Saving Seafood

OREGON: Wyden, Merkley announce more than $35M in federal funds for salmon recovery

August 23, 2024 — Senators Wyden and Merkley are announcing some major funding to support salmon recovery in Oregon.

The two U.S. Senators announced Wednesday that both Oregon and the Klamath Basin are receiving more than $35 million from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund. The federal grant program helps to restore Pacific salmon and steelhead.

The money will be distributed between the Klamath River Inter-Tribal Fish and Water Commission and the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board.

Senator Merkley says Oregon’s salmon population is critical in sustaining the state’s commercial and recreational fisheries as well as being a crucial part of the cultural heritage of Oregon’s Indigenous Tribes.

Read the full article at KOBI

OREGON: Record crab harvest among other results

August 14, 2024 — Oregon’s fishing scene in 2023 was a bit of a mixed bag. While the state’s commercial fishing industry landed 301 million pounds of seafood, up from the previous year, the total revenue didn’t quite hit the high notes of the past few years. The amount of crab harvested nearly doubled compared to 2022, but low prices kept the revenue from making this season something special for the fishermen. Salmon landings took a hit, and the pink shrimp market saw a price drop despite better landings. Overall, it was a year of contrasts, with some fisheries thriving and others struggling.

The report shared by the State of Oregon Employment Department examined individual fisheries and employment in each state county. The industry landed a total of 301 million pounds, which was worth $178 million in 2023. Though it was more pounds than in 2022, it was below the average landings and revenue from 2018 to 2022, which was 319 million pounds worth $189 million.

Crab harvests in 2023 were 37.2 million pounds versus 4.9 million pounds the year before. Typically, the state’s crab season begins in December. However, the season didn’t fully open until Feb 1, 2023, making the 2022 crab harvest drastically lower than the historical trends. The 2023 harvest was twice as large as the five-year average of 18.3 million pounds. The year’s total revenue sat at $104 million due to the low crab prices. Dungeness crab’s average landed price per pound was $2.80 in 2023, the lowest seen since 2013’s $2.74 per pound.

Salmon landings significantly dropped 18% in 2023, totaling 1.7 million pounds. This was more than the five-year average, which was 1.4 million pounds. The average price also dropped, leading to a decrease in total landed value of 32%, totaling $5.2 million. The U.S. Secretary of Commerce issued a disaster declaration for the 2023 Oregon ocean troll salmon fishery due to the long-term trend of low levels of salmon harvests.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

US promises $240 million to improve fish hatcheries, protect tribal rights in Pacific Northwest

July 26, 2024 — The U.S. government will invest $240 million in salmon and steelhead hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest to boost declining fish populations and support the treaty-protected fishing rights of Native American tribes, officials announced Thursday.

The departments of Commerce and the Interior said there will be an initial $54 million for hatchery maintenance and modernization made available to 27 tribes in the region, which includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska.

The hatcheries “produce the salmon that tribes need to live,” said Jennifer Quan, the regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. “We are talking about food for the tribes and supporting their culture and their spirituality.”

Some of the facilities are on the brink of failure, Quan said, with a backlog of deferred maintenance that has a cost estimated at more than $1 billion.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Climate change is causing low-oxygen levels in Pacific Northwest ocean, report says

June 17, 2024 — A recent report out of Oregon State University paints a picture of how ocean oxygen levels have decreased in the Pacific Northwest over the years.

The report found near-bottom levels of dissolved oxygen in the waters off of Washington, Oregon and Northern California in 2021. JPR’s Roman Battaglia talked to Jack Barth, professor of oceanography at OSU, about his report and what these low oxygen levels mean for marine life.

Roman Battaglia: One thing I noticed in this study was that the levels seem pretty different in different parts of the coast. For example, in northern California and the southern Oregon coast, the oxygen levels seem much higher than they are in southern Washington and the northern Oregon coast. But why is there so much variability?

Jack Barth: That was the second big outcome of the paper, is that there really are regional differences. And importantly, we can explain them by oceanographic processes. So that higher oxygen level off southern Oregon, that’s because the continental shelf is relatively narrow. So it can flush water on and off pretty effectively from the deep ocean and flush out that low oxygen water so it stays high. And it looks like a pretty good area for fisheries. As you get into the wider continental shelves off central Oregon and Washington, the water sticks around longer; it doesn’t get flushed off as effectively. So that keeps those low oxygen waters near the bottom on those wider shelves.

Read the full transcript at OPB

OREGON: Oregon seafood groups urge Governor Kotek to prioritize state-led wind energy plans

June 14, 2024 — The state’s seafood commodity commissions have expressed concerns to Governor Kotek, urging them to prioritize that states own planning process and utilize it as a guide for responsible offshore wind energy development. According to Oregon Trawl, Oregon Dungeness Crab, Oregon Albacore and Oregon Salmon, the alternative would be following a rushed federal process; keeping impacted communities from having a voice.

According to the seafood commodity commissions should the state follow the federal process the viability of the state’s seafood industry and the health of the ocean would not be prioritized.

“Being situated in the middle of one of the world’s four most productive marine regions, Oregon is blessed with its healthy abundant fisheries, which are known to be among the top well-managed fisheries in existence today,” said Yelena Nowak, the executive director of the Oregon Trawl Commission. “It is critically important for Oregon to step up our efforts in ensuring Oregon’s impacted communities and the pristine natural environments are respected and protected in the pursuit of offshore wind energy development.”

Read the full article at KMTR

PNW coast suffers from low oxygen, study finds. It’s becoming the norm

June 12, 2024 — About half of the water near the seafloor off the Pacific Northwest coast experienced low-oxygen conditions in 2021, according to a new study.

And those hypoxic conditions, which are expected to become common with global warming, threaten the food web, the study found.

The study from Oregon State University, published in Nature Scientific Reports, used data from 2021 to map out oxygen levels across the bottom 32 feet of the Pacific Northwest continental shelf.

The research illuminates how the planet’s warming has fundamentally changed the ocean’s annual cycles and ecosystems, endangering culturally and economically valuable species like the Dungeness crab, which was worth an annual average of $45 million from 2014 and 2019.

Read the full article at The Seattle Times

OREGON: Oregon U.S. lawmakers seek federal help for West Coast seafood industry

June 11, 2024 — Last year, Oregon’s seafood industry got a much-needed boost from the federal government. But it continues to struggle and still needs help.

That’s the message from five Democratic members of Congress from Oregon, who’ve written to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to request aid for West Coast seafood fishermen, processors and distributors. U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden and U.S. Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, Val Hoyle and Andrea Salinas asked USDA Administrator Bruce Summers to again include Oregon seafood in its commodity purchases. Summers oversees the agency’s Agricultural Marketing Service, which buys U.S. products for nationwide food assistance programs.

Read the full article at the Oregon Capital Insider

OREGON: Oregon legislators urge USDA to make more West Coast seafood purchases

June 11, 2024 — Agroup of U.S. senators and representatives from Oregon are urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase government purchases of seafood originating from the West Coast.

The USDA made USD 52 million (EUR 48 million) in seafood purchases from the U.S. West Coast in 2022 at the legislators’ urging but, previous to that, had not requested Pacific Coast seafood in its commodity-purchasing programs, according to a letter sent to USDA Administrator Bruce Summers from U.S. senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden and U.S. representatives Suzanne Bonamici, Val Hoyle, and Andrea Salinas

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

OREGON: Oregon Coast shellfish harvesting closure expands to clams after poisonings

June 8, 2024 — A week after closing mussel harvesting across the Oregon Coast due to high levels of toxins, officials expanded that closure to include razor and bay clams.

Oregon’s departments of Agriculture and the state Fish and Wildlife jointly announced the closure Thursday.

The agencies said people should avoid the types of shellfish because of unprecedented levels of toxins caused by some species of algae.

Read the full article at OPB

OREGON: Oregon officials warn about paralytic shellfish poisoning from mussels

May 30, 2024 — An outbreak of paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) has sickened at least 20 people in the U.S. state of Oregon, according to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA).

The people who have reported as sick were recreationally harvesting mussels on 25 May or 26 May at either Short Beach near Oceanside, at Hug Point, or at Seaside in Clatsop County. Some have been hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource