Saving Seafood

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

PFMC Ad Hoc SONCC Coho Workgroup to hold online meeting July 7, 2021

May 27, 2021 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Pacific Fishery Management Council’s (Pacific Council) Ad Hoc Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast (SONCC) Coho Workgroup will host an online meeting that is open to the public. The online meeting will be held Wednesday, July 7, 2021 from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time or until business for the day has been completed.

Please see the meeting notice on the Pacific Council’s website for additional details.

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff officer Robin Ehlke at 503-820-2410; toll-free 1-866-806-7204.

NFI releases new list detailing the top 10 seafood species Americans consume most

May 26, 2021 — American consumers ate 19.2 pounds of seafood per capita in 2019, an increase of 0.2 pounds over 2018’s figures, according to National Fisheries Institute (NFI) calculations based off of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) latest “Fisheries of the United States” report.

For its report released this year, which recounts 2019 figures, NOAA revised its per capita consumption model, “updating weight conversion factors to more accurately reflect efficiencies in processing,” NFI said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NFI’s Top 10 List Suggests Consumers Diversifying Seafood Consumption

May 26, 2021 — The following was released by the National Fisheries Institute:

In 2019, Americans ate 19.2 pounds of seafood per capita, an increase of .2 pounds from 2018’s revised figure. In previous years, the Top 10 list has made up an outsized portion of US seafood consumption, nearly 90%. This time the familiar names on the Top 10 make up only 74%.

The 2019 Fisheries of the United States report, released by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), revised its Per Capita Consumption model to update edible weight conversion factors to more accurately reflect efficiencies in processing. The revised model resulted in higher consumption levels than previously reported.

Shrimp maintained the top spot, while Salmon, Canned Tuna and Alaska Pollock all saw gains.

It is important to highlight that the featured numbers on this list are all exclusively from 2019 and do not represent any pandemic-impacted market forces.

Amendment 14 to the FMP for the Salmon Fisheries Off Alaska

May 26, 2021 — The following was released was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Summary

Amendment 14 would incorporate the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea into the Salmon FMP’s West Area, thereby bringing the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea and the commercial salmon fisheries that occur within it under Federal management by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) and NOAA Fisheries. Amendment 14 would manage the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea by applying the prohibition on commercial salmon fishing that is currently established in the West Area to the newly added Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea. The Council submitted Amendment 14 to the Salmon FMP to the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) for review.

Federal Register

ALASKA: Copper River salmon fishery brings season’s first catches, camaraderie — and hope

May 25, 2021 — Last year’s weak sockeye salmon run and the global pandemic created a wave of uncertainty and fear here for people in Cordova. This year, with two Copper River commercial openers under their belt, Cordovans are hopeful.

The usually soggy coastal fishing community is delicately positioned on the eastern edge of Prince William Sound and nestled at the bottom of the Chugach Mountains.

On Tuesday, following the first opener of the year, people took turns snatching pieces of freshly caught Copper River king salmon from the grill — a celebratory first fish tradition that’s rougher around the edges compared to Seattle’s red carpet fanfare.

“2020 was miserable,” third-generation fisherman Matt Honkola said. “To get back to the way things were, I think all of our spirits, we needed this.”

Each summer, king, sockeye and coho salmon return to the Copper River — a roughly 300-mile-long waterway that extends from the Gulf of Alaska east of here north to the Wrangell Mountains.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Early-season prices for Copper River salmon sky-high

May 24, 2021 — Prices for sockeye and king salmon out of the Copper River, Alaska, were sky high after the first couple openers of the season last week. Jon Hickman, Peter Pan Seafood’s vice president of operations, said in a news release that his company paid USD 12.60 (EUR 10.30) for sockeye and USD 19.60 (EUR 16.05) for king salmon.

Hickman said Peter Pan’s markets could handle the high ex-vessel prices, a welcome development for Copper River fishermen after an abysmal season last year.

Read the full story at Seafood Source