Saving Seafood

California crab fishermen are testing “ropeless” gear to save whales—and themselves

September 4, 2019 — After decades of whaling decimated their population, humpback whale populations off the West Coast are finally recovering. Hundreds of them now make their way up and down the coast each year, migrating from tropical breeding grounds in Mexico and Central America to feeding areas further north. For the most part, humpback whales—known for their melodic songs, athletic leaps through the air, and altruistic behavior towards other marine mammals—make this journey unhindered, as they did for centuries of their evolutionary history.

But in recent years, a new threat has emerged along the West Coast: From November through mid-July, tens of thousands of deadly ropes hang in the water column, connecting buoys at the surface with crab traps on the seafloor, designed to harvest Metacarcinus magister, aka Dungeness crab.

A curious humpback might become entangled while playing around with fishing gear or rolling around in it, as the mammals are known to do with kelp. Probably more often, they may become entangled while feeding, which they do by making underwater, open-mouthed lunges to collect krill or small fish. Fishing line can get caught up in the cetaceans’ baleen teeth and restrict their ability to feed. Ropes can gradually saw through tissue, causing lacerations and ultimately death by infection. Whales that don’t manage to break free on their own or get cut free by professional disentanglers immediately may drown or die slowly through exhaustion or starvation.

Read the full story at The New Food Economy

Latin America Reckons With a Fish-Farming Boom

August 22, 2019 — When he failed to ignite a continental uprising against South America’s 19th-century colonial masters, Simon Bolivar was crestfallen. “He who serves the revolution plows the seas,” he despaired. Happily, Bolivar got it backward.

From the Yucatan Peninsula to the Strait of Magellan, aquaculture is revolutionizing food production. Plowing the oceans and inland waters, Latin America and the Caribbean expanded more than five-fold their output of captive finfish, crustaceans and mollusks and, from 1995 to 2016, nearly doubled the regional share of global aquaculture. Chilean fish farms now supply about 30% of the world’s salmon and earn the country more revenue than any other export except minerals. Ecuador is the world’s fifth largest supplier of marine crustaceans, Mexico ranks seventh, and Peru’s fisheries are poised to export their aquaculture technology. That makes Central and South America the fastest growing flank of the world’s fastest growing food industry, a global haul now worth $243 billion a year, and on track to double output by 2030.

For a region plagued by stop-and-go growth, aquaculture is a boon.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

Mexico becomes top US trade partner one year into China conflict

August 8, 2019 — It’s been one year, so how’s that trade war with China working out for the nation’s seafood industry?

As with farmers, there’s not much winning and ongoing tweeted skirmishes have global fish markets skittish.

The quick take is the 25 percent retaliatory tariff imposed by China on U.S. imports last July caused a 36 percent drop in U.S. seafood sales, valued at $340 million, according to an in-depth analysis of Chinese customs data by Undercurrent News.

“Chinese imports of US seafood fell from $1.3 billion in the 12 months prior to tariffs (July 1, 2017-June 30, 2018), to $969 million in the 12 months after (July 1, 2018-June 30, 2019), underlining the heavy impact of weaker demand for U.S. seafood subject to tariffs, while poor catch of U.S. wild-caught seafood was also to blame,” the News wrote.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Latest surveys show vaquita porpoise population at less than 19 individuals

August 6, 2019 — A new survey published in Royal Society Open Science has dire news for the survival of the vaquita porpoise – a small porpoise that lives in an area of the Mexican coast in the Gulf of California.

Using passive acoustic survey devices – which detect the vaquita due to the species’ use of echolocating “clicks” – the report determined that fewer than 19 individual vaquitas remained as of autumn 2018. The acoustic surveys, which started in 2011, have shown a 99 percent decline in the detection rate of the animals.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Population of Critically Endangered Vaquita Porpoises Now Less Than 19 Individuals

August 1, 2019 — There are now less than 19 individual vaquita porpoises left in the wild, according to an alarming new survey. Scientists say immediate measures are now required to save this enigmatic species from extinction.

If fishing nets continue to be used illegally off the coast of Mexico, vaquita porpoises (Phocoena sinus) will likely become extinct within a year, according to new research published today in Royal Society Open Science. This species, which lives exclusively in the upper Gulf of California, is listed by the IUCN as Critically Endangered. As the new research shows, and despite measures taken by the Mexican government in 2015 to crack down on the use of illegal nets, the population of vaquita porpoises continues to decline.

