Saving Seafood

The U.S. government is buying $40 million worth of pistachios and $70 million of seafood

May 21, 2021 — Pistachios are my favorite nut. I can house a whole bag of those in no time at all. Apparently the American government is into them too, because they’re not buying just a bunch, but a massive amount. During times of crop and product surpluses, the USDA will buy up extra to keep America’s food banks stocked; in 2016, it bought $20 million in cheese. Now, Food & Wine reports, the government is buying up millions of dollars of pistachios, among other delicious bounties.

It’s obvious that COVID-19 has mucked up all sorts of farming supply issues, and plenty of Americans are having a hard time getting by. So the USDA is currently making big buys to help those that produce food and those who need it. Last week the Biden administration announced that the USDA would be purchasing $159.4 million worth of seafood, fruits, legumes, and nuts. Of that, $70.9 million will be spent on seafood, the largest government seafood purchase ever.

“The impacts of COVID-19 reverberated from our farms to our oceans,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “U.S. fisheries and the American seafood industry were dealt a heavy blow…. These healthy, nutritious food purchases will benefit food banks and non-profits helping those struggling with food hardship as the Biden Administration works to get the economy back on track for American families.”

Read the full story at The Takeout

MIKE SPINNEY: The gradual and sudden decline of striped bass

May 19, 2021 — Striped bass, also known as rockfish, are arguably the most economically important finfish on the Atlantic seaboard. According to a 2005 economic study by Southwick Associates, commercial and recreational fishing for stripers generated more than $6.8 billion in total economic activity, supporting more than 68,000 jobs. At the time, striped bass were abundant in the Chesapeake Bay and throughout their migratory range, from North Carolina to Maine.

Twenty years earlier, striped bass were practically nonexistent. Scooped up in commercial nets and plucked by rod and reel by a growing number of recreational anglers throughout the 1970s, stripers had been fished to the brink of oblivion when a moratorium was enacted in 1985. Remarkably, once left alone to reproduce in the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, as well as the Hudson River, the fish were spawning in record numbers. In 1995, five years after the moratorium was lifted, the species was declared “fully recovered” by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the interstate body tasked with managing them.

The rebound was touted as a success. Rockfish became a symbol of the ASMFC’s fisheries management prowess. But almost as soon as the commission resumed the task of allotting states their portion of the striped bass pie, things started to go downhill until, in 2019, the commission declared striped bass overfished.

Read the full opinion piece at the Chesapeake Bay Journal

Using Science to Support the Chesapeake Bay’s Rockfish Population

April 29, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Heading out on the Chesapeake Bay for trophy rockfish season is a treasured rite of spring for recreational anglers. In the Chesapeake, fishermen often call striped bass “rockfish” because these fish often hang out near oyster reef “rocks.”

But this year, the spring season will be a bit diminished in the Chesapeake with a later start, and fewer days, that has been the case in the past. Changes implemented by Maryland and Virginia in 2019 will continue in 2021. This is part of a broader effort to help the striped bass population rebound.

Reports from anglers and fishermen and scientific data both indicate that the population is declining. Analyses by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission show that the striped bass population along the Atlantic Coast is decreasing. Every year, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources reports on the species by tracking an index of juvenile striped bass. The survey was started in 1954. Since then, the average index is 11.5 (arithmetic mean catch per haul); the index in fall 2020 was 2.5. In the last decade, six years have been below average. That means there are fewer fish to grow into the spawning stock.

Read the full release here

Maryland Rockfish Limits Set, Including July Closure

March 30, 2021 — After proposals and public comment, we now know what rockfish limits will look like in Maryland this season.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) issued striped bass harvest regulations for recreational anglers and charter boat clients for the summer and fall fishery, May 16–Dec. 10, 2021. This year will be a split season, closing Maryland waters to all striper fishing July 16–31. No private anglers or charter boat guests and crews may target striped bass, even catch-and-release, during those two weeks.

DNR designed this seasonal closure to avoid the period when water quality and high temperatures are most stressful and harmful to striped bass in the upper Bay, according to DNR’s own data. Virginia and D.C. also have seasonal closures: Virginia closes its striped bass season for the lower Chesapeake from June 15 to October 4, while the Potomac River is closed to all targeting of striped bass fishing from July 7 through August 20.

Outside of the Maryland summer closure period, private recreational anglers may keep one striped bass per day, with a minimum size of 19 inches. Charter boat clients may keep two stripers per day, with a minimum size of 19 inches, provided the boat’s captain participates in DNR’s daily electronic reporting system. During any chartered fishing trip, neither the captain nor mate may land or possess rockfish for personal consumption.

Read the full story at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine

Have Questions on NPFMC Requests for Emergency Actions? NOAA Fisheries Offers Q&As

February 23, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

On February 10, 2021, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council made four recommendations to NOAA Fisheries for emergency or expedited changes to Federal fishing regulations.

The Council’s four motions would:

Allow the temporary transfer of catcher vessel halibut and sablefish IFQ for all individual quota share holders for the 2021 fishing season.

  • Move the start date of the 2021 Central Gulf Rockfish Program fishery from May 1 to April 1.
  • Remove vessel use cap regulations for IFQ halibut harvested in IPHC regulatory Areas 4A, 4B, 4C, and 4D for the 2021 IFQ fishing season.
  • Suspend the residency requirements applicable to the Adak Community Quota Entity Program for 2021.

NOAA Fisheries will analyze the Council’s recommendations and, if approved by the Secretary of Commerce, will publish a rule in the Federal Register. This process typically takes five to six weeks but the exact timing may vary for each action.

As we have received numerous inquiries from participants in these Alaska fisheries, we have developed a Questions and Answers webpage to answer the most frequently asked questions on the recommended emergency or expedited regulations.

