Saving Seafood

Alaska Congress members ask to tap relief funds for seafood

June 20, 2019 — Alaska’s congressional delegation said the state’s fishermen and seafood processors should be included in a federal trade war relief package, a report said.

Lawmakers asked the Trump administration to give its seafood industry access to $15 billion earmarked for farmers, The Anchorage Daily News reported Wednesday.

“Unjustified retaliatory” tariffs are eroding Alaska seafood’s market share in China, U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young said in a June 11 letter.

“New market growth has stopped and Alaska seafood consumption has dropped,” the legislators wrote to Perdue.

China’s 25% tariff on Alaska salmon, pollock, cod and other fish implemented in July boosts the overall tariff to 32% on some fish species, they said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the San Francisco Chronicle

Iceland to vote on changes to aquaculture policy

June 19, 2019 — The Icelandic parliament is set to vote on proposed amendments to the country’s aquaculture act, coinciding with a major public effort to curb the use of open cages in salmon farming nations, reports Visir.

The US outdoor clothing brand Patagonia, in collaboration with the wild salmon stocks fund and the North Atlantic Salmon Fund, has received 140,000 signatures for its challenge to open pen salmon farming in Iceland, Norway, Scotland, and Ireland.

The signatures are set to be handed to parliament ahead of the vote on the bill proposed by the minister of fisheries and aquaculture. A second debate on the bill was postponed on June 13.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Whale Watchers Accused Of Loving Endangered Orcas To Death

June 19, 2019 — Whale watching is generally regarded as innocent fun. Unlike an aquarium park, whale watching boats take you to see majestic animals that remain free in their natural habitat.

But when it comes to marine mammals that are already struggling to survive, are the boat-based watching tours really harmless?

That question has become more urgent in Washington state, where Southern Resident killer whales that feed around the San Juan Islands in the summer months have been declining since the 1990s. There are only about 75 left. Orcas are a form of dolphin, though the cetaceans are also sometimes classified as “toothed whales.”

Experts blame the shrinking runs of chinook salmon, the Southern Residents’ preferred meal. (Other kinds of orcas hunt other sea mammals, and are not declining the same way.)

The plight of the Southern Residents gained international attention last summer, when one of the orca females was seen “grieving” for its dead calf, keeping the body afloat for 17 days.

Read the full story at NPR

NOAA Fisheries Adopts New Plan for West Coast Ecosystem Science and Management

June 18, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

When an unusually strong marine heat wave warmed the ocean off the West Coast from late 2014 to 2016, the effects reverberated through the marine ecosystem.

One of the telltale changes was in copepods, tiny crustaceans that provide essential food for juvenile salmon as they first enter the ocean. Instead of energy-rich copepods that help the fish grow quickly, leaner copepods with less energy began to dominate. That left young salmon facing tougher odds in the ocean.

In the following years, salmon returns fell to some of their lowest levels in a decade.

Deciphering, and even anticipating such ecosystem-level effects is a goal of a new plan produced by NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region. The Western Regional Implementation Plan for Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management provides steps for helping West Coast fishermen and fisheries managers make sustainable business and conservation decisions that maximize the value of fisheries while protecting the ecosystems they depend on.

Read the full release here

Emergency measures introduced to protect UK salmon stocks

June 18, 2019 — An emergency bylaw to protect salmon in the River Severn and its estuary has been introduced by the United Kingdom’s Environment Agency after a review of recent data showed a significant reduction in the stock.

Under the new measure that took effect on 15 June, 2019, draft-net and putcher fishing in the Severn estuary is prohibited, while lave-net fishing is to operate on a catch-and-release basis only. The bylaw also makes catch and release for rod-and-line fishing compulsory on the whole of the Severn for the remainder of the current rod season, which lasts until 7 October.

The move to protect this salmon population comes after figures on the stock levels for the Severn, Wye, and Usk showed numbers were extremely low.

“This has not been an easy decision to take. We have looked at other options, such as reduced catch limits for both net and rod fishermen and voluntary catch and release for lave-net and rod fishermen, but felt that stopping any salmon being taken on the Severn this season through a byelaw was necessary to protect salmon in the river,” David Hudson, environment manager for Gloucestershire, said.

Hudson explained that fishing was only one of a number of factors that have led to the fall in salmon stocks in the Severn, and highlighted that environmental factors at critical times in the salmon’s life cycle also play a part.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US senators take aim at Canadian mines’ impact on salmon

June 17, 2019 — A bipartisan group of US senators has written to the premier of Canada’s British Columbia province, airing concerns about the effects the country’s mines are having on salmon populations in four US states.

