Saving Seafood

Lawsuit Challenges NMFS Exempted Fishing Permits for Two Pelagic Longline Vessels Off California

June 10, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network sued the Trump administration this week for permitting a new longline fishery — two vessels –in the Pacific Ocean.

The fishery, authorized in May by the National Marine Fisheries Service, would operate off California despite a federal ban on longline gear created in 2004 to protect sea turtles. This fishing will threaten endangered leatherback sea turtles, as well as olive ridley and loggerhead sea turtles and Guadalupe fur seals, the Center said in a press release.

“Leatherback sea turtles need to catch a break, not a longline hook,” Catherine Kilduff, a Center senior attorney, said in the release. “Californians demand more selective and sustainable fishing for swordfish. But the indiscriminate longlines authorized by the Trump administration will hook, injure and drown endangered species off our coast.”

“This is basically the same fishery the agency outlawed fifteen years ago, and the same agency is using a backdoor maneuver to get the fishery reopened,” Todd Steiner, executive director of Turtle Island Restoration Network stated. “Sea turtles could go extinct if deadly longline fisheries are expanded. And it’s not just in California— the Hawaii longline fleet has been forced to close early two years in a row because they have exceeded their legal turtle take. It makes no sense to re-authorize this wasteful fishery off of California.”

The exempted fishing permit has been years in the making and was approved unanimously by the Pacific Fishery Management Council after being fully vetted by the Council, its advisory bodies and the public. NMFS then issued the permit that allows for only two fishermen on two vessels to target highly migratory tuna and swordfish.

The EFP requires 100% monitoring by observers and establishes hard caps on ESA-listed species. That is, fishing must stop if the number of incidental interactions with animals exceed certain parameters. It also excludes any fishing within 50 miles of the coast or offshore islands and requires a full suite of verified mitigation techniques be used during all test fishing. These techniques are known to reduce or eliminate interactions with sea birds, sea turtles and marine mammals.

In fact, NMFS issued terms and conditions for the EFP that are more restrictive than those listed in the original application.

“NOAA’s decision is a huge win for American fisheries, fishermen and ultimately, the environment,” Dave Rudie, owner of Catalina Offshore Products and President of the California Pelagic Fisheries Association, said in a statement. “It will greatly benefit San Diego and southern California and our consumers as well.”

The new permits could increase reliance on local seafood, particularly where swordfish and tuna are concerned. The North Pacific swordfish population is very healthy and would support a substantial additional harvest according to all international fisheries experts and published reports. Any increase in U.S. fisheries production improves America’s seafood security as well as provides for a sustainable ecosystem footprint often lacking in the weak environmental oversight of foreign fisheries, the association noted in a press release.

The Center said Pacific leatherback sea turtles are highly endangered, with scientists predicting their extinction in 20 years. Yet the exempted fishery will occur in an area that includes the Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area, which prohibits swordfish fishing using drift gillnets to protect leatherback sea turtles.

However, the increased mitigation requirements mandated by NMFS specify no-fishing areas such as the Southern California Bight and within leatherback critical habitat or 50 nautical miles from the coast, whichever is greater.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, states NMFS’ issuance of the permit violated several environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act. The suit seeks to invalidate the permit, protecting the turtles and seals from longlines.

NMFS issued the permit May 8.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Patchwork of policies holding back US aquaculture industry growth

June 7, 2019 — The 47th United States-Japan Natural Resources Scientific Symposium “Marine Aquaculture in a Changing Environment” will be held November 12 to 15, 2019, in Okinawa, Japan. It will be the last year for the three-year theme, “Marine Aquaculture in a Changing Environment.”

The symposium is part of a regular collaboration between NOAA Fisheries and the Japanese Fisheries Research and Education Agency, organized through the U.S.-Japan Natural Resources (UJNR) Aquaculture Panel. The panel is an annual meeting framework that allows scientists to share research results, new technology, and approaches to sustainable seafood farming. Last year’s meeting took place in Mystic, Connecticut, U.S.A.

Mike Rust, a NOAA Fisheries scientist and the U.S. chair of the UJNR Aquaculture Panel, told SeafoodSource the exchanges represented an important path to improving the state of U.S. domestic aquaculture.

“The learning opportunities are tremendous on a number of fronts. The United States is behind in both the scale of marine aquaculture and the science and technology effort to support a sustainable industry. This partnership gives U.S. researchers a chance to understand where Japan is going in aquaculture and learn from Japan’s experience,” Rust said. “The low-hanging fruit in some ways is to look around the world to see where other people are on the technical side.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NOAA Fisheries Seeks Comments on Proposed Measures to Rebuild the Atlantic Mackerel Stock

June 7, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Framework Adjustment 13 to the Atlantic Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan would establish a five-year rebuilding plan for Atlantic mackerel, set 2019-2021 specifications, modify closure triggers to slow the commercial fishery when harvest approaches the annual quota, and update the river herring and shad catch cap in the Atlantic mackerel fishery.

For details, please read the rule as filed in the Federal Register. Supporting analysis for this rule is available on the Council’s website.

