Saving Seafood

Baird Station: The First National Fish Hatchery June 01, 2021

June 3, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Spencer Baird, founder of NOAA Fisheries, was aware of the need to research how and why fishery stocks could be depleted. His first trip to Woods Hole in 1863, before he was appointed as the first U.S. Fish Commissioner, was conducted partly as tourist, partly as fisheries researcher.

Once he became commissioner in 1871, Baird’s charge was to “ascertain whether any and what diminution in the number of food fishes of the coast and inland lakes has occurred.” The additional task of “supplementing declining native stocks of coastal and lake food fish through fish propagation” was added in 1872.

That same year, Baird hired fish culturist Livingston Stone and sent him to California to find a good source for chinook salmon eggs. Stone accomplished far more.

Livingston Stone and Baird Station

Livingston Stone was born in Boston in 1836 and graduated from Harvard in 1857. He became a church pastor, but health issues required him to spend as much time outdoors as possible. He turned to fish and fisheries. In 1870, he helped found the American Fish Culturists Association, which later became the American Fisheries Society.

Hatcheries and a Fish Park

With colleagues Myron Green and Willard Perrin, Stone soon established Baird Station, named after Spencer Baird, on northern California’s McCloud River. It was the first federal fish hatchery and California’s first freshwater fish station, focused on salmon.

With the help and collaboration of local Native American people—the Winnemem Wintu—salmon eggs were routinely gathered and shipped by railroad. They were sent to East Coast locations to stock streams, and for shipment overseas. The need to feed a growing population led to the decision to transplant established East Coast marine species—American shad, striped bass, eels, lobster, catfish, and Penobscot salmon—to the West Coast. Today the West Coast shad population is healthy and striped bass is a favorite sport fish.

Noting the decline of West Coast salmon stocks, Stone advocated for a national salmon park in Alaska. Established in 1892 on Afognak Island, it was rescinded in the 1930s, but it foreshadowed the creation of today’s marine protected areas.

Read the full release here

JON BRODERICK AND KATE CRUMP: Stop the Pebble Mine forever

June 3, 2021 — Every summer, thousands of commercial and sport fishermen, seafood processors and sport fishing guides — many of them Oregonians — migrate to western Alaska for the remarkable annual return of tens of millions of wild sockeye salmon to Bristol Bay.

Bristol Bay’s salmon have sustained the Indigenous people of Bristol Bay for millennia, and today they remain the backbone of the bay’s local communities. These salmon also support a thriving, renewable industry that feeds Alaska’s economy and provides income for families like ours in the Pacific Northwest.

In recent years, Bristol Bay’s salmon generated 15,000 American jobs and created $2.2 billion in renewable annual revenue. Half of all the sockeye salmon sold in global markets comes from Bristol Bay.

And yet, since the late 1980s, Bristol Bay’s rare and sustainable fishery has been threatened by plans for a colossal open-pit gold and copper mine — the Pebble Mine — that a Canadian mining company would blast out of the bay’s pristine headwaters, irreparably disrupting the watershed and leaving behind significant toxic mining waste that must be stored in perpetuity.

Read the full story at The Daily Astorian

Limiting Chinook Fishing in Low-Return Years to Help Killer Whales: What Do You Think?

June 3, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is asking for public input on a Pacific Fishery Management Council recommendation to reduce impacts from fishing off the West Coast. The recommendation would be implemented if salmon numbers fall too low to provide enough prey for the 75 endangered Southern Resident killer whales.

NOAA Fisheries is proposing to adopt the Council’s recommendation, and conducted a consultation under the Endangered Species Act. This consultation ensured that the amended fisheries management plan does not jeopardize the continued existence of threatened or endangered species, or negatively impact designated critical habitat. It incorporated recent research that revealed new details of when and where the whales forage, and their preferred prey.

The Council created a workgroup of representatives from West Coast states, tribes, and NOAA Fisheries to examine the issue. The workgroup completed a risk assessment evaluating the impact of fisheries on West Coast Chinook salmon abundance and, in turn, on the Southern Residents, and developed recommendations.

Late last year the Council adopted the workgroup’s suggestions. They included limiting commercial and recreational fishing in certain places off California, Oregon, and Washington when estimated Chinook salmon numbers north of Cape Falcon, Oregon, fall below a certain level of abundance.

The workgroup recommended that level be set as the average of the seven lowest years of forecast salmon abundance off the northern Oregon and Washington coasts. This average is currently estimated at 966,000. Chinook numbers have remained above that level in recent years; 2007 was the last year when forecasts would have fallen below the threshold.

Read the full release here

ALASKA: Copper River fleet lands kings and sockeye salmon between troughs

June 2, 2021 — The Copper River commercial fishery in Cordova, Alaska, has had three 12-hour fishing openers. Between weather, ice upriver, and cold water temperatures, catches have been a bit on the skinny side — as the high price per pound has reflected.

Those are the reasons so far, as opposed to chalking it up to a poor run like last year. Having said that, the 2021 predictions are not stellar.

The cumulative sonar count of fish up the Copper River through May 24 was 4,813 fish versus a projected 39,911 salmon.

The May 24 12-hour opener brought in 2,000 kings and 32,700 sockeye salmon compared with an anticipated harvest of 56,100. Though the kings were few and far between, they are such bright, beautiful fish. Kings are bright silver with black spots and the reds are silver with an iridescent blue green back.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

New Strategy Applies Local Knowledge and Science to Salmon and Steelhead Recovery in Northern California

June 2, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Salmon and steelhead in Northern California have been in trouble for more than 100 years, primarily because of habitat damage and loss resulting from human activities. Climate change has only worsened these habitat problems. For the last 50 years, communities have worked to restore this habitat in hopes of reversing the fortunes of these fish. Scientists and local restoration communities are seeking new ways to maximize the benefits of habitat restoration so that rivers and streams can support healthy fish populations again.

One new approach to maximize these benefits is the Salmonid Habitat Restoration Priorities (SHaRP) process. The process creates a strategy to rebuild salmon and steelhead within a watershed by focusing on restoring its healthier, less impaired areas. Scientists expect that improved fish survival and reproduction in these restored areas will enable faster recolonization of the more degraded areas.

“The SHaRP process builds upon existing recovery plans and identifies very specific actions to create real wins for declining species. This approach to conservation offers the restoration community a seat at the table to design a near-term recovery strategy to maximize restoration impacts for their watershed,” said Barry Thom, NOAA Fisheries West Coast Regional Administrator.

NOAA Fisheries and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) developed the SHaRP process. They first applied it to the South Fork Eel River, a few hours drive north of San Francisco Bay. Historically, the Eel River supported hundreds of thousands of Chinook salmon, coho salmon, and steelhead. Today, these three species reflect only about 5 percent of their historical numbers.

Read the full release here

MAINE: ‘Next-gen’ tech or industrial destruction? Salmon farm proposal advances, but groups protest

June 2, 2021 — The Department of Marine Resources has accepted applications for consideration of two lease sites in Frenchman Bay where a Norwegian company wants to grow Atlantic salmon.

But the applications from American Aquafarms were immediately met with opposition from several groups of local residents.

“We are opposed to growing 30,000 metric tons of salmon annually, covering over 100 acres of Frenchman Bay,” Kathleen Rybarz, president of Friends of Frenchman Bay, said in a news release.

“One cannot overstate the destructive impact of this large-scale proposal on a bay that already strives to balance multiple fisheries, heavy recreational use, cruise ship visitors and increasing ocean warming.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Restoring Habitat for Migratory Fish: A Look Back at the Recovery Act—Part 2

May 28, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, NOAA funded 125 habitat restoration projects in coastal areas throughout the country. Now, more than a decade later, we’re taking a look back at some of the projects we funded. We’ll explore the benefits this restoration work continues to bring to communities and ecosystems across the country. In Part 2 of this 3-part series, we’re highlighting examples of how Recovery Act projects have benefitted migratory fish.