The eight senators, from Alaska, Idaho, Washington and Montana, asked John Horgan, the province’s premier, to undertake “dedicated efforts to monitor transboundary water quality”.

“While we appreciate Canada’s engagement to date, we remain concerned about the lack of oversight of Canadian mining projects near multiple transboundary rives that originate in B.C. and flow into our four US states,” the senators wrote.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

WASHINGTON: Northwest States, Tribes Apply to Feds For OK to Kill More Columbia Sea Lions

June 14, 2019 — The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), along with a consortium of state and tribal partners, today submitted an expanded application to lethally remove California and Steller sea lions preying on threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead runs in the Columbia River and its tributaries.

California sea lions — and increasingly, Steller sea lions — have been observed in growing numbers in the Columbia River basin, especially in the last decade. These sea lions prey heavily on salmon and steelhead runs listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), including thousands of fish at Bonneville Dam each year.

The impacts come at a time when many Chinook salmon runs are already at historic lows.

The recovery of sea lions since the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) in 1972 is a success story, said Kessina Lee, Region 5 director with WDFW. But that recovery has also brought challenges.

“The vast majority of these animals remain in coastal and offshore waters, but several hundred have established themselves in upriver locations,” Lee said. “Where salmon and steelhead numbers are low, any unmanaged increase in predation can cause serious problems.”

Predator management is a key part of a multi-faceted effort to restore salmon and steelhead populations in the Pacific Northwest.

Read the full story at Northwest Sportsman

Season of uncertainty: Alaska braces for seafood tariffs

June 14, 2019 — Fisheries are always fraught with uncertainties, but there is an added element this year: trade tariffs on Alaska’s largest export: seafood. “The industry is accustomed to dealing with uncertainty about harvest levels, prices and currency rates. The trade disputes just add another layer to that,” said Garrett Evridge, an economist with the McDowell Group.

Tariffs of up to 25 percent on U.S. seafood products going to China went into effect last July and more are being threatened now by the Trump administration. China is Alaska’s biggest seafood buyer purchasing 54 percent of Alaska seafood exports in 2017 valued at $1.3 billion.

“It’s important to remember that a tariff is simply a tax and it increases the prices of our products,” Evridge explained. “As Alaskans we are sensitive to any increase in the price of our seafood because we are competing on a global stage. And right now we have tariffs imposed on seafood from the Chinese side and the U.S. side.”

In terms of Alaska salmon, the new taxes could hit buyers of pinks and chums especially hard. Managers expect huge runs of both this summer and much of the pack will be processed into various products in China and then returned to the United States.

“There is uncertainty as to whether or not those products will be tariffed and the Trump administration has indicated they want to tariff all products from China,” Evridge said.

For salmon, in a typical year Alaska contributes 30 to 50 percent of the world’s wild harvest. But when you include farmed salmon, Evridge said, Alaska’s contribution is closer to 15 percent of the global salmon supply.

The Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game is predicting a total catch of 213.2 million salmon this year, more than 80 percent higher than in 2018.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Working the night shift: Snagging salmon in Seward

June 13, 2019 — It’s midnight, and Seward is getting sleepy. Orange campfire embers smolder along the flat black water of Resurrection Bay as the last bits of midsummer twilight fade from the sky.

A group of men sit near a motorhome speaking Filipino as “No Touch” by the Juan Dela Cruz Band drifts down the rocky beach like campfire smoke. A dozen fishermen stand in the water nearby, their headlamps cutting through the night as they cast comically oversized treble hooks into the black before retrieving them violently in hopes of blindly gouging the belly or back of a big chinook.

“Fish on!” someone shouts, and now everyone is wide awake.

Welcome to Snag City.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

The Beyond Meat of Fish Is Coming

June 13, 2019 — Salmon has become the guinea pig of the seas when it comes to using technology to supplement falling fish populations. Now it’s moved onto land—and into the laboratory.

The fatty orange fish was the second-most-consumed seafood in the U.S. in 2017, after shrimp, and per capita consumption increased 11 percent, to 2.41 pounds per person, from the prior year, according to the National Fisheries Institute, an industry group. Globally, demand for salmon has skyrocketed, along with that for all fish, fueling overfishing and threatening supply.

Industrial-scale salmon farming, once seen as a solution, has its own problems. Massive stocks of smaller fish are depleted to feed farmed salmon, and parasites flourish in salmon pens where farmers use pesticides, contributing to pollution and ecosystem destruction. Sea lice have infested farms in Norway and Scotland in recent years, and a deadly algae bloom killed salmon in Chile, a top farmed-salmon producer. Farmed fish sometimes escape, too, contaminating nearby wild salmon.

Read the full story at Bloomberg