Saving Seafood

Congress is considering big changes to longstanding federal fisheries regulatory act

July 2, 2018 — Eric Brazer likens federal fisheries management to a bank account held jointly by commercial fisherman, charter fishermen, restaurants and others who depend on a specific fish for their livelihood.

If one user overdraws the account, there is nothing left for the others, said Brazer, deputy director of the Galveston, Texas-based Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance, which includes commercial snapper and grouper fishermen from around the Gulf.

Brazer’s organization is one of many groups keeping a close eye on two bills being debated in Congress. A House bill by Rep. Don Young, an Alaska Republican, and a Senate bill by Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, could lead to significant changes in the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Destin Mayor Gary Jarvis, former president of the Destin Charter Boat Association, has been in regular contact with U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, and other members of the Florida Congressional Delegation over the two bills.

Jarvis said the association doesn’t want want to see a major overhaul of Magnuson-Stevens.

“It is a legacy piece of legislation that does need to be revised from time to time,” he said. “But they are attempting to gut some things in the Magnuson-Stevens Act to change how fisheries are managed.”

Jarvis said charter fishing brings more than $175 million a year to the regional economy.  For the economic benefits to continue, there must be sufficient numbers of red snapper, triggerfish, amberjack, grouper and other popular fish species, Jarvis said.

“The Magnuson-Stevens Act has clear-cut management tools and what is happening is political maneuvering to weaken these existing rules,” he said.

Jarvis said he fears charter fishermen won’t be given a designated share of the catch limits. He also likened catch limits to a joint bank account.

“What is happening is that they are trying to make it easier for one user group to overdraw the account,” he said.

Read the full story at the Pensacola News Journal

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.

 

Bill to make North Carolina ‘Napa Valley’ of US oyster industry also good for Cooke

June 25, 2018 — The following is excerpted from a story originally published in Undercurrent News: 

Many North Carolina fishermen are petitioning in support of the Support Shellfish Industry Act. One group, Citizens for a Level Playing Field, have created a petition in support of the Act.

A vote by the North Carolina General Assembly — potentially as early as Monday — could make it easier for Cooke Seafood USA and others to harvest more oysters in the US coastal state. But it’s coming down to the wire, as the state’s legislature is expected to end its session either this week or next.

The Support Shellfish Industry Act (HB 361) would raise the cap for oyster permits in the Pamlico Sound – the US’ second largest estuary, covering over 3,000 square miles of open water behind North Carolina’s touristy Outer Banks — from a combined 50 acres to 200 acres, allowing for larger scale operations. It’s a change being sought by the Wanchese Fish Company, a Suffolk, Virginia-based harvester and processor acquired by the Canadian Cooke family in 2015, among others.

The measure, which was originally introduced in late May as Senate Bill 738 by Republican state senators Bill Cook, Harry Brown and Norman Sanderson, passed the North Carolina upper chamber on June 15 by a 28-9 vote, but still requires approval by the state’s Republican-dominated House of Representatives.

“With our acres of pristine waters, and a large and growing interest in cultivated oysters, the potential for the industry in the state is huge,” the three lawmakers said in a press release when introducing the original bill. “Our goal is for North Carolina to become the ‘Napa Valley’ of oysters and to become a $100 million dollar industry in 10 years.”

The North Carolina lawmakers might have picked a different area to represent dominance in the US wine industry. Despite its reputation, Napa Valley produces just 4% of the grapes used in California.

Regardless, Jay Styron, president and owner of the Carolina Mariculture Company, an oyster grower in Cedar Island, North Carolina, would settle right now for his state just getting on a playing field that’s level with the oyster industries in Virginia and Maryland, two states on the Chesapeake Bay (the US’s largest estuary), with lease caps that allow operations of up to 2,000 total acres.

Other states, like Louisiana and Washington, allow similarly high oyster growing caps, he said in a letter to the editor published Friday by Undercurrent News.

Styron told Undercurrent he isn’t interested in expanding beyond the 6.5-acre floating-cage oyster and clam farm he owns in the adjacent Core Sound, but is arguing for the change on behalf of other oyster growers in his role as the president of the North Carolina Shellfish Growers Association.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

More groups weigh in on red snapper actions

May 30, 2018 — A commercial fishing group is the latest to express hope that a test program that gives states more control over recreational red snapper fishing will benefit the Gulf of Mexico fishery overall.

Louisiana’s season started Friday and will remain open until state figures show the federally approved quota of 743,000 pounds for sport fishermen has been met.

The action comes after the state Wildlife and Fisheries Department won federal approval last month to oversee fishing of the popular species in federal waters up to 200 miles offshore both this year and in 2019.

Under the Exempted Fishing Permit, or EFP, sport fishermen are limited to two red snapper a day at least 16 inches in length. The state will use its LA Creel program to monitor catch totals.

