Saving Seafood

Large-scale commercial fishing covers more than half of the oceans, study finds

February 23, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Scientists tag sharks to see where they roam in the high seas, but until now they couldn’t track the seas’ biggest eater: Humans. By using ships’ own emergency beacons, researchers got the first comprehensive snapshot of industrial fishing’s impacts around the globe. And it’s huge — bigger than scientists thought, according to a new study.

Large-scale commercial fishing covers more than 55 percent of the oceans with the world’s fishing fleet traveling more than 285 million miles a year — three times the distance between Earth and the sun, according to research in Thursday’s journal Science.

Five countries — China, Spain, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea — were responsible for 85 percent of high seas fishing.

“The most mind-blowing thing is just how global an enterprise this is,” said study co-author Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Canada. “It’s more like factories that are mass producing product for a global market and less like hunters that are stalking individual prey.”

China dominates global fishing. Of the 40 million hours that large ships fished in 2016, 17 million hours were by boats under a Chinese flag, according to another study co-author, Stanford marine biologist Barbara Block.

The fishing patterns were gleaned from 22 billion automated ship safety signals beamed to satellites. Before this, scientists had to rely on a sampling of ships’ logs and observations, which were spotty.

Ships are obeying no-fishing zones and times, although they hover at the edges of marine-protected areas. Fishing tends to drop on holidays including Christmas, New Year’s and the Lunar New Year, researchers found.

“The maps of global fishing in this report are sobering,” Douglas McCauley, a University of California, Santa Barbara marine biologist who wasn’t part of the study, said in an email.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CBS News

 

China is Fishing Ever Farther From Home, Adding to Stress on Fish Stocks

January 1, 2018 — China’s fishing fleet, which reaches as far as Latin America, West Africa, and even Antarctica, is adding to a worldwide strain on fish stocks.

So it’s no surprise that Chinese fishermen have been involved in clashes with foreign fishermen and coast guards at great distances from their homeland.

In perhaps the most dramatic clash, which occurred in March 2016, Argentina’s coast guard sank a Chinese trawler that was fishing within its territorial waters more than 11,000 miles from its home base on the China coast. The trawler had tried to ram the Argentine vessel.

Argentine Navy submarines have been assigned to “chase down illegal fishing vessels in the frigid waters off southern Argentina,” according to a Wall Street Journal report from that country published early this month.

Reuters news agency, meanwhile, reported at the end of August that Ecuador had jailed 20 Chinese fishermen for up to four years for illegally fishing off the Galapagos Islands, where they were caught with some 6,600 sharks.

Their vessel contained some 300 tons of near-extinct or endangered species, including hammerhead sharks.

Incidents have also occurred near South Korea and in disputed areas in the South China Sea, where Chinese Coast Guard ships have clashed with Vietnamese fishermen.

Pressures in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea leading to incidents like this are driving China to fish elsewhere in the world.

Chinese fishermen target West Africa

In April 2017, The New York Times reported from Senegal that Chinese fishermen were increasingly heading to West Africa.

The fishermen are enabled by corrupt local governments and their weak enforcement of fishing limits.

Citing experts, The Times states that West Africa now provides “the vast majority” of fish caught by China’s distant-water fishing fleet.

Fishing off the coast of Senegal, “most of the Chinese ships are so large that they scoop up as many fish in one week as Senegalese boats catch in a year,” The Times report said.

Most of the fish are sent abroad, with some of it ending up as fishmeal fodder for chickens and pigs in Europe and the United States.

For Senegalese citizens, many of whom depend on fish as a source of protein, diminishing fish catches mean higher food prices.

In nearby Sierra Leone, meanwhile, a similar scenario is playing out.

The Economist Magazine reported on Dec. 7 from Sierra Leone that “nearly half of the population” of 7.4 million people in the small west African nation “does not have enough to eat.”

“But the country’s once plentiful shoals, combined with its weak government, have lured a flotilla of unscrupulous foreign trawlers to its waters.”

Most of the trawlers fly Chinese flags, but dozens also come from South Korea, Italy, Guinea, and Russia.

According to Tabitha Mallory, an expert on these issues, by 2015 more than 160 Chinese fishing enterprises had agreements to operate off the shores of some 40 countries, the high seas, and Antarctica. But other Chinese vessels may be operating in more countries illegally.

But in contrast with West Africa, where Chinese fishermen have done great harm to local economies, Antarctica stands out as a new frontier where the fishermen appear to have begun playing by internationally agreed upon rules.

China has joined a commission for the conservation of marine life in Antarctica and has pledged its support for a marine protected area on the cold continent.

However, poor regulation of China’s distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet elsewhere has added to a strain on global fish stocks, according to experts and nongovernmental organizations monitoring the issue.

