Saving Seafood

Scientists: Record abundance of underwater grasses shows Chesapeake Bay initiatives are working

April 25, 2018 — Underwater grasses that provide vital places for fish and crabs to live and hide from predators covered more than 100,000 acres of the Chesapeake Bay in 2017 — the most ever recorded in a 34-year-old aerial survey, scientists said Tuesday.

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science found 104,843 acres of grasses across the estuary, the first time since it began its survey in 1984 that vegetative coverage surpassed the 100,000-acre threshold.

It was a third straight year that grass acreage grew, gaining by 5 percent from 2016 to 2017.

The Patapsco River was among the areas with the strongest grass growth. Acreage jumped more than three times, from 3 acres in 2016 to 14 acres in 2017.

Officials with the Chesapeake Bay Program, the federal office that released the data, said the survey results show that its work with bay watershed states to limit pollution is working. The federal-state partnership adopted a “blueprint” in 2010 to reverse decades of environmental degradation and restore the bay’s health by 2025.

Read the full story at the Baltimore Sun

 

Oregon adopts new rules for crab

April 24, 2018 — Harmful algal blooms complicated commercial Dungeness crab seasons on the Oregon Coast for the past three seasons, threatening the viability of the state’s most valuable fishery.

Now fishery managers and industry representatives hope new rules will allow more flexibility for where and how fishing closures occur when toxin levels spike, as well as improve the state’s ability to track contaminated crab through the seafood market.

Traceability measures were put in place on a temporary basis last December. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission made the rules permanent at a meeting Friday in Astoria. The five commissioners present all voted in favor of adopting the new rules, though Commissioner Bruce Buckmaster of Astoria said he did not want to inadvertently penalize companies who already might have efficient tracking systems in place.

He supported the “intent and efforts” of the rules, though, saying, “It is of benefit to the fishing fleet, it’s a benefit to the processors.”

Representatives from West Coast seafood processing giant Pacific Seafood attended Friday’s meeting and had advocated for the ability to use the company’s existing electronic tracking system. They also did not want to have to track the date of crab landed under an evisceration order — when crab is sold with the guts removed. The company’s representatives said it could be difficult to provide these landing dates given the high volume of seafood the company handles and mixed lots with large date ranges that might be pulled out of storage.

Read the full story at the Daily Astorian

 

Trump administration seeks dismissal of Northeast Canyons and Seamounts monument lawsuit

April 19, 2018 — Despite its willingness to review the designations made by its predecessor, the Trump Administration is at least defending former President Obama’s ability to create national monuments. That’s according to a filing in federal court earlier this week.

Jeffrey H. Wood, acting assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources division, entered a motion on 16 April to dismiss a lawsuit filed last year by the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association. The Lobstermen and other fishing groups filed the suit in response to the Obama Administration designating the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in September 2016.

The Northeast Canyons was the first national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean, and with that designation, commercial fishing – with certain exclusions for red crab and lobster fishing – is not permitted in the nearly 5,000-square-mile area. Crab and lobster fishing would continue until a seven-year permit expires.

Last year, Trump ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review the monuments, which were created under the Antiquities Act. While Zinke has not recommended removing any designation for marine monuments, he has encouraged Trump to open monuments for more commercial fishing opportunities.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Regulators push for rope removal to save North Atlantic right whale

April 18, 2018 — In a multinational drive to protect the North Atlantic right whale, fisheries along the east coasts of the Canada and the United States are being mandated, legislated, or volunteering to reduce rope use as much as possible.

The Canadian government has instituted steps that requires snow crab fishermen use less rope, use more easily breakable rope and report any lost gear as soon as possible. These conditions apply to all fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

While Canada’s federal effort has been heavily on the snow crab fishery, the Prince Edward Island Fishermen’s Association (PEIFA) recently laid out its own plan to reduce potential entanglements and involvements with the endangered whales.

No right whale has been found entangled in lobster gear, but nevertheless, the lobster fishermen in Area 24, along Prince Edward Islands’s North Shore, have agreed to voluntarily reduce what the gear they put in the water by at least 25 percent – setting their traps in bunches of six rather than a one trap set or smaller bunches.

“We feel we’re eliminating somewhere around 16,000 Styrofoam buoys out of the system and each of those buoys is responsible for 130 or 140 feet of rope, which go from the buoy down to the trap,” Francis Morrissey, of the Area 24 Lobster Advisory Board, said. “So we feel that by doing this, there’s 16,000 less chances for marine mammals to get entangled.”

South of the border, an op-ed in The Boston Globe by John K. Bullard, the retiring regional administrator for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, challenged the U.S. lobster industry to take the lead in heading off the extinction of the North Atlantc right whale.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Court Battle Continues Over Atlantic Ocean’s First-Ever National Monument

April 18, 2018 — Commercial fishing groups are joining in federal court to challenge the creation of the Atlantic Ocean’s first-ever marine national monument. But the federal government is now asking for the case to be tossed out.

