Saving Seafood

New England Ocean Cluster creating collaborative model to advance blue economy

January 17, 2020 — For the past five years, the New England Ocean Cluster has been without the collaborative working space that the model thrives on, but that’s soon going to change.

The New England Ocean Cluster is based on the Iceland Ocean Cluster, and both locations share the same mission: To connect various entrepreneurs, businesses, artists, and other talented individuals in a collaborative space to enhance the region’s seafood industry. The cluster model is intended to bring together industries that, without it, may have had no reason to collaborate or connect.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Canada institutes gear-marking requirements in right whale protection efforts

January 16, 2020 — The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) in Canada is instituting new requirements for the country’s lobster and crab fisheries, partially intended to help coordinate protection of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

The new measure involves specially marked gear rope that will be required for roughly 14 fisheries, with all lobster and crab traps in Eastern Canada coming under the new rule, according to the CBC. According to a notice from the DFO, the requirements are part of the country’s effort to address ghost gear and to measure threats to marine mammals, particularly right whales, in the region.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Canadian snow crabbers outraged by US lawmakers’ call for ban

January 7, 2020 — Robert Hache, director general of the Association Des Crabiers Acadiens, a trade group that represents some 115 snow crabbers in Canada’s Gulf of Saint Lawrence, has a few choice words for the four US state of Maine lawmakers who recently sent a letter to Wilbur Ross, secretary of the US Department of Commerce.

The letter calls for the president Donald Trump administration to ban the import of Canadian snow crabs, suggesting their fishing practices are more responsible for the decline of endangered North American right whales than those of Maine lobster harvesters.

“I find it so demoralizing to see public figures use fake facts or lies to simply put blame on an industry in order to support their own political interests,” Hache told Undercurrent News. “This is very saddening.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Canada PM Justin Trudeau outlines goals for increasing MPAs, moving to land-based aquaculture

December 16, 2019 — Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released a slate of ministerial mandate letters on 13 December, outlining the priorities he wants his Cabinet to pursue.

In his letter to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard Bernadette Jordan, Trudeau called for an increase in the country’s marine protected areas to cover 25 percent of Canada’s oceans by 2025, and a further increase to 30 percent coverage by 2030. Currently, just under 14 percent of Canada’s waters are designated MPAs.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

The small change that meant big losses for lobstermen

December 13, 2019 — A sixteenth of an inch doesn’t seem like much. But it added up to a whole lot for Nova Scotia lobstermen in December 1989.

A new law had been passed in the United States that increased the minimum allowable size of lobsters for import, by that seemingly insignificant margin.

The CBC camera showed a live lobster being measured using a specialized device.

But as Halifax reporter Paul Barr explained, the difference was anything but insignificant.

“That might not sound like much of a change to a non-fisherman,” he explained. “But in reality, it means as much as a quarter-pound increase in weight.”

That meant that fishermen were spending time catching lobsters they couldn’t export.

Read the full story at CBC News

‘Climate shocks’ reducing fish stocks in New England, and Atlantic Canada could be next

December 11, 2019 — A new study says “climate shocks” are reducing fish populations in the North Atlantic region, leading to fewer jobs and lower wages in New England’s fishing sector.

Fishing communities along the northeastern U.S. seaboard have long struggled with warming waters, dwindling fish stocks and rising unemployment.

The research published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is the first to directly link climate change with declining fishing jobs.

It found that climate fluctuations caused a 16 per cent drop in fisheries employment in New England from 1996 to 2017.

The findings suggest Atlantic Canada’s fisheries could also potentially experience increasing variability in fish stocks, revenue and employment due to climate change in the coming years.

Read the full story at The Chronicle Herald

Cooke opens new AC Covert seafood distribution centre and retail outlet in Nova Scotia

December 3, 2019 — The following was released by AC Covert:

AC Covert, one of Canada’s largest seafood suppliers, is hosting an open house for the local community on Dec. 4th from 2-6pm at it’s new distribution centre and retail outlet at 390 Higney Avenue, located in the Burnside Business Park, Dartmouth, NS.

