Saving Seafood

New England fishermen worry that wind turbines could impact their catch

December 26, 2017 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — East Coast fishermen are turning a wary eye toward an emerging upstart: the offshore wind industry.

In New Bedford, fishermen dread the possibility of navigating a forest of turbines as they make their way to the fishing grounds that have made it the nation’s most lucrative fishing port for 17 years running.

The state envisions hundreds of wind turbines spinning off the city’s shores in about a decade, enough to power more than 1 million homes.

‘‘You ever see a radar picture of a wind farm? It’s just one big blob, basically,’’ said Eric Hansen, 56, a New Bedford scallop boat owner whose family has been in the business for generations. ‘‘Transit through it will be next to impossible, especially in heavy wind and fog.’’

Off New York’s Long Island, an organization representing East Coast scallopers has sued the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to try to halt a proposal for a nearly 200-turbine wind farm. Commercial fishermen in Maryland’s Ocean City and North Carolina’s Outer Banks have also sounded the alarm about losing access to fishing grounds.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe

 

MSC certifies North Sea cod, signaling fishery’s recovery

July 19, 2017 — The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) announced its certification of cod caught by Scottish and English boats in the North Sea on Tuesday, 18 July, saying shoppers and diners “can finally buy the popular fish with a clear conscience.”

Cod stocks in the North Sea cratered around 10 years ago, with the annual catch dropping from historical highs around 270,000 metric tons (MT) in the 1970s to 44,000 MT in 2006. However, MSC said in its announcement that the fishery was brought back from the brink of collapse with the creation and implementation of a recovery plan formed between industry and the Scottish and E.U. governments.

“This is a huge accomplishment and the perfect example of what the MSC aims to achieve,” MSC Nort East Program Director Toby Middleton said in the release. “Thanks to a collaborative, cross-industry effort, one of our most iconic fish has been brought back from the brink. Modified fishing gear, catch controls, well-managed fishing practices – all these steps have come together to revive a species that was in severe decline.”

The “Cod Recovery Plan” closed spawning areas to fishing and introduced a system of fishing limits, with the goal of decreasing cod catches by 25 percent in 2009 and 10 percent every year thereafter, according to MSC. It also encouraged the development of better nets and the introduction of remote electronic monitoring using CCTV cameras onboard fishing boats. As a result, cod populations in the North Sea have risen fourfold since 2006.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MCS takes three haddock fisheries off ‘green list’

March 20, 2017 — UK-based environmental charity the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has downgraded three haddock fisheries on its “Good Fish Guide”, citing “a change in scientific advice”.

Two North Sea haddock fisheries are now rated 4 (amber), and the other has dropped from being a good choice (rated 2) to one to eat only occasionally (rated 3). This means all three drop off the MCS’ recommended green list of fish to eat.

“These ratings changes have come about because scientfic perception of the stock has changed. Compared to 2015, the stock numbers in 2016 were below the recommended level and at the point where action is now needed to increase the number of fish of breeding age,” said Bernadette Clarke, Good Fish Guide manager.

However, Scottish fishermen’s representatives told the Guardian the move as “dressing advocacy up as science”.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

EU Tightens Fishing Rules in North Atlantic, Ups Some Quotas

December 14th, 2016 — European Union nations have reached a deal to tighten some fishing rules in its Northeastern Atlantic waters and the North Sea to edge closer toward a fully sustainable industry by 2020, but environmentalists said lenient quotas still allowed for far too much overfishing.

After marathon talks that started Monday and finished only early Wednesday, EU fisheries ministers said more stocks will be fished at maximum sustainable yield in hopes of pushing more species to within safe biological limits after decades of overfishing.

Ministers from fisheries nations such as Britain and France came away happy enough with increased quotas for some stocks of cod and mackerel, a sign environmentalists and maritime scientists would be left grumbling about the slow recovery of the EU’s vast eastern waters.

“We worked constructively to put people’s livelihoods first,” Scottish Fisheries Secretary Fergus Ewing said, adding he had “secured crucial increases for the majority of our key species.”

However, what sounded appealing to many of the fishermen left a bad taste in the mouth of environmental organizations.

The EU has about 145,000 fishermen, many of whom have struggled as overfishing depleted stocks and increasingly tight quotas were imposed. The EU is legally bound to return to sustainable fishing by 2020, but faces an uphill task to get there in time.

That task only will become tougher if fishing quotas are set too high as the deadline approaches.

The EU said that under Wednesday’s decision, 44 stocks will now be fished to maximum sustainable yield compared to only 36 last year.

“Overall, more fish stocks are being fished sustainably,” EU Fisheries Commissioner Karmenu Vella said.

Read the full story at The New York Times 

Squid may become favourite UK meal as seas become warmer

December 13th, 2016 — Squid and fish that thrive in warmer waters, such as sardines and anchovies, are flourishing around the North Sea, according to fisheries data.

Squid are now being caught at 60% of survey stations in the North Sea, compared with 20% in the 1980s.

But the likes of cod are heading north, away from British waters.

Dr John Pinnegar, of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), which has been monitoring North Sea fish populations for more than 100 years, said models for 2025 and beyond suggested that seawater temperatures off the UK may continue to rise.

Fishing boats are now catching species that have not been caught in the area before.

Mediterranean alternatives

“Twenty or 30 years ago we hardly saw squid in our surveys,” he told BBC News.

Dr Pinnegar, programme director for marine climate change at Cefas, said summer squid fisheries had expanded around the Moray Firth in north-east Scotland, as part of efforts to reduce over-fishing of more traditional species such as haddock and cod.

