Saving Seafood

Commercial fishermen concerned recreational fishing is leading to overfishing

May 13, 2022 — Cobia, Lane Snapper, Greater Amberjack, Gag Grouper, and Gulf of Mexico Jacks Complex — these are all fish you can catch out in the Gulf of Mexico. Many of you have probably eaten, any, or all these fish, but they’re also being overfished, or close to it, according to NOAA, and its annual report on American fisheries.

This report has some commercial fisherman concerned about their own livelihood, and what they say is the lack of oversight for recreational fishing.

“There are plenty of fish out here to be caught,” said Captain Matt Sexton for the Small Shellfishing vessel. “Everyone should have equal chance to catch fish out here, but there are a lot of rules and regulations that are going on that are not fair to the commercial fishermen.”

Those same concerns were repeated by boat captains readying their boats for their next trip.

Read the full story at Fox 4

 

US resumes bilateral mollusk trade with EU after 10-year ban

February 4, 2022 — The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced on 4 February that the U.S. and European Union will resume bilateral trade of live, raw, and processed bivalve molluscan shellfish.

The negotiated agreement marks the first time bilateral trade of mollusks between the E.U. and U.S. will be allowed since 2011. The new agreement will allow producers in the U.S. states of Massachusetts and Washington to send mollusks to the E.U., and will allow producers in Spain and the Netherlands to send products to the U.S.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Board of Fish will consider moving Southeast meeting back to Ketchikan

January 26, 2022 — Alaska’s Board of Fisheries is considering moving its Southeast meeting back to Ketchikan, and it’s asking the public to weigh in.

The board — which sets the state’s subsistence, commercial and sport fishing rules — plans to discuss more than 150 proposed changes to Southeast Alaska finfish and shellfish regulations at the meeting, which was originally slated to be held in Ketchikan this month but was postponed due to a rise in COVID-19 cases in the region.

Read the full story at KTOO

 

Science group funds $126,000 for Atlantic fisheries studies

January 5, 2022 — Atlantic thread herring, squid, surf clams and ocean quahogs are the focus for $126,000 in funding approved by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries’ industry advisory board for 2022 research projects.

SCEMFIS is part of the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers program. By connecting and marine scientists with members of the fishing industry, the center identifies scientific priorities for better understanding commercially important fish species, and directs industry funding to projects that study them.

“Since its founding, SCEMFIS has promoted research that has increased our understanding of these species, and improved their management,” according to the center’s announcement of its 2022 plan.

Topping the list with $69,336 in funding is a study using biostatistical and fishery-dependent sampling of Atlantic thread herring and Atlantic chub mackerel in the mid-Atlantic region, where a fishery for thread herring is developing in the Mid-Atlantic region as a result of climate change and the subsequent shifting of fish stocks.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Washington shellfish aquaculture permitting challenged again

December 22, 2021 — For the second time in four years, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) has taken the federal government to court to keep the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from approving projects in Washington state that expand shellfish aquaculture without considering their environmental impact.

The lawsuit, filed Monday, 19 December in U.S. District Court in Seattle, Washington, by CFS claims the Corps’ policies violate the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other federal laws. It comes after the Corps finalized a new permit in January 2021, during the final days of the Trump administration.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Seafood retailing “remains in flux” as supply-chain woes hamper sales

November 16, 2021 — Sales of frozen, fresh, and shelf-stable seafood in the United States returned to 2020 levels in October, but growth has been hampered by supply-chain issues, according to new data and insight provided to SeafoodSource.

“Twenty months into the pandemic, seafood retailing remains in flux,” 210 Analytics Principal Anne-Marie Roerink told SeafoodSource. “Continually changing consumer consumption and buying patterns, high inflation, and severe supply-chain constraints have yet to create a new and lasting balance of supply and demand.”Sales of frozen, fresh, and shelf-stable seafood in the United States returned to 2020 levels in October, but growth has been hampered by supply-chain issues, according to new data and insight provided to SeafoodSource.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

‘We went to zero’: Connecticut shellfishermen seeking pandemic rebound

September 1, 2021 — Bobbing up and down in 194 feet of water in Long Island Sound on Tuesday, lobsterman Mike Kalaman made a point to boast about his favorite fishing grounds to the delegation of state lawmakers aboard his boat, The Dark Horse.

Pointing to the waters just beyond one of his blue-and-yellow buoys, Kalaman showed Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff where the border between Connecticut and New York crossed the Sound, adding that the water on the other side of the imaginary line was generally more shallow and less attractive for lobsters.

