Saving Seafood

Bumble Bee tuna has filed for bankruptcy

November 27, 2019 — Something fishy is going on.

Bumble Bee Foods, LLC — renowned as for its Bumble Bee canned tuna products — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, years following a Department of Justice investigation which found evidence of a massive price-fixing scheme by the San Diego-based company.

Taiwanese fish supply chain company FCF Co. plans to put in a $925 million bid for the assets in a deal to be completed within 90 days, CNN reported.

“It’s been a challenging time for our company but today’s actions allow us to move forward with minimal disruption to our day-to-day operations,” Bubble Bee president and CEO Jan Tharp said in a statement.

A staple of American kitchen for over a century, the Bumble Bee brand has been in troubled waters over the past few years.

Read the full story at The Daily News

FCF swoops in for Bumble Bee as it files for bankruptcy

November 22, 2019 — Taiwan-based Fong Chun Formosa (FCF) Fishery Company has entered into an asset purchase agreement with Bumble Bee Foods, which filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. state of Delaware.

The 25-page filing, made on 21 November, includes more detail about FCF’s stalking-horse bid for the company, which was first reported by Bloomberg to be around USD 925 million (EUR 836 million).

Read the full story at Seafood Source

FCF Fishery in talks to purchase Bumble Bee: Bloomberg

November 21, 2019 — In the wake of rumors about Bumble Bee Foods potentially filing for bankruptcy, and that that filing could come this week, the company appears to be in talks with Fong Chun Formosa (FCF) Fishery Company regarding a possible buy-out.

The story, reported by Bloomberg, indicates that FCF would be a “stalking-horse bidder” in the bankruptcy reorganization. Stalking-horse bidders set a low-end bidding bar, which any other companies interested in buying Bumble Bee would then have to either match or exceed.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Taiwan’s IUU yellow card rescinded by EU following reforms

June 28, 2019 — The European Commission (EC) has lifted the yellow card issued to Taiwan in October 2015 for not fully cooperating in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities, acknowledging the progress made by the country over the past three and a half years.

“I welcome the considerable efforts undertaken by Taiwan to reform its fisheries legal framework, implement new control tools and improve the traceability of marine fisheries products. The European Union’s dialogue with Taiwan has shown again that international cooperation is a key driver towards healthier ocean management,” said Karmenu Vella, EU commissioner for environment, maritime affairs and fisheries.

Measures taken by Taiwan in cooperation with the E.U. include:

  • A comprehensive review of the distant-water fisheries legal framework, in order to align it with the International Law of the Sea, including though the establishment of a deterrent sanctions scheme
  • Strengthening of the distant-water fleet monitoring and control tools, including a reinforced vessel monitoring system (VMS), the obligation to be equipped with electronic logbook, observer coverage in line with RFMOs requirements and the development of an inspection scheme for both domestic and foreign ports
  • Implementation of the FAO Port States Measures Agreement (PSMA) to foreign-flagged vessels calling in Taiwanese ports
  • An enhanced traceability system covering the whole supply chain
  • Enforcement of the revised legislation and of the new sanctions scheme
  • Significant reinforcement of the financial and human resources dedicated to the fight against IUU fishing

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Study maps where tunas, sharks and fishing ships meet

March 26, 2019 — Overfishing is rapidly pushing many of the world’s sharks and tunas toward extinction. The world’s fastest known shark, the shortfin mako, for example, was recently uplisted to endangered on the IUCN Red List, its decline mostly attributed to overfishing.

But researchers are only beginning to figure out where and when people fish them the most. Now, a new study has some answers.

By analyzing the trails of more than 900 fishing vessels and more than 800 sharks and tunas in the northeast Pacific, researchers have identified regions where the two tend to overlap. This information, researchers say, can be used to manage fisheries, especially in the high seas, the swaths of ocean that lie beyond the jurisdiction of individual countries.

“These fish [sharks and tunas] may travel thousands of miles every year, crossing international boundaries and management jurisdictions,” said Timothy White, lead author of the study and a graduate student in biology at Stanford University, California. “In order to sustainably manage them, we need to know where they migrate and where people fish them, but this info is surprisingly difficult to gather for sharks and tunas of the open ocean.”

Read the full story at Mongabay

Japan’s seafood sector holds breath through advances and setbacks on Fukushima radiation

March 8, 2019 — On 13 February, a robot arm successfully picked up pebble-sized pieces of radioactive fuel at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant. The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), sent a remote-controlled probe to the bottom of the plant’s Number 2 reactor. It grasped five small pieces of debris from the fuel rods and lifted them a couple of inches.

The robot did not actually remove the fuel debris. This was just a test to see if it could be moved. The company plans to actually remove some fuel debris as a sample by March 2020. Robots have already been used to remotely observe the inside of the reactor. The purpose of the latest test was to see whether the fragile material would crumble when picked up. Actually removing the melted fuel is considered the most difficult part of the clean-up operation.

This marks a step forward in the clean-up, but setbacks continue and lingering problems remain. Just as the Japanese government was making a new push to ease import restrictions in Taiwan and Hong Kong, radioactive cesium above the legal limit was detected in a fish caught off Fukushima. And though scientists are gaining a better understanding of how radioactivity forms hotspots, a new release of stored radioactive cooling water appears unavoidable.

More than seven years after the accident, fear of radiation now poses a greater obstacle to the economic recovery of the region’s seafood industry than any actual physical damage. Several countries have put in place bans on Fukushima’s seafood as a preventative measure.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New index ranks China as most vulnerable to IUU

February 11, 2019 — A new index ranking vulnerability to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU) by country has listed China as having the highest IUU potential.

The index, created by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, ranks countries on a number of metrics, with a higher score meaning a higher likelihood that a country’s policies are contributing to IUU fishing. The metrics have four main categories – coastal, flag, port, and general – which include subcategories like the size of the country’s exclusive economic zone, or the number of distant-water vessels under regional fishery management organizations (RFMO).

China was by far the worst-ranked country, with a total “IUU score” of 3.93 out of 5. China ranked the worst possible on a number of categories, including the number of vessels on the IUU list and the number of distant-water vessels that are under multiple RFMOs.

China also scored poorly in terms of its number of fishing ports, and how those ports allow foreign vessels and imports.

According to the initiative that started the index, it’s intended to be a tool to better understand illegal fishing worldwide.

“The IUU Fishing Index has been designed to meet the need for a detailed analysis of fishery countries’ vulnerability, exposure and responses to IUU fishing,” the organization stated in a release. “It fills a key gap by analyzing and evaluating, state by state, the global implications of IUU fishing, thereby helping policymakers identify where interventions are most needed.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Bumble Bee, FCF partner on albacore improvement projects

January 17, 2019 — Bumble Bee Foods and Taiwanese trader Fong Chun Formosa Fishery Company (FCF) are to partner with Ocean Outcomes on an initiative to improve fishing practices of the albacore longline tuna fisheries in the Indian Ocean and Western and Central Pacific Ocean, from which Bumble Bee sources.

“As we procure a significant amount of albacore tuna annually to meet demand for our products, we are in a unique position to help ensure the long term sustainability of longline albacore fisheries,” said Mike Kraft, vice president for sustainability at Bumble Bee.

“All of that tuna comes from healthy stocks. This initiative will launch two fishery improvement projects (FIPs) to help ensure those stocks remain healthy, while working to close identified gaps between current fishery operations and other MSC [Marine Stewardship Council] principles.”

A positive transformation of tuna management and tuna fishing practices is gaining momentum, especially in the purse seine sector — but not all harvesting sectors are as far along, the firms said.

Recent catch sector engagement initiatives – such as the Global FIP Alliance for Sustainable Tuna (GFAST) – have made progress in addressing the challenges of international management of tuna fisheries, but there is clearly an opportunity to increase participation from Northeast Asian longline fleets, they added.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

High seas fisheries play limited role in feeding the world

August 14, 2018 — A recent study undertaken by a team of fisheries and social scientists found that fishing fleets operating outside of national waters contributed to less than 3 per cent of the world’s seafood supply.

Scientists from Dalhousie University, New York University and National Geographic paired a global database of marine catches developed by researchers at the University of British Colombia with a seafood trade database maintained by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. They analysed the data, considering the amount of fish and marine invertebrates produced by marine capture fisheries and comparing it to those produced by freshwater fisheries and aquaculture.

The team found that a much lower volume of seafood was produced by the high seas fisheries, with most of the catch destined for upscale EU, US and Asian markets. China and Taiwan account for one-third of the total high seas catch.

Lead author Laurenne Schiller, PhD student at Dalhousie University said: “I think many people have the misconception that because the area is so large, the high seas must be contributing a massive supply of food to the world, but that’s just not the case. Only a handful of countries are fishing in the high seas and the fish they catch are not feeding those most in need”.

The findings of this study are against the common misconception that high seas fisheries are important for food security. Less than 40 species are targeted by fisheries in the high seas, and only one species, the Antarctic toothfish, is exclusively caught in this are of the ocean. Marketed as Chilean sea bass, this fish can easily sell for over $50 per kilogram.

Read the full story at New Food

Rich and Poor Divide: Which Nations Benefit From Global Fishing?

August 6, 2018 —With food security and equity growing concerns in global fisheries – and one-third of commercial fish stocks being exploited at unsustainable levels, according to the United Nations – researchers have been tapping new data to get a better grasp of exactly who fishes where and how much they catch.

A paper published this week in the journal Science Advances found that rich nations are catching the lion’s share of the ocean’s fish, even in the waters of lower-income countries. The estimates feed into a bigger debate over how the wealth of the seas could be distributed fairly and sustainably.

In their research, the authors analyzed global fishing activity data to conclude that 97 percent of industrial fishing they were able to track in international waters – the high seas – is conducted by vessels flying the flag of high- and upper-middle-income nations. The vast majority was from five nations: China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Spain. And even within the territorial waters of developing countries, 78 percent of industrial fishing was done by wealthier nations, the scientists found. Overall, industrial fishing vessels, defined by the study as those at least 24m long (80ft), accounted for about three-fourths of global catch of wild fish from the sea, the authors estimated.

“We suspected before we started that we would see something like this, but quantifying it with numbers moves the conversation forward and allows people to start asking questions about where their countries’ fish is going,” said Douglas McCauley, a marine ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a director of the Benioff Ocean Initiative. McCauley led the study with Caroline Jablonicky, a scientist at the Initiative and the university’s Marine Science Institute.

Read the full story at Oceans Deeply