Saving Seafood

Next stop, dandelion fleet!

April 12, 2019 — Someone once told me that no one was ever hired after responding to a help wanted ad in a newspaper. But that didn’t stop me, in the spring of 1997, from applying to become senior editor at National Fisherman.

In addition to 10 years’ newspaper experience, including five at the Boston Globe (“The 13th largest paper in the country!” they liked to say on the night desk), I had, going back to childhood, 20-plus years’ experience as a commercial fisherman, including as skipper and owner. I would be a lead-pipe cinch for the job!

And indeed, I was, after their first choice turned it down. I am eternally gratefully for having been the second choice, and for the ensuing opportunities.

Editing National Fisherman was a job with many benefits, the greatest of which has been meeting fishermen from around the country and in quite a few instances making trips.

Among the most memorable of these was aboard the 272-foot factory trawler American Dynasty in 1998. Capt. Jim Susol, a throwback who welcomed me aboard saying, “Smoke anywhere” (I don’t happen to), could not have been more gracious. For someone who came of age on lobster boats and side trawlers, the idea of a fishing vessel with air conditioning, flush toilets, and five main courses at mealtime was eye opening, to say the least – as was a 45-minute tow that yielded 88 tons of pollock.

Another large vessel I got out on, a few years later, was the 145-foot Retriever, skippered by Franz Morris, which was midwater trawling for herring off Rockland, Maine.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

MASSACHUSETTS: Lured to Gloucester: Virginia business comes to buy haddock after expo visit

April 12, 2019 — When executives at Gloucester-based Intershell Inc. decided to ramp up the company’s presence at the Seafood Expo North America in March, they hoped at the very least to develop new relationships that could slingshot into additional sales.

Intershell did strong business during the three days the vast show ran at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in South Boston, shipping orders to new customers stretching from New York to Texas.

Now it can add the bustling burg of Spotsylvania, Virginia, to the list of new out-of-state clients.

Intershell has entered into an agreement with the Spotsylvania-based Van Cleve Seafood Co. to fully source Gloucester-landed haddock for a new line of ultra-healthy frozen seafood the all-female-owned company is developing for national distribution from its facility near the Chesapeake Bay.

“We think this could evolve into a very good revenue stream for local fishermen,” said Frank Ragusa of Intershell. “We’ve also talked with them about sourcing North Atlantic pollock, as well, which would really help build up the market for pollock and help our guys out even more. And it all started with a conversation at the seafood show.”

In that conversation, the women from Van Cleve — mother Shelly Van Cleve and her daughters Monica Van Cleve-Talbert and Alexandra Cushing — explained to the Intershell executives that they were looking for the cleanest, freshest seafood they could find for the new line.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

USDA seeking even more Alaska pollock

April 2, 2019 — Soon after announcing its multimillion-dollar purchase of Alaska pollock from several key North American suppliers, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is seeking more of the frozen fish.

In a 29 March bid notice, the USDA said it’s looking to buy 646,000 pounds of frozen Alaska pollock fish sticks for the National School Lunch Program and other Federal Food and Nutrition Assistance Programs.

Trident Seafoods, High Liner Foods, and Channel Fish are the beneficiaries of the USDA’s March purchase of nearly USD 28.1 million (EUR 25 million) worth of frozen Alaska pollock.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska’s Bering Sea is the Focus of a New NOAA Effort to Accelerate Science Delivery to Fisheries Managers

March 29, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Bering Sea is home to some of the nation’s largest and most profitable commercial fisheries, including Alaskan pollock and Pacific cod. It’s also one of the fastest warming parts of the world, with fish stocks becoming increasingly vulnerable to marine heat waves, the loss of sea ice, low-oxygen waters, harmful algal blooms, and other conditions that stress species, ecosystems, and economies.

Environmental changes in this area are happening so rapidly that researchers are continuously seeking ways to deliver more timely and actionable information on changing ocean conditions to help resource managers, commercial and recreational fishermen, Alaska Native communities, and coastal communities prepare and respond.

For this reason, NOAA scientists selected the Bering Sea as a testbed for what they hope will be a new system that provides decision-makers with robust projections of ocean and fisheries conditions over short-term (daily or annual), medium-range (1–20 years), and long-run (10–50 years) scenarios, and then evaluates how different fishery management strategies might perform under those future conditions.