Since 1938, AC Covert has been the fishmonger supplier of choice for the finest retailers and food service professionals in Atlantic Canada. AC Covert delivers the freshest responsibly sourced and prepared fish to fine dining restaurants, hotels, gastro pubs, professional caterers and retailers locally and across North America.

AC Covert distributors was purchased by the Cooke family in 2008 and now offers over 400 different fresh and frozen seafood products to customers including smoked salmon, lobster, halibut, scallops and much more. The open house on Dec. 4th will feature seafood product samples, special offers and prizes.

“AC Covert now employs 30 people and Cooke spent $5.2 million constructing this new two-story, 26,000 square foot distribution centre and retail outlet where 6 delivery trucks operate from six days a week,” said Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Inc. “This expansion is an integral part of our growth plan and we are part way through investing $112 million in Nova Scotia.”

“Nova Scotia is Canada’s number one seafood supplier and we now export to 80 international markets,” said Keith Colwell, Nova Scotia’s Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. “We’re home to a diverse range of premium quality seafood and value-added products and it’s wonderful that AC Covert has expanded in our province to distribute products from over 30 Nova Scotia seafood companies.”

“Burnside is the largest industrial park north of Boston and east of Montreal, with almost 2,000 enterprises and approximately 30,000 employees,” said Mayor Mike Savage of Halifax Regional Municipality. “Cooke’s investment in AC Covert shows how our growing community is a beacon for attracting business investment creating local jobs.”

AC Covert is open Monday-Saturday from 8:00 am – 4:00 pm.

Warming Waters, Moving Fish: How Climate Change Is Reshaping Iceland

December 2, 2019 — Before it became a “Game of Thrones” location, before Justin Bieber stalked the trails of Fjadrargljufur, and before hordes of tourists descended upon this small island nation, there were the fish.

“Fish,” said Gisli Palsson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Iceland, “made us rich.” The money Iceland earned from commercial fishing helped the island, which is about the size of Kentucky, become independent from Denmark in 1944.

But warming waters associated with climate change are causing some fish to seek cooler waters elsewhere, beyond the reach of Icelandic fishermen. Ocean temperatures around Iceland have increased between 1.8 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years. For the past two seasons, Icelanders have not been able to harvest capelin, a type of smelt, as their numbers plummeted. The warmer waters mean that as some fish leave, causing financial disruption, other fish species arrive, triggering geopolitical conflicts.

Worldwide, research shows the oceans are simmering. Since the middle of last century, the oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions. To beat the heat, fish are moving toward cooler waters nearer the planet’s two poles.

Read the full story from The New York Times at The Seattle Times

Unique challenges await Trudeau’s newly-appointed Canadian fisheries minister

November 21, 2019 — Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has chosen Nova Scotia’s Bernadette Jordan to head up the country’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and to oversee its Coast Guard.

This marks the second time that Jordan has held a cabinet seat in Canada – Trudeau initially brought her aboard in January 2019 as the minister of rural economic development. Jordan, who was first elected in 2015 to represent South Shore-St. Margarets, takes over the fisheries minister role from British Columbia’s Jonathan Wilkinson, who will serve as the minister of environment and climate change in Trudeau’s updated cabinet.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Why Atlantic Canada’s lucrative seafood industry is concerned about Elizabeth Warren

November 21, 2019 — Canada is defending measures it has taken to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, as political pressure — and blame — mounts from the United States in the wake of a rash of whale deaths in Canadian waters in 2019.

“We’re very confident that our measures are world-class in nature and stand up extremely well to those in the United States,” said Adam Burns, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ director of resource management.

Burns was responding to the latest salvo from Massachusetts senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, who are threatening a ban of some Atlantic Canadian seafood products.

The senators blame a Canadian “roll back” of whale protection measures in 2019. Canada had 12 right whale deaths in its waters in 2017, then none in 2018.

Read the full story at CBC News