Saving Seafood

US plaintiffs claim Russian ban on Norwegian salmon prompted price collusion

August 21, 2019 — Norwegian salmon farmers cannot claim strong demand has brought spot prices up in recent years, given the size of the hole in the market left by Russia’s import ban, according to new claims from US plaintiffs filing a price-fixing suit.

A total of six US distributors are listed on the latest filing, made on Aug. 19, claiming that Norway’s farmers have colluded to charge higher prices for salmon.

Plaintiffs Euclid Fish Company, Euro USA, Schneider’s Fish and Sea Food Corporation, Beacon Fisheries, Cape Florida Seafood, The Fishing Line, and Hesh’s Seafood — “individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated” — have suit several salmon farmers alleging they were damaged by “price collusion”.

The full list of defendants in the US lawsuit are: Norway’s Mowi — and its North American subsidiaries Marine Harvest USA, Marine Harvest Canada and Ducktrap River of Maine; Norway-based Grieg and its British Columbia, Canada, arm, Grieg Seafood BC; Norway’s Bremnes Seashore as well as Ocean Quality, Ocean Quality North America, Ocean Quality USA and Ocean Quality Premium Brands, entities that are a partnership between Bremnes and Grieg; SalMar; Leroy and Leroy Seafood USA; and Scottish Sea Farms, a venture jointly owned by SalMar and Leroy.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

US government completes big wild salmon buy, seeks more pollock

August 21, 2019 — The United States government continues to support Alaska’s wild fisheries with a USD 3.1 million (EUR 2.8 million) purchase of wild salmon and a bid for nearly 400,000 pounds of Alaska pollock.

The United States Department of Agriculture awarded its most recent wild salmon contract to Trident Seafoods, for federal child nutrition and other domestic food assistance programs.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Warm, dry weather causing abnormalities in Bristol Bay’s salmon runs

August 21, 2019 — The world’s largest sockeye fishery, Bristol Bay, Alaska, clocked its second-largest harvest ever this season, with a haul of more than 43 million fish. The big catch, combined with a robust base price – most of the fishery’s major processors have posted an initial ex-vessel buying price at USD 1.35 (EUR 1.20) per pound – should make 2019 among the most lucrative years in the fishery’s history. This season’s historic catch comes after a string of abnormally large runs, including last season’s 62.3 million salmon, the largest in Bristol Bay’s history.

But despite a string of productive runs that have surpassed forecasts, some biologists and fishermen are concerned about warm, dry weather that has pumped up water temperatures in the region.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

The water is so hot in Alaska it’s killing large numbers of salmon

August 20, 2019 — Alaska has been in the throes of an unprecedented heat wave this summer, and the heat stress is killing salmon in large numbers.

Scientists have observed die-offs of several varieties of Alaskan salmon, including sockeye, chum and pink salmon.
Stephanie Quinn-Davidson, director of the Yukon Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, told CNN she took a group of scientists on an expedition along Alaska’s Koyokuk River at the end of July, after locals alerted her to salmon die-offs on the stream.

She and the other scientists counted 850 dead unspawned salmon on that expedition, although they estimated the total was likely four to 10 times larger.

They looked for signs of lesions, parasites and infections, but came up empty. Nearly all the salmon they found had “beautiful eggs still inside them,” she said. Because the die-off coincided with the heat wave, they concluded that heat stress was the cause of the mass deaths.

Read the full story at CNN

Century-old salmon-smeared notebooks reveal past bounty of fisheries

August 20, 2019 — One day in June 1919, workers in a busy Canadian cannery in Port Essington rushed to clean, cook, and can the bright red flesh of a huge number of sockeye salmon hauled from the nearby Skeena River. Watching the frenzy was a government “fisheries overseer” named Robert Gibson. Periodically, Gibson selected a fish, scraped off a few scales, and affixed them to the pages of a small notebook using the salmon’s own slime. Next to each sample—he collected a total of 125 on this day—Gibson wrote the weight, length, sex, and catch date. A U.S. fish biologist hired by British Columbia would follow up by calculating each fish’s age with the then-new technique of using a microscope to count the growth rings visible on the scales, much as botanists age a tree.

Over more than 3 decades, from 1912 to 1948, Gibson and colleagues filled dozens of notebooks with fish scales from the Skeena, Canada’s second-largest salmon river. Ultimately, however, the records were dumped in a box and largely forgotten.

Read the full story at Science Magazine

NOAA Report: Approximately 85% Of West Coast Estuary Habitat Lost

August 19, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — A report published in PLOS ONE reveals that “more than a century of development” has erased approximately 85% of historical tidal wetlands in California, Oregon and Washington. However, there is good news. Scientists with NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center have found potential restoration opportunities.

Estuaries are important as they serve as “critical nurseries” for juvenile salmon and steelhead while they transition from freshwater to the ocean.

“Given how valuable estuaries are to so many different species, it’s important to understand how much they have changed and what that means for fish and wildlife that depend on them,” explained Correigh Greene, a research biologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, and co-author of the new study.

According to the researchers, estuaries were lost over the years because they were diked and drained for agriculture. Forested wetlands were also not widely recognized as estuary acreage. But there is a chance to restore these estuary habitats.

“By folding in these areas that may not have been recognized as part of estuaries, we have a better idea of just how important and extensive these estuaries were,” added lead author Laura Brophy, who also serves as director of the Estuary Technical Group at the Institute for Applied Ecology. “Now we can see new restoration opportunities that people didn’t realize existed.”

More restoration can come from low-elevation areas that are at great risk of flooding due to rising sea levels and climate change. NOAA researchers say that tidal restoration in these areas can “re-establish natural processes like sediment delivery.”

Find the full story on estuary habitat loss on the west coast here.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Frozen salmon, cod fillets escape latest Trump tariffs

August 13, 2019 — A move executed Tuesday, 13 August by the Trump administration will reverse previously-announced tariffs on some seafood processed in China.

Included in the original list of items subject to the latest round of tariffs announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, 1 August – which originally proposed subjecting an additional USD 300 billion (EUR 270 billion) in imported goods to a 10 percent tariff – were frozen fillets of cod, salmon, and haddock.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Study: Hatchery-raised Alaskan pinks compete with sockeye for food

August 13, 2019 — Some scientists who study the food web in North Pacific Ocean waters off the US state of Alaska are beginning to fear that hatchery-raised pink salmon are posing overly stiff competition to sockeye when it comes to their common food source, zooplankton, the Associated Press reported.

The news service quoted biological oceanographer Sonia Batten who has studied zooplankton abundance and found it to wax and wane, which she attributed to the odd- and even-year cycle of pink salmon.

“The only thing that we have in this whole area with an up and down, alternating-year pattern is pink salmon,” Batten, who works for Canada’s Marine Biological Association, said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Pacific Fishery Management Council to Hold Meeting In September 2019 to Adopt Management Measures for Ocean Fisheries

August 9th, 2019 — The following was published by the Pacific Fishery Management Council: 

The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) and its advisory bodies will meet September 11-18, 2019 in Boise, Idaho, to address issues related to groundfish, ecosystem, salmon, Pacific halibut, highly migratory species, habitat, and administrative matters. The meeting of the Council and its advisory entities will be held at the Riverside Hotel, 2900 Chinden Blvd., Boise, Idaho 83714; telephone, 208-343-1871.

Please see the September 11-18, 2019 Council Meeting notice on the Council’s website for meeting detail, schedule of advisory body meetings, our new E-Portal for submitting public comments, and public comment deadlines.

Key agenda items for the meeting include Council considerations to:

  • Adopt Final Rebuilding Plans for Strait of Juan de Fuca, Queets River, and Snohomish River Coho
  • Adopt a Final Preferred Alternative for Highly Migratory Species Deep-Set Buoy Gear Fishery Authorization
  • Adopt Public Review Options for Pacific Halibut 2020 Catch Sharing Plan Changes and Options for 2020 Directed Commercial Fishery Regulation Changes
  • Approve Final Groundfish Stock Assessments for 2021-2022 and Beyond
  • Adopt Initial Groundfish Harvest Specifications and a Preliminary List of Potential New Management Measures for the 2020-2021 Regulation Process
  • Adopt Final Groundfish In-season Adjustments and Consider Extending Midwater Trawl and Electronic Monitoring Exempted Fishing Permits into 2020
  • Adopt a Preliminary Preferred Alternative for Salmon Mitigation Measure in Groundfish Fisheries
  • Adopt Proposed Revisions to 2020 Harvest Specifications for Cowcod and Shortbelly Rockfish for Public Review
    For further information:

Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff at 503-820-2280; toll-free 1-866-806-7204.

For Northwest fishermen, latest catch is trade-war trouble

August 7, 2019 — As President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on China last week in a trade war with no end in sight, American salmon fisherman Sven Stroosma set his sights on the blue waters of the Gulf of Alaska, piloting his boat Voyager in search of a big salmon catch.

Alaskan salmon are running, and Pacific Northwest fishermen like Mr. Stroosma have only a few intense weeks in July and August to catch enough to sustain their family income for the coming year. Rough seas, equipment failures, and dry streams that limit spawning all threaten to hurt their haul.

This season, the U.S.-China trade conflict has increased pressure on salmon fishermen by depressing the price offered for their hard-earned catch. China, the biggest importer of Alaska seafood, included the industry in a 25% tariff increase imposed last year.

Read the full story at The Christian Science Monitor