Saving Seafood

USDA buys $16M of Oregon shrimp as fleet faces setbacks

June 4, 2025 — The Oregon pink shrimp industry is getting a much-needed boost from the federal government this spring after another round of international trade disruptions threatened to sideline the start of the 2025 season.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will purchase $16 million worth of Oregon pink shrimp through a program aimed at stabilizing domestic food producers during economic hardship, according to an article by Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).

The federal buy comes after processors along the Oregon Coast opted to delay the start of the Pacific pink shrimp season in early April, pushing back operations by at least two weeks due to ongoing uncertainty in overseas markets.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

OREGON: Feds buys $16M of Oregon seafood to offset industry losses

May 23, 2025 — In a regular season, commercial fishing boats off of the Oregon Coast set out at the beginning of April to catch Pacific pink shrimp to then be canned or frozen at a local processing facility.

This year, those plans got delayed.

“They decided to wait and put it off two weeks at least,” said Nick Edwards, the secretary of the Shrimp Producers Marketing Cooperative — he also commercially fishes Dungeness crab and pink cocktail shrimp.

Processors were waiting, following trade uncertainty after the Trump administration imposed sweeping 10% tariffs on all imported goods to the U.S. In response, countries from the European Union — one of the biggest overseas buyers of Oregon pink shrimp — imposed a 25% retaliatory tariff on goods from the U.S. The list included coldwater shrimp.

Read the full article at OPB

California Seeks to Modify Coldwater Pink Shrimp Management

March 31, 2022 — Rules that Oregon and Washington pink shrimp trawlers are already accustomed to may be implemented in California soon.

The California Fish and Game Commission will consider changes to its pink shrimp fishery management plan when it meets in June.

“The effort to develop and implement this FMP began in 2017, and the adoption of the FMP by the Commission is expected in April 2022,” the Notice of Proposed Regulations reads, although the Commission calendar now has the action scheduled in June. “The purpose of the FMP and its implementing regulation is to update the management of California’s pink shrimp fishery to be in line with Oregon and Washington. Updating the fishery’s management would also assist the fishery in obtaining the Marine Stewardship Council certification. This effort is expected to result in a more sustainable and less environmentally impactful fishery.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

Oregon pink shrimp season opens amidst pandemic uncertainty

April 8, 2021 — Oregon’s pink shrimp fishery is opening with an inventory surplus and extreme market uncertainty resulting from pandemic-related restaurant closures.

Oregon is home to the world’s largest pink shrimp fishery, with a 30-year average annual harvest of around 30 million pounds. The small shrimp – also known as cocktail shrimp or salad shrimp – have traditionally been sold to the foodservice market.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Pacific shrimp: Biologists keep an eye on warmer water

January 31, 2020 — Oregon pink shrimp trawlers wound up with a harvest of 26.85 million pounds for their 2019 season. Those are the preliminary numbers from PacFIN, and at ex-vessel prices of 74 cents per pound, fleet revenues crunch out to $19.94 million.

As predicted, the 2019 season came in with lower production than the 2018 season, in which the fleet of 64 trawlers put in its third best season on record with 35.8 million pounds and ex-vessel revenues of $26.9 million. Ex-vessel prices averaged 68 cents per pound in 2018.

The mix of age 1 and age 2 shrimp dovetailed in the 2018 fishery and drove the number of harvestable shrimp upward. Biomass modeling had predicted a strong showing of age ones, and they came through.

This year, it was a strong representation of 2-year-olds that drove the fishery, according to Scott Groth, the pink shrimp and south coast shellfish project leader with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, in Charleston.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

LED Lights Show Promise for Decreasing Salmon Bycatch in West Coast Whiting Fishery

November 10, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Light-emitting diodes – LEDs – are proving effective for lowering bycatch in fisheries besides West Coast pink shrimp.

A study by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Northwest Fisheries Science Center shows that LEDs are very effective in directing Chinook salmon to escape windows in Pacific hake trawl nets, according to a statement from the National Marine Fisheries Service. Chinook salmon bycatch in the hake fishery, the largest groundfish fishery on the West Coast, can be an issue; if too many Chinook salmon are caught, management measures may be implemented to conserve salmon stocks.

NMFS requested an Endangered Species Act Section 7 re-consultation on the take of salmon species in the West Coast groundfish fishery in 2013. Now, four years later, the biological opinion or “BiOp” and accompanying incidental take statement is scheduled to be completed in December.

However, avoiding salmon bycatch is an ongoing issue for the whiting fishery and the midwater rockfish fishery. The use of LEDs on the nets, similar to how they are used in the pink shrimp fishery to channel eulachon smelt out escape holes, may prove useful in the future. The LEDs researchers and fishermen used for this project were developed for use on longlines, designed for rugged use in the ocean environment.

The development of efficient, cost-effective LED technology has led to a growing list of innovative residential and industrial applications, according to the statement from NMFS. With NOAA Fisheries’ Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program funding, researchers found LEDs can play an important role in productive and sustainable fisheries as well.

Data show that Chinook salmon are much more likely to exit the nets where lights are placed—86 percent of escaped salmon used the well-lit, LED-framed openings. While further research is underway, the data suggest the LEDs can increase the salmon’s escapement overall, NMFS said.

Mark Lomeli, a researcher at the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, said the challenge was to develop a salmon excluder design to lower incidental salmon bycatch. He and other researchers worked with fishermen to use two sets of large, open escape windows that allowed salmon to swim out.

“Our data and video observations indicate that at deeper, darker depths where trawl nets go, light from the LEDs are enhancing the salmon’s ability to perceive the escape areas and the areas outside the nets,” Lomeli said in the NMFS report.

The key to keeping hake in and guide Chinook out is fish behavior. Salmon are stronger swimmers and can escape. By the time the whiting get to part of the net where the excluders are positioned, they are too fatigued to swim out.

Researchers said the technology could also be adapted for other fisheries, such as for reducing salmon bycatch in the Alaska pollock fishery.

“Many fishermen are aware of this technology now and use it if they think Chinook bycatch will be an issue,” Lomeli was quoted as saying in the statement. “It’s easy to use, relatively cheap, and widely available. You can easily clip the lights to the webbing of the net around the escape openings. With these research results in hand, the lights are on the shelf for them when they need them. We think these LEDs are low-hanging fruit for contributing to the recovery of this species, and can also play an important role in the stability of this fishery.”

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

 

Pink shrimp is Washington’s first state-managed MSC certified sustainable fishery

October 8, 2015 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

Washington pink shrimp is the first fishery managed by the state of Washington to achieve certification to the global Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Fisheries Standard for sustainable, wild-caught seafood. The Washington pink shrimp fishery was independently assessed as a scope extension of the MSC certified Oregon pink shrimp fishery, which achieved certification to the MSC standard in December 2007 and attained recertification in February 2013.

“Washington state’s pink shrimp fishermen are proud that this is the first Washington state-managed fishery to earn certification to the MSC standard,” said Charles Kirschbaum, ‎Pacific Seafood Group’s product manager. “Efforts by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, working closely with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, to develop and adopt reference points, and implement bycatch reduction measures are key to making the fishery one of the most sustainable shrimp fisheries in the world.”

Lorna Wargo, Senior Fisheries Biologist, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said, “Washington pink shrimp fishermen have a record of being willing to adopt sustainable fishing practices, often ahead of regulatory action, so I’m very pleased to see recognition of the fishery through MSC certification. We look forward to continued work with shrimpers and processors, and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, as such collaboration is an effective strategy for ensuring a healthy shrimp stock and vital fishery.”

Pink shrimp, also known as ocean shrimp, are generally considered to have a clean, sweet flavor and are commonly served on salad, in a shrimp roll or as whole cooked peel and eat shrimp. Since the late 1990’s, fishing for pink shrimp in Washington has steadily improved with recent landings increasing from approximately 10 million pounds per year to a record 30 million pounds, with a value of more than $16 million, in 2014. Fishing for Washington pink shrimp is allowed only in the U.S. federal Exclusive Economic Zone (which extends 200 nautical miles from the coast) and prohibited in State waters (0-3 mi). Permitted fishers are allowed to land as much as they can as long as they follow season (April 1 through October 31), area, size, and gear regulations (single and double-rigged shrimp trawl gear is permitted).

Brian Perkins, MSC Regional Director, Americas, said, “The expansion of the MSC certified pink shrimp fishery to include Washington pink shrimp is a significant advancement. In 2007, Oregon pink shrimp became the first pink shrimp fishery in the world to achieve MSC certification, and the addition of Washington demonstrates that this fishery continues to be committed to sustainably harvesting pink shrimp.”

This certification assessed the west coast pink (ocean) shrimp stock which extends from south east Alaska to California waters. The assessment considered the health of the coast wide stock and the effects of all permitted harvests on that stock.

Read the release here