Saving Seafood

Whale of an Idea: Satellites Help Monitor Migrating Humpbacks

February 7, 2017 — First drones, and now satellites are allowing scientists to spy on whales — for research, that is.

Though they are massive animals, whale populations are difficult to monitor, according to researchers. Drones have been used to capture footage of whales, and now scientists are turning to even higher-flying help. Researchers in Australia are using satellite imagery to track local humpback whale populations, reported the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC).

Humpback whales were considered an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. However, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service lifted the whales’ endangered status last year as a result of successful conservation efforts. But despite this success, the migratory whales are difficult to track, and many population estimates are largely speculative, according to Curt Jenner, managing director of the Centre for Whale Research in Western Australia. [In Photos: Tracking Humpback Whales in the South Pacific Ocean]

Read the full story at LiveScience.com

NMFS Temporarily Closes “A” Season Pollock Fishing in Gulf of Alaska Area 610

February 6, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — National Marine Fisheries Service has issued a temporary rule prohibiting directed fishing for Pollock in Statistical Area 610 in the Gulf of Alaska for the A season.

The action is necessary to prevent exceeding the A season allowance of the 2017 total allowable catch of pollock for Statistical Area 610, NMFS said in the rule published on Jan. 31 in the Federal Register.

NMFS manages the groundfish fishery in the Gulf exclusive economic zone under the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska prepared by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council under the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

The A season allowance of the 2017 total allowable catch of Pollock for Area 610 of the GOA is 2,232 metric tons, as established by the final 2016 and 2017 harvest specifications for groundfish in the GOA.

After NMFS’ regional administrator determined that the A season allowance for that TAC would soon be reached, NMFS moved to prohibit additional directed fishing for Pollock there during the A season.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission. 

Fish Industry Says Tighter Monitoring Will Hurt Business

February 3, 2017 — Several seafood and restaurant industry groups sued the National Marine Fisheries Service over its plan to more closely monitor where market-bound fish are coming from to thwart those who profit from illegal catches.

In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the plaintiff associations claim the new policy would increase the costs incurred by their members and that those costs would further hurt their businesses when they were, of necessity, passed on to consumers.

The fisheries service believes a large amount of the fish and other sea life consumed by Americans is being caught by illegal means or in ways that flout conservation and sustainable fishery management practices.

The rule at the center of the lawsuit establishes a new method of recordkeeping that federal regulators believe will allow them to better monitor where fish bound for America’s tables are coming from.

“The Rule would require seafood importers to trace the origin of the fish they import to either the specific boat that caught the fish or a ‘single collection point’ to the day the fish was caught and to the sector of the specific ocean where the fish was caught,” the complaint says.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service

5 surprising benefits of U.S. farm-raised seafood

February 2, 2017 — You’re shopping for tonight’s dinner and decide fish sounds delicious. You visit the seafood section of your local market and are suddenly overwhelmed with choices. Salmon, tilapia, clams or shrimp? Imported or U.S. farm raised?

It can feel like there are endless options when shopping at the grocery store. Knowing what’s best for you and your family is difficult enough, yet alone weighing environmental concerns and other impacts of food choices.

When selecting seafood, there are various things to consider before deciding what to put in your cart. For many people, U.S. farm-raised options are their seafood of choice for a variety of reasons.

Low-calorie protein

U.S. farm-raised fish and shellfish are an amazingly nutrient dense food and are excellent sources of high quality, easily digestible protein. What’s more, they are packed with important vitamins and minerals including essential B-complex, A and D vitamins as well as selenium, iron and zinc. An average serving has less than 200 calories. Some of the leaner varieties like tilapia, clams, oysters, mussels and shrimp have less than 100 calories.

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

ALASKA: Halibut gets bump; salmon prices soar

February 1, 2017 — More Pacific halibut will be going to market this year due to an overall boost in the harvests for the West Coast, British Columbia and Alaska. The coastwide catch of 31.4 million pounds reflects a 5.1 percent increase, and for the first time in decades, not a single fishing region met with a decline in halibut catches.

The heartening news was released on Jan. 27 by the International Pacific Halibut Commission, overseer of the stocks since 1923.

Halibut catch limits are determined by summer surveys at more than 1,200 stations from Oregon to the Aleutians. In 2016, the results showed the stock had remained stable over a span of three years, although the fish remained small for their ages.

Alaska always gets the lion’s share of the Pacific halibut catch and a take of 22.62 million pounds this year adds up to an extra million pounds for longliners who hold quota shares of the fish.

The good news has been dampened somewhat by a potential delay to the March 11 start of the fishery due to the bureaucratic freeze by our new president.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce 

USDA Declines to Institute Grade A Catfish Program; Elects to Continue USDC Grading

January 31, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The USDA published a federal register notice today that it will not go forward with a Grade A catfish inspection program. Instead it urges users to continue to use the USDC Grade A catfish inspection program run by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (2008 Farm Bill) and the Agricultural Act of 2014 (2014 Farm Bill) directed the Secretary of Agriculture to establish within USDA a voluntary, fee-based grading program for catfish. Since passage of the 2008 and 2014 Farm Bills, and particularly since the publication of the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) final rule, “Mandatory Inspection of Fish of the Order Siluriformes and Products Derived From Such Fish,” which defined catfish (80 FR 75589), AMS has engaged the U.S. catfish industry and other stakeholders to seek input on requirements for voluntary U.S. standards for grades of catfish.

During the 60-day comment period, four responses were submitted–two from catfish importers, one from an industry institution, and one from a U.S. catfish producer/processor. One importer stated support for a USDA grading program if it included all Siluriformes species (currently, imported products of many varieties of Siluriformes are not eligible to be graded under the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Standard). Two additional responses did not support USDA’s development of voluntary U.S. standards or a grading program. One pointed out the duplicity of creating these under AMS when they already exist under NFMS, noting the unnecessary use of resources to develop a program “and market to a consuming [public] that is not demanding a new U.S. Grade Standard;” the other recommended the use of the NMFS standards and grading program, as these are already familiar to the industry and their customers.

Based on the responses received from the Notice as well as additional feedback from stakeholders through other avenues, including two industry workshops coordinated by AMS and academia and an industry-wide conference call held by AMS in May 2016, AMS has concluded that there is not sufficient interest in USDA-AMS standards for catfish or an AMS-administered grading program at this time.

It is important to note that a standard for catfish, and associated voluntary grading services, are currently available to the industry through NMFS. NMFS maintains the “United States Standards for Grades of North American Freshwater Catfish and Products Made Therefrom” and provides grading and certification services on a fee-for-service basis. Graded catfish and catfish products may bear official marks, including `U.S. Grade A,’ `Processed Under Federal Inspection,’ and `Lot Inspection.’ Additional services provided by NMFS include system and process audits, product inspection, and export certification.

In light of the response from industry stakeholders indicating there is no current need for USDA-AMS standards nor a subsequent AMS-administered grading program for catfish, AMS will discontinue the initiative to establish either at this time. AMS stands ready to assist agricultural industries in establishing voluntary standards and grading programs for commodities for which it has authority to do so; the catfish industry retains this option should the need arise.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Fishing industry backs Chris Oliver for NMFS director

January 27, 2017 — A coalition of commercial fishing, Native and environmental entities is backing Chris Oliver, executive director of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, to become the next head of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The more than four dozen signers of a letter sent to the Trump administration on Jan. 23 included processors Trident Seafoods and Icicle Seafoods, Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, Alaska Marine Conservation Council, At Sea Processors Association, Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., Fishing Vessel Owners Association, Pacific Seafoods Processors Association, United Catcher Boats, and United Fishermen’s Marketing Association.

Read the full story at The Cordova Times

NCFA: Workshop Meets to Address Bycatch in North Carolina Shrimp Trawl Fishery

January 13, 2017 — The following was released by the North Carolina Fisheries Association:

A workgroup formed by the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission in 2015 to investigate ways to further reduce bycatch in shrimp trawls met recently in New Bern. The industry work group is a collaborative effort that consists of staff from the Division of Marine Fisheries, N.C. Sea Grant, fishing vessel owners, net makers and a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The meeting recently held at the Riverfront Convention Center in New Bern follows the second year of a three year project, and is showing some very promising results.

The goal set by the Marine Fisheries Commission for the workgroup was set at 40% reduction in finfish bycatch.

Of the devices that were tested, the device achieving the highest reduction in the previous year was further modified for year two, resulting in a 54.5% reduction of finfish bycatch and a 52.2% reduction in bycatch of all types.

It was noted that none of the sampling for the project was done by extrapolation, but by sampling the entire contents of over 180 tows.

The meeting was held while a Petition for Rulemaking, filed by the North Carolina Wildlife Federation and the Southern Environmental Law Center, is being considered by the Marine Fisheries Commission. If the proposed regulations were enacted as proposed by the petitioners, there would be severe restrictions to shrimping in North Carolina.

“In the many years that I’ve been involved with representing the state’s commercial fishermen, there is no one issue that we’ve spent more time on than reducing bycatch in the shrimp trawl fishery”, said Jerry Schill, President of the North Carolina Fisheries Association. “Further, there is no one issue where we’ve had more success than reducing that bycatch. However, with their goal of eliminating shrimp trawling in our state, the onslaught continues. It will not abate until they’re successful”.

The public meeting to address the petition will be held on Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at the Riverfront Convention Center in New Bern, NC, beginning at 12:30pm.

Effort continues to replace humans with cameras on fishing boats

January 9, 2017 — Several years into the controversial effort to bolster Alaska’s fisheries observer program, a top federal fisheries official defended the work at a Seattle gathering of fishermen.

Eileen Sobeck, the NOAA Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, took the stage this past Nov. 18 to talk to fishermen gathered for the annual Fish Expo event to recap the program.

Observers are the eyes and ears on boats, collecting a range of data, she explained.

“We have been monitoring fisheries for decades, and we do it in a lot of different ways,” Sobeck said.

But the details of the program have been under fire over the past few years. Federal efforts to put a human on smaller boats was met with concerns about safety and efficiency, and fishermen’s requests to use cameras have had logistical difficulties.

Over the past few years, the effort to use cameras has increased nationwide, and the National Marine Fisheries Service has been tasked with sorting out how to make that work, both logistically and cost-wise.

Over 10 years, the National Marine Fisheries Service has helped fund more than 30 electronic monitoring, or EM, pilot programs. Expenses include the cost of cameras, the cost to install them, and the cost of going through the immense amount of data they can collect.

“We have, collectively, an interest in being as cost-effective as we can possibly be,” Sobeck said.

That effort has translated into regional electronic monitoring plans that were finished more than a year ago, and are now being implemented with plans for regular reviews, said George LaPointe, one of the point people on the project.

Although monitoring in some fisheries has developed successfully, like in the groundfish fisheries, LaPointe said, the agency is still working toward certain implementation, such as in Alaska’s small boat fixed gear and pot fisheries, where the target date is 2018.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce