Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Unmoored and unsure, fishermen make do

April 15, 2020 — On Saturday, folks came to Menemsha to buy directly off the decks of local scallop boats. Business was brisk. Captain Sam Hopkins, aboard the Endurance, mongered to a steady queue of masked customers. Like the nearby Martha Rose, sea scallops off the Endurance sold for $15 per pound.

“It was really nice to have some local support and have people who bought scallops right off the boat,” Hopkins said.

Lobsterman Jason Gale has also turned to direct boat sales. From the deck of the Watch Out at Lake Street Landing he sold lobsters at $8 apiece, regardless of weight, on Saturday. Gale said he put a 10 lobster cap per customer and sold out.

“I’ll just keep going as long as people want them,” he said.

Gale said the wholesale price was roughly $5.50 to $6 per pound

That jibes with an estimate from Beth Casoni, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association.

Read the full story at the MV Times

Massachusetts lobster harvesters try direct sales again, triple results

April 14, 2020 — A second effort by lobster harvesters in Massachusetts to overcome coronavirus market challenges and sell directly to consumers, using Facebook, saw triple the results of the earlier attempt.

Troy and Doug Durr, the organizers of the South Coast Direct Source Seafood page, reported that well over 100 cars waited in line at the Union Wharf in the town of Fairhaven and bought almost 2,200 lobsters from four vessels on Easter Sunday, April 12. The harvesters set a price this time of $6.00 per pound for lobsters in the 1-1.45/lb range, and $7/lb for anything 1.5 lbs or larger.

The boats – the Intimidator, Miss Molly, Voyager and Cynthia Lee – began arriving at 1:30 p.m. and were sold out in four hours, according to the organizers, a Mattapoisett-based real estate agent and his uncle, a crew member on the lobster boat Mary Anne.

Another 200 lobsters from a late-arriving vessel were sold on Monday, Troy Durr told Undercurrent.

The Durrs previously organized a vessel direct sale effort on April 5 – also a Sunday — after processors stopped buying from harvesters due to the coronavirus-related closures of restaurants and the loss of export business, as reported by Undercurrent News. At the first event, which involved only the vessels Miss Molly and Mary Anne, 600 lbs of lobster were sold out at a price of $6.00/lb in 90 minutes.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

As Coronavirus Disrupts Seafood Supply Chains, Struggling Fishermen Seek Other Markets

April 14, 2020 — Scott MacAllister has mixed feelings about heading out to sea these days. This time of year, the 27-year-old dayboat fisherman primarily catches skate and monkfish from his home port of Chatham, Massachusetts. And while he certainly needs the income, MacAllister worries about exposing himself and his crew to coronavirus on his 40-foot boat, the Carol Marie.

“It’s a pretty small space [for] three or four people. If one of us gets it, we’re all going to get it,” he told Civil Eats. Still, MacAllister (pictured above) is grateful that the regional wholesaler who buys his catch, Red’s Best, still wants to buy his product.

Other fishermen in New England’s billion-dollar industry, which employs some 34,000 people, aren’t as lucky. Markets for lobster, oysters, and shellfish have collapsed along with restaurant closures and a sharp downturn in trade, leaving many fishermen struggling to make ends meet.

“There are certain things there are no markets for,” said Jared Auerbach, founder and CEO of Red’s Best, which buys solely from small, dayboat fishermen. While Red’s Best usually sells seafood fresh, the company is freezing fish in the hopes that international trade will eventually pick back up—or that the product will find new, domestic uses.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

Stimulus funding process proving tricky to navigate for smaller seafood operators

April 14, 2020 — The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the U.S. seafood industry being upended as restaurant closures drive down the prices of seafood, leading a number of food organizations to request relief from the government.

The U.S. government launched a relief package in late March consisting of USD 2 trillion (EUR 1.8 trillion) in aid for businesses in the U.S., including USD 300 million (EUR 273.5 million) earmarked specifically for the seafood industry. That package includes incentives to encourage employers to keep people on their payrolls, direct payments to low- to middle-income families, and aid to seafood companies that have lost revenue due to the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

The coronavirus pandemic’s influence on aquaculture priorities

April 13, 2020 — It didn’t make the nightly news, but Great Falls Aquaculture in western Massachusetts, USA, might have been the first seafood victim of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States.

