Saving Seafood

Bluefin tuna make triumphant rebound a decade earlier than expected, scientists say

July 1, 2024 — Pacific bluefin tuna have beat decades of overfishing and fully rebounded — 10 years earlier than expected, experts said.

This milestone is a surprise and triumph for scientists worldwide who were tasked with helping to revive the species.

“This is an amazingly resilient fish and the new assessment is showing us that,” Dr. Huihua Lee, a research mathematical statistician at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a June 25 news release from the administration.

The fish’s restoration can be seen in the latest stock assessment detailed in the news release.

Bluefin populations are measured based on their “unfished spawning stock biomass,” which is the hypothetical number of fish there would be in the absence of fishing.

Read the full article at the Merced Sun-Star

Commercial salmon fishermen eye Klamath dam removal with cautious hope

June 17, 2024 — Dave Bitts can bring in over 100 salmon by himself.

“That’s an exceptionally good day. If I catch 20 fish it’s worth the trip,” says Bitts.

At 76, he still fishes for salmon alone. Standing in the cockpit on the stern deck of his wooden trawler, Elmarue, he can keep an eye on all six wires; when one of the lines starts to dance, he brings the fish in, stunning it with his gaff while it’s still in the water. Then he uses the tool to hook the salmon behind the gills and swings it onto the deck.

“By the way, I want that fish cleaned and chilling in a single water flush within half an hour; that’s the standard,” says Bitts. “I want you to enjoy eating it as much as I enjoyed catching it.”

Bitts has commercial permits for both crab and salmon. Normally, in late May, he’d be out salmon fishing; instead, he’s just returned from a late crab run and tucked Elmarue into her slip at Woodley Island, a tidy marina in Humboldt Bay right across the waterfront near Eureka’s Old Town.

In April, for the second year in a row, the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted unanimously to close California’s commercial and recreational ocean salmon fishery. The closure was based on woefully low numbers of adult salmon expected to return to several California rivers.

The east end of the marina is stocked with sailboats and pleasure craft, but on the west end you can spot several commercial boats — Inua, Joy Ann, and My Lady, her deck piled high with crab pots.

“There’s not that many anymore, because there’s not much salmon season anymore,” says Bitts.

Read the full article 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

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

Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan Talks ‘Fish’ to Local Fishermen

April 23, 2024 — When you think of “free fish,” you’re likely to remember those generous fishermen who dropped a fresh silver salmon on your doorstep or loaded your freezer with offerings of halibut, cod and crab.

But when Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) uses the term, it’s in the context of “Communist fish,” which he links to Russia (the former Soviet Union) and China.

Appearing at two ComFish events last weekend, Sullivan touted some of the work he and his colleagues have been doing in Washington, D.C., including the passage of legislation that placed an embargo on Russian fish products coming into this country.

“It took too damn long, but we finally got it done,” he said, to applause.

To no avail, Sullivan and his colleagues tried to get the Obama and Trump administrations to put an embargo on imported Russian fish.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the Biden administration was putting together “a big sanctions package, I went to the White House and said, ‘Now is the time to fix this to a level playing field.’ To their credit they did it. It took a war to fix this,” Sullivan said.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

CALIFORNIA: California lawmakers request disaster declaration after state’s second straight salmon season cancelation

April 23, 2024 — More than 20 federal lawmakers from California have called on the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to declare a fishery disaster following the closure of the state’s salmon season for the second consecutive year.

Earlier this month, the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to close the 2024 commercial Chinook salmon fishery from the northern coast of the U.S. state of Oregon to the Mexico border. That closure is expected to go into effect in May.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

CALIFORNIA: Crab fishermen test pop-up fishing gear to reduce whale entanglements

April 17, 2024 — The commercial Dungeness crab fishing industry was closed early in central and southern California on April 8 because of entanglement risks from returning Humpback whales to state waters where they forage.

Traditionally, the Dungeness crab fishing season runs from November through June using vertical line fishing gear that spans from the surface to the seafloor.

Whales can get trapped in these vertical lines, including whales that are protected as endangered.

After whale entanglements spiked from 2015 to 2018, the Dungeness crab season has faced delay or closure since 2019.

Season closures are affecting the fishing business, but now during this closure, a handful of commercial fishermen such as Brand Little, are testing a whale-safe kind of fishing gear, called “pop-up” or “ropeless” fishing gear, hoping the state will authorize this alternative for use next season, so fishermen can still work.

Commercial fisherman Brand Little described how the first test of the spring season went with about 20 fishermen.

