Oceana Archives - Saving Seafood

MAINE: Environmentalists weigh in on right whale rules for lobster industry

August 16, 2019 — Environmentalists showed up in large numbers Thursday night to urge federal fishing regulators to defend the endangered right whale against what they claim is the looming extinction threat posed by the Maine lobster industry.

Some of the largest and most powerful animal and environmental groups – including Oceana, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the U.S. Humane Society and the Conservation Law Foundation – sent representatives to the National Marine Fisheries Service meeting in South Portland.

They urged the fisheries service to take immediate action to protect the species, which now numbers about 400, calling for actions such as offshore fishing closures and ropeless lobster fishing that even a team tasked with protecting the whale had dismissed as too drastic as recently as April.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Trump administration moves to ease enforcement of Endangered Species Act regulations

August 13, 2019 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, 12 August, announced changes in how it would administer the Endangered Species Act, a move it said would add transparency to the process.

However, environmental groups lashed out at the move, claiming it would make it harder to protect species and harm wildlife protections, given it will government officials the chance to consider economic factors when determining if action should be taken to intervene in a species’ management plan.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

California Wetfish Group Files to Intervene in Oceana Anchovy Lawsuit

August 12, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The California Wetfish Producers Association has filed to intervene in a lawsuit filed by environmental group Oceana over California’s northern anchovy fishery. The filing will allow the association to participate in the lawsuit to protect the interests of California fishermen and processors who would face significant economic harm if the lawsuit were successful, CWPA said in a press release.

The lawsuit alleges the National Marine Fisheries Service must set stricter limits on the northern anchovy catch. As the result of a recent Oceana lawsuit, where the Court required NMFS to revise its catch rule, the catch limit is currently set at 23,573 metric tons, which, according to NMFS estimates, is only 25 percent of the stock’s overfishing level.

Additional restrictions on the anchovy harvest are unnecessary, the CWPA said.

“If [Oceana] prevails in this case, there could be a drastic reduction from current harvest levels,” CWPA said in its filing. “Such a reduction in harvest opportunity will seriously and irreparably harm CWPA members and the wetfish industry.”

This would affect not just California wetfish fishermen, who rely on anchovy when other species like squid or mackerel are unavailable, but also the processors, distributors and seaside businesses who rely on a consistent catch. If lower catch limits are approved, the jobs of at least 400 CWPA members alone will be at risk, as well as many thousands more in related industries.

“Fishermen up and down the California coast are facing threats to their livelihoods from this frivolous and unnecessary lawsuit,” CWPA Executive Director Diane Pleschner-Steele said. “We are asking to be involved in this lawsuit to ensure that the Court also considers the needs and concerns of our members and California’s coastal communities. Our fishery management policy mandates balance between protecting the ocean and sustaining fishing communities ”

Since then, the CWPA has participated in cooperative surveys with the NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Those surveys documented tens of thousands of tons of anchovies in the inshore areas that have simply not been counted in stock assessments. This finding contradicts the argument that the anchovy population was dangerously low, and that the already precautionary catch levels must be reduced further, CWPA said.

“The best available science does not support Oceana’s position,” Pleschner-Steele said in the statement. “The Court needs to allow NMFS to set appropriate catch limits based on sound science.”

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

Trade group, California processor seek to intervene in Oceana anchovy lawsuit

August 12, 2019 — A trade group and a California-based processing company filed a motion in a U.S. federal court last week seeking to intervene in a lawsuit brought on by Oceana against NOAA Fisheries.

The Oceana suit, filed in June, claims the government agency is not following the best available science to set the catch limit on the anchovy stock in Northern California. That suit was in response to the catch limit NOAA Fisheries set in May after an order from a federal judge stemming from an earlier lawsuit by Oceana.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

California Wetfish Producers Association Files to Intervene in Oceana Anchovy Lawsuit

August 8, 2019 — The following was released by the California Wetfish Producers Association:

The California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA) has filed to intervene in a lawsuit filed by environmental group Oceana over California’s northern anchovy fishery. The filing will allow CWPA to participate in the lawsuit to protect the interests of California fishermen and processors who would face significant economic harm if the lawsuit were successful.

The lawsuit alleges that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) must set stricter limits on the northern anchovy catch. As the result of a recent Oceana lawsuit, where the Court required NMFS to revise its catch rule, the catch limit is currently set at 23,573 metric tons, which, according to NMFS estimates, is only 25 percent of the stock’s overfishing level.

Not only are additional restrictions on the anchovy harvest unnecessary, but greater cuts would result in significant job loss and economic hardship for California’s wetfish industry and coastal communities.

“If [Oceana] prevails in this case, there could be a drastic reduction from current harvest levels,” said CWPA in its filing. “Such a reduction in harvest opportunity will seriously and irreparably harm CWPA members and the wetfish industry.”

