Saving Seafood

This company is the only one raising salmon in Maine so far, as more look to join it

July 29, 2019 — With his high-backed chair and banks of keyboards, windows and video screens, Frank Lank could be in an air traffic control tower. Instead, he’s at sea watching fish swim inside netted pens in Machias Bay.

The 53-year-old Eastport man sits aboard a floating platform, essentially a two-story office, overseeing the automated feeding of Atlantic salmon at 12 of 24 sea sites Cooke Aquaculture USA, Maine’s sole aquafarmer of the prized kingfish, leases from the state.

He also watches them for signs of trouble. Are they surfacing too often, as if they’re agitated or lacking oxygen? Are they overeating? Lank carefully notes fish behavior and sea conditions so the company’s divers and veterinarians can review it and, if necessary, take follow-up action.

“You’re always learning from [the salmon]. You can never ever settle,” Lank said during a recent workday. “I mean, granted you have a number of years of experience and all that, which probably kind of gives you a little bit of a leap up, but there’s always some kind of new way that you can do what you do.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

In hot water: How warmer years might affect salmon populations

July 29, 2019 — There is a lot of worry and speculation about hot weather affecting sockeye runs on the east side of Bristol Bay this summer. But despite some of the hottest air and water temperatures on record, every district is meeting — or exceeding — expectations, both for escapement and harvest.

As the water temperature trends continue to rise over the years, the question at the fore is how warming water will impact salmon health, and whether it shapes the runs from year to year.

Jerri Bartholomew, Director of the Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory at Oregon State University, set the baseline for a discussion on the long-term effects of heat on salmon.

“When you try and predict what’s going to happen in an ecosystem, things just get complicated,” she said.

Trying to peer into the future of Bristol Bay salmon is a bit of a shot in the dark. Without actual data, it’s a lot of guesswork: trying to find places with ecosystems similar to the bay, then extrapolating conclusions based on what we already know.

Still, there are three pressing questions when it comes to salmon in warmer waters.

The first, basic question, is how temperature affects the fish — in both the short and long term.

Read the full story at KTOO

West Coast Salmon Vulnerable to Climate Change, but Some Show Resilience to Shifting Environment

July 26, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Several of the West Coast’s prime salmon runs are highly vulnerable to climate change, but intensified habitat restoration and other measures can help support their natural resilience and adaptability. The new NOAA Fisheries report, published this week in PLOS ONE, is the first comprehensive climate vulnerability assessment for West Coast salmon and steelhead.

Certain Chinook, coho, and sockeye salmon population groups are the most vulnerable to expected environmental shifts with climate change. These include more extreme high and low flows and hotter oceans and rivers. Steelhead, pink and chum salmon face less risk, either because they are more adaptable to varying conditions (steelhead) or spend less time in freshwater (pink and chum).

Species-specific results are available for each population group.

Authors noted that salmon have long thrived in the region, proving themselves resilient to past shifts in climate. However, climate is now changing at an unprecedented rate. Most populations now lack access to habitat that once provided refuge from climate extremes.

“Salmon have always adapted to change, and they have been very successful—otherwise they wouldn’t still be here,” said Lisa Crozier, a research scientist at NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center and lead author of the assessment. “What we are trying to understand is which populations may need the most help with anticipated future changes in temperature and water availability, and what steps we can take to support them.”

Read the full release here

ROBERT KEHOE: Commercial fishermen need relief from Chinese tariffs

July 24, 2019 — American businesses are being hit hard by retaliatory tariffs imposed by China on U.S. goods in response to the Trump administration’s trade policies. Commercial fisheries are no exception.

The Purse Seine Vessel Owners’ Association represents the interests of the “small boat” commercial fishing fleet. It represents some 290 vessel owners, about half of whom are based in Washington state with about two dozen from Seattle.

While the association is based in Seattle, which is the home of the North Pacific commercial fishing fleet and several large seafood processing companies, a large majority of members make their living harvesting wild-caught and sustainably managed salmon in Alaska.

Ultimately, what members want to see is a return to fair and open trade practices with our global trade partners, especially China, so that hard working, commercial fishing family-owned businesses can continue to earn a modest living supplying consumers with wild Alaska salmon. China is the largest of Alaska’s seafood export markets.

Read the full story at Seattle Times

MAINE: Penobscot salmon returns top 1,000 for the first time since 2011

July 23, 2019 — River-watchers had a reason to celebrate last week as the unofficial total of returning Atlantic salmon reached 1,000 for the first time in eight years.

As of July 14, that total stood at 1,059, according to Jason Valliere, Marine Resources scientist for the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ Division of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat.

Only 671 salmon were counted at the Milford Dam fish lift a year ago. The last time more than 1,000 fish were documented as returning to the Penobscot River was in 2011, when 2,915 fish were counted at the Veazie Dam, which has since been removed from the river.

Atlantic salmon are listed as “endangered” under the federal Endangered Species Act in all Maine rivers, and fishing for them is not allowed.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

ALASKA: ADFG receives barest of cuts among Dunleavy’s vetoes

July 18, 2019 — Fisheries fared better than most in terms of Gov. Michael J. Dunleavy’s budget cuts.

