Saving Seafood

Fishing industry at odds with environmentalists over changes to U.S. fishing laws

July 30, 2018 — Fishermen and environmentalists are at odds over a suite of changes to U.S. fishing laws that was approved by the House of Representatives, and the proposal faces a new hurdle in the Senate.

The House passed changes to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, a 42-year-old set of rules designed to protect fisheries from over-harvest, on July 11, largely along party lines. Environmental groups have derided the changes as antithetical to the purpose of the act, which many fishermen and conservationists credit with saving seafood stocks such as New England sea scallops and Bering Sea snow crab.

Supporters of the House bill and several commercial and recreational fishing groups have said the changes merely provide managers with flexibility and refocus the Magnuson-Stevens Act on sound science.

The big question is whether a bill will also pass the Senate before the midterm election. No bill has been proposed yet, and the election could bring changes that make it more difficult for such a bill to pass.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Los Angeles Times

 

Alaska crabbers gearing up for fall Bering Sea fisheries

July 20, 2018 — Boats are already signing up to participate in fall Bering Sea crab fisheries that begin October 1. Meanwhile, many crabbers are still awaiting word on what their pay outs are for last season.

Prior to the crab fisheries changing from “come one, come all” to a catch share form of management in 2005 prices were set before boats headed out, said Jake Jacobsen, director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange which negotiates prices for most of the fleet.

“Since then the price is based on the historical division of revenues and there is a formula that is applied to sales. It takes a long time for sales to be completed to the point where we know or can predict what the final wholesale prices will be, and then we can apply the formula to it,” he explained.

Prices to fishermen were down a bit from last year but historically very high, Jacobsen said. For snow crab and bairdi Tanners, which typically are hauled up after the start of each year, prices were just settled and won’t be made public for another week.

“Most of the snow crab and bairdi prices were over $4 a pound, so that’s very good,” he hinted.

According to processor data, last season’s average snow crab price was $4.07 a pound; Tanner crab averaged $3.33. For golden king crab, fishermen averaged $5.51 per pound.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Bering Sea Crab Fisheries Receive Certifications Recognizing Their Sustainability

February 7, 2018 — Five Alaska crab fisheries, including two Bering Sea ones, have met the Alaska Responsible Fisheries Management (RFM) Standard.

According to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI), the Eastern Bering Sea tanner crab is newly certified under the Alaska RFM for this year. Aleutian Islands’ golden king crab also received a new certification.

In terms of re-certified crab fisheries, Bristol Bay red king crab, St. Matthew Island blue king crab, and the Eastern Bering Sea snow crab all completed the assessment process successfully.

ASMI’s RFM model is based on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations code and guidelines for credible certification, which assures buyers that the crab is sourced from responsibly managed, sustainable fisheries.

Read the full story at KNOM

 

Snow crab prices not melting any time soon

February 6, 2018 — The snow will eventually melt in the US state of Alaska and the Maritime provinces of Canada, but you better get used to the high prices of snow crab because they are sticking around for a while.

A global shortage of the species is expected to continue for a third straight year in 2018, thanks to a combination of reduced catches across North America and continuous demand in Asia, a panel of speakers suggested at a conference in Miami, Florida, last month.

There will be about 104,000 metric tons of snow crab available, down 10% from the more than 114,000t landed worldwide in 2017 and 76% below the 150,000t landed in 2015, based on data shared during a shellfish panel at the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference (GSMC).

The result: Five-to-eight ounce packages of legs and shoulders are selling for $8 per pound wholesale in the US.

It’s leading seafood dealers in the US to more often offer their clients less expensive substitutes.

Brian Cooper, a partner at Sea Trek Enterprises, an East Greenwich, Rhode Island-based importer of crab and scallops, told Undercurrent News that his company normally sells anywhere from 200 to 300 loads (1,000 cases each) of snow crab each year. But he’s skeptical about matching that number in 2018 and is increasingly promoting rock crab, a species most often found in Washington State’s Puget Sound. It’s popular in Asian markets.

“You can’t charge $20 for a buffet at a Chinese restaurant and put an $8 snow crab in there,” he said. “That’s not going to work.”

Lobster, shrimp, or even chicken and beef could also be used as replacements on menus, said one large seafood restaurant executive at the GSMC event.

“It’s easier to take things off a menu than to put them back on,” he added.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Endangered right whales seeing catastrophic die-off in New England, Canadian waters

The deaths of dozens of whales may be the result of a migration to less-protected areas because of lack of food in the Gulf of Maine.

August 15, 2017 — The North Atlantic right whale, the world’s second most endangered marine mammal, is having a catastrophic year in the waters off New England and Atlantic Canada, and scientists from Maine to Newfoundland are scrambling to figure out why.

At least a dozen right whales have been found dead this summer in the worst die-off researchers have recorded, a disastrous development for a species with a worldwide population of about 500.

“Just imagine you put 500 dollars in the bank, and every time you put five in, the bank takes 15 out,” says Moira Brown, a right whale researcher with the New England Aquarium who is based in Campobello Island, New Brunswick. “This is a species that has not been doing well, even before we had all the dead whales this summer.”

