to reduce — or even cease — operations in some areas.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration dispatches observers to travel aboard fishing vessels to monitor the crew’s practices and what they catch – including any bycatch of endangered species. The goal is to preserve fish stocks and protect maritime ecosystems.

“Providing seafood to the country is an essential function, and adequate monitoring of our fisheries is important to the process,” NOAA spokeswoman Celeste Hanley said. “NOAA Fisheries has processes in place to maintain fishery operations and the monitoring necessary for sustainable management.”

However, fears of coronavirus spread prompted the agency to announce in June that it would give its regional administrators, office directors and science center directors the ability to temporarily waive observer requirements for vessels on a case-by-case basis based on local conditions.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Some Delaware Fishermen Remain Hopeful Amid Potential of Federal Money, Busy Summer

April 26, 2021 — On a recent sunny afternoon in April, groups of people sat on the edge of the dock at Anglers Marina in Lewes, where large charter and fishing boats loomed on blocks behind them.

The captains, crew members and other anglers at the marina are preparing for an expected busy spring and summer after the COVID-19 pandemic spurred activity in some parts of the industry, while slowing and suspending it in others.

Read the full story at Seafood News

IFFO: More marine ingredients essential to feeding post-COVID markets

April 22, 2021 — The seafood industry’s managing of the COVID-19 crisis can be used as a blueprint for how it can meet other challenges it will face in the future, according to IFFO, The Marine Ingredients Organization Director General Petter Martin Johannessen.

In an IFFO webinar on 20 April, Johannessen said COVID-19 presented the seafood industry with unprecdented challenges, but also gave an opportunity to adapt the way that it works. And with the expectation that there will be continued – or possibly accelerated – market growth once the pandemic subsides, the industry has the ability to lock in improved practices for the future, he said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ISSF Publishes Annual Report Highlighting 2020 Accomplishments for Sustainable Tuna Fisheries

April 22, 2021 — The following was released by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation:

 The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) released its 2020 annual report today, titled Staying the Course, which presents the organization’s tuna-fishery sustainability achievements during an unprecedented year of challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The ISSF team did more than just ‘keep on keepin’ on,’ although that would have been accomplishment enough for any individual or organization in 2020,” ISSF President Susan Jackson remarks in the report. “We undeniably hit our stride. We marshalled the discipline, tools, and resourcefulness that we long ago developed as a decentralized, global team. To stay informed and connected while sheltering in place, we made the most of technologies both innovative and tried-and-true.”

Staying the Course reviews ISSF’s continued cross-sector collaborations, marine research projects and advocacy efforts to identify and promote best practices in tuna and ocean conservation with fishers, tuna companies, and Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs). The report also covers ISSF’s activities with environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), scientific agencies and more.

Staying the Course Highlights

Two members of the ISSF Scientific Advisory Committee and Environmental Stakeholder Committee contributed feature articles for the report on timely topics. Dr. Andrew A. Rosenberg. Director, Center for Science and Democracy, Union of Concerned Scientists and Member, ISSF Scientific Advisory Committee, authors “Transparency Matters.” Sara Lewis, Director, Traceability Division, FishWise and Member, ISSF Environmental Stakeholder Committee, contributes “Social Responsibility & Sustainable Seafood.”

Video content and downloadable graphics are available throughout Staying the Course. The report also explores these milestone accomplishments:

  • The launch of VOSI, a public vessel list verifying participation in MSC-certified fisheries and fishery improvement projects (FIPs)
  • The adoption of a conservation measure addressing social and labor policies for seafood companies
  • Biodegradable fish aggregating device (bioFAD) research and fisher-scientist work on bycatch-mitigation best practices, conducted despite pandemic constraints

Conservation Measures & Commitments Compliance Report

Also included in Staying the Course are key findings of the ISSF Annual Conservation Measures & Commitments Compliance Report, which ISSF has published in coordination with the annual report.

The ISSF Annual Conservation Measures & Commitments Compliance Report shows a conformance rate of 99.4 percent by 26 ISSF participating companies as of March 2021. It tracks companies’ progress in conforming with ISSF conservation measures (CM) like these:

Three measures were newly in effect for the 2020 audit period, and all 26 companies were in full conformance with them:

As part of its commitment to transparency and accountability, ISSF engages third-party auditor MRAG Americas to audit participating companies to assess their compliance with ISSF’s conservation measures. MRAG Americas conducts independent auditing based on a rigorous audit protocol.

In addition to a summary report, MRAG Americas issues individual company reports that detail each organization’s compliance with ISSF’s conservation measures. ISSF publishes these individual company compliance reports on its website.

Labor shortage leaves restaurants, distributors in the lurch

April 20, 2021 — There appears to be significant pent-up demand for Americans wanting to dine out, but restaurants and foodservice distributors face a weighty new dilemma: how to find enough employees to service returning customers. Food and seafood distributors are also facing a myriad of transportation and supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Warmer weather, stepped-up vaccinations, economic stimulus payments, and people just wanting to get out of the house after quarantine are pushing up traffic to restaurants, Technomic Managing Principal Joe Pawlak said during the Food Institute webinar, “State of the Industry – 2021 Supply Disruption” this week.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: Annual blessing remembers Sitkans ‘who go down to the sea in ships’

April 20, 2021 — A spring tradition resumed in Sitka on Friday (4-16-21) — on what felt like the first real day of spring in Southeast: The Annual Blessing of the Fleet.

Southeast Alaska Women in Fisheries organizes the event, in conjunction with the Sitka Lutheran Church and St. Michael’s Orthodox Cathedral. Last year the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the blessing, and this year the traditional large ceremony at Crescent Harbor was replaced with a scaled-back ceremony at the Mariner’s Wall at ANB Harbor.

Read the full story at KCAW

Clammers digging through pandemic, but shellfish are fewer

April 19, 2021 — Chad Coffin has spent the coronavirus pandemic much as he has the previous several decades: on the mudflats of Maine, digging for the clams that draw tourists to seafood shacks around New England.

But he’s running into a problem: few clams.

“There just isn’t the clams that there used to be,” Coffin said. “I don’t want to be negative, I’m just trying to be realistic.”

It’s a familiar problem experienced by New England’s clamdiggers. More New Englanders have dug in the tidal mudflats during the last year, but the clams aren’t cooperating.

The coronavirus pandemic has inspired more people in the Northeastern states, particularly Maine and Massachusetts, to dig for soft-shell clams, which are also called “steamers” and have been used to make chowder and fried clams for generations. The era of social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic is conducive to the often solitary work, said Coffin, the president of the Maine Clammers Association, which represents commercial clammers.

But the U.S. haul of clams has dipped in recent years as the industry has contended with clam-eating predators and warming waters, and 2020 and early 2021 have been especially difficult, industry members said.

Read the full story at the Associated Press