Saving Seafood

US companies file class-action suit alleging price-fixing by Norwegian farmed salmon firms

April 25, 2019 — A class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of U.S. direct purchasers of Norwegian farmed salmon is accusing multiple Norwegian firms including Mowi, Grieg Seafood, Lerøy Seafood, and SalMar of conspiring to fix the prices of farmed salmon.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, 23 April, alleges the major players in Norway’s farmed salmon industry exchanged competitively sensitive information among themselves, with the aim of artificially controlling the price of farm-raised salmon bought by U.S. seafood buyers, a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

The lawsuit is largely based on an ongoing investigation by the European Commission into “suspected anti-competitive practices” in the farmed Atlantic salmon sector in Europe, first made public in February 2019. The investigation included raids by E.C. officials of the Scottish and Dutch corporate offices of several seafood companies based in Norway, including Mowi, Grieg Seafood, Lerøy Seafood, and SalMar.

A letter sent by the E.C. to one of the companies, obtained by SeafoodSource, revealed the E.C. approved a decision on 6 February, 2019, to investigate information received “from different actors operating at different levels in the salmon market” alleging that some Norwegian producers “participate or have participated in anti-competitive agreements and/or concerted practices related to different ways of price coordination in order to sustain and possibly increase prices of farmed Norwegian Atlantic salmon.”

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida (Miami Division) on behalf of Mentor, Ohio-based Euclid Fish Company, according to Arthur Bailey of Hausfeld LLP, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. Numerous other similar suits have and will continue to be filed containing similar allegations, including by Schneider’s Seafood & Meats of Cheektowaga, New York, and by Euro USA Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio, Bailey told SeafoodSource. Within the next month, the cases will be combined into one larger class-action suit including all direct purchasers of Norwegian farmed salmon, Bailey said. The case will be heard by James Lawrence King.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALAKSA: Salmon permit values rise on optimism; halibut shares sinking

April 25, 2019 — Nearly all Alaska salmon permits have gone up in value since last fall and buying/selling/trading action is brisk.

“We’re as busy as we’ve ever been in the last 20 years,” said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer. “Boat sales are doing well and between IFQs (individual fishing quota) and permit sales, we’ve got a busy year going.”

The salmon permit interest is fueled by a forecast this year of more than 213 million fish, an 85 percent increase over 2018. Also, salmon prices are expected to be higher.

For the bellwether drift permit at Bristol Bay, the value has increased from around $165,000 and sales are now being made in the low- to mid-$170,000 range.

Several good salmon seasons in a row pushed drift permits at Area M on the Alaska Peninsula to about $175,000 last fall, Bowen said “and if you can find one now, it’s going to cost you over $200,000.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: Strong salmon forecast pushes up permit prices

April 24, 2019 — Nearly all Alaska salmon permits have gone up in value since last fall. Buying, selling and trading action is brisk.

“We’re as busy as we’ve ever been in the last 20 years,” said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer. “Boat sales are doing well, and between IFQs and permit sales, we’ve got a busy year going.”

The salmon permit interest is fueled by a forecast this year of more than 213 million fish, an 85 percent increase over 2018. Also, salmon prices are expected to be higher.

For the bellwether drift permit at Bristol Bay, the value has increased from around $165,000, and sales are now being made in the low- to mid-$170,000 range.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

WASHINGTON: Skagit River has lost half of important habitat for salmon that orcas depend on

April 23, 2019 — The Skagit River is one of Puget Sound’s most important rivers for Chinook salmon and the killer whales who depend on them.

Last week, KING 5 visited a fish trap that looks like a floating hut. Each morning, state wildlife technicians check to see what’s been caught.

“We operate from January through mid-July to catch juvenile salmon as they are migrating towards Puget sound,” said Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Clayton Kinsel.

Kinsel’s team is mostly counting chum salmon right now, some 3,000-4,000 each night. Southern Resident killer whales do eat chum, but scientists believe their diet depends on Chinook salmon.

Those salmon are dwindling like the whales who depend on them, and the fish trap is helping scientists figure out how to stop that.