“Connecticut is blessed to have all this deep water,” Kalaman said, gesturing across the area he has spent four decades fishing.

Duff joined three other state senators Tuesday morning for a tour aboard Kalaman’s 36-foot lobster boat and the oyster fleet operated by Copps Island Oysters in Norwalk to learn about Connecticut’s shellfish industry amid ongoing environmental threats and more recent disruption caused by the pandemic.

Norm Bloom, the owner of Copps Island Oysters, said the health of the industry has been boosted by long-term efforts to curb pollution and improve water quality in Long Island Sound.

Read the full story at CT Insider

The Americas’ First Ecosystem Managers

August 19, 2021 — The maritime fur trade, beginning in the 1700s and centered on the North Pacific Ocean, killed around one million sea otters and left the species fluttering on the verge of extinction with a global population as low as 1,000. On the west coast of Canada, the animal didn’t make it. The last sea otter was seen in the region in 1929, off Vancouver Island, British Columbia. But beginning in the 1960s, restoration efforts have turned back the clock on British Columbia’s sea otters. From an initial 89 sea otters relocated from Alaska, a population of 8,000 is now expanding in the province. Yet after generations of their absence, the surge in sea otters is stoking the resentment of some residents.

The trouble is, a sea otter consumes 25 to 30 percent of its own body weight every day. The otters’ voracious appetite can have dramatic ecological effects. It doesn’t help, either, that sea otters eat many of the same seafoods that humans in the area have long favored, such as crabs and clams, sparking conflict with shellfish fisheries and leading some to argue that the reintroduction effort has worked too well.

Now, a new study suggests that conservation efforts may have indeed overshot the mark—and the reason why is particularly interesting.

When thinking about restoring natural ecosystems, the goal for many would likely be to see a species rebound to its carrying capacity—that is, the maximum population a given habitat can support, free from human impact. So, for the sea otter, that would be to roll back the effects of colonization, the commercial fur trade, hunting, land development, and other pressures to a time when abundant sea otters may have dwelled on the coast, gorging on abalone and other shellfish. But taking that as your goal is to overlook the way Indigenous peoples extensively managed the sea otter population for thousands of years.

Led by Erin Slade, a graduate student at British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University, new research examining the sizes of mussels found along the coast challenges the assumption that late-Holocene sea otter populations would have ever been at, or even near, their carrying capacity.

Read the full story at Hakai Magazine

Here’s why seafood prices are soaring this summer

August 6, 2021 — After experiencing broad declines last year amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the fishing and seafood sectors are still floundering due to the effects of supply chain issues, worker shortages and renewed consumer demand.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries wrote at the beginning of the year that coronavirus contributed to an “almost immediate” impact on seafood sector sales including lost sales at most aquaculture, aquaponics, and allied businesses and charter fishing operations.

Now, chefs and restaurant owners are speaking out on why pandemic woes have led to higher prices for their customers.

According to SeafoodSource, premium items are being taken off menus across the country because the delicacies are too hard or expensive to source.

Read the full story at Fox News

Seafood Prices Soar Amid Supply Chain Issues and Worker Shortage

August 5, 2021 — A post-Covid-19 economic inflationary surge has seafood places rewriting their menus—sans lobsters, scallops, crab and many fish dishes.

Prices have risen by as much as 50 percent in the last quarter due to a lack of fishers and truck drivers combined with climbing consumer demand, reports Christine Blank of SeafoodSource.com.

“The price we had to charge to be profitable was almost insulting,” Josue Pena, chef at The Iberian Pig in Atlanta, tells SeafoodSource.com. He was forced to remove the restaurant’s signature crab coquettes after crab prices nearly doubled.

Overall, the wholesale price of finfish and shellfish rose 18.8 percent from June 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reports Will Feuer of the New York Post. Halibut soared from $16 a pound to $28, while blue crab skyrocketed from $18 to $44—an increase of more than 140 percent.

Per Bloomberg’s Adam Jackson and Kate Krader, the jump in seafood prices is part of broader inflationary increase working its way through the economy as the United States continues to emerge from the pandemic. However, the seafood surge is also related to an employment shortage, port congestion, lack of product, rising prices and transportation issues.

“Distributors used to hustle and bustle to get your business,” Jay Herrington of Fish On Fire in Orlando tells Bloomberg. “You don’t get a delivery, or it’s a late delivery. Sometimes we have to go and pick it up.”

Read the full story at Smithsonian Magazine