Saving Seafood

West Coast Sardine Populations, Long Sinking, Look Even Worse in Forecast

February 26, 2016 — Sardines off the West Coast have continued on a steep decline, with populations this summer forecast to be down 93 percent from a 2007 peak, according to a draft assessment from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The sardines are a key forage food for sea lions, salmon and many other species, as well as a source of income for commercial fishermen.

In some years, sardines have been worth from $10 million to more than $20 million annually to a West Coast fleet.

Last year, the sardine implosion was so severe that the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to call off the season that was scheduled to start in July for West Coast fleets, including those in Washington state.

This year, as the council meets this spring, it will have more bad news on sardines to review.

The stocks of sardines aged one year or older are forecast to be 64,422 metric tons, about a third lower than the 2015 assessment.

“Pacific sardines are an incredibly important economic and ecological ocean resource,” said Geoff Shester, a fishery scientist with Oceana, a marine conservation group. “Fishermen with lost income will suffer financially, and marine animals like California sea lion pups will face another year of fighting starvation.”

Albert Carter, of Ocean Gold Seafood in southwest Washington, said sardines are a significant part of the company business when populations are strong.

Carter, who serves on a Pacific Fishery Management Council advisory committee, said he has not had a chance to review the new sardine assessment. But he said if populations have continued to decline, he does not expect a 2016 season.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

Getting to the bottom of the ‘mislabelling’ issue

February 11, 2016 — Does your livelihood depend on seafood production? If so, it would naturally follow that mislabelling of that seafood after it leaves your hands is of utmost concern to you.

Wild capture and aquaculture sources of global seafood production share this concern about their product, but what are studies released late last year on seafood mislabelling and fraud really telling us?

Improved labeling

 

The most recent study carried out on seafood mislabelling in the European Atlantic region suggests the recent trend is downwards and one of the main causes is the widespread media attention paid to the issue in the last four years. This has led to higher consumer awareness and improved labelling in fish markets trying to save their reputation. Also contributing to recently measured low rates of mislabelling are the strict new seafood labelling laws set out by the EC/EU in December 2014. The study led by Labelfish scientist Stefano Mariani published in December 2015 claimed an overall mislabelling rate of just 4.9 % of 1,265 samples taken in 19 European cities.

The 285 samples taken in Brussels from March to July in 2015 in search of fraud is Oceana’s first foray into European sampling of seafood. The study – leading to headlines last November claiming 33.9% seafood fraud of fish in Brussels – was in fact the ocean advocacy group’s first study outside America exploring what they most often refer to as seafood fraud.

Read the full story from World Fishing & Aquaculture

Ocean activists, fishers and scientists differ on heavy anchovy declines

November 23, 2015 — A new, beautifully produced but troubling public service announcement from Oceana features “Glee” television actress and singer Jenna Ushkowitz diving with sea lions off Santa Barbara.

Fishing, she says, decimated Southern California’s historically booming stocks of Pacific sardine and Northern anchovy, a major food source for top ocean predators. Those stocks have dropped dramatically in the past decade, prompting reduced fishing quotas as starved sea lion pups and California brown pelican chicks die in record numbers.

“Sea lions rely on forage fish for survival. But years of overfishing have put this important food source in jeopardy,” Ushkowitz narrates while underwater footage shows her swimming through kelp. “Join Oceana and help protect forage fish in the Pacific. … We need to stop this and replenish.”

The West Coast’s leading fishery scientists, however, disagree. They believe the fish are most likely enduring natural population fluctuations and are on the cusp of making a big comeback.

Oceana, a nonprofit advocacy organization favored by celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, insists that fishing is the primary problem. The group lobbied aggressively to close the West Coast anchovy fishery, delivering nearly 40,000 letters from concerned citizens nationwide to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a 14-member body that sets fishing policy for California, Oregon and Washington, before its meeting last week.

