Saving Seafood

Commerce Department Makes Several Fishery Failure Determinations for West Coast Fisheries

September 27, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Salmon and sardine fisheries off the West Coast have been closed or severely curtailed in the years since The Blob — an unusual mass of warm water — stuck around for most of 2014 and 2015. While not the only odd ocean change, it was blamed for many fisheries problems.

Now, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross has determined those salmon and sardine fisheries are indeed fishery failures due to natural resource conditions, the department said in a press release and letters released Tuesday. Those fisheries will now be eligible for $20 million in fishery disaster aid in the 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

““The Department of Commerce and NOAA stand ready to assist fishing towns and cities along the West Coast as they recover,” Ross said in a statement. “After years of hardship, the department looks forward to providing economic relief that will allow the fisheries and the communities they help support to rebound.”

About a dozen fisheries are included in the determinations, a mix of several tribes and state fisheries from all three West Coast states. Only one, the California red sea urchin fishery, was not included.

“The recent five-year average revenue (2011-2015) from the California red sea urchin fishery was $8,538,815,” Ross’ letter to California Gov. Edmund G. Brown said. “In 2016, California red sea urchin fishery revenues were $7,255,593, which is a 15 percent revenue loss as compared with the previous five-year average. Compared to the previous five-year average, this percentage loss in revenue is substantially lower than the 35 percent revenue loss minimum called for in the NMFS Policy Guidance to justify a determination of a commercial fishery failure, serious disruption, or harm.”

However, the 2015 and 2016 Pacific sardine fishery did meet the requirements for a fishery failure. A large biomass decline in sardines, resulting from unfavorable ocean conditions, was beyond the control of fishery managers, the letter to Gov. Brown stated.

“We are deeply grateful to Secretary Ross and Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Chris Oliver, as well as to West Coast NMFS officials and Governor Brown, for acknowledging that our sardine fishery closure met the legal requirements for designation as a fishery resource disaster,” California Wetfish Producers Association Executive Director Diane Pleschner said in an email. “This determination now makes our sardine fishery eligible for NMFS fishery disaster assistance. We look forward to learning the level of disaster assistance that the Department of Commerce will determine. The fact that relief is coming is very good news.”

NMFS has not determined the allocations for the $20 million in disaster assistance yet, but the final divisions will be pretty small for each entity compared to similar disasters in years past.

For example, the 2016 and 2017 California and Oregon ocean troll Klamath River fall Chinook salmon fisheries were included in the determinations. A similar scenario in 2005 and 2006, in which commercial troll seasons were partially or fully closed due to poor returns of Klamath River fall Chinook, $60.4 million in disaster aid was made available to fishermen, processors and related businesses. Now, those fisheries will have to share part of the $20 million — barring additional funding appropriated by Congress.

Other determinations include the 2017 Yurok and 2016-2017 Hoopa Valley tribes’ Klamath River fall Chinook fisheries; the 2016 Makah ocean coho and Chinook salmon troll fishery in Washington; the 2015 Hoh, Suquamish, Nooksack and Stillaguamish tribes’ coho fisheries in Washington; the 2015 Muckleshoot and Upper Skagit tribes’ coho and pink salmon fisheries in Washington; and the 2015 and 2016 Quileute Tribe coho salmon fisheries in Washington.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Disasters declared for salmon fisheries along West Coast

September 26, 2018 – SEATTLE — Federal officials have determined that commercial fishery failures occurred for salmon in Washington, Oregon and California, making those fisheries eligible for federal disaster assistance.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on Tuesday also announced a commercial fishery failure for the sardine fishery in California but not for the state’s red sea urchin fishery.

The governors from Washington, Oregon and California and multiple Native American tribes had requested the determinations between July 2016 and March 2018. Their requests noted unusually warm and poor ocean conditions that affected fish.

Read the full story from at the Associated Press

 

ALASKA: Southeast hatchery chum run wrapping up five times larger than forecast

September 25, 2018 — A new run of hatchery chum salmon south of Sitka looks like it will wind up about five times what was forecast to return. And a larger run could be returning next year.

There are still more purse seine openings planned this month at Crawfish Inlet, about 40 miles south of Sitka. The run is in its second year of adult returns. And it’s produced by the Sitka-based private non-profit Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association, or NSRAA. The hatchery organization estimates seiners caught at least 100,000 pounds during an opening September 20th. Earlier in the month a one-day opening set a record with over 900,000 chums landed by the fleet.

