Saving Seafood

Coronavirus Restaurant Closures Upend Oregon Seafood Industry

March 26, 2020 — Oregon’s seafood industry is losing a major market as restaurant dining rooms across the country close to reduce the spread of the new coronavirus.

Seafood processors across the Northwest say they’re shifting gears quickly to make up for the loss in restaurant sales. They’re putting more seafood in the freezer and selling more to grocery stores.

Northwest seafood processor Andrew Bornstein said grocery stores are buying more seafood now because so many people are stocking up in response to statewide orders to stay home. But that doesn’t mean his business isn’t taking a big hit.

“Does the increase in grocery make up for a lack of restaurant business? No, not even close,” said Bornstein, who manages Bornstein Seafoods. the company has seafood processing plants in Astoria, Oregon, and Bellingham, Washington.

Read the full story at OPB

PFMC: Notice: Salmon hearing public testimony

March 24, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

If you are attending the Salmon Hearings via webinar and plan on giving verbal testimony, please fill out our virtual comment card before the hearings begin.

The links below will take you to the specific meeting information and links to that specific public comment form:

Reminder:

In advance of the meeting, please reference the following materials and video to practice joining the meeting. This is to ensure your ability to participate, as troubleshooting moments before the meeting will be difficult.

Alternative ways to provide public comment:

Public comment is also being accepted through March 27th at 5pm via our E-Portal . Agenda Item E.1 is the most appropriate for Salmon alternatives adopted in March.

Conservationists Say Salmon Fishing Plan Imperils Whales

March 19, 2020 — The government allowed salmon fishing in Alaska at rates its own reports said will push endangered Southern Resident killer whales closer to extinction, environmental groups claim in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.

Salmon born in the rivers and streams of Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia migrate to the Pacific Ocean and through the Gulf of Alaska, home to a major troll fishing fleet. In southeast Alaska, 97% of the Chinook salmon fishermen harvest were born elsewhere. The fish they take never make it back to their home waters, where they could have been dinner for the 72 remaining Southern Resident killer whales – a genetically distinct group of orca that are starving due to a lack of their main prey.

“It is reckless and irresponsible for NOAA to approve this harvest, these salmon don’t belong to Alaska, they belong to Southern Resident killer whales, indigenous peoples, and fishing communities down the coast,” Kurt Beardslee, Wild Fish Conservancy’s executive director, said Wednesday in a press release.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Endangered coho salmon preservation an upstream battle in California

March 13, 2020 — The endangered coho salmon of Tomales Bay, north of San Francisco, are getting assistance from a stream restoration effort that could help rescue them from near-extinction locally.

Through the project, fish ecologists hope they can restore habitat to rebuild decimated populations of the historic fish, which once was a staple of indigenous diets and later California commercial fishing.

Central California coast coho salmon formerly were plentiful on the West Coast, but the population has shrunk so low that the fish is listed as endangered in California, Oregon and Washington under the federal Endangered Species Act. It is now illegal to catch coho salmon in California. Cohos are not protected in Alaska.

The fishes’ spawning grounds are becoming hard to find. Unlike Chinook salmon, which lay eggs in rushing rivers, coho prefer small streams.

Read the full story at UPI

Low Salmon Forecasts Cast a Pall Over Upcoming Salmon Seasons

March 12, 2020 — Forecasts for many Chinook and coho stocks on the West Coast are low — lower than last year and some nearing historic lows. Regardless, the Pacific Fishery Management Council and its advisory bodies developed alternatives for sport and commercial ocean salmon fisheries when it met last week in Rohnert Park, Calif.

The alternatives now go out for public review before the Council makes a final decision on salmon seasons at its meeting in Vancouver, Wash., on April 5-10.

Read the full story at Seafood News

West Coast Dungeness Crab Stable or Increasing Even With Intensive Harvest, Research Shows

March 5, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The West Coast Dungeness crab fishery doesn’t just support the most valuable annual harvest of seafood on the West Coast. It’s a fishery that just keeps on giving.

Fishermen from California to Washington caught almost all the available legal-size male Dungeness crab each year in the last few decades. However, the crab population has either remained stable or continued to increase, according to the first thorough population estimate of the West Coast Dungeness stocks.

“The catches and abundance in Central California especially are increasing, which is pretty remarkable to see year after year,” said Kate Richerson, a research scientist at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. Richerson is the lead author of the new study published in the journal Fisheries Research. “There’s reason to be optimistic that this fishery will continue to be one of the most productive and on the West Coast.”

Other recent research has suggested that the West Coast’s signature shellfish could suffer in the future from ocean acidification and other effects related to climate change. That remains a concern, Richerson said, but the study did not detect obvious signs of population-level impacts yet.

Read the full release here

PFMC: Notice of availability: Review of 2019 Ocean Salmon Fisheries

February 18, 2020 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Salmon Technical Team and staff of the Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) have prepared this stock assessment and fishery evaluation document as a postseason review of the 2019 ocean salmon fisheries off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California to help assess Council salmon fishery management performance, the status of Council area salmon stocks, and the socioeconomic impacts of salmon fisheries. The Council will formally review this report at its March 2020 meeting prior to the development of management alternatives for the approaching fishing season.

Please visit the Council’s website to get the Review of 2019 Ocean Salmon Fisheries (Published February 2020).

For further information:

IPHC Adopts 2020 Halibut TCEY of 36.6 Million Pounds, Two Million Pounds Less than 2019

February 10, 2020 — The International Pacific Halibut Commission adopted a total catch limit of 36.6 million pounds for the 2020 season, slightly less than last year. But the Total Constant Exploitation Yield (TCEY) includes non-commercial removals, so when those are subtracted, a commercial fishery catch limit of 27.48 million lbs remains. That amount includes charter sector allocations, and is about one million pounds less than what was caught last year.

The season will start on March 14 and close November 15, 2020.

Read the full story at Seafood News

When Environmentalists and the Fishing Industry Team Up, Ocean Habitats Win

February 4, 2020 — When it comes to threatened Pacific species, groundfish rarely get the glory. They are not as charismatic as orcas, nor is their life history as inspiring as salmon’s. As seas warm and the threats of climate change take effect, what these bottom-dwellers—and the cultures that depend on them—do have going for them is an incredible and unexpected comeback story.

Historically, the Pacific groundfish fishery was run as a derby—essentially a race for fish. By the 1970s, massive quantities of fish and bycatch were being hauled in via trawl nets all along the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. But by the late 1990s, research began to reveal signs of overfishing among groundfish, which includes dozens of species that live near the ocean bottom, such as rockfish, roundfish, and flatfish. Since many of these species are long-lived, they are slow to grow and reproduce, meaning they’re also slow to recover from overharvesting. As the century turned, managers scrambled to close certain areas to fishing and reduce catch limits to prevent collapse.

“The first decade of the millennium, we were in sort of a frantic panic mode trying to gather more scientific information,” says Gretchen Hanshew, a fisheries management specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. At the same time, NOAA worked to rein in some exploitative fishing practices to make sure they weren’t creating future problems.

Still, in 2001, a coalition of environmental groups sued the federal government to step up the management of overfished species and won. The result was a sweeping closure of fishing areas considered essential fish habitat, many as a precautionary measure. Managers essentially froze the map on trawl fishing until they could get a better handle on what was happening where.

Read the full story at Yes Magazine