Read the full story at Daily Breeze

EU looks into reports of fake fish labeling in Brussels

November 3, 2015 — BRUSSELS (AP) – The European Union is looking into reports that cheap seafood is often mislabeled as choice fish in some of the Belgian capital’s fine restaurants and even in EU cafeterias.

The Oceana environmental group said Tuesday it found that 31.8 percent of seafood it tested in and around EU institutions in Brussels was a different fish than what was labeled on the menu. In the cafeterias of the EU, which sets fishery policies for the 28-nation bloc, the total amount of falsely labeled fish stood at 38 percent.

“We take this very seriously,” EU spokesman Alexander Winterstein said of the report.

Oceana said 95 percent of what was labeled Bluefin tuna – a fatty, sublime sushi favorite – was actually a less expensive species, served to make a hefty profit. In 13 percent of the cases, cod was also mislabeled and people sometimes were fed pangasius instead, a freshwater fish farmed in southeast Asia.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at New Jersey Herald

 

Diners Who Order ‘Wild’ Salmon Often Get Cheaper Substitute

October 28, 2015 — That wild Alaskan salmon you ordered the last time you ate out might not be wild — or even from Alaska.

That’s the finding of a study by the conservation group Oceana, which says nearly half of the country’s favorite fish may be mislabeled and priced too high in restaurants and stores when it’s out of season.

Researchers performed DNA testing on 82 salmon samples collected in Virginia, Washington, Chicago and New York in the winter of 2013-2014.

They found 43 percent of the samples were mislabeled. The most common switch — accounting for two-thirds of the cases — was selling farmed Atlantic salmon as the more expensive wild-caught product.

A similar study by Oceana during the summertime commercial fishing season, when wild salmon is plentiful, found only 7 percent was mislabeled, suggesting supply-and-demand fuels the phenomenon.

Most of the mislabeled fish was found in restaurants, not stores — probably because large supermarkets are required to provide more robust information about the fish they are selling, the group said.

Read the full story at NBC News

Bill targeting pirate fishing worldwide heads for presidential signature

October 22, 2015 — WASHINGTON — A bill aimed at taking down “pirate” fishing by keeping illegally caught fish out of U.S. ports is headed for President Barack Obama’s signature.

The Senate late Wednesday passed a bill aimed at giving the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Coast Guard greater enforcement capabilities to combat illegal and unregulated fishing, a multibillion-dollar problem for Alaska and the U.S. fishing industry.

The bill, which brings together such unlikely bedfellows as Republican lawmakers and Greenpeace, passed the Senate by a unanimous vote. The House passed the same legislation in July.

The bill has the backing of the White House, which determined in 2014 that new legislation was needed to implement a port agreement requiring member countries to reject ships that have illegal product onboard. The European Union, Australia, Chile and New Zealand have signed on, among other countries. Ten more are needed to reach the 25 required before the agreement takes effect, according to environmental group Oceana.

“This important legislation, which imposes added sanctions on countries whose vessels engage in IUU fishing, would provide our authorities the tools they need to fight back against these global criminals and ensure millions of pounds of illegally caught product never reach market,” said Alaska Rep. Don Young, a Republican who co-sponsored the House version of the bill.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

 

 

EU auditors’ report reveals lack of transparency of EU fishing in developing countries

October 21, 2015 — A report by the European Court of Auditors has revealed a lack of data that jeopardises the sustainability of EU fisheries agreements with third countries (Sustainable Fisheries Partnership agreements or SFPAs). According to the Common Fisheries Policy, EU fleets can only target the surplus of a stock, but the report questions the calculations of this surplus and if the actual catch data is reliable. Oceana is concerned about these findings, which adds to the long-existing absence of public information on vessels operating outside the EU.

View a PDF of the report

Read the full story at EU Reporter

 

Oceana celebrates fishing ban in Danish marine parks

October 15, 2015 — The Chamber of Jigger Owners from Argentina (CAPA) decided to carry out a symbolic protest at the local port due to the serious economic and competitive challenges faced by the sector.

The lights remained lit in the boats between 8 pm and 10 pm. “Jiggers do not want to turn off the lights,” is the slogan chosen by the chamber.

