Saving Seafood

CALIFORNIA: Humboldt Bay crab fishing season ‘devastated’ by COVID-19

March 26, 2020 — Crab fishing in Humboldt County has seen better days, but it’s never been as bad as this, several fishermen said Tuesday.

“We could use one word: it’s devastating,” said Harrison Ibach, president of the Humboldt Fishermen’s Marketing Association. “Everything has come to a screaming halt. And it’s not just the crab industry, it’s the entire seafood industry.”

Ibach and others estimated that the best market price for a pound of crab in Humboldt County — from the few buyers left — stands around $2 per pound, down from $3 at the start of this year’s season. For Ibach, “that’s the lowest I’ve seen in many, many years.”

The crabbing season naturally slows down in March, but the global coronavirus pandemic has brought unprecedented new levels of decline to the industry, fishermen said. It started when China — a top shipping location for live crabs — stopped taking in product from Humboldt Bay fishermen after the virus began wreaking havoc in the country.

In the couple of months that followed, the domestic market has similarly plummeted. Now that the ongoing statewide shelter-in-place order has closed most restaurants, almost no one in Humboldt County is buying crab.

Read the full story at The Times-Standard

The best places to buy fresh seafood online in 2020

March 25, 2020 — With much of the country practicing some form of social distancing and attempting to keeping indoors whenever possible, delivery services have become all that more useful. From booze to groceries, butcher meats and even fully-prepared meals , these services are providing a level of safety the public, especially for those at high risk of becoming sick. The following is our pre-COVID-19 list of the best seafood delivery services in 2020 to keep a steady flow of healthy fish coming, even in these unnerving times. Be sure to check that the services listed are accepting new customers and deliver to your area.

There are lots of reasons to buy more seafood. Generally speaking, fish and seafood (wild caught in particular) are healthier both for our bodies and the planet than beef, chicken, pork and other meats (all now largely factory-farmed, often using growth hormones and other dubious practices). But for every reason to eat more fish and seafood, there seems to be an obstacle in the way — cost and access to name a few.

It might sound counterintuitive to order seafood online but a bevy of new members of the online seafood industry are proving that fish and seafood delivery might just be the best way to get fresh and affordable seafood into your home, especially when living far from fished waters. “Fresh seafood delivery” is not an oxymoron. A reliable seafood market (or seafood restaurant) with a consistently fresh bounty of salmon, halibut, crab and other shellfish is a treasure, to be certain, but not every town or neighborhood has one, and if you live far from the ocean things get even dicier.

This score of online ordering seafood delivery companies offer everything from high-quality salmon, jumbo shrimp, gulf shrimp, clams (and clam chowder), oysters, cape porpoise lobster and crab legs to harder-to-find fish species like monkfish and grouper, all flash-frozen, expertly packaged and delivered right to your door as a one-time order or recurring subscription. The new players are finding innovative ways to ensure maximum freshness and accountability and supporting sustainable seafood, with many now providing detailed records about exactly where the fish and seafood came from, when it was caught, how far it traveled and what sorts of fishing practices have been employed.

Read the full story at CNET

NFI Red Crab Council Remains Committed to Improving Chinese Crab Fishery

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

The National Fisheries Institute’s Red Crab Council will continue to fund and support its Fisheries Improvement Project (FIP) in China. The comprehensive FIP is focused on improving crab production in Fujian Province, the leading harvesting region in China for red crab.

“For so many reasons the operating climate around red crab, from a trade perspective, is challenging these days,” said Newport International President Anjan Tharakan, the NFI Red Crab Council Chair. “It would be easy to see why companies might say they don’t want to participate in this work right now. But not one company did. This is a committed group.”

The Council’s project partner on the ground in China is Ocean Outcomes (O2), who coordinates with fishery stakeholders, government interests and the China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance to keep the FIP moving in the right direction.

The NFI Red Crab Council funds the work by assessing a fee on each of its members based on the number of pounds they import each quarter.

“Like most FIPs, this project has its challenges on the water, but when your primary source of funding off the water is directly dependent on trade volume, and tariffs enter the picture, that makes things even more challenging,” said O2 Founder and Senior Advisor Rich Lincoln. “To be able to continue the work in China with local fishery stakeholders will allow us to build on the momentum we’ve generated and ensure this important FIP remains on track.”

The status of the Fujian Red Crab FIP is updated biannually on fisheryprogress.org. Its 2019 work focused on implementation of catch, biological and effort data collection, harvest strategy evaluation, and lost fishing gear assessment.

The NFI Red Crab Council is the leading precompetitive collaboration effort focused solely on the sustainability of Red Swimming Crab. The Council is committed to collaborating on Red Crab Fisheries Improvement Projects globally.

West Coast Dungeness Crab Stable or Increasing Even With Intensive Harvest, Research Shows

March 5, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The West Coast Dungeness crab fishery doesn’t just support the most valuable annual harvest of seafood on the West Coast. It’s a fishery that just keeps on giving.

Fishermen from California to Washington caught almost all the available legal-size male Dungeness crab each year in the last few decades. However, the crab population has either remained stable or continued to increase, according to the first thorough population estimate of the West Coast Dungeness stocks.

