Saving Seafood

Cheap imports depress US swordfish market

December 30, 2021 — Low production, the ongoing COVID-19 health and economic crisis, and a flood of product from Canada are depressing the U.S. commercial swordfish market in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic, according to some industry members.

“Production levels are the lowest they’ve been since the beginning of time,” Fort Pierce, Florida, U.S.A.-based Day Boat Seafood Owner Scott Taylor said. “There have been no positive developments whatsoever. I have more boats sitting at the dock than I have fishing.”

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Gulf of Mexico Swordfish: Lingering covid effects, cheap imports depress market

December 22, 2021 — Low production, the ongoing covid-19 health and economic crisis, and a flood of product from Canada are depressing the U.S. commercial swordfish market in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic, according to some industry members.

“Production levels are the lowest they’ve been since the beginning of time,” lamented Scott Taylor, operator of Day Boat Seafood in Fort Pierce, Fla. “There have been no positive developments whatsoever. I have more boats sitting at the dock than I have fishing.”

Taylor cited a litany of hits to the fishery: Covid’s impacts on the restaurant industry which drives U.S. demand for swords; new U.S. government regulations, including gear restrictions and the possible closure by the Biden administration of New England’s fish-rich Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument; a deluge of cheaper product from Canada dumped in U.S. markets recently; rising fuel prices; and a lack of new blood entering the U.S. commercial fishing industry.

Taylor said the average boat price is about $4, which he calls “unsustainable.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Would you quit your job for $110,000? This California swordfish catcher said no

October 18, 2021 — As the morning fog peeled off the docks of Santa Barbara Harbor recently, fisherman Gary Burke eyed all that’s left of a fleet that once helped satisfy America’s insatiable appetite for swordfish: four old vessels with splotches of rust showing through peeling paint.

Decades ago, there were more than 100 such ships in Santa Barbara alone, towing mile-long drift gill nets in choppy seas far beyond the breakwater. Today, there are perhaps a dozen in the entire United States, and they will probably soon be removed from service.

Hammered by government regulations, foreign competition, soaring fuel and labor costs, fluctuating market prices, a state buy-back program to take nets out of the water, and conflicts with preservationists over incidental entanglements of whales, porpoises, seals, turtles and birds, Burke’s livelihood has gone the way of Southern California fur trappers and dairy farms.

As if all that weren’t enough, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have issued an advisory warning that swordfish are not safe to eat because they contain high levels of mercury.

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Monument fishing ban will hurt New Bedford businesses

October 13, 2021 — Just over 30 days ago, the fishing vessel Eagle Eye left federal waters more than 130 miles southeast of Massachusetts to make the 15- to 20-hour trip home to New Bedford Harbor. Its sister vessel, Eagle Eye 2, returned even more recently, with each carrying thousands of pounds of fresh tuna and a bit of swordfish.

John Cafiero, captain of one of the Fairhaven-based vessels, said he and his crew sometimes take multiple trips in the summer to fish in waters that in 2016 were established as a national marine monument. Tuna and swordfish are highly migratory species so sometimes “you don’t want to be in there,” he said, but for the past few years, it has been “really good.”

Cafiero said he didn’t know it then, but that trip might have been his last in the area.

On Oct. 8, President Joe Biden issued a presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act of 1906 prohibiting commercial fishing in an area of water the size of Connecticut.

The administration cited conservation efforts needed to preserve the “vulnerable” deep marine ecosystems and endangered marine species that inhabit or migrate through the waters. The proclamation restores the commercial fishing restrictions first established by former President Barack Obama in 2016, when he declared two areas of water from surface to seabed as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

Environmental groups lauded the decision. But local fishermen, business owners and industry advocates said the closure deals yet another blow to a highly regulated industry and is unfair as recreational fishing in the monument may continue.

“These boats are more like your uncle’s pizza shop or your dad’s gas station,” said Mike Machado, lead buyer at Boston Sword & Tuna and a former New Bedford fisherman. “They’re small individual companies. They’re not like this big, evil fishing juggernaut.”

Read the full story at The New Bedford Light

 

Some sharks are more likely to die after ‘catch and release,’ study finds. Here’s why

September 24, 2021 — Longlining, a commercial fishing technique that drags a main line with baited hooks through the water, is convenient when catching massive amounts of swordfish and tuna, but it also traps what experts call “bycatch” — unintended victims that may face dark fates after release back into the ocean.

Sharks are often attracted to and caught on these baited longlines; it’s one of the many culprits behind declining shark populations. Certain rules called “no-take regulations” require fishermen to release some species when accidentally hooked, but a new study of over 300 sharks found that some are much more likely to die after “catch and release” than others. The study was published Sept. 15 in the journal PLOS One.

“The assumption behind no-take regulations is that the shark will swim away and live out its normal life after it’s released, but we know that for some sharks, that’s not true,” study lead author Dr. Nick Whitney, senior scientist at the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life in Massachusetts, said in a news release.

After five years of longline fishing that targeted five of the seven most commonly caught species in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Keys, the researchers learned as many as 42% to 71% of blacktip and spinner sharks will die after being caught and released alive. Others, such as sandbar and tiger sharks, were more resilient; only 3% or fewer died after release. Bull sharks were also one of the more hardy species. The animals were caught near Madeira Beach, Key West and Naples, Florida.

The team learned 90% of the post-release deaths occurred within five hours of returning to the water, and 59% occurred within just two hours. Blood samples and tracking data revealed the stress of the capture process, or injuries acquired during it, leads to the unnecessary and disproportionate demise of some sharks.

Read the full story at the Miami Herald

Analysis of New West Coast Swordfish Fishery Weighs Benefits of Increased Domestic Catch

August 25, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is proposing to approve a new means of catching West Coast swordfish that could increase the domestic supply of the species often featured in upscale restaurants.

The fishery is based on their unique behavior. Swordfish are one of the few fish that spends long periods at great depths in the ocean. Increased swordfish landings would also help offset imports that now make up about 84 percent of the swordfish supply on the West Coast. They are often imported from countries with less protection for sea turtles and marine mammals.

NOAA Fisheries is evaluating the proposal to authorize fishing for swordfish in federal waters using deep-set buoy gear. This gear lowers baited hooks hundreds of feet beneath the surface, where they catch swordfish and little else. The selective gear poses little risk to protected species such as whales and sea turtles, which are not usually found at such depths.

The West Coast swordfish fishery has long relied on drift gillnets that, in their earlier years, entangled protected species. The drift gillnet fleet has since dramatically reduced its impact on marine mammals and turtles to meet strict U.S. environmental standards. However, restrictions on where and when they can fish has reduced the drift gillnet fishery from more than 100 vessels to fewer than 20 participating vessels.

Read the full release here

Analysis of New West Coast Swordfish Fishery Weighs Benefits of Increased Domestic Catch

August 23, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is proposing to approve a new means of catching West Coast swordfish that could increase the domestic supply of the species often featured in upscale restaurants.

The fishery is based on their unique behavior. Swordfish are one of the few fish that spends long periods at great depths in the ocean. Increased swordfish landings would also help offset imports that now make up about 84 percent of the swordfish supply on the West Coast. They are often imported from countries with less protection for sea turtles and marine mammals.

NOAA Fisheries is evaluating the proposal to authorize fishing for swordfish in federal waters using deep-set buoy gear. This gear lowers baited hooks hundreds of feet beneath the surface, where they catch swordfish and little else. The selective gear poses little risk to protected species such as whales and sea turtles, which are not usually found at such depths.

The West Coast swordfish fishery has long relied on drift gillnets that, in their earlier years, entangled protected species. The drift gillnet fleet has since dramatically reduced its impact on marine mammals and turtles to meet strict U.S. environmental standards. However, restrictions on where and when they can fish has reduced the drift gillnet fishery from more than 100 vessels to fewer than 20 participating vessels.

Read the full release here

Gov. Newsom’s California Comeback Plan Includes Significant Increases for Fish and Wildlife

May 18, 2021 — Proposed budget increases for California will help shark and swordfish gillnet fishermen transition out of the fishery.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday introduced his California Comeback Plan, which includes significant fiscal resources aimed to protect California’s diverse fish, wildlife and plant resources and the habitats on which they depend, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a press release. The proposed budget increases show the Newsom administration’s investment in California’s biodiversity both for its intrinsic, ecological value as well as for future generations of hunters, hikers, fishermen, birders and outdoor enthusiasts.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Pacific swordfish: After big 2020 drop, fleet looks to restaurants and Asian markets

May 4, 2021 — Restaurant openings and Asian market conditions will determine the health of the West Coast swordfish industry in 2021. Last year, supply chains in the early season were disrupted with the onset of covid-19, but as the calendar turned toward July, some markets reopened.

Though the drift gillnet fishery off California operates in the nearshore waters with time and area closures, the commercial fishing season for deep-set buoy gear doesn’t have hard start and stop dates. 

“As for the new deep-set fishery, there are currently no seasonal restrictions,” says Chugey Sepulveda, a laboratory director at the Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research, in Oceanside, Calif. “Because swordfish are highly migratory, and the bulk of fish reside off the West Coast from about July-January, this is when we see most of the fishing activity.”

According to data from PacFIN, the swordfish fleet wound up at 320 metric tons for the year, down substantially from the 432 metric tons landed in 2019. As of April 2021, landings stood at 72 metric tons, and ex-vessel offerings averaged $3.06 per pound.

Read the full story at National Fisherman