“We are going through a terrible crisis due to currency exchange issues, soaring domestic costs and the increase in the theft of our resources in the Mile 201 by foreign fleets offering their products at a lower selling price than we do,” representatives of the sector claimed.

Read the full story at FIS World News

 

At “Our Oceans” Conference in Chile, Obama announces the first new marine sanctuaries in 15 years

“Several advocacy groups have been pressing the administration to declare two new national marine monuments off New England’s coast: Cashes Ledge and the New England Canyons and Seamounts, which are home to a major kelp forest and network of deepwater corals, respectively. But some local fishing operators raised objections to the designations of the two areas in the run up to the global conference, and the president did not use his executive authority to put them off limits.”

The following is an excerpt from a Washington Post story, written by Chelsea Harvey with contributions from Juliet Eilperin: 

WASHINGTON (The Washington Post) October 5, 2015 — In a video message to conference attendees, President Obama announced plans for two new marine sanctuaries, one off the coast of Maryland, and the other in Lake Michigan. They’ll be the first new national marine sanctuaries designated by the federal government in the past 15 years.

One of these sanctuaries will be an 875-square mile section of Lake Michigan off the shore of Wisconsin, which is recognized for its collection of nearly 40 known shipwrecks, some of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The other sanctuary is a 14-square mile area of the Potomac River, which includes Maryland’s Mallows Bay – an area known for its ecological significance, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and home to bald eagles, herons, beavers, river otters and numerous species of fish.

…

Several advocacy groups have been pressing the administration to declare two new national marine monuments off New England’s coast: Cashes Ledge and the New England Canyons and Seamounts, which are home to a major kelp forest and network of deepwater corals, respectively. But some local fishing operators raised objections to the designations of the two areas in the run up to the global conference, and the president did not use his executive authority to put them off limits.

Marine national monuments differ from marine sanctuaries in that they can be established by presidential proclamation, whereas sanctuaries are designated by NOAA and require extensive public input – however, they can offer similar protections and human use restrictions over marine ecosystems.

The United States is also announcing several other plans aimed at protecting marine resources. In Chile for the conference, Secretary of State John F. Kerry announced the launch of Sea Scout, a global initiative targeting illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing by uniting world leaders, expanding technology and information-sharing and identifying illegal fishing hot spots. NOAA also has plans to expand the development of a technology known as the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, which detects boats and may help alert nations to illegal fishing activities. The technology will be implemented in several nations in 2016, including Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Sea Scout initiative “provides a real opportunity to improve coordination and information sharing around the world as a way to combat illegal fishing,” said Beth Lowell, senior campaign director for Oceana, in a statement to The Post. According to Lowell, the biggest challenges to combating illegal fishing are an untraceable global seafood supply chain and a lack of enforcement. And on these fronts, there’s still more to be done.

“The first step to effectively stop IUU fishing and seafood fraud is to require catch documentation for all seafood sold in the U.S.,” Lowell said. “While Oceana applauds the president’s task force for taking great steps in the right direction, full-chain traceability is ultimately needed for all U.S. seafood to ensure that it’s safe, legally caught and honestly labeled.”

Read the full story from the Washington Post

Read Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks here

 

Obama announces new measures to crack down on illegal fishing

WASHINGTON — October 5, 2015 — The Obama administration on Monday announced plans to further crack down on illegal fishing, a global problem that can hurt both fishing communities in impoverished nations and the seafood industry in the United States.

As part of a package of initiatives announced in a video message to participants at a major oceans conference in Chile, President Barack Obama announced new steps to tackle illegal fishing. They include the launching of a program called “Sea Scout,” designed to increase cooperation among nations seeking to identify and prosecute illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing around the globe.

Experts say the problem is extensive around the world.

The Pew Charitable Trusts said the issue is difficult to quantify, but that experts estimate that illegal and unreported fishing cost the global economy up to $23 billion annually.

Read the full story from the Miami Herald