Saving Seafood

‘Are we getting invaded?’ U.S. boats faced Russian aggression near Alaska

November 13, 2020 — The crew of the Bristol Leader was laying out its long cod-catching line well within U.S. fishing territory in the Bering Sea when a voice crackled over the VHF radio and began issuing commands: The ship was in danger, it said, and needed to move.

The warnings, coming in a mixture of Russian and accented English from a plane buzzing overhead, grew more specific and more urgent. There was a submarine nearby, the voice said. Missiles were being fired. Leave the area.

Other U.S. fishing vessels that were scattered over 100 miles of open sea were getting similar messages. Capt. Steve Elliott stood dumbfounded on the trawler Vesteraalen as three Russian warships came barreling through, barking orders of their own. On the ship Blue North, commands from a Russian plane led Capt. David Anderson to contact the U.S. Coast Guard, wondering how to protect his crew of 27.

“It was frightening, to say the least,” Anderson said. “The Coast Guard’s response was: Just do what they say.”

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Russia, Japan and US to Design Joint Solutions to Deal with Reduced Salmon Catch This Year

November 6, 2020 — Russia plans to attract the US and Japan to find a solution of the problem of poor salmon catch this year, according to recent statements, made by the head of the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries (Rosrybolovstvo) Ilya Shestakov.

According to authorities of the Russian Primorsky Krai, this year the volume of salmon caught in the country’s territorial waters is significantly lower than initially expected figures for 2020. A spokesman of the Primorye authorities said if last year 297,000 tonnes of salmon were caught in the Far East, this year the volume of catch is by 1.5 times lower than a year ago. The main reason for this is the rise in water temperature and the massive death of salmon from toxins, released by red algae.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Russia Hopes to Compensate Unsuccessful Salmon Fishing Season by Increase of Pollock Catch This Year

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.  

Read the full story at Seafood News

US fishing fleet in Bering Sea rattled by Russian military exercises

October 23, 2020 — The U.S. Coast Guard has vowed to ramp up notifications of Russian military exercises in the northern Bering Sea after U.S.-flagged fishing fleets were driven off fishing grounds there the end of August.

At-Sea Processors Association (APA) Executive Director Stephanie Madsen said U.S. boats were fishing for pollock in the Bering Sea’s U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) when they were startled by the nearby activities of Russian warships, submarines, and aircraft.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

RFC, ousted from Russia’s MSC client group, intends to get certified on its own

October 8, 2020 — Radical proposals made by the Russian Fishery Company (RFC) on the development of the Russian seafood sector led to the loss of a Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification by the company.

In September, RFC was expelled from the Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) – the MSC’s client group in Russia. Now the company plans to apply for the certification independently.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska pollock, groundfish sector demands ‘non-negotiable’ military protection after run-ins with Russian warships

October 6, 2020 — The At-Sea Processors Association (APA) says US military protection of the Bering Sea groundfish fleets should be “non-negotiable” after a spate of incidents involving Russian military vessels in the US Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Bering Sea in August and September.

Recent confrontations initiated by Russian warships and warplanes against US-flagged fishing vessels operating lawfully within the US EEZ have caused fishing boat captains and their crews to fear for their safety, disrupting the business operations of fishing companies at a critical point in a very important fishing season, Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-sea Processors Association wrote in a prepared statement for a US Senate hearing, which was postponed at the last minute.

Read the full story at IntraFish

Russian pollock fishery enters MSC assessment

September 30, 2020 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

The Western Bering Sea Pollock fishery in the Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) in the Navarinsky area of the Bering Sea is being assessed to the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) Fisheries Standard by Lloyd’s Register.

The independent assessor will assess stocks of pollock in the West Bering Sea, the environmental impact of mid-water trawling, and the effectiveness of the fishery’s management system. The assessment is expected to conclude in June 2021.

The PCA’s mid-water trawl pollock fishery in the Sea of Okhotsk is already certified to the MSC Standard. It achieved this in September 2013 and was successfully re-certificated in 2018, demonstrating its commitment to sustainability and well-managed fishing operations. The certified fishery represents 43% of all Russian Pollock catch, leaving 57% of Russian catch not MSC certified.

