Saving Seafood

California bans giant ocean fishing nets blamed for killing sea turtles, whales

September 28, 2018 — Ending years of controversy and debate, Gov. Jerry Brown late Thursday signed a new law phasing out the use of giant ocean fishing nets used to catch swordfish, but blamed for accidentally killing sea turtles, dolphins and other sea creatures.

The bill, SB 1017 by state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Redondo Beach, requires the state to set up a program to buy back nets and fishing permits from commercial fishermen who work in the state’s drift gill net fishery.

The nets — giant nylon curtains that can stretch one mile long and extend 100 feet underwater — are used mostly by fishermen between San Diego and Big Sur. Although they are intended to catch swordfish, thresher shark and opah, studies have shown that they entangle dozens of other marine species, including whales, dolphins, sea lions and sea turtles, fish and sharks. Those animals, known as bycatch, are often thrown back overboard, injured or dead.

“There is no longer room in our oceans for any fishery that throws away more than it keeps,” said Susan Murray, deputy vice president for Oceana, an environmental group with offices in Monterey that pushed for the new law.

Read the full story at Mercury News

 

Over 150 scientists warn of Mediterranean ‘overfishing crisis’

September 24, 2018 — More than 150 international scientists have signed NGO Oceana’s “Mediterranean Statement” urging the EU and its member states to end what it calls an environmental crisis in the Mediterranean, it said.

It cited a recent report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calling it the world’s most overfished sea.

“This environmental crisis is not just a warning – it’s the harsh reality of the Mediterranean Sea. Europe has for decades turned a blind eye to this situation, and this passive stance has brought us today to almost the point of no return,” said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of Oceana in Europe.

“The EU must curb overfishing to avoid the worst-case scenario — the collapse of fish stocks — by adopting a science-based management plan in the western Mediterranean,” he said.

Overfishing in the Mediterranean affects around 90% of evaluated fish stocks, with average exploitation rates exceeding more than double the recommended sustainable levels, said Oceana, citing the EU’s own Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

African countries fighting back against illegal fishing

September 18, 2018 — One in four fish in Africa is still caught illegally, despite the efforts of many African nations to overcome the problem.

According to the organization Stop Illegal Fishing, an independent non-profit based in Africa dedicated to ending illegal fishing in the continent’s waters, ongoing efforts are being made by the majority of African maritime states to end illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, but greater momentum is needed if the “New Frontier of African Renaissance” – hailed by the African Union earlier this year – is to come to fruition.

IUU fishing is threatening the sustainability of fish stocks, damaging the ecosystem, depriving governments of income, and African people of their livelihoods, according to Peter Thomson, United Nations Special Envoy for the Ocean. And the scourge of IUU is affecting a majority of African nations; 38 of the 54 African countries have coastal borders and many inland countries have vast lakes, which are also affected by illegal fishing and poor fishing practices.

The issue of IUU in Africa has been well-studied, and numerous solutions have been proposed. A report in 2016 by the Overseas Development Institute and Spanish research and journalism group PorCausa used satellite tracking to monitor the methods and scale of the problem, pointing out that transhipments, lack of inspection of containerized shipments, inadequate legal frameworks, poor technology, and a lack of political will were all partly to blame. The report estimated that by developing and protecting Africa’s fisheries, around USD 3 billion (EUR 2.6 billion) could be generated in additional revenue and some 300,000 jobs created.

China, which is the largest fishing power in West Africa with more than 500 industrial fishing vessels operating in the region’s waters, must play a bigger role in stamping out illegal practices in its fleet, including the widespread use of illegal nets and frequent engagement in the practice shark-finning, according to Greenpeace. But spurred by growing intolerance on behalf of the governments of many African nations, China is taking action. Since 2016, China has cancelled subsidies worth USD 111.6 million (EUR 99.3 million) for 264 vessels caught fishing illegally. China has also revoked the distant-water fishing licenses of several companies and blacklisted others, alongside their ships’ captains.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Is a Splashy Fishing Statistic Misleading?

September 10, 2018 — How much of the world’s oceans are affected by fishing? In February, a team of scientists led by David Kroodsma from the Global Fishing Watch published a paper that put the figure at 55 percent—an area four times larger than that covered by land-based agriculture. The paper was widely covered, with several outlets leading with the eye-popping stat that “half the world’s oceans [are] now fished industrially.”

