Saving Seafood

Biden Clean Power Push Hits New York With Offshore Wind Sale

January 12, 2022 — The Biden administration is preparing to sell offshore wind rights near New Jersey and New York, a down-payment on its bid to decarbonize the U.S. power grid and generate renewable electricity from nearly all U.S. coasts.

Under the auction, which could be announced as soon as Wednesday, the U.S. government aims to sell leases to install wind turbines in shallow Atlantic waters between New Jersey and New York’s Long Island, with the potential to generate some 7 gigawatts of carbon-free electricity.

As a sign of the opposition, a conservation group on Monday sued the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, asking a federal court to reverse the agency’s March 2021 decision to recommend five areas for offshore wind projects in the New York Bight.

Save Long Beach Island told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the bureau failed to study the effects the projects would have on the environment. The group also faulted the agency for failing to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine if any wind project would affect North Atlantic right whales or other protected species.

Separately Tuesday, groups representing fishing interests, including the Responsible Offshore Development Association, urged the bureau to take more steps to limit the impacts of offshore wind development, including by developing formal benchmarks to assess projects.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

 

Good ocean conditions could be good news for salmon, NOAA says

January 10, 2022 — Fish swimming out to sea over the past year have lucked into some of the best water temperatures and food abundance along the West Coast in the last 24 years, according to an analysis from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began monitoring ocean conditions.

That could be good news for salmon and steelhead over the next few years, biologists said.

The welcoming waters in 2021 appear to be the second most favorable for fish since scientists with NOAA began monitoring ocean conditions, said Brian Burke, research fisheries biologist at NOAA Fisheries.

“It’s sort of been this growing picture of, ‘Wow, things are really looking good right now across the board,’” Burke said.

“The upwelling created a really productive coastal system,” Burke said.

That productivity has built slowly over several years, Burke said, after a string of hard years for ocean-dwelling fish.

Read the full story at Oregon Public Broadcasting

 

NMFS Revises TAC Amounts For Gulf of Alaska Pollock, Pacific Cod

January 6, 2022 — The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) revised the 2022 total allowable catch (TAC) amounts for pollock and Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska. The changes, which increases the pollock TAC and decreases the Pacific cod TAC, were put into effect at 12 noon Alaska local time on January 1, 2022.

According to NMFS, the pollock TAC will increase from 99,784 metric tons (mt) to 141, 117 mt. The TAC for Pacific cod decreased from 27,961 mt to 24,111 mt.

Read the full story at Seafood News

High School Students Bring Seafood to Low-Income Consumers

January 6, 2022 — Based in Philadelphia, Fishadelphia is a pilot community seafood program that was awarded a Saltonstall-Kennedy (S-K) Grant in 2020. It was designed to connect low-income consumers in Northern Philadelphia with neighboring New Jersey harvesters. This project promotes improved business practices, increased market demand for U.S. commercial fish species, and keeping working waterfronts viable.

Grants are critical to the fishing industry. Traditional funding can be hard to obtain for smaller seafood programs, but that’s where the S-K program can help. These grants help bridge that gap and support projects that are outside of the mainstream lending arena.

Since 1980, the S-K Grants program has helped turn ideas into reality. In 2018, Dr. Talia Young started this project while a Smith Conservation Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University. Her goal was to connect the fishing communities with the eating communities in the city.

“This is a cool project and one that I’m happy to highlight because it supports community participation that contributes to the promotion of U.S. seafood. This provides fresh seafood to underserved communities, and increases the customer base for our working waterfronts, which aligns with the goals of the S-K grant program,” said Nicole MacDonald, Regional S-K Grant Manager at the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office.

Take a Closer Look

Fishadelphia in essence is a de facto retail fish market with students running the show. The whole idea is to make new connections by promoting, developing, and marketing local seafood to low-income people of color. The diverse team consists of middle school, high school, and college students, family, teachers, seafood harvesters, and marine biologists. The program is creative and paves the way for expansion. It serves as a model for other communities struggling to incorporate healthy seafood into their diets. It’s not surprising MacDonald thinks that this project is “cool”—because it is.

Read the full story from NOAA Fisheries

Future of Maine’s lobster industry to be decided in federal court

January 5, 2022 — The new year could bring about big changes for Maine’s lobster industry. Two lawsuits are scheduled to be heard in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., involving a federal proposal to protect North Atlantic right whales. The outcome could determine when, where and how lobstermen can fish off the state’s coastline.