Comments are due July 8, 2019.

To submit comments online, please use the e-rulemaking portal, or send comments by regular mail to Michael Pentony, Regional Administrator, NOAA Fisheries, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA, 01930. Please mark the outside of the envelope, “Comments on the Proposed Rule for Atlantic Mackerel Framework 13.”

Read the full release here

California Wetfish Producers Association Recognizes Ocean Week With Video on the Latest in Sardine, Anchovy Science

June 7, 2019 — This week, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (NMSF) is convening Capitol Hill Ocean Week in Washington, D.C. Additionally, President Trump has declared the month of June “National Ocean Month” in recognition of the importance of the ocean to the economy, national security, and environment of the United States.

For the duration of Ocean Week, Saving Seafood will share materials related to the sustainable and economically vital U.S. commercial fishing and seafood industries, including information tied directly to events being organized as part of the NMSF conference.

The following was released by the California Wetfish Producers Association:

In recent years, fisheries managers have made devastating cuts to California’s sardine and anchovy fisheries based on reports that populations of the two species have sharply declined. However, the California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA) is marking Ocean Week 2019 with a video documenting new research that shows increasing populations of both species in nearshore waters.

The CWPA has been working in cooperation with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Southwest Fisheries Science Center to develop sampling methods to assess sardine and anchovy in nearshore waters missed by NOAA’s acoustic trawl surveys. This research shows that both species are abundant in nearshore waters not surveyed by NOAA – in fact, approximately 70 percent of California coastal pelagic species landings are harvested in waters not surveyed in federal stock assessments.

More accurate biomass estimates and stock assessments for coastal pelagic species will benefit sustainable harvest policies, the fishermen and seafood processors who produce these species, and fishing communities and seafood consumers who rely on them.

“We’re doing [this research] partly to improve the science in cooperation both with federal and state fishery biologists,” says Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of CWPA, in the video. “And we’re doing it to save our lives.”

Watch the video here

About the California Wetfish Producers Association

The non-profit California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA) was established in 2004 to promote sustainable fisheries and foster cooperative research. Voluntary membership includes the majority of wetfish harvesters and processors operating in California.

Environmental groups file federal suit to stop California longline fishery

June 6, 2019 — Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, 6 June, claiming it used a “backdoor maneuver” to permit a new longline fishery off the California coast.

In a statement, the Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network said NOAA Fisheries did not comply with the Endangered Species Act when it approved the longline fishery last month. The fishery will consist of two fishing vessels utilizing lines with numerous hooks that stretch for miles to catch tuna and swordfish.

The groups fear endangered species such as Pacific leatherback turtles will end up caught in some of the hooks and potentially die from the interaction. Scientists believe those leatherbacks could become extinct within two decades.

“The failure of the Fisheries Service to comply with environmental laws in issuing the Permit diminishes leatherback sea turtles’ slim chance to defy predictions of extinction,” the complaint, filed in the Northern District of California, states.

Officials issued the permit even though NOAA Fisheries banned longlines 15 years ago.

“This is basically the same fishery the agency outlawed 15 years ago, and the same agency is using a backdoor maneuver to get the fishery reopened,” Turtle Island Restoration Network Executive Director Todd Steiner said in a statement.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

How much U.S. Seafood is Imported?

June 4, 2019 — This week, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (NMSF) is convening Capitol Hill Ocean Week in Washington, D.C. Additionally, President Trump has declared the month of June “National Ocean Month” in recognition of the importance of the ocean to the economy, national security, and environment of the United States.

For the duration of Ocean Week, Saving Seafood will share materials related to the sustainable and economically vital U.S. commercial fishing and seafood industries, including information tied directly to events being organized as part of the NMSF conference.

Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. EDT, as part of Capitol Hill Ocean Week, there was a panel “Addressing the US Seafood Deficit.” The following article looks at a new study that concluded more of the seafood eaten in the U.S. is produced domestically than previously thought. It was published last week by Sustainable Fisheries UW:

The commonly quoted statistic that “90% of seafood consumed in the United States is imported” is out of date and should stop being cited. In this post, I explain the origins of the 90% myth, the scientific paper that produced the updated numbers, and the implications for U.S. trade and seafood markets.

Where did the 90% statistic come from and why is the new estimate more accurate?

A lot of seafood farmed or caught in the United States is sent overseas for processing, then sent back. Due to varying trade codes that get lost in the shuffle of globalization, these processed seafood products are often mistakenly recorded as ‘imported,’ despite being of U.S. origin.

For example, pollock, the fish used in McDonald’s Filet-o-fish sandwich, is caught throughout U.S. waters near Alaska. Once onboard, a significant portion is sent to China (the U.S.’s largest seafood trade partner) to be cleaned, gutted, and processed into filets. After processing in China, the fish is sent back to the U.S. and sold in restaurants and grocery stores. Pollock is not a Chinese fish, but the trade codes used when sending them back from China signify them as Chinese-origin and they are recorded as imported or foreign seafood.

Recording fish caught in the U.S. but processed in China has led to a significant overestimation of Americans’ so-called ‘seafood deficit’, or the ratio of foreign to domestic seafood consumption in the U.S.

