December 15, 2020 — China’s recent move to tighten inspections and controls of imported seafood is forcing Russian seafood exporters to begin to look at other markets.
Claiming it has found live coronavirus strains being carried by seafood imports, Chinese Customs has increased its scrutiny of all imported food, resulting in delays in the time it takes for products to get to market.
December 9, 2020 — Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-sea Processors Association, testified Tuesday at a US Senate subcommittee hearing that US fishing vessels have been shaken by a spate of incidents involving Russian military vessels in the US Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that significantly disrupted operations the Bering Sea in August and September.
“The feeling of certainty and safety has been shattered by recent confrontations initiated by Russian military warships and warplanes with US-flagged fishing vessels operating lawfully within the US EEZ,” she testified.
Earlier this summer, the Russian Navy conducted its largest war games exercise since the Cold War near Alaska, according to the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Russia has also reopened over 50 previously closed Soviet military facilities and positioned early warning radar and missile systems near Alaska.
November 30, 2020 — Two Alaska fisheries are among the beneficiaries of new national grants to modernize data management systems to ensure sustainable fisheries in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands through electronic monitoring.
One grant for $185,104 went to the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association which matched those funds with another $213,500, for a total of $398,604.
The other, for $908,862, went to United Catcher Boats in Seattle, which added $1,385,854, for a total of $2,294,716.
ALFA will use its share to develop lower cost electronic monitoring hardware, test automated real-time feedback to vessels on image quality and support stakeholder engagement in fisheries management forums relevant to electronic monitoring in the Alaska fixed gear fishery. The project will also explore ways to improve image quality and cost effectiveness of electronic monitoring through the development of new electronic monitoring systems and deployment methods, ALFA officials said,
UBC will focus on scaling up existing efforts to evaluate the feasibility and cost efficiency of using electronic monitoring systems on Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska Pollock pelagic trawl catcher vessels to monitor compliance with retention regulations. The project will demonstrate the feasibility of electronic monitoring at scale and improve data quality, timeliness and cost-efficiency for salmon bycatch accounting and detecting and quantifying groundfish discards, according to UBC.
November 24, 2020 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) awarded Lou Shaheen and the entire team at Trans-Ocean Products Inc. the 2020 US MSC Ocean Champion Award for their continued dedication to seafood sustainability and for going above and beyond the MSC standard to make MSC certified products available to consumers. Trans-Ocean Products Inc. is the maker of Crab Classic imitation crab, or surimi seafood, featuring MSC certified wild Alaska pollock. Lou Shaheen, VP of Sales & Marketing accepted the award on behalf of the whole Trans-Ocean Products Inc. team.
“Trans-Ocean was an early believer in the benefits of MSC certification. We proudly feature the MSC blue fish label on our packaging and in our marketing because it gives our products added credibility as high quality, sustainably-sourced seafood,” Shaheen commented.
“It is with great pleasure that the MSC US recognizes Trans-Ocean Products Inc. with the MSC US Ocean Champion award. Their diligent and persistent support of the MSC mission and vision has been and continues to be inspiring,” said Eric Critchlow, MSC’s program director, USA. “MSC’s recent consumer insights survey shows that high quality product coupled with third-party sustainability certification resonates with consumers – Trans-Ocean’s success demonstrates that it meets consumers’ preferences as demonstrated by their wallets and forks.”
The MSC US Ocean Champion Award was established in 2017 to reward fisheries and companies engaged in the MSC program who demonstrated continued leadership on sustainability above and beyond the MSC standard requirements. Each awardee includes an internal champion (person or team) who has been an internal catalyst for change demonstrating leadership and the ability to spark positive change within the industry. The glass award featuring a wave with the awardee’s name and company inscribed is handmade in downtown Seattle, WA.
According to a 2020 global study commissioned by MSC 55% of U.S. seafood consumers believe that we must consume seafood only from sustainable sources to protect the ocean. Furthermore, 64% of Americans want retailers’ and brands’ claims about sustainability and the environment to be clearly labeled by an independent organization, such as the MSC. Trans-Ocean Inc. is leading on third party labels with the complete product line MSC certified and carrying the MSC blue fish label on package.
Trans-Ocean Products Inc. was among the first US seafood brands to gain MSC Chain of Custody (CoC) certification and include the MSC blue fish label on product. Trans-Ocean Products Inc. has been at the forefront of promoting MSC as a mark of environmental responsibility to the consumer market, and has featured MSC message in consumer advertising and other promotional activities helping to encourage Americans to buy seafood that’s good for them and good for the ocean.
