Saving Seafood

A Dwindling Catch Has Alaskans Uneasy

August 22, 2018 — After just a few hours of letting the current comb through his net in the Copper River, Shane Cummings knew that something wasn’t right.

Dr. Cummings, a sports medicine specialist, had driven 250 miles east of Anchorage with a seasoned fishing party, including a few men who had gone to the river every summer since the 1960s. They motored between sandbars to a familiar spot, and slid the wide hoops of their nets into the steel-colored water.

In a good year, they could pull 70 or 80 red salmon from the river, which they would later brine in sugar and salt and bathe in alder smoke, their Little Chief smokers puffing in their driveways. They would carry Ziplocs of fish to the neighbors and set long tables in their backyards, pulling fillet after fillet off the grill.

But as the hours passed on this day in early June, nobody on the river netted a red, or even saw one. “It wasn’t usual at all,” Dr. Cummings said.

Read the full story at The New York Times

ALASKA: Fraser Sockeye Season Gearing Up; Landings of 1.3 Million Salmon So Far

August 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Fraser River sockeye season has netted landings of about 600,000 sockeye in the U.S. and 735,000 sockeye in Canada as of early this week. In Canada there have been three separate openings and an updated announcement on openings just this week, indicating a ramping up of a fishery that will peak in the coming few weeks.

This year’s return to the Fraser is estimated to be 14 million sockeye, within a wide range of possibilities. The return is made up of four distinct runs: Early Stuart, Early Summer, Summer, and Late runs. More than half — about 7.4 milion sockeyes — are estimated to make up this year’s Late run.

Once escapement, test fishing, and other management adjustments are taken off the total return, the TAC is calculated, currently at 6.2 million sockeye. Of that, the U.S.’s share is 1.02 million sockeye.

So with the landings as of last Tuesday, the U.S. season is about half over. For Canada, the bulk of the return is still ahead.

Mike LaPoint, chief biologist for the Pacific Salmon Commission, said stock assessments of the four different runs are being made as they come in. This week, assessments of Early Summer and Summer-run sockeye abundance are being calculated as test fishing results and data on age, origin, and other components of the different populations are analyzed. Updated run-size estimates could be available as early as later today, after this afternoon’s meeting of the Fraser River Panel.

“It is important to note that that TAC continually changes through the season as data on abundance, etc. are updated,” LaPoint said. “So far this season, the only change has been to the Early Stuart Run size – pre-season was 84,000, now 125,000. All other stock groups are being actively assessed right now and so far no changes from pre-season.”

The Fraser has seen three years in a row of low sockeye returns. “2016 was actually the lowest return since we started to keep records in 1892, about 700,000 fish,” Lapointe told Undercurrent News last month.

Fraser sockeye, for the most part, are four year fish. The 2014 return was over 20 million sockeye. While the returning salmon, and the subset of successful spawners in the return, is important, more focus in recent years has been on conditions the salmon face after that. Sockeye spend a year in the lake, then outmigrate as juveniles through the Fraser basin, and go north for a few years of feeding in the Gulf of Alaska before returning. In 2016-17, when these young salmon were feeding, temperatures in the Gulf were still above average from the 2014-16 warm water event referred to as The Blob.

Conditions in the Fraser River itself, according to Tuesday’s announcement from the Fraser River Panel, continue to show low volume of water and higher temperatures than historically normal, although in recent years these numbers have been similar.

“On August 13, the Fraser River water discharge at Hope was approximately 2,801 cms, which is approximately 20% below average for this date. The temperature of the Fraser River at Qualark Creek on August 13 was 19.5 degrees C, which is 1.5 degrees C above average for this date. Fraser River water temperatures are forecast to decrease to slightly to 18.9 degrees C over the next few days.

“Sustained water temperatures in this range can cause severe stress to migrating sockeye and may lead to significant en route mortality. Migration conditions for Fraser sockeye will be monitored closely over the next several weeks and appropriate management actions will be taken,” the announcement read.

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

About 400 Escaped Salmon From Cooke Aquaculture Recaptured in Hermitage Bay

August 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Of the 2,000 to 3,000 salmon that escaped from a farm in Newfoundland’s Hermitage Bay, around 400 have been recaptured — a pretty good number, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Some time between July 27 and 30, the salmon escaped from the Olive Cove farm operated by Cooke Aquaculture, after net extensions were sewn onto a pen at the site.

Chris Hendry, regional aquaculture coordinator with DFO, says the rate of recapture to date is actually pretty good.

“Our reports so far suggest that about 400 salmon have been recaptured, so for a two- to three-thousand escape, that’s about a 15-20 per cent recapture rate,” he told CBC’s The Broadcast.

“When we had the last large escape incident back in 2013 and there were capture methods deployed, about 10 per cent of those fish were recaptured. So this seems to be a better percentage of success.”