At stake is the future of roughly 5,000 square miles off the coast of Massachusetts, called the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts.

President Barack Obama used the federal Antiquities Act to protect the zone in 2016. His office said it contained critical wildlife habitat.

The order stopped commercial fishing there, but did allow red crab and lobster fisheries a seven-year window to close up shop.

Read the full story at New England Public Radio

 

Lobster fishery reduces floating rope in hopes of protecting North Atlantic right whales

April 4, 2018 — Lobster fishers on P.E.I. are taking new measures this season to help protect the endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglement.

In January, Fisheries and Oceans Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced changes to the snow crab fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to protect the right whales, including reducing the amount of rope floating on the surface and mandatory reporting of all lost gear.

Fishermen are also required to report any sightings of the endangered whales.

At least 18 North Atlantic right whales died in Canadian and U.S. waters last year.

Necropsies on seven of the carcasses determined four whales died of blunt force trauma from collisions with ships, while the other three likely died from entanglements in fishing gear.

There are only an estimated 450 to 500 of the whales left in the world.

‘Delicate balance’

This winter, the P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association set up a special working group focused on helping to protect the right whale, with members representing all 13 species fished around Prince Edward Island.

“It’s a delicate balance between the fishery and the survival of these species,” said Melanie Giffin, a marine biologist and program planner with PEIFA.

“So our members will do everything they can in terms of reducing rope and to try to help reduce those entanglements for the whales.”

Giffin said most of the measures are being mandated by the federal department of fisheries.

“There’s a reduction in the amount of floating rope on the surface of the water and that’s being done in numerous species,” she said.

‘It’s not specific that it has to be lead rope but the rope needs to be sinking.”

In the snow crab fishery, there will also be colour coding of ropes, with different colours woven into the rope to identify where it’s from, including P.E.I.

“That’s to ensure that if there is a whale entangled, we have an idea of where that whale was entangled,” Giffin said.

“If they’re all entangled in the same area, then maybe management measures need to be looked more closely in that area, rather than the Gulf as a whole.”

There is no colour coding for lobster ropes yet, she added.

Read the full story at CBC News

 

Atlantic marine monument suit can move forward

March 30, 2018 — Fishing organizations are set to proceed with their suit against the federal government to reopen fishing grounds in New England.

President Obama established the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Marine Monument, which included a blanket commercial fishing ban in an area that was already closed to some gear types under the New England Fishery Management Council’s jurisdiction.

The lawsuit has been held up since April 2017 by a Trump administration review of several national monuments created under the Obama administration. Recent filings at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia say the hold was lifted in mid-March.

The lawsuit argues that Obama never had the authority to establish the monument under the the Antiquities Act, given that the ocean is not “land owned or controlled by the federal government,” as the act stipulates.

In December, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended making changes to marine national monument policies and proposed shifting the responsibility for controlling fishing within the monument to the regional fishery management councils.

“No president should use the authority under the act to restrict public access, prevent hunting and fishing, burden private land, or eliminate traditional land uses, unless such action is needed to protect the objects,” wrote Zinke in his recommendation.

Since Zinke’s official recommendations, no public action has been taken by the administration to address his statement.

Fishing industry leaders involved with the suit are ready to pick up where they left off.

“The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association is optimistically encouraged, given the forward movement of the lawsuit,” said Beth Casoni, executive director of The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association. “We are hopeful to regain the fishing grounds that were taken away from the fleet and to set a legal precedent through the court that will prevent any further draconian actions against the fleet.”

While lobster and deep-sea red crab fisheries were granted a 7-year grandfather period, all other commercial fishing was banned when the 5,000-square-mile monument was established in order to protect deep-sea corals and vulnerable species like North Atlantic right whales.

“To lose a big area that we have historically fished has quite an impact on quite a lot of people here,” Jon Williams, a New Bedford, Mass., crabber and a member of plaintiff group Offshore Lobstermen’s Association told the Associated Press.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Canada issues safeguards to protect right whales

March 29, 2018 — OTTOWA, Canada — New restrictions on snow crab fishing, along with new restrictions on ship speeds and $1 million more each year to free marine mammals from fishing gear, have been put in place this year to protect North Atlantic right whales, Canadian government officials announced Wednesday.

“We’re confident that these measures will have a very significant impact in protecting right whales,” Fisheries and Oceans Canada Minister Dominic LeBlanc said.

But, LeBlanc said, he and Transport Minister Marc Garneau are prepared to modify the new restrictions or add more as the weeks and months unfold.