Most of the fish being raised in the company’s recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facility in rural Turners Falls, Mass., are sold to live markets in major U.S. and Canadian cities, like New York, Boston, Toronto and Vancouver. The fish are typically raised to about 1 pound in size, perfect for whole-roasted individual servings.

Don’t worry – the fish are all alive and safe. But the fact that they’re all still in the tanks is a problem. Shortly after Chinese New Year celebrations in late January, the market for live barramundi (Lates calcarifer), known as the Asian sea bass, simply up and vanished.

“We were in contact with our Chinese customers on a daily business. Things were slowing down, family members weren’t coming home, they weren’t buying as much. They were nervous,” company owner Keith Wilda told the Advocate in late March. “Then, second week of February, people stopped going to Chinese restaurants in New York City.”

Great Falls was selling 23,000 pounds of barramundi per week before the COVID-19 outbreak. “Next week, I don’t know that I’ll even sell a fish,” he said, with 945,000 hungry barramundi currently swimming in indoor tanks. It’s a living inventory that reminds him of the tens of thousands of dollars it costs each month to operate, in energy and heating costs alone.

Read the full story at the Global Aquaculture Alliance

NEW Slow Speed Zone East of Boston to Protect Right Whales

April 10, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries announces a new voluntary vessel speed restriction zone (Dynamic Management Area  or DMA) east of Boston.

This DMA is based on an April 9, 2020, sighting of an aggregation of right whales from a Boston-area beach by private citizens.

Mariners, please go around these areas or go slow (10 knots or less) inside these areas where groups of right whales have been sighted.

East of Boston DMA is in effect through April 24, 2020.

42 47 N
42 05 N
70 26W
71 23W

Active Seasonal Management Areas (SMAs)

A mandatory speed restriction of 10 knots or less (50 CFR 224.105) is in effect in the following areas:

Mid-Atlantic: November 1-April 30

Cape Cod Bay: January 1-May 15

Off Race Point: March 1-April 30

Great South Channel: April 1 – July 31

More info on Seasonal Management Areas

Right Whales Are Migrating 

North Atlantic right whales are on the move along the Atlantic coast of the U.S. NOAA is cautioning boaters and fishermen to give these endangered whales plenty of room. We are also asking all fishermen to be vigilant when maneuvering to avoid accidental collisions with whales and remove unused gear from the ocean to help avoid entanglements. Commercial fishermen should use vertical lines with required markings, weak links, and breaking strengths.

Right Whales in Trouble

North Atlantic right whales are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Scientists estimate there are only about 400 remaining, making them one of the rarest marine mammals in the world.

North Atlantic right whales are NOAA Fisheries’ newest Species in the Spotlight. This initiative is a concerted, agency-wide effort to spotlight and save marine species that are among the most at risk of extinction in the near future. 

In August 2017, NOAA Fisheries declared the increase in right whale mortalities an “Unusual Mortality Event,” which helps the agency direct additional scientific and financial resources to investigating, understanding, and reducing the mortalities in partnership with the Marine Mammal Stranding Network, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and outside experts from the scientific research community.

Read the full release here

Saving Seafood Launches COVID-19 Response and Aid Information Portal

April 9, 2020 — We are pleased to announce Saving Seafood’s COVID-19 Response and Aid Information portal, available on the Saving Seafood website at coronavirus.savingseafood.org.

The two-way portal will provide curated and up-to-date information to the domestic seafood harvesting and processing community, as well as serve as a way for us to collect concerns from industry members, and get those concerns to appropriate entities at the Federal level.

As we have been doing since the declaration of a national emergency using our existing Saving Seafood member email lists, we will send out updates as we receive them from the White House, Congress, the Department of Commerce, Department of the Treasury, FEMA, DHS and other agencies. And we will add, modify, or update the information on this page.

If you would like to receive these updates by email, you may add you email address via the form at the top of the portal page.

We have heard from White House, Administration, Congressional offices and others who have asked that we keep them informed about any questions or concerns from the industry. This page will collect information received from members of the fishing industry, so we can provide that data to staff at relevant agencies and offices.