Vaquita porpoises are the world’s smallest cetacean. On average, females measure around 140 centimeters (55 inches) in length, while males are slightly shorter at 135 centimeters (53 inches) long. Vaquitas, which translates to “small cow” in Spanish, have a gray or white complexion, a tall dorsal fin, dark eye rings, and long flippers.

Read the full story at Gizmodo

Coast Guard wages battle against illegal fishing boats

May 29, 2019 —  In the sun-blasted, wind-riven waters between the South Padre Island jetties and the mouth of the Rio Grande, a different kind of border crossing crisis is playing out.

One side has spotter aircraft, radar and fully crewed patrol craft loaded with the latest technology. The other employs simple 20- to 30-foot boats with outboard motors, capitalizing on speed and a canny sense for beating a tactical retreat.

For Mexican lancha crews fishing illegally in the waters of the United States, low-tech often proves good enough.

In the past five years, U.S. Coast Guard interceptions (visual sighting at sea or by air) and interdictions (stop and seizure) are up. Last year, Coast Guard crews seized 60 vessels which were fishing illegally in U.S. waters.

This year, they’ve already boarded and taken 58.

Read the full story at The Brownsville Herald

To create sustainable seafood industries, the United States needs a better accounting of imports and exports

May 28, 2019 — Global seafood trade nearly doubled in recent decades, fueled by decreasing transportation costs, advances in preservation and processing technologies, and open trade policies and is now among the most highly traded commodities. The United States is currently the world’s top seafood importer and among the top five exporters. It is often quoted that 90% of seafood consumed in the United States is imported, implying only 10% is of domestic origin. Over the past decade, this statistic has been widely shared and highlighted with more than 60 news articles quoting it annually since 2014, and it is increasingly used to support proposed policy changes. In recent years, the former US Secretary of State, current US Secretary of Commerce, and members of Congress have all cited the number to call for new policy measures addressing seafood sustainability and dependence on foreign seafood.

However, we argue that far more than 10%, likely 35–38%, of seafood consumed in the United States is of domestic origin. Precise estimates are difficult because of complex supply chains: for instance, some seafood caught in the United States is exported for processing and imported again under a different trade code for consumption in the United States. Such globalized supply chains are commonplace with many products relying on numerous foreign inputs and crossing international borders multiple times. For example, beef production between the United States and Mexico can involve multiple exchanges of calves, adults, and final products. These counterintuitive patterns are created by low tariffs and transportation costs that allow producers to optimize for favorable interest rates and low production costs across supply chains, keeping prices low for US consumers of beef, seafood, and countless other products.

Unfortunately, a dark cloud looms over seafood trade as tariffs recently imposed by the United States and retaliatory tariffs imposed by China and other countries hit US seafood exporters and importers, resulting in higher seafood prices for US consumers. Accounting for the realities of globalized supply chains is not only needed for better statistics that support evidence-based policy but is also key to supporting the US seafood industry, achieving sustainable production, and meeting consumer demand.

Read the full story from the National Academy of Sciences at Medium

Game wardens, Coast Guard chase off illegal fishing boats

April 23, 2019 —  Texas game wardens and U.S. Coast Guard patrols chased eight “lanchas” fishing illegally in U.S. waters back into Mexico on Saturday, confiscating and removing 10 miles of illegal long-lines.

The Mexican fishermen were illegally setting long-lines in the Gulf of Mexico off Cameron County shores, and game wardens confiscated those and freed game fish including 40 sharks and king mackerel along with a single sea turtle.

Long-lining, which is banned in Texas waters, uses hundreds or even thousands of baited hooks attached to a single line. Texas waters stretch nine nautical miles from shore and, following a tip, the wardens and Coast Guard found the lanchas setting their lines a mile to a mile-and-a-half from shore in U.S. waters.

Game wardens found so many illegal long-lines had been set that they had to continue their mop-up operations Sunday.

Lanchas are speedy open boats favored by inshore fishermen and are usually 20 to 30 feet long and powered by outboard motors. The boats cross into U.S. waters and captains set long-lines and then head back to Mexican waters before returning five or six hours later to haul in their catch.