Canada was under pressure to act after the deaths of 12 right whales last summer in the Gulf of St. Lawrence from June to September, most either hit by ships or from gear entanglement.

“Our resolve is to avoid the kind of situation we had last year,” LeBlanc said.

That resolve in Canada is encouraging, said attorney Jane Davenport with the Defenders of Wildlife, a U.S.-based environmental group that with two other groups have sued the National Marine Fisheries Service and two other agencies for failing to protect right whales from lobster gear entanglements.

With the 12 dead in Canada last year and at least four identified dead off Cape Cod and the Islands, and with only five births, the North Atlantic right whale population is expected to dip below 451 from 2016.

“The government of Canada may be late to the table, not realizing the risk in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but at least they’ve gotten off the stick and they’re moving forward,” said Davenport, who said she worries about what she says is a slower, less-well-funded pace in the U.S. “We need a moonshot, that kind of government investment,” she said.

Biologist Mark Baumgartner, head of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, said he was encouraged by the proposed measures in Canada, which also include more airplane and boat surveys of right whales. That amount of surveillance means that any entangled or killed whales will have a good chance of being detected, Baumgartner said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

Whale deaths result in Canada’s snow crab fishery losing MSC certification

March 21, 2018 — Canada’s East Coast snow crab fishery has had its sustainable catch certification suspended by the Marine Stewardship Council, the organization announced on 20 March. Until another audit occurs in October 2018, some Maritime snow crab will not be able to display the MSC label.

The certification suspension is the result of incidents involving the deaths of 13 North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2017. Necropsies showed that three of the whales died as the result of entanglement with crab gear. The audit also found that of a further five live entanglements, four were with crab gear.

The certification suspension is the result of incidents involving the deaths of 13 North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2017. Necropsies showed that three of the whales died as the result of entanglement with crab gear. The audit also found that of a further five live entanglements, four were with crab gear.

Philip Hamilton, a research scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium, described last summer as the perfect storm when it came to right whale mortality. The whales appeared in waters where they have never been before and during a fishing season when there were more crab pots and rope in the water.

Peter Norsworthy, executive director of the Affiliation of Seafood Producers Association of Nova Scotia (ASPANS), said 2017 was an extraordinary year.

“It was a longer fishery last year because the quota was higher than it had ever been. So it took a lot longer to execute the fishery than it normally would. Normally, 75 percent of the catch is landed within the first three weeks. This year, the quota is going to be down to normal levels, about 25,000 tonnes vs last year’s 43,000 tonnes. So we fully expect it will be caught in a normal time period and finish by the end of May,” Norsworthy said. “Hopefully, with an earlier start we’ll get most of the fishing completed before the whales show up, if they show up again.”

Norsworthy said fishermen were unsure what the certification suspension will mean to individual fishermen in terms of catch prices. He said they will wait to see “how the market responds.”

“I think most buyers realize 2017 was an unusual circumstance and are fairly well-informed about what activities are being undertaken [to protect the whales],” he said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Marketing campaign aims to convince consumers that ‘ugly’ crabs can be just as tasty

March 20, 2018 — “It’s what’s on the inside that counts” is the message Alaska crab marketers are pushing to encouraging their customers to put appearances aside.

“We’re telling them to ‘get ugly,'” said Tyson Fick, executive director of the trade group, Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, speaking of the new campaign launched partnership with the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute last week at the big Seafood Expo in Boston.

The promotion showcases Alaska crabs with darker, discolored shells, or those that are scarred or adorned with barnacles that may be less visually appealing to shoppers.

“It’s the initial step in a campaign to raise awareness among retailers, restaurants and consumers,” said Jeremy Woodrow, ASMI communications director. “We’re saying ‘go ahead, tell your customers to get ugly. After all, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

“Ugly crab is safe and delicious to eat, it just isn’t as pretty,” says a flyer distributed at Boston, explaining that shell appearance varies based on crab maturity and timing of the molt. It says that shell variations demonstrate “the authentic nature of seafood caught in the wild,” and that “purchasing ugly crab is a way to support our planet’s wild resources.”

The Get Ugly team is modeling Alaska crab after similar image enhancement efforts underway by farmers.

“We’re taking a page out of the book of what some fruits and vegetable have done — that a blemish doesn’t affect the taste of the thing, and with crab, the meat fill might even be better,” Fick said, adding that avoiding food waste and improving sustainability are also part of the message.

Creating more customers for less-attractive crab also would improve fishermen’s bottom lines, as the less-pretty product drags down prices.

“It is graded at the processor and may be graded further at the repacker. There may be several grades for off-color shells depending on the species, quantity and other factors. It varies from year to year,” said Jake Jacobsen, director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange which negotiates prices for most Bering Sea crabbers.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News