Part 1 focused on community benefits like jobs and recreation. Part 3 will explore how Recovery Act-funded projects laid the groundwork for continuing habitat restoration efforts.

NOAA received $167 million from the Recovery Act to restore coastal habitat and help jumpstart the nation’s economy. We established 50 cooperative agreements that funded 125 high quality habitat restoration projects in 24 states and territories. They spanned from New England’s salt marshes to the coral reefs of the Pacific Islands.

On-the-ground projects funded through the Recovery Act restored more than 25,000 acres of habitat. They opened more than 670 miles of stream for fish and removed more than 433,000 tons of marine debris. This work provided much-needed habitat for commercial and recreational fisheries, and for threatened and endangered species.

Below, learn about two waterways where Recovery Act projects have benefitted important migratory fish species.

Read the full release here

Genetically modified salmon head to US dinner plates

May 28, 2021 — The inaugural harvest of genetically modified salmon began this week after the pandemic delayed the sale of the first such altered animal to be cleared for human consumption in the United States, company officials said.

Several tons of salmon, engineered by biotech company AquaBounty Technologies Inc., will now head to restaurants and away-from-home dining services — where labeling as genetically engineered is not required — in the Midwest and along the East Coast, company CEO Sylvia Wulf said.

Thus far, the only customer to announce it is selling the salmon is Samuels and Son Seafood, a Philadelphia-based seafood distributor.

AquaBounty has raised its faster-growing salmon at an indoor aquaculture farm in Albany, Indiana. The fish are genetically modified to grow twice as fast as wild salmon, reaching market size — 8 to 12 pounds (3.6 to 5.4 kilograms) — in 18 months rather than 36.

The Massachusetts-based company originally planned to harvest the fish in late 2020. Wulf attributed delays to reduced demand and market price for Atlantic salmon spurred by the pandemic.

“The impact of COVID caused us to rethink our initial timeline … no one was looking for more salmon then,” she said. “We’re very excited about it now. We’ve timed the harvest with the recovery of the economy, and we know that demand is going to continue to increase.”

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Salmon overtakes lobster as the nation’s most valuable catch

May 28, 2021 — Lobster isn’t number one in the nation anymore.

Salmon is now the United States’ highest-grossing, wild-caught domestic fishery, according to the latest report issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service Office of Science and Technology.

The report, issued last week, shows salmon leaping from third to first, with lobster slipping to number two nationally.

In Maine, lobster still tops the charts, with no serious rivals.

“Lobster is, by far, the most valuable species harvested in Maine,” said Jeff Nichols, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

The new national numbers do not reflect aquaculture-raised salmon. The data covers 2019, the most recent year with complete data. The cash values represent money paid to fishermen at the dock, not consumer retail prices.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Salmon virus has spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific

May 27, 2021 — Wild Chinook salmon are more likely to be infected with Piscine orthoreovirus (PRV) the closer they are to salmon farms. This finding indicates that farms are spreading the virus to wild salmon – a theory that is further supported by the results of a recent genomic analysis.

Dr. Gideon Mordecai is a viral ecologist at the University of British Columbia who led the study.

“Both our genomic and epidemiological methods independently came to the same conclusion, that salmon farms act as a source and amplifier of PRV transmission,” said Dr. Mordecai. “Because separate lines of independent evidence all point to the same answer, we’re confident in our finding.”

In collaboration with researchers from the Strategic Salmon Health Initiative, the UBC team traced the origins of PRV to Atlantic salmon farms in Norway and found that the virus is now widespread across salmon farms in British Columbia.

After sequencing 86 PRV genomes, the researchers estimated that the lineage of the virus that is now present in the Northeast Pacific diverged from the virus in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 30 years ago. This suggests that the introduction of PRV to British Columbia, and the infection of wild Pacific salmon, is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Read the full story at Earth.com