Saving Seafood

Chile’s weeklong protests taking toll on salmon exports

November 1, 2019 — Social unrest and violence in Chile that has taken place over the past week has begun to affect key parts of the economy, including salmon production and exports.

Protests originally began over increased fares in capital Santiago’s metro system. However, protests quickly ignited nationwide, ballooning over issues as wide as social inequality, Chile’s overall cost of living, low minimum salaries, disappointing retirement system returns, politicians are seen as out of touch with reality, and justice perceived as unfairly favoring the country’s elite.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Calls mount for salmon producers to step up to meet China’s growing appetite

October 29, 2019 — China’s exponentially increasing demand for salmon is likely to put a pinch on global supplies if the salmon-farming sector doesn’t find a way to increase production, according to Miguel Ugarte, the Asia sales director for Multiexport Foods Company, a leading supplier of Chilean salmon in China.

China has become the fastest-growing market for salmon in the world, with numbers indicating it has grown a whopping 166 percent in the last eight years, Urgarte said during the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s annual marketplace forum in Qingdao, China on Monday, 28 October.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Salmon shortage threatens food chain in Pacific NW

October 28, 2019 — What was once an endless supply in the Pacific Northwest is now endangered. Millions of Chinook salmon are not surviving migration. Now, the shortage is causing officials to make some difficult decisions.

As much as air or water, so much life in the Pacific Northwest depends on salmon. Over 130 species rely on nature’s original food delivery but fewer salmon are surviving the heroic swim from the open ocean to spawning streams hundreds of miles inland.

And that means trouble for two creatures that really, really love the king of fish. Killer whales and us.

In your grandparent’s day, the Columbia Basin seemed to produce a never-ending supply and salmon the size of people. But those big “June hog” Chinooks are extinct now and this year numbers were so low, the fall fishing season was canceled.

Columbia Riverkeeper Brett Vandenheuvel said, “The estimates are about 17 million salmon would return to the Columbia every year. It was the greatest salmon fishery in the world. And now it’s about a million fish return.”

And most of those are hatchery fish with weaker genes and less fat than their wild cousins. So the southern resident killer whales that live on Chinook are starving. There are only 73 of this kind of orca left on the planet and after a grieving orca mom pushed her dead calf around Puget Sound for weeks last summer, it rekindled a decades-old debate: salmon vs. dams.

Read the full story at KOBI

JESSICA HATHAWAY: On Pebble: Maybe I’ve had it wrong

October 25, 2019 — I’ve been covering Pebble Mine for my entire career with National Fisherman — coming up on 14 years.

In that time, I’ve pretty consistently hammered home that it’s foolhardy and short-sighted to trade one resource for another. The mine’s long-term risks to biodiversity and healthy, sustainable salmon fisheries in Bristol Bay simply outweigh the short-term benefits offered by the extraction of the Pebble metals deposit. This is based entirely on what we know about mining — not just the process itself, but rather more importantly, the remnants a mine like this leaves behind in perpetuity.

I still believe this, but today I have something else to say.

When I watched Alannah Hurley give testimony about her people, their way of life and that Pebble Mine is a threat to all of it, I had to go one deeper than I have before.

I’ve seen the comments attempting to justify the mine: “Don’t you like your car? Do you like having a smartphone? Then we need mines like this.” It’s true, we may need mines like this to sustain our lifestyles, but that doesn’t mean we need THIS mine.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Efforts underway to streamline fisheries disaster relief

October 23, 2019 — With an increasing number of fisheries disaster requests coming from all over the United States, members of Congress and the federal government are looking for ways to improve the relief process.

Summer 2018 brought disappointing results for many fishermen across Alaska, particularly for sockeye salmon fishermen in the central Gulf of Alaska, but only two fisheries were officially granted federal disaster declarations: the 2018 Chignik sockeye salmon run and the 2018 Pacific cod fishery. While many other fishermen at least got a few fish to fill their wallets, Chignik fishermen had virtually no season, and Gulf of Alaska Pacific cod fishermen saw their total allowable catch reduced by 80 percent from 2017 because of low abundance.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced a dozen commercial fishery disaster declarations Sept. 25 for the 2018 calendar year. Congress appropriated $165 million for fisheries disaster relief, to be allocated according to the losses in revenue for the selected fisheries.