Ricardo Amoroso from the University of Washington had also been trying to track global fishing activity and when he saw the headlines, he felt that the 55 percent figure was wildly off. He and his colleagues re-analyzed the data that the Global Fishing Watch had made freely available. And in their own paper, published two weeks ago, they claim that industrial fishing occurs over just 4 percent of the ocean.

How could two groups have produced such wildly different answers using the same set of data? At its core, this is a simple academic disagreement about scale. But it’s also a more subtle debate that hinges on how we think about the act of fishing, and how to measure humanity’s influence on the planet. “I think this discussion really shows how little we know about the world’s oceans and why making data publicly available is so important for stimulating research,” says Kroodsma.

As ships traverse the oceans, many of them continuously transmit their position, speed, and identity to satellites. This automatic identification system was originally developed to prevent collisions, but by training Google’s machine-learning tools on the data, the Global Fishing Watch (GFW)—an initiative led by the nonprofits Oceana and SkyTruth—can identify different kinds of fishing vessels, and work out where they’re dropping their lines and nets.

Read the full story at The Atlantic

 

California assembly passes driftnet ban, bill heads to governor’s desk

September 6, 2018 — A bill that would end the use of drift gillnets for harvesting swordfish and thresher sharks in California now only needs the governor’s signature to become law.

Last week, the California Assembly voted 78-0 to pass SB 1017, which calls for eliminating the controversial nets over a four-year period. The nation’s most populous state is also the only one that still allows the use of the nets to collect swordfish and thresher sharks.

In June, the bill passed the state senate by a 33-0 margin.

Under the bill, the state would create a transition program by 31 March, 2020, to enable driftnet permit holders to use alternative gear. The transition program would include a buyout program created through a public-private partnership. Fishermen must surrender their nets in order to get compensation.

“Finally we have found a way to phase out their use and transition to a more humane alternative – without harming the commercial fishing industry in the process,” said State Senator Ben Allen, the bill’s sponsor. “This is a significant win for our ocean and for the California economy. We look forward to the governor signing it into law.”

According to data from NOAA Fisheries, there are approximately less than 20 active license holders using driftnets in California.

Conservation groups have long opposed the use of the mile-long, nearly invisible nets because they have been known to kill or injure dozens of other marine species, including whales, sea lions, and turtles. According to Oceana, the nets are responsible for killing more dolphins that all other American west coast fisheries.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

What is the Global Footprint of Fishing?

September 5, 2018 — Thanks to Global Fishing Watch, a new partnership between Oceana, SkyAtlas, and Google, scientists may be getting closer to figuring out how much of the world’s ocean is fished—but discrepancies in the scale of data are producing wildly different answers.

Global Fishing Watch launched in 2016 as a way to track fishing boats around the world. The core data comes from boats’ automatic identification system (AIS), a GPS system that pings out its location every 30 seconds to satellites. Most large boats around the world (not just fishing boats) are required to have AIS onboard for monitoring purposes and safety. Global Fishing Watch collects AIS data on all boats around the world to “determine the type of ship (e.g., cargo, tug, sail, fishing), its size, what kind of fishing gear (e.g. longline, purse seine, trawl) it’s using, and where and when it’s fishing based on its movement patterns.” It is an impressive way to collect fishing data and shows some promise for curbing illegal fishing. You can read more about it here.

One of the first major publications to come out of these AIS data attempted to map the ‘global footprint’ of fishing. It concluded that 55% of the global ocean was fished. However a recent paper, using the exact same data, concluded that only 4% of the global ocean is fished. An order of magnitude difference! What is going on here?

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

‘Laxative of the sea’ being passed off as premium fish in Canada

August 29, 2018 — Canadian consumers forking out for seafood are not getting what they pay for. What masquerades as sea bass, cod or wild salmon could be a far cheaper catfish, pollock or even a fish dubbed “the laxative of the sea”, according to a national report from advocacy organization Oceana Canada.

That poses a serious risk to consumers’ pockets — and public health.

Roughly 44 per cent of fish were incorrectly labelled, the report found. What’s more, 60 per cent of the roughly 400 samples collected from retailers in Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax were found to carry potential health risks.

Instead of butterfish, consumers have been eating escolar — an oily fish that has been called “the laxative of the sea” and can cause diarrhea, vomiting and other stomach problems — which is banned in several countries, such as Japan, South Korea and Italy. Escolar was also a substitute for white tuna.

This, researchers say, is rampant seafood fraud, defined as any activity that misrepresents the seafood being purchased.

Read the full story at The Star Vancouver

Something’s ‘Fishy’ On The Blockchain, But Can This Tech Reduce Seafood Fraud?

August 6, 2018 –Whitebait or halibut? Now, are you sure that the expensive “Wild-caught” Atlantic salmon you had for dinner last night was in fact the gourmet fish you thought it was? Or, was it just a cheaper farm-grown salmon – or perhaps not even salmon at all? This is not the shipping news, but you’ll get the picture pretty soon.

Moreover, can you be 100% sure the tasty white tuna sushi your local sushi bar serves is actually made from tuna – and not from escolar – also known as oil fish?

What is the big deal, you might ask. Well, escolar is quite notorious for its delicious, cheap and oily meat. Meat that causes intense stomach problems, in other words, nasty uncontrollable diarrhoea.

Now, how likely is it for a sushi restaurant to serve its hungry customers fish with such severe side effects? Or for that matter how common is fraud in general in the seafood industry? The whole scene will probably surprise the average person, if they have not already delved into some research about the topic. So, let us get down to the nub of it.

From 2010 to 2012, Oceana, one of the largest organizations focusing on studying oceans founded by a group of leading foundations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, conducted a study exploring fraud in the seafood industry. According to the research as much as one-third of seafood products in the United States (U.S.) were mislabelled. Shocked?

Read the full story at Forbes

All shell, no shock: Lobster prices strong as season picks up

July 23, 2018 — New England’s lobster industry faces big new challenges in selling to Europe and China, but the trouble hasn’t caused prices to budge much for American consumers.

The business is in the midst of its busiest part of the year, when tourists flock to coastal states with a beachside lobster dinner in mind. Summer is also when prices tend to fall a bit because it’s when the majority of lobsters are caught.

But the prices haven’t fallen much. Retailers are selling live lobsters in the $7 to $12 per pound range in Maine, where the American lobster industry is based. That’s not too far behind recent summers.

“It’s starting to pick up, so of course the price is dropping. But that’s pretty normal,” said William Adler, a lobsterman out of Green Harbor, Massachusetts. “Now it’s starting to come alive, and prices are still good right now.”

Members of the industry are concerned about heavy new tariffs applied by China to U.S. seafood this month, because that country is a major lobster buyer. Canada also recently brokered a deal with the European Union to remove tariffs on Canadian lobster exports to Europe, while the U.S. has no such agreement.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

Oceana report claims Italy ignoring IUU

July 13, 2018 — Oceana released a report on 12 July that suggests multiple European governments, particularly Italy, are turning a blind eye to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the Mediterranean Sea.

The report, which used data from Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) tracking from Global Fishing Watch (GFW), found suspected cases of bottom trawlers operating in Fisheries Restricted Areas (FRA) and foreign vessels active in waters that potentially qualify as IUU. The biggest offender, Italy, was found to have more than 10,000 hours of illegal fishing activity from Italian-flagged bottom trawler-equipped vessels in the FRA established in the Strait of Sicily.

The area in the Strait of Sicily is designed to protect young hake populations where the stock is already overfished. Trawling in the area is prohibited.

The IUU vessels were discovered using GFW’s fishing detection algorithms. According to Oceana, the actual amount of IUU may be even higher, as some vessels could have either “lacked AIS equipment or have turned off AIS broadcasting.”

The findings were discussed at two governmental meetings of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean. According to Oceana, the countries “failed to provide clarification on whether any vessel has been fined or if any punishable action will be taken” during that meeting.

“While Mediterranean governments and their leaders are committing globally to fight pirate fishing under the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the very same governments are turning a blind eye to potential cases in their own Mediterranean Sea,” said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of Oceana Europe. “Information gathered by Oceana indicates that fishing vessels that can easily be identified are blatantly violating the law in fisheries-restricted areas. They’re doing nothing to uphold the law.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source