“Unlike other modeling approaches, we not only look at how climate change affects the marine environment but also the people who rely on it,” said Kirstin Holsman, who along with Anne Hollowed, has co-led a team of more than two dozen researchers from NOAA Fisheries, NOAA Research, the University of Washington, and other partner agencies in this effort. “Fisheries managers and affected communities across the United States. are interested in the impacts and opportunities that are associated with changing oceans. It is our hope that this strategy will help them achieve their immediate needs and long-term sustainability goals.”

Read the full release here

SEN. DAN SULLIVAN: Northern Lights: A global seafood superpower

March 26, 2019 — The seafood industry is the lifeblood of many of Alaska’s communities. The industry is the third largest economic driver in Alaska and the top employer. Alaska accounts for more than 50 percent of total U.S. commercial fishery harvest in volume and contributes more than 78,000 jobs to the Alaska economy. We are also the top exporter in the country of fish and seafood products.

Enhancing Alaska’s seafood powerhouse is one of the primary reasons I have fought to sit on the Senate Commerce Committee — which has fishing under its jurisdiction. As a member of that committee, I have worked relentlessly to continue the important work of my predecessor, Sen. Ted Stevens, who co-authored the Magnuson-Stevens Act. But there is a whole host of fisheries issues that also come before me, including ensuring that our fisheries remain healthy and vital, fighting burdensome regulations that would needlessly restrict access to our fishing resources, and, importantly, expanding the markets for our fisheries.

In my time as a senator, I’ve been working diligently on all of these priorities, and we’ve had some important successes. For instance, the Save Our Seas Act, a bill that I coauthored with Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to help keep plastics out of our seas, was signed into law by the president in October. I recently negotiated a provision, known as the Vessel Incident Discharge Act, to provide Alaska fishing vessel owners and operators relief from a patchwork of overly burdensome and confusing federal and state regulations for vessel ballast water and incidental discharges.
We’ve also had important successes in Congress to expand markets for Alaska fisheries.

When I arrived in the Senate, I was surprised to learn that while the national school lunch program requires school districts to buy American-made food, fish had been largely excluded from those requirements in practice. It was a major loophole that allowed, for example, Russian-caught pollock, processed in China and injected with phosphates, to be sent back to the United States for purchase in the National School Lunch Program. And it qualified for a Product of USA label because it’s battered and breaded here.

Not only was this bad for Alaska’s fishing industry, the chemical-laden, twice-frozen fish that was served to students just didn’t taste good. It literally turned a generation of kids in America off of seafood.

Read the full opinion piece at National Fisherman

Russia learning to live with less pollock

March 14, 2019 — Russian fisheries are getting prepared for expected reductions in total allowable catch (TAC) for Pollock, the biggest species in the national harvest.

Companies are seeking to keep their income stable by investing in processing facilities in an effort to produce more fillet. However, there are doubts that there will be sufficient demand for deeper-processed food.

Generational shift brings new challenges

In Russia, Pollock is fished in the Russian Far East, mainly in the Sea of Okhotsk, the Bering Sea, and the Sea of Japan. In 2018, large stocks of the species were also discovered in the Chukchee Sea – scientists remain eager to find out the reasons for this migration.

Currently, the total biomass of pollock in the Sea of Okhotsk is estimated at 11.6 million metric tons (MT), with six to seven of those tons being fishable. TAC for pollock is traditionally set at a level of about 20 percent of spawning biomass to keep the stock above the target level. TAC in a given year depends on the productivity of recent recruitment, which is affected by a number of various factors, including climate, hydrological, food abundance, etc. While the recruitments of 2011 and 2013 were well above the multi-average level – which resulted in high volumes of harvest – there haven’t been any such productive years since.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Vanishing ice in the Bering Sea drops to lowest level since 1850

March 8, 2019 — For the second straight year, the Bering Sea — a turbulent and bountiful stretch of the northern Pacific Ocean — is virtually ice free at a time of year when it should be gaining ice.

Why it matters: The ice pack’s ebb and flow each year has far-reaching consequences for the broader Bering Sea ecosystem, including determining the reach and abundance of prized fish species such as Alaska pollock and Pacific cod. This is the richest fishing ground in the U.S., featured in the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch.”

The big picture: Scientists who keep close tabs on this region say the ice’s early melt is upending life in the Last Frontier. It also portends consequences for the Lower 48 states and beyond. In a new study published in Earth’s Future on Thursday, scientists warn that Arctic climate change is already reverberating far outside the region.

  • By the end of February, Bering Sea ice extent was lower than it has been since written records began in 1850.
  • The March 6 departure from the long-term average shows that an area of ice equivalent to California and Montana combined is missing from the Bering Sea.

