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.
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.
September 30, 2020 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
July 15, 2020 — The Russian Far East salmon fishery, which runs from 1 June to 1 August, is facing a new set of challenges in 2020. With projections predicting the lowest harvest of recent years, the fishery is expected to see a reduced value even if prices maintained normal levels – all while necessary measures needed to tackle COVID-19 are increasing expenses.
According to Russian fishery science, the season’s catch is going to be only 384,000 metric tons (MT), 36.7 percent less than in 2019, and almost half of record-breaking 2018, which saw a catch of 667,000 MT.
May 12, 2020 — Sales of Alaska’s most popular seafoods are being hit hard by markets upended by the coronavirus, but perhaps none is getting battered worse than halibut. Along with the big losses in the lucrative restaurant trade, Pacific halibut also is facing headwinds from increasing foreign imports.
Starting three years ago, sales of fresh Pacific halibut to established markets on the East Coast were toppled by a flood of less expensive fish flowing in primarily from eastern Canada. Trade data show that for 2019 through February 2020, total Canadian halibut imports to the U.S. topped 15.3 million pounds for which the U.S. paid nearly $107 million.
“It is taking over the eastern seaboard and also is being trucked from Boston to major middle American markets such as Chicago and Denver. It’s very hard to sell Alaska halibut to these traditional markets now. The Canadian product is cheaper and is available nearly year round,” said a marketer with more than 30 years of experience in selling halibut from Southeast Alaska, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“All of a sudden, an important market that paid a good price for fresh halibut has disappeared,” he said. “Rule of thumb is generally, sell fresh make a profit, freeze halibut, lose money.”
Earlier this year, fresh farmed Atlantic halibut was spotted for sale at $9.99 per pound at a Costco near Seattle.
March 19, 2020 — Russia’s Ministry for Development of the Far East is working out incentive measures to boost aquaculture in the Russian north, claiming it is one of its greatest priorities.
The ministry was created to help bring investments to the Russian Far East, which has been lacking labor and financial resources for years. With positive results achieved through the establishment of a free economic zone and other steps, the ministry’s functions have been extended to the Arctic zone, which Russia sees as ripe for economic growth.
March 13, 2020 — Russia’s seafood industry is facing a serious threat from the COVID-19 pandemic, with two of its biggest export markets, China and South Korea, essentially shut down.
China and South Korea are crucial to Russia, accounting for a vast majority of the country’s seafood exports. In 2019, Russia exported 1.7 million metric tons (MT) of seafood, with 1.2 million MT, or 70.5 percent, going to China. Half of this volume was pollock, according to the Russian Customs Service.