“The catches and abundance in Central California especially are increasing, which is pretty remarkable to see year after year,” said Kate Richerson, a research scientist at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. Richerson is the lead author of the new study published in the journal Fisheries Research. “There’s reason to be optimistic that this fishery will continue to be one of the most productive and on the West Coast.”

Other recent research has suggested that the West Coast’s signature shellfish could suffer in the future from ocean acidification and other effects related to climate change. That remains a concern, Richerson said, but the study did not detect obvious signs of population-level impacts yet.

Read the full release here

Northern Wind launching new value-added seafood line featuring 16 products

March 5, 2020 — New Bedford, Massachusetts-based seafood supplier Northern Wind is launching a new line of culinary-inspired seafood products under its Bon Cuisine brand this month.

Sixteen offerings comprise the latest Bon Cuisine line, including Zucchini & Smoked Salmon Fritters, Spinach & Cheese Salmon Kiev, Salmon En Croute, Pre-fried Crab Bites, Raw Garlic Butter Shrimp Skewers, Pre-Fried Shrimp Zucchini Fritters, and a Hoki Fish Taco Kit. Catering to consumer demand for adventurous flavors and ready-to-cook convenience, the new range “offers customers a trendy restaurant quality seafood option,” Northern Wind explained in a 2 March press release.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Chesapeake Bay crab industry pleads for more temporary foreign workers

March 4, 2020 — Maryland and Virginia seafood industry leaders say they won’t have enough workers to process crabs this season unless the federal government once again raises its cap on temporary foreign workers.

Federal immigration officials announced last month that they had doled out the national limit of 33,000 work visas, which are in effect for six months beginning April 1. That was far short of the nearly 100,000 slots that employers had sought to fill.

In Maryland, seafood processors say they received roughly one-third of the 450 visas they need for this season, which also kicks off April 1. The shortage, they warn, could force some of the affected processing plants to close their doors for this season, with the possibility that they might never reopen because their customers and suppliers will have moved on.

Several dozen watermen, crab industry leaders and local elected officials gathered March 2 inside a picking house on Hooper’s Island in rural Dorchester County, MD, to passionately plea for the Trump administration to release 64,000 more visas, the limit set by Congress on how many can be added.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

JOHN SACKTON: How coronavirus could impact North American seafood

February 20, 2020 — A lot of people in the seafood industry are thinking about coronavirus (COVID-19). The major impact has been on shipping, tourism, and travel, all of which are vital to the North American seafood industry.

The question is whether this is a short-term event like a hurricane or political strike that impacts one area of our supply chain, or if this is a year-long global pandemic, leading to big changes in behavior in our markets.

Clearly we don’t know yet, despite people like the CEO of Mowi saying it is a short term event. However, we can already see some supply and demand disruptions, and we can prepare for others. After thinking about this for the last couple of weeks, here are some preliminary ideas.

Some products disrupted more than others initially

Most seafood products have not suddenly changed in price over the past few weeks. If you look at Urner Barry’s dashboard, the majority of items remain green, showing rising or steady prices.

Read the full opinion piece at Undercurrent News

Crab, sole, plaice among nine seafood items receiving exemptions from US tariffs

February 4, 2020 — Nine seafood items have received special exclusions from tariffs placed by the United States on goods imported from China.

The items – which must be individually frozen or frozen in blocks to qualify, depending on the harmonized tariff system (HTS) classification code – include Alaskan sole, Alaskan plaice, flounder, sole, slipper lobster, king crab, snow crab, Dungeness crab, and meat from crabs other than king, snow, Dungeness, and swimming crab.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska governor’s budget proposal would trim some fishery programs

February 3, 2020 — Cuts proposed by Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy to his state’s Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) next fiscal budget could be felt in a number of commercial fisheries, reports Alaska Fish Radio‘s Laine Welch.

Dunleavy, a Republican elected in 2018, has proposed nipping $1 million next year from the agency’s nearly $67m budget, of which $36m comes from state general funds, according to Welch.

That would mean the closure of an office in Southeast Alaska and the elimination of red king crab assessments. Cuts also are on deck for stock assessments for Southeast urchin and sea cucumber fisheries, which will likely reduce dive time, Welch reported.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

The Pacific Ocean is so acidic that it’s dissolving Dungeness crabs’ shells

January 28, 2020 — The Pacific Ocean is becoming more acidic, and the cash-crabs that live in its coastal waters are some of its first inhabitants to feel its effects.

The Dungeness crab is vital to commercial fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, but lower pH levels in its habitat are dissolving parts of its shell and damaging its sensory organs, a new study found.

Their injuries could impact coastal economies and forebode the obstacles in a changing sea. And while the results aren’t unexpected, the study’s authors said the damage to the crabs is premature: The acidity wasn’t predicted to damage the crabs this quickly.

“If the crabs are affected already, we really need to make sure we pay much more attention to various components of the food chain before it is too late,” said study lead author Nina Bednarsek, a senior scientist with the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project.

The findings were published this month in the journal Science of the Total Environment and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The agency studies ocean acidification and how changing pH levels are impacting coasts.

Read the full story at CNN