Read the full story at Axios

At-Sea Processors’ Jim Gilmore announces retirement

March 1, 2019 — After 30 years with the At-sea Processors Association, Jim Gilmore, its director of public affairs, has announced that he will retire on June 30.

During his tenure at the association, Gilmore directed public affairs and corporate social responsibility programs, which helped to establish the Alaska pollock industry’s leadership position in global seafood sustainability.

“We are very grateful to Jim for his years of staunch advocacy and unwavering commitment to strengthening the Alaska pollock industry, and we couldn’t be happier to announce Matt’s coming onboard,” said Executive Director Stephanie Madsen.

Among Gilmore’s accomplishments are his work to enact the landmark American Fisheries Act, which paved the way for a catch-share program for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Alaska pollock fishery. The advent of catch-share management enabled the Alaska pollock catcher/processor sector to optimize food production, further minimize fishing effects on the environment, and strengthen the fleet’s international market competitiveness, according to the organization.

“Matt’s been a leader in the NGO community, promoting precautionary, science-based fisheries management. We are excited to have him put his considerable talents to work at APA,” said Madsen.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Matt Tinning to join At-Sea Processors Association as Gilmore retires

February 28, 2019 — After 30 years with the At-Sea Processors Association (APA), Jim Gilmore, director of public affairs, will retire this summer.

The APA is a trade association representing six member companies that own and operate 16 U.S.-flag catcher/processor vessels that participate principally in the Alaska pollock fishery and U.S. West Coast Pacific whiting fishery.

Gilmore, who will retire 30 June, will be replaced by Matt Tinning, currently the associate vice president for oceans at the Environmental Defense Fund, a United States-based non-profit that pursues collaborative, market-based solutions to environmental problems.

APA currently has offices in Juneau, Alaska and Seattle, Washington, and Tinning said he will open an APA office in Washington, D.C.

Gilmore directed APA’s public affairs and corporate social responsibility programs, which helped to establish the Alaska pollock industry’s leadership position in global seafood sustainability.

For almost two decades, Gilmore has also led the Alaska pollock industry’s effort to become the largest certified sustainable fishery in the world,” APA said a press release. “By achieving and maintaining certifications of the fishery under both the Marine Stewardship Council and Alaska Responsible Fisheries Management programs, his work has solidified Alaska pollock’s reputation as one of the world’s best managed fisheries.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

At-Sea Processors’ Gilmore Announces Retirement, New Hire Comes from Environmental Non-Profit

February 28, 2019 — The following was released by the At-Sea Processors Association:

Jim Gilmore

The At-sea Processors Association (APA) announced today that Jim Gilmore, its Director of Public Affairs, will retire June 30, 2019, after 30 years with the association. Gilmore will be replaced by Matt Tinning, the current Associate Vice President for Oceans at the Environmental Defense Fund, a prominent U.S.-based non-profit noted for pursuing collaborative, market-based solutions to environmental problems.

During his tenure at APA, Gilmore directed the organization’s public affairs and corporate social responsibility programs, which helped to establish the Alaska pollock industry’s leadership position in global seafood sustainability. Among Gilmore’s accomplishments are his work to enact the landmark American Fisheries Act, which paved the way for a catch share program for the largest U.S. fishery, the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands Alaska pollock fishery. The advent of catch share management enabled the Alaska pollock catcher/processor sector to optimize food production, further minimize fishing effects on the environment, and strengthen the fleet’s international market competitiveness. For almost two decades, Gilmore has also led the Alaska pollock industry’s effort to become the largest certified sustainable fishery in the world. By achieving and maintaining certifications of the fishery under both the Marine Stewardship Council and Alaska Responsible Fisheries Management programs, his work has solidified Alaska pollock’s reputation as one of the world’s best managed fisheries.

Matt Tinning

APA’s executive director Stephanie Madsen said, “We are very grateful to Jim for his years of staunch advocacy and unwavering commitment to strengthening the Alaska pollock industry, and we couldn’t be happier to announce Matt’s coming onboard.” Madsen continued, “Matt’s been a leader in the NGO community promoting precautionary, science-based fisheries management. We are excited to have him put his considerable talents to work at APA.”

Tinning brings over a decade’s worth of experience in the e-NGO community to his new position. Prior to his work with environmental non-profits, the Australian-born Tinning served as a Liaison Officer at the Australian Embassy in Washington, DC. He also worked on Capitol Hill on the staff of former New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman.