Saving Seafood

Pacific Fishery Management Council to Hold Meeting In September 2019 to Adopt Management Measures for Ocean Fisheries

August 9th, 2019 — The following was published by the Pacific Fishery Management Council: 

The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) and its advisory bodies will meet September 11-18, 2019 in Boise, Idaho, to address issues related to groundfish, ecosystem, salmon, Pacific halibut, highly migratory species, habitat, and administrative matters. The meeting of the Council and its advisory entities will be held at the Riverside Hotel, 2900 Chinden Blvd., Boise, Idaho 83714; telephone, 208-343-1871.

Please see the September 11-18, 2019 Council Meeting notice on the Council’s website for meeting detail, schedule of advisory body meetings, our new E-Portal for submitting public comments, and public comment deadlines.

Key agenda items for the meeting include Council considerations to:

  • Adopt Final Rebuilding Plans for Strait of Juan de Fuca, Queets River, and Snohomish River Coho
  • Adopt a Final Preferred Alternative for Highly Migratory Species Deep-Set Buoy Gear Fishery Authorization
  • Adopt Public Review Options for Pacific Halibut 2020 Catch Sharing Plan Changes and Options for 2020 Directed Commercial Fishery Regulation Changes
  • Approve Final Groundfish Stock Assessments for 2021-2022 and Beyond
  • Adopt Initial Groundfish Harvest Specifications and a Preliminary List of Potential New Management Measures for the 2020-2021 Regulation Process
  • Adopt Final Groundfish In-season Adjustments and Consider Extending Midwater Trawl and Electronic Monitoring Exempted Fishing Permits into 2020
  • Adopt a Preliminary Preferred Alternative for Salmon Mitigation Measure in Groundfish Fisheries
  • Adopt Proposed Revisions to 2020 Harvest Specifications for Cowcod and Shortbelly Rockfish for Public Review
    For further information:

Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff at 503-820-2280; toll-free 1-866-806-7204.

Pollock scarce — and expensive — as Northeast groundfish prices fluctuate

July 25, 2019 — The Northeast groundfish fishery kicked off May 1. The federal shutdown last winter meant some management changes, like Framework 58 which changes catch limits on several stocks, faced delays.

Groundfish prices seem to be fluctuating. Bert Jongerden, general manager of the Portland Fish Exchange, a wholesale auction in Maine says fleets are  “mostly bringing in Gulf of Maine haddock, dabs, and white hake, it’s balanced among those.”

Gulf of Maine haddock appears steady, with average price for large around $2.78 per pound. Demand for dabs for restaurant markets is high, with $4.50-5.00 for large dabs.

Fleets are hauling high volumes of redfish, with low prices. Another low point is monkfish.

“Tails are very soft, sometimes less than $1 per pound on auction,” adds Jongerden. It is a pattern that has been seen a few years – likely a result of robust supply but cold European markets, which set the price.

“A lot of gillnetters are targeting monks to avoid cod, because there is a terrible cod problem. The fish are there,” said Jongerden. Average prices for cod were $3.24 to $3.81 per pound as of late June.

All eyes are on Atlantic pollock. “Gillnetters are just not seeing them, no large or mediums,” adds Jongerden. Pollock (aka Boston bluefish) is popular in NY markets.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

PFMC: Scientific and Statistical Committee Groundfish Subcommittee to Meet in Seattle, WA August 20-21, 2019

July 25, 2019 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Groundfish Subcommittee of the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s (Pacific Council’s) Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) will hold a public meeting to review new benchmark and update assessments and catch-only update assessment projections to inform new 2021 and 2022 groundfish harvest specifications.  This meeting will be held August 20-21, 2019 in Seattle, Washington.  This meeting will also occur via webinar.

Please see the SSC’s Groundfish Subcommittee August 20-21, 2019 meeting notice with webinar option on the Pacific Council’s website for participation details.

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff officer Mr. John DeVore at 503-820-2413; toll-free 1-866-806-7204.

MASSACHUSETTS: Aging New Bedford fleet helped drive purchase of former copper mill property

July 24, 2019 — The logic behind the decision by Charlie and Michael Quinn, the father and son owners of Quinn Fisheries, to buy the former Revere Copper and Brass property in New Bedford, Massachusetts, was not unlike that of a physician specializing in geriatric care setting up an office somewhere in the state of Florida.

New Bedford has an aging population, too, though it’s the commercial fishing vessels in this case that are elderly.

Undercurrent News confirmed Monday that the Quinns, who have been in the scallop harvesting business since at least 1986, purchased the 14-acre property at 24 North Front Street after it sat idle for about a decade. They plan to convert it into a shipyard, both repairing existing commercial fishing vessels and barges and also building new ones, Michael Quinn, operations manager for the six-vessel commercial scallop harvesting company, told Undercurrent.

The Quinns should have plenty of ships to work with, confirms a review by Undercurrent of the port’s roster of 338 commercial vessels maintained on a database. More than half — 180 scallop and groundfish vessels (53%) — were built before 1980 and another 38 were built between 1980 and 1985.

“We’ve been trying to grow our business here for a while and we see a need so we did our due diligence and everything seems to make sense for us,” Michael Quinn told Undercurrent.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

US groundfish fishery returning to its former glory, stakeholders say

July 22, 2019 — Last weekend’s Slow Food Nations Festival – a Denver, Colorado-based event showcasing sustainable and traceable food – was well represented by the U.S. West Coast groundfish fishery, which is exhibiting an impressive turnaround after it was decimated in the 1990’s.

The fishery, which consists predominantly of species of rockfish and flatfish, was collapsing due to overfishing about two decades ago. Thanks to conservation efforts, the recovery has been massively successful, with only two stocks down from the 10 classified as overfished. The two currently overfished groundfish stocks in the region are on the road to being rebuilt in coming years.

Even though the recovery of the fishery has been a smashing success thus far, demand for the fish has been languishing behind the supply, stakeholders say.

“The challenge at this point is that the economic performance is not coming up to where it’s being viewed as a profitable fishery by industry,” said Environmental Defense Fund Pacific Fisheries Policy Manager Melissa Mahoney. “That’s mainly because… when that fishery collapsed, [groundfish] lost their market share and at the same time, tilapia was coming in. So we’ve had the substitution of cheaper consistent whitefish in that market. As the fishery has recovered and the fishermen are able to catch more rockfish with more consistency, there’s this chicken-and-egg thing with getting the market back.”

The EDF has been working on the West Coast groundfish fishery for over 10 years and is deeply involved in shaping policy. Mahoney is also on the board of Positively Groundfish, a non-profit formed by a group of industry stakeholders – including Oregon State University, Marine Stewardship Council, fishermen, fish processors, etc. – to help coordinate and unify the efforts around getting the West Coast groundfish market going again.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NOAA Fisheries Sets 2019 Management Measures for Northeast Groundfish

July 18, 2019 — We are approving Framework 58 and implementing new catch limits for seven groundfish stocks for the 2019 fishing year (May 1, 2019 – April 30, 2020), including the three stocks managed jointly with Canada. These revised catch limits are based upon the results of stock assessments conducted in 2018.

In 2019, commercial groundfish quotas increase for four stocks from 2018: Georges Bank cod (+15%), Georges Bank haddock (+20%), Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder (+31%), and Acadian redfish (+2%); and decrease for three stocks: Gulf of Maine haddock (-5%), Georges Bank yellowtail flounder (-50%), and American plaice (-7%).

Framework 58 also:

  • Exempts vessels fishing exclusively in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization Regulatory Area (i.e., in international waters) from the domestic groundfish fishery minimum fish sizes to allow them to better compete in the international frozen fish market.
  • Extends the temporary change to the scallop accountability measure implementation policy for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder to provide the scallop fishery with flexibility to adjust to current catch conditions while still providing an incentive to avoid yellowtail flounder.
  • Revises or creates rebuilding plans for five stocks: Georges Bank winter flounder, Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder, witch flounder, northern windowpane flounder, and ocean pout.