Just less than $1 million was cut from the commercial fisheries division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, leaving it with an $85 million budget, half from state general funds.

“To give the governor credit, he recognized the return on investment,” said ADFG Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang. “It’s a theme I had all the way through the Legislature that we take a $200 million budget of which about $50 million is unrestricted general funds and we turn that into an $11 billion return to our state. And I think he got that.”

Vincent-Lang added that Dunleavy also did not veto the travel budget for the Board of Fisheries and its advisory committees.

It’s indefinite still how the budget cuts will play out, and Vincent-Lang said he is trying to avoid staff cuts to the 700 comfish positions.

“I suspect we may have some but we will try to do that through vacancies and a variety of other things as we have retirements,” he said.

Also set to get axed is funding for research projects, such as salmon in-season sampling and Tanner crab surveys at Prince William Sound, and five salmon weirs at Kodiak and Chignik. Salmon counting is likely to be reduced at the Yukon River’s Eagle and Pilot Station sonars, along with various stock assessment surveys for groundfish.

“I’ve asked my staff to look at their overall program, and not necessarily cut the projects, but take the ones that have the least impact on the management of our fisheries across our state in terms of economic value back and cut those,” he explained, acknowledging that the cutbacks could lead to more cautious management.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Alaska salmon season stays hot

July 17, 2019 — Record high temperatures might be slowing down some fish pickers in Alaska’s commercial salmon fleet, but you wouldn’t know it from their landings.

The Alaska Department of Fish & Game predicted a statewide annual harvest of 42 million sockeye salmon. Just six weeks into the summer season, the total harvest already stands at 39 million.

Last week, Bristol Bay’s districts landed 14.5 million fish in what could be the third-largest weekly harvest on record for the bay. Overall, the region is 19 percent ahead of 2018 figures, and most other areas of the state are trending above 2018. That fishery typically peaks around the Fourth of July, but the run has not been terribly predictable for several years.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

New technology could help salmon swim over hydroelectric dams

July 16, 2019 — A Seattle company called Whooshh Innovations has developed a creative way for fish to swim over hydroelectric dams. This product creates a pressure difference around the salmon, sucking the fish up a long tube and releasing it at the top of the dam.

“We do introduce a little bit of water to keep them moist and keep their gills moist and all those kinds of things for the few seconds it takes them to get through the system,” said Mike Dearan, Whooshh’s chief engineer.

The Whooshh system also takes pictures of salmon and sorts the fish as they travel, dividing up wild and hatchery fish. If there was a constant stream of fish, 86,000 salmon could move through just one of these Whooshh systems every day.

Read the full story at KATU

European markets importing, exporting more seafood products

July 11, 2019 — The E.U. is the number one consumer of fishery and aquaculture products in the world, but with demand far exceeding supply and only limited room for growth in domestic production, the bloc is increasingly sourcing products from around the world in order to meet market requirements, confirms new analysis from the European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture Products (EUMOFA).

In its latest review of seafood trade trends, EUMOFA finds that in 2018, E.U. imports from third-countries increased by 4 percent in volume and 2 percent in value over the previous year, reaching 6 million metric tons (MT) with a value of EUR 25.9 billion (USD 29.2 billion). However, it also established that the average unit value of these imports fell by 2 percent to EUR 4.17 (USD 4.70) per kilogram, which, it said, caused the slow growth in overall import value.

Salmonids (USD 6.5 billion, EUR 5.8 billion), crustaceans (USD 5.4 billion, EUR 4.8 billion) and groundfish (USD 5.1 billion, EUR 4.5 billion) were the most imported commodity groups, representing 58 percent of total extra-E.U. import value.

The groundfish category, which increased by 5 percent or EUR 203 million (USD 228.6 million); fish for non-food use, which was 27 percent or EUR 189 million (USD 212.9 million) more; and cephalopods, up by 6 percent or EUR 151 million (USD 170.1 million); were the main contributors to the overall increase in the extra-E.U. import value compared to 2017.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Patagonia’s hatchery movie misguided, inaccurate

July 9, 2019 — Outdoor clothing and gear manufacturer Patagonia recently released “Artifishal,” a misguided documentary full of misinformation about the role hatcheries play in salmon recovery.

The movie claims that salmon hatcheries are the main cause for the decline of salmon and should be eliminated. But it doesn’t present accurate science to back this up.

What we know for certain is that eliminating hatcheries would be the end of salmon fishing for generations. More than half of all the salmon harvested in Western Washington come from hatcheries.

Fisheries management is about balancing the H’s: Harvest, Hatchery and Habitat. We already are using the best available science to manage harvest and hatcheries carefully to protect threatened runs of salmon. Meanwhile, habitat continues to be lost faster than it can be restored. 

Hatcheries are not the cause of declining salmon runs. We wouldn’t need them if habitat could support sustainable salmon populations.

Another false claim made by the film is that hatcheries are the same as open water Atlantic salmon farms. They’re not.

Read the full story at The Reflector