Greenpeace, a nongovernmental organization which campaigns to change attitudes toward the environment, has found that from 2014-2016, China’s distant water fishing (DWF) fleet — vessels operating outside Chinese territorial waters — increased by 400 to nearly 2,900.

This followed a similar period of expansion between 2012 and 2014, when the fleet grew by 15 percent each year on average.

By comparison, the United States had just 225 large-size DWF vessels, according to 2015 data.

Read the full commentary at Radio Free Asia

 

Maine Lobster, The Most Valuable Species In US Seas, Hit By Trump’s Trade Stance

November 22, 2017 — Maine lobster has become more valuable than any other single species commercially fished in the United States, but trade policies pursued by President Donald Trump could reduce its annual worth for the first time in nearly a decade.

Of the more than $600 million worth of North Atlantic lobster caught in the U.S. in 2016, nearly 90 percent, or $538 million, was harvested and brought ashore in Maine, according to a report on nationwide fisheries released this month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

No other single commercially fished species, even those harvested in multiple states, exceeded $500 million in landings in 2016 or in 2015, according to the report. Maine lobster first earned the most-valuable distinction in 2015, when $501 million worth of American lobster was harvested in the state, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

The value of Maine’s lobster catch has risen every year since 2009. But it’s on track to drop for 2017, in part because of U.S. trade policies that put Maine’s lobster industry at a disadvantage to Canada in selling abroad.

Trump is pursuing efforts to renegotiate trade deals with Mexico, Canada, and South Korea, the fifth-largest importer of Maine lobster. He also pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation free-trade agreement, and has talked tough on trade with Europe.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

WCPFC committee, IATTC reach agreement to rebuild Pacific bluefin tuna population

September 5, 2017 — Representatives from countries that fish for Pacific bluefin tuna have reached an agreement on a long-term plan to restore the species’ population.

However, while conservationists applauded the pact, they said they now want to see the countries follow up their words with action.

The pact between members of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission’s Northern Committee and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission was announced at the conclusion of the Northern Committee’s 13th Regular Session the morning of Friday, 1 September in Busan, South Korea. Details include:

  • Establishing a target goal of 20 percent of Pacific bluefin tuna’s historic population by 2034. Conservation officials said that would represent a seven-fold increase in the biomass over the next 17 years.
  • Maintaining catch quotas for the next seven years, and approving any increases in the limit only if there was a high probability it would not impact the targeted population goal.
  • Developing a plan by 2020 to reduce the amount of illegally caught Pacific bluefin tuna from entering the market.

The Northern Committee will recommend the WCPFC approve the measure at a meeting in December.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Tuna-fishing nations agree on plan to replenish severely depleted Pacific bluefin stocks

September 1, 2017 — TOKYO — The world’s Pacific bluefin tuna won something of a reprieve Friday, when tuna-fishing countries reached an agreement to gradually rebuild severely depleted stocks while still allowing nations such as Japan to catch and consume the delicacy.

Japan — by far the world’s biggest consumer of bluefin, eating about 80 percent of the global haul in the $42 billion tuna industry — had been resisting new rules, while conservationists have warned about the commercial extinction of bluefin in the Pacific Ocean.

Proponents of limits hailed the deal as a compromise that everyone could live with.

“It’s definitely a good first step towards the recovery of the species,” said James Gibbon, global tuna conservation officer at the Pew Charitable Trusts. “But it is only the first step. There are a lot of commitments that the countries agreed to, and we need to make sure they stick to them.”

At the week-long meeting in Busan, South Korea, the two bodies charged with shared management of Pacific bluefin — the northern committee of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission — hammered out a plan to try to put the fish back on a path to sustainability. Countries represented at the meeting included the United States, Canada, China, South Korea and Japan.

The Pacific bluefin population has been depleted by more than 97 percent from its historic high, because of overfishing.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Nonprofits ramp up campaign to increase protections for Pacific bluefin tuna

August 25, 2017 — Ahead of an international conference scheduled next week to discuss rebuilding the Pacific bluefin tuna population, several organizations and influential leaders have urged countries to act quickly to stop what they claim is a steep decline in the species’ numbers.

For years, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch initiative has urged people to avoid the fish because of its low numbers, but the campaign has picked up steam in advance of Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission’s Northern Committee 13th Regular Session in Busan, South Korea, scheduled to begin on Monday, 28 August. Those involved in the week-long talks centered on conservation measures for the Pacific bluefin tuna include the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Japan, with the latter country being the most dominant market for the species.

Among those speaking out included former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who said the current situation not only threatens the ecology but the economy as well.