NSRAA general manager Steve Reifenstuhl expects the run will finish up around 3.4 million fish. The forecast was 680-thousand chum.

“You know I’m thrilled that this came in a year that seiners and trollers really needed a break and I’m glad to be part of NSRAA that it created that opportunity for ‘em,” Reifenstuhl said.

The fall-run hatchery enhanced fish provided late season fishing for the troll fleet in a year with big reductions in king salmon opportunity and a boost for seiners who stayed out fishing into September after the lowest pink salmon catch in over four decades.

Reifenstuhl thinks a couple of factors probably factored into the unexpected big return. He thinks young salmon, or fry, were not intercepted by whales and other predators that maybe impacting other hatchery returns.

Read the full story at KFSK

The Future of Fish Farming May Be Indoors

September 25, 2018 — On a projection screen in front of a packed room in a coastal Maine town, computer-animated salmon swim energetically through a massive oval tank. A narrator’s voice soothingly points out water currents that promote fish exercise and ideal meat texture, along with vertical mesh screens that “optimize fish densities and tank volume.” The screens also make dead fish easy to remove, the narrator cheerily adds.

The video is part of a pitch made earlier this year for an ambitious $500-million salmon farm that Norway-based firm, Nordic Aquafarms, plans to build in Belfast, Maine, complete with what Nordic says will be among the world’s largest aquaculture tanks. It is one of a handful of projects in the works by companies hoping these highly mechanized systems will change the face fish farming—by moving it indoors.

If it catches on, indoor aquaculture could play a critical role in meeting the needs of a swelling human population, Nordic CEO Erik Heim says. He believes it could do so without the pollution and other potential threats to wild fish that can accompany traditional aquaculture—although the indoor approach does face environmental challenges of its own. “There’s always some risk, but the risk of the land-based system is a small percentage of the risk of an outdoor system,” says Michael Timmons, an environmental engineer at Cornell University who has studied aquaculture for more than 20 years and is not involved in the Nordic project.

Fish farming has often been touted as an extremely efficient way to produce animal protein: the Global Aquaculture Alliance claims 100 kilograms of fish feed can deliver up to 15 times more meat than an equivalent amount fed to cows. The industry has gained international traction, with farmed fish surpassing wild-caught ones (pdf) in the global food supply in 2014. But traditional fish-farming methods come with significant environmental drawbacks. For example, salmon farmers in Norway and Chile—the world leaders in salmon production—typically use open-ocean cages that corral fish in suspended netting or pens. This setup allows waste to flow directly into the environment, along with pathogens and parasites that can infect wild populations. Open-air pond farms—found worldwide and representing the most common type of aquaculture in China, the top global producer of farmed fish—also have a track record of polluting local waterways with fish effluent and veterinary medicines that are used to keep disease at bay.

Read the full story at Scientific American

Tariffs could harm NW fishing industry in markets on both sides of the Pacific

September 24, 2018 — First, it was Washington wheat farmers and apple growers. Then it was regional wineries. And now, Pacific Northwest seafood companies are getting sucked into the escalating trade war between the Trump administration and China.

The fleet that fishes in the North Pacific, much of it based in Puget Sound, was first caught up in the fight in July, when China imposed sweeping sanctions on many U.S. imports, including virtually all seafood. The immediate risk was clear: China’s tariffs threatened to block access to what many believe will become the world’s largest consumer market for seafood products.

But now there’s a new risk: a Trump administration trade policy that was meant to punish the Chinese, but which could end up making American seafood more expensive for American consumers — a bizarre outcome that could expose the Northwest’s seafood industry to trade-war damage both at home and abroad.

That risk became clear on Monday, when Robert Lighthizer, the United States Trade Representative, released a list of some 5,700 imported Chinese food products that will be hit by heavy new tariffs. Among them, roughly $2.7 billion in imported Chinese seafood items—everything from salmon and flounder to sole and snow crab.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Tentative deal reached on renewal of Pacific Salmon Treaty

September 21, 2018 — American and Canadian negotiators have successfully brokered a deal to renew the Pacific Salmon Treaty. The compromise agreement has now been sent to Ottawa and Washington, D.C., to be approved and ratified by their respective national governments.