Unfortunately, the misleading 90% deficit statistic has become commonplace, mostly due to coverage of Oceana’s seafood fraud campaign that stoked consumer anxiety about imported seafood. Distorted import data had been taken at face value for several years because no one had pieced together the conversion factors that account for processing and return export/import—until three scientists, Jessica Gephart, Halley Froehlich, and Trevor Branch, published their work in PNAS in May 2019.

Knowing the conversion factor for seafood products caught or farmed in the U.S. is the key to accurately estimating the amount of domestic seafood processed abroad. Froehlich describes a conversion factor as a number that can be used to back-calculate a processed seafood item to its pre-processed weight. Basically, when pollock are sent back to the U.S. after being processed in China, a conversion factor can be applied to estimate how much fish was originally sent and domestic seafood statistics can be corrected. When U.S. seafood is processed abroad but consumed in the U.S., it should be counted as domestic seafood consumed domestically.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

Saltonstall-Kennedy 2020 Grant Application Now Open

June 3, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is pleased to announce the 2020 Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant competition is currently open.

The goal of the Saltonstall-Kennedy program is to fund projects that address the needs of fishing communities, optimize economic benefits by building and maintaining sustainable fisheries, and increase other opportunities to keep working waterfronts viable. The FY20 solicitation seeks applications that fall into one of two priorities:

  • Promotion, Development, and Marketing.
  • Science or Technology that Promotes Sustainable U.S. Seafood Production and Harvesting.

Application Process

This year’s solicitation consists of two steps:

1. All interested applicants must submit a two-page pre-proposal to the Federal Funding Opportunity posted on Grants.gov by July 30, 2019. Please be sure to submit your pre-proposal to the “Pre-proposals FY20 Saltonstall-Kennedy” link.

2. Applicants submitting a full application after the pre-proposal review process must submit it to the “Full Proposals FY20 Saltonstall-Kennedy” link on Grants.gov by November 12, 2019.

Be sure to read the Federal Funding Opportunity and follow the directions closely, and take advantage of our checklist and guidance for applicants.

2019 Southeastern Bering Sea Shelf Bottom Trawl Survey Gets Underway

May 30, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

On May 31 the Southeastern Bering Sea Bottom Trawl Survey will depart Dutch Harbor to collect data on the distribution and abundance of crab, groundfish, and other bottom-dwelling species in the southeastern Bering Sea. These data are used to estimate population abundances to manage commercially important species in Alaska. NOAA Fisheries has conducted this survey annually since 1975.

As we did last year, we intend to provide regular updates on water temperatures collected near the seafloor at all of our survey stations. When we conduct surveys for fish and other species, we also collect information about the environment in which they live — their habitat. For fish and other species water temperature is important. It affects their spawning, access to food, and growth rates.

We had another unusually warm winter and expect to see a reduction in the cold pool. The cold pool is a natural, thermal barrier created by melting winter sea ice. It tends to separate Arctic species, usually found in the northern Bering Sea, from commercially important pollock, Pacific cod and other species, typically found in the southeastern Bering Sea. Last year after a similar warm winter, a partial survey of the northern Bering Sea was conducted. Large numbers of pollock were found there.

Once scientists complete this year’s survey of the southeastern Bering Sea, they will move northward to conduct a full survey of the northern Bering Sea bottom-dwelling community. Additional surveys are planned in the northern Bering Sea using surface trawls and hydro-acoustics to monitor key components of the marine ecosystem and environmental conditions. Be sure to check back here for regular updates on ocean temperatures collected during the Bering Sea bottom trawl surveys.

The southeastern Bering Sea bottom trawl survey will be conducted from approximately May 31 to August 2.  The northern Bering Sea bottom trawl survey will be conducted from about August 3 to 25.

Read the full release here

Red tide could wipe out a generation of stone crabs

May 28, 2019 — Red tide algae can take a toll on the future of the stone crab industry, Mote Marine Laboratory researchers discovered.

Intense concentrations of the toxic red algae potentially can wipe out a generation of stone crabs, Mote scientists reported this week.

The loss could be cataclysmic to Florida’s seafood industry. The health of stone crabs is commercially valuable to the health of Florida’s economy.

More than 105 million pounds of stone crabs were harvested between 1996-2016 and is ranked fifth by the National Marine Fisheries Service among the commercially harvested Florida seafood. Pink shrimp ranks number one. Nationwide, Florida’s seafood industry ranked 11th in the United States, producing more than 87 million pounds of seafood harvested in 2016 and with a dockside value of $237 million, Marine Fisheries reported.

Mote scientists are trying to help figure out why the stone crab catch in Southwest Florida has seen a 25 percent decrease since 2000, and trying to determine the influence of red tide could be a key.

High concentrations of Florida red tide — Karenia brevis — caused 100 percent mortality in stone crab larvae in a four-day study, Mote reported in a press release. Medium concentrations had a 30 percent mortality rate, and many of the surviving larvae had impaired swimming behavior.

Read the full story at the Englewood Sun