Saving Seafood

JOHN FIORILLO: A Retraction is Not Enough

November 1, 2018 — The following editorial was originally published by IntraFish. It was written by IntraFish Executive Editor John Fiorillo:

Patience may be a virtue but how long must we wait for a scientific journal to decide if it is going to retract a controversial paper that the US government, eminent fisheries scientists and industry executives say is a bunch of crap?

It has been more than a year – yes, I said a year – since US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Chris Oliver requested a retraction of the controversial scientific paper published in the journal Marine Policy that alleges a significant portion of Alaska salmon, crab and pollock is entering the Japanese market from illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fisheries.

Last October, Oliver challenged the veracity of the scientific paper and asked that it be retracted to avoid damaging the reputation of the US fishing industry and its fisheries management. In December, a team of top US fisheries scientists, led by preeminent fisheries researcher Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington, joined the US government in demanding a retraction of the paper. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), under which the fisheries are certified sustainable, also came out in support of the industry.

In June, Hance Smith, editor of the journal Marine Policy, told IntraFish: “The status is simply that we have been waiting for additional reviews of the paper. I expect we shall be able to progress shortly.”

Shortly?

On Monday, I asked Smith again for an update on the status of the paper and its possible retraction. I was told: “We are still waiting for a response from the corresponding author.”

Umm. OK. What?

Anyway, this is about more than getting a retraction. This is a scientific paper, that critics — bonafide critics, not crackpots — say is fundamentally flawed. And if that is not bad enough, it is eerily similar to a 2014 paper by the same researchers — Tony Pitcher, Katrina Nakamura, and Ganapathiraju Pramod — that provided estimates for IUU fish entering the US market. This report has been cited at least 59 times in academic reports and countless times in government and NGO reports. In other words, repeat the story enough times and it becomes unquestioned gospel.

The 2014 study was cited regularly by those supporting the creation of the US Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), which was indeed launched in January and requires a new level of record keeping by US importers aimed at eliminating IUU fish from the US seafood supply chain.

Made up

Hilborn, in December, said the paper at the heart of the current controversy cites several dozen published papers as sources yet none have any mention of IUU fishing. “The paper also lists a number of ‘sources’ of IUU such as ‘unreported catch in artisanal fisheries’ which do not exist,” said Hilborn. “As near as we can tell, the paper made up all of its results without any data on IUU fishing.”

NOAA’s Oliver, in his October 2017 letter to the report’s authors, said the “allegations made in the paper, are absent of transparency regarding the data, and assumptions supporting them are irresponsible and call into question the authors’ conclusions.”

The Japan study claims that an estimated 15 percent of the US pollock entering Japan is from IUU fisheries. Further, the study says between 10 and 20 percent of the salmon and crab coming from Alaska fisheries is IUU. In the paper, Pitcher and the other authors argue for the creation of a seafood traceability program in Japan to thwart what they claim is the importation of seafood produced by IUU fishing activity.

The paper was funded by the Walton Foundation, which has largely skirted the fray. “Independently, we are reaching out to talk with all of the parties to ensure we fully understand the issues,” Barry Gold, director of Walton’s Environment Program, said a year ago.

But Pitcher told me Tuesday in an email that “neither the Walton Foundation nor the Marine Stewardship Council has been in touch with us to ascertain the truth of the matter.”

He also said he has a revised table showing “only 2 percent IUU from that US pollock fishery,” and he says that the revised table “has been waiting to be inserted [into the paper] for almost a year now.” In other words, the original 15 percent IUU estimate is wrong.

“The editor wants us to retract and then resubmit to include the new table, and despite our arguing that is not necessary as they can easily insert a correction, Ray Hilborn in Seattle has queered the pitch by a ridiculous letter accusing us of data fraud and absurd unprofessional threats that the journal will be ‘exposed on his blog,'” Pitcher said in his email to me.

“My co-author has been travelling extensively (earning his living!), and so have I, so neither of us have had the time required to deal with this. We are aiming to get it done before Xmas.”

What a mess.

Look, we need to be able to trust science, especially in this Trumpian era where science is dismantled, devalued and dismissed.

It’s time for the editors of the Marine Policy journal to settle this issue so we don’t allow flimsy science to contribute to the potentially unnecessary creation of another new traceability program in Japan, as it did for the new SIMP program in the US market.

Marine Policy editors need to retract the report, and while they are at it they need to look at the authors’ 2014 report. And stop being careless with fisheries science.

Read the editorial at IntraFish

A Coalition of Global Participants Pledge to Protect Five Million Square Miles of Ocean

November 2, 2018 — Global participants in the fifth Our Ocean Conference have pledged the highest amount of funding yet for new initiatives and commitments on the protection of a combined expanse of ocean eight times the size of Alaska.

The event, hosted by the Indonesian government on the island of Bali, generated 287 pledges in bilateral and multilateral agreements between governments, the private sector, civil society organizations, and philanthropic foundations. The pledges were valued at more than $10 billion to protect some 5.4 million square miles of the world’s oceans, according to Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime affairs.

To date, the Our Ocean Conference has raked in commitments totaling $28 billion and covering 10.2 million square miles of ocean.

“These numbers are beyond our expectations,” Luhut said in his closing remarks on October 30th. “We are thankful for your collective contributions and making our ocean healthier and (more) sustainable.”

The impacts of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and climate change on the world’s oceans were the key focuses during the two-day conference. Data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization showed that the value of fish captured illegally was about 26 million tons, or up to $23 billion annually. The world’s maritime resources are valued at around $24 trillion.

“Illegal fishing globally still decimates fisheries at an unsustainable pace,” said former United States Secretary of State John Kerry in his speech on October 29th.

“Illegal fishing continues on an unmitigated, unsustainable pace and almost one-third of the world’s fisheries are still overexploited,” he said. He added that the remainder of fisheries “are either at peak or nearly at peak with more and more people in the middle class, more and more people with money, more and more people demanding fresh fish on their table in their restaurants in their country.”

Read the full story at the Pacific Standard

Fish council to review catch share regulations

November 1, 2018 — In May 2010, the world of the Northeast groundfishermen experienced a seismic transformation, as federal fishery managers ditched days-at-sea as its primary management tool and implemented a sector system centered on an expanded catch share program.

Now, nearly nine years later, the New England Fishery Management Council said it will conduct its first comprehensive evaluation of the groundfish catch share program to determine whether it is meeting its goals and objectives to improve the management of the fishery.

The review, according to council Executive Director Tom Nies, is not connected to any specific event or issue within the fishery, such as the widescale cheating, sector manipulation and ultimate conviction of New Bedford fishing kingpin Carlos A. Rafael.

“It’s not a response to Carlos, but it may help us identify areas related to his activities that we can address,” Nies said Wednesday.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s own catch share policy actually mandate that the councils periodically produce “a formal and detailed review … no less frequently than once every seven years” on catch share programs.

“This is the first review, really, since catch shares originally were implemented in 2004, and more importantly, expanded in 2010,” Nies said. “It’s been on our radar for a couple of years. The next step is to assemble a staff and get the report written.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Loved to Death: How Pirate Fishing Decimates Chile’s Favorite Fish

October 26, 2018 — When Hugo Arancibia Farías was a child, his mother, like most mothers in central Chile, visited the weekly market to buy common hake, a white-fleshed relative of cod. She usually served it fried, Arancibia recalled with relish. “It was very cheap,” he said, “and very popular.”

Nowadays, hake is more expensive than beef. “It is too much for a family,” said Arancibia, a fisheries biologist at the University of Concepción in central Chile. The reason is simple economics: The scarcer a resource, the more expensive. After a devastating population crash in the mid-2000s, Chile’s once-common hake have yet to recover.

After years of blaming the collapse on an influx of predatory squid, Arancibia said, fisheries officials recently wised up to the real culprit: a vast tide of illegal fishing, much of it from artisanal fishers. If the illegal hake catch can’t be reined in, experts say, Chile stands to lose its most important artisanal fishery, a cultural touchstone—and a pretty tasty fried fish.

Common hake, called merluza in Spanish, is to Chile what cod was to New England. But unlike hulking cod, hake’s not much to look at, at least not anymore.

In the seafood market in Caleta Portales, a fish landing site in the central Chilean city of Valparaiso, hake are the little guys heaped among monstrous cusk eels and seabream as big and flat as dinner plates. The little hake have skinny, tapering bodies, big heads and bugged eyes—the result of gas expansion as the fish were yanked up quickly from ocean depths.

Hake weren’t always so runty. They used to be bigger at maturity, by several centimeters. But nowadays, because of overfishing, there aren’t many big fish left. Most hake in Chilean waters are juveniles, and the adults are getting smaller as they race to reproduce before they’re caught.

The first ripples of overfishing stirred in the 1990s, as Chile poured its national energies into economic growth after the end of a two-decade military dictatorship. Fisheries policies encouraged the rapid expansion of an industrial, export-oriented fleet, with little thought to sustainability. “The attitude was to produce, to exploit, to overexploit,” Arancibia said.