This would affect not just California wetfish fishermen, who rely on anchovy when other species, like squid or mackerel, are unavailable, but also the processors, distributors, and seaside businesses who rely on a consistent catch. If lower catch limits are approved, the jobs of at least 400 CWPA members alone will be at risk, as well as many thousands more in related industries.

“Fishermen up and down the California coast are facing threats to their livelihoods from this frivolous and unnecessary lawsuit,” said Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of CWPA. “We are asking to be involved in this lawsuit to ensure that the Court also considers the needs and concerns of our members and California’s coastal communities. Our fishery management policy mandates balance between protecting the ocean and sustaining fishing communities ”

The sharply reduced catch limits that Oceana seeks are not scientifically justified. The basis for Oceana’s case is a single, flawed study that significantly underestimated the size of the anchovy population, in 2015, leading to the first Court decision, That study excluded the abundance of anchovy in inshore areas, for example. Cooperative surveys that CWPA has conducted with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife have documented tens of thousands of tons of anchovies in these areas that have simply not been counted in stock assessments. . This finding contradicts the argument that the anchovy population was dangerously low, and that the already precautionary catch levels must be reduced further.

“The best available science does not support Oceana’s position,” said Ms. Pleschner-Steele. “ The Court needs to allow NMFS to set appropriate catch limits based on sound science.”

Read the full filing here

Van Drew co-sponsors fisheries bill

July 12, 2019 — Congressman Jeff Van Drew, D-2nd, joined Alaskan Congressman Don Young, a Republican, to introduce a bill reauthorizing the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery and Conservation Management Act on Thursday.

But the bill would make changes to the law that some environmentalists fear may result in taking more fish than is sustainable.

Among other things, the reauthorization would change how fishery councils determine fishery stock rebuilding timeframes, giving the public a greater role in the development of science and fishery management plans.

The fisheries legislation was first written by Young in 1975, according to Van Drew’s office, and was last reauthorized in 2006.

In a statement, Van Drew said H.R. 3697 “ensures that we have healthy fisheries, keep anglers in the water and keep fishermen fishing.”

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City

Conservation Group Sues NMFS Over West Coast Anchovies For a Second Time

July 8, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In this case, NMFS issued a final rule regarding management of the central subpopulation of anchovy off California, and the conservation group Oceana sued. NMFS applied best available science and approved policy to update the rule using recent biomass estimates, as directed by the Court, and re-filed it last month. Oceana sued again last week.

The lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service was filed over the agency’s “continued failure to prevent overfishing, use the best available science, or account for the food needs of ocean animals in managing anchovy,” Oceana said in a press release.

The rule established a multi-year, unchanging catch limit for anchovy that does not account for the frequent, and sometimes rapid, cycles of booms and busts in the size of this population, Oceana said. The final rule is a near carbon copy of an earlier proposal by the Fisheries Service in 2016 that was struck down in court because it did not use best available science and did not prevent overfishing.

Oceana, represented by Earthjustice, said NMFS continues to manage certain fish populations, including northern anchovy, by setting multi-year catch limits that stay in place regardless of the population’s status. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District Court of California, claims that in failing to actively manage the anchovy population based on current population size, NMFS has again failed to use the best available science, prevent overfishing and ensure adequate forage fish for dependent predators, the press release said.

The recent NMFS final rule employed the same harvest policy as originally approved and updated the reference points based on recent years of anchovy biomass estimates. The new overfishing limit, which represents a long-term average maximum sustainable yield, is close to the original estimate. The acceptable biological catch and annual catch limit also conform with the original harvest policy, which is based on 25% of the OFL. The anchovy population is acknowledged to be close to historic abundance, which is why the numbers are similar, industry members say.

The NMFS acoustic trawl survey method on which the management levels are based is at the heart of the issue. Both the California Wetfish Producers Association and the West Coast Pelagic Conservation Group say the survey does not capture an accurate picture of the anchovy biomass; for example, it misses the nearshore areas that anchovy frequent as well as the upper 10 meters of the water column, the acoustic “dead zone.” The model used to estimate anchovy biomass also is missing critical age information from earlier decades.

“… despite Oceana’s claim that acoustic trawl surveys are ‘state of the art’ science, the 2018 Acoustic Trawl Methods Review down-weighted the AT survey biomass estimates to a ‘relative’ index of abundance because it omits a substantial portion of the biomass inshore of the existing survey tracks, as documented by our collaborative [California] Department of Fish and Wildlife aerial surveys,” CWPA Executive Director Diane Pleschner-Steele said in an email.

Both the CWPA and WCPCG have developed collaborative methods to survey the nearshore areas for forage fish utilizing exempted fishing permits. The groups are working with both state and federal researchers to get a fuller picture of the anchovy — and other pelagic species — stock.

Oceana representatives have said the acoustic trawl survey, with the state-of-the-art technological equipment, does represent the best available science. Industry members argue that the best equipment and a model that relies primarily on that data does not represent the “best science” since it cannot survey many areas where the anchovy spend much of their time.

“We remain frustrated that the Fisheries Service continues to ignore state of the art fish population surveys produced by their own scientists when deciding how many anchovies fishermen can catch on an annual basis,” Geoff Shester, Oceana California Campaign Director and Senior Scientist, said in a statement, noting that predators such as other fish, whales, pelicans, sea lions depend on anchovies and other forage fish species.

“Oceana has dismissed concerns industry has expressed about the survey, such as lack of data on the inshore components of the stock,” WCPCG member Mike Okoniewski said in an email. “While industry is actually working collaboratively with the science centers and state agencies to explore alternative survey methodology … , we wonder why Oceana would rather litigate, than collaborate with ongoing efforts the science staff and industry are undertaking to gain a better knowledge about the population size and behavior of our coastal pelagic stocks?”

Meanwhile, Pleschner-Steele said California fishermen have ben seeing abundant anchovy since 2015. At least now NOAA’s acoustic surveys are beginning to validate fishermen’s observations to a degree, but the still missing nearshore component is a problem that has been recognized as necessary to fully assess the central anchovy stock. The stock historically fluctuated between very high and very low abundance, even absent any fishing activity. The Pacific Fishery Management Council and NMFS have established a very precautionary management approach by capping the harvest at 25 percent of the estimated OFL. The harvest rule is based on a long-term average biomass, not a single-year stock assessment. Even with a 25,00 mt harvest cap, fishermen have landed far less, averaging only 8,000 mt per year or less.

“Industry will always have more ‘sea’ time than the survey or research ships. Our livelihoods depend on what we observe,” Okoniewski said. “While we are not scientists we do first hand surveillance of these stocks and their environment. This has motivated us to work more closely with the scientific staff, and in most cases this has been reciprocated by the science community. Coastal Pelagic stocks are difficult to survey and fishery observations often differ from scientific observations. We believe it is best to work together to resolve some of these differences in observation.”

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

Latest Oceana report showcases power of Global Fishing Watch

June 13, 2019 — A South Korean-flagged fishing vessel with a history of illegal fishing and involvement in human rights abuse cases, repeatedly stopped transmitting its public tracking data while off the coast of Argentina, Oceana says in a brief report released Thursday that identifies several suspicious activities observed with the help of the recently enhanced Global Fishing Watch (GFW) program.

Oceana said GFW detected 77 gaps in Automatic Identification System transmissions by the vessel, which it doesn’t name, over a nearly five-year period, including four inside its national waters. One gap lasted almost 12 days, ending when the Argentine Coast Guard captured the vessel for fishing illegally inside Argentina’s waters.

GFW — a program started by Oceana, SkyTruth and Google — uses a combination of satellite and radar technology and vessel monitoring system data to support the enforcement of laws that prohibit fishing out of season or in protected areas. The group now reports maintaining about 20 staff distributed globally, with individuals and small teams spread across the US, Asia, Europe, Central and South America.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

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

RAY HILBORN: Keep eating fish; it’s the best way to feed the world

June 3, 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.

To kick off the week, Saving Seafood is sharing the following article on the importance of eating fish to global food security and the environment. It was written by renowned fisheries scientist Dr. Ray Hilborn and published by the Oxford University Press Blog last week:

The famous ocean explorer, Sylvia Earle, has long advocated that people stop eating fish. Recently, George Monbiot made a similar plea in The Guardian – there’s only one way to save the life in our oceans, stop eating fish – which, incidentally, would condemn several million people to starvation.

In both cases, it’s facile reasoning. The oceans may suffer from many things, but fishing isn’t the biggest. Earle and Monbiot’s sweeping pronouncements lack any thought for the consequences of rejecting fish and substituting fish protein for what? Steak? That delicious sizzler on your plate carries the most appallingly large environmental costs regarding fresh water, grain production, land use, erosion, loss of topsoil, transportation, you name it.

Luckily for our planet, not everyone eats steak. You’re vegan, you say, and your conscience is clean. An admirable choice – so long as there aren’t too many of you. For the sake of argument and numbers, let us assume that we can substitute plant protein in the form of tofu, made from soybeans, for fish protein. Soybeans need decent land; in fact it would take 2.58 times the land area of England to produce enough tofu to substitute for no longer available fish. That extra amount of decent arable land just isn’t available – unless we can persuade Brazil, Ecuador and Columbia to cut down more of the Amazon rainforest. We would also add 1.71 times the amount of greenhouse gases that it takes to catch the fish.

And, again for the sake of argument, were we to substitute beef for fish, we would need 192.43 Englands to raise all that cattle and greenhouse gases would rocket to 42.4 times what they are from fishing.

But aren’t there alternatives that we can eat with a clean conscience? It depends. First, we must accept the inescapable truth that everyone has to eat. You and I and another few billion humans right down to the single cell organisms. The second inescapable truth arises from the first but is often ignored, is that there is no free lunch. The big variable in this business of eating is deciding the appropriate price to the environment.

Read the full opinion piece at the Oxford University Press (OUP) Blog