We will ensure that information sent out and posted here is reviewed and edited daily so that it is applicable to all types of businesses involved in seafood harvesting and processing in all regions of the U.S.

We will also include information that is relevant on a more local level, as we certainly are aware that the seafood industry and fisheries across the country are diverse. We want to work with appropriate state and local agencies to ensure that we have their updates as well.

Our friends at Massport — the Massachusetts Port Authority — and the New Bedford Port Authority were the first to agree to be partners in the effort, but since then numerous local agencies, companies and organizations have joined the effort. If your locale is not yet listed in the state area of the page, please reach out to your local/state agency that you feel would be our best partner in this effort and [1] introduce us or re-aquatint them with us, and [2] ask them if they’d partner with us (and you) on this project, and [3] let us know who you think we should work with in your region.

If your company or organization or agency is willing to be a partner in this effort, please contact derek@stoveboat.com to let us know and send a logo.

We would like to thank Pamela Lafreniere and Ed Anthes-Washburn at the Port of New Bedford, and Gordon Carr at Massport for helping us get this off the ground.

Reminder: Historic Shipwreck Avoidance on Stellwagen Bank

April 9, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries, in conjunction with NOAA Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, requests that vessels avoid shipwreck sites on southern Stellwagen Bank within the Sanctuary by keeping gear 400 feet away from each of the site locations listed below.

We recognize that fishermen want to avoid shipwrecks to ensure the safety of the crew and because of the risks of damaging their gear when the gear gets hung up on a wreck or other objects on the ocean floor.  Hanging up on a wreck can also cause serious damage to shipwrecks that have historical significance.

For more information read the permit holder bulletin posted on our website.

Read the full release here

Commercial fishing industry in free fall as restaurants close, consumers hunker down and vessels tie up

April 8, 2020 — Kenny Melanson has managed not to furlough or lay off employees at his seafood company, but all nonessential workers have been sent home. Now it’s core staff, hair-netted and suited up, spreading fat sea scallops across a mechanized belt and running them through two brine tanks and two washes and then a quick-freeze. There’s a wall of pallets, hundreds of boxes labeled “fresh seafood,” all of it enveloped in sheets of plastic wrap. Waiting for what’s next.

He runs Northern Wind in New Bedford, Mass., contracting with 74 fishing vessels and employing 125 people. In business 33 years, the company sells about 15 million pounds of scallops and about 6 million pounds of ahi tuna a year.

In the absence of sales, Melanson is running 150,000 pounds of sea scallops a day through individual tunnel freezers, banking them for when the pandemic is over. But cash flow is getting tight. And he worries that when regular life resumes, a glut of scallops will mean tanking prices.

“We could obviously tell our suppliers we would prefer if you don’t fish for the next 30 days,” Melanson said. “But I’m very concerned and nervous about the 28- and 29-year employees and the crews we’ve built up to produce these quantities. They all live paycheck to paycheck.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Facebook page helps Massachusetts captains sell lobsters direct

April 8, 2020 — A small group of lobster harvesters in the US state of Massachusetts are defying the horrible market conditions created by the coronavirus pandemic by selling direct to consumers at the dock, and using Facebook to promote their efforts.

Two vessels with captains from the town of Mattapoisett — the Miss Molly and the Mary Anne — kicked off the effort on Sunday with a test run by offering their fresh catch, first-come/first-serve, at Union Wharf, in the town of Fairhaven, for $6.00 per pound. All 600 lbs caught by the two vessels were sold out in 90 minutes.

The captains bought a commercial-grade scale and accepted cash and Venmo payments.

The price might’ve been a little below what lobsters were selling for before COVID-19 hit the US, but it was much higher than the $4.35/lb to $4.50/lb paid recently by processors, many of whom have now stopped buying altogether, Troy Durr, a Mattapoisett-based real estate agent and one of the direct-to-consumer event’s organizers, told Undercurrent News.

He said he and his uncle, Doug Durr, a crew member on the Miss Molly, were pushed into action after the Miss Molly’s captain, Dave Magee, was told earlier by a commercial buyer that it could only take 250 of the 500 pounds of lobster it brought in more than a week earlier. (Mike Asci is the captain of the Mary Anne.)

Read the full story at Undercurrent News