Saving Seafood

COVID second wave impacts Bakkafrost’s year-end earnings

February 23, 2021 — Faroe Islands-headquartered Bakkafrost Group saw decreased earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) in the fourth quarter, due in large part to the depressed global market for salmon.

Bakkafrost Group delivered total operational earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of DKK 88.5 million (USD 14.5 million, EUR 11.9 million) in the fourth quarter of 2020, down from DKK 415.3 million (USD 67.9 million, EUR 55.8 million) in the corresponding period of 2019, with large volumes and reduced demand contributing to the downturn.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Warming seas could wipe out Snake River chinook by 2060, scientists predict

February 19, 2021 — Snake River spring-summer chinook could be nearly extinct by 2060 and interventions are “desperately needed” to boost survival in every stage of their lives, scientists warn.

The findings, published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology, modeled survival of eight populations of wild Snake River Basin spring-summer chinook during the ocean phase of their life, under various climate-warming scenarios.

Salmon hatch in rivers, but mature for years at sea before they return to the waters of their birth. It is a perilous life cycle that could become all but impossible for some already fragile salmon populations that make one of the most arduous of all journeys, all the way to Idaho. They travel more than 1,800 miles round trip, climb more than a mile in elevation, and tackle eight dams, each way: four on the main stem Columbia, then four more on the Lower Snake River.

Add just a little ocean warming, and it’s curtains. Populations declined in all eight basin chinook populations for which the scientists ran predictions. Just a little more than 1 degree Celsius temperature increase in sea-surface temperature produced dire effects — with mortality as high as 90% in warmer seas.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Researchers demonstrate new method to track genetic diversity of salmon and trout

February 19, 2021 — Scientists at Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest Service have demonstrated that DNA extracted from water samples from rivers across Oregon and Northern California can be used to estimate genetic diversity of Pacific salmon and trout.

The findings, just published in the journal Molecular Ecology, have important implications for conservation and management of these , which are threatened by human activities, including those exacerbating climate change.

“There has been a dearth of this kind of data across the Northwest,” said Kevin Weitemier, a postdoctoral fellow at Oregon State and lead author of the paper. “This allows us to get a quick snapshot of multiple populations and species all at once.”

In addition to demonstrating that environmental DNA, or eDNA, can be used to measure , the researchers also made unexpected discoveries about the history of these species, including a connection that links watersheds in northern and southern Oregon.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Washington state salmon report offers warning to Alaska

February 17, 2021 — A report on Washington state’s dwindling wild salmon populations offers a warning to Alaska, where several stocks have registered concerning declines over the past years.

Washington’s 2020 State of the Salmon in Watersheds report chronicled a bleak panorama, with 14 of the state’s species listed as endangered. While conversation efforts have succeeded in revitalizing some salmon runs in Washington, the report said fish stocks in the Pacific Northwest face an uphill battle.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Report claims salmon farming costing economies, society, and the environment billions

February 17, 2021 — The short-term pursuit of profits by salmon producers is creating significant unaccounted environmental and social costs – such as growing mortality rates, damage to local ecosystems, pressure on wild fish stocks, and poor fish welfare – a new report from research organization Just Economics claims.

Commissioned by the Changing Markets Foundation – an organization that “supports NGOs to drive change” – as part of its Fishing the Feed campaign, the “Dead Loss” report calculates the cumulative costs to economies, society, and the environment resulting from the negative impacts of salmon farming at almost USD 50 billion (EUR 41.2 billion) since 2013.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

PFMC: Notice of availability: Review of 2020 Ocean Salmon Fisheries

February 17, 2021 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Salmon Technical Team and staff of the Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) have prepared this stock assessment and fishery evaluation document as a postseason review of the 2020 ocean salmon fisheries off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California to help assess Council salmon fishery management performance, the status of Council area salmon stocks, and the socioeconomic impacts of salmon fisheries. The Council will formally review this report at its March 2021 meeting prior to the development of management alternatives for the approaching fishing season.