The Pacific Salmon Treaty is renegotiated every decade between the two countries to govern salmon catch, research, and enhancement in Alaska, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. The treaty expires on its own terms on Dec. 31, 2018. The current negotiations have taken place over the course of two years by two teams seeking to renew the treaty for the next decade, from Jan. 1, 2019, through Dec. 31, 2028.

Aspects of the expiring plan will carry over. Among them, the use of an abundance-based management regime for king salmon, as opposed to hard caps. This should result in harvest rate indices and quotas that will rise and fall depending on abundance of the fish.

Pacific Salmon Commission Executive Secretary John Field praised the negotiators for working out amendments to the treaty, including harvest rate reductions of king salmon when it comes to mixed-stock ocean fisheries.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

ALASKA: Opponents pack Anchorage hearing on salmon habitat ballot measure

September 21, 2018 — A ballot initiative aimed at protecting salmon habitat is facing stiff opposition from industry groups, unions and Native corporations in Alaska. That opposition was on full display at an Anchorage hearing on the measure held this week.

As required by law, the state is holding a series of public hearings on the initiative.

Before the hearing, about a dozen demonstrators gathered to chant and wave signs saying “Vote No on 1” on a nearby street corner. The demonstration was organized by Stand for Alaska, a group formed to oppose the measure. Supporters of the ballot measure, which would toughen the state’s permitting requirements for projects built in salmon habitat, also showed up to demonstrate ahead of the hearing.

Inside, the hearing room was packed, with attendees lining the walls and spilling out into the hallway. Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, who oversees the Alaska Division of Elections, presided over the hearing.

“Time will be very tight,” Mallott said in his opening remarks. “With the number of folks that have signed up, it looks like we will be hard-pressed to hear everyone.”

The first speaker was Stephanie Quinn-Davidson, one of the measure’s sponsors and head of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. She argued that as companies pursue more large mines and oil developments in Alaska, the state needs to protect salmon runs from impacts seen in the Lower 48.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Relief funds for 2016 pink season slowly moving forward

September 20, 2018 — The distribution of federal fund for fishermen who got walloped by the disastrous 2016 pink salmon season inched another step forward yesterday.

Tuesday was the final day to comment on the proposed distribution plan.  Once the funds are finally released they will be administered by the Pacific States Marine Commission, which is based out of Portland. The relief funds will be distributed according to the plan being finalized now.

As it sits now, Kodiak pink salmon fishermen would receive nearly $7 million to help offset the losses sustained when pink salmon stocks crashed in the summer of 2016.

That’s roughly 22 percent of the total amount assigned to fisheries participants under the current distribution proposal for the 2016 Gulf of Alaska pink salmon disaster funds.

The bulk of the $32 million being set aside for fishermen would go to compensate those who participated in the Prince William Sound pink salmon fishery.

In all more than $56 million was appropriated by Congress to address the 2016 disaster. The money would be divvied up into four broad categories which include research, participants, municipalities and processors.

Funds for participants are based on a formula which considers ex-vessel value of losses and five-year even-year average ex-vessel value in each of seven management areas.

Read the full story at KMXT

Salmon preservation plan to impact Alaska and Canada over 10-year span

September 19, 2018 — PORTLAND, Ore. — Alaska and Canada would reduce their catch of endangered Chinook salmon in years with poor fishery returns under an agreement that spells out the next decade of cooperation between the U.S. and Canada to keep various salmon species afloat in Pacific waters.

Members of the Pacific Salmon Commission recommended a new 10-year conservation plan to the U.S. and Canadian governments Monday that would run through 2028 and involve Canada, Alaska, Washington, Oregon and a number of tribal nations in both countries.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at KTUU

 

China retaliates against US tariffs; seafood largely unaffected

September 19, 2018 — China has retaliated against US tariffs, but seafood will be largely unaffected by its counter-measures.

On Sept. 18, China announced it would levy new tariffs of up to 10% on imports of US goods worth $60 billion. The measures came in retaliation to US tariffs of 10% on $200bn worth of Chinese goods, confirmed by president Donald Trump’s administration the same day.

Both sets of tariffs will come into effect on Sept. 24.

China said the counter-measures were to “defend the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese economy caused by the violation of international obligations by the US”. Prior to the announcement in a more solemn statement it said the US measures were “regretful”.

Among the 5,000-plus US products to be hit are smoked Pacific salmon and a type of fishmeal (see below). No other fisheries or seafood products are affected.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News