Investigation to Come

Hendry said the licence to use gillnets for recapturing is set to expire on Friday, but there will be a meeting with DFO, provincial fishery officials and Cooke Aquaculture to assess the recapture process so far and determine if that should be extended.

This week, a humpback whale got snared in those gillnets, and a rescue operation was launched to free the whale, so the use of gillnets was temporarily suspended to ensure no other whale entanglements happened.

Hendry said there will be an investigation into what happened at the Hermitage Bay site, and further discussions once the capture of salmon is completed.

“One of the questions is, in a case of a release of salmon, is there any type of repercussions, and that’s something we would discuss with the province as we both co-deliver the code of containment,” he said.

“It also requires us to do an analysis of any type escape incident and recommendations on improvements or identifying any deficiencies.”

The captured salmon, meanwhile, will need to be destroyed by the company, Hendry said.

“As a condition of the licence, they’re required to dispose of them … but we are requiring them to take samples so we can build on an existing database of genetic and scale samples for identification of farm salmon.”

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

NOAA Fisheries Call on Tribes to Apply for Species Recovery Grants

August 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — For the ninth year in a row, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is soliciting applications for funds that will conserve and protect species listed under the Endangered Species Act and are recognized as important resources for the tribes.

The assistance is granted as the agency recognizes the “unique importance of many protected species to tribes and values ongoing efforts by tribal nations to conserve and protect species” listed under the ESA as endangered or threatened, and includes candidate or proposed species, as well as post-delisting monitoring of recovered species.

Proposals that address the recovery of one of the following critically endangered species are also encouraged as part of the agency’s Species in the Spotlight initiative:

Gulf of Maine distinct population segment (DPS) of Atlantic salmon and white abalone,
Cook Inlet DPS of beluga whales,
Hawaiian monk seal,
Pacific leatherback sea turtle, and
southern resident DPS of killer whales.

Funded activities may include development and implementation of management plans, scientific research, and public education and outreach.

Only federally recognized tribes and organizations of federally recognized tribes, that have delegated authority to represent a federally recognized tribe on matters relating to ESA listed, candidate, or proposed species, are eligible to apply.

Proposals on listed, candidate, or proposed species of Pacific salmon or steelhead may be supported through the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, but not the Species Recovery Grants.

Tribes can submit more than one proposal a year and more than one species can be included in one proposal.

In the past the program has awarded $56,000 to the Knik Tribe in 2017 to fill data gaps needed for recovery of endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales; $283,000 to the Makah Tribe last year for research and monitoring of Steller sea lions and assessment of their diet overlap with  Southern Resident killer whales, and $270,000 to the Penobscot Tribe for Atlantic salmon management and outreach project.

For an application and information about the grant program, visit this web page.

This story originally appeared at SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

ALASKA: PWS salmon harvest nears 24M

August 17, 2018 — Commercial salmon harvests in Prince William Sound are edging closer to the 24 million fish mark, with the catch to date still way behind the season’s forecast.

Preliminary harvest results posted by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game through Aug. 14 were up by about two million fish from a week earlier, with deliveries of some 19 million humpies, 3.3 million chums, 1.8 million sockeyes, 35,000 silvers and 7,000 Chinooks.

The bulk of the chum catch to date, 1.8 million fish, were captured by drift gillnetters in the Coghill District, and the bulk of the pink salmon – more than 10 million humpies – were taken by purse seiners in eastern Prince William Sound, followed by other purse seiners in southwestern and northern areas of the sound.

Purse seiners in eastern Prince William Sound have led the coho harvest with some 12,504 silvers, followed by other purse seiners in southwestern Prince William Sound, with 9,366 fish.

Drift gillnetters in Eshamy Main Bay led in the catch of sockeyes with an overall seasonal catch to date of 956,622 reds, and Copper River drift gillnetters had some 7,164 kings, far and away more than any other Prince William Sound district.

Still the overall harvest of sockeyes and Chinooks to date compared with a forecast of 1.8 million reds and 14,000 kings for the sound fisheries.

Read the full story at The Cordoba Times

In China, Salmon is Salmon, Even if It’s Trout

August 17, 2018 — For years, fish sellers in China have labeled something other than salmon as salmon, according to a local media report that outraged sushi lovers across the country.

Now, Chinese fish authorities have responded: That’s perfectly O.K. with them.

Chinese regulators said this week that rainbow trout can be sold as salmon, according to new standards set by a government-affiliated fish association and 13 commercial fisheries. To justify the change in definition, officials cited biology: Salmon and rainbow trout belong to the same fishy family. They also required sellers to note the exact type of fish elsewhere on the label.

