Saving Seafood

Map Of Gulf Of Mexico Fisheries Prepares For Future Disasters

July 10, 2018 — A study seven years in the making by University of South Florida researchers has created a map of how many species live in the Gulf of Mexico. This will give experts an idea of how much damage would take place from a future oil spill.

The study took so long to complete because 12 separate expeditions were needed to cover the entire Gulf, including the waters off Mexico and Cuba. USF biologist and professor Steve Murawski said this information will be priceless.

“One of the criticisms of the Deepwater Horizon episode is before the spill, we had no environmental baseline for many of the things that are of interest and importance, and understanding the environment,” he said, “and now we have that baseline.”

Surprisingly, Murawski said researchers didn’t see a significant dropoff in the numbers of fish around the oil spill site, except for red snapper and hake.

Read the full story at WLRN

Reminder: Review Continues for Red Snapper Opening in the South Atlantic for 2018

July 10, 2018 — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

Fishermen are reminded that harvest and/or possession of red snapper is prohibited in federal waters off the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the east coast of Florida. The fishery remains closed as NOAA Fisheries and the Secretary of Commerce continue final review of Amendment 43 to the Snapper Grouper Fishery Management Plan for the South Atlantic Region. A Fishery Bulletin regarding approval is expected from NOAA Fisheries and the Secretary within the next two weeks. Given the timeline for the review process, it is likely that, IF the amendment is approved, a red snapper season would begin in August 2018.

The amendment specifies a total annual catch limit (ACL) for red snapper of 42,510 fish, with 29,656 fish allocated to the recreational sector. The bag limit for red snapper would be 1 fish per person/day with no minimum size limit. The recreational season would be weekends only (Friday, Saturday and Sunday). The number of weekend openings for the recreational fishery would be determined by NOAA Fisheries and announced in advance. The commercial fishery would open with a 75-pound trip limit (gutted weight) with no minimum size limit, and close when the commercial ACL is met or projected to be met. The Council approved Amendment 43 for Secretarial review in September 2017. A benchmark stock assessment for red snapper will be conducted in 2020.

Sign up for E-News from the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s website at www.safmc.net and receive Fishery Bulletins from NOAA Fisheries’ Southeast Regional Office at http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/index.html.

FLORIDA: China Trade War Hits Keys Lobster Fishermen

July 9, 2018 — On a commercial fishing dock outside of Marathon, a television sat atop a makeshift table allowing a small crew of workers to watch the latest World Cup soccer match while repairing lobster traps and painting buoys.

With lobster season a few weeks away, thousands of traps were waiting to be loaded on boats and dropped in the waters up and down the Florida Keys.

“Gooooooal!,” the play-by-play announcer suddenly blared in Spanish, as Sweden scored the second of three goals on Mexico. The largely Mexican crew stared at the television in disbelief.

Boat captain Gary Nichols wasn’t paying much attention to the game. He was trying to cope with another world event – the growing U.S. trade war with China.

“It’s starting to get a little scary,” said Nichols, a commercial fisherman in the Keys for more than 30 years.

On Friday, the United States imposed $34 billion in tariffs on a variety of Chinese products, including computers, dishwashers and medical devices.

In return, China immediately fired back with $34 billion in tariffs on U.S. goods, such as pork, poultry, soybeans, and corn. And tucked into the list of 545 products getting slapped with a 25 percent tariff by China were Florida lobsters.

“I was really praying that wasn’t going to occur,” Nichols said. “And at this moment I don’t know what is going to happen, we’re all just in limbo.”

Read the full story at CBS Miami

FLORIDA: Shark fishing workshops, red snapper announcement coming soon

July 9, 2018 — In April, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission bridged a controversial topic among Florida’s millions of beachgoers and anglers — shore-based shark fishing. Emotional public comment presented by more than 25 speakers convinced the 7-member governor-appointed volunteer commission to request FWC staff to develop more comprehensive regulations to address shore-based shark fishing from the Sunshine State’s more than 2,000 miles of beaches.

That day in April, no one logged any comment in support of shore-based shark fishing. And I warned you all, if you don’t show up, your voice will not be heard.

