Saving Seafood

ENGOs Renew Push for Shark Trade Elimination Act Passage; Industry, Scientists Push Back

May 16, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Like sharks in a feeding frenzy, a group of scientists, students and Oceana are circling, renewing their push to pass the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act, threatening sustainable U.S shark fisheries. The scientists and ENGOs also say sharks are in decline.

On the other side, the Sustainable Shark Alliance, a U.S. seafood industry trade group, opposes the legislation. It’s unnecessary, they say, won’t make a dent in the global shark trade and ultimately penalize responsible fishermen.

“Oceana presents a false choice between a sustainable domestic shark fishery and other uses, such as tourism,” Shaun Gehan, a lawyer for the Sustainable Shark Alliance, said in a statement. “University and federal studies alike show growing domestic populations.”

The practice of shark finning, using only the fins and releasing the shark, has been banned in the U.S. since 1993. Some states have passed legislation banning trade of some shark parts or some species.

“The Shark Finning Prohibition Act ended the brutal practice of finning, the removal of the sharks’ fins while discarding their bodies at sea, and the Shark Conservation Act eventually closed some of its loopholes ensuring that sharks are landed with their fins naturally attached to their bodies,” the scientists wrote in their May 9 letter to Congress. “However, the United States continues to allow the buying and selling of fins. Five of the 11 countries that export shark fins to the U.S. do not prohibit shark finning. Therefore, while the U.S. bans shark finning in its own waters, it indirectly promotes this practice elsewhere and perpetuates the global trade in shark fins.”

Alliance members and other scientists counter that the Shark Trade Elimination Act will, by removing sustainably sourced shark parts, result in the increase of illegal trade of shark fins.

“Oceana and their partners are grossly misinformed and are misinforming the public,” said Bob Jones, Executive Director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association. “The U.S. shark fishery is the most sustainably run shark fishery in the world. Oceana should be promoting the responsible practices of the fishery instead of working to dismantle it.”

Dr. David Shiffman, a renowned shark conservation biologist, also is against the proposed legislation and wrote about it on the marine science and conservation blog Southern Fried Science.

“Shark fin trade bans do not allow for a sustainable supply of shark fins to enter the marketplace, punishing American fishermen who are doing it right,” Shiffman wrote. “Sustainable trade is incompatible with a total ban on trade, at least in the same place and time. The United States has some of the most sustainable managed shark fisheries on Earth. When these fisheries provide fins to the marketplace, it shows that fins can absolutely come from a well-managed shark fishery.”

Moreover, using the sustainably managed U.S. shark fisheries as examples would be better in the long run when the U.S. is negotiating with other countries, Shiffman said.

“This can be an important example for international fisheries negotiations and associated advocacy (e.g., ‘the United States manages their shark fisheries well, and so can you, here’s how.’),” Shiffman wrote. “According to Dr. Robert Hueter of Mote Marine Laboratory, a nationwide ban on the shark fin trade ‘will cause the demise of a legal domestic industry that is showing the rest of the world how to utilize sharks in a responsible, sustainable way.’ (And yes, sustainable shark fisheries absolutely can exist and do exist, although there are certainly many more examples of unsustainable shark fisheries.)”

While not affecting illegal international shark populations, the bill will hurt U.S. shark fishermen who play by the rules. It will force fishermen to dispose of shark fins on every shark they catch, which currently account for 50 percent of a shark’s value. Proper management can only occur when U.S. shark fisheries are allowed to collect the full value of their catch – without this revenue, shark fisheries will not be able to afford fuel costs and will cease to exist, the Alliance said in the statement.

“Our members are struck by the intolerance of the proponents of this campaign. It is clear that they are indifferent to the potential loss of income. I guess the livelihoods of fishing families are insignificant to the folks who support Oceana’s agenda,” said Greg DiDomenico, Executive Director of the Garden State Seafood Association.

Other respected shark scientists have come out in opposition to the legislation as well, including Dr. Robert E. Hueter. Hueter is the Director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota Florida, and has more than 40 years of experience in shark research.

“This bill will do nothing to effectively combat the practice of finning on the high seas and in other countries, where the real problem lies, and it will not significantly reduce mortality of the sharks killed in global fisheries every year,” Hueter wrote in a letter to Congress.