Please visit the Council’s website to get the Review of 2020 Ocean Salmon Fisheries (Published February 2021).

For further information:

Alaskans pursue permanent protections for Bristol Bay

February 16, 2021 — Robin Samuelsen still recalls his first meeting about the prospective Pebble Mine. It was around 2005 or 2006, in Dillingham, Alaska. Listening to an early plan for developing a copper and gold mine in the spawning grounds of Bristol Bay’s abundant salmon, this Curyung tribal chief and commercial fisherman quickly made up his mind. “You’ll kill off our salmon,” Samuelsen remembers saying, adding: “I’ll be up there to stop you.”

More than 15 years later, in November 2020, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) denied the Pebble Mine a key permit, a sharp setback for the mine — though not the first. Already, the mine’s developer, Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP), has filed an appeal challenging that decision. PLP was joined by the State of Alaska, which, in an unusual move, filed its own appeal. Both appeals are currently under review.

Even before these latest developments, however, the people living around the Bristol Bay region had been trying to bring this long-running tug of war to rest once and for all.

Just as he promised at the meeting in Dillingham, Samuelsen is part of a tribally led campaign to garner permanent legal protection for the Bristol Bay region’s thriving wild salmon from large-scale mining proposals — whether that be the Pebble Mine, or whatever comes next. Lindsay Layland, deputy director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay (UTBB), which is involved in the effort, says the goal of the coalition is to find a way to legally prioritize the salmon that mean so much to the people living and fishing in the region.

Read the full story at High Country News

Rising water temperatures could be a death sentence for Pacific salmon

February 12, 2021 — In the Pacific Northwest, several species of salmon are in danger of extinction. The Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office has released a report on the state of salmon populations in the state’s watersheds—and the findings predict a grim future.

The report was commissioned by the Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office, established by the state legislature in 1998 in response to the Salmon Recovery Planning Act. Its findings showed that 10 to 14 species of  in the northwest are “threatened or endangered,” and five species are “in crisis.”

The findings, though alarming, are in line with population trends over the last few decades. The once prolific salmon populations in Washington State have been declining for years, and populations are now estimated to be at about 5% of historic highs.

The five species of salmon and steelhead that the report found to be most at risk are Snake River spring/summer chinook, Puget Sound chinook, Lake Ozette sockeye, Upper Columbia River spring chinook, and Puget Sound steelhead—a sampling that covers a wide geographic area in the state.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

US West Coast salmon fishermen recorded lackluster 2020 seasons

February 12, 2021 — Last year went down as one of the most lackluster seasons in history for salmon fishermen on the U.S. West Coast.

Regional fishermen landed 6.33 million pounds of kings, silvers, and chums in 2020, down by almost half of the 11.05 million pounds the three West Coast states landed in 2019, according to data from PacFIN, and a fraction of the 56.16 million pounds in the record-setting year of 2013.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

One Alaska king salmon is worth the same as two barrels of oil right now

February 10, 2021 — Seafood sales “are on fire” in America’s supermarkets and one king salmon from Southeast Alaska is worth the same as two barrels of oil.

That’s $116.16 for a troll-caught chinook salmon averaging 11 pounds at the docks vs. $115.48 for 2 barrels of oil at $57.74 per barrel on Feb. 3.

As more COVID-conscious customers opted in 2020 for seafood’s proven health benefits, salmon powered sales at fresh seafood counters. Frozen and “on the shelf” seafoods also set sales records, and online ordering tripled to top $1 billion.

Those are some takeaways from a National Fisheries Institute Global Marketing Conference hosted online by SeafoodSource News.

Here is a sampler of what experts called “eye-popping” 2020 retail sales reflecting America’s trend to eat more fish:

IRI, a world leader in market data, said overall sales at in-store fresh seafood counters jumped 28% to $871 million, led by salmon with a 19% increase to $2.2 billion.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News