“It tells us how many fish are coming down stream to Puget Sound. It’s a tool that we use to set fisheries, to manage fisheries to inform habitat restoration,” Kinsel said.

“Habitat restoration” is the buzz phrase when it comes to Chinook salmon recovery, especially on the Skagit River, where dikes and levees have cut off side streams that are important for young salmon trying to grow bigger and stronger for their journey to the ocean.

“These are places where the river used to flow many years ago. They are now cut off. In particular, the levee right along the Skagit River, it’s cutting water access off to all those side channels,” said NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Science Center research biologist Correigh Greene. “As a result, those places are inaccessible to juvenile salmon moving down the river.”

Read the full story at K5 News

SeaWorld Publishes Decades of Orca Data to Help Wild Whales

April 23, 2019 — The endangered killer whales of the Pacific Northwest live very different lives from orcas in captivity.

They swim up to 100 miles (161 kilometers) a day in pursuit of salmon, instead of being fed a steady diet of baitfish and multivitamins. Their playful splashing awes and entertains kayakers and passengers on Washington state ferries instead of paying theme park customers.

But the captive whales are nevertheless providing a boon to researchers urgently trying to save wild whales in the Northwest.

SeaWorld, which displays orcas at its parks in California, Texas and Florida, has recently published data from thousands of routine blood tests of its killer whales over two decades, revealing the most comprehensive picture yet of what a healthy whale looks like. The information could guide how and whether scientists intervene to help sick or stranded whales in the wild.

Read the full story at NBC Washington

ALASKA: Opposition to Pebble Strong at Anchorage USACE Hearing

April 19, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — At the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hearing in Anchorage yesterday, there wasn’t enough time to hear everyone who had to speak. Dozens of people remained to testify as the hearing closed. Two-thirds of the public comments given were opposed to the Pebble mine plan and the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

A press conference prior to the hearing brought Bristol Bay tribes, lodge owners, salmon ecologists, fishermen and other scientists together to call for a better process.

“Bristol Bay residents are outraged that we have been dealing with Pebble for more than a decade. We are sick and tired of the greed and the lies,” said Gayla Hoseth, second chief of the Curyung Tribal Council and director of natural resources for the Bristol Bay Native Association.

“Yet we are here again to comment on an inadequate draft EIS based on Pebble’s incomplete application to build a mine in our pristine environment, because we want to protect this last wild salmon run on earth as it exists today, for this generation and for future generations,” she said.

Dr. Daniel Schindler, professor of Aquatic and Fishery Science at the University of Washington, agreed with Hoseth.

“The reality is, if you put garbage into [an EIS] process, you get garbage out of a process. And what we’re looking at here with the Draft EIS is one that distinctly underestimates risks to fish, to water, and to people. It is junk. The draft EIS should be thrown out. It makes some critical assumptions that basically make it an illegitimate assessment of risks to fish and water and people in Bristol Bay.”

Melanie Brown, a fourth generation Naknek River setnetter, was angry with the way members of the fishing industry have been treated by Pebble and the Corps of Engineers.

”They come in there with nothing to lose, selling a fantasy that we can dig a giant acid-generating pit upstream of some of the most prolific salmon habitat in the world and somehow the fish will be better for it,” Brown said.

“Rushing forward and disregarding the real and thoughtful concerns of those of us with everything to lose is not how the public process should be handled. Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay are proud to join thousands of Alaskans who have come out time and time again to save Bristol Bay from this ridiculous proposal.”

Earlier this month, Pebble Partnership admitted to financing a lawsuit brought by six fishermen against the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association, an association of which each plaintiff is a member.

BBRSDA’s most recent response to the suit called it a “desperate attempt to muzzle a fishermen’s organization during the Pebble mine’s public comment period, which ends on May 30. Most importantly, the projects in question fall within our statutory purposes and advance our mission of maximizing the value of the Bristol Bay fishery.”

The post on the BBRSDA’s website noted that Mike Heatwole, a spokesman for Pebble, said the mining developer agreed to fund the lawsuit because the fishermen have limited funds.