In this rule, we are also announcing:

  • Reductions to the 2019 commercial quota for Gulf of Maine cod by 29.2 mt because the quota was exceeded in 2017.
  • A permanent extension of the annual deadline to submit applications to lease groundfish days-at-sea between vessels from March 1 to April 30 (the end of the fishing year); and
  • Changes to the regulations to clarify that vessels must report catch by statistical area when submitting catch reports through their vessel monitoring system.

Read the final rule  as filed today in the Federal Register and the permit holder bulletin available on our website.

Read the full release here

Still Time to Take the NOAA Survey

July 12, 2019 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is conducting a survey of stakeholders to gain a better understanding of communication preferences and needs among fisherman.

The New England Fishery Management Council is currently developing Amendment 23 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan and through this, the Council will evaluate the current groundfish monitoring program and consider changes to improve said system.

The survey focuses on two areas: What aspects of the current monitoring program, analyses, or processes do industry members want more information on, and how would industry members like the NOAA to communicate with them; workshops, websites, printed materials, question and answer sessions, or another method?

Recent discussions about the development of Amendment 23 have revealed that industry members want more information about the current monitoring system.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

European markets importing, exporting more seafood products

July 11, 2019 — The E.U. is the number one consumer of fishery and aquaculture products in the world, but with demand far exceeding supply and only limited room for growth in domestic production, the bloc is increasingly sourcing products from around the world in order to meet market requirements, confirms new analysis from the European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture Products (EUMOFA).

In its latest review of seafood trade trends, EUMOFA finds that in 2018, E.U. imports from third-countries increased by 4 percent in volume and 2 percent in value over the previous year, reaching 6 million metric tons (MT) with a value of EUR 25.9 billion (USD 29.2 billion). However, it also established that the average unit value of these imports fell by 2 percent to EUR 4.17 (USD 4.70) per kilogram, which, it said, caused the slow growth in overall import value.

Salmonids (USD 6.5 billion, EUR 5.8 billion), crustaceans (USD 5.4 billion, EUR 4.8 billion) and groundfish (USD 5.1 billion, EUR 4.5 billion) were the most imported commodity groups, representing 58 percent of total extra-E.U. import value.

The groundfish category, which increased by 5 percent or EUR 203 million (USD 228.6 million); fish for non-food use, which was 27 percent or EUR 189 million (USD 212.9 million) more; and cephalopods, up by 6 percent or EUR 151 million (USD 170.1 million); were the main contributors to the overall increase in the extra-E.U. import value compared to 2017.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Groundfish managers to review catch share system

July 5, 2019 — In 2010, the New England groundfish fleet began fishing under a new catch share system when federal fishing regulators established the sector system that remains in place today in the Northeast Multispecies groundfish fishery.

Now, nine years after implementation, the New England Fishery Management Council is embarking on a review of the first six years of the commercial groundfish catch share system and is using a series of nine meetings in fishing ports from Maine to New York to elicit public comment.

One of those meetings is scheduled for Gloucester on July 25 at the Sawyer Free Library on Dale Avenue. The meeting is set to run from 4:30 to 7 p.m.

“Most of our fishermen in this fishery now fish in a sector, so we thought it would be a good time to review the program after having it in effect for a while,” said Janice Plante, spokeswoman for the council.

The review actually is mandated by NOAA Fisheries, though in a rather oblique manner. The agency said management councils should periodically review — “no less frequently than once every seven years” — catch share programs to evaluate whether they meet the objectives of the fishery management plan.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Groundfish Catch Share Program Review: Public Meetings Scheduled for July/August in Ports From Maine to New York

July 2, 2019 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council is conducting a review of the groundfish sector system, which is a catch share program under the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan (FMP). The public is encouraged to provide comments during an upcoming series of port meetings or in writing until August 19, 2019.

The review focuses on the first six years of the catch share program under Amendment 16 to the FMP, covering fishing years 2010 to 2015, which span from May 1, 2010 through April 30, 2016. Information prior to the program’s implementation also will be included for fishing years 2007 to 2009. This period covers May 1, 2007 through April 30, 2010.

Read the full release here