Read the full story at The Valley Morning Star

Study maps where tunas, sharks and fishing ships meet

March 26, 2019 — Overfishing is rapidly pushing many of the world’s sharks and tunas toward extinction. The world’s fastest known shark, the shortfin mako, for example, was recently uplisted to endangered on the IUCN Red List, its decline mostly attributed to overfishing.

But researchers are only beginning to figure out where and when people fish them the most. Now, a new study has some answers.

By analyzing the trails of more than 900 fishing vessels and more than 800 sharks and tunas in the northeast Pacific, researchers have identified regions where the two tend to overlap. This information, researchers say, can be used to manage fisheries, especially in the high seas, the swaths of ocean that lie beyond the jurisdiction of individual countries.

“These fish [sharks and tunas] may travel thousands of miles every year, crossing international boundaries and management jurisdictions,” said Timothy White, lead author of the study and a graduate student in biology at Stanford University, California. “In order to sustainably manage them, we need to know where they migrate and where people fish them, but this info is surprisingly difficult to gather for sharks and tunas of the open ocean.”

Read the full story at Mongabay

Seafood importers backing groups in protecting vaquita

March 18, 2019 — The following was released by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership:

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) is pleased to announce eight US importers of Mexican seafood—Aquastar, Artisan Catch (Orca Foods LLC), Del Pacifico, Inland Seafood, Meridian Products, Ocean Garden Products, Santa Monica Seafood, and Seattle Fish Company—have joined together to donate $12,000 to VaquitaCPR to fund removal of illegal fishing gear from the upper Gulf of California.

All eight companies participate in a Mexican Seafood Supply Chain Roundtable (SR) facilitated by SFP for managing ongoing sustainability improvement efforts.

The vaquita porpoise in the upper Gulf of California is critically endangered. The most recent population estimate (2018) indicates, at most, only 22 individuals. Though gillnets were banned from the upper Gulf of California throughout the vaquita’s native range in 2017, illegal use of gillnets by totoaba poachers and shrimp fishermen has continued and is threatening the existence of the vaquita.

“Unless this decline can be stopped by eliminating mortality in illegal gillnets, the vaquita will be extinct in a few years,” said the authors of a 2017 report from the 10th meeting of the Comité Internacional para la Recuperación de la Vaquita.

Through VaquitaCPR, conservation organizations such as Museo de la Ballena and the World Wildlife Fund are working with the Mexican Ministry of Environment and Mexican Navy as well as local fishermen to remove the illegal gillnets from the water on a continuing basis. This gear removal program is critical to the survival of the remaining vaquita.

“The seafood community has a long history of supporting the environmental and social needs of our community. None of these needs have been more important than the conservation, protection, and recovery needs of the vaquita porpoise,” said Lance Leonard, President/CEO of Ocean Garden Products, Inc. “The industry stands united in working with government, NGOs, and environmental groups to identify ways to save this unique mammal. We support the activity of VaquitaCPR and hope to bring attention to the cause with our customers and consumers.”

These companies, along with a number of other Mexican Seafood SR participants, have also sent a letter of support for alternative gear development to the Mexican government and upper Gulf of California shrimp fishermen. In this letter, they request that the Mexican government improve enforcement of the gillnet ban, but also expedite the processes necessary to develop and approve a viable alternative gear for small-scale shrimp fishermen.

“We would like to further express our willingness to collaborate in this important effort through the purchase, distribution, and marketing of the shrimp captures resulting from the adoption of fishing gears other than gillnets and or entanglement nets, which do not represent risk of bycatch to the vaquita marina,” participants wrote in the letter.

The importers are pledging future support to develop a market in the U.S. for “vaquita-safe” shrimp, once it becomes available. The letter was sent to the Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development, Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, National Commissioner of Aquaculture and Fisheries, and the National Commissioner of Natural Protected Areas, as well as shrimp producer cooperatives in the upper Gulf region.

According to Megan Westmeyer, SFP Senior Improvements and Strategy Manager, “When the permanent gillnet ban went into effect without a viable alternative gear for the artisanal shrimp fishery, the supply chain lost the ability to use its purchasing power to affect change. Fortunately, these suppliers are determined to see that the upper Gulf of California can be home to both the vaquita porpoise and a sustainable artisanal shrimp fishery, and are taking action to ensure this vision becomes reality.”