Still, the fuzzy definition touched a nerve in a country with a long history of food labeling issues and a vast population of increasingly sophisticated consumers. Thousands took to the internet to blast regulators for lowering food standards instead of fixing the issue. Some declared they would never eat salmon again.

Even patrons at a sushi restaurant said that they could no longer trust salmon enough to eat it raw.

Read the full story at The New York Times

ALASKA: Small processors carve out a market in Bristol Bay

August 17, 2018 — The majority of processing seafood companies in Bristol Bay are small Mom and Pop shops who are essentially the roadside farm stands of the Bristol Bay sockeye fishery selling sockeye directly to customers. But these businesses only sell a fraction of the sockeye caught in the region.

Standing in a shipping container that’s been converted into essentially a salmon butchery. Sandy Alvarez is filleting a sockeye. People regularly admire her technique but she said the secret behind it is practice.

“Well you know people who comment they wish they could do that I usually laughingly tell them. ‘Try doing 1,500 fish for 10 years you probably can!’”

Almost a decade ago Alvarez and her husband, a commercial fisherman, set up a little processing plant near their summer home in Naknek. Alvarez’s husband fishes for sockeye and drops off a bit of his catch to his wife who then processes it.  Then he sells the rest of his salmon to a larger seafood company. That is pretty typical for small seafood processors in the region.

Read the full story at KDLG

Will Trade Tariffs Cause The American Fish Industry To Flop?

August 16, 2018 — An estimated $900 million worth of American-caught or -farmed seafood — from fish sticks to cod fillets — may get a lot more expensive thanks to the U.S.’s current trade war with China.

How? Well, last month the Trump administration proposed a 10% duty on a wide range of imports from China, including many varieties of fish. Trade representatives will finalize the tariffs, which could increase to 25%, in September. While these tariffs are designed to punish China for unfair trade practices, when it comes to seafood, it’s the U.S. that may be on the hook.

Here’s a surprising fact: In many cases seafood labeled as “from China” is actually American. That $900 million of seafood I mentioned earlier? It’s seafood that is first caught or raised in the U.S., sent to China for processing, and then subsequently imported back into the U.S. by companies that sell it to American consumers.

Why would pink salmon or squid that’s caught in U.S. waters be labeled a product of China? Well, thanks to our confusing Country of Origin Labeling law (COOL for short), American products that undergo a “substantial transformation” abroad — such as calamari being breaded or pink salmon being filleted and canned — must then be labeled as coming from the country where they were processed. For example, in some cases a package of frozen “Alaskan Cod” fillets may say “product of China” on the back. The fish was caught in Alaska, but it was cleaned, filleted, and frozen in China. (If you’re interested in more, the USDA has a good blog post on the subject.)

Read the full story at Forbes

The mysterious case of Alaska’s strange sockeye salmon returns this year

August 16, 2018 — There’s something unusual going on with the sockeye salmon runs returning to Alaska this year. In some places — like Bristol Bay — the runs are strong. In others, like the Copper River or the Kenai River they’re unexpectedly weak. In some places, there are sockeye that are unusually small. In others, sockeye of a certain age appear to be missing entirely.

It’s a mystery.

In Southeast Alaska, one of the first Fish and Game staffers to notice an unusual trend was Iris Frank, a regional data coordinator and fisheries technician.

Frank’s lab is on the first floor of Fish and Game’s Douglas Island office that looks like it hasn’t changed much in the 32 years since she got there.

Frank has been looking at blown-up images of sockeye salmon scales for decades. She pops one onto the machine and dials it into focus to show that salmon scales have ridges, called circuli. They look a lot like fingerprints.

Circuli carry a lot of information about what a salmon has been doing since it hatched.

“So if you think about a fish being out say, in a lake in the summertime, it’s warmer there. There’s more feed around. So these circuli are probably going to be bigger and more widely spaced apart,” Frank said.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Rainbow trout can now officially be labeled as salmon in China

August 14, 2018 — Rainbow trout can be labeled and sold as salmon, according to new rules issued by a government-run fishery organization and 13 Chinese fishery companies.

The ruling is intended to resolve complaints that China-produced rainbow trout is being mislabled as salmon, amid concerns that eating rainbow trout raw would lead to parasite infection.

The ruling says salmon is the umbrella name of salmonidae fish, and rainbow trout also belongs to this category, the China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance (CAPPMA) said on their website.

The CAPPMA, a social organization under the Ministry of Agriculture, along with 13 fishery companies, issued the controversial standard.

The sale of salmon has been increasing in China in recent years, but a lack of standards has raised the concern of many Chinese consumers.

In May, some media reports claimed that a lot of what is sold as salmon in China is in fact rainbow trout, produced in Northwest China’s Qinghai Province.

Later many netizens began to claim rainbow trout from the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is being mislabeled as salmon, and is infested with worms and painted to resemble salmon.

Read the full story at the Global Times