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

DAVID SHIFFMAN: The Case Against Shark Fin Trade Bans

May 15, 2017 — The following is an excerpt from a story published in Southern Fried Science on May 13:

The United States Congress is considering a nationwide ban on buying, selling, or trading shark fins. While several of my posts and tweets have briefly discussed my stance on such policies, I’ve never laid out my full argument in one post. Here is why I, as a shark conservation biologist, oppose banning the shark fin trade within the United States.  The short answer is that the US represents a tiny percentage of overall consumers of shark fin, but provide some of the most sustainably caught sharks on Earth, as well as important examples of successful management, to the world. This means that banning the US shark fin trade won’t reduce total shark mortality by very much, but will remove an important example of fins coming from a well-managed fishery while also hurting American fishermen who follow the rules. Also, a focus on these policies promotes the incorrect belief that shark fin soup is the only significant threat to sharks, and that addressing the tiny part of that problem locally represents the end of all threats. For the longer answer, read on. And for the case for shark fin bans, please see this guest post from Oceana scientist Mariah Pfleger.

Shark fin trade bans do not allow for a sustainable supply of shark fins to enter the marketplace, punishing American fishermen who are doing it right. Sustainable trade is incompatible with a total ban on trade, at least in the same place and time. The United States has some of the most sustainable managed shark fisheries on Earth. When these fisheries provide fins to the marketplace, it shows that fins can absolutely come from a well-managed shark fishery. This can be an important example for international fisheries negotiations and associated advocacy (e.g., “the United States manages their shark fisheries well, and so can you, here’s how.”) According to Dr. Robert Hueter of Mote Marine Laboratory, a nationwide ban on the shark fin trade “will cause the demise of a legal domestic industry that is showing the rest of the world how to utilize sharks in a responsible, sustainable way.” (And yes, sustainable shark fisheries absolutely can exist and do exist, although there are certainly many more examples of unsustainable shark fisheries.) Several experts in international fisheries negotiations have privately told me that the US has more negotiating power when we can say “manage your fishery sustainably like we do” instead of “you should manage your fishery sustainably, but we decided to stop participating in this market entirely”/ “we won’t buy your product regardless of how sustainable you make it.”

Most shark scientists, including me, prefer sustainable trade to banning all trade in general. As part of my Ph.D. research, I surveyed the members of the world’s largest professional societies focusing on sharks. 90% of respondents believe that when possible, sustainable fisheries exploitation is preferable to banning all exploitation or trade. (Shark fin bans themselves received the second-lowest support, and second-highest opposition, of any policy tool I asked about.)

Read the full story at Southern Fried Science

Sustainable Shark Alliance Opposes Unnecessary Bill Threatening to Shut Down U.S Shark Fisheries

May 12, 2017 — The following was released by the Sustainable Shark Alliance:

The future of sustainable U.S. shark fisheries is threatened by a renewed push by environmental groups to pass an unnecessary law that will do little to dent the illegal global shark trade, while penalizing responsible U.S. fishermen. Earlier this month, Oceana circulated a new letter with 150 signers, mostly academics and students, in favor of the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act, which would ban the buying and selling of shark fins in the United States but do nothing to improving shark conservation.

Shark finning – a reprehensible practice universally derided by responsible fishermen whereby a shark’s fins are removed and the mortally wounded creature is released back into the ocean – has been banned in the U.S. since 1993.

“Oceana presents a false choice between a sustainable domestic shark fishery and other uses, such as tourism,” said Shaun Gehan, a lawyer for the Sustainable Shark Alliance. “University and federal studies alike show growing domestic populations.”

Today, roughly three percent of shark fins in the global market come from the United States. Removing these sustainably sourced fins will only create a void that would be filled from illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing operations operating in the international market.

“Oceana and their partners are grossly misinformed and are misinforming the public,” said Bob Jones, Executive Director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association. “The U.S. shark fishery is the most sustainably run shark fishery in the world. Oceana should be promoting the responsible practices of the fishery instead of working to dismantle it.”

While not affecting illegal international shark populations, the bill will hurt U.S. shark fishermen who play by the rules. It will force fishermen to dispose of shark fins on every shark they catch, which currently account for 50% of a shark’s value. Proper management can only occur when U.S. shark fisheries are allowed to collect the full value of their catch – without this revenue, shark fisheries will not be able to afford fuel costs and will cease to exist.

“Our members are struck by the intolerance of the proponents of this campaign. It is clear that they are indifferent to the potential loss of income. I guess the livelihoods of fishing families are insignificant to the folks who support Oceana’s agenda,” said Greg DiDomenico, Executive Director of the Garden State Seafood Association.

Respected shark scientists have come out in opposition to the legislation, including Dr. Robert E. Hueter. Dr. Hueter is the Director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota Florida, and has over 40 years of experience in shark research.