MSC’s Program Development Director, Camiel Derichs said: “I’m delighted that the Pollock Catchers Association’s West Bering sea pollock fishery has now entered MSC assessment, driving the proportion of Russian pollock fisheries engaged in the MSC program to new highs. The improvements the PCA has worked on with other stakeholders in Russia over several years now gives the fishery confidence to be publicly assessed against the MSC standards by an accredited third partly team of experts. We wish PCA all the best during the independent assessment process.”

About The Pollock Catchers Association 

The Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) was established in 2006 and is one of the largest associations in the Russian fishing industry. It includes 26 companies employing more than 12,000 people and has 90 fishing and processing vessels. It catches roughly 1.6 million tonnes of fish and seafood per year.

PCA members primarily fish for pollock (Theragra chalcogramma / Gadus chalcogrammus) in the Far Eastern seas. PCA enterprises reports it has 63% of the pollock catch (about 1.1 million tonnes in 2019) in Russia, which is about 32% of the catch around the world.

The Bering Sea is the second most significant fishing area for pollock in Russia, after the Sea of Okhotsk. Pollock harvesting is allowed year-round in the Bering Sea, except during the spring spawning period when fisheries are closed. The total allowable catch (TAC) of pollock in the West Bering Sea has been set at roughly 390,000 tonnes for 2020.

The fishery has carried out research on the impacts of marine mammals, and this year will include research on the impact on birds. The PCA fishery has also invested in a project to modernise fishing gears and if successful, fisheries may be able to become even more selective and avoid unwanted catch from the target stocks.

Chinese Customs finds traces of COVID-19 on Indonesian, Russian seafood packaging

September 21, 2020 — China’s Customs authorities have announced the discovery of traces of COVID-19 on the packaging of seafood originating from Indonesia and Russia.

A shipment of frozen hairtail shipped by Medan City, Indonesia-based Pt. Putri Indah was held by the General Administration of Customs after its packaging was found to contain traces of the novel coronavirus. In response, China has announced that imports from the firm will be barred for a week, according to the Announcement No. 103 from the Chinese Customs Administration.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

How A Salmon Crisis Stoked Russian Protests

August 17, 2020 — A row of stakes hundreds of feet long pokes out of the endless estuary of the Amur River on Russia’s Pacific coast, resembling the naked spine of a giant fish.

It is a piece of commercial fishing infrastructure reminding the people who still live here that nature’s wealth — in this case, millions of chum and pink salmon — belongs to the well-connected few.

“It’s as though they must exterminate these riches, mercilessly,” says Galina Sladkovskaya, 65, waiting in vain for a fish to bite at a levee about 20 miles upstream. “They only need money and nothing else. They don’t have a human soul.”

Along the Amur, one of Asia’s great waterways, Russians feel cheated, lied to and ignored. The wild salmon fishery that they once took for granted is gone, they say, because Moscow granted large concessions to enterprises that strung enormous nets across the river’s mouth.

Read the full story at the New York Times

They were trying to save a species. Instead, scientists created a fish that’s part sturgeon, part paddlefish, all accident

July 22, 2020 — A group of Hungarian aquatic scientists was looking for ways to save the fish responsible for some of the world’s finest caviar from extinction.

Instead, they made a Frankenfish.

But their accidental hybrid, a fish that’s part American paddlefish and part Russian sturgeon, could benefit fish farming and the industry’s carbon footprint. And on their own, the fish are a marvel of biology.

Though they haven’t been formally named yet, fellow fishery researchers have given them the moniker “sturddlefish.”

The “sturddlefish” study appeared this month in the scientific journal Genes.

How it happened

The initial goal of the study was to encourage the critically endangered sturgeon to reproduce asexually. That isn’t quite how it went.

The Russian sturgeon, instead, hybridized with the American paddlefish, the first time the two have ever hybridized successfully in captivity. The paddlefish was originally meant to provide sperm — not its DNA — to help the sturgeon reproduce on its own.
The sturgeon isn’t so genetically different from paddlefish — they belong to the same group, Acipenseriformes. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, sturgeon and paddlefish both provide tasty caviar.

Read the full story at CNN