Canadian authorities have documented 12 dead whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence since June 7, though it’s possible that two carcasses that weren’t recovered after their initial sighting were counted twice. Two more of the rare, slow-moving whales were found dead off Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, bringing this summer’s mortality to between 12 and 14 whales, more than 3 percent of their total population.

Humans appear to have been the immediate cause of at least some of the deaths. Necropsy results have been issued for just four of the whales found off Canada, showing one had become entangled in snow crab fishing gear and three were apparently struck by ships.

The whales deaths have prompted Canadian officials to impose emergency restrictionson shipping and snow crab fishermen in parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence – the vast body of water bounded by New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador and eastern Quebec – and an urgent effort by researchers to figure out what happened.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

As crab prices soar across Alaska, McDonald’s tests new snow crab sandwich

March 6, 2017 — Crabbers are hauling back pots from the Alaska Panhandle to the Bering Sea, and reduced catches are resulting in record prices.

The year’s first red king crab fishery at Norton Sound has yielded 17,000 pounds so far of its nearly 40,000 pound winter quota for more than 50 local fishermen. The crab, taken through the ice near Nome, are paying a record $7.75 a pound. A summer opener will produce a combined catch of nearly half a million pounds for the region.

Red king crab from Bristol Bay also yielded the highest price ever for fishermen, averaging $10.89 per pound. That catch quota of 8 million pounds is down 15 percent from last season.

The Bering Sea snow crab fleet has taken 80 percent of its 19 million pound quota, about half of last year’s. That’s pushed market prices through the roof, topping $8.30 a pound at wholesale in both the U.S. and Japan, up 50 percent from last year.

Alaska produces only about 10 percent of the world’s snow crab, with most of the supply coming from eastern Canada, followed by Russia.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

ALASKA: Crabbers holding out hope for high prices after cuts

October 19, 2016 — Despite a grim beginning to the season, members of the crab industry are holding out hope for high prices and a late fishery.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries hasn’t yet decided whether to review harvest guidelines for Eastern Bering Sea Tanner crab and potentially open the season in January or earlier, or leave the fishery closed entirely for the next two years. Meanwhile, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game cut the quota for snow crab by 50 percent and for Bristol Bay red king crab by 15 percent.

Despite the cuts, crab industry stakeholders say the season for Bristol Bay red king crab is moving along at more than a healthy clip.

“Some good news from the grounds, the crab look good. They’re heavy. There’s a lot of small crab, females. Folks are seeing pots just plugged with crab — so full they can’t get another one in,” said Jake Jacobsen, director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange, a crab harvesting cooperative with 188 members that together harvest 70 percent of Alaska’s crab.

Jacobsen said that given the density of the fishing, he wonders why the surveys that measure abundance didn’t pick anything up.“The reports I’ve got, maybe the people who aren’t doing so well don’t say anything,” he said. “There’s a lot of very optimistic reports from the grounds. I’m not sure what happened with the survey last summer.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: It’s time to talk crab season projections

September 30, 2016 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will meet in Anchorage from Oct. 5-11 to overview crab season projections, hear further discussions of halibut management, and decide what to do about a recent federal appeals court decision that will require more attention to salmon management.

The council will approve catch limits for the 2016-17 crab fisheries and review the stock assessment for the last year.

Stocks for both snow crab and Bairdi Tanner crab were down according to surveys in 2016, and stakeholders are holding their breath to see if the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will need to close fisheries if abundance doesn’t meet the department thresholds.

The crab fishing management plan, or FMP, requires federal scientists to set an overfishing limit, or OFL, and an acceptable biological catch, or ABC.

Based on these numbers, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will determine a total allowable catch, or TAC, under its joint management with the council.

Read the full story at Juneau Empire

Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Announce Updated Seafood Watch Recommendations for King and Snow Crab in Alaska

March 2, 2016 — The following was released by the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers:

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch® program has just released new and updated assessments on King and Snow crab from Alaska. Bristol Bay Red King (Paralithoides camtschaticus) crab from the Eastern Bering Sea has been elevated to a “Best Choice” by Seafood Watch. With this updated recommendation, all of the major crab fisheries in the Eastern Bering Sea, including two species of Snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio and C. bairdi) and Blue King crab from St. Matthews Island (P. platypus) meet Seafood Watch’s “Best Choice” standard.

The updated Seafood Watch recommendations maintain the “Avoid” status for all crab fisheries in the Russian portion of the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Northern Sea of Japan. These “Avoid” listings reflect the fact that stocks are at critically low levels as a result of rampant illegal fishing and highly ineffective management.

“With these updated recommendations the Seafood Watch program is just confirming what we have known for years. King and Snow crab from Alaska is clearly the ‘Best Choice’ if you care about the health of the oceans and wish to support sustainable fisheries. We hope that consumers, retailers, and those in the food service industry will use these recommendations to make informed purchasing decisions and demand King and Snow crab from Alaska,” said Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Science & Policy Analyst Ruth Christiansen.

View a PDF of the release