“[The Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act] is not about ending finning, therefore, but instead will cause the demise of a legal domestic industry that is showing the rest of the world how to utilize sharks in a responsible, sustainable way,” wrote Dr. Hueter in a letter to Congress. “This bill will do nothing to effectively combat the practice of finning on the high seas and in other countries, where the real problem lies, and it will not significantly reduce mortality of the sharks killed in global fisheries every year.”

The Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act paves the way for illegal fishing operations to thrive while effectively shutting down a U.S. industry that has adhered to stringent regulations for decades. Instead of attempting to send a symbolic message, it’s far more important that the U.S. continues to support a shark fishing operation that exemplifies sustainable practices for the world to follow.

About the Sustainable Shark Alliance 

The Sustainable Shark Alliance (SSA) is a coalition of shark fishermen and seafood dealers that advocates for sustainable U.S. shark fisheries and supports healthy shark populations. The SSA stands behind U.S. shark fisheries as global leaders in successful shark management and conservation. Its supporters in the U.S. shark fishery include:

Safe Harbour Seafood, Bon Secour, AL
Bryant Products, Bayou La Batre, AL
Madeira Beach Seafood, Madeira Beach, FL
Save On Seafood, St. Petersburg, FL
Seafood Atlantic, Port Canaveral, FL
Greg Abrams Seafood, Panama City, FL
AP Bell Seafood, Madeira Beach, FL
Fishermen’s Ice & Bait, Madeira Beach, FL
Kings Seafood, Port Orange, FL
Wild Ocean Market Seafood, Titusville, FL
Omni Shrimp Company, Madeira Beach, FL
Day Boat Seafood, Lake Park, FL
Phoenix Fisheries, Southport, FL
DSF, Inc., Daytona Bch., FL
Hull’s Seafood Markets, Inc., Ormond Beach, FL
Phillips Seafood, Townsend, GA
Ocean Fresh Seafood, New Orleans, LA
Venice Fish and Shrimp, Venice, LA
Southern Seafood Connect’n, Crisfield, MD
Crystal Coast Fisheries, Morehead City, NC
Avon Seafood, Avon, NC
Wanchese Fisheries, Wanchese, NC
O’Neal’s Sea Harvest, Wanchese, NC
Jeffery’s Seafood, Hatteras, NC
B & J Seafood, New Bern, NC
Willie R. Etheridge Seafood, Wanchese, NC
Crystal Coast Dayboat Seafood, Morehead City, NC
Viking Village Seafood, Barnegat Light, NJ
Carolina Seafood, Rutledge Leeland, SC

Read the release here 

To help stop illegal fishing, ban practice of transshipment on high seas, researchers say

May 2, 2017 — New research concludes that a total ban on the practice of transshipment on the high seas is necessary to help stop illegal fishing and reduce the human trafficking and labor rights abuses that often accompany unlawful fishing activities.

“Transshipping enables fishing vessels to remain at sea for extended periods of time,” Washington D.C.-based oceans conservancy NGO Oceana explains. “Fishing vessels and refrigerated cargo vessels rendezvous at sea in order to transfer seafood, fuel or supplies. While this transshipping practice can be legal in many cases, it also can facilitate the laundering of illegally caught fish, especially on the high seas and in waters surrounding developing and small island nations with insufficient resources to police their waters.”

As detailed in a report released last month, Oceana found that close to 40 percent of suspected instances of transshipping occur on the high seas — areas outside of any national jurisdiction, which make up about two-thirds of Earth’s oceans. Russia’s Sea of Okhotsk, the high-seas regions of the Barents Sea, the national waters of Guinea-Bissau, and just outside the national waters of Argentina and Peru are reportedly the world’s chief transshipping hotspots.

Oceana’s report was based on an analysis of data collected by West Virginia-based environmental monitoring NGO SkyTruth and Global Fishing Watch, a partnership between Google, Oceana, and SkyTruth, which documented more than 5,000 “likely” cases of illegal transshipment and over 86,000 “potential” cases between 2012 and 2016.

In a paper published in the journal Marine Policy last month, a team of researchers make the case that a global ban on the practice of transshipment on the high seas is necessary in order to curb illegal fishing and human rights abuses in the global fishing industry.

“This practice often occurs on the high seas and beyond the reach of any nation’s jurisdiction, allowing ships fishing illegally to evade most monitoring and enforcement measures, offload their cargo, and resume fishing without returning to port,” Jennifer Jacquet, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University (NYU) and a co-author of the paper, said in a statement.

Read the full story at Mongabay.com

Scientists tested seafood at six D.C. restaurants. It didn’t always match the menu.

April 25, 2017 — When you order ahi tuna tartare at a D.C. restaurant, can you be sure that’s what you’re getting? A new study from George Washington University found that some restaurants are serving similar, but not the exact, species of fish advertised on local menus.

