Saving Seafood

New York’s Best Smoked Fish Secretly All Comes From One Place

January 6, 2017 — “This looks like jewelry,” said Bloomberg Pursuits’ food editor, Kate Krader. “Like beautiful, luscious jewelry.”

The “this” in question was a small pile of smoked salmon from Barney Greengrass, and Krader, who’d spent the last five hours trudging across Manhattan and Brooklyn in an exhaustive attempt to sample some of the best smoked fish in New York, had hit a wall. “For what it’s worth,” she said with a faraway look in her eyes, “it tastes like it’s floating in the air.” (Krader was subsequently given a piece of a bagel and a glass of water and offered the opportunity to take a break. She persevered.)

Our restaurant expert is used to mouthwatering food binges, but Wednesday’s trip to Barney Greengrass, Zabar’s, Russ & Daughters, and Shelsky’s was a little different. Each of those delis, famed for their glistening stacks of smoked fish, uses one supplier, Brooklyn’s Acme Smoked Fish, for at least some of their stock. Each location, however, prices that same smoked salmon differently (from $39.96 to $45 a pound), and each location has its own dedicated following.

Krader was on a quest to see if the differences between each location’s Acme fish boiled down to mere marketing, or if there was something more sophisticated at play.

By the end of the day, stark distinctions between each store’s Acme fish had become apparent. “Our suppliers do special stuff for us,” said Joshua Russ Tupper, whose family founded Russ & Daughters in 1914 and who spoke to Krader as he was slicing fish behind the store’s Lower East Side counter. “They know our tastes.”

It was a claim made by virtually every location: Each store had specific criteria, and a special relationship with Acme, that made their fish “the best.”

“We have different types of salmon: wild fish, farmed fish—and then we have different sides of the fish,” said Ellen Lee-Allen, the senior marketing director at Acme Smoked Fish. “These are all variables that affect the finished product.”

What does not differ, she said, is the process in which the salmon in question is made—all of it cured with salt and then “cold smoked” in an oven at approximately 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Lee-Allen confirmed that each store has its own particular methodology for choosing its salmon—based on preferences in flavors or textures.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

The Hawaiian raw-fish dish poke is having a moment

December 27, 2016 — Pokéworks, which started in New York City and is growing rapidly, with locations across the country, is now bringing Hawaiian raw-fish salad to Somerville. At dinnertime, the line can snake out of the small, brightly lit restaurant with its cheery neon sign and fresh white tile walls.

Poke (pronounced poh-keh) is the latest craze in the world of customizable fast-casual. If you’ve eaten at a Bon Me, or a Chipotle, you know the drill: Pick your protein and build up your bowl or burrito with fixings.

And yes, you can get a “burrito” at Pokéworks, one filled with some combination of raw salmon, tuna, scallops, and shrimp. A machine emblazoned with the Pokéworks logo presses sushi rice (or brown rice, or quinoa) onto a seaweed wrapper. Then the giant sushi roll makes its way down the assembly line, where employees add toppings such as edamame, seaweed, and crab salad before rolling it up in parchment.

An informal poll shows people generally find this concept either delightful or disgusting. We’re mostly curious, so we start with a wasabi shrimp and scallop sushi burrito ($10.95) from the “Signature Works” side of the menu — pre-picked combinations that you have rolled up or spooned over rice, quinoa, or salad greens. The big mouthfuls of unseasoned wet scallops and tiny raw shrimp aren’t appetizing. The roll is augmented with scallions and sweet onion, masago (roe), edamame, and wasabi aioli, but it lacks flavor.

The Feds Are Finally Doing Something About America’s Serious Seafood Fraud Problem

December 19, 2016 — Chances are you’ve rarely stopped to think about the origin and authenticity of the tuna, salmon, or unagi lining your sushi roll before breaking out the chopsticks. But for those occupying the surprisingly shady world of international seafood trade, this information is essential in determining the value, quality, and legality of the protein piled in your poke bowl.

For years, lax laws on fish imports have allowed many illegally fished and fraudulently labeled species to slip through the cracks and make their way into consumers’ California rolls. However, this week, the Obama administration announced new regulations in an effort to crack down on fishy industry behavior—pun intended.

In recent months, the administration faced added pressure to fortify seafood regulations by the nonprofit ocean advocates Oceana, after the organization issued a report revealing that one in five seafood samples in the world are fraudulent or mislabeled on some or all levels of the supply chain, from import to packaging to retail.

