Saving Seafood

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Unveils New Database to Evaluate Aquaculture Management

March 7, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) announced on Tuesday that they have launched a new approach to assessing sustainable aquaculture management in major production regions.

The nonprofit organization has published 35 profiles of farmed shrimp, salmon and pangasius across 10 countries. The profiles, which are available at www.fishsource.org, were written to “allow corporate buyers to assess specific production regions and better understand risks in their procurement strategies.”

“In SFP’s view, sustainably managed aquaculture requires best practices at the farm level, production zone level and national policy level,” SFP CEO Jim Cannon said in a press release. “The new methodology and profiles on FishSource offer a broad vision for sustainability managed aquaculture. SFP is inviting partners and industry to join us in adopting this ambitious new approach for aquaculture.”

SFP says that they plan to “continue developing and adding profiles to the database.” They hope that the tool will help businesses understand the risks affecting their supply chain.

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

 

NPFMC: Council meets April 2-10, 2018 in Anchorage, Alaska

March 7, 2018 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The meetings are held at the Hilton Hotel, 500 W. 3rd Avenue, in Anchorage, Alaska. The Agenda and Schedule are available, as well as a list of documents for review posted to the agenda prior to the meeting. Other meeting information follows:

  • Submit and review comments at comments.npfmc.org
  • Public comment deadline is March 30, 2018 at 12 noon (AST)
  • Hilton Hotel offers discounted room rates HERE
  • Alaska Airlines offers Discount Code: ECMZ242
  • Hotel wifi / password:  Hilton_Conference / summertime
  • Listen Online while the Council is in session

Salmon FMP:

The Council will review comments received from stakeholders and will determine the scope of work for a Salmon Committee. A staff report will provide context about how stakeholder recommendations comport with the Magnuson-Stevens Act requirements for fishery management plans, and whether the FMP applies to state waters and the sport fishery in the EEZ. Although the Council has already received submissions for membership (which are being held on file), the Salmon Committee will not be appointed until the Council has formally issued a call for nominations, as is scheduled to occur at this meeting.

Halibut ABM:

The discussion paper on BSAI halibut abundance-based management is being prepared to help the Council refine alternatives with respect to elements of the control rule. The paper will provide: an overview of the current Council motion and suite of alternatives (the control rules aspects), a suggested restructuring of the Council’s suite of alternatives with details on their complexity, and an evaluation of these to help the Council narrow the control rule options to a more reasonable range of control rule types, stepping through each individually (as was done with indices) and then providing the Work Group’s rationale for what might be reasonable for analysis. The draft alternatives brought forward are focusing largely on linear control rules and their application in 2-3D look up table for purposes of setting a PSC limit that may be influenced by information from the trawl survey and/or the IPHC setline survey. Draft alternatives also will also explore setting PSC limits by gear type separately to one or both indices and consider formulations which address halibut stock status.

Learn more about the NPFMC here.

 

Washington bans salmon farms

March 6, 2018 — A year ago, Cooke Aquaculture was a mainstay business in Washington state waters. The company had made a significant investment in nine local salmon farming sites when it purchased Icicle Seafood’s assets in 2016. As of Friday, March 2, the company’s open-ocean Atlantic salmon net pens are banned in state waters, to be phased out by 2025.

The impetus for the ban is the catastrophic failure of a pen near Cypress Island, Wash., on Sunday, Aug. 20. The pen contained 305,000 Atlantic salmon that were just about ready for market at 10 pounds each, making for more than 3 million pounds of invasive fish teeming at the edges of wild salmon territory.

In February, both houses of the state Legislature passed bills banning the practice of salmon pen farming, and Gov. Jay Inslee openly supported the legislation. On Friday, the Washington house and senate negotiated the discrepancies in those bills to finalize a ban they could pass to the governor’s desk. The bipartisan Senate vote was 31-16.

Before the final votes, Cooke Aquaculture CEO and Founder Glen Cooke made last-minute appeals to state lawmakers in person.  Last Wednesday, a collective of leading marine scientists penned an open letter to the Legislature in defense of the salmon farming industry.

Indeed, many stakeholders see the ban as a punitive response to a company that appeared to shirk its own responsibility in the immediate aftermath of the spill. However, the result is that it closes the opportunity entirely — not just to Cooke Aquaculture.

Though the response to ban an entire industry may seem extreme, the perfect storm of events leading up to the ban created extraordinary circumstances. Local response to the spill was considerably more swift and strong than the eclipse high tides on which the company first blamed the collapse.

Read the full story at the National Fisherman

 

Salmon seasons off S. Oregon coast in jeopardy

March 6, 2018 — MEDFORD, Ore. — Continued problems with Sacramento River salmon survival means there likely will be very little, maybe even zero, sport and commercial salmon fishing this summer off the Southern Oregon coast.