A group of scientists led by Keith Crandall of the university’s Milken Institute School of Public Health tested 12 dishes at six seafood chains with locations in Washington to see if the fish or crustacean DNA matched what it was called on the menu. They found that one-third of the samples were incorrectly labeled.

But these weren’t cases in which tilapia was being sold as snapper. In most of the mislabeled samples, the DNA matched a closely related species and wasn’t an egregious substitution.

The study discovered “pretty mild substitutions,” Crandall said. “We didn’t see anything that looked like some kind of comprehensive fraud, to swap out an expensive piece of seafood for something much less expensive.”

Still, there were a few restaurants whose results might raise an eyebrow. At Bobby Van’s steakhouse, a dish advertised as a rock shrimp tempura was a DNA match with whiteleg shrimp, which is typically a much cheaper, farmed shrimp.

The testing was performed in 2015, and Bobby Van’s doesn’t have a rock shrimp tempura on the current menu. Jonathan Langle, the chain’s head of operations for Washington, said he doesn’t recall it being on the menu, and that it may have been a special.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Environmentalists Can’t Help Defend Fishing Rules

April 20, 2017 — Three environmental groups cannot join the U.S. government to defend against a challenge to an Obama administration rule requiring seafood companies to report the origin of the fish they sell, a federal judge ruled.

The National Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity and Oceana asked the court on March 7 to join the government in defending a suit from a group of fishing companies challenging the seafood traceability rule, which requires companies to disclose on a government form the vessel or collection point of origin for their fish.

The companies say the rule will make seafood more expensive. The environmentalists say it is critical to protecting fish populations from illegal fishing. The environmentalists made specific arguments in support of the rule, telling U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that reversal would affect their daily lives.

Rachel Golden Kroner, in a declaration supporting Oceana, said that if the companies invalidate the seafood traceability rule she would be at greater risk of buying illegally fished seafood, preventing her from making “sustainable seafood choices.”

Todd Steiner, with the Center for Biological Diversity, said that without the rule he would have a harder time studying at-risk populations.

But on Monday Mehta shot down their chance to make their case in court, saying the groups had not shown that overturning the rule would harm them enough to give them standing in the case.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Fisheries Managers Cast Doubt on Sardine Survey Methods

April 13, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Fishing for Pacific sardines in California has been banned for the third consecutive year.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council voted Monday afternoon in Sacramento to close the fishery through June 30, 2018, because the population limit of 150,000 metric tons wasn’t met.

Researchers estimate that only about 87,000 metric tons of the oil-rich fish are now swimming around off the coast.

The decision blocks commercial fishers in San Pedro, Long Beach and elsewhere across the West Coast from anything other than small numbers of incidental takes. While sardines don’t command the high price of California shellfish, their plentiful numbers and popularity make them one of the state’s most-caught finfish.

But fishery managers say there’s reason to believe sardines are much more plentiful than studies have found.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center Deputy Director Dale Sweetnam said the acoustic-trawl method that researchers use to estimate the number of sardines is flawed.

The count is done from a large NOAA ship that surveys the entire West Coast by sampling schools of fish, and then bounces sound waves off of them to create a diagram that estimates the size.

But the ship is too large to go into harbors or coastal areas where sardines like to congregate.

“There are questions about the acoustic detector being on the bottom of the ship — how much of the schools in the upper water columns are missed by the acoustics,” Sweetnam said. “Also, the large NOAA ship can’t go in shallow waters, but most of the sardine fishery is very close to shore.”

The fisheries service will soon employ a California Department of Fish and Wildlife plane, along with drones, to survey coastal areas for sardines.

“It will take some time because we’re going to have to determine a scientific sampling scheme,” Sweetnam said. “We’re starting this collaborative work with the fishing industry to extend our sampling grid-lines to shore.”

However, environmental activists cheered the decision to close the sardine fishery for a third season.

Oceana, a worldwide conservation advocacy organization, blames the sardine population decline on overfishing.

“Over the last four years we’ve witnessed starved California sea lion pups washing up on beaches and brown pelicans failing to produce chicks because moms are unable to find enough forage fish,” said Oceana campaign manager Ben Enticknap.

“Meanwhile, sardine fishing rates spiked right as the population was crashing. Clearly, the current sardine management plan is not working as intended and steps must be taken to fix it.”

Industry representatives, however, argue that fishers are reliable environmental stewards and that they are just as eager as environmental activists to protect the long-term survival of marine species.

California fishers were able to replace sardine takes with increased numbers of squid in recent years. This year, promising anchovy stocks and other fish may keep the industry solvent.