The new rules, which will go into effect on January 1, 2018, will require detailed tracking information to be kept on a number of priority species, from initial harvest to entry into US commerce, in hopes of maintaining a clear log of the source and history of any given fish. These species, which have been identified as the most likely to be passed off fraudulently, include a variety of tunas, sharks, Atlantic cod, and swordfish.

To implement these additional oversights, the Department of Commerce will create the Seafood Import Monitoring Program, a governmental body tasked with keeping a keen eye out for any illegally obtained or mislabeled products. While the economic implications of stricter regulations are still unclear, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that the current global economic impact of illegal and fraudulent fishing every year is easily in the billions.

In a statement from senior campaign director Beth Lowell, Oceana lauds the new regulations, calling the announcement “a groundbreaking step towards more transparency and traceability in the seafood supply chain.” Lowell notes that “For the first time ever, some imported seafood will now be held to the same standards as domestically caught fish, helping to level the playing field for American fishermen and reducing the risk facing US consumers.”

Read the full story at VICE

Growth in global fish production slows, aquaculture increases

December 8th, 2016 — Growth in global fish production is expected to slow slightly this year, driven primarily by lower catches of major wild species such as Alaska pollock and anchoveta. Production solely from aquaculture continues to increase at a steady rate with a further 5 percent increase in total volume expected in 2016. Driven by higher incomes and urbanization, global consumption of fish is growing at a faster rate than global population, meaning that per capita consumption is rising each year by approximately 1 percent. In 2016, expected per capita consumption is 20.5 kg per year, compared with 20.3 kg in 2015 and 17.6 kg a decade ago in 2006. Another important figure is the proportion of fish produced by the aquaculture sector for human consumption, forecast to reach 53 percent this year, a trend that is only going up in the foreseeable future.

The total value of world trade in seafood products is expected to bounce back this year after a drop in 2015, to US$140 billion, representing a 4.4 percent increase, although this is still well below the 2014 total of US$148.4 billion. This return to growth in value terms is partly due to a stabilization of the US dollar after a sharp increase versus multiple currencies in 2015, but it is also a consequence of improved prices for a number of highly traded seafood commodities. Salmon prices, in particular, have been reaching extreme peaks in 2016, while tuna prices have also risen after a period of sustained lows. Supply constraints are part of the reason for the price gains, but demand growth is also a contributing factor.

Read the full story at Aquafeed.com

Washington’s senators call for salmon, crab fishing seasons to be declared “disasters”

December 7, 2016 — Several commercial fisheries on the U.S. West Coast should be declared disasters, a move that would make federal funds available to those affected by poor fishing seasons, United States senators representing Washington state said.

Democrats Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell called for a declaration of commercial fisheries failures for six pending fishery disaster requests, in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.

“Fishing communities up and down Washington’s coast have suffered through several years of lower-than-expected catch. A federal fishery disaster declaration would make communities eligible for funding for projects such as fisheries recovery, job training, and infrastructure investments in the communities hardest hit,” the senators said in a statement.

Washington’s maritime industry supports almost 60,000 jobs directly and contributes USD 30 billion (EUR 28 billion) in economic activity each year, not including the shipbuilders, hotels, restaurants, manufacturers, and outfitters that benefit indirectly, they said. The senators stated that fisheries are also of tremendous significance to the state’s tribal fishermen, who have been harvesting fish on Washington’s coast for thousands of years.

“Prompt declaration of these disasters will help meet the needs of communities struggling as a result of these disasters,” Senators Murray and Cantwell said.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Scientists Improve Predictions of How Temperature Affects the Survival of Fish Embryos

December 7, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA:

Scientists closely tracking the survival of endangered Sacramento River salmon faced a puzzle: the same high temperatures that salmon eggs survived in the laboratory appeared to kill many of the eggs in the river.

Now the scientists from NOAA Fisheries and the University of California at Santa Cruz have resolved the puzzle, realizing new insights into how egg size and water flow affect the survival of egg-laying fish. The larger the eggs, they found, the greater the water flow they need to supply them with oxygen and carry away waste.

The results of the study were published in the scientific journal Ecology Letters. NOAA Fisheries is using the findings to improve protection of fish in the Sacramento River.

