Saving Seafood

Oysters remain king as growers race to meet consumer demand

January 23, 2017 — Demand for oysters continues to trend upward heading into 2017, with production capacity expanding to satiate consumer demand.

According to a panel of bivalve and oyster experts speaking at the National Fisheries Institute’s 2017 Global Seafood Market Conference in San Francisco, California, “the number of oyster growers [is] increasing just to keep up with demand.”

The rate of oyster consumption particularly at restaurants, remains strong, with the popular shellfish serving to elevate complementary species such as mussels, clams and scallops, noted the panel.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Price spread between U10, 20-30 US scallops likely to widen

January 19, 2017 — SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — More smaller-size scallops are set to be landed in the 2017/2018 US fishing year, which could widen the price gap between U10s-10/20s and 20/30s, according to one executive on the shellfish panel on Wednesday at the Global Seafood Market Conference (GSMC).

Although the US landings are forecasted to increase 15% to 46 million pounds in 2017/2018, the quantity of U10s is not expected to rise.

“We think it will be static on U10s. They [U10s] are unlikely to increase as a percentage of the fishery,” said Sean Moriarty, vice president of sales with Blue Harvest Fisheries, one of the largest US scallop catching companies, during the 2017 GSMC in San Francisco, California.

While some of the new open areas for the fishery are likely to yield more large scallops, the southern areas are producing less.

According to price data up to September last year presented by the panel, U10s are on the increase and have been over $20 per pound, but 20/30s have been sliding.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Tough times for tilapia persist due to oversupply, low prices

January 19, 2017 — Tilapia producers faced a tough year in 2016, with an oversupply of product and the lowest prices seen since 2011.

A panel of premium finfish experts speaking at this year’s National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference in San Francisco, California, debated tilapia’s latest challenges, including a softening in demand related to a lack of species promotion. Such hurdles have prompted many fresh tilapia producers to gravitate toward frozen product offerings, and tilapia producers in Ecuador have started to veer in the direction of shrimp production, which has become more lucrative in the region recently.

“2016 has been a challenging year for anyone producing tilapia,” the panel surmised. “A little too much fish in the market.”

Despite these difficulties, the outlook for tilapia heading into 2017 and 2018 is positive, the panel said. Honduras continues to dominate tilapia production, even with a devastating El Nino drought to contend with, and is expected to maintain its reign in the sector. Meanwhile, Colombia will look to capitalize on its new free trade agreements and Brazil has growing potential to transform into a major tilapia exporter to the United States, the panel agreed. However, given the volatility of tilapia, it may still be a while yet before Brazil reaches its potential as a tilapia exporter, the panel concurred.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

CALIFORNIA: Gov. Jerry Brown Signs Law To Protect Whales From Crab Traps

September 28, 2016 — SAN FRANCISCO — California’s governor has signed legislation meant to reduce the surging number of whales getting caught in crabbing gear.

Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, announced Friday that he approved the bill to pay bounties to crabbers who retrieve lost or abandoned crab pots in the off-season and make the fishermen who lost the crabbing gear pay a fee.

There have been a record number of reported cases of whales getting caught by the ropes of traps set to catch Dungeness crabs. That led crabbing fishermen to join conservation groups in backing the legislation.

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

Fishermen who fled slavery in San Francisco sue boat owner

September 22, 2016 — SAN FRANCISCO — Two Indonesian fishermen who escaped slavery aboard a Honolulu-based tuna and swordfish vessel when it docked at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf are suing the boat’s owner for tricking them into accepting dangerous jobs they say they weren’t allowed to leave.

Attorneys for Abdul Fatah and Sorihin, who uses one name, say in a lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday that they were recruited in Indonesia seven years ago to work in Hawaii’s commercial fishing fleet without realizing they would never be allowed onshore. They have since been issued visas for victims of human trafficking and are living in the San Francisco area.

The lawsuit alleges that San Jose, California, resident Thoai Nguyen, owner and captain of the Sea Queen II, forced Sorihin and Fatah to work up to 20-hour shifts, denied them medical treatment and demanded thousands of dollars if they wanted to leave before their contracts expired. Nguyen did not return calls seeking comment.

The lawsuit seeks payment for debts the men incurred, fees they paid and promised compensation but does not specify a value, and asks for unspecified damages for “mental anguish and pain.”

It comes two weeks after an Associated Press investigation found around 140 fishing boats based in Honolulu, including Sea Queen II, were crewed by hundreds of men from impoverished Southeast Asia and Pacific Island nations. The seafood is sold at markets and upscale restaurants across the U.S. A legal loophole allows them to work without visas as long as they don’t set foot on shore. The system is facilitated by the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as Customs and Border Protection who require boat owners to hold workers’ passports.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at KWWL

Tough Seasons for California Crabbers

August 31, 2016 — The recent crab season in California was abysmal, to say the least.

Epic neurotoxin levels found in Dungeness and rock crabs forced state officials to close fisheries for months instead of weeks, crippling one of the state’s most lucrative fishing industries and leaving fishermen in California’s Northern and Central coasts unable to make a living.

Boats loaded with new fishing gear and crab pots sat in harbors such as Bodega Bay and Monterey. Boat owners have had to lay off crewmembers, who left to find work elsewhere or collect unemployment.

In Crescent City, a small Northern California town of fewer than 8,000 people, the community has been hosting fundraisers to help struggling crabbers. The city has one of the largest landings for Dungeness crab.

Angel Cincotta, who owns the Alioto-Lazio Fish Company on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf with her two sisters, told an NBC Bay Area affiliate that they have had to assuage customers’ concerns about the product they were selling.

“Crabs are currently coming out of Washington and Alaska, out of certified clean waters, so they’re safe to eat,” she told NBC.

The neurotoxin also affected rock crab season in Santa Barbara, one of the state’s biggest ports for rock crab fishing. The rock crab season, which runs all year, was delayed for months in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

“Thousands of Californians are dependent on healthy a crab fishery, and this year we have faced a disaster,” said State Sen. Mike McGuire, chairman of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture. “Our magnificent and iconic crab fishery has gone from abundant to scarcity. And after a lousy salmon season, our fishery boats sit idle. Crabbers are struggling to make ends meet.”

Read the full story at Fishermen’s News

U.S. appeals court upholds Pacific whiting fishing quotas

August 8, 2016 — A federal appeals court upheld the government’s annual fishing quotas Thursday for the Pacific whiting, which dwells near the ocean floor off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington.

A vessel owner and a fish processor, both from Washington state, filed suit in San Francisco challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service’s limits on harvesting the whiting, which took effect in 2011. The rules, aimed at preserving the fish supply and discouraging frenzied activity at the outset of the fishing season, assigned each permit-holder a share of the overall catch based on their shares in past years — 2003 for fish harvesters, and 2004 for processors. Those years coincided with the start of the government’s rule-making process.

Other fishing companies and the Environmental Defense Fund supported the quotas. Their opponents argued that the selection of past years was arbitrary and violated a law requiring federal officials to take into account “present participation in the fishery” and “dependence on the fishery” when setting limits.

Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle

Navy’s submarine hunts are too disturbing for marine life, California court rules

July 20, 2016 — They came as a wave, some 150 to 200 melon-headed whales churning into Hawaii’s Hanalei Bay like a single mass. It was a strange sight for the Kauai islanders to behold. Melon-headed whales live in the deep ocean, feasting on squid. But here they were, swimming in the shallows no more than 100 feet from shore.

Over the course of July 3 and 4, 2004, volunteers and rescuers shepherded the animals back to sea, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s account of the mass stranding. The Washington Post reported at the time that it was the largest event of its kind in 150 years of Hawaiian history. Almost all the whales made it back out into the open water. But not the entire pod.

A young calf, split off from the rest of the herd, perished the next day.

A year later, 34 whales died when they were stranded at North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Three years after that and half the world away, 100 melon-headed whales were again stranded en masse, this time on the shores of Madagascar. The reasons why whales beach themselves are not always clear — strandings have been likened to car crashes in that the causes are myriad but the conclusion is never good. With the melon-headed whales, however, something was different. The events were unusual enough, and involved such large numbers, to prompt scrutiny. In both cases, a prime suspect emerged: sonar.

Controversy over these sound waves continues today. And in the latest skirmish over oceanic noise pollution, a victory went to the whales. On Friday, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that the Navy violated marine mammal protection laws, reversing a lower court’s decision that allowed military vessels to use a type of loud, low-frequency sonar approved in 2012.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Maine Coast Co. delivers lobsters around the world

May 31, 2016 — YORK, Maine – Every day is a “crazy juggling game” for Tom Adams, owner of the wildly successful lobster wholesaler Maine Coast Company. His product is live and perishable. His customers are in Seoul, South Korea, Madrid, Spain, or San Francisco. He has to worry about Homeland Security regulations, endless paperwork for China exports, planes that don’t take off on time.

“There’s a lot of risk when your product is controlled by Mother Nature,” said Adams. “We have to get it where it’s going in 48 to 60 hours. Any delay means it doesn’t get there alive. My strong point, I think, is that I have the gut instinct to most of the time play the market correctly. It’s no different than oil futures or some other commodity. It’s just that I’m dealing in lobsters.”

Located in a nondescript warehouse on Hannaford Drive in York, Maine Coast Company has had the kind of meteoric success other businesses would envy. Founded by Adams in 2011 with a $1.5 million loan, sales in 2015 were $43 million – a growth rate of 20 to 30 percent a year.

The company has expanded its space to accommodate tanks that can hold 155,000 pounds of lobster. At the end of June, it will open a $500,000, 5,000-square-foot facility on the Boston Fish Pier that will hold another 25,000 pounds — all the quicker for getting those lobsters on airplanes.

This growth is to accommodate an exploding global demand for Maine’s premier crustacean. According to the U.S. Census foreign trade division, lobster is the No. 1 commodity exported from Maine, and its growth has increased substantially from $231 million in 2012 to $331 million in 2015.

Read the full story at Seacoast Online

Pacific Fishery Management Council Warns That Feinstein ‘Drought Relief’ Bill Would Harm Salmon Runs

May 18, 2016 — SAN FRANCISCO — A new Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) letter warns that a federal drought relief bill contains many provisions harmful to salmon. The Council sent the letter to Reps. Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson in response to their request for the Council’s analysis of the bill’s effects on salmon.

Among the key findings of the Council; the bill calls for taking water badly needed by salmon, and it will harm salmon runs and fishing jobs. Specifically, the PFMC letter states:

— The bill would “cause irreparable harm to California salmon and the commercial, recreational, and tribal fishing communities that depend on them.”

— “Maximizing supply” means reducing the water available to salmon.”

Read the full story at WONews