It’s the second time in recent years there have been disastrously poor returns to some fisheries. In 2016, the failed pink salmon run across the Gulf of Alaska left many fishermen holding empty nets, particularly in Kodiak and Prince William Sound, resulting in a disaster declaration in 2017 and eventually $56 million in relief funds for stakeholders.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Trudeau, Liberals returning to power, with uncertain consequences for Canadian aquaculture, fisheries

October 22, 2019 — Canada’s Liberal Party and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have won national elections that saw them lose their majority, but retain enough support to return to power with a minority government.

The outcome may have significant repercussions for Canada’s fishing and aquaculture sectors, as the Liberal Party platform called for both more marine protected areas and a shift away from net-pen farming to land-based systems.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

California Vintner Steps Forward to Protect Endangered Salmon

October 22, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

A vintner in Northern California is upgrading a concrete fish barrier to return native salmon and steelhead to valuable spawning habitat that has been blocked for nearly a century. A cooperative “Safe Harbor” agreement between the landowner Barbara Banke, Chairman and proprietor of Jackson Family Wines, and NOAA Fisheries and other state and local agencies has fostered the improvements. These agreements provide incentives to private landowners who help recover threatened and endangered species.

The story begins in the late 1800s, when two real estate speculators, F.E. Kellogg and W.A. Stuart, bought part of a Spanish land grant in Sonoma County and built a post office, general store, school, cottages, a hotel, and a diversion structure on a nearby stream to provide water for residents and visitors to the town.

Bypassed by the railroads, however, the little town of Kellogg eventually faded away, its remains razed by a wildfire in the 1960s that left only a handful of homes, agricultural buildings, and the water diversion structure and associated water system. Like many such remnant barriers, the concrete barrier reduced stream flow and blocked native fish, such as Central California Coast (CCC) steelhead and CCC coho salmon, a critically endangered species, from reaching their spawning habitat.

Read the full release here

Rep. Huffman files bill to protect, bolster salmon rivers

October 18, 2019 — A California congressman on Thursday, 17 October filed a bill in Congress that he claims would restore and protect the country’s salmon rivers and watersheds.

By drafting H.R. 4723, dubbed the Salmon Focused Investments in Sustainable Habitats (Salmon FISH) Act, U.S. Representative Jared Huffman in a statement said he wants to make the rivers that support salmon populations more resilient. The Democrat’s bill would call on NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate core abundance areas as “Salmon Conservation Areas” and the purest ones as “Salmon Strongholds.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: Forest Service proposes logging in salmon habitat

October 18, 2019 — More than 9 million acres of Southeast Alaska’s 16.7 million-acre Tongass National Forest could lose clearcutting protections with a proposed repeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule.

The U.S. Forest Service will publish its draft environmental impact statement in the Federal Register this week with a preferred alternative to remove all protections for the roadless acres. A 60-day comment period will follow publication.

The statement provides analysis of six alternatives related to the management of the Tongass.

The alternatives range from no action to the removal of the Tongass from the 2001 Roadless Rule (details below). The Department of Agriculture has identified Alternative 6, which is a full exemption, as its preferred alternative. A final decision is expected in 2020.

“As an Alaska salmon troller, I am increasingly dependent on coho salmon reared in the watersheds of Southeast Alaska. Coho live at least a year in fresh water and need the habitat provided by old growth forests,” said 2007 NF Highliner Eric Jordan of Sitka, Alaska. “Meanwhile, the forest service still has a huge list of salmon habitat restoration projects needing funding from the previous era of Industrial clear cut logging in Southeast Alaska. “

Read the full story at National Fisherman

RAS to disrupt the salmon sector within the next decade, says Rabobank

October 18, 2019 — The tide is turning for recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) and this emerging technology has the potential to change the face of aquaculture over the next decade, claims a new report from Rabobank.

Analysis in the “Aquaculture 2.0: RAS Is Driving Change” report, compiled by RaboResearch Food & Agribusiness, states that while the “RAS concept is still under development and the future holds uncertainties,” the number of proposed projects to farm seafood species using this technology is increasing day by day, with the majority of ventures focused on salmon farming.

Read the full story at Seafood Source