Saving Seafood

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

Study on salmon ear stones cited by EPA in Pebble draft EIS comments

July 9, 2019 — On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency released its formal comment on the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Pebble Mine.

The 100-page release pointed to a bevy of environmental studies that highlight potential harm to land, water and animals in the Bristol Bay region — consequences that the EPA claims were not fully considered in the draft EIS from the Army Corps of Engineers.

One of those studies focused on the growth and development of young salmon in a region with the largest wild sockeye run in the world.

One of the study’s co-authors, Daniel Schindler, said his findings show that the waters where young sockeye and Chinook salmon grow and develop can shift from year to year. Essentially, even rivers and streams that don’t serve as homes for young fish now, may do just that in the future.

“Certain parts of the habitat do well in some years,” Schindler said. “And other parts of the habitat do better in other years. So it’s really the intact nature of the whole Nushagak watershed that produces such reliable returns to the fishery.”

Read the full story at KTOO

Where Soybeans Meet The Sea: Midwest Aquaculture May Boost Demand For Local Grain

July 9, 2019 — Midwestern fish farmers grow a variety of species, such as tilapia, salmon, barramundi and shrimp, all of which require a high-protein diet. The region grows copious amounts of soybeans, which have a lot of protein, but these two facts have yet to converge.

Take Eagle’s Catch, a tilapia farm in Ellsworth, Iowa, where a nearly 4-acre greenhouse is filled with tanks that segregate the fish by size. CEO Joe Sweeney said he feeds the fish a soybean-based diet he buys from a processor in the South.

“We’re actually getting it from Louisiana, unfortunately,” Sweeney said, “feeding Louisiana and Arkansas soybeans. But as time goes on I look forward to feeding them that Iowa product.”

Across the 12 states served by the North Central Regional Aquaculture Center, from Ohio to North Dakota to Kansas, hundreds of businesses are trying to raise fish for food. But local demand will have to grow to make them viable. If that happens, aquaculture could provide a new market for Midwestern soybeans and other grains at a time when turmoil in international trade and several years of very high yields have led to oversupply.

Read the full story at KCUR

Groups praise updated US government seafood guidance

July 9, 2019 — U.S. seafood groups are lauding an updated government guidance that encourages pregnant and breastfeeding women and children to eat more seafood.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is updating its 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released in 2017, which recommends that Americans eat at least eight ounces of seafood per week, based on a 2,000-calorie diet. While FDA did not increase the amount of seafood adults should eat, it is emphasizing the nutritional benefits – particularly to pregnant and breastfeeding women as well as children – of eating at least eight ounces of seafood weekly.

The agency also aims to help consumers who should limit their exposure to mercury choose from the many types of fish that are lower in mercury – “including ones commonly found in grocery stores, such as salmon, shrimp, pollock, canned light tuna, tilapia, catfish and cod,” the FDA said in a press release.

However, “it is important to note that women who might become pregnant, or who are pregnant or breastfeeding – along with young children – should avoid the few types of commercial fish with the highest levels of mercury listed on the chart,” FDA said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source