California Wetfish Producers Association Executive Director Diane Pleschner-Steele said fishermen are frustrated.

“Fishermen are just ready to pull their hair out because there’s so many sardines and we can’t target them,” Pleschner-Steele said. “I’m relieved that the Southwest Fisheries Science Center acknowledges problems with the current stock assessment and has promised to work with the fishermen to develop a cooperative research plan to survey the near-shore area that is now missed. Unfortunately, this does not help us this year.”

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

D.B. Pleschner: Study: No correlation between forage fish, predator populations

April 10, 2017 — On April 9-10, the Pacific Fishery Management Council is meeting in Sacramento to deliberate on anchovy management and decide on 2017 harvest limits for sardine, two prominent west coast forage fish.

Extreme environmental groups like Oceana and Pew have plastered social media with allegations that the anchovy population has crashed, sardines are being overfished and fisheries should be curtailed, despite ample evidence to the contrary.

Beyond multiple lines of recent evidence that both sardines and anchovy populations are increasing in the ocean, a new study published this week in the journal Fisheries Research finds that the abundance of these and other forage fish species is driven primarily by environmental cycles with little impact from fishing, and well-managed fisheries have a negligible impact on predators — such as larger fish, sea lions and seabirds.

This finding flies directly in the face of previous assumptions prominent in a 2012 study commissioned by the Lenfest Ocean Program, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, heirs of Sun Oil Company. The Lenfest study concluded that forage fish are twice as valuable when left in the water to be eaten by predators and recommended slashing forage fishery catch rates by 50 to 80 percent.

However, in the new study, a team of seven internationally respected fisheries scientists, led by Prof. Ray Hilborn, Ph.D., of the University of Washington, discovered no correlation between predator populations and forage fish abundance. The new research also found multiple omissions in the methodology of the Lenfest study. For instance, it — and other previous studies — used ecosystem models that ignored the natural variability of forage fish, which often fluctuate greatly in abundance from year-to-year.

Read the full opinion piece at the Santa Cruz Sentinel

You May Soon Be Able to Track Your Seafood in Real Time to Fight Fish Fraud

March 29, 2017 — Fishermen and chefs are working together to curb rampant fraud in the seafood industry by allowing people to track a fish from the moment it’s caught until it lands at a restaurant or market.

Dock to Dish, an organization that fights seafood fraud by connecting chefs with fisheries in their local communities, is building a tracking system in an effort to solve the common problem of mislabeled seafood. A global test of more than 25,000 samples of seafood found that 1 in 5 was mislabeled as the wrong type of fish, according to a 2016 report from ocean conservation advocacy group Oceana, meaning people often purchase and eat seafood that is not what they presume it to be.

“People want to know. They’re demanding to know where food is coming from,” Dock to Dish co-founder Sean Barrett said.

The organization has raised more than $69,000 of its $75,000 Kickstarter goal to build a tracking system called Dock to Dish 2.0. In addition to supplying local restaurants with the catch of the day, Dock to Dish aims to present a digitized “end to end program that can answer every single question a consumer might have,” Barrett said.

The program would enable restaurant guests to see where their dinners come from through an online dashboard that displays newly caught fish in barcoded bags, which can be tracked as they travel to eateries. Customers would also be able to chat with fishermen before heading out to eat.

Read the full story at Time 

Sardine fishing could be banned for 3rd year in a row

March 27, 2017 — The once-thriving sardine population — made famous in John Steinbeck’s novel “Cannery Row” — has taken a nosedive along the West Coast, where regulators are considering a ban on reeling in the tiny bait fish for a third year in a row.

Sardine numbers have plummeted 95 percent since 2006, according to estimates released Friday by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The perilously low numbers give regulators little choice but to again close fishing starting July 1 from Mexico to the Canadian border.

“If the initial estimate for this year remains in place, the fishery will be closed for the third straight year,” said Kerry Griffin, the staff officer for the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which makes policy along the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington. “We all want a healthy ecosystem, sustainable fisheries and healthy coastal communities that depend on fishing opportunities.”

Fishery biologists blamed the collapse on natural fluctuations — which recent sediment studies show have been common throughout history — and changing ocean conditions. Conservationists, however, believe overfishing made a bad situation worse.

“There would have been a decline anyway, but we made the decline worse by continuing to fish,” said Geoffrey Shester, senior scientist for Oceana, an international advocacy group that has been fighting to lower the annual sardine take and implement stricter regulations. “Scientists in the agency warned about a collapse, but the managers of the fishery didn’t pay attention to that and, in fact, took a much higher percentage of the existing stock.”

Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle