Saving Seafood

CALIFORNIA: Some SF fishers suffer amid efforts to save whales, salmon

September 3, 2025 — It’s been a tough and divisive time of late for commercial fishers on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, where their ability to make a living using some traditional methods is under pressure from wildlife regulators and controversy simmers over emerging technology aimed at preventing whale entanglements in lines attached to pots set to trap Dungeness crabs.

John Mellor, for one, projected a sense of gloom in the summer sun recently as he stood near his boat, the High Hopes, docked with other craft at a nearly silent Pier 45.

“It’s hard to be at this point in my life and then see my livelihood kind of go down the drain,” said the 62-year-old Emeryville resident, who said he specializes in Dungeness crab and has been ocean fishing professionally since his teens. “I’ve been making pretty much 100% of my income from fishing my whole life.”

Read the full article at the San Francisco Examiner 

CALIFORNIA: A San Francisco fishing company that supplies some of the city’s most upscale restaurants pivoted to direct-to-consumer, delivering fish to people’s homes to stay afloat

April 22, 2020 — Andi Conte has always kickstarted her workday between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m.

She told Business Insider that the first items on her to-do list when she arrives at her company Water2Table’s facilities in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf include unpacking fish orders and quality checks. Typically, her workdays were already long, about 10 hours.

But now they’re extending well into the evening as her and husband’s only customers, dine-in restaurants in the Bay Area, have been directed by public health officials in the region to close during a shelter-in-place order enforced during a viral outbreak.

Since their sole clientele isn’t operating, they’ve started selling seafood to new customers: home chefs and residents of the San Francisco Bay Area. And it’s working — they’ve been able to hire everyone back that was laid off as a result of the city shut down and the subsequent economic fallout. Business is sustainable at the moment, but it’s also unpredictable as the coronavirus pandemic lengthens on.

Read the full story at Business Insider

Ships coming to Bay Area slowing down to avoid hitting, killing whales

May 17, 2019 — A campaign to slow ships steaming toward San Francisco and other California ports so they are less likely to injure or kill whales is beginning to pay off, with 22 local and international shipping companies agreeing to reduce speeds voluntarily, federal officials said Thursday.

The effort is all the more important this year, given the carnage caused by large vessels, which often have to travel through national marine sanctuaries to get to their destination ports.

Four of the 10 gray whales found dead near San Francisco this year were killed by ships, and nearly 140 whales have died after being struck since 1988, said representatives of the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The 22 shipping firms, which represent 45% of the 8,000 inbound vessel trips through the Golden Gate every year, were honored by the two organizations Thursday for cutting their speed in 2018 to 10 knots (11.5 mph) or less in areas populated by whales. Those include the Farallones, Channel Islands, Monterey Bay and Cordell Bank marine sanctuaries.

Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle

CALIFORNIA: Squaring off over selling directly from boats at Fisherman’s Wharf

June 5, 2017 — Should local seafood be permitted to be sold straight from the boat in San Francisco?

That’s what some local fishermen are arguing, though their efforts are meeting resistance from some of the city’s oldest seafood families, who say the new proposal would hurt their established businesses and present a public health risk.

The would-be seafood mongers say that selling their wares from their boats would put the “fisherman” back into Fisherman’s Wharf, and could provide locals and tourists with a new shopping option.

“People in San Francisco do want whole fish,” said San Francisco fisher Sarah Bates. “This is a new market that the fishermen are uniquely situated to serve — especially when the fishing is slow or the weather is bad, and you have product and you have a couple days at the boat. This is value added directly to the fisherman.”

Fishing-boat operators and seafood wholesalers presented their points of view at a public meeting held by the Port of San Francisco on Friday. The 90-minute meeting got contentious at times, with some of the city’s seafood processors arguing that the proposal would put their businesses at a disadvantage. On the other side, individual fishers said that there’s no comparison between the wholesale seafood business and independent fishing entrepreneurs making a few hundred dollars when they have extra fish to sell.

Though most of the state’s harbors allow direct retail sales from the boat, it hasn’t been permitted in San Francisco since a brief trial period in 2000. The proposal the Port is considering — and will decide on this summer — is to allow fishers who have berth assignments at certain parts of the wharf to sell whole halibut, salmon, tuna, rockfish and bycatch from their boats. No Dungeness crab would be allowed.

Read the full story at the San Fransisco Chronicle