“Unsustainable fishing isn’t just the enemy of conservation, it’s the enemy of fishermen everywhere,” said Kerry in a statement on the aquarium’s blog. “We know we can do better. That is why we should all be invested in the difficult task of turning things around and getting Pacific bluefin tuna on a path to recovery.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NOAA: Determination that bluefin aren’t ‘endangered’ unlikely to affect quota setting

August 15, 2017 — US regulators’ recent decision to reject a petition from environmental groups to list Pacific bluefin tuna as an endangered species is unlikely to affect quota levels, which are set by international bodies.

“I don’t envision this domestic Endangered Species Act determination directly implicating the international management of this species,” Chris Yates, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s west coast assistant regional administrator for protected resources said, in response to a question from Undercurrent News.

The US government doesn’t directly determine bluefin fishing rules in the Pacific, having ceded that authority by treaty to Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), of which major bluefin catchers Japan, Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan are also members. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) also manages bluefin stocks in those areas of the ocean.

IATTC, which is under strong pressure from environmental groups to conserve declining bluefin stocks, recently failed to agree to new measures at a meeting earlier this month in Mexico City. But members have agreed to revisit the issue at a future meeting in Busan, South Korea.

NOAA assessment

After a recent review of the stock, NOAA scientists struck a mostly positive tone about the stock’s prospects to recover.

Yates, and Matthew Craig, who recently chaired a NOAA review into the health of bluefin stocks, said that there are roughly 1.6 million individual bluefin in the North Pacific Ocean, with 140,000 bluefin being of reproductive age and size.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

South Korea Cracks Down on Illegal Chinese Fishing, with Violent Results

November 7, 2016 — Earlier this week, the Korea Coast Guard (KCG) reported that it opened fire on a Chinese fishing vessel fishing illegally in Korean waters near Incheon. The incident marked the first time the KCG fired its deck-mounted machine guns to compel non-compliant Chinese fishing vessels to stop and occurred after Korean officials vowed more forceful measures against illegal Chinese fishing in Korean waters.

According to the report, the episode took place during a standoff between the KCG and about 30 Chinese fishing boats operating near the Yellow Sea border with North Korea — an area of frequent encounters between Korean authorities and Chinese fishermen. After repeated warnings by the KCG for the Chinese vessels to stop, the Chinese vessels reportedly attempted to ram the KCG vessel, prompting the KCG to fire their machine gun into the air. The warning shots proved ineffective, so additional machine guns bursts were employed near the bow of the Chinese vessel. Two Chinese trawlers were seized in the clash and no one was hurt.

The incident comes on the heels of an earlier encounter near Socheong Island in October in which a small KCG patrol vessel was rammed and sank by a large Chinese fishing vessel as the Chinese vessel resisted arrest. Lee Joo-seong, head of the KCG’s central region, called the action by the Chinese vessel “attempted murder” and vowed stern action against the Chinese fishermen responsible. Reaction was swift from Korean lawmakers as well, with Rep. Woo Sang-ho, the floor leader of the opposition Minjoo Party of Korea, saying: “The violent, illegal activities by Chinese fishing boats are beyond a tolerable level. I would say they are not fishermen but pirates.”

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the KCG “should not have been operating in that part of the sea” because it was a “violation of the their joint fishing agreement.” He was referring to the 2001 Korea-China Fisheries Agreement. One notable feature of the agreement is that it provides for joint patrols of fishing vessels in a Transitional Zone (TZ) on each side of the Provisional Waters Zone (PMZ) in the Yellow Sea — an area of positive collaboration between the two countries.

Read the full story at The Rand Corporation

How a national craze caused lobster prices to boil over

October 26th, 2016 — Your next fresh lobster dinner, drizzled in butter and lemon, might crack your budget.

Restaurants are having to fork over more money this year to get their hands on prized Maine lobsters, and that means your dinner bill could soar to $60 a plate. Blame robust demand.

The coast-to-coast craze of lobster roll food trucks has made lobster more affordable, and abroad the appetite for the crustaceans is growing as well, experts say.

“The demand for this product now is really unprecedented,” said Annie Tselikis, marketing director for Maine Coast Co., a live lobster wholesaler based in York, Maine. She spoke Monday just before boarding a flight for a seafood trade show in South Korea, a major customer of North American lobsters along with China and others.

Live lobster prices on a wholesale basis reached $8.50 for a 1.25-pound hard-shell lobster in August, the highest level in a decade, according to Urner Barry, a leading seafood price tracker and a partner in Seafood News.

You’d have to go back to 2008 for the last time lobsters were even above $5 for this time of year, said John Sackton, editor and publisher of Seafood News. Since that time they’ve fluctuated between $3.90 and $4.85 until this year when they’re up again over $7.

“Lobster demand usually follows the stock market and general economy,” said Bob Bayer, director of the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine. “When the economy is good, lobster demand is good.”

Read the full story at CNBC

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