“A lot of the things we see increasing in abundance around the UK are marine animals that would probably originally [be] thought of as being Mediterranean or characteristic of the Bay of Biscay, or around Portugal or Spain,” he added.

Read the full story at BBC News 

Time at sea limits canned for North Sea cod fishermen

November 23, 2016 — North Sea cod fishermen will be able to land every catch – not just cod – more easily following a decision by European Parliament to remove limits on the number of days a vessel can spend in a fishing area.

An update to European Commission (EC) Council Regulation No. 1342/2008 to establish a long-term plan for cod stocks and the fisheries exploiting those stocks in the Kattegat, North Sea, the Skagerrak and eastern Channel, west of Scotland and the Irish Sea, and fisheries exploiting those stocks makes it fully compatible with the new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) by applying the obligation to land all catches in full.

MEPs removed the rule for calculating fishing effort – i.e. power of each vessel in kW plus the number of days it is present within a given area – as this led fishermen to discard unwanted catches by hampering further adaptation of fishing patterns, such as the choice of area and gear.

Under the new rule, fishermen will face no obstacles to landing all their catches as they will no longer be subject to time limits.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

EU Commission proposes fishing opportunities in Atlantic & North Sea

October 27, 2016 — In preparation for the December Fisheries Council, where Member States will negotiate fishing quotas in the Atlantic and North Sea for 2017, the Commission is presenting its proposal for healthy and sustainable stocks.

Karmenu Vella, Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, said: “Our goal is clear: we need to bring all stocks to healthy and sustainable levels as soon as possible so that our fishing industry can remain viable. This is not up to the Commission alone: stakeholders are fundamental enablers in this process. We are proposing an ambitious programme for 2017 and the only way forward will be to work with fishermen, scientists and national authorities to develop real solutions that lead to fisheries that are both economically profitable and sustainable”.

Later this autumn the Commission will also propose some additional quotas, the so-called ‘quota top-ups’, for the fisheries that fall under thelanding obligation in 2017. These extra quotas are granted on account of the fact that fishermen can no longer discard the fish caught unintentionally but have to land it. The allowed quota is therefore increased to facilitate the transition to the new system of no discards. The exact top-ups per fishery will be determined on the basis of scientific advice expected in mid-November and of the quantities that need to be landed according to the regional discard plans.

Read the full story at Green4Sea

Fishing Quotas Proposed for Atlantic and North Sea

November 11, 2015 — The Commission proposes to maintain or increase the fish quotas for 35 stocks, and reduce catches for 28 stocks on the basis of the scientific advice received.

Some of the stocks facing increases include megrim in the North Sea and West of Scotland and horse mackerel in Northern Spain.

Due to a lack of improvement, stocks with cuts include Celtic Sea and English Channel cod and haddock by up to almost 30 per cent and 27 per cent respectively.

The Irish Sea sole fishery has a huge proposed cut of 100 per cent which would effectively close the fishery, said Europêche.

The Commission has also proposed a complete ban on the fishing of sea bass from 1 January to 30 June and a limitation to 1000kg per vessel per month in some areas only from 1 July.

Quota Top Ups

The EC is also proposing an increase in fishing opportunities to help fishermen in the transition to the new obligation to land all catches. This is the first time the Commission proposes so-called quota “top ups” for all the fisheries under the landing obligation as of 2016.

This extra quota aims to compensate fishermen for the extra fish they will have to land. On the basis of scientific advice to be received by mid-November the Commission will, later in the month, propose the catch increase including all the quantities that need to be landed.

Read the full story at The Fish Site

SCOTLAND: Media’s Fish Tales and Codology

July 22, 2015 — Back in 2012, the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times famously screamed that there were, “just 100 cod left in the North Sea”. Even at the time, it ranked as one of the greatest howlers ever published – as the BBC pointed out a fortnight later, they were only about half a billion wrong. It would have been funny but for the impact it had on the Scottish fishing industry. Having slimmed down dramatically over the preceding decade, and after the voluntary adoption of serious practical measures to aid recovery of a depleted stock, the last thing it needed or deserved was a bunch of irresponsible journalists destroying the market for locally caught fish.

It’s a shame that you can’t catch cod in London, Edinburgh or the grim, grey streets where environmental activists come from. Unfortunately for the fishing industry, a very large proportion of the UK’s fish comes from the northern part of the North Sea, and particularly the waters around Shetland. From a part of the world that doesn’t even appear on some newspapers’ weather maps, in other words. More fish are landed in Shetland than in England, Wales and Northern Ireland combined, and to journalists in London it barely exists. Out of sight, out of mind … and from where tales of plentiful cod, not to mention a couple of dozen other commercial fish species, can be safely ignored.

And such tales! Cod everywhere, cod impossible to get away from, cod recovering too fast for vastly shrunken quotas to cope, cod of a size not seen for decades. Grinning anglers mooring up in Scalloway claiming that after a great day out the 100 cod were down to 90 or whatever.

It certainly made for a contrast with annual quota talks in Brussels, where UK and Scottish ministers had to fight year after year just to prevent already inadequate cod quotas being cut further. Whatever the scientists were doing, it didn’t tally with what fishermen were seeing every day, haul after haul, and needless to say the anti-fishing brigade were delighted with the whole process. Good news on wildlife is very bad news for environmental groups; doom, gloom and ecological catastrophe are what they need to suck in donations. From that point of view, the disappearing cod story was extremely opportune.

Read the full story at The Scotsman