Sport fishing groups, in earlier comments, welcomed the action.

Last week, it drew qualified praise from the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance, which represents commercial red snapper fishermen.

Read the full story at the Daily Comet

 

2 Gulf States: Recreational Red Snapper Season Opens Friday

May 25, 2018 — BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Recreational red snapper seasons open Friday in state and federal waters off Louisiana and Mississippi. Openings are scheduled June 1 off Texas and Alabama and June 11 off of Florida‘s west coast for anglers after the popular sport and table fish.

The states announced those dates in April, after the federal government authorized two-year experimental permits to let states along the Gulf of Mexico manage recreational seasons for red snapper.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross praises red snapper recreational pilot program

April 23, 2018 — U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross expressed praise on Tuesday, 17 April, for a pilot program that gives states along the Gulf of Mexico more power in managing the red snapper recreational fishery.

NOAA Fisheries previously unveiled a two-year pilot program giving partial control of the fishery to officials in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. All five states submitted applications that will enable them to manage the recreation fishery in both state waters, which run for the first nine miles off the coast, and federal waters, which extend beyond that.

“Granting these experimental fishing permits to all five states continues the work we started last year to expand recreational fishing opportunities through coordinated, Gulf-wide seasons,” Ross said. “We are going to give the states the opportunity to demonstrate effective management that improves recreational opportunities for all Americans.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Omega Protein to christen new menhaden vessel

April 3, 2018 — US fishmeal company Omega Protein is set to launch a new vessel to join its menhaden fishing fleet, said the firm.

The new vessel, called the F/V Vermilion, was purchased by Omega Protein in 2016 from the oil and gas industry and has been re-fitted to the tune of $5 million, the firm said. The F/V Vermilion was originally constructed in 1977 and called the Protector.

The vessel will be christened at an Omega Protein plant in Abbeville, Louisiana, by reverend Paul Bienvenu, on April 7.

Read the full story a Undercurrent News

 

Trump Signs Omnibus Spending Bill With Legislation Adding 63,000 H-2B Guest Workers

March 28, 2018 — President Donald Trump has signed a new 2,232-page Omnibus Spending Bill sent to him by the Senate after it passed the House of Representative that includes an increase in the H-2B Guest Worker Program for the remainder of the year.

The H-2B program allows employers to hire temporary foreign workers to fill low-skill, non-agricultural positions. Currently it provides for an annual cap of 66,000 visas per year, with a few exceptions.

The new bill contains a provision to once again allow the Department of Homeland Security to exceed the annual cap on admissions of unskilled non-agricultural workers. If fully implemented by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, it has the potential to add as many as 63,000 additional H-2B guest workers next year, nearly doubling the size of the program.

New Bill Huge Improvement

“The new provision to exceed the cap on admissions will sure will help a lot!” exclaimed Jennifer Jenkins, a Gulf Seafood Foundation Board Member and owner of Crystal Seas Oyster in Pass Christian, MS, whose company depends on the more than 150 H-2B workers each year. “I’m not sure it will solve all the problems because there are so many people trying to use the program, but anything is a huge improvement from where we were a week ago.”

The H-2B Foreign Worker program, many from Mexico and Central America, has continued to grow at a steady pace. The Gulf States of Texas, Florida and Louisiana have more than 33,000 H-2B workers alone, with occupational categories that include: landscaping and grounds keeping workers, seafood workers, forest and conservation workers, and maids and housekeeping.

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood News

 

States: US government to rewrite 2 endangered species rules

March 16, 2018 — NEW ORLEANS — The Trump administration will rewrite rules governing how to choose areas considered critical to endangered species to settle a lawsuit brought by 20 states and four trade groups, according to state attorneys general.

The endangered species director for an environmental nonprofit says that’s terrible news. Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity says the administration has “shown nothing but hostility toward endangered species.”

The attorneys general for Alabama and Louisiana said in news releases Thursday that the administration made the agreement Thursday to settle a lawsuit brought by 20 states and four national trade groups, challenging two changes made in 2016.

According to the lawsuit, the rules are now so vague that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service “could declare desert land as critical habitat for a fish and then prevent the construction of a highway through those desert lands, under the theory that it would prevent the future formation of a stream that might one day support the species.”

A spokeswoman for Fish and Wildlife referred a request for comment to the U.S. Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to phoned and emailed queries. A NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman did not immediately respond Thursday.

“We are encouraged that the Trump administration has agreed to revisit these rules, which threaten property owners’ rights to use any land that the federal government could dream that an endangered species might ever inhabit,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in his news release. “These Obama-era rules were not only wildly unreasonable, but contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the Endangered Species Act.”

Greenwald said, “Their case didn’t have a leg to stand on.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Seattle Times