Saving Seafood

Greenpeace Japan: Eel sourcing “like a black box”

June 27, 2018 — Greenpeace Japan is highlighting the prevalence of illegally-sourced eel in Japan’s supply chain and is calling for more traceability in advance of the midsummer day of the ox, a holiday celebrated by eating grilled eel. This year it falls on two days: 20 July and 1 August.

Greenpeace issued a report on 4 June that shows eels are at high risk from poaching and illegal transactions. The organization conducted a survey on eel procurement at major supermarkets, and found it was rare for the label attached to the grilled eel package to describe what kind of eel it is.

While there are four eels used for grilled eel – Japanese eel, European eel, American eel and bicolor eel – because grilled eel is a processed item, writing only “eel” is no problem in terms of rules. Although in 2013 the Fisheries Agency requested voluntary labeling of Japanese eel, few supermarkets do so. Akiko Tsuchiya of Greenpeace Japan said retailers should be required to label what species is contained in all boxes of grilled eel.

For its report, Greenpeace bought eel at the 18 shops and had an external DNA laboratory conduct genetic testing. The organization said the most confusion was between Japanese and American eel. The tests found one product labeled as grilled Japanese eel was actually American eel. Greenpeace said that it is proof that the supply chain from the glass eels to the shop is wrapped in darkness.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska-based Coast Guard cutter detains Chinese-flagged vessel for suspected illegal fishing

June 25, 2018 — An Alaska-based U.S. Coast Guard cutter on Saturday detained a Chinese-flagged vessel on suspicion of illegal fishing using driftnets, the Coast Guard said in a news release Friday. Custody of the 164-foot fishing vessel, Run Da, has since been transferred to the Chinese government.

After a U.S. Coast Guard aircraft spotted the vessel last week, the crew on the 282-foot cutter Alex Haley responded. Both U.S. Coast Guard and Chinese Coast Guard members aboard the Alex Haley — which has its home port in Kodiak — boarded Run Da, where they found 80 tons of chum salmon and one ton of squid.

The Alex Haley and its 105 crew members are on a North Pacific multinational fisheries enforcement patrol. The crew detained the fishing vessel in international waters about 860 miles east of Hokkaido, Japan, for suspected illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing activity, the Coast Guard said.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

In the journey from sea to table, seafood origins largely opaque

June 25, 2018 — It wasn’t just another Friday in mid-June at Pagano’s Seafood in Norwalk, as the wholesale distributor shipped more than 50,000 pounds of seafood to some 500 customers throughout Connecticut and the tristate region heading into Father’s Day weekend, among the busiest of the year.

As trucks were loaded for deliveries, Kris Drumgold could tick off with ease the ports from which the wholesaler sources its seafood. But with a few exceptions — including the docks of Norwalk where local oyster boats land their hauls — Drumgold and his fellow wholesale and retail buyers in Connecticut must rely on the representations of the suppliers who send them fresh and frozen seafood for redistribution to markets, restaurants and clubs.

In an Associated Press investigation published recently of one New York company claiming to offer only locally sourced seafood, tests determined that at least some of Sea to Table’s catch in fact came from overseas, raising new questions about whether markets and restaurants are being duped in how they describe the fish they sell.

In an open letter to customers, Sea to Table founder Sean Dimin said his company is “addressing these claims quickly” and has terminated its relationship with a supplier.

Read the full story at the Connecticut Post

Your sustainable scallops might have been caught with the help of shady labor practices

June 25, 2018 — Hari Pulapaka, chef and owner of the restaurant Cress in Deland, Florida, prides himself on his ability to tell diners the names of the captain and vessel that brought them the seafood on their plate. For the past few years, he has done this with the help of Sea to Table, a flourishing family-owned business beloved in the sustainable food movement for connecting chefs like him to independent, American fisherman.

So when Pulapaka, a member of the Grist 50, recently saw a link in an online forum for like-minded chefs to a recent Associated Press investigation into labor abuses connected to Sea to Table’s suppliers, his response was three words: “Well that sucks.”

“It’s slightly deflating, because then you have to ask yourself who do you trust? How do you go about trusting?” Pulapaka said.

