Saving Seafood

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

Open Season: No one is more upset with ‘greedy’ poachers than ethical fishers

June 11, 2018 — Fishing for black sea bass is both a simple and exciting sport.

Bump the bottom with a double hook rig baited with squid or sea clams and hang on. The fish are aggressive and the males are a gorgeous fish, sporting iridescent blue on their heads, backs and dorsal fins. They are also fine eating fish. The rules are simple. The open season for recreational fishermen is May 19 to Sept. 12. The daily limit is five fish per angler and the minimum size is 15 inches. Greedy poachers however, who are slimier than fish, abuse the resource, which angers the ethical fishing community.

According to Massachusetts Environmental Police, officers in New Bedford inspected a headboat that had returned from a fishing trip in Buzzards Bay and found 560 pounds of black sea bass over the legal limit, 33 of which were under the legal limit of 15 inches. Officers also located 90 pounds of scup over the legal limit, one undersized striped bass, and one undersized tautog. Multiple citations were issued in response to the violations and the illegal catch was donated to the New Bedford Salvation Army.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

The ‘dark fleet’: Global Fishing Watch shines a light on illegal catches

June 11, 2018 — New data is being used to expose fleets of previously unmonitored fishing vessels on the high seas, in what campaigners hope will lead to the eradication of illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing.

Global Fishing Watch (GFW) has turned low light imaging data collected by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) into the first publicly available real-time map showing the location and identity of thousands of vessels operating at night in waters that lie beyond national jurisdiction.

More than 85% of the “dark fleet” detections include smaller vessels that are not fitted with transponders and larger ones that have switched off their tracking systems to avoid detection, according to GFW, which launched the map on Friday to mark World Oceans Day.

The data, collected by the NOAA’s visible infrared imaging radiometer suite, is being used to track a fleet of about 200 mostly Chinese vessels at the edge of Peru’s economic exclusion zone.

The monitoring, conducted by GFW, a non-profit organisation campaigning for greater transparency in the fishing industry, and the conservation group Oceana, reveals that about 20% of the Chinese vessels are not broadcasting via automatic tracking systems, raising suspicions they are operating illegally.

The report on the high seas activity coincides with the launch by GFW of the first ever real-time view of transshipment, which enables fishing boats to transfer their catch to refrigerated cargo vessels and remain at sea for months, or even years, at a time but still get their catch to the market.

Read the full story at The Guardian

Countries, NGOs form tighter bonds to shut down IUU vessels

June 11, 2018 — Two different governments had captured the STS-50, but it had escaped both times. Authorities believed the vessel was fishing illegally, and had regularly falsified its nationality, sailing under eight different national flags over the years.

When Indonesian authorities at last apprehended the vessel in early April, they were able to do so because of growing cooperation between countries and with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are seeking to fight illegal fishing.

Illegal operators try to avoid detection by regularly changing vessel identity, vessel owner, and fishing location. Sometimes those changes are legitimate, but oftentimes they’re not.

In response, fishery authorities are sharing information with each other through new and expanded networks. And NGOs are offering expertise and resources that regulators might not otherwise have.

The STS-50, for example, was listed as a vessel that was involved in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing by the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, and Interpol had issued a notice against it on behalf of New Zealand. Those listings were recorded on the updated Combined IUU Vessel List published by the fisheries enforcement experts at Trygg Mat Tracking, a nonprofit that provides fisheries enforcement support.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

How to spot the secretive activities of rogue fishing boats

June 7, 2018 — The vast majority of fishing vessels follow the rules governing fishing – but many are not, and these bad actors can cause a lot of damage.

Vessels may take too many fish ­– overfishing – which is causing our fisheries to collapse. Then there is the problem of illegal fishing, which can occur in protected areas, in other country’s waters or on the high seas. Many countries simply don’t have the capacity to enforce fishery management rules. As a result, illegal fishing has become a multi-billion-dollar industry, worth up to $23bn each year. Because of overfishing – both legal and illegal – one third of fisheries assessed in a study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation were overfished and over half were fully fished. This threatens jobs and food security for millions of people, all around the world.

The trouble is, so much of this illegal activity is hidden – it happens out to sea, making it difficult to scrutinise what individual vessels are getting up to. To address the problems facing our oceans, we need to know what’s happening beyond the horizon.

Fortunately, we are now beginning to see what happens after commercial fishing vessels leave port. The data that underpins the map above is helping to make fishing activity at sea more transparent. In September 2016, my colleagues and I at Oceana – an advocacy organisation focused on ocean conservation – launched a mapping platform called Global Fishing Watch, along with Google and SkyTruth, a non-profit that uses satellite data to encourage environmental protection.

Read the full story at BBC