“Our model, based on a literature search of laboratory studies, predicted that temperatures in the upper Sacramento River since 1996 almost never got warm enough to cause mortality of salmon embryos,” said Benjamin Martin, NOAA Fisheries researcher and lead author of the study. “But data from field studies in the Sacramento River indicated that in some years, temperature-related mortality exceeded 75 percent, for example, in 2014-2015.”

Scientists often use laboratory studies to estimate how species will respond to elevated temperatures. The results from this study reveal that fish may respond to temperature differently in the field than in the lab. Understanding the causes for this difference may help researchers improve their predictions of how temperature affects fish eggs across different environments.

“We wanted to know why these salmon eggs have a much lower thermal tolerance in the field compared to the lab,” said Martin. “We hypothesized that the reason salmon eggs die in the river is because they don’t get enough oxygen.”

External temperatures govern the biological processes of salmon eggs and the embryos inside. As the water gets warmer their metabolism increases, demanding more and more oxygen. Unlike juvenile and adult fish, eggs cannot move and don’t have a developed respiratory or circulatory system. Instead they rely on flowing water to supply oxygen and carry away waste products.

Winter-run Chinook salmon are especially challenged when it comes to warmer water temperatures because their eggs are atypically large and require more oxygen exchange. Their egg size evolved to take advantage of cold water above Shasta Dam where they once spawned. However, the salmon now spawn in the warmer Sacramento River below the dam.

After further analysis of field data, scientists found a fundamental difference between conditions in the laboratory and conditions that effect eggs in the wild.

Laboratory studies estimating the temperature tolerance of the Chinook eggs included water flowing over the eggs at about two to three times faster than salmon eggs typically experience in the wild. The faster moving water provided more oxygen to the eggs in the laboratory, allowing them to survive higher temperatures.

The researchers borrowed concepts from physics to develop a model to determine how much oxygen flowing water can supply to fish eggs, depending on its velocity. The model predicted that the slower flowing water in the river would not supply the oxygen needed for egg viability in elevated temperature conditions. Field studies found that the slower flow in the river equated to about a 3 °C difference in the temperature tolerance of eggs, exactly what the model predicted.

This new model also provides an explanation for why fish species produce larger eggs in colder water. In general, the oxygen demand of eggs is proportional to their volume, while oxygen supply is proportional to the surface area of the egg, where the oxygen diffuses into the egg from the surrounding water. The surface area to volume ratio of an egg decreases with increasing egg size, which sets a limit on how large eggs can be and still get enough oxygen to survive. Since oxygen demand increases with temperature, fish species in warm water must make smaller eggs to match oxygen demand with supply. However this model also predicts that fish can produce larger eggs in warm waters when they are in high flow environments.

The researchers compiled data on 180 fish species and found that eggs in high flow environments, such as rivers, consistently produce larger eggs than expected for a given temperature. Some fish have even adapted to produce larger eggs in warm waters by using their tail to fan water over their eggs, which comes with a significant cost in terms of energy, time and risk of predation.

One important implication of this model is that warming conditions and declines in oxygen levels in aquatic systems may create evolutionary pressure for fish to produce smaller eggs in the future.

NOAA Fisheries has incorporated the new findings into agency guidance regarding the temperatures needed to support endangered Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River.

“This science helps us understand how seemingly small changes in river conditions can make a big difference for the salmon we’re trying to protect,” said Maria Rea, Assistant Regional Administrator for the California Central Valley Office. “This is a reminder that as much as we can learn in the laboratory, we have to always check that against what we see in the wild.”

VOICES OF ALASKA: Alaskans must unite to protect salmon

November 25, 2016 — As commercial, sport and personal use fishermen, we often have passionate disagreements about decisions that must be made regarding the management of our salmon. But today we are uniting as residents of our Nation’s last great salmon state by asking the Alaska Board of Fisheries to take action to protect the fish that is so intimately tied to our identity, culture and economy.

Whether it’s making a living by set netting for wild salmon in Cook Inlet, feeling the thrill of a silver salmon leaping at the end of your line, or experiencing the satisfaction of filling your freezer with salmon that will feed your family all winter; salmon are an essential part of life for so many of us in Alaska.

Unfortunately the primary law that is designed to protect the rivers and streams which salmon rely on hasn’t been updated since statehood and leaves our salmon resource — and the jobs, culture, food, recreation and economic activity it creates – at risk. If we do not take the opportunity now to update this law, we stand to repeat the mistakes that have decimated salmon runs throughout the rest of the country and lose one of the top reasons Alaska is such a special place to call home.