The Medford Mail Tribune says preliminary stock assessments estimate only 229,400 Sacramento River fall Chinook will be in the ocean. That’s 1,300 fewer than last year’s small run, whose protection shut down sport and commercial Chinook fishing off Southern Oregon.

Salmon managers heading into the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s March 8-14 meeting say they think the council will be able to propose at least possible sport and commercial seasons with as little impact to Sacramento stocks as possible.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at KTVZ

 

Forecast shows California salmon fishermen in for another year of sharp limits

March 2, 2018 — A third straight year of low king salmon runs is expected to deliver another blow to one of the North Coast’s most iconic and lucrative fisheries, wildlife managers indicated Thursday, as both regulators and fishermen faced the prospect of a federally mandated plan to reverse the trend and rebuild key stocks.

The grim news comes amid a dramatic, yearslong decline in the state’s commercial salmon landings, which are down 97 percent last year from their most recent peak, in 2013, when they hit 12.7 million pounds.

The full picture for commercial and sport seasons won’t be clear for several more weeks, but spawning projections show Sacramento River salmon — historically the largest source for the state’s ocean and freshwater harvests — have fallen so low that they’re now considered by regulators to be “overfished.”

Wildlife officials acknowledged that term minimizes the many factors that have led to this point, including shifting conditions in the ocean and years of low river flows during the drought, all of which have pummeled stocks.

The outlook is dire enough to mandate development of new regulations expected to further limit where and when anglers can drop their lines and what their size and catch limits will be.

Read the full story at The Press Democrat

 

Scientists Send Letter to Washington Legislature Urging Delay on Legislation to Ban Net Pens

March 1, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Four prominent scientists have sent a letter to the Washington State Legislature urging them to stop House Bill 2957, which “would essentially halt Atlantic salmon aquaculture in this state forever.”

The scientists include the former 40-year director of the Manchester, Washington, laboratory; two former directors of the national aquaculture program run by NOAA; a former Director of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center; and the former president of Stolt Sea Farms Washington, Inc.

“We call on our esteemed elected representatives to delay any decisions regarding the future of salmon farming in Washington until the scientific community, represented in this state by some of the world’s leading aquaculture and fisheries scientists and researchers in the fields of fish culture, genetics, nutrition, and fish behavior, has had an opportunity to present science in a clear and objective light—rather than in a climate fueled by fear and propaganda,” the letter states.

The authors offer to present research that responds to the legislature’s fears on four areas of concern for Atlantic salmon farms in the event of a pen failure or escape.

Interbreeding — the authors point out that interbreeding has been encouraged in a scientific setting, and all attempts for the past f40 years have been unsuccessful.

Competition for food — Peer-reviewed studies have shown convincingly that “captive” or pen-reared salmon have not learned how to “hunt” for food, simply because they are used to being fed on a regular timetable.

Competition for habitat —  Scientists to date have found no evidence of Atlantic salmon spawning on the West Coast of North America.

Disease transmission — the authors say “No example of disease transfer from farmed salmon to wild fish has ever been documented by any regulatory agency in the state of Washington.”

Finally, they strongly urge legislators to not “throw out the baby with the bathwater”—salmon farming—that is now producing millions of metric tons of nutritious salmon, worth billions of dollars, around the world.

The letter is signed by Linda Chaves, former Senior Advisory on Seafood and Industry Issues; Dr. John Forster, former president of Stolt Sea Farm; Dr. Robert Iwamoto, director of the office, management, and information at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA; and Dr. Conrad Mahnken, former NOAA National Aquaculture Coordinator, director of the NOAA Manchester Laboratory, and Washington Fish and Wildlife Commissioner.

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

No more ‘Kings of the Columbia’: Chinook salmon much smaller, younger these days, study finds

March 1, 2018 — They used to tip the scales at 80 pounds: June Hogs they were called. The kings of the Columbia River.

But the big chinook that used to lumber up and down the Columbia and cruise the northeastern Pacific from California to western Alaska have dwindled away over the past 40 years, researchers have learned.

Published in the journal Fish and Fisheries, researchers have documented a trend in decreasing body size in chinook over the past 40 years. The trend was remarkably widespread, affecting both wild and hatchery fish in the northern Pacific from California to western Alaska.

“It is a quite grand phenomenon, not just observations here and there, it is the signature we see along the coast,” said Jan Ohlberger of the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, lead author on the paper.

Chinook are the biggest and most prized species of salmon in North America — and the most sought-after, whether by killer whales, eagles or bears. And certainly by every fisherman, whether commercial, recreational or ceremonial.

But big isn’t what it used to be.

Both wild and hatchery chinook are smaller and younger today, researchers have found, examining 85 chinook populations along the West Coast of North America.

The big chinook that stay out in the ocean four and five years before returning home to spawn have decreased both in numbers and in size — as much as 10 percent in length, and substantially more in weight.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

 

What Will It Take for Americans to Eat Genetically Engineered Salmon?

February 27, 2018 — One day in 1992, a technology entrepreneur sat down for a meeting with a pair of biologists who were studying the genes of fish. The scientists, Hew Choy Leong and Garth Fletcher, were working on a method of purifying “antifreeze proteins” that would help Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) survive so-called super-chill events in the North Atlantic. Normally these salmon migrate out of the subzero, ice-laden seawater of the far North Atlantic to overwinter in less-frigid waters. Increasingly, though, such fish were being farmed, penned year-round in offshore cages, in near-Arctic waters to which they were not adapted. Fish farmers were looking for a way to keep the fish alive through the winter, and the antifreeze protein seemed like a possible solution.

As the meeting drew to a close, Fletcher and Hew showed Elliot Entis, the entrepreneur, a photo of two fish of equal age. One dwarfed the other. “I sat back down,” Entis recalled recently.

Fletcher and Hew, it turned out, had not just been putting antifreeze proteins into Atlantic salmon. They had also figured out a way to add a growth hormone from Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), plus a fragment of DNA from the ocean pout (Zoarces americanus), an eellike creature that inhabits the chilly depths off the coast of New England and eastern Canada. This genetic code acts like an “on” switch to activate the growth hormone. The result was a genetically engineered super-fish that grew nearly twice as fast, on less food, than conventional salmon.

Those salmon, grown and marketed by a company called AquaBounty Technologies that was founded by Entis, could be coming to U.S. grocery stores next year. And they could offer a way out of the deadly spiral of overfishing that is decimating wild-fish stocks.

Read the full story at The Atlantic

 

New Yorkers rally against offshore drilling plan

February 16, 2018 — ALBANY, N.Y. — Wearing fish-shaped caps and armed with a megaphone, New York state’s leading environmental advocates protested President Donald Trump’s plan to open offshore areas to oil and gas drilling on Thursday as federal energy officials held an open house on the proposal near the state Capitol.

The group, wearing caps shaped like sturgeon, salmon and other vulnerable ocean species, included Aaron Mair, past president of the Sierra Club, and Judith Enck, the regional Environmental Protection Agency administrator under former President Barack Obama. They said Trump’s plan could devastate the environment while leaving potential renewable energy sources untouched. They called on Congress to pass a law blocking the proposal.

“We all remember the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe,” Enck said into a megaphone, referring to the 2010 rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that triggered the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. “We cannot afford that reckless activity in the Atlantic.”

Inside, federal energy officials handed out information packets and briefed members of the public on the president’s decision last month to open most of the nation’s coast to oil and gas drilling as a way of making the U.S. less dependent on foreign energy sources. Several dozen people had trickled through at the midpoint of the four-hour open house. Members of the public were encouraged to submit written comments.

William Brown, chief environmental officer at the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said he welcomed comments from opponents to the plan.

Read the full story from Associated Press at the Seattle Times

 

NW governors urge Congress to act on sea lion predation bill

February 14, 2018 — The governors of Oregon, Washington and Idaho in a letter urged members of the Northwest congressional delegation to support legislation that would help reduce predation by sea lions on salmon and steelhead, sturgeon and lamprey.

H.R. 2083 is sponsored by Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) and Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.). The House bill has cleared the Natural Resources Committee. The federal legislation gives local agencies the ability to better control predation by sea lions in the Columbia and Willamette rivers.

“I am pleased to see bipartisan support for my bill continue to grow,” Herrera Beutler said in a statement. “As the governors stated in their letter, we must act to protect our native Columbia River salmon and steelhead. I am hopeful that the senators from Oregon and Washington will also join in supporting this bill to successfully move it through Congress.”

Gov. Kate Brown (Oregon), Gov. Jay Inslee (Washington) and Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter (Idaho) sent the letter Jan. 25 to the 17 members of Congress who represent the three states, urging them to support legislation ”aimed at reducing sea lion predation on threatened and endangered and other at-risk fish populations.”

“Although several hundred million dollars are invested annually to rebuild these native fish runs, their health and sustainability is threatened unless Congress acts to enhance protection from increasing sea lion predation,” the letter says. “Over the last decade, predation by sea lions on salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, and lamprey in the Columbia River has increased dramatically.”

Read the full story at the Chinook Observer