Chefs across the country who care about the sustainability of the seafood they serve are in a bind. It takes diligence to trace where your seafood comes from, and many chefs had relied on Sea to Table — one of the largest distributors of earth-friendly seafood. Last week, the company came under scrutiny when an AP investigation revealed that products it marketed as locally sourced were actually caught as far away as Indonesia by suppliers with a history of labor abuses. One fisherman on a boat that sent fish to a Sea to Table supplier said workers were “treated like slaves,” working without enough food or water while earning $1.50 for a 22-hour day.

“The unimaginable working conditions and horrific treatment of marine life in the international seafood industry must be addressed,” Sea to Table said in a statement released after the investigation was published. “We would have never accepted overseas product fished in this manner.”

Read the full story at Grist

IUU vessel tracker calls on more countries to share Indonesia’s lead, share data

June 22, 2018 — Indonesia is a model that other countries should follow, according to a leading campaigner advocating for the sharing of fishing data to reduce illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

By making its vessel monitoring system (VMS) data publicly available, the country has increased transparency, said Tony Long, CEO of Global Fishing Watch, who was speaking at the 2018 SeaWeb Seafood Summit. The Indonesian fisheries ministry, which has been battling illegal fishing in its waters, moved to share its VMS data in 2017.

Not enough countries exchange data, said Long, who wants countries to “bring data out into the open” so that vessels’ movements can be tracked and illegal fishing operators exposed. “Global Fishing Watch will take and share any tracking system,” he said.

More transparency is key to forcing vessel operators into more responsible behavior, argued Long.

“Why not reward the compliant operators when you can track them?” he said. “The worst actors will stand out by their lack of information and therefore appropriate punishments can be put in place.”

Global Fishing Watch leverages tracking systems like Oceana, Skytruth and Google as well as national systems to map global movement of vessels.

Long’s organization has also recently partnered with the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to track vessels using satellites the monitor lights at night. A screen grab from one such monitoring off the coast of Oman showed that AIS data is underreporting the number of vessels in the waters: The data based on the number of lights in the night sky suggested a far larger fleet at work.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US senator calls for investigation in wake of AP report on Sea To Table

June 22, 2018 — A U.S. senator is calling for an investigation into Sea To Table in the wake of a lengthy report by the Associated Press that claimed the company lied about the origins of the seafood it was selling to customers.

Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to both NOAA and the FTC calling for a full investigation into Sea To Table in the wake of the report. The AP’s extensive report included sting operations that captured Sea To Table claiming origins for seafood that couldn’t physically be true, including claims that tuna was sourced from boats that hadn’t left harbor or that species were available fresh despite being out-of-season.

“Sea To Table has violated the public’s trust in seafood by lying about the nature of its product as reliable and sustainable, and by profiting off of threatened fish stocks and enabling human rights violations,” Markey wrote in his letter to NOAA. “These alarming actions, which undermine the commitment to sustainable seafood harvested by fishermen in Massachusetts and around the country, cannot be tolerated.”

Markey also asked NOAA how its Office of Law Enforcement functions, how it monitors Sea to Table and other seafood distributors, and what steps it is going to take in the future to try and prevent other similar instances of mislabeling.

He also called on the FTC to look into whether marketing seafood as local, when it wasn’t, is in violation of FTC regulations.

“Sea To Table’s egregious misconduct not only harms consumer confidence in seafood, it likely violates the Federal Trade Commission Act, necessitating an investigation and potential formal action by the FTC,” Markey wrote.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

New Bedford Standard-Times: Time for NOAA to let Sector IX fish again

June 21, 2018 — Seventy-two thousand pounds of grey sole.

That’s the amount of fish that NOAA calculates Carlos Rafael misreported in his illegal groundfish scheme.

Multiple people at a Monday meeting of the New Bedford fishing community cited the number. So after months of NOAA saying it could not let Sector IX fishermen back on the water because it didn’t know how much overfishing took place in the sector dominated by Rafael, now the federal agency knows.

We don’t officially know it from NOAA, however, because the oversight group remains silent, even as the ban on the groundfish sector drags on into its eighth month. We know it because the members of the New Bedford fishing community — the fishermen, the fuel depot owners, the gear suppliers, the settlement houses — are all struggling because of the lost fishing. And they cited the number publicly Monday, based on information from NOAA itself.

“Everyone knows (the money in) the account is overdrawn. How do we get the money back in the bank,” asked Sector 9 attorney Andrew Saunders.

That’s the conundrum. The sector is ready to deduct the 72,000 pounds of grey sole from its fishing effort. But it needs NOAA to tell them to go ahead, and the agency remains silent. As it has for months.

The inaction has caused an estimated 240 jobs lost across the Northeast, estimated SMAST professor Dan Georgianna.

Richard Canastra, the co-owner of the New Bedford Seafood Display Auction, estimated it will take a long time to bring the groundfish industry back in New Bedford after so many months without fishing. It was not a very profitable industry to begin with, but it played a key role in keeping many of the New Bedford waterfront support industries active.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Senator Calls for Investigation Into Possible Fish Fraud

June 18, 2018 — U.S. Sen. Edward Markey is asking federal agencies to investigate where a leading sustainable seafood distributor actually gets its fish, after an Associated Press investigation found Brooklyn-based Sea To Table was selling tuna labeled as coming from docks where it wasn’t landed and with the names of boats that didn’t catch it.

Here’s how it was supposed to work: Every day chefs and other potential customers get a long list of “Just Landed” seafood identifying what Brooklyn-based Sea To Table can offer from its trusted, waterfront partners — some 60 fishermen and small commercial docks around the country. Chefs order what they want, and the fish is boxed, put on ice and sent via FedEx overnight.

“We send all fish directly from the landing dock to your kitchen,” Sea To Table explained.

The growing world of foodies and conscientious consumers cheered them on. Celebrity chef Rick Bayless signed up. So did Roy’s seafood restaurants, the Chopt salad chain, dozens of universities and even home meal kits like HelloFresh and Sun Basket. The Monterey Bay Aquarium made them a collaborator, James Beard Foundation singled them out.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New York Times

In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

June 18, 2018 — Nothing beats dynamite fishing for sheer efficiency.

A fisherman in this scattering of islands in the central Philippines balanced on a narrow outrigger boat and launched a bottle bomb into the sea with the ease of a quarterback. It exploded in a violent burst, rocking the bottom of our boat and filling the air with an acrid smell. Fish bobbed onto the surface, dead or gasping their last breaths.

Under the water, coral shattered into rubble.

The blast ruptured the internal organs of reef fish, fractured their spines or tore at their flesh with coral shrapnel. From microscopic plankton to sea horses, anemones and sharks, little survives inside the 30- to 100-foot radius of an explosion.

With 10,500 square miles of coral reef, the Philippines is a global center for marine biodiversity, which the country has struggled to protect in the face of human activity and institutional inaction. But as the effects of climate change on oceans become more acute, stopping dynamite and other illegal fishing has taken on a new urgency.

Read the full story at the New York Times

Climate Change May Spark Global ‘Fish Wars’

June 15, 2018 –Warming seas are driving commercial seafood poleward into waters controlled by other countries, setting up international conflicts.

Atlantic mackerel, a fatty schooling fish, for years has been caught by fleets in parts of Europe and sold around the world—where it gets pickled, grilled, smoked, and fried. It is among the United Kingdom’s key exports.

But a decade ago, warming temperatures began driving this popular fish north, into seas controlled by Iceland. Almost overnight, this seafood gold began shredding relations between some of the world’s most stable governments. It led to unsustainable fishing, trade embargoes, and boat blockades. It even helped convince Iceland to drop its bid to join the EU. And that was among friendly nations.

Welcome to the climate-change food threat you may not have considered.

In many parts of the world overfishing is already draining the ocean of important sea life. But a paper published today in the journal Science suggests potentially explosive ocean fish wars are likely to simmer across the world as warming temperatures drive commercial fish species poleward into territories controlled by other nations, setting up conflicts with sometimes hostile neighbors that are suddenly forced to share. That could lead to far fewer fish, economic declines and, in some areas, serious threats to food security.

Read the full story at National Geographic