“Ironically, the complaint alleges that BBRSDA’s actions related to the Pebble Mine negatively impacts the plaintiffs, when in fact we strongly believe it benefits their fishing businesses,” the post reads.

“We’d like people to understand that the BBRSDA is more than just seafood advertising. We were created as a Development association, not just a Marketing association or an Advertising non-profit.

“Our primary purpose is the promotion of regional seafood products and like our namesake, the word ‘promote’ has a broad definition: ‘to contribute to the growth or prosperity of.’ We undertake a variety of activities that fit within our statutory purposes and collectively function to raise the value of the fishery.

“Scrutinizing plans for an enormous open-pit mine at the headwaters of this fishery, which could seriously damage the marketability and abundance of this fishery, clearly seeks to protect this fishery’s prosperity. We are also very concerned the mine will cause reputational damage to the fishery, undermining our substantial ongoing investment in branding and marketing Bristol Bay sockeye,” the group said.

This year’s harvest for sockeye salmon at Bristol Bay is projected to be 28 million fish. Noting the current value of Bristol Bay salmon, the association acknowledged what is behind it.

“Investments made by fishermen, processors, and the BBRSDA in marketing, quality, and sustainability are paying off and meeting the mission of maximizing fishery value. The value of Bristol Bay sockeye averaged $156 million from 2012-2016, but exceeded $270 million in each of the past two years,” the group wrote on the BBRSDA website.

“This is the most valuable wild salmon fishery in the world. It has a terrific opportunity to occupy a large, premium niche in the global salmon market, and we are working to realize that future. The Pebble Mine seriously threatens this fishery’s bright future,” they concluded.

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

ALASKA: Net recycling effort spreads to Southeast; almanac seeks stories

April 18, 2019 — The Panhandle plans to be the next Alaska region to give new life to old fishing gear by sending it to plastic recycling centers. The tons of nets and lines piled up in local lots and landfills will become the raw material for soda bottles, cell phone cases, sunglasses, skateboards, swimsuits and more.

Juneau, Haines, Petersburg and possibly Sitka have partnered with Net Your Problem to launch an effort this year to send old or derelict seine and gillnets to a recycler in Richmond, British Columbia.

“We’re going to be working in a new location with a new material and sending it to a new recycler,” said Nicole Baker, founder of Net Your Problem and the force behind fishing gear recycling in Alaska.

Baker, a former fisheries observer who also is a research assistant for Ray Hilborn at the University of Washington, jumpstarted recycling programs for trawl nets, crab and halibut line two years ago at Dutch Harbor and Kodiak quickly followed. The nets can weigh from 5,000 to 25,000 tons and can cost $350 to $500 per ton for disposal in landfills. The community/industry collaborations in both towns have so far sent 300,000 pounds of gear in seven vans to Europe for recycling.

“Each fishing port will have its own special logistics plan but the general role is the same,” she said. “You need somebody to give you the nets, truck them around, load them and ship them.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Many California Crabbers Switching to Chinook Trolling as Salmon Seasons Are Set

April 18, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — From San Francisco to Crescent City, Calif., crab pots were being loaded onto trailers and stacked in port lots for storage as Dungeness crabbers were forced to stop fishing Monday.

But there may be a little light at the end of the tunnel: Many crabbers also fish for salmon, and California salmon trollers will have more than 25 percent additional opportunity this year.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council announced the final West Coast salmon seasons Monday at its meeting in Rohnert Part, Calif.

“Although some salmon stocks are returning in stronger numbers than last year, balancing fishing opportunities with conservation is always a challenge for the Council, its advisors, fishery stakeholders and the public,” Council Executive Director Chuck Tracy said in a press release. “The seasons this year continue to protect stocks of concern, including Puget Sound Chinook, Washington natural coho, and Sacramento River fall Chinook.”

In addition to recommending salmon regulations for 2019, the Council developed a plan to work collaboratively with NMFS on southern resident killer whales, which are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Conservation groups have sued to force NMFS to take action to provide more salmon to orcas.

