Saving Seafood

Tilapia has a terrible reputation. Does it deserve it?

October 24th, 2016 — When it comes to fish, no species brings out the haters like tilapia.

Read up on it, and you’ll find tilapia described with words like “muddy” and “earthy”; there are entire forum threads devoted to its inferiority. This very newspaper, back in 2007, called it “the fish that chefs love to hate.”

Should we really be so hard on this fast-growing freshwater fish?

In the world of food, there aren’t too many propositions that get universal agreement, but here’s one: Our oceans are overfished. If we’re going to continue to eat fish, and to feed it to the people scheduled to join us on this planet in the coming years, we have to farm it. And if we’re going to farm fish, an adaptable, hardy fish like tilapia is an excellent candidate.

Yet a combination of rumors and credible reports works against it. Perhaps you’ve heard that tilapia are raised in cesspools and live on poop? Even the USDA says there is — or, at least, used to be — some truth in that. The agency’s 2009 report on Chinese imports notes that “Fish are often raised in ponds where they feed on waste from poultry and livestock.”

Before we meet that fact with a chorus of “ewww,” it’s worth noting that turning feces into fish would be the agricultural equivalent of spinning straw into gold. Although there are important safety concerns in that kind of system, if you can manage those risks, you’ve got one of the most sustainable foods going. It’s a downright Rumplestiltskinnian miracle, and we should root for it, not against it.

The question is whether that still happens. To find out, I went to the source: Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, which rates seafood choices based on whether they have been responsibly fished or farmed. Seafood Watch lists tilapia from nine different sources. Four (from Peru, Canada, Ecuador and the United States) are rated “Best Choices,” another four (from China, Taiwan, Mexico and Indonesia) are “Good Alternatives,” and only one (from Colombia) is rated “Avoid.” I asked Ryan Bigelow, the Seafood Watch program’s engagement manager, to give me a rundown on the sustainability issues.

Read the full story at The Washington Post 

One Man’s Passion: Catching Fish in the Act of Spawning and Sharing Their Secrets

July 7, 2016 — Will Heyman is a fish stalker.

The Texas marine scientist is obsessed with finding and watching groups of fish that gather in special places to spawn.

While this may seem an odd passion, witnessing breeding behavior is part of a critical mission to help save marine life. By working with fishermen, scientists, fishery managers, and others to document what he sees, Heyman hopes to persuade leaders to protect these mating meccas, thus giving a boost to fish populations and helping depleted species recover.

“Do we go to sea turtle nests and destroy all the eggs?” asks Heyman, a senior marine scientist for the consulting firm LGL Ecological Research Associates. “Humans have learned to respect and protect these vulnerable places for some species, but for some reason we still catch fish where they aggregate to spawn. It’s not an ethical way to interact with a species that we depend upon. And from a practical view, if you want to keep eating some of these delicious fish, we’ve got to act.”

Heyman’s findings have helped build the case to protect spawning grounds in places such as the southeastern United States, Belize, Mexico, and Honduras. Most recently he has documented spawning in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

Read the full story in the National Geographic

U.S. Tuna Industry Objects To New Proposed Labeling

April 29, 2016 — PAGO PAGO, American Samoa — Tri Marine International, whose local operations include a tuna cannery, and National Fisheries Institute (NFI) both contend that the new interim final rule by the federal government on dolphin safety labeling is due to a recent sanction of the US by the World Trade Organization in a long standing case which pits the US against its neighbor, Mexico. They say it is an unfair and unproductive burden to U.S. seafood companies that does not resolve the protracted WTO litigation, nor improve on the existing dolphin-safe operational performance.

Industry officials told Samoa News that the new interim final rule (or IFR) will only increase operational costs for the US tuna canneries, who are already faced with stiff global competition, and that the US canneries have been adhering to dolphin safe labeling standards set by the federal government for many years.

This was echoed by NFI president, John P. Connelly in an Apr. 22 letter to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), who is seeking public comment on the IFR for “enhanced document requirements and captain training requirements to support use of the dolphin safe label on tuna products.”

“Consumers purchasing canned and pouched tuna from Bumble Bee Foods, Chicken of the Sea, and StarKist should be confident that the ‘dolphin-safe’ label the retail packaging bears means just that,” Connelly wrote.

The three canneries are the major US producers of tuna products.

Read the full story at the Pacific Islands Report

Some Green Sea Turtles Can Now Wave Goodbye To Their Endangered Status

April 20, 2016 — Slow and steady won the race, at least for a few green sea turtles.

U.S. officials announced early this month that breeding populations in Florida and on the Pacific coast of Mexico are off the endangered list.

They will be re-classified as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, which means they are no longer immediately threatened by extinction but still merit protection under the act.

“It’s just like the manatees. Even though the turtles have been downgraded, it won’t affect them as far as enforcement goes,” FWC spokesman Bobby Dube told Florida Keys Keynoter.

Read the full story from the Huffington Post

Conservation efforts show results as status of eight green sea turtle species changes

April 6, 2016 — The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has changed the status of some green sea turtle species from endangered to threatened in its latest report. Credit should be given to conservation efforts carried out by different wildlife preservation organizations across the world. Work of law enforcers and agencies has also been praised by the latest report.

On Tuesday, the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA) have changed the status for few species which have seen recovery in their population. Experts said that there are many types of green sea turtles and the legislation is applicable on the ones found in the United States and Mexico.

During the conservation efforts and project, the conservators divided the species in 11 segments. Out of them, three remain as endangered and the other eight have been changed to threatened species. With the division, specialists will be able to keep a track on the turtles’ development and to come up with better conservation strategies.

Though threatened is not the best scenario, it is the first step in the right direction. Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries, said, “Successful conservation and management efforts developed in Florida and along the Pacific coast of Mexico are a roadmap for further recovery strategies of green turtle populations around the world”.

Read the full story at Mainer News Online

US expands tougher ‘dolphin-safe’ rules around the world

March 22, 2016 — WASHINGTON(AP) — The United States, facing sanctions for discriminating against Mexican tuna imports, is expanding tougher rules for labeling tuna ‘”dolphin-safe” on the rest of the world instead of easing up on Mexico.

Last fall, the World Trade Organization ruled that the United States was unfairly using stricter tracking and verification standards on tuna fishing in the waters from San Diego to Peru, where Mexican fleets operate, than it was imposing on fleets elsewhere. In retaliation, Mexico has been preparing to slap $472 million in tariffs against imports of high fructose corn syrup from the United States.

The U.S. decided against loosening the rules on Mexico, choosing instead a plan that “elevates requirements for tuna product from every other region of the world,” U.S. Trade Rep. Michael Froman said in a statement.

The dolphin-safe labels are supposed to ensure that canned, dried and frozen tuna has been caught without endangering dolphins. Schools of tuna tend to gather and swim with some species of dolphins.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Gloucester Daily Times

U.S. charity deploying fish to front lines of fight against Zika

VIRGINIA (March 17, 2016) –The Zika virus is spreading around the globe, becoming a major health crisis, and now one humanitarian organization is deploying mosquito-eating fish throughout Central America in an effort to stop the epidemic.

The virus has triggered outbreaks in recent months in 41 countries and is transmitted by mosquitos which thrive in pools of standing water. Normally, Zika causes fever and rashes and not much more, but there is a particularly alarming link between the virus and a rare neurological syndrome that can be fatal, Guillain-Barré, as well as an increase of babies born with abnormally small heads.

To combat the mosquitoes, Operation Blessing International, a Christian humanitarian organization based in Virginia, is deploying small gambusia or Sambo fish in cities and villages throughout El Salvador and Mexico. The fish feast on the larva of the Aedes aegypti mosquitos, which carries Zika, dengue and yellow fever.

Read the full story at Fox News Latino

In Mexico, Fish Poachers Push Endangered Porpoises to Brink

March 1, 2016 — In 2013, Song Shen Zhen, a 75-year-old resident of Calexico, California, was attempting to re-enter the United States from Mexico when border patrol noticed a strange lump beneath the floor mats of his Dodge Attitude. The plastic bags beneath the mats contained not cocaine, but another valuable product: 27 swim bladders from the totoaba, a critically endangered fish whose air bladders, a Chinese delicacy with alleged medicinal value, fetch up to $20,000 apiece. Agents tracked Zhen to his house, where they discovered a makeshift factory containing another 214 bladders. Altogether, Zhen’s contraband was worth an estimated $3.6 million.

The robust black market is grim news for totoaba — but it’s an even greater catastrophe for vaquita, a diminutive porpoise that dwells solely in the northernmost reaches of the Gulf of California, the narrow body of water that extends between the Baja Peninsula and mainland Mexico. Since 1997, around 80 percent of the world’s vaquitas have perished as bycatch, many in gill nets operated by illegal totoaba fishermen.

Today, fewer than 100 vaquitas remain, earning it the dubious title of world’s most endangered marine mammal. Scientists fear the porpoise could vanish by 2018. “The possible extinction of the vaquita is the most important issue facing the marine mammal community right now,” says Barbara Taylor, a conservation biologist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

The vaquita — “little cow” in Spanish — is a creature of superlatives. Not only is it the most imperiled cetacean, it is also the smallest, at less than five feet long from snout to tail, and the most geographically restricted: Its entire range could fit four times within Los Angeles’ city limits. Prominent black patches ring its eyes and trace its lips, giving Phocoena sinus a charming, panda-like appearance. The porpoise, which typically travels in pairs or small groups and communicates using rapid clicks, is famously cryptic; conservationists recently went two years without documenting a single sighting. Some Mexican fishermen insist the vaquita is already extinct, photographic evidence notwithstanding.

Read the full story at Yale Environment 360

U.S. Determines that Mexico’s Measures to Reduce the Bycatch of Sea Turtles are Insufficient

August 19, 2015 — Mexico was identified for bycatch of a protected living marine resource (PLMR) in the 2013 Biennial Report to Congress. For a number of reasons, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) decided not to make a certification decision on the 2013 PLMR bycatch identification in the 2015 Biennial Report.

First, Mexico made meaningful progress late in 2014 to develop a draft regulatory program to address loggerhead sea turtle bycatch, which culminated in the December 5, 2014, publication of a proposal to establish a refuge area within the Gulf of Ulloa for the conservation of this species. Second, the Government of Mexico gave assurances that this program would be adopted by April 1, 2015. Although the 2015 Biennial Report stated an intention to issue the final certification determination in May 2015, this determination was delayed as NMFS did not receive the adopted regulatory program from Mexico until April 10, 2015. NMFS now issues the PLMR bycatch certification determination for Mexico in this Addendum to the 2015 Biennial Report to Congress.

For the reasons explained below, NMFS has determined that Mexico should receive a negative certification concerning its actions, to date, to address the issues raised in the 2013 bycatch identification. Basis for Mexico’s 2013 Identification for Bycatch of PLMRs. In 2012, Mexican fishing vessels in the gillnet fishery in Baja California Sur incidentally caught North Pacific loggerhead sea turtles, a PLMR shared with the United States. In October 2012, the Mexican Fisheries Research Institute published a report on bycatch reduction trials conducted earlier in 2012 in the gillnet fishery in Baja California Sur.

Read the full story at the Yucatan Times