“They said it went remarkably well. Everything popped up, everything came back, they caught crabs and they’re like, this is so much better than putting the gear in the gear shed and quit making money. We still have a couple months left in our statutory season, so this isn’t as great as the way we normally do it, but this is better than nothing,” Little said.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

New Study Sheds Light on Alaska’s Largest, Most Mysterious Shark

April 15, 2024 — The Pacific sleeper shark is the largest shark in Alaska, and possibly the largest predatory fish in the ocean. It is also one of the most vulnerable of all managed fish stocks in Alaska waters.

“Yet we still know little about even its most basic biology,” said Beth Matta, research fisheries biologist at the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

A new collaborative NOAA Fisheries study takes an important step toward better understanding and managing the Pacific sleeper shark. Researchers compiled knowledge from a wide variety of sources to provide important new insights into its biology and ecology. They identified and prioritized research needs to better assess and manage this species.

“We can’t manage what we don’t understand,” said Matta, who led the study. “We wanted to create a one-stop shop for information on Pacific sleeper sharks—a resource that others can use.”

Slow Growth and Low Production Lead to Vulnerability

The Pacific sleeper shark, named for its sluggish nature, lives throughout the Pacific Ocean. It has been found in shallow intertidal zones, and sighted by submersibles at depths beyond a mile underwater. It is encountered by humans most often as unwanted bycatch on commercial fishing vessels.

Like many other sharks, the Pacific sleeper shark likely grows slowly, matures late, and has a long lifespan and low productivity. These qualities make it highly susceptible to overfishing.

“Sustainable fishing rates for long-lived sharks are very low. For example, the spiny dogfish, a Pacific sleeper shark relative with a lifespan of 100 years, can tolerate harvest rates of only about 3 percent,” said study coauthor Cindy Tribuzio, NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “Pacific sleeper sharks potentially take that to extremes.”

In Alaska waters, the majority of Pacific sleeper shark mortality is due to fisheries bycatch. Observed declines in certain parts of its range, coupled with its low productivity, have led to conservation concerns. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council highlighted conservation concerns in its most recent stock assessment review.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

The Klamath River’s dams are being removed. Inside the effort to restore a scarred watershed

April 2, 2024 — Near the California-Oregon border, reservoirs that once submerged valleys have been drained, revealing a stark landscape that had been underwater for generations.

A thick layer of muddy sediment covers the sloping ground, where workers have been scattering seeds and leaving meandering trails of footprints. In the cracked mud, seeds are sprouting and tiny green shoots are appearing.

With water passing freely through tunnels in three dams, the Klamath River has returned to its ancient channel and is flowing unhindered for the first time in more than a century through miles of waterlogged lands.

Using explosives and machinery, crews began blasting and tearing into the concrete of one of the three dams earlier this month. While the massive dismantling project advances, a parallel effort to restore the river to a natural state is just beginning.

Read the full article at The Columbian 

OREGON: Fishing interests urge Kotek to halt offshore auction

March 27, 2024 — The following was released by Midwater Trawlers Cooperative:

A consortium of fishermen, processors, and others in the seafood industry are urging Oregon Governor Tina Kotek to halt the auction of ocean leases for offshore wind energy. While leasing is the work of the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), agency representatives have publicly stated BOEM would defer to state wishes before moving forward.

Today, the Protect US Fishermen coalition joined Oregon tribes and submitted a letter imploring the governor to “relay to BOEM that no offshore wind lease auction should occur off the South Coast until after the Oregon Roadmap is completed.”

When finished, the roadmap will outline considerations and recommendations relating to offshore wind energy in Oregon. The considerations for the Roadmap have been crafted over several months by a diverse group of stakeholders and will include exit ramps, or a means by which Oregon can change course if offshore wind development strays from the outlined recommendations. The diverse group has been facilitated by Oregon Consensus.

According to BOEM, offshore lease auctioning could happen as soon as October 2024. In their letter, the consortium of fishing interests made the case for a delay.

“It is our understanding that if an auction is not completed in 2024, the next opportunity would be in 2026. This timing works well with the completion of a roadmap and is responsive to the concerns from existing ocean users and coastal communities alike. Offshore floating wind energy does not currently exist anywhere in the world in waters deeper than 300 meters or at the scale being contemplated for the West Coast. In addition to the roadmap, Oregon would benefit significantly by learning from projects that are already moving forward, such as those on the East Coast and in California,” the letter states.

BOEM has ignored recent requests for an extended period of public comment, despite the request coming from tribal leaders, Oregon’s Coastal Caucus, Oregon senators Wyden and Merkley and Congresswoman Hoyle, fishing interests, and more. Fishermen are hoping that a more forceful response from Gov. Kotek will change the tide.

In the most recent legislative session, lawmakers passed HB4080 which, among other things, directs the Oregon Department of Energy to develop an Offshore Wind Roadmap that “defines standards to be considered in the processes related to offshore wind energy development and approval.” That legislation is on Kotek’s desk, awaiting signature.