November 20, 2020 — In a new study, scientists have linked warming Arctic temperatures, changing wind patterns and shifting currents to movement of commercially valuable Alaska pollock in the Bering Sea.
The Bering Sea has seen the loss of a summer cold water barrier in recent years, which used to keep pollock from spreading out and moving north.
But while scientists are seeing drastic shifts in pollock movement patterns, further research needs to be conducted to know what the changes mean for communities like Unalaska and Dutch Harbor and the billion-dollar pollock industry.
“This research is really critical because pollock are a key ecological component of the Bering Sea shelf food web supporting the largest commercial fishery in the U.S. by biomass,” said Robert Foy, NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center director. “To get an accurate assessment of pollock abundance so that resource managers can set sustainable catch limits, we have to be able to understand pollock distribution, which certainly looks different under a warm water regime.”
October 27, 2020 — Russia hopes to compensate the unsuccessful salmon fishing season this year with the increase of production of ivasi sardine, mackerel and pollock, according to recent statements made by the head of the Russian Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo), Ilya Shestakov, during his recent meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During the meeting, which was dedicated to the situation in the domestic fishing sector, Shestakov said despite the pandemic, the current situation in the industry remains stable.
October 15, 2020 — In the past year, the Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) trade group has made a concerted push to expand the market reach of Alaska pollock both domestically in the United States and globally.
Since enlisting a new board of directors and expanding its annual budget to USD 4 million (EUR 3.4 million) in 2019, the organization has built awareness and demand for its marquee product through the use of the “wild Alaska pollock” tagline.
October 9, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
n 2015, NOAA Fisheries scientists saw the lowest number of pollock larvae in the 30-year history of their Gulf of Alaska spring survey. They also observed the lowest number of juveniles in their late-summer survey, which has occurred since 2000. The low abundance in both surveys coincided with a marine heatwave of record ocean temperatures. Scientist Lauren Rogers and colleagues attribute the absence of larval and juvenile fish to environmental conditions that were not ideal for pollock growth and development during the heatwave.
“Marine ecosystems are complex with lots of connections,” said Rogers. “When you are trying to identify what might be behind a decline in abundance of fish at a particular age, it is often a series of factors that are at play.”
That is exactly what scientists found when looking at young pollock survival in 2015. Their survival was affected by:
October 9, 2020 — As always, there is a lot of fishing action going on after summer salmon.
At Southeast Alaska, beam trawlers are back on the water targeting 650,000 pounds of pink and sidestripe shrimp in a third opener.
Southeast’s Dungeness season reopened on Oct. 1, and a few million pounds are likely to come out of that fishery. There will again be no opener for red or blue king crab because of low abundances.
On Oct. 5, a hundred or more divers also could be heading down for more than 1.7 million pounds of red sea cucumbers. A catch of just under 3 million pounds of sea urchins also is up for grabs, but there may be a lack of buyers. Southeast divers also are targeting giant geoduck clams.
At Prince William Sound, a 15,000-pound test fishery just wrapped up for golden king crabs; likewise, a nearly 7 million pound golden king crab fishery is ongoing along the Aleutian Islands.
October 9, 2020 — Alaska pollock trawlers were well on track to catch their TAC for the year, and increased demand for seafood during the covid-19 pandemic threw some optimistic twists into market dynamics.
The TAC for the Bering Sea had been set at 1.425 million metric tons, with another 19,000 metric tons coming out of the Aleutian Islands harvest area. While the Aleutian Islands TAC has remained unchanged in recent years, those for the Bering Sea have been nudging upward from 1.345 million metric tons in 2018 and 1.397 million metric tons of last year.
The TAC for the Gulf of Alaska, meanwhile, has also risen slightly from last year’s 112,000 metric tons with 115,930 metric tons for this year, and trawlers in August continued plugging away on their C-season allotments.
The A-season for pollock trawling in the Bering Sea began on Jan. 20 and ended on April 30, with nearly all four sectors (inshore, catcher-processor, mothership, and CDQ groups) catching their allotted percentages of the TAC.
As of August, the four trawl sectors were scattered about the Bering Sea and mopping up quotas for the B-season, which began on June 10 and ends on Oct. 31.