For additional information or questions about permits or transfer applications, please contact the Restricted Access Management Program at: (800) 304-4846 option #2 or (907) 586-7474 or by email at RAM.Alaska@noaa.gov.

For additional information or questions about regulations and the rulemaking process, please contact the Sustainable Fisheries Division at 907-586-7228.

Read the full release here

PUBLIC COMMENT TO SHAPE FUTURE OF ROCKFISH HARVEST

February 11, 2021 — Managing rockfish (striped bass) is like managing the Orioles or Nationals: everybody has an opinion on how to do it. Even as we acknowledge the significant challenges that Major League Baseball managers face, the rockfish issue is a lot more complicated. After all, it concerns tens of millions of fish swimming the Atlantic coast past 13 jurisdictions from North Carolina to Canada. The most recent data indicate that our beloved rock are overfished, and that we are overfishing them. Worse yet, the current version of the management plan in effect along the coast dates from 2003.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), which has legal authority to coordinate and enforce each jurisdiction’s local management plans, seeks to develop a new coastwide plan, to be known as Amendment 7. At its winter meeting last week, ASMFC’s commissioners (made up of three representatives from each Atlantic state, plus the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, and NOAA) approved a Public Information Document (PID), asking for written comment from “stakeholders” (that’s any of us concerned with the health of these iconic fish) through April 9. The commission will also conduct public hearings, probably by webinar with dates and information announced on its web site.

It reads, “The purpose of this document [the PID] is to inform the public of the commission’s intent to gather information concerning Atlantic striped bass and to provide an opportunity for the public to identify major issues and alternatives relative to the management of this species. Input received at the start of the amendment process can have a major influence in the final outcome of the amendment.”

Read the full story at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine

Rock-bottom rockfish numbers drag down Chesapeake Bay health score: Report

January 5, 2021 — Despite progress on pollution and habitats, the Chesapeake Bay has received another low health grade from the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation, this time due to issues with fisheries.

Results of the bi-annual State of the Bay report released Tuesday say the bay’s health scored a D+ in 2020.

Though most water quality measurements are showing improvement, the bay’s overall score was sunk by abysmal ratings on critical fisheries, including rockfish, oysters and shad.

Rockfish scored a 49 out of 100 on CBF’s scale, which on its own qualifies as a C+ grade. But that score represents a decrease of 17 points since 2018, the largest decline in any single indicator CBF has recorded in over a decade, said Chris Moore, senior regional ecosystem scientist with CBF.

Read the full story at Delmarva Now

CATHERINE CASSIDY: Is Alaska open for business? Not from where I stand.

December 18, 2020 — A freak storm descended on Cook Inlet this month. The fallout threatens my family business and hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital investment. Over a thousand other similar businesses around Cook Inlet face the same peril. The disaster? Earlier this month, Gov. Mike Dunleavy made the bizarre decision to effectively shut down the commercial salmon fishing industry here.

At the very end of a four-year process intended to bring the Cook Inlet salmon fishery into compliance with the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the state announced that it would refuse to cooperate with the program and basically forced the closure of federal waters in Cook Inlet to commercial fishing.

Before you conclude that this action was some kind of noble defiance to federal overreach, you should know that the state of Alaska already has multiple collaborative agreements with the federal government on managing numerous other fisheries in Alaska, including crab, cod, rockfish and salmon.

Read the full opinion piece at the Anchorage Daily News

Maryland Rockfish Spawn Sinks to Lowest in Four Years

October 21, 2020 — The results of Maryland’s most recent rockfish spawning survey are in, and they aren’t good. Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced that the 2020 juvenile striped bass index is 2.5, well below the average of 11.5, and even worse than last year’s 3.4.

The “young-of-year” survey tracks the reproductive success of rockfish in a given year. These juvenile fish are an important indicator because they are the fish that will grow to fishable sizes in three to four years. The surveys provide a glimpse of long-term trends in the striped bass population.

DNR, who has been collecting young of year data since 1954, collect fish with 100-foot beach seine net in 22 sites along major spawning areas in the Choptank, Nanticoke, and Potomac rivers and the Upper Chesapeake Bay.

Read the full story at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine

The David And Goliath Story Playing Out In Alaska’s Fisheries

September 14, 2020 — One day in April 1991, a large fishing boat sliced through the cobalt waters of the North Pacific, not far from Sitka, Alaska, on its way to the Bering Sea. For some reason, perhaps to make sure its gear was in order, the boat dropped its weighted trawling net, dragging it across the ocean floor. As the boat drifted by, thousands of pounds of rockfish got scooped up in the mesh. Just like that, the local rockfish season was over.

“Outraged.” That is how Linda Behnken, a Sitka-based fisherman and director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, described her reaction to news of the trawler’s nets rising from the ocean full of strangled or struggling fish, leaving the area’s fishing territory depleted. “It was a major catalyzing event.”

Facing the loss of a resource that had supported generations of fishing families, Behnken and the local community set out to protect the pristine waters of Southeast Alaska from the ravages of industrial fishing and banish trawling boats that drag wide nets to indiscriminately collect fish. A David to industrial fishing’s Goliath, Behnken was told to give up, that the cards were stacked against her. It took years of lobbying and rallying local support, but with the passage of the Southeast Alaska Trawl Closure in 1998, she had helped enact what at that time was the world’s largest ban on trawling, protecting 70,000 square miles of ocean habitat.

“The trawling ban is the reason we still have healthy small-scale fisheries in Southeast Alaska,” she said.

In the decades since, as the global fishing industry has consolidated into fewer, larger corporate fleets and environmental changes have threatened the ocean’s resources, Alaska’s Southeastern panhandle has emerged as a bastion for sustainable, small-scale fishing.

Read the full story at the Huffington Post