“If you take one of the largest-earning industries away from Maine, we’re already in a position where young people continue to move away because there aren’t enough jobs or good paying jobs and if you go ahead and eliminate more of them, you will lose more and more assets in the state,” says Chris Welch, a full-time lobsterman from Kennebunk.

The 10‐year whale protection plan proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service would close more than 950 square miles of fishing grounds, about 30 miles off Maine’s coast, to traditional lobster fishing.

The proposed regulations also would require lobstermen to make numerous changes to their gear, and to when and where they are allowed to fish based on when right whales are believed to be in the area.

Read the full story at Spectrum News 1

NOAA Fisheries Completes 5-Year Review of Endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales

January 5, 2022 — Every 5 years, NOAA Fisheries reviews the status of species listed under the Endangered Species Act to make sure they have the protection they need. We have completed our review of endangered Southern Resident killer whales and confirm they should remain listed as endangered.

The review also underscores the work we must still do to recover this declining species. We have made important strides, including:

  • Expanding critical habitat
  • Limiting commercial and recreational Chinook salmon fishing in years of low abundance
  • Releasing more salmon from hatcheries to supplement their prey
  • Funding restoration of habitat essential to the salmon the whales depend on as prey

However, we must work with our partners to do more.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

 

NOAA sees good ocean conditions for salmon

January 4, 2021 — Ocean conditions look better than they have in years, which could be good news for salmon.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently posted its ocean ecosystem indicators list. The list paints a picture of how the ocean is doing and what kind of world young, ocean-bound salmon are about to enter.

The list looks at a variety of factors, including the abundance of certain minuscule but key prey groups and large climate and atmospheric processes like seasonal upwelling, which brings nutrient-rich water to the surface.

Researchers assign different colors to each indicator: green is good, yellow is fair and red is bad news.

Read the full story at the Chinook Observer

 

Maine joins lawsuit on right whale regulations

January 4, 2022 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources has joined as an intervenor in the Maine Lobstermen’s Association lawsuit challenging NMFS restrictions on lobster gear to protect North Atlantic right whales.

A Dec. 30 announcement from Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ office said “NMFS acted arbitrarily by failing to rely on the best available scientific information and by failing to account for the positive impact of conservation measures already adopted by the Maine lobster fishery.”

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association lawsuit in Washington, D.C, federal court challenges the NMFS biological opinion on right whales issued in May 2021, the agency’s response to federal court rulings that whale protections so far have failed to meet requirements of endangered species and marine mammal laws.

NMFS has put on new regulations for using lobster traps and their vertical floating lines to buoys that the agency and whale experts see as a serious threat to the survival of the right whale population, estimated at around 360 animals.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NMFS set to reduce red grouper quota for Gulf of Mexico commercial fishermen

December 23, 2021 — The National Marine Fisheries Service announced in mid-December that on Jan. 1 the agency would withhold 600,000 pounds of IFQ red grouper allocation from commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico. The current commercial catch target is 3 million pounds.

A late-2019 stock assessment indicated that red grouper were neither overfished nor undergoing overfishing but that their population was “below a level that could support the optimal harvest,” said NOAA. “Additionally, there is evidence the red grouper population has been hurt by recent red tide events along the west Florida shelf.”

The size of the commercial cut correlates with a change in the fishery’s historical commercial/recreational allocation that the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council had passed in June 2021; Reef Fish Amendment 53 reduced the commercial share of the fishery from 76 percent to 59.3 percent and increased the recreational share from 24 percent to 40.7 percent.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

4 Key Takeaways From NOAA’s COVID Impact on Fishing and Seafood Industries Report

December 22, 2021 — This month NOAA Fisheries released a report analyzing the impacts that COVID-19 had on the U.S. seafood and for-hire fishing sector in 2020. The report looked at wild harvest and aquaculture, as well as the recreational charter/ for-hire sectors. And according to NOAA, their analysis showed that the COVID-19 public health crisis “created a turning point for the U.S. and the global seafood industry.”

Here are 4 key takeaways from the report:

Commercial Fishing Landings Revenue Declined in 2020

Regional landings revenue from March to December 2020, relative to the 5-year-baseline (2015-2019), declined 15% in the Atlantic HMS, 18% in the Northeast, 27% in the Southeast, 29% in Alaska and the West Coast; and 36% in Hawaii. There was no increase in monthly landings revenue relative to the baseline until October 2020. At that point the Northeast posted a 4% increase. The following month the Atlantic HMS fishery posted a 21% increase.

Read the full story at Seafood News