Now, the FWC has announced a series of public workshops around the state beginning next week to further address the practice as a step in the process towards developing regulations aimed at conserving sharks better and protecting beachgoers, too.

The problem, according to recommendations provided to the FWC by David Shiffman (@WhySharksMatter on Twitter), noted shark researcher at Simon Fraser University and marine conservation biologist and science writer, is several species commonly caught from the beach do not survive the fight very well, and if they do, they may not survive the photo session or release.

“Two of the top ways that angling stress kills fish are long fight times which exhaust the fish and air exposure,” Shiffman wrote in recommendations he provided to FWC — “Promoting Conservation-Friendly Shark Handling Practices in the Fishing Capital of the World: A Science-Based Proposal to Revise Florida’s Land-Based Shark Fishing Regulations.”

Read the full story at Treasure Coast News

Trade war with China may take a new victim: South Florida lobster fishermen

July 6, 2018 — First Irma, now a trade war.

Less than a year after Hurricane Irma tore through the Florida Keys, lobster fishermen are facing another hit from the trade war with China.

Tariffs set to take effect Friday threaten to bump up prices by 25 percent — an increase that could cool demand in the lucrative Chinese market, say experts.

“This is a major impact on our fishery,” said Jeff Cramer, who fishes out of Conch Key. “And just a year after we got wiped out by the worst hurricane we’ve had in recent memory.”

Before the Chinese market picked up a decade ago, the going rate for a pound of lobster was $3. Today, fishermen can get between $10 to $20 per pound from Chinese buyers, and commercial fishermen like Cramer now send up to 75 percent of their Florida spiny lobsters to China.

“The Chinese market saved the fisherman’s ass,” said Cramer.

But with the boom came a dependence: Cramer’s Chinese buyers say that retailers have no appetite for absorbing the cost of the tariff, meaning he likely will need to lower his prices or risk losing his biggest buyers when the lobster commercial fishing season opens Aug. 6.

When possible, businesses incorporate tariff costs into consumer prices. For example, steel, lumber and aluminum tariffs imposed by the Trump administration in the past year have pushed up building costs, affecting home prices as well. But margins in the lobster trade are already slim, and Cramer worries that competition from Australia and Brazil will toss Florida out of the market if prices go up.

Bob Jones to retire from Southeastern Fisheries Association after five decades

June 28, 2018 — Bob Jones, the longtime executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association (SFA), will retire at the end of 2018, the Gulf Seafood Foundation announced.

Jones’ career serving Gulf of Mexico fisheries in the United States has spanned five decades, beginning when he was a boy growing up in Florida gillnetting for shrimp. As a teenager, Jones worked in St. Augustine on a shrimp boat and as a live bait fisherman – stations that would eventually inspire him to hone his fishing industry chops by traveling across the southeast region of the United States to meet with fishermen and wholesalers.

Jones reportedly “knew it all” back in 1964, when he was first hired by the Southeastern Fisheries Association. His story changed drastically, however, as he spent more time with the organization, he said, getting to know the harvesters, packers, processors, distributors, and restaurants committed to preserving the fisheries resources around the Gulf and beyond.

During Jones’ storied tenure leading the Southeastern Fisheries Association – a non-profit fisheries trade association focused on defending, protecting, and enhancing the commercial fishing industry in the southeastern United States – he spearheaded an influential red snapper tagging program in the South Atlantic and lead the Florida Seafood Marketing program (funded through a self-imposed fee on wholesale seafood dealers and fishermen) to success, keeping king and Spanish mackerel available to the market and establishing the Tortugas shrimp nursery off of Key West.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

May Gulf of Mexico Shrimp Landings Largest Since May 2009

June 26, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The National Marine Fisheries Service is reporting May 2018 Gulf of Mexico shrimp landings (all species, headless) of 16.281 million pounds compared to 14.585 million pounds in May 2017. This is the largest May total since 16.288 million pounds were landed in May 2009.

The Louisiana fishery led all Gulf states in May with landings totaling 10.369 million pounds. This is considerable since there hasn’t been a single production month in excess of 10 million pounds in that state since June 2014.

The cumulative total for the entire Gulf now stands at 28.14 million pounds; 2.1 million pounds or seven percent below the Jan-May 2017 total of 30.25 million pounds. The trend is still notable as landings in each of the last two months have exceeded the prior five-year average and the 2018 cumulative total stands 5.2 million pounds or 23 percent above the cumulative total of the prior five-year average.

As you would expect, ex-vessel prices are lower, especially for 21/25 and smaller count shrimp; and the Urner Barry markets have come under considerable pressure in recent sessions as seasonal production expands and where carryover inventory exists. Weakness is evident throughout the complex, but especially on 16/20 and smaller headless shell-on shrimp, and all-size PUD’s and P&D’s.

This story was originally published in Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

 

East and West Coast NCFC Members: ‘H.R. 200 Will Create Flexibility Without Compromising Conservation’

June 25, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Today, East and West Coast members of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC) submitted a letter to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in support of H.R. 200, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, which would update the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

The letter, which was also sent to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Emeritus Don Young, and other top Congressional officials, states that H.R. 200 will “create flexibility without compromising conservation.”

“We want a Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) that allows for both sustainable fisheries management, and the long-term preservation of our nation’s fishing communities,” the groups wrote. “We firmly believe that Congress can meet these goals by allowing for more flexibility in management, eliminating arbitrary rebuilding timelines, and adding other reforms that better take into account the complex challenges facing commercial fishermen.”

The letter does not include support from the NCFC’s Florida, Gulf of Mexico, and South Atlantic members, which supported the legislation from the beginning, but withdrew their support due to a late change to the Manager’s Amendment that would negatively impact their region. The NCFC’s East and West Coast members continue to support the bill on its overall merits, but share the concerns of Gulf and South Atlantic fishermen over this late alteration.

Organizations affiliated with the NCFC do not accept money from ENGOs, and represent the authentic views of the U.S. commercial fishing industry.

The letter signers represent the American Scallop Association, Atlantic Red Crab Company, Atlantic Capes Fisheries, BASE Seafood, California Wetfish Producers Association, Cape Seafood, Garden State Seafood Association, Inlet Seafood, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Lund’s Fisheries, North Carolina Fisheries Association, Rhode Island Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, Seafreeze Ltd., Town Dock, West Coast Seafood Processors Association, and Western Fishboat Owners Association.

Read the full letter here

 

ENVIRONMENTALISTS SUE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IN TAMPA OVER OFFSHORE DRILLING

June 22, 2018 — Earthjustice, on behalf of three conservation groups, sued the Trump administration Thursday (June 21) alleging that it failed to complete a legally required consultation about offshore drilling’s harms to threatened and endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico.

The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are required under the Endangered Species Act to complete a consultation with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on its oversight of oil and gas operations that could impact threatened and endangered species. The last time the agencies completed a consultation, called a biological opinion, was in 2007, three years before the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster which led to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, according to Earthjustice.

With the lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Tampa, the Gulf Restoration Network, Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity are challenging the agencies for unreasonably delaying completion of a new consultation and seeking a court order to compel them to complete it within three months. A new biological opinion likely would result in additional safeguards to prevent further harm to sea turtles, whales, and other threatened and endangered species from oil and gas operations in the Gulf.

Read the full story at the Tampa Bay Reporter

Coast Guard busts Keys fishing vessel with shark fins

June 20, 2018 — A Coast Guard crew from Station Islamorada stopped a commercial fishing vessel in the Upper Keys Tuesday morning that was loaded with dismembered sharks and 11 fins.

Federal law has prohibited the practice of shark finning — where the fin is cut off the shark and the rest of the body discarded — since 2000.

The 40-foot vessel, the Miss Shell, was stopped near South Sound Creek, which is near John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon Murray. The initial stop was for improper display of navigational lights, according to a Coast Guard press release.

Crew from a Coast Guard patrol boat, which included an officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, boarded the Miss Shell and found the fins and shark carcasses.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has taken over the investigation into the case. There is no immediate information about arrests.

Read the full story at the Florida Keys News