Read the full story at EcoWatch

Grouper, snapper, cod? Mislabeling is rampant in the seafood industry

October 22, 2018 — Recent investigations and studies have shown mislabeling – sometimes due to error but often the result of outright fraud – is rampant in the seafood industry, showing up both in the marketplace and on restaurant menus.

One study of retailers found seafood like grouper, cod and snapper may be mislabeled up to 87 percent of the time, swapped out for less desirable and cheaper varieties. For example, only seven of the 120 samples of red snapper were actually red snapper.

CBS News’ Meg Oliver spoke to Vinny Millbourn, who hails from a long line of fishermen. The fishmonger at Greenpoint Fish and Lobster Company in Brooklyn, New York, specializes in local, domestic and traceable species. His storefront acts as a fish market, raw bar and restaurant.

“It’s a very big problem and the issue is once it’s prepared, there’s really no way to check it other than DNA testing which a lot of companies are now doing,” Millbourn said. “So I have a have a network of small boat fisherman and wharfs all over the country that are shipping to me daily through the air or by truck. And we are processing every single day to bring in high-quality fresh seafood.”

Millbourn not only knows where his fish come from he can tell a tale about each one. That personal connection is hard to find, but is a good sign. It’s estimated that more than 90 percent of the seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported, and less than one percent is tested by the government.

Read the full story at CBS News

StarKist admits fixing tuna prices, faces $100 million fine

October 22, 2018 — StarKist Co. agreed to plead guilty to a felony price fixing charge as part of a broad collusion investigation of the canned tuna industry, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

The DOJ said StarKist faces up to a $100 million fine when it is sentenced. Prosecutors allege that the industry’s top three companies conspired between 2010 and 2013 to keep prices artificially high.

“We have cooperated with the DOJ during the course of its investigation and accept responsibility,” said StarKist chief executive Andrew Choe. “We will continue to conduct our business with the utmost transparency and integrity.”

StarKist is owned by South Korean company Dongwon Industries, one of the largest tuna catching companies in the world. The parent company’s website carries pledges to abide by ethical standards and good corporate citizenship.

The scheme came to light when Thai Union Group’s Chicken of the Sea attempt to buy San Diego-based Bumble Bee failed in 2015, according to court records. Chicken of the Sea executives then alerted federal investigators, who agreed to shield the company from criminal prosecution in exchange for cooperation.

Bumble Bee Foods last year pleaded guilty to the same charge and paid a $25 million fine, $111 million lower than prosecutors said it should have been. Prosecutors said they feared putting the financially struggling Bumble Bee out of business with a high fine and agreed to let the company make interest-free payments for five years.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: US Senator Elizabeth Warren urges NOAA, DOC to keep fishing permits in New Bedford

October 18, 2018 — United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) sent a letter 15 October to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration urging both organizations to keep 42 federal fishing permits in the town of New Bedford.

NOAA has called for the permits revocation in the wake of the Carlos Rafael, or “Codfather,” case. Rafael is currently serving a 46-month prison sentence for his role in quota and tax evasion schemes in New Bedford, which included misreporting hundreds of thousands of pounds of groundfish catches.

Most recently, NOAA has issued a 51-page superseding charging document related to the case that would increase the civil penalties associated the case from USD 1 million (EUR 867,000) to USD 3 million (EUR 2.6 million).

In the letter, Warren calls on the organizations to punish Rafael, not New Bedford.

“He pleaded guilty to crimes associated to this case, and is rightly in jail, but many innocent people are also paying the price for his crimes,” Warren wrote. “These permits cover a significant portion of the ground fish industry and have an economic footprint that goes far beyond fish landings.”

New Bedford’s landings, and economy, were both impacted heavily by a lengthy ban on all groundfishing that NOAA enacted in the wake of the quota misrepresentation. A blanket ban on all 60 sector IX vessels lasted through to July of this year, sending landings into sharp decline.

That economic impact, which is harming many businesses in New Bedford, is why the permits should stay, Warren said.

“Millions of dollars of regional economic activity depend on Mr. Rafael’s permits remaining in the City of New Bedford,” she wrote. “An innocent community should not be collateral damage for one business’s crimes.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Scallops seized, captain arrested in New Bedford

October 18, 2018 — A scallop vessel that landed in New Bedford on Oct. 10 had its catch seized and the boat’s captain arrested, according to Massachusetts Environmental Police.

The vessel reportedly contained 150 pounds of scallops concealed within a beverage cooler and the captain was found to be in possession of Oxycontin without a prescription.

On Oct. 10, a Massachusetts Environmental Police officer conducted a commercial permit inspection aboard the scallop vessel in New Bedford. The vessel was found to be permitted federally but did not possess a valid commercial permit to land scallops in Massachusetts.

The officer then requested the captain display his catch of scallops to ensure compliance of the federally permitted possession limits. The captain presented the officer with the vessel’s allowable catch of 600-pounds. Upon further inspection of the vessel, the officer located an additional 150-pounds of scallops concealed within a beverage cooler, authorities said.

The catch was seized and the vessel captain was subsequently arrested for failure to display fish/catch upon demand.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Warren Urges Dept. of Commerce, NOAA to Ensure Carlos Rafael Fishing Permits Remain in New Bedford

October 17, 2018 — The following was released by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.):

United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) today sent a letter to the Department of Commerce and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to request that they do everything in their power to ensure that the 42 federal fishing permits held by disgraced fishing magnate Carlos Rafael remain in the Port of New Bedford.  The federal permits, which cover a significant portion of the ground fish industry and have an economic footprint that goes far beyond fish landings, are currently at risk of being revoked and distributed elsewhere under a civil administrative case brought by NOAA against Mr. Rafael.

Last year, Carlos Rafael, a New Bedford fishing magnate, pled guilty to 28 federal charges related to the management of his company, including falsifying fish quotas, mislabeling fish, conspiracy, and tax evasion. In a civil case filed in January 2018, NOAA called for the revocation of 42 federal fishing permits held by Mr. Rafael.

In her letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Acting NOAA Administrator Benjamin Friedman, and Chris Oliver, Assistant Administrator for Fisheries at NOAA, Senator Warren expressed serious concern about the devastating impact that removing the permits-which support many unaffiliated businesses and jobs that were not part of Mr. Rafael’s operation-from New Bedford would have on the regional economy.

“Millions of dollars of regional economic activity depend on Mr. Rafael’s permits remaining in the City of New Bedford,” wrote Senator Warren.  “An innocent community should not be collateral damage for one business’s crimes.”

The senator’s letter also emphasized the importance of the groundfish industry to the Massachusetts economy as a whole and noted that New Bedford already has the experienced workforce, infrastructure, and proud tradition to best utilize and maximize the economic benefits of the groundfish industry.

“It is critical for the city and South Coast region that these permits and allocations remain in the port of New Bedford, and in the hands of law-abiding fishing families and businesses,” Senator Warren continued. “Removing these permits from New Bedford would do lasting damage to families and businesses that have already suffered greatly through no fault of their own.”

The senator requested that the agencies take any and all available actions within their discretion to ensure that these critical fishing permits remain in New Bedford.

Read the full letter here

MASSACHUSETTS: Warren again calls for Rafael’s permits to stay in New Bedford

October 17, 2018 — Elizabeth Warren repeated a call she voiced last year by sending another letter to NOAA regarding Carlos Rafael’s federal fishing permits.

The Massachusetts senator addressed her two-page letter to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, acting NOAA Administrator Benjamin Friedman and assistant Administrator for Fisheries Chris Oliver and asked that NOAA keep the 42 permits the agency is targeting in its civil action in New Bedford.

“These permits cover a significant portion of the ground fish industry and have an economic footprint that goes far beyond fish landings,” the letter reads.

Warren sent a letter to NOAA last October, too, echoing the same sentiment.

NOAA filed a superseding civil action last month. In it NOAA sought to revoke the operator permits of 17 of Rafael’s captains. It also listed more than $3 million in fines. The move built on a civil action first filed in January where NOAA targeted Rafael’s permits.

Warren said in the letter that the permits support many innocent third-party businesses such as fish auctions, seafood processors, gear suppliers, ice providers, welders, engine mechanics and restaurants.

“The Port of New Bedford is vital to the economic health of the region and the federal government has a duty and responsibility to not cause significant economic harm to this community,” her letter read. “Removing these permits from New Bedford would do lasting damage to families and businesses that have already suffered greatly through no fault of their own. I urge you all to do everything that is necessary to ensure that does not happen.”

Even before NOAA’s civil action, politicians and organizations have argued for the final destination of the permits. Mayor Jon Mitchell and the City Council have individually sent letters to NOAA asking that Rafael’s permits remain in New Bedford. Last week, Councilor-at-Large Brian Gomes brought a written motion on the topic to the Council Chambers.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times