This law is known as “Title 16,” and is Alaska’s fish habitat permitting law. Currently, the law contains only two sentences guiding how decisions are made on development projects that could harm salmon habitat. These projects include proposals like Pebble Mine and Chuitna Coal, where a company proposes strip mining through nearly 14 miles of wild salmon stream.

Read the full op-ed at the Peninsula Clarion

Group releases study on fishing, tourism dollars from Southeast Alaska rivers

November 23, 2016 — Three major rivers that flow out of Canada into Southeast Alaska could provide a combined $1 billion in value for tourism and fisheries on this side of the border over the next three decades.

That’s one findings in a new study commissioned by a group seeking to highlight potential impacts to those rivers from the mining industry in British Columbia.

The study puts some numbers to the arguments that Southeast Alaska fishermen, tour operators, tribal leaders and communities have been making about the importance of the Taku River near Juneau, Stikine near Wrangell and the Unuk north of Ketchikan.

Salmon Beyond Borders commissioned the report, written by the McDowell Group.

Commercial and sport fishing activity along with tourism dollars from the waterways are worth a combined $48 million a year in economic activity including the paychecks for 400 people in Southeast, the study said.

“It’s well known to any of us who live in Southeast Alaska know that salmon and commercial fishing have a substantial impact on our region’s economy and that the visitor industry as well,” said Kirsten Shelton-Walker, project manager with the research and consulting business McDowell Group in Juneau. “And so, we were not surprised but it was interesting to find that the impact of these rivers could be as high as almost $1 billion over a 30-year horizon.”

Read the full story at KTOO

Will Klamath River Salmon Thrive Again After Dams Are Gone?

November 23, 2016 — Year after year, volunteers return to tributaries of the Klamath River, just like the fish they’re trying to help do the same thing.

Jimmy Peterson, a fisheries project coordinator for the Mid-Klamath Watershed Council, places rocks and stones to make fish passages in Fort Goff Creek, 60 miles up from the river’s mouth on California’s North Coast.

“This creek has extremely awesome habitat up top here,” Peterson says. “Extremely awesome.”

Then he translates: “The water stays really cold and there’s plenty of nice spawning gravel that go up fairly far into the watershed. There’s not a lot of human activity up there either, so it’s fairly untouched.”

Scientists estimate that a century ago, hundreds of thousands of coho may have run up the Klamath’s streams and tributaries. Now it’s a few thousand. Federal and private grants fund the council’s work, helping coho access “extremely awesome” habitat because coho are threatened with extinction.

Dams aren’t the only reason salmon, trout and other fish need help on the Klamath. But they are a big one. The promise of dam removal is free passage for fish up to cooler spots and native headwaters. And the Klamath River, near California’s northern border, may become the next big western river to see that happen. Federal energy regulators are considering a plan that would open hundreds of miles of the Klamath to the potential of the largest river restoration in U.S. history.

Read the full story at KQED

New Program Gives Vet Foothold in Fisheries

November 22, 2016 — Barney Boyer’s first few months as a NOAA Fisheries intern have been busy. He has assisted with tracking the return of salmon and forage fish to the Elwha River estuary, surveyed Puget Sound ocean conditions, and begun studying the invasion of non-native fish in the Snohomish River.

Boyer is the first military veteran to take an internship with NOAA Fisheries through a new partnership between Washington’s The next link/button will exit from NWFSC web site Department of Veterans Affairs and The next link/button will exit from NWFSC web site Veterans Conservation Corps, NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region, the The next link/button will exit from NWFSC web site NOAA Restoration Center and the Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC). Boyer is based at the NWFSC’s Mukilteo Research Station, near Everett, where he is assisting with several research projects, including one that may include him as co-author of a peer-reviewed paper.

“It’s really turned out to be an amazing experience so far,” Boyer said. “Every day here is an interesting experience, and I’m learning all the time.”

Casey Rice, director of the Mukilteo Research Station until his unexpected passing earlier this year, was a key advocate of hosting veterans at Mukilteo.

“Casey wanted this to happen and his colleagues have assumed the task of moving it forward,” said John Floberg of the NOAA Restoration Center, who helped coordinate the program. “It’s Casey’s legacy that veterans are now contributing to research at Mukilteo.”

Read the full story at the Fishing Wire