“This year’s package was adopted after careful consideration and analysis in order to meet our conservation objectives, consider impacts on the prey base important to southern resident killer whales, and consider in-river and Puget Sound fisheries,” Council Chair Phil Anderson said in the statement. “The Council also established a workgroup that will be working closely with the National Marine Fisheries Service to assess on a longer term basis the ocean salmon fisheries’ effect to the prey base of southern resident killer whales.”

However, for now, many California crabbers will be taking the crab blocks off their vessels and putting on their salmon gear. This year’s seasons open in some areas in May.

“It’s the best season we’ve seen in a while, though it’s still not wide-open fishing,” Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations Executive Director Noah Oppenheim was quoted as saying in the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s important there are opportunities spread throughout the coast. They’re going to need to operate in this fishery after having lost crab fishing time in the spring.”

Between Horse Mountain and Point Arena (Fort Bragg), Calif., the area will be open June 4-30, July 11-31, and August 1-28. From Point Arena to Pigeon Point (San Francisco), the area will be open May 16-31, June 4-30, July 11-31, August 1-28, and September 1-30. From Pigeon Point to the Mexico border (Monterey), the area will be open all of May, June 4-30, and July 11-31. There will also be a season from Point Reyes to Point San Pedro, a subset of the San Francisco area, on October 1-4, 7-11, and 14-15.

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

Science on your side: The trappings of fish fraud

April 18, 2019 — Seafood fraud and mislabeled seafood is a permanent topic in the sustainable fisheries space and has been driving the demands for product traceability. Since 2011, Oceana has led the discourse on fish fraud by publishing sixteen reports on the subject.

Oceana Canada’s 2018 report exposed some important shortcomings in the Canadian seafood system and offered constructive, achievable mandates for reducing seafood fraud domestically, but the study collected data from a biased sample and only presented results that supported a narrative of rampant fraudulence.

Oceana collects seafood samples at restaurants and retail outlets, DNA tests them, then matches the DNA results to government labeling guidelines. The sampling focused specifically on cod, halibut, snapper, tuna, salmon and sole because these species historically, “have the highest rates of species substitution.” This nonrandom sampling is consistent with previous seafood fraud studies from Oceana.

Of the 382 seafood samples tested in Canada, 168 (44 percent) were found to be mislabeled.

None of the red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus), yellowtail or butterfish tested was appropriately labeled. Tuna was mislabeled 41 percent of the time, halibut 34 percent, cod 32 percent and salmon 18 percent.

Fundamental to the interpretation of the Oceana Canada 2018 study’s results is the understanding that the samples were selected to find fraud, not to measure the actual extent of fraud across the entire seafood supply chain. Oceana disclosed this in the report. However the press release it issued for this report, and subsequent headlines from other news sources, such as “At least one quarter of the seafood you buy is a lie” from the site IFL Science, created a different narrative.

Aside from the sampling criticisms, the analysis of specific species was especially flawed.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Council committee struggles with federal Cook Inlet salmon plan

April 18, 2019 — Two-and-a-half years after a federal court directed the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to develop a fishery management plan for the Cook Inlet salmon fishery, there is still a lot of work to do.

The commercial salmon fisheries of Alaska are primarily managed by the state, including in Cook Inlet, where part of the fishery takes place in federal waters. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council for years deferred management of the salmon fishery there to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, finally removing Cook Inlet completely from its FMP in 2012.

The United Cook Inlet Drift Association and the Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund sued, saying the federal government had a responsibility to manage that fishery to ensure it complies with the Magnuson-Stevens Act. In 2016, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and the council reluctantly turned back to developing a management plan.

Many of the commercial fishermen there have a longstanding dissatisfaction with the Alaska Fish and Game and the Board of Fisheries, stemming from a belief that the department’s allocation decisions governed by the board are politically rather than scientifically motivated and that the escapement goals for sockeye salmon on the Kenai River are too high.

They sought to exercise federal influence over state management through the lawsuit, and now are running into roadblocks on federal authority to do so.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce